She visits (1700 words)

The visitor
    Looking through the window at the azure blue sky, Elaine shook her head in disbelief. Beyond the wall at the front of the house, the silver leaves of an ancient olive tree were beginning to curl as the summer heat took its toll. The paper said it would be a blistering thirty six degrees (centigrade) today. In the coolness behind the lace curtains, Elaine brushed away a lock of hair before continuing with her dusting. 

    Her sister Margret was coming from England that afternoon so she was taking extra care in getting her bedroom ready. It was strange but while she and Margret were as close as sisters could be, there was an unspoken rivalry between them about their houses. On the phone last night Margret had been bragging about the new extension and how it would double the value of the house in Cambridge. Elaine couldn't help feeling that all these last minute phone calls were because an extension, no matter how big, just didn't measure up to a second home in Spain.

  As she certainly had no intentions of disappointing her sister, she had taken a long time over the room's decorations. Lilac-scented candles sat on the side table with matching silk cushions strewn artfully across the pillows. Yesterday she'd even found an empty wine bottle and glued some old rope around it before attaching a light fitting and a lightshade. It made rather chic bedside lamp.

  Everything in the room was now spotlessly clean. There were new rugs on the tiled floor and freshly laundered curtains at the windows. She gave all the surfaces a final wipe with her duster before pausing at the door to admire her handiwork. Margret would be certainly be impressed, she thought triumphantly.

Leaving the duster under the sink, she went outside to speak to Charlie, her husband. From the muffled bangs she reckoned he was working in the outside storeroom but as soon as she opened the door, she was met by billowing cloud.
    “What are you doing in there,” she demanded waving a hand, trying to see though it.
    “Don’t come in. Stay out there and I’ll come to you.” 
A moment later Charlie appeared with one of her tea towels tied across his nose and mouth, and covered from head to foot in a pale yellow dust.
    “What’s going on?” she asked, retreating slightly from this ghostly apparition.
“  We need a bit more room for storing the barbeque and the garden chairs, so I thought I’d just open up the back up a bit,” he said in a muffled voice, trying to hide the pickaxe he was still holding.

  When they first came to view their Spanish villa, they hadn’t realised that the house shown in the brochure was partially built into the side of a mountain. It was what the Spanish called a cave house. At first, although the property had been newly refurbished with a large pool and every modern convenience, Elaine hadn’t been convinced it was for them. After all, what would Margret say about them buying a cave? In the end it had been the unrelenting heat that won her over. In the concrete and brick villas the air conditioning was always on during the summer, but in the cave house, with its north-facing windows and bedrooms buried deep inside the sandstone mountain, the interior was comfortably cool without it. It also meant, as Charlie was proving, if they wanted to enlarge the house, all they needed was a pickaxe. 

  “Don’t forget that Pedro is coming at twelve with the chest of drawers for the spare bedroom,” she reminded him. “You do remember where it goes?”
    "How can I forget,” Charlie answered, his reply muffled by the towel across his face. “You’ve told me ten times already. It goes between the wardrobe and the wall. Don’t worry, Pedro and I can manage it without breaking anything. You go and get Margret and give her a kiss from me. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
Giving his shoulders a shrug as if preparing to do battle, he then turned and with his pickaxe held out in front of him, re-entered the dusty storeroom.     

  Brushing herself down, Elaine went inside the house to collect her handbag and car keys. Although the house was built halfway up a mountain, after a few miles of narrow winding roads, she was out onto the motorway and speeding towards the airport. She arrived early, buying a magazine before sitting down to wait. Margret’s plane arrived on time and half and hour later she emerged from the arrivals hall dragging a blue suitcase behind her.
    “How was the flight?” Elaine enquired after the ubiquitous peck on both cheeks.
    “Not bad, but the food was awful. Still I’m here now and that’s what counts. How are you?”

The journey home seemed to go a lot quicker as she and Margret caught up on family gossip. As they turned off the motorway, Margret started taking more notice of the surrounding villas.
    “That’s nice”, she said as they passed a palatial mansion with wrought iron gates.
    “We’re still a couple of miles away yet,” she told her, worried that impressing her sister with their little house wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. 

When they eventually pulled off the road and parked on the driveway, Margret got out and stared at the view.
  “That’s quite a drop,” she said pointing to the steep gorge next to the road. 
Turning to look at the mountain, her eyes skipped over the house, the garden and the pool. If Elaine had hoped for a “Wow, isn’t that nice?”, she was disappointed.
  “It’s certainly hot,” was all Margret could say.
  “Lets get inside, “ Elaine said through gritted teeth, “It’ll be cooler.”

    Inside the house, they walked in silence over hand-made terracotta tiles, past the marble-lined bathroom and down the short corridor to the guest bedroom.  Elaine led the way. Pushing open the studded antique door, she stood aside to let Margret enter.
  “This is your room. You’ve got the sole use of the bathroom next door and the towels are….”
That’s where it all stopped.   

  Elaine noticed the dust in the air first, swiftly followed by the sound of grit underfoot as Margret walked across the room.
  “Oh, you’re back. I thought you’d be longer,” said Charlie as he stood up.
In a flash she took in the pile of rubble on the floor, the hammer and chisel in his hand and the freshly hewn recesses between the wardrobe and the wall.
  “Pedro rang to say the drawers hadn’t arrived, so I thought I’d quickly make some alcoves so you can put the clothes in there instead.”   
He sounded so proud. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Margret run a solitary finger across the side table, leaving a dark trail behind. Then her sister looked over her shoulder and gave her small, condescending, half smile.
Elaine was mortified. All her hard work, all her planning, ruined! No wonder Margret looked so smug. 

  “I’ll get a duster…and a mop,” she blurted out, before turning and leaving.
She was furious. Her heels went tap tap tap on the tiles as she strode rapidly across the lounge. They went tap tap tap on the pathway as she headed straight for the storeroom. Inside she found the pickaxe resting against the door frame. Grabbing it she marched down the driveway. Lifting it high she crossed the road and then threw it with all her might over the wall and into the gorge. She had the satisfaction of watching it bounce end over end as it tumbled down towards the tiny stream far below.   

  When she returned to the house she found Margret waiting for her in hall. She half expected her to say something sarcastic, something about cave living, something troglodyte! Instead she smiled warmly and put an arm around her shoulders.
  “Men! You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Harry’s just the same.”
Then she stopped and gave Elaine’s arm a gentle squeeze.
  “Don’t worry Linny, its not the end of the world. I’ll give you a hand cleaning up.”   

  Elaine suddenly realised that she was right. Her favourite sister had come all the way to Spain to visit her, and all she could think about was dust and dirt. She was being foolish. Margret knew her better than she knew herself. She wanted to enjoy having her sister there, not to get angry with her over a spoilt surprise.
  “No, lets have a cup of tea instead,” she insisted. “It will still be there when we’ve finished.”
They were chatting companionably in the kitchen when Charlie came in scratching his head.
  “You know I can’t find it anywhere. I’m sure I left it outside in the…….”
Oops.