A Mallorcan Affair: An enchanting summer read about family love and the secrets we keep. Read online

  What she didn’t realise was that there would always be one last assignment, and then another, and then another. The fact was he didn’t want to retire from the job he loved. Now ill-health had left him with no choice. That and the fact he seemed to have lost the ability to take photographs.

  He could still press a button on a camera. There was nothing wrong with his hands or his eyesight. It wasn’t the physical act of taking a photograph but the intuitive side of knowing it was right: the angle, the exposure, the light, the subject – everything. His innate ability to take anything meaningful had died with his wife.

  He shook his head. It made little sense. He’d been taking photographs long before he met her. In fact, it was the aftermath of losing his first love he felt would put an end to his passion, and his career, but it intensified it. Perhaps it was pouring all that raw emotion and loss into the subject he took that enabled him to capture something on film he couldn’t quite put his finger on; something unquantifiable but moving.

  Ralph stopped just inside the gate and leaned on the gatepost, catching his breath. This was neither the time nor the place to be reminiscing about his first love. He hadn’t thought about her in years.

  He tried to focus on his dead wife instead of daydreaming about lost loves. Turning around he closed the gate and made his way to her graveside. Ralph looked down at the headstone. ‘Hello old gal, I’ve come bearing gifts.’ He nodded his head. ‘I know I shouldn’t have.’

  He cast a furtive glance around the cemetery before he continued the conversation with his dead wife. He didn’t care what people thought. She still lived on in his subconscious. You can’t live with someone for so long without knowing what they would have said. She didn’t like him to make a fuss, although she’d be quick to tell him, you know they’re not my favourite.

  ‘I know but it’s spring, and all they had were Tulips, Daffodils, and Hyacinth. Sorry.’ He paused and waited for her response echoing somewhere in his consciousness. ‘Yes, I knew you wouldn’t mind. It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it, Luv? That’s what you always say.’ His smile faded when he told her, ‘I haven’t been back to the house yet.’

  Ralph didn’t want to tell her the real reason he hadn’t been back; he couldn’t return to an empty house. But it was more than that. His mind wandered to his photography studio above the garage. That was the reason he’d deposited his keys with an estate agent in town before he left on his last assignment. The last thing he wanted was the possibility of squatters moving into the empty property during his absence and discovering a treasure trove of priceless cameras and equipment. That’s why he asked them to find a reliable house sitter.

  They’d reassured him it would be unlikely in a sleepy Suffolk seaside town that he’d have a problem with squatters. There were many second homes and holiday lets in the area that stood unoccupied for several weeks or even months at a time and they had not experienced problems of that nature. Besides, why would they single out his property?

  But it wasn’t the house that bothered him but the studio. He wanted nobody messing with his photographic equipment – that’s why he’d kept his studio separate, much to his wife’s chagrin. The house was for their retirement and yet he couldn’t imagine not taking photographs in some capacity or other even as a hobby. He couldn’t stop taking pictures any more than he could stop breathing – or so he thought.

  He stood there staring at her grave. Ralph was considering whether it was time to face his demons and return home. He knelt and placed the flowers against her headstone. ‘Well, I’d best be off.’ He stood up and lingered for a moment before making his way along the path towards the gate.

  Before he reached the gate, Ralph stopped and cast his gaze around the cemetery. He wanted to leave and just head back to the hotel, but he knew he wouldn’t. Ralph sighed and took the grassy path to his right, weaving between older gravestones. He came to a halt and looked down at a weather-beaten tombstone, discoloured with age.

  He reached out and placed a hand on the gravestone. ‘Hello, old friend. It’s been a while.’ He’d always made a point of visiting him when he was home from overseas. Unlike his wife, who was laid to rest here – he’d had her body flown back from Mallorca and repatriated – where was his best friend? It was something that had haunted him his whole life.

  ‘What happened to you?’ It was a question he asked every time he returned here. Forty years had elapsed and yet Ralph still expected him to reappear and tell everyone it had been the mother of practical jokes. Ralph sighed. Nobody disappears for that long.

  Chapter 4

  Ralph left the cemetery and turned toward the town. The busy high street was up ahead. It was the only route back to the hotel but right now he didn’t feel like returning. He wanted to be on his own. He raised an eyebrow when it occurred to him; there was one place he could go and guarantee being on his own.

  Ralph stood at the top of the familiar street looking down the long row of terraced cottages. He saw the double wrought-iron gates that led into his property at the end of the road.

  He remained there for some time debating what to do. His wife, so trusting by nature, always left a key under the flowerpot by the front door of the house. Perhaps he had been a fool to make such a fuss about it. When he went on his last assignment, he gave his own key to the estate agents. Then followed a frantic phone call from abroad when he remembered the spare key he’d forgotten to pick up before he caught his flight.

  Ralph asked the estate agent to collect the key and keep it until his return and assumed they’d done as he asked. He shook his head, who did that nowadays – left a spare key lying around for any Tom, Dick or Harry just to waltz in and make themselves at home?

  If there was one thing Ralph couldn’t abide, it was people who helped themselves to another person’s property. He’d seen enough of that over the years in war-torn countries where nothing was sacred; people’s homes, their possessions, what little they had taken with no recompense.

  Ralph’s shoulders slumped. He didn’t fancy visiting the estate agents today. Once he walked through their doors, word would spread that the famous photojournalist was back in town. He knew one agent, a keen amateur photographer, would no doubt tell the other enthusiasts who were members of the local photography club.

  Ralph smiled to himself when it occurred to him that nobody need know he’d returned. He could put off visiting the estate agent for as long as he wanted because he didn’t require the keys to the main house. There was his studio. Some time ago he had taken a leaf out of his wife’s book and hidden a key. He hadn’t left it under a flowerpot but deposited it on the narrow ledge atop the door frame to his studio apartment.

  He walked down the street towards The Gables but soon came to a halt at the thought of stepping inside the studio. His mind was racing at the prospect of opening the door and being surrounded by all his equipment almost taunting him when he was aware, he had lost the ability to take anything meaningful with a camera. Ralph didn’t want to put himself through that. He wished he had a key to the main house instead. There was no way he was going to the estate agents right now. The problem was he didn’t fancy returning to the hotel either.

  Ralph turned on his heel and retraced his steps toward the high street. Instead of heading in the direction of The Swan Hotel, he turned down a quiet side street. He knew where he was going and already tasted the salty sea air as he made his way along the clifftop path. When he got to the track, he braced his hands on the railings and closed his eyes feeling the strong easterly wind on his face.

  Ralph opened his eyes and stared at the pier. It looked busy with people sitting outside the little cafés and restaurants that ran its length. He was not inclined to join them. Instead, he headed away from the pier toward the multi-coloured beach huts in the distance. It would be quieter up that end – he hoped.

  Although it was bright sunshine, the wind made him shiver. He put his hands in his blazer pockets. Everyone else he passed as he walked
along the clifftop didn’t seem bothered by the spring breeze; people were dressed in shorts and tee-shirts. It was a warm Easter even though the Easter break fell early this year in April.

  His mother, when she was alive, would have said he didn’t have enough meat on his bones. That was true. A walk like this would tire him out. If it wasn’t for the bracing easterly wind, he would have liked to continue. Perhaps I’ll be warmer walking down there, thought Ralph glancing down at the beach hut rooftops and the promenade below. Approaching a gap in the railings, he had a choice of continuing along the clifftop walk or taking the sloping pathway down to the beach.

  Ralph would rather not continue along this path. It wasn’t just to do with the wind. The problem was if he kept going, he would come upon the gap in the hedgerow that led into the back garden of The Gables.

  He didn’t want to feel tempted to look. What if the rear garden was an overgrown mess? He hadn’t thought to hire a gardener in his absence. It’s not as though a house sitter might tend to the garden. From his experience no one ever did anything for nothing, and they weren’t being paid to look after the garden too. In fact, they didn’t have to do much of anything, just sit and mind the house.

  When he’d phoned the estate agent, they had been cagey about whether they had found someone to house sit while he was away. Mind you, he had been a little cagey himself about when he intended to return. But surely, they would have found someone, thought Ralph. You couldn’t ask for a cushier number: sitting in someone’s home by the sea for months on end – and being paid for it. But the line had been bad, and he hadn’t been able to speak to them for long, just enough time to inform them the house sitter had to go.

  During that last conversation with the agents before he boarded his flight, he got the impression they did not fill the vacancy – something about a rumour floating around the town that the house on the clifftop was haunted. The crowded airport terminal was noisy, and Ralph couldn’t hear what they were saying at the end of the line.

  He’d switched off his mobile phone and boarded the flight thinking he must have got it wrong; why would anyone imagine the house was haunted? Ralph shook his head. That was the problem with small towns; somebody heard the news that the famous photojournalist’s wife died and so the rumour mill started. Ralph wasn’t interested in visiting the estate agents to find out. That could wait. For now, he was content to finish his afternoon walk.

  Chapter 5

  Ralph glanced at the brightly coloured beach huts as he walked along the promenade. Family groups were sitting on deckchairs outside, but most of them were locked. It was quieter this end of the beach. The irony was that these little wooden huts were so expensive, local families who would make more use out of them couldn’t afford to buy one. He wondered where the owners were; sunning themselves in Barbados no doubt.

  How things had changed. He recalled those school holidays decades ago in his youth when they were occupied by families and children enjoying endless hours of fun, running in and out of the sea, eating fish paste sandwiches and warming up with hot chocolate from a thermos flask. Those were the days thought Ralph recalling one beach hut owned by the parents of his best friend.

  Ralph took his hands out of his pockets and undid his blazer. He’d left that strong easterly wind behind. Down on the beach there was just a soft breeze. For the first-time all-day Ralph felt hot. He paused for a moment to take off his coat and roll up his shirt sleeves. He looked ahead as he did so and saw the concrete promenade ending where it gave way to sand. There were more huts further along in front of the sand dunes. Thinking of one in particular, Ralph wondered if it was still there.

  Since returning to Southwold and buying the house on the clifftop he had never ventured this far, either on his own or with his wife. She preferred the other end where she could sit with a cup of tea and a slice of cake in a café on the pier. He recalled one time when she was sitting enjoying the sea views he’d suggested taking a walk along the promenade. She’d said, “The only reason for venturing down there is if we owned a beach hut,” before slipping in a joke that he could always buy her one.

  They both knew that would not happen. It’s not that he wouldn’t have bought her one if that’s what she wanted, although the price of them was extortionate even by Southwold’s inflated property prices. But the truth was she wasn’t a sit on the beach, with the sand between her toes, kind of gal.

  Ralph reached the end of the path. If he’d been with his wife, and they ventured this far along the promenade, then this would have been their cue to turn around and head back. She wouldn’t slip off her shoes and walk on the sand. “That’s for the kiddies,” she would have said, although he longed to do it.

  There were times he’d wondered how she would have coped if they’d had children. What sort of mother would she have been? Would she have changed and done things like kick off her shoes to go play on the shingle and not cared if she’d got sand on her pristine outfit? Would life together have been different; fun and spontaneous, instead of dull and monotonous?

  Ralph stopped at the end of the path and looked at the sand in front of him. He didn’t want to think ill of his dead wife. It wasn’t her fault she was the sort of person who wouldn’t do those things. It wasn’t her fault he’d married her on the rebound and then realised his mistake; two wrongs didn’t make a right. By then it was too late. Marriage was for life. It was the way he’d been brought up; once he’d tied the knot, there was no going back – Till death do us part.

  It’s not as though they had a bad marriage – far from it. Like-minded and compatible they got on well together. In fact, Ralph couldn’t remember a cross word passing between them. Since she died, it was like he’d lost a close friend whom he’d loved dearly. But it wasn’t the love Ralph experienced once before in his life with his teenage sweetheart. He guessed that’s what falling in love felt like. And knowing the day they married that he would never experience that sort of head-over-heels love again. It wasn’t as though the girl he was besotted with since the day he set eyes on her at their local primary school would walk back into his life.

  He’d searched for her. Not for long though. A month after Clara left Southwold, he’d found out through her parents that she’d married. Just like that. Met someone else and forgotten him. So, he did that too. Tit for Tat. He’d moved on. Except he hadn’t. Not completely. The years might have dulled the pain of that rejection, but it was still there.

  Ralph sighed. He stepped on to the beach holding his shoes in one hand; the warm, soft sand between his toes. He tried to dismiss her from his mind. He’d probably never see her again, and the mystery why she left him and went to London would remain just that – a mystery. That brought to mind the old gravestone in the cemetery and his best friend, Tommy, who also disappeared from his life years ago.

  Ralph shook his head trying to dismiss him from his mind too. He focused on something else he’d been considering since his wife died. Ralph toyed with the idea of selling The Gables.

  It was his wife’s choice to retire here. She couldn’t understand why he was so against the idea. She was aware he’d grown up here, but he hadn’t put her in the picture about the history he had with the place – in particular, two young people he knew and loved years ago. To make matters worse, of all the properties she viewed on the market she fell in love with The Gables – the house Clara grew up in.

  Perhaps he should have told her about the house but then he saw the look on her face when she walked up the drive and The Gables came into view. What was the point of dragging up the past? If she liked the house, he might as well go along with it. Rather than try to talk her out of it, he built a detached garage with a studio apartment above so he could escape the house, and those memories, whenever he needed to.

  Ralph was walking along the beach when he slowed. He hadn’t ventured this far in a long time – years. Up ahead he saw a young man emerge from a hut. Ralph paused watching him throw his arms wide as if stretching after a good n
ight’s sleep. He appeared to be wearing just a pair of boxer shorts. If Ralph didn’t know better, it looked as though the young man may have spent the night here. He shrugged. What did it matter? It wasn’t any of his business.

  Ralph recalled many a time when they were teenagers, and his best friend had fallen out with his parents. On those occasions when Tommy needed to get away from the house, Ralph would find him at the beach hut. Sometimes he even stayed the night and slunk back home in the morning.

  His breath caught in his throat. For a moment Ralph imagined all the years had fallen away and it was Tommy standing on the veranda. His pace quickened, rationality giving way to emotion – how many times had he come down here in those first few days, weeks, and months when Tommy disappeared imagining he would turn up.

  Ralph slowed as he drew near and saw the young man bore no resemblance to Tommy. It was just his mind playing tricks on him. Besides, his best friend wouldn’t be a young man now; he’d be old like me, approaching sixty, thought Ralph. He rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. This place was stirring up memories he’d rather forget.

  Ralph turned away from the beach huts, and those memories, and retraced his steps up the path to the clifftop walk. He lingered at the top, catching his breath, and before he thought about it, he turned toward home. Through the gap in the hedge along the clifftop walk he appeared on the lawn at the back of his property.

  To his left down a small cobbled garden path was an unused vegetable garden. The couple who owned the property before him had visions of leading the good life when they retired here. Not long after they renovated the house, he became ill and his wife diagnosed with dementia, which ended their retirement dream. Ralph shook his head at the vegetable garden they never used. It made him wonder if The Gables was cursed. In his experience, something bad seemed to happen to whoever lived here.