Mask Of Scars. Anne Mather
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in the creaming blue waters that lapped the shoreline, but common sense told her that she could not do so now. But tomorrow, she promised herself fiercely, tomorrow …
The road to Sagres was dusty and narrow, and although the sun was sinking it was still very hot. Christina ran a hand round the back of her neck under the weight of her hair and sighed in incredulity when she considered that it had been raining when she left London yesterday and for June the weather was unseasonably cold. Or was it? she thought wryly. Wasn’t English weather always unseasonable?
A lumbering cattle truck passed her, throwing up a cloud of dust which made her stop and cough chokingly for a moment. The driver halted and waved to her, obviously offering a lift, but although the prospect was inviting Christina declined. It wasn’t that she had never accepted a lift before, but simply that she preferred to take this slower pace. After all, no matter how attractive these three months in Porto Cedro might seem, she was quite aware that Sheila would demand and get value for her so-called hospitality, and Christina was prepared to make beds and scrub floors and wash dishes and do all the mundane tasks necessary to the efficient upkeep of a small hotel. But no matter how arduous these three months might be, at the end of each day she would be her own mistress, and there was always Bruce to share her enjoyment with.
She trudged on, the suitcase getting heavier by the minute and the duffel bag’s ropes digging into her shoulders. She should have taken the lift she had been offered. She would have been in Porto Cedro by now. She sighed. The last signpost a few yards back had said only four more kilometres to the village. Surely they would not take her much longer now.
A couple of cars passed her going in the opposite direction and she thought how wonderful it would be if she were to meet Bruce in that way. But then perhaps not, she amended to herself dryly. If Sheila were with him she would be horrified at Christina choosing to walk all this way along roads she did not know when anyone might happen along to molest her. But then Sheila was a very correct person, and perhaps that was why she and Christina had never got along very well together. It was not that Christina was entirely irresponsible; it was simply that Sheila did not and had not ever understood the independence of youth.
The sound of tyres on the dusty road came to Christina’s ears and she glanced round in time to see a huge black limousine approaching. With a casual movement she jerked her thumb in the direction she was going, her thoughts of Sheila goading her into doing the very thing she knew her sister-in-law would most disapprove of.
But she need not have bothered. The huge car with its sleek lines and a rather curious insignia engraved on its side swept past in complete indifference to her presence, although as the dust surged over her Christina was indignantly aware that the car had passed deliberately closely, almost forcing her on to the grass verge.
Hunching her shoulders, Christina looked resentfully after the retreating chauffeur-driven vehicle and then with a characteristic shrug, she again pressed on.
At last the outlying cottages of the village came into view and Christina could not suppress the wave of excitement that enveloped her. It was almost a year since she had last seen her brother and previously they had been very close, not even Sheila’s jealous hostility causing more than a brief ripple on the surface of their friendship.
In his letter Bruce had told her that the Hotel Inglês stood above a small cove. He had said that the whole area was riddled with small coves and rocky promontories giving way to caves and rock-pools when the tide was out. He had said the swimming was excellent and that he himself had taken up snorkelling and skin-diving. He had said the sea was amazingly clear, and looking down on its lucid depths Christina could quite believe it.
Porto Cedro nestled on the side of the cliffs, a market square providing a small bus station and its focal point a stone fountain. The houses around the square were painted in pastel shades with white shutters and deliciously hanging eaves that provided slanting patches of shade on the paths. Some had grilles in wrought iron, and arches, relics of Moorish occupation and influence. There was something faintly eastern about it and Christina found it all very picturesque. Her vivid imagination conjured up scenes of Moorish pirates swarming along these narrow streets swinging cutlasses and carrying off the most beautiful women for their harems.
She smiled to herself suddenly and in so doing attracted the attention of a group of young men passing by so that they spoke to her invitingly in their own language, raising their dark eyebrows and allowing their breath to be expelled in low whistles.
Christina shook her head almost imperceptibly and turned determinedly through a walk between tall dark houses that led to the sea-front, to her relief she saw the sign for the Hotel Inglês almost immediately. Porto Cedro did not sport many hotels, and in fact the Hotel Inglês was little more than a glorified pensao. In the glittering rays of the setting sun, it looked less glamorous somehow than she had imagined it, some of the paintwork peeling in the heat, the tables standing carelessly before it still covered in dirty crockery where someone, tourists possibly, had taken afternoon tea. But for all that she felt a surge of pride that Bruce should have such an establishment, and she walked quickly up the shallow steps and through the screen of hanging plastic beads that protected the hall from the glare of the sun.
The hall was tiled in plastic tiles and there was a small reception desk on which was a bell which indicated its use for attention. But Christina hesitated a moment before pressing it. She wanted to look around and absorb her surroundings before she warned anyone of her arrival.
From the hall, arched doorways led into the dining room and another room which could have been a lounge. To the left was the small bar, deserted at the moment, without even a barman to attend to any customer who might suddenly appear. Everywhere was clean, spotlessly so, and Christina’s spirits rose. It was foolish to allow this ominous feeling of anti-climax to cloud her happiness at being here—with Bruce.
The sound of footsteps coming along the corridor to her right caused her to swing round sharply just as Sheila, her sister-in-law, was beginning: ‘Sinto muito, menina—–’ But she broke off in obvious astonishment as she recognised Christina and her face changed remarkably from smiling welcome to veiled hostility: ‘Christina! In heaven’s name, Christina, what are you doing here?’
Christina felt the first twinges of real anxiety. ‘I—I walked here—from the station at Lagos!’
Sheila shook her head incredulously. ‘But what are you doing here in Portugal? I thought you were at university!’
Christina’s fingers fumbled with the ropes of her duffel bag. ‘I was. It’s the summer vac, Sheila.’
Sheila Ashley spread a hand helplessly. ‘Christina, maybe I’m phrasing my questions badly, or maybe you’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I don’t know, but I want to know why, even if it is the summer vacation, you’re here!’
Christina’s anxieties crystallised into real doubts. ‘Do—do you mean to say—I’m not expected?’ she ventured carefully, her grey eyes never leaving her sister-in-law’s face.
Sheila Ashley was an attractive woman. In her early thirties she had all the poise and elegance of a fashion model. Tall and slim, with sleek dark hair knotted at the back of her head, she had none of the slightly harassed air sometimes visible in the faces of married women, and Christina privately thought that that was because nothing ever moved Sheila. Nothing ever troubled her more than slightly, and as she had no children no disfiguring bulk of pregnancy had ever marred that slender frame. But right now Sheila was disturbed. It was visible in the tightening of her lips, in the narrowing of her dark eyes, in the way she plucked almost nervously at the fine material of her thin dress.
‘How could you be?’ she began now, in answer to Christina’s question. ‘We didn’t even know the term was over.’
Christina felt an overwhelming sense of impatience. It was obvious now. Bruce had not told his wife she was coming. And because she had not written to let him know when she was arriving he had not had a chance to tell her. She should have known that Sheila would be the last person to welcome her young sister-in-law into their home.
But now Christina had to say something,