The Street Musician – Part 2: Late Supper

The bar was a tiny, tiled room with a zinc counter and six stools, and it smelled of olive oil and garlic. They ate fried anchovies, ham, a tortilla thick with potato and drank cold sherry from tulip glasses until one in the morning. They talked about Leeds and Seville, music and classroom chaos and what it meant to be thirty-something and a little restless.

"I'm not very good at this," said Alex.

"At holiday?"

"At being brave."

"You were very brave," said Marisol, "to sit on a stool for four nights."

"It was the oranges."

"It was not the oranges."

They walked home through the empty streets, the cobbles shining under the lamps, with the air warm and sweet. At a quiet corner Marisol stopped and turned.

"I said I'd like to kiss you. At the end of dinner. We're at the end of dinner."

"We are," said Alex. "Please."

The kiss was warm and slow and tasted of sherry and orange. Marisol's guitar-calloused fingertips ran gently along Alex's jaw. Alex laughed and kissed her back, and her heart sang.

"I live up there," said Marisol, nodding at a balcony of red geraniums. "I could play you a song. Just you. If you wanted to hear it."

"I'd like that more than anything."

The flat was small and warm, with a tiled floor, a bed in an alcove and a window thrown open to the night. Marisol sat on the edge of the bed with the guitar and played, quietly, a slow, tender melody that Alex had never heard. When she finished, she set the guitar down and held out her hand. Alex took it. They undressed slowly by lamplight, laughing at buttons and tangled braids, and their love-making was gentle, unhurried and tender, with the soft hush of Seville outside the window.

In the morning, Alex woke to the sound of a guitar and the smell of coffee. Marisol sat cross-legged on the bed in a long shirt, playing something new.

"What's that one called?" asked Alex.

"I haven't named it."

"Name it."

"Four Nights," said Marisol, smiling. "I'll play it for you again tonight. And tomorrow."

"I've got a flight on Friday."

"Then we have until Friday." She grinned. "And then we'll see how long a flight really is."

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