Mantequero Read Free

university, and later, when she got her own flat near the school, she had continued to do so. Nothing had ever been said, but it was always assumed that she would be there every year. Well this year would be different. How had they dealt with it? she wondered. One of them, probably Rose, who had the biggest house, would surely have invited Mother over for Christmas dinner. June could only imagine how annoyed she would be about that. Mother would like it, though, spending Christmas day with the children. June didn't actually know what arrangements had been made because nobody had spoken to her since the party. She smiled over her coffee, clutching the glass in her hand, and started to plan what she would have for her own Christmas dinner. Salad, probably.
    She had visited the Alhambra a couple of days after Christmas. Ana-María, the village shopkeeper had been very impressed. “It is a long way to go on your own, Señora,” she said, “but they say it is very beautiful.”
    “You have not been yourself, then?”
    “Goodness me, no, Señora. I have no time to go visiting such places. And who would look after the shop?”
    June suspected that it was more a matter of being comfortable where she was and not wanting to disturb herself with visions of a different world. She could understand that. Hadn't she been doing just that herself for the last fifteen years?
    Now she felt all her horizons opening up. Her sisters had done her a favour.
     
    ****
     
    The Palace was everything she imagined and more. She had read books about it and seen photographs, but no photograph could convey the splendour and magnificence of the arches and the carvings. And as for the ceilings, with their amazing stalactite decoration....The sheer beauty of the place made her gasp.
    Yes, she would certainly return to Spain. Perhaps at Easter when they had the huge processions through the streets of the city, the men dressed up in silken robes and pointed headdresses reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, statues of the Virgin carried on enormous platforms, so heavy it took twenty men to lift them.
    Now, in her second week, she felt the holiday was going too fast. She was afraid her new-found freedom would slip away from her. She would forget and allow her suffocating existence as an undervalued teacher and despised unmarried sister to resume.
    This evening she had gone walking rather further than usual and had ended up at the top of a magnificent gorge, thousands of feet above the river below, gazing down dreamily, mesmerised by the beauty. She teetered on the brink, imagining how it would feel to fly, when suddenly the young man had pulled her back.
    “ Hola, Guapa ,” he had said. Hello, Beautiful .
    She had almost looked round to see who else was there. Surely he wasn’t addressing her. Nobody had ever called her beautiful before.
    There was no-one else.
    He stepped forward and, sweeping off his hat, made a flamboyant, courtly bow, bending over so far that his nose almost touched the ground.
    “Ignacio,” he said, by way of greeting. Then he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. His kiss on her skin made her shudder with pleasure. It was accompanied by a slight sucking of his lips which was at once disquieting and rather sexy. She felt a little thrill of desire as she looked up into his face and replied, “June.”
    He attempted to repeat it, but struggled with the J sound.
    “Like junio ,” she said. “The month.”
    “Or Juno,” he smiled a slow smile, “the goddess.” 
    He proffered his arm in an old-fashioned gesture and said, “May I have the honour of escorting the beautiful goddess home?”
    It was then she realised the sudden dusk in the mountains had caught her out. One minute the sun had been bright in the sky, the next it had disappeared behind a ridge and the light was dying. She knew how treacherous the mountains could be. The guide books all said you should never go without food, water, warm clothing and a mobile phone. She