Which was more or less what they expected, of course, but it put a stop to claims that she was asking them to do too much.
‘And while I’m away there are to be no wild parties, or hordes of your friends wrecking the house!’ she told Tom, who looked at her innocently, blue eyes wide as a child’s.
‘No, Mum.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Vicky said with suspicious sweetness.
‘It applies to you too, Vicky. I’ll hold you both responsible for anything that happens, remember.’
She had been encouraging them both to be responsible ever since their father died. Before she made any decision she had carefully asked their opinions, and listened to them seriously.
After Rob’s death she had had the choice of living, with difficulty, on a small fixed income for the rest of her life—or taking the risk of investing some of the money from Rob’s insurance in a business which might give them all a comfortable income.
After talking it over with Vicky and Tom, she had decided on the latter course. Judy, who was a close friend and long-time neighbour, had enthusiastically offered to put up fifty per cent of the money and share the work in running the business. She had recently inherited money from her father, and wanted to put it to work in a more interesting way than simply investing it in stocks and shares. Her husband, Roy, was a travelling salesman who was away a good deal, her children were grown-up, and Judy was tired of working in other people’s shops; she’d wanted to run her own.
Bianca had explained to Tom and Vicky that she could only manage to work six days a week if they were prepared to help in the house, and they had both agreed. They had more or less kept their bargain, too, even if reluctantly at times.
‘Are we going to the Chinese or not?’ she asked them both crossly now. ‘Or shall I make some beans on toast?’
They gave each other a silent but eloquent look, then smiled soothingly at her, getting up.
‘We’re ready, Mum!’
Now they were going to be indulgent, as if she were a half-wit. A pathetic old half-wit. Resentment churned inside Bianca as she drove them to the restaurant. Some birthday she had had! It had begun with depression in bed that morning and it was ending in much the same mood. And now I’m forty, she thought. Forty! She had a terrible feeling that from now on life was going downhill all the way.
* * *
A week later she landed at Málaga airport in very different weather. She came out of the airport building into a world of blue skies, sunlight and palm trees, and stood there for a moment feeling her winter-chilled skin quiver in disbelief. Then she hurried off to collect the hire car she had booked in advance before setting out on the motorway to Marbella. The drive took longer than she had expected, largely because of heavy traffic, but eventually she found the hotel.
Bianca would not be staying in the hotel itself; she had booked an apartment in the grounds, which were extensive, with large white adobe-style buildings scattered among trees and lawns intersected by winding narrow streams running under arched wooden bridges in something like the Chinese style. Each building contained half a dozen separate apartments, each with its own front door and a balcony looking over blue swimming-pools and gardens down to the sunlit blue sea.
The apartments were spacious; Bianca found she had a bedroom, bathroom and sitting-room, one corner of which was a tiny kitchen area, with everything you might need to prepare a meal.
She unpacked rapidly, explored her new domain, showered and put on a stylish green linen dress and white sandals. The hotel served a buffet lunch at one o’clock and it was just after twelve now. She would take a walk through the grounds before going to lunch. As she was on holiday she wouldn’t want to spend her time cooking—she was going to eat out a good deal.
She went out on to her balcony and leaned on the rail, staring down over a pool right below the building.
There was someone swimming in it. Through the blue glare of the light on the water Bianca saw a shape moving, a black seal’s head, a powerful, gold-skinned body cutting through the pool.
Shading her eyes, she watched as the swimmer slowed to a standstill, at the edge of the pool, before hauling himself out of the water. He stood on the blue and white tiles for a moment, raised his hands to slick back his dripping black hair. She stared at the wide, smoothly tanned shoulders, the deep, muscular chest, the slim waist and strong hips, the powerful thighs and long legs. His wet black swimming-trunks clung to him, almost transparent in the strong sunlight, so that he might as well have been naked.
She couldn’t look away. Her mouth went dry and her skin prickled with heat.
At that instant, as if some primitive instinct warned him that he was being watched, the stranger lifted his head to stare in her direction.
Her face burning, Bianca guiltily turned and almost ran back into her apartment.
BIANCA went into Marbella itself that evening, in the hotel courtesy coach, to tour the local tapas bars with a guide. The other guests in the party were all married couples, which made Bianca feel left out and kept reminding her of Rob, and what wonderful holidays they had once had. Even before they arrived at the first bar in the old town she was beginning to wish she hadn’t come, because nobody much spoke to her. It wasn’t until they moved on to another bar that she got into conversation with another of the party—a woman of about her own age with short blonde hair and blue eyes.
She was sitting on a bar stool beside Bianca studying the contents of a tapas saucer. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ she asked Bianca, who peered at it too.
‘Squid?’
The bartender was watching them—he suddenly leaned over and grinned. ‘Calamares a la plancha!’ he explained, then went off to serve someone else.
‘You speak Spanish?’ the German woman asked Bianca, who shook her head.
‘But I think plancha means plate.’
They called out to their Spanish hotel guide for a translation.
‘Squid cooked on a hotplate!’ he called over. ‘Don’t be scared. Try some! You don’t have to fight the bulls to be brave, you know!’
Bianca and the other woman laughed, tried the squid and had to agree it was good, if a little rubbery.
‘Too much garlic in it for me, though.’ The German turned to smile at Bianca. ‘We ought to introduce ourselves—I’m Friederike Schwartz; please call me Freddie—everyone does.’ ‘I’m Bianca Fraser.’
Freddie stared and laughed. ‘Bianca…that means white, doesn’t it? And Schwartz means black in German. How funny.’
‘Your English is amazing! I’m terribly impressed. I barely know six words of German.’
‘My husband works for a big German company—we travel the world with him, my children and I. He once spent two years in America, so we all learnt
