Letters to a Stranger by Mercedes Pinto Maldonado

Author:Mercedes Pinto Maldonado [Maldonado, Mercedes Pinto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542007306
Published: 2019-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Saturday, 21 June 2014

I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet when my mind formed the question, Will she have come? I remembered that the night before I’d left my glass and the almost empty bottle of whisky out in the garden. I’d lost all trust in her, and no longer wanted to share my fears and doubts with Teresa as I did as a child. I listened carefully, not even getting out of bed yet, trying to hear any sound that might mean she was there. Finally I concluded that she wasn’t, although I wasn’t a hundred per cent certain. My phone told me that it was almost nine o’clock, so maybe she’d already left. Before going to the bathroom, I was reassured: she hadn’t been here, as the little thread that I’d torn off my scarf the previous evening was still caught between the door frame and the door. This is all so sad, I thought. How could I have come to this? Watching the one person who loved me most, distrustful to the point of spying on her.

As I was tidying up, I remembered that it was Saturday and that I had a whole weekend ahead of me with no plans, no appointments and nothing to do. I’d been longing for a weekend like this for years, but now I felt as though I were suffocating. I’d never liked crowds or parties, or gatherings of more than four people. I have a natural tendency to isolate myself, but solitude to this extent was beginning to take its toll on me. I would have loved to have seen Mary right now, to go shopping and then for lunch in some restaurant on Carnaby Street, and listen to her say over and over that she shouldn’t have spent so much money on clothes she might never wear. I needed her to distract me with her exuberance and chatter, to witter on with her trivialities and explain to me, all over again, how to be stylish and glamorous. After lunch, we’d probably go back to Harrods to return some of what she’d bought, in order to ease her conscience. I was missing her so much this particular Saturday. Back in my fantasy, I would almost certainly get a call from Harry in the evening . . . It was odd, but over the last few days I’d stopped missing that part of my Saturdays in London. I guess Harry was already part of the past. When I went home he’d have to get used to being a friend without benefits. Did I simply not feel like sleeping with him any more because of Saúl?

I had a quiet breakfast in the garden with Aris and Neca. What a pair of friends I had here though! I was embarrassed at the thought that some neighbour might happen to glance from a window and see me looking like a madwoman, seated at the garden table in the company of a cat and a rag doll.

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