And then he was gone.

God I Hate This Place was actually a rather beautiful spot on the Costa Brava where Barbara and Robert had rented a villa for a couple of weeks. It was high up a steep, forested mountain with breathtaking views of the little cove below and its picturesque village. The Flea Pit was the four star hotel in the village which at least had some basic business facilities, like a fax machine, with which Robert could continue to harass the poor minions who had mistakenly thought they were rid of him for a while.

Although it was only May, the temperature each afternoon was unfailingly over thirty degrees. The sky was an unbelievable, cloudless blue through which high-flying swifts swerved and swooped. Dazzling yellow broome surrounded the gravel terrace and gave way to stands of Mediterranean pine that marched down the mountainside to the jumble of tiled rooftops and sandy rocks surrounding the little bay. Calm, sparkling water, bluer even than the impossibly blue sky, filled the space between the beautiful earth and the fabulous heavens.

Barbara spent a lot of her time on the terrace, enjoying the warmth, the views and the peace. In the first few days, she had had her fill of ceramics shops and driving through ramshackle towns with the air conditioning on and drinking strong coffee in street cafes with cracked cups and plastic chairs. Now she just wanted a quiet, restoring time and to imprint the memory of this perfect place on her mind forever.

She also wanted sex. Which, when she thought about it, was something she hadn't really wanted much for some years now. That the urge should come to her so strongly and so insistently just now was a complete mystery to her. Perhaps it was the heat? Hadn't she read somewhere that a Mediterranean climate did this to women? No doubt written by some man who wished it was true! But how else could she explain it?

Sex was the last thing on Robert's mind, of course. He was, as usual, too busy playing at being the Important Businessman to have time for such nonsense. Anyway, he hated the heat and it made him wilt in every possible way. That was why he started on that he hated the place. Climbing out of the cool Jag into yet another dust-dry village square to peer at yet another Romanesque church baking in the stark, white sunlight was not his idea of fun. Climbing back into a car that had become a furnace, with surfaces you couldn't touch, was the point where he usually expressed his opinion of Spain and its climate.

She'd never really liked sex with Robert anyway. He was rough and selfish and it was always over too soon. About five years into their twenty-year marriage, he had started pestering her to do strange things with him. He wanted her to strip for him, or to dress like a tart, or to tie his hands to the bed. He wanted her to have sex in the garden or on the dining table. Once he talked her into licking chocolate sauce off him. Well, the sauce tasted nice but it certainly did nothing for her level of arousal and she made him go to the bathroom and wash himself thoroughly before she let him near her, which in turn put him off the whole idea and set him sulking for days afterwards. They had never done it very often, even at first, and, in the end, Barbara had decided she was glad. She'd never wanted children and she especially never wanted any with Robert. Never having sex made life a lot simpler.

All in all, Robert had been a serious mistake. Her mother, who had never given her a sensible piece of advice in her life and who had herself been married for forty-five years to a man she hated, had told her that Robert would only make her unhappy. This, at the time, had seemed like a sure guarantee of marital bliss. Clearly, even her mother could be right sometimes -- even if it was pure fluke.

Joking aside, those first few years with him had been hell, mitigated only by the tranquillisers and anti-depressants that her well-meaning but incompetent GP had fed her for nearly twelve years. After old Dr Smart had retired, her new lady doctor had spent long sessions with her urging her to sign up for women's self-help groups, counselling and, on the day she had cried in the consulting room and begged the doctor not to take her pills away, psychotherapy. She got off them alright but, since then, had lived under the black cloud of depression almost without break. Well, you would, wouldn't you, she often thought, with a husband like hers.

In a way she was quite enjoying her holiday. It was her holiday because, left to himself, Robert would never leave his office to come home at night, never mind to go traipsing off to foreign parts. Every year, they had the ritual of Barbara nagging him for months and months and him finally giving in -- but only grudgingly -- and letting her arrange a couple of weeks away for them. It never occurred to Barbara that she could go on her own although it had often occurred to Robert to suggest it. In Barbara's view, Robert needed to get away from it all for a little while and relax. In Robert's view, being away from the office just made him more anxious about what might be going wrong.

The location she had found them this year was really fantastic. Something money just couldn't buy, she told herself, but of course, that was nonsense. It was Robert's money that paid for the villa and paid whatever premium this view commanded. She looked around at the other villas on the mountain. If she wanted, she could make Robert buy her one. It was what he did for her. He bought her things. God knows what she did for him!

And, of course, that wasn't true either. Barbara knew exactly what she did for Robert. She looked good, with a trim, shapely body his business associates envied him for, and she had a bit of class, enough anyway to impress the louts he brought home for her to entertain. She was an accessory, as essential to his image as the Jag and the cottage in Wales. And, knowing the value of such a wife, he was prepared to pay the price.

She took a long drink of her sangria. Wonderful stuff. She quaffed it like lemonade when they were in Spain. At home she quaffed wine. Probably, she drank too much. She felt the afternoons went much more easily if one was half cut. Robert would come home and drink half a bottle of whisky in an hour most nights and then snore like a pig. She preferred to start at lunchtime and stay just a little light-headed the rest of the day. And why the Hell not? she wondered.

The sun and the peace settled on her like the blessings of a Good God and the scent of the broome and the pines filled the air. A little way down the mountain and way over to her right, the pink roof of another villa could be seen. In its garden sat Pedro. She wasn't at all sure his name should be Pedro but it seemed to suit him.

Pedro was tall and slim, with black hair and a short black beard. He generally wore tee-shirts with very short shorts so that his hairy legs were exposed. Every day at siesta time, Pedro would wander into the garden and sit on his sun-lounger with a book. He sat there quietly for a couple of hours and then he wandered back into the house. Barbara had watched Pedro do this five times now and he had never once looked up the mountain to see her watching him. No-one else ever appeared. Pedro lived alone.

Pedro was a tall, slim man, about thirty-five. This made him a fair bit younger than Barbara but that didn't worry her. She knew full well that boys less than half her age would die for a night of passion with an older woman with her looks and poise. No doubt Pedro would consider her quite a catch.

The idea certainly appealed. And it was not the first time it had occurred to her. Almost from the moment she had first noticed him, she had begun to fantasise about seducing him. She thought of him as knowing and slightly amused by the act yet full of Hispanic passion and, perhaps despite himself, unable to fight his own wild desire for her.

As ever, the thought of it made her insides turn in that delicious way they did when she was sexually aroused. As ever, these first, vague imaginings led to further, more explicit daydreams. His body was firm and strong. As he slipped his shorts down over his buttocks, she admired the pert roundness of them and stroked them admiringly. He turned to her, smiling, his brown eyes sure and hungry under heavy, black brows, his shirt open to reveal his firm, flat stomach with a line of black hair from his navel down to where his enormous erection strained towards her. He said something beautiful to her in Spanish, his voice deep and kind and she felt her insides melting and her juices begin to flow for him.

It was a wonderful fantasy and, when she was in the mood (which she definitely was today!) she could make it last for ages, imagining every tiny detail of their growing desire and teasing love-making as he took her into his cool, shady bedroom and made love to her over and over again.

"It's the heat," she told herself, sipping her sangria and thirsting for her Pedro.

Robert was back later than he expected, as usual, and Barbara watched him sullenly as he fixed himself a drink. "I see I've got some catching up to do," he said, just to annoy her as far as she could tell.

They went down the mountain to their favourite restaurant for dinner. In God I Hate This Place, the Damned Restaurants did not start serving until about 8 o'clock. Barbara, who always ate early, found this unbearable and had to lay in boxes of chocolate and bags of nuts to keep her going until then. Robert, who always ate late anyway, nevertheless complained that the Damned Restaurants took away his right to choose.

They were unused to eating together. It only happened these days when they had guests or on holidays. Being so much out of practice left them fumbling for conversation. "Bloody fax at the Flea Pit was out of order for two hours today," he would venture, failing to catch Barbara's interest utterly. "I think I'd better start using a stronger barrier cream," she would tell him and they would lapse into watching the other diners, or looking at the blue, blue bay with vacant expressions.

"Going out again?" It was the next day and Robert had appeared on the terrace with his briefcase.

"It's alright for some," he said.

"It's supposed to be a holiday. Remember?"

"Well, I'll remind you of that shall I, when we lose the Brussels job?"

It was no good talking to him when he got like this. "When will you be back?"

He looked shifty for a moment. Not bloody guilt! she thought. I don't believe it! "I could be a bit late."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

If he had been showing signs of guilt, he clamped down hard on them. "Late," he said. "It means late. For God's sake, this is bloody important, you know. I'm not off enjoying myself. The chance would be a fine thing!"

Probably knocking off some silly little receptionist from the Flea Pit, she thought as he stomped away through the apartment. Sod him! She made up another jug of sangria and settled to her afternoon's routine.

By the time Pedro appeared, she had already been thinking about him for some time. Her fantasies had been more than usually vivid and as she gazed at his long, slim body, she ran her fingers over her own and pouted down at him. "Why don't you come up and see me, Pedro?" she whispered. "I'm ready for you now. I want you to have me." She imagined him walking out onto her terrace, smiling his knowing smile, holding out a hand, inviting her.

Suddenly she stood up, so suddenly she knocked her chair over. She turned and walked quickly into the apartment then stood still in the cool and dark, swaying slightly and breathing deeply. "This is stupid!" she said aloud. "What the Hell am I doing?" but her anger and the cool did not prevent the longing from surging through her as she stood there. The need to be touched, caressed, taken, was a physical force in her that had to be dissipated or she would go mad. She moaned and moved her body inside her clothes just to feel them touching her. She took two steps towards the bedroom, thinking she would relieve herself with masturbation but she stopped, pouting and sulky now. "I don't want that!" she said. "I want Pedro."

It took her longer than she had expected to find his villa. It was too hot a day to be wandering around in the sun and she was on the verge of turning back when she found it. She had drunk two stiff whiskies to give herself courage before setting off and that had not helped her orientation at all.

The name on the doorbell was J. Mendoza. Not Pedro, then. She pushed the little white button and straightened herself up as she waited for him to appear. She brushed her hair off her face again, irritated that it would not stay still. She had a bottle of red wine in her hand, to help them get in the mood, and she wished it was open.

She had to ring a second time before Pedro finally came. He opened the door to her with a polite, curious expression, as if he thought she was collecting for charity or something. Barbara immediately beamed at him and began a stream of introduction to the effect that she was a neighbour and thought she should introduce herself.

As she spoke, she examined him more closely. He was certainly tall and dark, as she had expected, with black curly hair on his chest and arms but his face was not at all right. His chin, under the beard, was weak and receding and his eyes, as he watched her performing on his doorstep, were just a bit too small and piggy. Although he looked intelligent enough, it was in a vague, academic sort of way. Altogether a considerable disappointment.

She had finished talking and he was working himself up to say something. Eventually, after what seemed a difficult internal struggle, he said; "I sorry. No speak good English. Habla Espagnol? Ou francais, peut etre? Oder Deutsch, vieleicht?"

All that Barbara understood of this was that Pedro was some kind of idiot who didn't even speak English. Still, she had come this far. "My name Barbara," she said, her voice a little louder. She pointed at herself with the hand that held the wine and his eyes followed the bottle up and back down as if it had some special significance. "I neighbour."

Pedro looked at her, not with the knowing smile of her fantasies but with a squinty-eyed confusion. "May I come in?" she asked, with such eloquent gesturing that eventually Pedro understood and stepped back, gabbling at her in Spanish and waving her towards a cool and slightly scruffy lounge.

"Forgive me. I not speak English," he explained.

"Yes, you did mention that. Look, can't you offer me a drink or something? I'm desperate." Pedro simply stared at her, anxiously. "Drink?" she said, miming the act of uncorking the wine she held and pouring an imaginary glass.

"Ah, si! Drink!" he said, stepping forward to take the bottle. "You want?"

"Yes, si, drink," said Barbara and forced a laugh. Pedro smiled nervously and went into the kitchen to find a corkscrew. Barbara stood up and followed him. She stood in the doorway and watched his back as he moved about getting glasses and pouring two drinks. He may be a bit of a wimp, she thought, but he's got a cute arse. "You're not what I expected," she said aloud. He jumped, unaware till then of her presence, and spilled wine all over the worktop. "Oops! Sorry!" she said and laughed again. Pedro's smile was almost a wince as he handed her a wet glass.

She downed it in one swallow and held out the glass for more. "More," she said and he turned back and fetched the bottle. "Drink up!" she told him with forced cheer. "We'll have a little party." She took his hand and raised his glass to his mouth. Alarmed, he nevertheless took a deep swallow.

Having broken the ice, as she thought, Barbara now took him by the arm like an old friend and led him back to the lounge. "Come and sit here with me and we'll have a nice little chat." She took him to the sofa and pulled him down beside her. She was aware that she was slurring her speech a little and had staggered somewhat as they walked from the kitchen but she was sure that Pedro hadn't noticed.

He frowned when she put a hand on his bare knee and said; "What you want? Why you go here?"

She laughed again, to relax him and leaned closer, noticing his eyes flick down to her generous cleavage. "I just want us to be friends," she told him, putting as much meaning as she could into her eyes. "We live so close. It's such a shame we haven't got to know one another yet." She pouted at him. "Wouldn't you like to get to know me?" He swallowed hard, clearly getting the message at last and she smiled at him, sliding her hand up his thigh. I don't care if he's a wimp, she thought, turned on by her own efforts at seduction. I don't care if he's the Hunchback of Notre Dame!

In a sudden, poorly-coordinated convulsion, he wriggled away from her and stood up. He spoke a couple of sentences quickly in Spanish, looking distressed and confused.

"What's the matter with you, you bloody idiot?" she snapped, losing patience with her reluctant lover. "You're not bloody gay or something, are you?" She took the bottle from him, poured herself another glass of wine, quickly drank it down and refilled it. Pedro watched her in fascinated horror.

With her wrists, since her hands were still holding bottle and glass, she pushed up her breasts and offered them to him. "See? Tits? On a plate!" She stared into his eyes. His eyes stared at her breasts. "Well? Do you want it or not?" He looked up into her face and searched it for clues. At that, in exasperation, she turned away and, cursing his stubborn, wilful, stupidity, she drank her wine.

She tried to pour another but found only a drop in the bottle. With a shout, she threw it onto the sofa. Behind her, Pedro was saying something in an irritating, whining voice. Angrily she whirled around to tell him to shut up but she lost her precarious balance and fell over. She landed half on and half off the sofa, spilling wine all over it. Pedro started towards her but thought better of it and stepped back to a safe distance and continued to harangue her in his nasal Spanish.

"Fucking hell!" said Barbara, confused at finding herself on the floor. With enormous struggles, she got herself to her feet again and looked around. Pedro was still gibbering at her and gesturing at the sofa and the carpet where the bottle and the glass lay side by side. "Fucking wimp!" she said, turning away from him and steadying herself for the long walk to the door. Seeing her about to leave seemed to give Pedro courage and his voice became louder and more strident.

It seemed to take an age but Barbara finally found herself outside in the sunshine with the door to Pedro's villa slammed firmly shut behind her. She was dizzy and queasy and well aware that she was very drunk. She was also lost, with no idea, after all the meandering turns she had taken on the way there, how to find her way back. Helplessly, she took the first road that presented itself and stumbled along it, half blinded by the stabbing sunlight through the curtain of tears that hung across her eyes.

Julien found her on a bench by the roadside. She was sprawled across it in an attitude of complete abandon and her mouth hung open. She snored loudly and luxuriously. Seeing the reckless voluptuousness of her, Julien almost changed his mind again. He glared at her with a mixture of anger and resentment. Stupid, disgusting Englishwoman! Why had she done this, bursting into his house, drunkenly falling around, ruining his furniture? And a married woman too! He had seen the ring on her finger. What kind of man would let his wife go about in that state? What kind of woman would force herself upon strangers, offering them her body? It was horrible, degraded, but, for all that, he could not leave her to lie in the road at the mercy of the sun and any passing stranger.

So now what to do? He looked at the sleeping woman. Could he lift her? He sat beside her and gathered up her arms. With a heave, he pulled her into a sitting position. Her head lolled and she muttered and moaned. Her body was completely limp, like a dead person, and she began to slide off the bench. Alarmed at the prospect of her falling on the ground, Julien took her shoulders and laid her down again.

Already, he was regretting his compassionate impulse. After all, what did he owe this crazy woman? He looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw old Jordi passing by across the street. The grizzled old fool was pretending not to have seen him. What did he think was going on here? "Hey Jordi!" he called but still the old man pretended not to notice. "Jordi!" he shouted so that even the deafest old fool in Spain could have heard him. Jordi turned with a pantomime of surprise and apology. "Hey Jordi. Give me a hand here would you?"

Old Jordi shuffled across the street and looked at the unconscious woman. "Your friend has had a little too much to drink I think." Not such an old fool after all.

"Help me get her up, Jordi. Let's get her out of the sun."

"We will take her to your house?" The question asked a lot more than the words he uttered.

"No, no. Not my house!" He recoiled from the idea of her waking up there. "Just somewhere where she can sleep it off,"

They both looked at her for a long moment. Eventually Jordi said; "We can take her to my sister's daughter's house. It is not far."

Even so, it was twenty minutes before they had Barbara propped against the door post while Jordi went inside to sound out his niece. By then, both men had nothing but scorn for their drunken Englishwoman.

The niece, when she appeared, was young and pretty and bullied her uncle and Julien until they had taken Barbara upstairs to the best bedroom and laid her gently down. Then she shooed them out and set about making her charge comfortable.

When she went downstairs again, Jordi and Julien were still there, standing in the hallway as though they were incapable of movement without orders from her. "She is alright," she said, looking sideways at Julien. "She just needs to sleep."

"This is very kind of you," said Julien. "I do not know who she is." But something, some guiltiness in his manner, made Jordi's niece fix him with a challenging stare that made him blush to the roots. "May I stay and help you with her?"

"She will be fine. I will call you if there are any problems."

Julien looked helplessly at the dark eyes of his silent accuser. What could he say? "You are very kind. I will call later, perhaps."

"Yes. You call later."

When Robert came home from The Flea Pit, it was very late. He knew Barbara was going to give him hell but it couldn't be helped. After a frustrating couple of hours, failing to get any sense out of That Fool Gresham at the office, he had picked up Maria, as arranged, and gone with her to her little house in the village. They had made love in the cool, shuttered room and they had dozed and played together through all the long siesta. Then, when he had wanted to go, she had pulled A Stunt and had refused to be pacified even with more sex and lots of promises. Finally, he had thrust a wad of money into a jar on her mantelpiece and that did the trick. She was as quiet as a little mouse after that and let him get away with barely another word.

Now it was past Barbara's dinner time and he was going to be made to pay for it. Bloody Woman!

Finding her gone, he looked at her debris for clues. The sangria jug stood empty. The whisky bottle was on the coffee table with an empty glass beside it. Her book, her pile of sweets, her magazines and postcards were all abandoned and her chair lay on its back on the verandah. The chair suggested violence or wild haste and anxious thoughts crossed his mind. He called out to her and leaned over the little wall that surrounded the verandah. Below on the mountain was the same old scattering of houses set in the forested slope. If she'd been murdered and dragged into that lot, he'd never find her. He shouted her name a few times and then poured himself a drink and sat down.

Where the hell could she be? Barbara didn't wander off like this. It wasn't like her not to be there when he got in, like a spider in its web, waiting to pounce on him. A sudden thought struck him and he leapt up and threw open the wardrobe. No, her clothes were still there. She hadn't left him. So where was the Silly Cow?

He went outside again and stood for a while staring at the upturned chair. Calling the police was no good. They wouldn't take him seriously and, anyway, without a single word of Spanish he wasn't going to get very far. Bloody Country!

He hurried down to the car and angrily revved the engine as he pulled out of the drive, finding to his increased annoyance that it didn't make him feel even a little bit better. He went first to the beach she was always whining at him to go to, then to each of the bloody awful restaurants hey had ever visited, then to a few bloody awful restaurants they had never been to before.

What he needed was a local to help him search. Someone who could tell him where the hell a middle-aged woman with too much time, too little sense and a skinful of whisky might have wandered off to in this backward hell-hole. The only local he knew was Maria, so that's where he drove next.

"Robert?" Maria was surprised to the point of shock to see him on her doorstep. Outside, it had grown dark and the crickets textured the deep blue night with sound. Robert looked annoyed and impatient.

"I need your help," he said to her. "Can I come in?" Then he walked past her into the little hallway.

Maria frowned in his wake. She had expected never to see him again. The way the afternoon had gone, she was surprised he had the gall to turn up on her doorstep like this.

"My wife's gone missing, Silly Cow!"

Ah, the wife again!

"Perhaps she leave you!" she spat. How had she been so mistaken about this man? When he had come into the hotel that first day, he had seemed so important and powerful, pushing everyone around and demanding this and that. Maria had brought him a coffee and he had smiled and said; "Ah that's better. At least you know how to keep your customers happy." A handsome face, confident and sort of hungry. "I am Maria. You ask if you want," she told him, smiling back and she saw that look in his eyes that told her he would certainly be asking!

"Where can a raddled old lush get to in this God-Forsaken Dump? Do I have to go and look in every hotel bar in Spain!"

"What you do here?" Maria wanted to know.

"What?"

"What you do here, you pig?"

"What?"

"Jesu Christos!" Maria exclaimed in exasperation and unloaded her feelings of disappointment and humiliation in a long and passionate string of Spanish invective.

Robert watched her with a look of complete bewilderment. "Wait a minute," he said when Maria paused for breath. "What have I done? You were perfectly happy when I left you this afternoon."

"Happy?" Now it was Maria's turn to look amazed. "I cry all day and you say I happy?" She looked wild for a moment and Robert thought she was going to fly at him like a cat but she just glared at him and said; "You go out! I do not want you. Go home!"

"Look, I don't know what's got into you all of a sudden--Bloody PMS, I suppose--but I don't think you're listening to me. I've lost my wife! Comprendez? My wife has vanished."

Suddenly, Maria's eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. If an electric light had come on over her head, the comic stereotype could not have been more complete. "Si. Si," she said slowly. "You lost your wife. Now I understand." A vague smile crossed her lips.

"So?"

"So?"

"So now what do I do? Dear God! Are you taking something, or what?"

Suddenly, Maria was all business and bustle. She shooed Robert to the door. "You go now. Go. Out. Get lost yourself. Go, or I call my friend in the Policia and put you in prison."

Robert, too confused to struggle much, found himself outside on the path staring at Maria's closed door. Two men sat on a bench a little way up the street and stared at him. Unnerved by the mystery and the unwonted attention he got into his car and drove off. The two men watched him go.

In the morning, Barbara woke to the smell of coffee and a strange disorientation. She was not in her bed at home. This was a strange room. It was foreign, frightening. Her heart began to race and another layer of sleepiness dropped away. Of course, she was on holiday, in Spain, in the lovely little villa with the beautiful views. She turned her head, looking for the shuttered window and found another window, one that she didn't recognise. This wasn't the villa! This wasn't her room! She sat up. She was in a single bed. Where was Robert? What was going on? Why did she feel so awful? Had she been ill?

"Robert?" she called, and the effort hurt her head and made her lay back with a groan. But she shouted again; "Robert!"

The door opened and a lovely young woman came in with a tray. "Your meal," the woman said in a strong Spanish accent. "You are shit today, yes?"

Barbara watched her, nervously. "Where am I?" she asked. The stranger placed the tray beside her and smiled. "Who are you? Is this a hospital?" As confused as she was, even Barbara could see that this neat little bedroom was not a hospital, but what else could it be?

"You feel OK?" the woman asked. "You want coffee?"

"I feel awful," Barbara said. "What happened to me?" She tried to remember. She had been on the verandah. Robert had been away. She had been eyeing up that Spanish chap... Suddenly she saw Pedro recoiling from her and herself pushing her breasts up at him, angry with him because he wouldn't touch them. "Oh my God!" she said. She remembered falling on the sofa, her wine spilling. "How did I get here?" she asked, weakly. Had Pedro had a wife? Had this pretty little thing witnessed all that? Oh God, what had she done? But the woman had said something. She had missed it. "What? Sorry. What?"

"I say, they bring you here. You fall down drunk. Uncle Jordi and the teacher, they bring you to me." She laughed. "They don't know what to do with a drunk woman!"

The news didn't make Barbara feel one little bit better. 'The teacher'? Could that have been her Spaniard? "I think I had better be getting home," she said. "I really don't know what I..." Oh no! Robert! The thought hit her like an electric shock. What about Robert? What did he think had happened? What had he done when she hadn't gone home last night? The enormity of it all left her weak and she sank into her pillows, unable to move or think.

"I leave you to eat your meal," the woman said and, before Barbara realised she'd spoken, she was gone.

Alone in the strange room, Barbara searched her fuddled mind for memories of yesterday. Each one she found, she scoured for every scrap of information it contained but she found very few and they told her very little. She had been drinking at the villa. She had gone to Pedro's house to seduce him. He wasn't really called Pedro. He had been a disappointment. He'd made her angry. She'd humiliated herself dreadfully. And then...

And then this. A strange room and a strange woman and Robert thinking God Knows What had gone on. And--oh no--maybe it had gone on! She remembered Pedro backing away but maybe that was only at first. And who the Hell were Uncle Jordi and the teacher? How come they ended up bringing her here?

She took a look at the breakfast tray. There was juice and coffee, breads, meats and cheeses, even a large piece of sponge cake. It all looked revolting apart from the juice, which she took in a trembling hand and sipped.

After the juice, she felt able to drink a little coffee and after the coffee, she could manage some bread and ham. She couldn't remember whether she'd eaten last night or not but she was discovering that she was ravenously hungry this morning. When she had finished everything except the cake, she got out of bed and made for the door, not at all surprised to find she was still fully clothed. She found the stranger in her kitchen.

"Hola! You look..." she struggled for a word.

"Like shit. I know." A wave of nausea and weakness hit Barbara and she just made it to a chair before falling down. She had to get in touch with Robert. She had to tell him where she was. That nothing terrible had happened. She had to phone him. He could come for her, take her home, shout at her, put her to bed, forgive her. "I need a phone," she told the woman, her voice thin.

"Que?"

"A phone. Telephone." She mimed it. "Oh please say you have a phone."

"Ah. Si! Telephone." The woman led her to the lounge where a grey plastic phone sat on a small wooden table.

Barbara sat next to it and grabbed the handset. She hesitated, her hand half-way to her head. "May I?" At the same moment, the doorbell rang, confusing Barbara, who looked down at the phone and blinked. "Si. Si. You make telephone," the woman called and ran for he door.

Barbara reached for he dial and her hand hovered above it. What if Robert was horrible to her? He could do that. What if he wouldn't come for her? What if he wouldn't believe her? And why should he? She didn't suppose she'd believe him. And what was her story anyway? That she'd got smashed and had gone out to seduce some poor bloody Spaniard and then...and then succeeded for all she knew, before passing out and waking up in Hangover Hell with Little Miss Jollity doing her "I no speaka da English" comedy foreigner routine and Robert out with the Policia dredging the harbour, or driving back through France with his bags in the boot and Oh God! what was she going to do?

"Hola Senora." The voice was timid and gentle. She looked up into Pedro's concerned and sombre face. He looked away, to the woman, and spoke in Spanish.

"He say he want to know if you OK."

Barbara looked him in his deep, brown eyes and tried to remember them close to her, to see them looking down at her with passion and fire burning in them. But no memory came. A silence began to stretch until Barbara looked away and buried her face in the chair back.

"Come on, idiot," the woman said to Julien in Spanish. She took him by the arm and led him back to the door.�"But she's crying!"

"You'd be crying too if you had her hangover! What are you doing here, anyway?"

Julien looked sheepish. "I sort of felt responsible." Jordi's niece raised an eyebrow at him and he hurried on. "It wasn't my fault. She came barging into my house, as drunk as a lord, and tried to make me ... well, you know." He stopped in confusion. His companion watched his discomfort with a small smile. She had always thought Julien a complete idiot--and he was, university lecturer or not--but now she saw that he was cute too, and had a certain openness and integrity about him that she hadn't seen in anyone for a long, lonely time. "It's true!" he insisted, taking her smile to mean disbelief.

"What do you teach, anyway?" she asked.

Julien blinked, thrown by the sudden change of tack. "I...er...Psychology," he said.

She laughed, a loud, careless laugh. "Psychology?"

To his credit, Julien saw the joke and broke into a shy smirk. "Psychology!" she said again, as the laughter died away. "Ah well. You can tell me all about it when you take me to dinner tonight."

Then the doorbell went again.

"Madre Deos!" she cried and threw it open to reveal a wild and dishevelled Robert who pushed past her and stared at the astonished Julien before rounding on her. "I can't find her! The Silly Bitch must have left me. Gone! She must have found out I was screwing you, you Gormless Tart, and now she's buggered off. What am I going to do? Eh? What am I supposed to do now?"

Before Maria could muster a curse strong enough for the occasion, a quiet voice spoke from behind them. "Screwing whom?" They all snapped their heads around to face Barbara who stood in the doorway holding the grey plastic telephone.

"Barbara!" said Robert, stupidly, his mouth actually hanging open.

"What's going on? Who is this?" asked Julien in Spanish.

"Shush!" Maria told him.

"Screwing whom?" screamed Barbara, throwing the phone down with a crash.

Robert was about to speak. Barbara was about to scream again. But Maria got in first. "Hey! Ees my telephone! Crazy English!" She whirled on Robert. "You. Out!" To Barbara. "You. Out!" She grabbed Barbara and flung her at the door. "Out! Out you both! Out! Out! Out!" Confused by this sudden attack, Robert and Barbara beat a clumsy retreat through the door and out into the bright morning sunlight where they stood blinking at one another as the door slammed on them.

"Maria. What is going on? Who was that man? What is all this about?" Julien whined in the sudden quiet.

Maria smiled at him. A University lecturer and no English! Who would have thought such a thing? "It's alright, you poor boy. I will explain it all over dinner tonight." By then, she told herself, I will have thought of something.

The drive back, up through the sumptuous Pyrenees, then down and north across the flat, increasingly industrial wastelands of France, took them nearly eight hours. The time passed in almost total silence except for the occasional conversation about change as they passed through toll booths or bought a coffee at their one stop along the way.

Barbara thought she would go mad with the strain of saying nothing but she could think of nothing to say that she really, really believed in.

He had cheated on her. With that beautiful Spanish girl, whose trim, pert body made Barbara look like the ageing frump she felt she had become overnight. She was hurt, wounded, cut. Yet, somehow, it didn't hurt as much as it should. Somehow, she couldn't feel the devastation she ought to be feeling, couldn't bring herself to rant and scream and sob as the occasion demanded.

When they reached Calais, they each sat in the car as they waited for the ferry, staring through the windscreen, alone and unreachable.

During the crossing, they went out on the deck to escape the fug inside and to lean on the rail, watching the Channel slide past them. When Robert said, staring out at the water, "It didn't mean anything, you know." Barbara almost laughed -- almost cried. After a few deep breaths, she said; "You must phone those builders when we get back and have them fix the drive." Robert looked at her, a long, puzzled look, then looked away. "Yes," he said, carefully, "it's a disgrace the way it's cracking up like that."