The Return by Victoria Hislop Page B

restaurant and café in the city subscribed to the myth.
     
    ‘Were you serious about wanting them to teach you flamenco?’ Sonia asked Maggie.
     
    ‘Yes, I was.’
     
    ‘But didn’t you think it looked tricky?’
     
    ‘I’d just like to learn the basics,’ said Maggie confidently.
     
    ‘Whatever those are,’ responded Sonia.
     
    It seemed to her that there could be nothing ‘basic’ about flamenco. Surely it had an entire culture of its own, and she felt mildly irritated that Maggie had not recognised that.
     
    ‘Why are you so down on it?’ snapped Maggie.
     
    ‘I’m not down on it at all,’ replied Sonia. ‘I’m just not entirely sure it isn’t like being a Brit who comes on a cheap package holiday and asks whether he can learn how to be a bullfighter. It just doesn’t look as though it can be done.’
     
    ‘Fine. But if you don’t want to do it, it doesn’t stop me, does it?’
     
    The two women were rarely out of tune like this and when it happened it took them both by surprise. Sonia could not explain to herself why she felt so irritated by Maggie’s attitude and by her assumption that she could penetrate the outer layer of this culture, but she felt it showed disrespect.
     
    They finished eating in a silence that Maggie eventually broke.
     
    ‘Coffee?’ she asked, wanting to clear the air.
     
    ‘ Con leche ,’ responded Sonia with a smile. They could not sulk with each other for long.
     
    As the mid-afternoon sunshine was fading to an ochre glow, Sonia and Maggie returned to their hotel. The streets were now deadly quiet; the traffic had vanished and the shops remained firmly closed. They too would follow the Spanish pattern and take to their beds for a few hours of afternoon siesta. Sonia had slept very little the previous night and was now beginning to feel jaded.
     
    Though the curtains filtered only a fraction of the light, nothing would have stopped Sonia falling into a deep sleep that afternoon. The sound of cars honking their horns, the wail of a police siren and the banging of doors in the corridor would normally have been enough to wake her, but for several hours she was in a state of blissful unconsciousness.
     
    When they woke, it was dusk, and light no longer streamed in. This was the major flaw in the siesta habit, having to get out of bed just as the dying light was telling your body and mind that it was time to climb into it.
     
    Now it was Sonia’s turn to have difficulty stirring and Maggie who bounced out of bed.
     
    ‘Come on, Sonia, time to go out!’
     
    ‘Go out? Where?’
     
    She was half asleep, bleary-eyed, confused and in a bemused state of semi-wakefulness in which she could not quite remember where she was.
     
    ‘That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To go out dancing?’
     
    ‘Dancing? Mmm . . .’
     
    Her body was still heavy with a not-quite-fulfilled need to sleep. Her head throbbed. She could hear the sound of Maggie in the shower, singing, whistling, humming, her joie de vivre almost bursting through the bathroom wall. She could not face dancing tonight.
     
    Maggie came back into the room, her hair wound up into a tall turban, a second towel tightly drawn across her breasts, her naked chest and shoulders dark against the whiteness. Sonia watched her.There was something majestic, even statuesque about this woman. Maggie continued to hum as she dressed, pulling on jeans and a white ruffled shirt, and fastening a wide, leather belt. Her face glowed from the warmth of the shower and the few hours of sunshine they had enjoyed earlier that day. She seemed lost in her own thoughts and it was as though she had forgotten Sonia was there.
     
    ‘Maggie?’
     
    She turned round and sat on the end of her bed, fiddling with a pair of hooped earrings. ‘Yes?’ she replied, her head tilted to one side.
     
    ‘Would you mind if I didn’t come out tonight?’
     
    ‘Of course I wouldn’t. But it seems a bit of a shame. We did come here