Hunter, Stephen by Tapestry Of Spies.1985

Author:Tapestry Of Spies.1985 [Spies.1985, Tapestry Of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-03T23:32:13.790000+00:00

"The future is definitely behind schedule in Spain," said Julian. "I don't believe the present has even arrived."

Florry sat back in the wheelchair. Sylvia and Julian had contrived to spring him from his great bay of bleeding boys for this outing, and they wheeled him down the two blocks of Tarragona's own Ramblas here to the Esplanade high above the sea. Before him stretched a mile of white sand, a rumpled mess of a Roman arena, and the sleepy, tepid Mediterranean. A few bathers dabbled in it, a few more lay in the sun. The breeze was fresh and salty; gulls flipped and fluted on it. A statue of Christopher Columbus stood proudly atop its pedestal, as at the foot of Barcelona's Ramblas.

"It's lovely here," said Florry.

"An odd town, Tarragona," Julian said. "It seems the revolution hasn't quite reached it. Or if it has, it got rather bored and left early, like Noel Coward at a dreary party."

Florry looked past Julian, in a splendid white linen suit, to Sylvia. Damn you, he thought. Her gray green eyes were sleepy yet lively; she'd done something to her hair, giving it a kind of frilly, lacy delicacy, and she'd put away her blue overalls and found a pretty dress. How had she met Julian? What was she doing with him while Florry lay in his bed? Was she with him?

He looked back to Julian, slugging down the champagne.

Damn you, Julian. You just go on, don't you?

"Barcelona is no longer a party Noel Coward would enjoy," she said. "The city's ugly. There's a vileness to it. Someone shot Carlos Brea right outside the Car& Oriente. It was horrible. Someone shot him from a car. The bullet hit him in the head. They don't know who did it, but everybody says it was the Russian secret police. Poor Carlos."

"Carlos Brea?" said Julian. "The POUM intellectual?

Poor sot. Spoke to him at length. Wanted to use it in a piece."

"Julian, you're such an awful cynic," she said, and Florry thought he could hear the love in her voice and see a radiance in her eyes.

They seemed such a wonderful English couple, the tall, blond, elegant poet-soldier who just as easily could have been a banker or a diplomat, and his beautiful, fair woman, as cool and poised as an impeccable statue. They looked so good together that Florry envied them their perfection.

"Have some more of the bubbly, old boy," urged Julian. "Do you think it was easy to find this stum. Good God, I had to pay a fortune."

"Bottoms up," said Florry, finishing the glass, feeling the buzz in his nostrils.

"Look, you two," said Julian, "eat up and enjoy. I've got to be off."

"Where are you going?" Sylvia asked.

"To see about a car. I'll be back. I told the chap I'd see him at two. Besides, you two must have scads to talk about."

He rose from the bench with a smile and darted off down the Ramblas. Florry watched him slide along, graceful and fair. Then he turned back to the sea.

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