Page 36 of Too Busy for Love

She leads me out of the door underneath the staircase onto a wide terrace that spans the entire rear of the house. A long table sits underneath a canopy on the terrace, which has stairs at each end leading down to the gardens and the pool. The gardens are beautiful; verdant lawns fill the gaps between flowerbeds that are riots of colour. Healthy-looking trees provide welcome patches of shade. It’s a stark contrast to the arid landscape I drove through to get here.

‘Villa Madrigal has its own underground spring,’ Rosa tells me, once more reading my thoughts. ‘Water is not an issue for us, and Mr Mancini is very proud of the garden.’

‘Who looks after it?’

‘Pedro, but the watering system is all automated. You’ll see when it comes on this evening. Would you like to look at the pool?’

‘Yes.’

The pool area is laid out with luxurious-looking sunbeds, umbrellas for shade, and a bar.

‘We stock that like the family kitchen, so guests can help themselves,’ Rosa explains as I examine the bar. ‘Obviously, it’s up to you, but we don’t normally put alcoholic drinks down here. Alcohol and swimming pools are not generally a good mixture.’

‘I agree. Soft drinks only down here unless the production company has firm views to the contrary.’

The pool itself is large and looks very inviting. I slip off my shoe and dip my toe in the water. Unsurprisingly, the temperature is perfect. Cool enough to be refreshing without being shockingly cold.

‘I hope you will have time for a swim before the rest of the guests arrive,’ Rosa suggests. ‘You need to check everything, I think.’

‘I’ll make time,’ I assure her.

She leads me back into the house, through the main kitchen to a door I hadn’t noticed before, markedPrivado.

‘This is your accommodation,’ she says, opening the door and handing me the key. ‘It’s far enough away from the guests that they won’t disturb you if they stay up late, but close enough that you can get to them quickly if they need you.’

Although it’s nowhere near as lavish as the rest of the house, I’m not disappointed. There’s a small sitting room with a sofa and a TV, a basic kitchen, a decent-sized bedroom with a large wardrobe, and a surprisingly well-appointed bathroom with separate bath and shower. I even have my own door, which leads out to a large car parking space.

‘What do you think?’ Rosa asks.

I smile at her. I think I’ve landed in paradise.

13

I’m in good spirits as I leave Villa Madrigal to head for the airport on Sunday afternoon. The minibus still bothers me a little on the small roads, but Pedro has been helping me to practise with it. He and Rosa have enlisted me as their chauffeur for every errand they’ve had to run and, between them, that has amounted to quite a few. I’ve had to negotiate my way through narrow streets in the nearby villages, park it in seemingly impossible spots and reverse it for long distances when we’ve met things coming the other way on the tiny lanes. Pedro is the total opposite of Rosa; where she is small, chatty and inclined to screech ‘watch out’ at the top of her lungs every time she thinks I’m getting too close to something, he’s a beanpole of a man with very few words. Needless to say, I find being with him in the car much more relaxing than driving her. They’re patently devoted to each other, although she admitted to me that they did go through a rough patch not long after they were married when they discovered they were unable to have children. This might partly explain the way they seem to have semi-adopted me. Despite the fact that we’ve all been busy preparing for the arrival of the film crew and first set of guests, I haven’t had to prepare asingle meal for myself, as Rosa has insisted I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with them each day.

I might be out of my comfort zone, but I’ve really enjoyed getting my teeth into this project. We’ve completed all the items on Gus’s checklist, which helpfully included notes on the various dietary needs of the crew and the initial set of guests so Rosa and I could plan menus. The format of the show is fairly simple, if brutal. We start with ten guests, five men and five women. After that, new guests will arrive in pairs at regular intervals and, this is the brutal bit, choose whose places they are going to take after spending twenty-four hours with the group. The two people who are replaced are then sent home. I couldn’t understand how someone who is purportedly too busy for love could commit to spending up to six weeks lounging around at Villa Madrigal, but my question was answered not only by the £50,000 prize money for the viewers’ favourite couple at the end, but also when Pedro and I were dispatched to an office supplies shop in Palma to collect twelve flatpack desks, which he then erected in the bedrooms. On top of that, a truck arrived yesterday filled to the brim with boxes and cables which the driver informed us was filming equipment, much to Rosa’s horror. We’ve stacked it all in the dining room, and I’ve noticed her eyeing it suspiciously every time she goes in there.

The latest missive from Dom had the daily schedule on it. Breakfast is to be served at seven each morning, and the contestants will have to remain downstairs until at least nine, while Rosa and I rush round cleaning their rooms. They are then allowed to work until lunchtime, and they have to be downstairs again by six thirty for pre-dinner drinks. Meals will be served buffet-style and eaten at the table outside unless the weather turns against us. The only exception is dinner, where two pairs will be chosen to have one-on-one meals away from the maingroup; I’m not sure how that is supposed to work yet, but I expect it will become clear soon enough.

The traffic is light and it doesn’t take me long to reach the airport, where I score a further win by managing to secure one of the spots in the express parking lot directly outside the terminal. Although Pedro has assured me the minibus is just under the height restriction for the multi-storey, I don’t fancy taking my chances in there. My mood improves even more when I reach the arrivals hall and see that the flight I’m meeting has already landed. Sure enough, Gus appears a short time later with four other people, all pushing heavily laden trolleys.

‘Beatrice!’ he exclaims, a smile breaking out on his face when he reaches me. ‘Lovely to meet you in person at last. How is everything?’

‘All good so far,’ I reply as I shake his hand.

‘Great. Let me introduce you to the others. This is Dom, who you’ve met via email.’

‘Nice to meet you, Beatrice,’ a tall, bearded man says.

‘Dom is the associate producer and will be working closely with me,’ Gus explains. ‘Then we’ve got Chris and Tim here, who are our technical experts and camera operators. Finally’ – he indicates an ebony-skinned woman with close-cropped hair – ‘this is Raquel, our sex and relationships expert.’

‘Lovely to meet you all,’ I tell them. ‘The car is just outside for those who are coming with me.’

‘You’ll be taking Chris and Tim,’ Gus informs me. ‘Dom, Raquel and I have a conference call with HQ shortly, so it makes sense for us to travel together.’

‘Fine with me,’ I tell him. Chris and Tim follow me out to the minibus while the others wander off in search of the car-hire desk.

‘Did the truck arrive?’ Chris asks as we start loading their cases into the boot.

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