The Healing of Broken Souls

Chapter 10

I was woken up on Sunday morning by the insistent chime of a church bell. The apartment Helen rented in Valencia's old town was a few hundred yards from the cathedral and early mass began at six-thirty. Helen was still asleep. She was used to the bell. She'd lived there for ten years.

I lay motionless, reluctant to disturb the lithe body pressed against mine. We'd had a frenetic night following our meal and a shared bottle of Rioja. But I had the feeling that something was troubling her. Although she'd tried to be her usual jokey, mickey-taking self, she'd fallen silent several times in the restaurant, seemingly lost in her private thoughts.

Eventually, Helen twitched, yawned, and stretched like a cat. She leapt out of bed, buck-naked, and swept back the curtains on the French windows overlooking the street. I hoped none of the passing churchgoers happened to glance up.

"It's a lovely sunny morning," she announced brightly.

"Every morning is sunny here," I pointed out.

"Not so, Lewis. It rained one morning last month. I remember it distinctly.  I had to buy an umbrella. Let's go out for breakfast."

"Can't I enjoy the view for a few minutes more?"

"Of course, you can, but ... fair's fair!" Before I could react she snatched the sheet off the bed. "Did you ever play 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'? Hmm, not bad ... for a geriatric!"

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto the bed. "I'll teach you to call me a geriatric!"

"Oh goody!" she giggled.

#

An hour later we walked hand in hand down the street to a cafe and ordered breakfast. I watched Helen tuck into her scrambled eggs with buttered toast as if she hadn't eaten for a week. I always marvelled that she could eat anything she wanted and stay so slim. If I ate a Pringle I had to do twenty sit-ups to work it off. I sipped my black coffee, wondering what Helen saw in me.  At 33 she was 15 years younger than I was, and she often razzed me about my age. I was certainly no sugar daddy. More often than not, she picked up the bill when we went out.

"Penny for them?" Helen said, and I realized I was miles away.

"I was wondering what a gorgeous, sexy creature like you, sees in an old stager like me."

"Maybe it's your rugged good looks," she shrugged. "I don't like men who are prettier than me."

"Rugged? In my thesaurus, that's a synonym for ugly."

"The truth is, Michael, you're the only man I've ever met who I feel I can trust. I know there isn't going to be a secret wife or any hidden agenda. When I take a group out on my dive boat I rely on the anchor to stop it drifting away and leaving us stranded. You're my life anchor, Michael, you keep me grounded, and I know I can tell you anything."

"Wow!" I said. "That was quite a speech. I'm flattered. But if you can tell me anything, why haven't you told me what's bothering you? I've been picking up vibes that you're worried about something."

Helen sighed.

"I didn't want to trouble you with it because I know you won't be able to help, but, there was a cruise ship in port yesterday, and I didn't get a single customer."

"Most of those ships are full of elderly people," I reasoned. "Some even older than me! Maybe they were all too decrepit to go scuba diving."

"No, just the opposite. There were so many booked for the dive day that the excursion director called me to say my school was too small. They had to use a bigger school on the other side of the port."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Helen. But there are other cruise lines aren't there?"

"That one is my biggest regular customer. It's the bread-and-butter income from them that covers my overheads. The director told me they're looking to sign an exclusive contract with a dive school this July and, unless I expand my business, I'm out of the running. I need another boat, maybe two, and bigger premises. The odd group of locals and occasional walk-ins aren't enough to keep me afloat, if you'll excuse the pun."

"Okay, so you've got about six weeks. What about your bank?"

"I'll call them tomorrow morning and make an appointment to see the manager, but I'm not optimistic. I would need about 200,000 euros and I don't have any collateral. Boats aren't like houses. They don't increase in value."

"You've got some wealthy acquaintances. Perhaps they'd invest?"

"I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them."

"I could mortgage my finca," I said, without considering how I could possibly afford the repayments.

Helen came out of her seat and hugged me, kissing my cheek, and I felt the moist touch of tears against my face.

"I would never let you do that, Michael, but I love you for offering."

My heart skipped a beat. Did 'I love you for offering' mean 'I love you', or was it just a figure of speech? The idea that Helen could love me thrilled me to the core ... because I was sure that I loved her.

#

Helen had a small party of holidaymakers booked in for that afternoon and had to go and get her boat ready, so I was home by eleven. 

"Did you have a good time?" my father enquired.

"Yes, thanks," I said noncommittally. I wasn't prepared to divulge anything about my feelings for Helen to him. "Do you want to go hemipode hunting this afternoon?"

"Let's take the day off and start again tomorrow," he suggested.

"That suits me. I've got a few things to do."

I went to the mill's old grain store I'd converted into a writing room and booted up the all-in-one computer I used for creating my masterworks. The first thing I did was download the entire mp3 file from the voice recorder. I put on a pair of headphones and checked the sound quality. To my relief, even with sporadic rustling noises from my shirt pocket, it was clear enough. I put the recorder on charge and then got busy with a short story I was hoping to sell to an American magazine that had published some of my work recently. 

I only had to write eight thousand $25 stories and I'd be able to bail Helen out.