Sleeping Tiger by Rosamunde Pilcher

know whether his car was meant as a joke or not. It looked as if it had been decorated for a Students’ Rag Week, and she longed to ask if he had painted the wheels yellow himself, but somehow hadn’t the nerve. They clambered in, and George piled Selina’s coat on her knee, then started the engine, jammed in the gear, and turned the car in a series of hair-raising forward and backward jerks. Disaster loomed. At one moment they seemed about to ram a solid wall. The next, their back wheels teetered at the edge of a steep alley of steps. Selina shut her eyes. When at last they shot forward and up the hill there was an overpowering smell of exhaust, and sinister clanking sounds came from somewhere beneath her feet. The seats sagged and had holes in them, and the floor, which had lost its carpeting years ago, resembled nothing so much as the bottom of a dustbin. For George’s sake, Selina hoped that his yacht was more seaworthy.
    But, for all that, there was something very friendly about driving through Cala Fuerte in George Dyer’s car. All the children screamed with laughter and waved, and shouted joyous salutations. All the women sitting in their gardens, or gossiping at their doors, turned to smile and send a greeting after them. All the men, sitting outside the cafés, walking home from work, stopped to let them go bowling by, with shouted pleasantries in Spanish which Selina didn’t understand, but which George Dyer evidently did.
    â€œWhat are they saying?”
    â€œThey want to know where I found my new Señorita.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œIsn’t that enough?”
    They came with a flourish up to the Cala Fuerte Hotel, and stopped so suddenly that a cloud of white dust rose from their wheels and coated the tables, and the drinks of the clients who sat on Rudolfo’s terrace enjoying the first aperitifs of the evening. An Englishman was heard to say, “Bloody cheek,” but George Dyer ignored him, climbed out of the car without bothering to open the door, and went up the steps of the terrace and through the chain curtain with Selina behind him.
    â€œRudolfo!”
    Rudolfo was behind the bar. He said, in Spanish, “There is no need to shout.”
    â€œRudolfo, where is the taxi-driver?”
    Rudolfo was not smiling. He poured a tray of drinks and said, “The taxi-driver has gone.”
    â€œGone? Didn’t he want his money?”
    â€œYes, he wanted his money. Six hundred pesetas.”
    â€œWho paid him?”
    â€œI did,” said Rudolfo. “And I want to talk to you. Wait till I serve my customers.”
    He came out from behind the bar, walked past them without a word, and disappeared through the chain curtain and on to the terrace. Selina stared at George. “Is he angry?”
    â€œAt a guess I’d say he was annoyed about something.”
    â€œWhere is Toni?”
    â€œHe’s gone. Rudolfo paid him off.”
    It took a second or so for the enormity of this to sink in. “But if he’s gone … how am I going to get back to San Antonio?”
    â€œGod knows.”
    â€œYou’ll have to take me.”
    â€œI am not driving back to San Antonio this evening, and even if I did, we still can’t buy you a plane ticket.”
    Selina bit her lip. She said, “Rudolfo seemed so nice before.”
    â€œLike all of us he has two sides to his character.”
    Rudolfo returned, the chain curtain clashed behind him, and he put down his empty tray and turned on George.
    He did it in Spanish which was perhaps just as well, for the language he employed was not for the ears of a delicately-nurtured young English Señorita. George, with spirit, defended himself. As their voices rose, Selina, unable to ignore the obvious fact that a good deal of the references were to herself, would say, “Oh, please tell me what it’s all about,” or “Couldn’t you say some of this in English