The Youngest Sister. ANNE WEALE
smile she would have given to anyone else making the request.
As he sat down next to her she was aware of the same inner turmoil she had felt in the lounge. From the pouch on the back seat she took out the in-flight magazine and put on a show of becoming deeply immersed in it.
Even in business class Nicolas found the leg room inadequate, but he was used to enduring far worse discomforts. The girl’s aloof manner amused him. He guessed it was caused by shyness. Shy girls were rare nowadays. He sensed that the one beside him, pretending to be absorbed in the magazine, was a throwback to his mother’s generation. As his mother had, she smelt delicious. The scent was one he didn’t recognise, a delicate, flowery fragrance which didn’t invade the nostrils like the heavy stuff worn by the blonde in front of his previous seat.
A Spanish stewardess distributed menus and another took orders for pre-lunch drinks. Expecting the girl to ask for another orange juice, he was mildly surprised when she ordered Campari and soda, her manner unexpectedly decisive. He liked the sound of her voice and the size and shape of her hands. He didn’t like women whose bones felt as fragile as those of small birds when he shook hands with them. Nor, when making love, did he like having long nails drawing blood on his back. The girl’s nails were short and clear-varnished. She was wearing a gold signet ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. She could have bought it in an antique shop because the crest appealed to her. It could mean she had something serious going with a boyfriend. Or it could be a family heirloom.
As the man beside her ordered a gin and tonic Cressy was aware that the pretty Spanish stewardess, her slender figure set off by a navy skirt and white blouse with red and blue stripes on the revers of the collar, was making it clear that she fancied him.
Well, who wouldn’t? thought Cressy, sneaking a glance at the long length of rock-hard brown thigh parallel with her own leg.
She studied the four-course menu, written in Spanish and English, wondering what Nebraska-style meant in relation to salmon pâté with palm heart sticks and baby corn cobs.
She wasn’t a strict vegetarian but, like a lot of her friends, she no longer ate meat when she had any choice in the matter. She wouldn’t be choosing the veal tournedos. The alternative was a mixed-meat kebab with pilaf rice, peas and Parisienne carrots, whatever they were. She would eat the rice and vegetables, leave most of the kebab and fill up with cheese and fruit, which were shown as two separate courses.
After their drinks had been brought to them, with the usual sachet of peanuts, the man beside her said pleasantly, ‘May I open the packet for you?’
Although the bags were famously difficult to open, Cressy was taken aback by the gallantry of his offer. Big girls like herself were widely regarded as being able to fend for themselves in every respect. Even ultrafeminine babes like the doe-eyed stewardess weren’t being overwhelmed with chivalry these days. In the words of a guy Cressy knew, most men had taken so many putdowns from women who read sexism into every wellmeant gesture that they had given up doing all that stuff their mothers had taught them. If women wanted to be equal, he’d said, that was fine by him. He would go on being nice to old ladies, but anyone else could open doors for themselves, change their own wheels and pay for their own meals.
‘Oh...would you...? Thank you,’ she said, handing over the peanuts.
The brief contact with his fingers as the packet changed hands sent a strange tingle up her arm. She had had several boyfriends, none of them serious, but couldn’t remember ever being as strongly aware of their physical presence as she was now with this stranger.
Having opened the packet and put it back on her tray-table, he said, ‘Are you on holiday?’
‘No, I’m not. Are you?’
‘I live on the island.’
‘Really? What do you do there?’
‘I relax and recharge my batteries. My job involves a lot of travelling. When I’m at home I sit in the sun and vegetate.’
She was about to enquire what his job was when he beat her to it by asking, ‘If not a holiday, what takes you to the island?’
‘I’m going to see my great-aunt.’
‘Have you stayed with her before?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been to Spain at all.’
‘Where on the island does your relative live?’
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Cressy admitted.
Had this been a holiday, she would have read a guidebook before coming away. There hadn’t been time to do that. She had only the common knowledge that Majorca was the largest island in a group called the Balearics—one of which, Ibiza, had once been a mecca for hippies, and possibly still was.
‘The house is called “Es Vell”. It’s somewhere near a town called Pollensa,’ she told him.
‘That’s up north, nowhere near Palma airport. Will there be someone meeting you?’
Again Cressy shook her head. ‘Aunt Kate doesn’t know I’m coming. She’s a bit of a recluse. It was her Spanish neighbour who let us know she was ill. She rang up yesterday afternoon. Luckily the person who took the call speaks some Spanish, so she could make out roughly what was being said. Aunt Kate has broken her leg. At seventy-eight that’s serious.’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Wasn’t there anyone older who could have come out to take charge?’
‘How old d’you think I am?’
‘Eighteen? Nineteen? Rather young to cope with the situation you’ve outlined...especially if you don’t speak Spanish.’
‘I’m twenty-three,’ Cressy said briskly. ‘And, apart from not speaking Spanish, I can probably cope a lot better than some people twice my age. I work for Distress Signal, an organisation which specialises in dealing with domestic emergencies.’
‘I’ve heard of it, but I would have thought they’d be staffed by sensible middle-aged ladies, not girls who could pass for teenagers.’
‘They’re staffed by a wide range of people...of both sexes,’ Cressy informed him. ‘Normally a situation like this one would be dealt with by someone Spanish-speaking. But in this case, when there’s a close relation who can come to the rescue, that’s obviously preferable to employing an outsider.’
‘If you’ve never been to Spain before, and your aunt is a recluse, it doesn’t sound as if the relationship between you is a close one.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she conceded. ‘But I do know a lot more about her than a stranger would. At one time she and my parents had a good relationship. But then she went off to the Mediterranean and they gradually drifted apart. My parents lead very full lives—and they’d rather go to France for their holidays. My mother wilts if it’s too hot.’
As she spoke she wondered why she was confiding in him. Chatting to strangers had always been one of her foibles. When she was younger, her lack of caution in making friends had been a worry to her elders—especially to Maggie, who’d run the house while Mrs Vale was busy helping to run the country from the House of Commons. Cressy had lost count of Maggie’s warnings that talking to strangers could be hazardous. But that had been when she was younger and less competent to judge whether people were trustworthy or not.
‘How long have you worked for Distress Signal?’ he asked.
‘Two years. What do you do?’
‘I’m a freelance journalist and travel writer. If you ever read travel articles you may have seen my by-line... Nicolas Alaró.’
Her eyes widened in astonishment. She had read a lot of his pieces. He had been to all the places she would have liked to visit. Sometimes she cut out his articles and filed them away against the day when she might meet a suitable travelling companion and