An Artistic Way to Go by Roderic Jeffries Read Free Book Online

The threat was all the more terrifying because it had never actually been spelled out.

CHAPTER 6
    When Dolores stepped through the bead curtain across the doorway from the kitchen, Alvarez and Jaime sat at the dining-room table and Isabel and Juan were lounging in chairs set in front of the television. She was about to speak when Jaime, never one to get his timing right, said: ‘Isn’t grub ready yet? I’m hungry.’
    She put her hands on her hips and held her strongly featured head high, her midnight-black hair providing a handsome corona. ‘Should I apologize humbly for the delay?’
    â€˜Humbly’ was not a word that came readily to her lips. Alvarez tried to express silently that he disassociated himself from Jaime’s question.
    â€˜It’s just … Well, I thought…’ Jaime became silent.
    â€˜You have forgotten? I have read many times that alcohol destroys the brain cells.’
    â€˜What are you on about?’
    â€˜You cannot recall that the gas gave out and I asked you to change the bottle? Or that I had to wait and wait until I could wait no longer or the cooking would be ruined and so I had to struggle to change it myself. Because of that, the meal will not be ready for a little while yet. But perhaps the fault is really mine. No doubt I should have allowed for the fact that when you are drinking, which is for most of the time, you cannot be bothered with anything so unnecessary as helping your wife.’ She lowered her hands, turned, swept through the bead curtain and back into the kitchen.
    â€˜I’ll swear she’s getting worse,’ Jaime muttered. ‘On at me every day. What have I done to deserve that? Nothing.’
    â€˜That’s what she’s complaining about,’ Alvarez said.
    â€˜Bloody funny!… I was going to change the gas as soon as I’d finished what I was doing. She expects me to run the moment she speaks. You know why women are like that these days, don’t you? It’s all that nonsense in the papers and on the telly about them being equal to men. Well, in this house, they aren’t. There’s only one boss and that’s me.’ He made certain Dolores wasn’t watching through the bead curtains, poured himself a large brandy, added ice. ‘She was very different when we were first married. Knew her place. Why do women change so?’
    â€˜They can be themselves once they’ve got all they want.’
    â€˜It’s bloody unfair.’ He drank. ‘You’re sensible; you’ve stayed single. You can walk along the beach and stare at all the bare titties and not have to pretend you’re looking at something else.’
    â€˜That’s all right until one gets old.’
    â€˜If you’ve had your fun, it’s easier to put up with things. In any case, all you have to do then is look for a widow with property.’
    Dolores appeared. ‘Is it Adela? Her land was some of the best when Luis, God rest his soul, was alive to farm it. The house in the village needs reformation since he was always so close with the money he’d never have any work done, but being so close there must be very many pesetas under the mattress. She’s a good woman. She wore black for a year and now is in grey.’ She smiled warmly at Alvarez. ‘I have always thought that one day you would mature sufficiently to stop lusting after foreign women who are little more than children.’
    Juan looked away from the television, that was showing advertisements. ‘What’s lusting mean?’
    â€˜Behaving like a man,’ she answered, her present good humour in sharp contrast to her earlier manner. ‘You and Isabel can lay the table.’ She returned into the kitchen.
    Isabel stood and went round to the sideboard, carved in a traditional pattern, pulled open a drawer and brought out a tablecloth with blue Mallorquin embroidery. ‘Clear the table,’ she