The Innocence has Gone, Daddy

By Drew Launay

Set in the Nerja of the early ‘70s, Jey Maudran, 45, a pioneer property developer on the Eastern Costa del Sol, is more interested in enjoyment than making money. Attractive and spoilt by women who cared more for him than he did for them, his latest mistress has released him from a gradually stagnating relationship. He cherishes a return to bachelorhood when beautiful 18 year old Julie appears..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Drew Launay
• Release date: Oct 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452379135

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THE INNOCENCE HAS GONE, DADDY

by

Drew Launay

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY

Paul Bradley, Nerja, Malaga, Spain

The Innocence has Gone, Daddy

Copyright © 2010 by Drew Launay

First published under the pseudonym Andre Launay in Great Britain in 1974 by Cassells / New English Library. Ballantines US.

Cover Illustration by Melissa Launay

The moral right of Drew Launay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

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THE INNOCENCE HAS GONE, DADDY

by

Drew Launay

CHAPTER 1

‘Darling, can you come and sit on the suitcase?’

He sat on the suitcase, the largest of the three matching pigskins.

She got down on her knees and clicked it shut.

‘I suppose that’s it?’

After twenty-four hours of weeping and drama it was about time. In just a little while it would be all over. The everlasting peace and tranquillity and bachelorhood would follow. He’d never get involved again. Never.

‘Will you be all right by yourself?’ She put her arms round his neck as she pulled herself up.

‘I’ll manage.’ The irritation was going to show through if he wasn’t careful.

‘I’m going to miss you terribly. Are you going to miss me?’

He got up, gently broke away and handed her her crocodile handbag.

‘We’ve been through all that. Don’t make it harder on yourself or on me. You know I’ll miss you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

He picked up the three suitcases. They were heavy but somehow he was going to get them all to the car at once. When the door was closed she wasn’t going to have any excuse to go back.

‘You’ve got my address?’ She asked.

‘Of course.’

‘But I’ll write first anyway. God ... to think I’ll have to sleep with Jacques tonight.’

Poor Jacques.

No. That wasn’t fair. Sooner or later he would miss her there, in bed. But he needed a rest.

God he needed the rest!

He put the suitcases in the boot while she looked back at the villa. She went into a drama bit about leaving it forever, about how happy she had been there, about how happy she was that he was buying it, then noticed he was holding the door for her, so got in.

‘Do you think I ought to take the pills now?’

‘Not yet. Wait till we’re at the airport. You’ll have time enough.’

They were off then at last. Down the short black tarmac drive to the dusty stony track, the olive trees on either side bending in the sudden wind.

‘Paris’ll be murder after this.’

He would let her talk. He would just drive. He would drive and concentrate on the road and not get involved in any argument, in any sentimentality. Onto the straight but bumpy main road to Malaga now with the blue green sea and small deserted beaches on the left and the rocks and sugar cane fields on the right and the mountains beyond. Algarrobo, Benajarafe, Rincon de la Victoria, the square, one-storeyed houses, whitewashed monthly, the brand-new aluminium street lights, the plastic bar signs everywhere, all taking the eye off the more rewarding palm tree or mule, or coupled oxen. It would all be built up soon, holiday villas all the way, holiday blocks instead of fishermen’s boats on the beaches, and he would be responsible for some of it.

‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.

‘ Mmmmmmmm.’

‘Since I saw Jacques. Seven months. It’s a long time.’

She was already in Paris, in her apartment with its fifteen bedrooms, twelve kitchens, ten bathrooms and a hundred servants, or whatever it was.

‘Perhaps I should have got there before him. Like yesterday I mean. Do you think arriving the same day is wrong?’

‘No, I think it’s right. He can take you out to dinner and you can hold hands and talk over the past and the future from the same starting point. Neither of you will have had time to get more established than the other in your old home.’

And she started crying again.

He didn’t have to ask why. He had just opened up the very box of tricks he had successfully managed to close three days ago. He would have to think up something really clever now to shut her up till they got to the airport.

‘The main thing to think about is the sort of life you’ll be leading which you really enjoy. The new collections, the cinemas, theatres, friends...."

‘Oh, shut up!’

Her momentary anger dried the tears and he overtook a lorry on a bend which was risky, but it took her mind off the situation. It took his off it, anyway.

Two hours more to go at the most. There’d be the checking in and the last drink at the bar, the buying of magazines and papers. He would waste five minutes in the servicio, and there was the parking of the car. He’d make it.

‘When will I see you again Jey?’

‘October when I come to Paris.’ It was a lie. He wasn’t going to go.

‘You’re so matter of fact about it. Do you care?’

He slowed the car down deliberately and turned to look at her.

‘If you must know. I care. Let’s not make it worse than it is.’

He switched on the radio and the inevitable hand-clapping, heel-tapping flamenco jarred the nerves a bit more, but he left it on. An hour and twenty minutes to go. She’d be through the customs barrier, pigskin cases, wet handkerchief and all. How could he be so impatient to get rid of someone he’d loved? How long could he have gone on pretending he was happy with her?

‘Oh, Jey, I’ve got awful news. Jacques has been promoted and is going back to Paris and wants me to join him. I can’t refuse....’

And he had suddenly been made aware of his release. ‘It was a promise, if he got a new post and had to put up a respectable front I’d go back ... so I’ve got to.’ And he’d pretended from then on that it was a shock.

He’d miss her of course. He’d miss her in ways he couldn’t imagine. Something would happen tomorrow or the day after that would make him want her. But he’d had enough for a while. He’d really had enough. The jealous scenes when it wasn’t necessary, the unawareness when annoyance would have been understandable, late nights when he wanted to go to bed early, and her insecurity, her guilt, her need to state her position in the social scale as though it mattered. Her incessant talk of money. Well, she’d have that now.

‘Are you going by the harbour or through the centre?’

‘Don’t know. Why?’

‘Go through the centre, I love those trees so much.’

Malaga at last, past the bullring on the left, the fountain and the central avenue of trees, the promise of heat and coolness in the shadows, the colourful buggies with horses wearing funny straw hats. He’d be seeing them in an hour again. It was nice to be staying.

Fifteen minutes later, the airport, the stubborn policeman in blue uniform, helmet and black boots, prohibiting parking to make it difficult to get near the departures entrance. He ignored the waves as everyone did, got out, signalled a porter to get the luggage out of the boot. From now on it would be downhill.

And it was all quicker than expected. She was as anxious as he was to get it over. Maybe she had been pretending all along too. Maybe she was delighted to go back to Jacques and be rid of the comparatively dull life he led. But then the tears. Was she that good an actress?

The check-in, the flight number called unusually promptly. A quick gin and tonic to swallow the tranquillizers. Would he be on the roof? He didn’t have to stay if he didn’t want to. The nervous squeezing of hands, passport clutched with ticket and gloves, an awareness of tears in his own eyes, of unwanted sorrow.

‘Goodbye Cherry.’

Christ, did he want her to stay?

A wave, dark glasses down. Stamp, stamp from the insensitive customs official who saw the same thing every day a hundred times.

No looking back.

He turned on his heels and walked down the marble hall, up the stairs to the terrace bar. The sun, the powerful breeze, the deafening jets. KLM, Iberia, Lufthansa and Air France.

Eventually the passenger bus and her slim figure appearing below and looking up and waving. In control now. Dressed beautifully of course, chic, men turning round to look at her, at her legs. And the unexpected pride that she was his.

Had been his.

So soon? The feeling that he would miss her. Perhaps he only loved her when she was dressed.

The bus off, the figures bobbing up the gangway, the scream of jets, the stream of exhaust and a dot in the sky.

All over.

The end of the affair.

And he was surprised to find himself in need of a stiff whisky before driving back. Unusual for him. Unusual to have to ward away the thoughts that were coming in on him. Cherry in Paris hugged and kissed by a husband he did not know, rich, successful, her life not his, much more her life, one he couldn’t possibly offer her, if he wanted to?

There would be contact with her of course, the very contact he thought he would not want, the house. The nearly necessary letters to ask about boundaries or drainage, the payments over five years, and after a while she might come back. How strange to want her so quickly, to miss her, to fear the lonely drive back and the empty house.

Then he caught the smile of an air hostess who wanted to be vulnerable, and he put his empty glass down and realized that maybe, maybe, it was for the best.

The villa was full of reminders of course. Her scent in the bedroom and the labels of her new sweaters in the empty drawers of the cupboard, the painting she had bought in Marbella, and the gold lighter that did not work.

The bed was made, Esperanza had been and the breakfast things were washed up and put away. It was evening, six o’clock, the time of day he liked least. There was nothing to do but wait for tomorrow, the plans he had of moving the furniture around to make the place more lived in, more his, would have to wait. He was too tired now.

A bath, a long deep bath and maybe another drink, and maybe a stroll down to the town, alone, a visit to the old bars he hadn’t visited for months, that was what he would do.

The first feeling of freedom came when he turned on the taps without having to tell her what he was doing. She would have asked ‘What are you doing? ‘I’m having a bath,’ and there would have been a comment. Nothing much, nothing meaningful or important, just a remark, like ‘Early isn’t it?’ or I’ll have one after you.’ That was the one that jarred.

He watched the steam coming up from the water. He started to undress, and just the feel of himself, just the sight of himself in the mirror brought home the intimacy he was going to miss.

She really loved him. She really loved being near him.

Perhaps she loved being near Jacques just as much?

He got into the water, stretched the taut muscles, lay back, relaxed and closed his eyes.

A bachelor again.

After twenty years of emotional disasters, a bachelor again.

It was just past ten when he parked the car in the small square in front of the church. He got out, watched by the youths of Reina-del-Mar waiting outside the cinema opposite where posters promised blood and violence in an ancient film, and paused to look up at the tall palm trees shining white against the black night sky.

He avoided the Paseo where the locals walked up and down before going to bed and where the majority of foreigners sat at cafe tables sipping their last gins, and decided to have a walk around the town.

Up Calle Generalisimo Franco then, with its one remaining town house and beautifully wrought iron gate leading to an inner courtyard filled with potted plants, and next to it the new Moroccan shop selling kaftans and jelahbas, brass trays and leather work, run by a wild-eyed hairy artist from Casablanca.

To the right the Mexican restaurant owned by the couple from East Side, New York, and further up the electrical shop, the shoe shop, the Spanish haberdashery displaying plastic egg cups and musical boxes, and into the narrow street leading to Palamino’s, the oldest bar in town.

Whitewashed houses, tiled roofs, the tin drain-pipes cut to look like simple gargoyles, the recently finished Banco de Iberia all glass and marble fascia with leather armchairs, silence and peace inside. The souvenir shop next to it, overcrowded with postcards and sunglasses, Kodak film to suit every camera in the world and last week’s newspapers from London, Paris, the States.

Round into the quiet residential street, no commerce here, true Andalusia with its ground floor iron window grilles sticking far out into the street forcing the pavement pedestrian into the road, and sudden shouts, sudden laughter as two boys on bicycles in bright Carnaby Street T-shirts, one with a hamburger stuck in his mouth, the other precariously balancing a small guitar across his handlebars, came racing down, the privileged foreigners followed by Paco and Manuel, Manolo and Sebastien, Miguel, Sanchez and Emilio running behind, screaming.

And in the doorways the quieter girls, so beautiful with their large wide eyes, black hair in pigtails, short skirts, mini-faldas, spotless, the older ones sporting slacks daringly, no jeans, jeans were only for the hippies.

And the aged grandmothers and great grandmothers, buns of grey hair, dressed in ever black, shouting for help from in front of the television —Carmen! Rosario! Pilar! Angelita! go and get your brother, your cousin, your uncle, your father.

He walked down Calle Granada, not sure where he was going, but aware that he was enjoying the feeling of Spain, what was left of it. At certain hours of the day it was still Spanish, when the foreigners went home prior to going out on the town, or around now when they were in the bars busy drinking. The old fishing village came back to life then, the mules came back from the campo and were walked through the front rooms to the stables at the back, the housewife energetically mopping up whatever dirt was left on the way.

A new estate agency where the old house had been pulled down, German this time, it made a change from the English and Belgian. And he went into the Mar-y-Sol for the first copa of wine.

Tapas? The free snack with every glass. He had a fried sardine and a leaf of lettuce soused with vinegar, each served on a separate little white oval plate.

The bread man was there, and the postman’s brother, a few fishermen who knew him by sight, the man who sold motorcycles on the main road. What a very different life they led. Where were their horizons? Where was his? And who was better off?

Happier?

He did the round after that, the Spanish round, the Mariscos, Pepe Gomez, the Taverna Toledano, the Piscina, the one without a name where they served pinchitos and chicken livers in wine sauce, the Casino, small and noisy, and finally, well past midnight, into the more sophisticated surroundings of the Aquarius Bar after collecting the car.

He had a brandy, sipped it slowly, felt pleasantly tired and now knowing he would easily go to sleep, decided to call it a day.

Then the American girl came in.

She was eighteen, maybe twenty, a little shorter than him, slim, freckles, chestnut hair. She wore the standard uniform for young American travellers, the well-worn Levis, the faded T-shirt with no bra, Moroccan beads, leather purse. There was nothing original about her, nothing special to rave about, except her blatant sexiness.

‘What do people drink around here?’

Innocence itself. Did she really imagine that he would think she wanted to know.

He didn’t answer but just looked at her.

‘I’m sorry. You don’t speak English. Habla español?’

Delightful.

‘I speak English,’ he said.

It sounded plummy. Maybe he had had more than he thought.

He sat up.

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he went on, ‘staring like this, but you remind me of someone ... but I can’t think who.’

She smiled.

It was true, however banal it sounded, she reminded him of someone, and he couldn’t think who it was.

‘You’re the man with the blue Citroen and the beautiful wife,’ she said.

‘The Citroen yes, the wife no. That is, she’s not my wife and she’s gone.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He was about to say he wasn’t, but that wasn’t true, so he said nothing.

‘What will you have?’ He asked.

‘What are you drinking?’

‘Brandy.’

‘I’ll just have a red wine.’

He ordered her the wine, handed it to her and got off the bar stool.

‘Shall we go and sit over there?’

He led the way to a quiet corner where they could sit comfortably together. He was just going to let things happen. If they happened, they happened. He wasn’t going to push in any direction.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘I thought I’d try the beach.’

‘You’ve just arrived?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can come and stay at my place if you want.’

She smiled, a trifle victoriously.

I’d like a bath.’

Very casually, as though a contract had been signed, as though an irrevocable agreement had been reached, she put her hand on his and squeezed it very gently.

Then she got up, crossed the room to speak to a girl he had not noticed before, a girl like her, but smaller, plumper, less attractive, and came back apparently ready to go.

‘Does your friend want to come too?’

‘No. She had a bath last night.’

* * * * *

THE INNOCENCE HAS GONE, DADDY

by

Drew Launay

CHAPTER 2

It was all too quick and too sudden.

She drank her wine in two gulps, rather as though she wanted to leave with a prize she had won before someone could claim it back, stood up, and waited for him to finish his brandy.

That’s how he felt. Like a prize. He had made the opening move, but the way she had accepted his invitation made him feel as though she had tricked him into it.

Perhaps she had?

She was very pretty, standing there being stared at by the hungry Spaniards in their bright orange open neck shirts and baggy trousers. Every male in that room wanted her, and she knew it, was working at it.

He held a note out to the barman, but looked at her. She was very feminine, overdoing the coy look now, then aware of it and moving off towards the door. There was intelligence there, a sense of timing, an actress if there ever was one. She wouldn’t reveal her true self for a long time, it would be a short but very intense relationship, he would give nothing away and once he had found out what she was about, what she enjoyed, he would probably get bored, as he always got bored.

The barman handed him his change and he joined her at the door.

It was working out well. He was sufficiently primed to feel amorous, she obviously had a very beautiful body, the legs long, the breasts young, he would drive slowly, impress her with the house, with the pool if she wasn’t an heiress and had seen it all before, take her to bed ....... and face a new life tomorrow.

The car reminded him of Cherry, and he realized that he had managed to forget her, that he would get through the night happily after all, that she might herself be in bed with Jacques.

He smiled at that.

It was that sort of closeness with Cherry which would haunt him forever of course, the ability to laugh with her, and only with her at the rest of the world. Did he imagine then that they would one day be back together and talk of this night? How he had taken a teenage American chick to bed to forget her?

‘How about going to another bar, or a disco or something? I’d really like that,’ the teenage American chick said. She had opened the car door herself and was getting in.

A commanding little bitch.

He closed her door and walked slowly round to his own side.

So she was going to play with him a little. Having hooked him she was going to make him pay for the enjoyment to come. However young, however liberal they were, they always wanted to get paid one way or another. Straight-forward unceremonious fucks were only for the super-sophisticated.

He got into the driver’s seat, lowered the window his side and started the engine.

‘What sort of atmosphere would you like?’ He asked.

‘There’s a choice?’

‘Yes. There’s a Spanish bar with fishing nets and bullfight posters, there’s a green and black circular bar run by a couple of English queens. There’s a German bar, an Italian restaurant, an old-fashioned night club with red carpets on the walls, or a discotheque which plays Tom Jones and has the feeling of the London underground — subway to you.’

‘What would you like?’

‘I’d like to go to bed.’

He said it casually, truthfully, because right at that moment he suddenly felt tired and just wanted to go to bed.

‘O.K.’

She said it just as casually and he had to make an effort not to show his surprise, not to give away the fact that under the youthful forty-year-old front and the mask of total sophistication there was a truly forty-three-year-old man who was always a little surprised by the brazenness of the young.

He put the car into gear and they moved off.

Jesus he was so hypocritical! Because now of course his mind was racing ahead and planning on the lead in, the soft lights and sweet music. What record would he put on, LP, whatever they called it now. Eighteen, nineteen ... who would it be? Cat Stevens? They were so fussy and so destructive in their criticism. Who had Rose liked so much? Richard Harris? Was she a Richard Harris girl?

‘I don’t know your name,’ he said.

‘Julie.’ Then a strange hesitation. ‘I don’t know yours.’

‘Jey,’ he said.

Well they knew each other’s names.

He turned into the main street and accelerated down the short straight mile before turning down the beach road.

‘Where are you from?’ He asked.

‘California.’

‘You’ve been in Spain long?’

‘Just over a week.’

‘What made you come down here?’

‘Thinking of going to Morocco.’

‘With your friend?’

‘Oh she’s no friend. I mean, we haven’t been travelling together. Just happened to meet in Granada.’

‘She from California too?’

‘Maryland.’

Which seemed to be the end of her.

He changed gear to go down the hill onto the rough track, and then accelerated up the tarmac drive to the