300 Days of Sun (8 page)

 

 

i

N
athan's hair was wet from the shower and his shirt was on inside out. The sight of him in the little studio, as I let myself in, was oddly disconcerting.

“How did you sleep?” I asked, knowing he had been out for the count for at least ten hours. I shut the door behind me with an elbow and put my bags down on the table. “I went out to get some bread and ham and fruit and stuff for breakfast.”

“That's a lot of shopping.”

“I didn't know what you'd want.”

He rubbed his face. “Thanks, Jo—­really, thanks a lot. You OK?”

“Fine. I sat up reading for too long but apart from that, all good.”

I felt pretty bleary, to tell the truth. After my night reading Esta Hartford's book, immersed in a different time and situation, the present had a jagged, unreal edge to it. The feeling was compounded by the sight of Nathan pulling apart a pack of biscuits and flopping into a decadent pose in the room's only chair. I forced myself to concentrate on the reasons he was here, and the questions that disturbed me as much as the puddles of his clothes on the floor. More questions than before, not the least being how Esta Hartford's supposedly true story could possibly have a bearing on the here and now.

“What day is it?” he asked.

“Sunday.”

“Thought so. Just wasn't, you know, sure.”

I made us both some instant coffee, which he took with two teaspoons of the sugar I'd just bought, guessing that it would be needed.

“I need to go to Vale Navio,” he said, between mouthfuls. “Then on to Horta das Rochas. I've been putting it off because I wanted to find out as much as I could beforehand.”

“What can you do there?”

He shrugged. “Ask around about Terry Jackson. See if I can get a handle on where he is now. Better than sitting here doing nothing.”

“But I thought Vale Navio was derelict now.” I'd looked it up online when he'd first mentioned the place to me. Google images had shown the hotel complex deserted and shaggy with scrubby weeds. “Will there be anyone there to ask? Even if it was a good idea to ask around openly about Terry Jackson, which, incidentally, I don't think it is.”

“There's no more I can do anywhere else. So that's where I'm going.”

“Hang on a minute. Let's think this through. How are you going to get there?”

“Train? Buses? It can't be that hard.”

I shook my head. “Better to hire a car. I'm coming with you.”

“You don't have to.”

The way he said it, turning to me so the deep blue of his eyes lasered mine, was probably as close as he would get to saying that he wanted me along.

“I know I don't have to. But I am.”

He didn't argue.

“Do you want to go back to your room, get a change of clothes, or something?”

“I've got a few things in my bag.”

“Just one thing before we leave then,” I said, not wanting to ask why, exactly, he carried spare clothes in his rucksack. “You might want to put your shirt on the right way out.”

T
he heat was still uncomfortable, like hot breath on the skin. Within ten minutes my forehead was wet and irritated under the band of my straw hat.

We had decided to hire the car from the airport; the rental places there would be able to let us have one immediately and more discreetly than anywhere in town. I wanted us to be as anonymous as possible, just in case.

The easiest way to the airport was by bus. At the bus shelter, a woman of about forty—­an old, careworn forty—­sat on the plastic bench and poured bottled water on a deformed leg. Her heel stuck out at an angle; it must have been hard to walk on. I watched, unable to stop myself, as she washed both feet, both legs, with slow, methodical relief, then tipped her head back against the bus shelter, eyes closed, the black hairs on her shins slicked and gleaming. Nathan watched her and I could see he was wondering whether he could help her in some way, but in the end decided there was nothing he could offer. She remained seated as our bus arrived and filled.

The passengers on this route were an unusual mix. The bus to the airport went on to Faro beach, meaning that those with suitcases jostled for seats with ­people in flip-­flops carrying swimming bags: the air travellers, steeled for delays and inconveniences; and the relaxed, enjoying the prospect of a few aimless hours of splashing and sunbathing; each of us, in our differing ways, suspending normal life.

At the entrance to the airport, the bus took a rolling surge past the monolithic Soviet-­style statues of sturdy ­people gazing up at planes in the sky. We alighted by the line of taxis; Nathan went to buy the most detailed street map of the Albufeira region available while I hired a basic white Seat Leon for a week.

Forty minutes later we were heading west. I drove and Nathan held the map open on his knees, with no macho posturing about already knowing the way.

“If you don't mind taking the toll road, it won't be much more than half an hour,” he said.

“Let's do it.”

We could see the dual carriageway carving away from the hills behind Faro and into low scrub, orchards, and sun-­baked grass. The traffic was light, but the reason became clear as soon as we drove up and tried to pay the toll. It accepted only prepaid electronic tickets and there was nowhere to pay by coin or bank card.

“Looks like it's the back roads for us, then.” I turned the car around.

“Someone was telling me about the chaos the Portuguese have made of their
estradas
since they decided to try and raise money by charging to use the motorways that used to be free. They've spent more money making these half-­baked tolls than they've raised in revenue, and hardly anyone uses them. Meanwhile, the other roads are being overused and need more repairs. Leaving everyone out of pocket and angry. It's been a complete cock-­up.”

“Did that come from your bus driver mate?”

“Yeah, think it might have been. OK, then, we take the second exit off this roundabout onto the N125.”

It wasn't hard to find Vale Navio as we approached on the Estrada de Vilamoura. We passed well-­kept properties with gleaming white walls and palms growing in neat gardens and long low villas. It all gave a pleasant impression of the suburban dream fulfilled in the sun.

Nathan reached down into his bag and removed something I couldn't see.

“What's that?”

“Wire cutters.”

I thought better of asking where he'd got them, or even making some smart comment.

Vale Navio was only a few hundred metres off the main road and, rather unexpectedly, I drove straight in. There were no rusty gates or padlocks to be broken.

“It's the middle of nowhere,” said Nathan, craning round in his seat. “Why would you come out here when you could be in a resort by the sea or closer to all the action in Albufeira?”

Why indeed? We followed the drive through grey-­streaked apartment blocks constructed in a style that gave equal nods to the Moorish and the package holiday market with its expectation of private balconies. It was a ghost village. Weeds were rampant. Scrubby bushes pushed through the walls of the grounds and the concrete pathways; overgrown plants reached up to the higher storeys and hung weeds from the balconies.

The main buildings had once been elegant colonnades, low and curving under a red roof. Now the white masonry paint was a dirty, pitted grey, as if smudged and shaded in a charcoal drawing. Here and there on walls patched with rain stains were scribbles of graffiti.

“Looks completely empty,” said Nathan.

“It may not be. There are probably squatters somewhere.”

I pulled up and parked discreetly behind a bank of bushes that would soon be small trees.

Nathan sprang out of the car and marched off without a word.

I followed him more slowly up the path towards what looked like the main building. Spikes of tough grass that sprang from cracks scratched my legs. In what was once the landscaped approach, the shallow saucer of a water feature held grass and rubble. The atmosphere was a long way from a holiday welcome; as I walked, shoulders back and doing my best impression of an innocently curious tourist, I was aware that someone could very well be watching us from any one of hundreds of black windows.

“It's all open,” said Nathan as I caught up.

He was right. There seemed to be no doors or windows remaining; they must have been stolen and recycled years ago. The structure looked sound enough, though. Inside, a reception area was a shock of bright, vapid colours and builders' debris on the floor. The walls were painted with thick stripes of daffodil yellow and orange. On one side of a garish turquoise archway was a cartoonish mural of a shapely woman in a red dress and a man in a Mexican hat kneeling to kiss her hand.

“It looks like something out of Disneyland,” said Nathan. “Not that I've ever been.”

“Extraordinary.”

“Someone's come and hacked off all the tiles over there.”

“And the floor, too.”

We crunched through shards of broken terra-­cotta and broken plastic and screwed-­up paper and through to a large open room decorated in the same style. It was like walking into an animated film set in Mexico.

“All that's missing is the spray of bullet holes,” said Nathan.

“Don't joke.”

“I wasn't.”

I bent down to pick up a pad of bills I'd kicked. “This was the restaurant,” I said. “The ‘Mexiko,' look.”

“Very original.”

“That must have been the kitchen through there, though everything's been ripped out.”

Nathan wandered back to the reception counter and started looking behind it. I went into an office. On the floor under a sagging shelf were thick ring binder files spewing their contents. I picked up a handful of papers. Many of them were in English, complaints from guests about the cleanliness of the accommodation, the quality of the food, and general unhelpfulness of the staff, issues that could reasonably have been solved; and others, mostly about the distance from the sea, which could not. I noted the dates (2001 to 2003) and flipped through the other files but found nothing of interest.

“Not sure I'd want to come here alone at night,” I said.

“Some of the damage could have been done by sledge-­hammer.”

I started. “What was that?”

“What?”

“Shh . . .”

We waited.

“I thought I heard rustling,” I said.

“Can't hear anything. Maybe a rat.”

It could have been, or perhaps some far larger feral creature had us in its sights. “Let's go, there's nothing here.” I didn't want to tell Nathan how scared I'd been for those few seconds.

Outside, the ragged palm trees were a reminder of sunshine breaks and better times.

“Not too many ­people around to ask about Terry Jackson,” I said.

“Looks like it's been a while, doesn't it? He used to drink at The Lucky Horseshoe. Always mentioned it. He spent a lot of time there, and it was where he did some of the business that we didn't ask about.”

“We could try the riding centre,” I said, scrolling through a saved email I'd sent myself with notes about this sad outpost of the Algarve.

Nathan narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn't believe anyone could be that stupid. “The Lucky Horseshoe. It's a pub—­or a bar, anyway.”

I mirrored his expression. “Well, yes it is. But it doesn't seem to be here, does it. And the riding centre is one of the few parts of Vale Navio that is still up and running, and perhaps the name of the bar implies the riding centre was quite close by.”

His face changed, lit by a smile, and he pointed a finger at me. “I like the way you're thinking.”

We got back into the car and tried to drive a little further around the complex to find The Lucky Horseshoe. First one road, then another ended in a mound of compacted earth deliberately placed across the tarmac to make a dead end. It took me a nine-­point turn by the filthy hole of a swimming pool to turn around.

There was no sign of any building that might once have been Terry Jackson's local.

“
Vale Navio used to be really lively—­it was lovely.”

The riding stables were small and friendly. A small group of children were just leaving the well-­kept yard on leading reins. Horses in the paddock were sleek and well-­muscled. The slim, middle-­aged Englishwoman who introduced herself as the owner—­“Call me Pip, everyone else does”—­was clearly used to questions about the timeshare resort, though her diplomacy was too ingrained to let much slip. No amount of jaunty yellow and white paint on the low stable buildings could mask the unavoidable reality that they were hard up against the abandoned resort, however. It was an eerie outlook onto Vale Navio's weed-­tufted apartments.

“Once you get out into the countryside, it's gorgeous here,” she assured us. “There are fig and banana and cork trees to hack through. Lots of lovely wildlife. It's really unspoilt, a taste of the old Algarve.”

“Business looks good, here. Lots of lovely write-­ups online,” I said.

“We're doing fine. What is it that you want to know, exactly?”

“Can you remember when the complex closed down?” asked Nathan.

“You'd be amazed how many times I'm asked that,” said Pip. “It was in 2003. By all accounts, everyone got too greedy: the developers, the investors—­and the criminal gangs who were rumoured to have taken over the timeshare operation. But the rot set in long before then. Around 1992 or 1993, someone involved in the resort did a runner with a wodge of cash from sales of new apartments that were going to be built. After that the place gradually went bankrupt. The hotel went downhill and the tourists stopped coming. The owners of the timeshares had lawyers on the case for years but never got anywhere. Their deeds weren't worth the paper they were printed on. The banks foreclosed on their investments. But some of the private villas on the complex are still lived in.”