of living within driving distance of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza had been a glowing inducement. Only now, waiting in the seedy surroundings of the Hotel Hermosa, a misnomer surely, did the full realisation of what she was committed to occur to her, and if there had been some way she could return to Merida without anyone’s knowledge, she would have surely done so.
Outside, a drenching downpour had turned the street into a muddy river, and given a grey aspect to buildings already dirt-daubed and ramshackle. This was not the Mexico she had imagined, the colourful blending of past and present in a kaleidoscope of rich mosaics and even richer architecture. This was poverty and squalor, and the simple struggle for survival against enormous odds. Las Estadas had not yet felt the impact of the oil boom that was supposedly going to transform Mexico’s economy. Here life was still held cheaply and governed by the whims of weather, and a seemingly unkind fate. To Caroline, used to the social and cultural advantages of a Western civilisation, the sight of so much deprivation was doubly shocking, and she was uncomfortably aware that she would have much preferred not to have seen what she had.
Turning away from the window, she viewed the sordid little room behind her without liking. A rag mat beside the narrow iron-railed bedspread was all the covering the floor possessed, and the water in the chipped jug on the washstand was the graveyard for the assortment of insects who had drowned there during the night. The bed itself had been lumpy and not particularly clean, but the night before Caroline had been so tired she felt she could have slept on the floor. This morning, however, she had experienced a shudder of revulsion when she saw the grubby sheets in daylight, and the breakfast of hot tortillas and strong-smelling coffee still stood on the rickety table where the obsequious hotel proprietor had left it.
A knock at her door brought an automatic stiffening of her spine, and she straightened away from the window to stand rather apprehensively in the middle of the floor. ‘Who is it?’ she called, clasping her slim fingers tightly together, and then mentally sagged again when Señor Allende put his head round the door.
‘El desayuno, señorita—it was okay?’
The hotel proprietor was enormously fat, and as he eased his way into the room, Caroline couldn’t help wondering how many of those people she had seen could have lived on what he ate. His girth was disgusting, and he brought with him an odour of sweat and sour tequila that caused her empty stomach to heave.
‘Ah—but you have not eaten!’ he exclaimed now, observing the untouched tray. ‘It is not to your liking, señorita? You want I should have Maria make you something else?’
‘Thank you, no.’ Caroline shook her head firmly. ‘I—er—I’m not hungry. Could you tell me again, what time did Señor Montejo say he would be here?’
‘Don Esteban say he will come before noon,’ responded the fat little Mexican thoughtfully, stroking his black moustaches, and viewing Caroline’s slim figure with an irritatingly speculative eye. ‘Mas, por cierto, el tiempo—the weather, you understand? It may cause—how you say—the delay, no?’
Caroline’s spirits sank even further. ‘You mean the roads may be impassable?’ she suggested, and Señor Allende nodded.
‘Is possible,’ he agreed. Then he smiled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Mas, no worry, señorita. Jose,’ he pointed to himself, ‘Jose take good care of you, till Don Esteban come.’
‘Yes.’
Caroline forced a faint smile of acknowledgement, but she was not enthusiastic. She would not welcome having to spend another night between those dubious sheets, and Señor Allende’s attitude grew increasingly proprietorial. He was looking at her now, as if he had some prior claim to her loyalties, while she felt she would have preferred any other hotel to this. But Señor Montejo had made the arrangements, and she could only assume that this was the best Las Estadas had to offer.
‘So—–’ Señor Allende drew a fat cigar out of his waistcoat pocket, bit off the end and spat it repulsively on to the floor. ‘Why do you not come downstairs and wait in my office, no? I have a little bottle of something there to—how do you say it?—make the day sunny, hm?’
He pronounced little as ‘leetle’, and it was all Caroline could do not to grimace outright. Did he really imagine she might find his company appealing? If she had not felt so absurdly vulnerable, she could have laughed at the predictability of it all. As it was, she took a backward step and shook her head politely but firmly.
‘I don’t think so, thank you,’ she replied crisply. ‘I’ll stay here. I can watch the street from my window, and I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘Is no trouble,’ exclaimed Señor Allende, spreading his hands in typically Latin fashion. ‘Come—–’ He stretched out one podgy hand. ‘Is much nicer downstairs.’
‘No!’ Caroline was very definite this time. ‘Please—I prefer to be alone. If you’ll excuse me—–’
Señor Allende shrugged, and then his small eyes narrowed between the folds of flesh. ‘Okay, okay, is no big deal,’ he retorted. ‘Como quiere usted!’ And with another shrug of his shoulders, he left her, closing the door behind him with heavy definition.
Caroline ran a relieved hand over the crown of her head and down to her nape, resting her head back against the support, expelling the tension that had briefly gripped her. The last thing she needed was complications of that sort, and she let her shoulders droop as she walked wearily back to the window. Where was Señor Montejo? Surely a night’s rain was not sufficient to cut all communications!
Pressing her palms together, she put her thumbs against her lips and gazed thoughtfully down at the verandah opposite. For the first time she questioned her own expectations of her destination. What would the Montejo house be like? What would Señor Montejo be like? And how could she have been foolish enough to commit herself to a whole month’s probation, when she might conceivably want to leave after only one day?
Somehow things had seemed so different in London. No one meeting Señora Garcia, who had conducted the interviews, could have had any doubts that anyone associated with her—and she was the child’s grandmother—could live in anything other than exemplary surroundings. She had exuded an aura of wealth and sophistication, in keeping with the Dior suit and Cartier pearls she was wearing, and Caroline had naturally assumed her son-in-law and his daughter would be the same. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps Señora Garcia’s daughter had married beneath her. Perhaps Señor Montejo would turn out to be more like Señor Allende …
At noon, the buxom cook, Maria, brought her a bowl of greasy stew and some corn bread. Caroline suffered herself to eat a little of the stew and all of the bread, realising it would be foolish to starve herself in this climate, and then returned to her seat by the window, wondering idly if the road to Merida was still open.
The afternoon dragged on, and Caroline grew increasingly anxious. What if, as seemed likely, Señor Montejo did not come? How many days might she be expected to stay in this awful place?
Her eyes wandered restlessly up and down the street, watching the struggle an ancient truck was having trying to gain purchase on the slippery road, silently sympathising as its churning wheels threw a shower of mud over an elderly woman passing by. An ox-cart made better progress, though the rain was no less heavy, and she turned away, sighing, just as the door to her room burst open.
It was late afternoon, and the low-hanging clouds had left the room in partial shadow, but the hotel proprietor’s bulk was unmistakable. He stood swaying on the threshold, an opened
