Having hastily picked up DB and Paul, Eve took her leave of Madrid.
DB eyed the motorcar. ‘I’m glad you found a nice little unnoticeable car if we are stopped at the border.’
‘We have to take it. It belongs to a friend of Mendoza. I don’t suppose his Bureau expenses runs to a new Buick.’
Paul said, ‘It’s just the thing, DB. Goes like a bullet out of a gun.’
‘Don’t talk about bullets, Paul.’
‘Stop being so wet, woman. You’ve been seeing too many gangster films. The Duke and Duchess are on their way – if Eve has been fingered by the maid’s father, nobody’s going to send a posse after her.’
It was very early in the day, the sun coming up, the wind blowing over the windscreen, fluttering the women’s scarves. Paul, who almost lost his linen cap, turned it back to front as racing drivers do.
DB made the sounds little boys make. ‘Brrrm-brrrm. Look, Eve, he wants next go at the car.’
In everyday circumstances it would have raised no more than a smile, but when Eve started to giggle, the other two caught it. There were dust goggles in the glove compartment, which Eve tossed to Paul, and when he put them on, another bout of shouting and giggling started. They might have been three carefree rich youngsters out for a lark.
Which for now is just how they felt.
About ten kilometres out of Madrid, Eve turned off the main road south.
‘I hope you know where you’re going, missie,’ DB said.
‘Just shut up, DB, and sing to us. This is my patch. I want you both to see it.’
DB started singing something about ‘bein’ in the belly of the whale’. The wind carried the words away but not the melody and the chanting rhythm. They climbed. The road was dusty and winding. From time to time, Eve would slow to a crawl and wave a hand at some magnificent vista.
Once DB said, ‘Hey, man, I’m sorry but I need to pee.’
‘It’s OK. I know all the best places.’
‘She’s right, man, not a burr or thistle in sight. Will you just look at this view – seems to me I’ve seen it before, back home. You never going to believe this, but when I was a kid I had a pet ostrich, and she’d let me ride her, and I’d take her out to some kopje a bit like this, and tell her all the things nobody else wanted to hear.’
Paul put an arm round DB’s shoulder. ‘That’s sad. Poor little kid.’
Eve blew out cigarette smoke and mimed exaggerated violin playing, grinning at DB.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘A goat, I might believe. An ostrich…? On rocks like these? Nah.’
‘Ah, sweet, Paul. You’re such a softie, you’d be putty in the hands of a lady spy.’
‘She’s right, Paul. You’re one of the nice people.’
‘So are you two. I just love you both.’
‘I make up stories like the ostrich as a kind of gift to people – like Eve is giving us this gift of showing us a neck of her own woods.’
‘A gift? Wilhelmina de Beers, that was such an outrageous lie.’
‘No, sweetheart, not a lie – a story. If Eve hadn’t given me away, you’d have a good story to tell at a party, or get in good with a date… “I used to know a girl who talked to her pet ostrich…” Y’see, it could be a happy or a sad story: “There was this girl I used to know… she would ride it up mountains” or “She was so neglected that the only one who would listen was her pet ostrich.”’
Paul picked DB up and swung her round, laughing. ‘I’ll never understand women.’
‘Don’t try, Paul. We’re not here to be understood,’ Eve said, and put an arm round his waist, and for a few quiet moments the three of them stood, taking in the grandeur of Toledo.
She would lose these friends, Eve thought. It was a reason for not allowing people to become too important. It hurt when they went.
David Hatton. She had lost him twice over. The hurt had exploded in anger.
Ozz Lavender, killed on terrain like this. It still hurt.
Dimitri? Well, she had told him to get lost. He had been closest for the longest time.
And Duke. He was too ‘flimsy’, as he had said himself, to make any kind of commitment. They were two of a kind. Afraid to allow anyone too close in case they let you down or went away.
Back in the car, Paul studied a map. ‘After we’ve had the grand tour, where are we headed?’
‘Find Cadiz.’
‘Got it.’
‘Well, we’re not going there. And before we don’t go to Cadiz, I’m going to call on two lots of friends. At the first, you eat everything put before you and enjoy the wine – whatever you think of it. They will have made it themselves.’ The village hadn’t changed, of course. If it hadn’t changed in three hundred years, it wasn’t likely to have done since Eve was last here – even the tethered donkey outside the inn to draw up water from the artesian well deep in the rocks, and the goats munching the herby verges from which strong cheeses were made.
By the time the three arrived, word had gone out as it always had in Eve’s previous life, that strangers were coming. Nobody actually came out of their little houses, but stood in the open doorways. Those tending small vegetable patches leaned on their hoes, sharp as razors.
Eve eagerly went towards a house with her arms stretched wide in greeting. The elderly woman in the doorway, who had been watching suspiciously, suddenly sprang into life, ran out and clasped Eve to her, wiping her eyes with her apron, and doing the same for Eve. Others joined them, spreading their arms in wonder, walking round Eve and laughing delightedly. Paul and DB sat watching from the car. DB said, ‘I don’t understand a word of Spanish, but I know what they’re saying: “Look at her, look, she’s come back. Hasn’t she got thin. Ah, but just look at those slacks, just feel that scarf. And will you just look at her hair.” Am I right, or am I right?’
‘You may well be right. It’s not my kind of Spanish. This is a kind of bastardised Castilian, I think. They call her “American Girl”.’
‘What knocks me for six is that Eve can chat away with them like this.’
‘She’s full of surprises.’
‘She did say something about being out here in the war, but, hey, I don’t know what to think about this.’
‘What you think, DB, is that she’s their darling.’
Eve had been showered with kisses and discs of goats’ cheese, a stone jar of wine, and a fat chorizo which Eve had said was a favourite of the friend they were going to stay with. When she said that the favourite sausage was for a young man, the long wooden table at which the entire village seemed to be seated to dine was pounded with fists and the ragged awning above seemed to flutter from the raucous laughter and innuendo.
It was very late in the day when they got back to the lower, greener terrain of Cordoba and then Seville and then Jerez – by which time they had calmed down, and Eve had satisfied a bit of the others’ curiosity about how she used to take medicines and other supplies to small villages like that one.
Paul and DB were so enthusiastic about the visit that they said when things were different they would go back. ‘I wonder how many people can drop by for a visit and the entire village comes out? They absolutely loved their American Girl.’
‘Not half as much as I love them. They’re just as you see them. I like that.’
‘What did they think about you turning up in a gigantic motorcar?’ Paul asked.
Eve laughed. ‘Not much. It was just what I happen to be driving today. I didn’t always turn up in a truck. Sometimes it was a gigantic Mercedes. Nobody was impressed – it was just the transport I used for bringing in supplies.’
The other two guessed that this was about as much as they would get from Eve about her past life.
But they were wrong.
When they eventually arrived in Jerez they were met by Duke Barney.
Eve got out first. ‘Isn’t this Ladybird’s car?’ she asked, eyeing the sports car he was driving.
Duke nodded. ‘Keeping it run in while she’s in London having a time of it.’
Eve doubted that.
To the other two she said simply, ‘This is Señor Paulo Fuentes – an old friend. You can trust him absolutely. He knows what we are doing – but not from me.’ Duke gave a minimum of acknowledgement, but quite affably.
‘You sorted it, Eve?’
‘Yes. If it’s OK with you we’ll put up for a night or two until we get word from London.’ She turned to DB and Paul. ‘Señor Fuentes will drive us to Lisbon when it’s time for us to leave. Captain Faludi agrees with me that we should stay together.’ The authority in Eve’s tone left the other two in no doubt that they should go along with her. This was a very different face of Eve from the Scrubs Eve, the Madrid Eve or the Cordoba village Eve. This one was authoritative, and Paul and DB, knowing nothing of the larger picture since they arrived in Madrid, took what she said without question.
Duke, opening the doors of the sports car, said, ‘I’ve got a stablelad with a truck to take your bags. I got plenty of stuff at my place, soap and flannels and that. Anybody wants a nightdress, I’ll get one of Ladybird’s. Come on, then.’
DB asked what was going to happen to Mendoza’s car.
‘One a’ my blokes is going to give it a going over, then get it up to Lisbon whenever you like.’
‘We will be going on in Señor Fuentes’ car?’
‘Not so much of the señor, Eve,’ and, holding out a hand, he said, ‘People call me Duke, just Duke. Only time I’m señor is to my monkeys there.’ He jerked a thumb at the men loading luggage onto the truck.
DB ran over to them and took some things off the truck. Giving short, quick orders to his ‘monkeys’, Duke started the engine, idling it until DB came back.
‘Eve, wasn’t this chorizo supposed to be for… Duke?’ she asked.
‘When did I say that?’
DB, putting the package on the dashboard, said, ‘You didn’t, but the old ladies did.’ Eve and DB burst out laughing.
Duke, addressing Paul, said, ‘What’s all that about?’
Paul said, ‘Don’t ask me, chum. I never understand women.’
‘Nor me,’ Duke said.
He drove them down to his place, ‘the Jaws of Hell’, driving at a much more sedate speed than Eve.
Eve was quite touched at the trouble Duke had obviously gone to. Two women were waiting to serve at an outside table surrounded by torches giving off the scent of lemon-peel.
‘D’you want to wash or anything? There’s a bathroom and a couple of WCs. Another one round in the yard, Paul. I make the monkeys keep it nice and clean. Rita, show them the way.’ Eve and DB followed the wide-hipped woman, who laughed and chattered, indicating to left and right the many beautiful things Señor Fuentes owned – not pictures or ornaments, but woven fabrics hung on poles, and large groups of stones that could have been from an artist or from nature. The bathroom was plaster over-painted with a pale terracotta, and furnished with a stone hand-basin, and ceramic water closet and bath that must have cost him a fortune to have plumbed in.
When they returned, Eve met his eyes at once. He wanted to know whether she approved.
‘What I’ve seen so far, Duke, you have a lovely place here.’
Offhandedly he said, ‘It’s nowhere near finished, but it will be OK.’
‘Where did all the ideas come from?’
‘I travelled around a bit, picked up bits and pieces from here and there. Come on, sit down. I got you a nice baked fish. We have a lot of vegetables and macaroni and sauce stuff, but I went out and caught this today.’ Rita, proud of the dish, placed a long fish, slit-sided and brown-skinned, before the señor. ‘Come on, I don’t stand on ceremony. Help yourselves.’
The four of them ate and talked for more than an hour. Eve was overwhelmed by his generosity and care. Nothing was too good for his guests. He got DB talking about the difference between singing blues and singing jazz.
He told Paul of his own plans for stables and asked about Paul’s future. ‘The immediate future? I think I should apply to join the code-breakers,’ and he explained what they did and how he was suited to the work.
Duke said, ‘I reckon that’s blooming clever. I never did learn to read and write much sense – not apologising or explaining – it was a fact, that’s all. I can figure pretty good, though – Eve knows that, don’t you, Eve?’ He placed his dark hand over her pale one.
It was then that she wanted him to herself. ‘It’s been a long day, Duke. Maybe you ought to show us to where we’ll be sleeping.’
‘A ’course. I ought to have thought – it’s just so nice having somebody who speaks proper English. I heard the monkeys take the truck round the back. You’ll find your things in your rooms. Anything you want, tell Rita or the other one.’
‘Duke! Doesn’t she have a name?’
‘A ’course. Rita, both of them. Just say Rita and somebody will get you what you want – well, if it’s in the store. G’night, DB, g’night, Paul. I get started before dawn, but you just do what you want. Eve, you going to let me show you the other rooms?’
Taking her by the hand, he led her straight to his high-ceilinged bedroom where they made love at once.
‘Jesus, Lu! I scarce thought of anything since I come home from Madrid. How about you?’
She shut his mouth with her tongue and kisses. She didn’t want to tell him the truth; neither could she tell him the lie that she had not thought about him and what they had done together ever since. Lifting her off him, he sat up, back against the wall. The bed was little more than a wide mattress laid directly on rugs, and piled with pillows and cushions, everything covered in fabric woven in multi-coloured stripes.
‘When you got back here, how was Alex?’
‘I don’t know. She started to hit the bottle again, and I told her if she didn’t stop, I would report on her. She just laughed it off, she thought she was bullet-proof, being in with high society. It was a game to her, thinking she was in with everybody that mattered. She kept coming over, saying she needed things for her mares, asking me to look at them. Then she started to say I’d been with somebody else.’ He kissed Eve and put one arm round her shoulder. ‘Well, I had, hadn’t I? Then, she come round here spitting fire. “Who was it, you fuckin’ dago?” she says. Well I been called a lot worse than that. Still, I smacked her – only because she was getting hysterical. She calmed down. She asked for a glass of brandy, but I wasn’t born yesterday. So I got her a cup of water and asked her what it was all about.’
While he was speaking, he put Eve’s hand between his legs and held his own hand over it. In seconds he was aroused again. Now he put a hand between her legs, searching her face for the response that was there.
‘So, to cut a long story short, she said she had been called back to London.’ Leaning on one elbow he looked down at Eve. ‘There’s not much of you these days, Lu.’ Eve tweaked a groin hair. ‘Aow! I never said there wasn’t enough of you. The most I ever wanted in my whole life is this. Lu Wilmott under me.’
‘No, Duke, Eve Anders – on top.’
‘All right then, missie.’
‘Duke…?’
‘No, Lu. I know what you’re going to say, by your voice. Ladybird never slept in here. I got all this up for you. And when you go I shall set fire to it down on the rocks. All right?’
There was no one else in the world like Duke Barney.
They both slept for a while. Then Eve was disturbed by hearing him grunt as he pulled on riding boots.
‘Are you going out?’
‘Coming? I don’t know what you’re going to wear. Those trousers you got here looks way too pricey to be up on a horse.’
‘They’re only trousers, Duke. Their time’s up.’
‘Better wear your shoes against the sharp stones.’
‘Where?’
‘Taking Diabolo for a swim.’
The sky lightened sufficiently for Eve and Duke to see the surf where it broke. She had learned to ride bareback, as he had on Eli Barney’s land. The fast, black horse took the two of them, Eve in front, both holding the reins loose, letting the horse gallop in the warm sea.
When they had first become lovers they had struggled together in fierce passion.
This time, Eve was certain, must be the last. It was almost mystical.
This time there was no tree to support them.
This time there were no tar-barrels burning and rockets shooting into the black night.
This time, as Eve held herself to Duke with arms and legs, the sun rose and the Jaws of Hell began to live up to its name.
It was on 1 August that the Windsors boarded a ship to begin their journey to the Bahamas – very different refugees from the ones with whom Eve had fled, a year ago.
In the hold were fifty-two pieces of luggage. Among other trophies: a set of golf clubs, four baskets of old Madeira and port wine, a brand-new limousine. And a portable sewing machine.