by Kitty Sewell
She opened her eyes fully and saw the cable car whooshing past their balcony on its way up to the Rock. A man stood balanced on top of the cabin, just one hand holding on to the upper frame. For a second or two he looked straight down at her naked body. She could even see the smile on his face.
‘Did you see that?’ she cried out. ‘There was a man riding on the roof of the cable car.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘Yeah, I saw him, and he saw you, lucky sod. Next thing, all his mates will be doing the rounds, pretending to do maintenance work. Good morning, my love.’
She rose up on one elbow and looked into the half-filled suitcase. ‘This is good bye to the legendary Rock Hotel, then?’ she said wistfully. ‘My last Greta Garbo day. Then I’ve got to go back to being boring old me.’
‘Boring old you,’ Sebastian said, laughing, ‘was the most exciting thing ever to happen.’
She thought briefly of who she was – who Sebastian thought she was – who she wanted to be. There were no reliable markers. She was an amoeba, a lost chameleon, a free-floating and formless entity looking for a resting place.
‘Saunders has been generous but he won’t cough up forever,’ Sebastian said. He stopped folding shirts and sat down on the bed. ‘I hoped you’d want to set up home with me?’
Set up home! The notion caused that whirling of her innards, but she forced a cheeky smile. ‘Yeah, what the hell. Bearing in mind I haven’t got a domestic bone in my body.’
The idea of leaving all her bygone baggage behind and ‘setting up home’ with this remarkable man was so seductive. How to tell him? Day by day she’d put it off. It was easy, as he never offered confidences of his own. Sebastian lived utterly in the present and– by example – invited her to do the same. She had thought they shared an itinerant spirit, but this talking about nesting showed a new side to him. Perhaps it had to do with Mimi…the need to give her a solid point of reference.
Sebastian was taking her shoes out of the wardrobe and putting them into a vinyl bag. Eva yawned and let her hands glide down her torso. Her skin was moist with heat. ‘Oh, drop that, will you?’
Six months on, his mind was still a mystery to her, but she was good at reading every reaction of his body.
‘Let’s damage this hotel one last time,’ she whispered, and heard a little rip of cloth as he wrenched off his shirt.
*
Eva glared at the pile of boxes and bags arrived from the UK, dumped by the ‘man with a van’ inside the entrance of the building. He’d made a fuss of having to cart them up DiMoretti’s Ramp because there was nowhere to park and though of hulking build, refused to go any further, even though she’d offered him twenty, then thirty, then forty pounds to carry them up to the apartment.
As she stood there wondering what to do, she heard footsteps down the stairs. Pretty though Mimi was, it was hard to locate her attractiveness behind her punk getup, the black eye makeup, the facial rings and studs, the spiky hair and torn fishnet tights. Strange, all that seemed so last century.
‘See ya’,’ she murmured as she passed, heading straight out of the door into the bright sunlight.
‘Hey!’ Eva called after her. ‘Where are you off to?’
Mimi slowed her step and turned. ‘Sorry you have this cuckoo in your lovenest, but don’t feel you have to be my guardian.’
Eva reflected on this statement for a moment. Acquiring a teenager without warning had not given her time to adjust to those undercurrents of rudeness.
‘Me, a guardian? Give me a break.’
‘I’ll stay out of your way as much as I can, but I come and go as I want, okay?’
‘Awesome! But could you help me take some of this stuff up to the apartment? A third of it belongs to you.’
‘Leave it there. I’ll take it up when I come back.’
‘If it’s still here,’ said Eva. ‘Nothing valuable, then?’
‘Just gear,’ said Mimi. ‘My work stuff is already upstairs.’
Mimi was turning to go, but Eva gave interaction one last effort. ‘You haven’t told me what you’re working on. Sebastian says you’ve got a great way with words.’
‘He does, does he?’ Mimi stopped and studied a chewed black-painted fingernail, as if considering how to further mutilate it. ‘He doesn’t demonstrate much confidence in my writing, but I think the problem is he hates any delving into our mutual past.’
Here was an opening and Eva cast around for something neutral to ask, something about their past, some question that didn’t compromise Sebastian. ‘So that’s what you are writing about, your mutual past?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ Mimi said with finality. Then added, ‘Ask your lover, see if you can make him talk.’
Eva shrugged in defeat. ‘Why don’t you just give me a hand?’ she said, gesturing at the pile. ‘It won’t take a minute if there’s two of us.’
With a sigh Mimi came back, grabbed two suitcases and began to drag them up the innumerable steps to the apartment. Eva followed with all that was hers, a mistreated suitcase and two plastic carrier bags. On the first floor landing they stopped for breath.
‘Onerous,’ Mimi muttered.
When they bent to grasp their loads again, a door opened and a man stepped out. Both looked at him with a start, having neither seen nor heard a single sound in the building during the two days they’d been there.
The man locked the door with exaggerated care, but then he turned and smiled at them. ‘Those look heavy. May I help you carry them up?’
‘Thank you, but we can manage.’
‘Is there no man to help you do this?’ He had a deep melodious voice with the same lilting Spanish inflection of most Gibraltarians she’d met so far.
She held out her hand. ‘I’m Eva. We’ve rented the apartment on top of yours.’
He took her hand and held it in a dry grasp. ‘I guessed as much. I’m Carlo Montegriffo. It’ll be interesting to have neighbours. I’ve been alone in the building for a while. I’m used to the place being quiet.’
She wasn’t sure how to interpret the remark. ‘Don’t worry. We don’t have television, dogs or kids.’
‘Isn’t this your daughter?’ he said, smiling at Mimi. ‘She looks very much like your husband.’
‘I’m Imogen,’ Mimi said drily, ‘Sebastian’s sister, though not a child.’ She indicated Eva with a gesture, ‘And they’re not husband and wife.’
Thanks, kid, Eva thought. He really needs to know.
The man raised an eyebrow in obvious amusement, then went on to explain something about the communal water tank on the terrace. Eva wasn’t really interested in the water tank, in fact she regretted that she’d been outvoted when it came to this particular apartment. It was huge and dark, with a depressing air.
She studied Carlo while he put forth their obligations as tenants in the building. He was around her own age, forty or so, tall and thin, a bit stooped of posture and wearing an expensive-looking black suit. His eyes were large, dark and expressive, looking into hers with uncanny sincerity. His hairline was edging away from a wide forehead, greying at the temples and spilling over his collar in immaculately moulded waves. An eye-catching silver crucifix hung at his neck. She couldn’t decide if he was deeply religious, just eccentric or possibly gay: maybe all three.
‘Do you own the building?’ she asked.
He hesitated. ‘Your apartment is owned by the late Mrs. Cohen’s nephew, but the rest of the building is property of the Catholic Church. In times gone by it was a retreat for Irish nuns.’
‘That explains it,’ she said, throwing a glance around the yawning stairwell.
Mimi pointed to the name plate on his door. ‘Are you Spanish?’
‘Ah no, I am pure Gibraltarian, but my name is Genoese. Gibraltar has a very big community of Genoese and Maltese descendants that have been here for generations, centuries in fact. You’ll find there’s lots of Genoese in Yanito.’
‘Yanito? Is that a district?’ asked Eva.<
br />
He smiled forbearingly. ‘Yanito is Gibraltar’s own creole language, a mix of Spanish and English, with a dash of Genoese, Maltese, Portuguese and Hebrew. You’ll have to learn to speak it or you will be forever a guiri.’
‘Guiri?’ Mimi asked. ‘What’s that?’
He thought about it – a tad too long. ‘An outsider.’
Mimi gave a small laugh and mumbled, ‘Xenophobia.’
‘Well, good luck with changing the face of Gibraltar,’ said Carlo.
Eva looked at him, puzzled. Perhaps Sebastian had already met this Montegriffo and told him all about his grand scheme for Gibraltar. When it came to his work, he dropped any vestige of restraint, telling any Tom, Dick and Harry about his world vision.
‘We’re not here to do that,’ she said, hoping to deflect any discussion about the Frontiers Development Project. It had already caused controversy, dividing local people. She guessed Carlo Montegriffo knew all about it and would have some strong opinions on the subject.
Instead he said, ‘And you…what will you do?’
‘Me? Ah, I’m a diving instructor. Apparently Gibraltar is a diver’s paradise.’
‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Many things lurk under the surface of these waters.’
Eva looked at him, waiting for some explanation, wondering if he was alluding to Sebastian’s work rather than to her own.
Mimi was more forthright. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’
‘Heavens!’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m keeping you ladies here chatting when you’re trying to move in.’ He grabbed a suitcase in each hand and started up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Mimi
The streets of Gibraltar were teeming. Pushing through the crowd on the square, Mimi saw that the portals of the cathedral were wide open. The interior was jampacked. Even outside, men and women were kneeling on the pavement, praying, their faces turned to the open door.
She’d never seen anything like it – people on their knees right there in the street – but even more surreal was the hundreds of miniature brides: tiny girls in wedding dresses. The Main Street was crammed with doll-like creatures in white frocks, bridal veils, trains and tiaras, their anxious parents trying to make them kneel, or at least stop them from running around and getting dirty. The girls couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, and each more elaborately and expensively bedecked than the next. There were boys too, though not as many, dressed like little admirals.
Mimi placed herself with a group of tourists on the fringe of this holy mob and stared, conscious of her disparity. All that white silk and satin made her suddenly feel drab in her black skirt, scuffed combat boots and multiple piercings. Her hand went involuntarily to the gel-hardened spikes of her hair, black as coal and unpleasant to the touch. Her recent heroine was Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, but knew she lacked the awesome I.Q. and bad-ass attitude, so absolutely no-one would make the connection.
She lit a cigarette and turned to a young woman leaning on the handle of a well-used pram. ‘Excuse me. What is this thing? What’re they doing?’
The woman shrugged. ‘Beats me, I’m not a Catholic. I think this performance is called Corpus Christi.’
Corpus Christi. It had a macabre ring to it. Though it was white and bright, the ceremony seemed dark.
‘Idolatry.’
The woman smirked. ‘Sure, if you say so.’
The ceremony must have ended, as people in stylish clothes began to stream out of the cathedral and gather in groups in the square, talking, laughing, at ease with each other and the world. The little brides lost all decorum and ran about, shouting and playing tag. The air of mysticism had vanished and she felt as if she were gatecrashing a cocktail party.
Walking slowly through the crowd, she saw a man she recognised – their downstairs neighbour, Carlo Montegriffo – talking in a group. She’d assumed he was some kind of sad Jesus-freak loner, but out here in the open he looked totally different. He topped his friends by almost a head and everyone in the group was absorbed by what he was saying. She conceded that the guy had the looks that could pull women, at least older ones.
When she slipped past his back, he turned around as if he’d known she was there all along.
‘Hello Imogen.’
‘Oh. Hello,’
‘I saw you watching the Mass.’
‘Yeah.’ She shifted her gum to the other cheek. ‘It’s allowed, I assume?’
He nodded in approval. ‘Are you born Catholic?’
‘Oh, no. It just looked interesting. Different.’
‘Yes, we do give free reign to our worship in a way that can be disconcerting to outsiders.’ He had turned away from his group and spoke to her with a relaxed and casual air.
‘Ah yes, us guiris,’ she said. ‘I looked up the word. Isn’t it derogatory, like “wog” or “Chink” or “Paki”?’
He looked at her for a moment, then laughed. ‘You’re a sharp young woman. It is not a very flattering expression and I apologise.’
Embarrassment set in. What else was she going to say to him?
‘Well, better get home,’ she lied. ‘Cheers.’
Carlo glanced at his watch. ‘I need to get home too. Why don’t we walk together?’
She swore to herself but couldn’t come up with an excuse. ‘Ah… I guess.’
Despite their laughable disparity – a middle-aged guy in a slick suit and a teenaged punk – she found herself surprisingly at ease. Carlo pointed out a couple of landmarks, and chatted amiably as though they’d known each other for ages. He was fitter than she was, walking up the steps and ramps without so much as a hint of sheen on his forehead, while she panted, her lungs like bellows.
‘I smoke,’ she said in defence. ‘And just for the record, I like smoking.’
He laughed softly. ‘I remember loving a Lucky Strike when I was your age. My brother and I used to break the filter off. The problem was that no-one could see how cool we were. We had to sneak out on the roof terrace and smoke under cover of darkness.’
‘You’ve got to be at least thirty-eight, forty,’ she said, feeling bold.
‘Yes,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘At least.’
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I work for the Ministry of Defence. I am also a failed priest and a struggling writer.’
‘Cool,’ she blurted. ‘So am I.’
‘Ah no, not another failed priest,’ he said laughing.
She laughed too. ‘The outfit just didn’t look good on me.’
‘Well, well.’ He looked genuinely interested. She’d got so used to people smirking at the idea of a teenaged writer, she hardly ever owned up to it.
‘What are you working on?’ he asked.
‘I’m writing a novel using my family as a subject. There’s fodder there for an entire conference on psychological and relationship dysfunctions and every type of family fuckup under the sun.’
He was chuckling about her confession, but somehow she didn’t mind. ‘A semi-autographical novel?’ he mused. ‘I could imagine that has its tricky moments. Especially when your family comes to read it.’
‘Yikes!’ she cried. ‘Over my drawn and quartered body.’
‘You’d better publish under a synonym,’ he said. ‘Imogen Luna stands out.’
Her name rolled easily off his tongue as if he’d said it loads of times.
‘What’re you writing?’
‘I write mainly poetry…of a spiritual nature. I’ve also written two books about Gibraltar’s colourful history, and right now,’ he hesitated a moment, ‘I am writing a book about what I am discovering about the tunnel system in the Rock.’
‘I’ve heard about the tunnels. So what’s in them?’
He touched her arm to stop her. ‘Honestly, that just slipped out. Please forget it. I’m keeping it tightly under wraps until I am ready to publish.’
‘No worries,’ she said quickly. ‘I feel the same about my stuff
.’
They continued up the ramp. ‘If ever you want,’ she said. ‘I’ve been told I am good at checking continuity. It’s good practice.’
He looked over at her. ‘You know, I could really use an impartial opinion on a couple of my poems.’
‘Sure. Though poetry isn’t about continuity.’
‘You’ve got that right,’ he said approvingly. ‘So just your opinion, perhaps. I don’t know any other writers to ask.’
‘Okay, you’re on.’
They walked on in silence for a while. Strangely, she felt taller next to him and realised it was because he treated her like an adult, spoke to her as an equal. What a great feeling that was…just to be heard, your ambition understood and respected.
‘Have you got a cat?’ she asked. ‘A big fat black one?’
‘That would be Raven, my partner in crime.’
