He rang off. It was only then that Shaw wondered how Staunton knew that he’d reached Don Jaime’s.
After that belated lunch, and his telephone call, Shaw went out into the garden and wandered down to the sandy beach. There was some quality in the friendly lapping noises of the Mediterranean wavelets as they hissed so gently up the smooth sand which brought him a quietness and a kind of peace, and he tried to think things out in this solitude. Of course, the next move might well depend on the letter coming through from Staunton, for Shaw didn’t suppose it was a love-letter or anything personal like that — orders must be on the way from some one. Or that next move would depend on any information he might yet be able to get from the man Domingo Felipe. Shaw was very conscious of the time that was running out; but meanwhile there was nothing he could do but wait, and he would have to be as patient as possible — Felipe, Carberry had said, could be contacted only in the late evening.
He had walked for some distance along the shore in the direction of Malaga before he realized just how dog-tired he was. His head had cleared, but the blow from the sandbag, not to mention the discomforts of that calabozo, had left him with a weak feeling of lassitude. He turned, and slowly he walked back along the sand and headed up for the path leading to the garden; and there he sat beneath the shade of a palm-tree and looked out over the water. After a while, as he sat there with his mind spinning round again in useless circles, he heard the sound of a child’s laughter. Looking round, he saw a small boy in swimming-trunks coming along the path from the villa, olive-skinned and serious. His hand was held by an Englishwoman — that was evident from her clothes — a middle-aged woman who looked what she was: a spinster governess.
The little boy caught sight of Shaw at the foot of the tree. He waved a hand. “Hola, señor!”
“Hola, hijo!” Shaw, still the Spaniard Pedro Gomez, waved back and grinned. He got to his feet as the governess smiled at him primly. He bowed. “Señora.”
“Señorita!” She simpered a little, pleased at the implied compliment. Shaw felt suddenly sorry for her. “You’re Señor Gomez, aren’t you?” She spoke to him in not very good Spanish.
“Si, señorita.”
“He is staying with Grandpapa,” the little boy said, his face serious as he turned from the governess to Shaw. “I looked at you having lunch. I looked through the window— you did not see me.” Dimples came and went, dispelling the seriousness; the English Miss looked shocked at his disclosure, made little schoolmarmish clicking sounds with her tongue and frowned. The small, pointed face gazed up at Shaw. “I am going to swim. Would the señor care to come with me?”
The tone was so grave, the face so serious again, so much and so consciously the face of the small señorito deputizing for the grand abuelo, that Shaw had to laugh. “I would but I cannot! I have no costume.”
“You may borrow Grandpapa’s.”
Again, Shaw laughed. “Hijo, Don Jaime’s costume on me would be like a tent upon a clothes-pole. Thank you for the offer — but I think I’ll stay here and watch you.” He grinned at the governess, who, he was delighted to note, didn’t suspect in the very least that she was enjoying what her heart craved — an Englishman’s company. Sensing this, Shaw felt sorry for her again — so dried-up, so virginal, so materially comfortable yet so much without hope. He smiled at her kindly. She returned his smile, a little self-consciously.
She said briskly, “Well, we’d better be getting along. Come along, Juan.” Her voice was so determinedly cheerful, and yet so depressed and depressing. She took the child’s hand, her big, bony one enveloping his small olive fingers. “Let the gentleman alone now.”
The boy said gravely, “Adios, señor.” Gently, remembering the manners of his class, he disengaged his fingers from the hand of his governess — oh, dear, would the English Miss never learn? — brought his heels together, and gave a little formal bow.
“Adios, hijo, adios,” said Shaw.
Shaw flopped back on the sand beneath the palm-trees. He looked after the pair, his brows crinkling. That boy had affected him; he felt a strange bitterness welling up inside him, an almost physical pain. As the two walked on they became outlined in the rays of the sun beginning its afternoon decline to the west behind Shaw. Silhouetted against the now darkening blue of the sea, the English Miss had very nearly slim lines. Her years, in Shaw’s half-closed eyes, fell away and left him a prey to visions. The small, well-built child had his hand trustingly in hers as they approached the water’s edge; Shaw thought again of Debonnair, and his heart seemed to contract, his guts squirmed painfully, and he sighed. Perhaps it was true that he had no right to marry and have children. Debonnair was very likely right; his life was too shaky. And in a way children were always hostages to fortune. Maybe an agent’s life and domesticity were just oil and water.
He recalled the grave manner of the little boy, the serious, steadfast eyes and the almost precocious politeness that had made him laugh. Suddenly he thought: It’s a long time, a hell of a long time, since I’ve laughed like that, spontaneously. As the child splashed into the water, flinging his arms and shouting, Shaw scrambled up and walked away. There was an abominable pain in his stomach now, and his mouth felt dry, sour.
He knew this time of quiet was no more than an interlude in the storm. Somehow he didn’t want any more such interludes; they were a little too painful, and would remain so until the outfit had done with him and life could be one long interlude.
Shaw was not disappointed in his visions of good living. Don Jaime’s own valet — who had been sent earlier into Malaga by his master to get Shaw an outfit of suitable clothing — looked after his needs. The food was excellent, the wines superb. A very old Oloroso was served before that night’s late dinner; the best white and red wines appeared with the meal itself, and afterwards the butler produced a vintage port from the cellars, a port which Don Jaime said was from one of Portugal’s great years. That port, and the aroma of Don Jaime’s cigar in his nostrils, would have added up to the perfection of luxury in more normal times.
When Don Jaime had taken one glass of port he excused himself on the grounds of work, and Shaw was left sitting on the veranda. He puffed in silence at a cigarette and looked out through the spidery trees towards the moonlight falling across the Mediterranean, sending a spiral of silver shimmering out into the darkness. Beyond, the lights of the fish-ing-boats making out of the port of Malaga for their night’s work glimmered faintly and were gone. A faint, refreshing breeze off the sea ruffled the trees. The masthead lights of a big vessel approaching the port came up in the distance from the direction of Cape Gata; Shaw watched until he saw the red and green sidelights sliding into a single red blob as the ship made the starboard turn to enter the harbour.
He watched enviously. Some lucky so-and-so was still sailing the seas. Giving an exclamation of annoyance at his own thoughts, Shaw crushed out his cigarette, glanced at his wrist-watch. He stood up. It was just about time now.
Twenty minutes later Shaw, who had delayed until he could be reasonably certain that the Torremolinos bars would be filling up, and that therefore he would be less conspicuous, was back in his old faded shirt and the dirty corduroys. He left the villa and, instead of going out by the driveway, skirted along to the left of the building and out through the trees which enclosed Don Jaime’s property to the northward; clear of the trees, he flitted over scrubby fields towards the roadway which led to Malaga through the village of Torremolinos, which was not far away from Don Jaime’s main gateway. Slouching along in big, heavy, dust-covered boots, he looked like any other hombre ambling into Torremolinos for the bars or knocking-shops that night. He walked slowly, as though he was going nowhere in particular, along the dusty roadway through a mixed, rather cosmopolitan crowd of locals out with their girls and smart tourists staying at the beach hotels. But when he turned off the main road half-way through the village he went where the tourists didn’t penetrate.