Three and One Make Five Read Online Free PDF

inquiries from the public.
    Alvarez stepped from the sun-blasted street into the comparative gloom and initially he couldn’t see clearly.
    ‘Hullo, Enrique,’ said a woman.
    He finally recognized her and the moment he did so he wondered how on earth he could have failed to identify her from her voice alone.
    Tracey was wearing a gaily embroidered blouse, green jeans, and rope-soled sandals. The lines of sorrow and worry had gone and now she looked young, vital, and laughingly eager to live twenty-four hours a day.
    She chuckled. ‘Is it such a terrible shock to find it’s me?’
    ‘Of course not,’ he protested, conscious that the guard at the desk, unable to understand what they were saying, was watching them with an interest which was based on a totally false and cynical assumption.
    ‘I couldn’t think of any way of finding you without coming here. I hope it’s all right?’
    ‘Of course it is . . . Would you like a coffee?’
    ‘I’d love one.’
    ‘Then let’s go to the square.’
    They walked to the doorway. ‘If anyone wants you,’ said the guard in Spanish, TU tell ‘em you’re engaged.’
    Alvarez, about to step outside, checked himself. ‘She’s a witness.’
    ‘Yeah. But a witness to what?’
    Tracey was waiting in the middle of the road and the sun was raising highlights in her curly hair. ‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you again, Enrique!’
    ‘It’s good for me, too.’
    ‘But why so serious about it?’ She laughed again and as they started along the road she seemed to be skipping rather than walking. ‘Did you expect to see me again?’
    ‘Not really. I thought you would be back on Barrats Hill.’
    She shook her head and the highlights in her hair danced. ‘Not yet.’ She touched his left arm lightly and for a second. ‘Not yet.’
    Had she not returned home because she wanted to see him again first: was that what she was really saying? . . . What bloody fool ideas could come to a man, he thought angrily. Yet nothing could alter the fact that she had gone to all the trouble of looking him up . . .
    They reached the end of the road and entered the square, both the geographical and spiritual centre of the village. Here, on land which sloped so that part had had to be built up, was held the vegetable market on Sunday, the livestock market on Tuesday, and the fish market every day: here were held the fiesta dances: here the old men sat out and through rheumy eyes watched the world slide by: here, the foreign residents drank and exchanged malicious gossip, wounding criticism, and ridiculous rumours.
    They climbed the stone steps up to the raised section, past flower-beds, and went over to a table set in the shadow of a plane tree. A waiter came across and she asked for coffee while he ordered coffee and a brandy.
    As she looked around the square, with the eager interest of a tourist, he studied her and knew a sudden pain that anyone could be so young and alive. Then she turned back to look directly at him and he said hurriedly, to try and hide his thoughts: ‘How have things been?’
    ‘Not so bad . . . That’s a lie. They became bloody difficult.’ She opened her handbag and brought out a pack of cigarettes. ‘The problems were too much and I’ve started smoking again. Just no will-power.’ She offered the pack and he took a cigarette, then struck a match for both of them.
    ‘The real trouble was,’ she said, ‘Roger’s wife arrived. God knows how he ever came to marry her. Frightfully, frightfully refined in superior style—and no one beats the British at that.’
    ‘Did she inherit the house?’
    ‘She did. But apparently there’s little beyond that so she’s not rich, as she probably hoped. And being a malicious bitch, that makes me feel good . . . But enough of my miseries. What’s been happening to you?’
    ‘Nothing changes here.’
    ‘You’re lucky. I sometimes wonder who really leads the happier life, me or my sister? I think I’d go