Alentejo Blue

by Monica Ali

  Yes, that’s what he’ll do and that’s what he’ll say. Vasco smiles, his lips slightly parted. It is very fine, it is, to sit alone and contemplate.

  The mind is a marvellous thing; no end to it at all.

  He should get one of those jukeboxes. The cigarette machine has been jammed for two days. He needs to order more serviettes and the butter is running low. In the morning he will make a list.

  Now it is time to go up but first he will have a taste of that cake. Because – why not? Why shouldn’t he? He will have just a taste and leave the rest. He thinks that is what he will do.

  4

  THE GATE WAS OPEN SO HE ZOOMED RIGHT ON IN. HE eased one leg over the crossbar, waited for the bike to slow a little, then jumped and ran along holding on between the bell and the knotted Benfica scarf. Perfect. He allowed himself a glance towards the bench, a quick one so it didn’t seem like he was showing off. Pedro, Fernando and o treinador. This was bad. Last week there had been six of them and all they got was a lecture and sent away. It was the ones that didn’t show up needed the bollocking.

  He dropped the bike on its side just off the pitch and jogged over.

  Pedro said, ‘Well, that’s gone and done it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Fernando, ‘it’s finished. No one’s going to turn up.’

  ‘Kiss of death,’ said Pedro. He was two years older than Jay and attempting to grow a moustache. His father was a local hero. You saw posters of him all over, as far away as Santiago do Cacém and Colos: Nelson Paulo Cavaco – Acordeonista e Vocalista. In his pictures he was always resting his chin on clasped hands and raising one very thick eyebrow.

  Jay gazed out over the tarmac. It looked fit to melt. He kicked a pebble and bent down to pick up a discarded box of matches.

  The coach got to his feet and threw the ball to Jay who slipped the matches into his pocket and did thirteen keepy-uppies straight off.

  ‘See that,’ said the coach to Pedro. Pedro raised an eyebrow, just like his dad. ‘Right,’ said the coach and looked at his watch, ‘when you see your friends, tell them that this team has one more chance to pull itself together. Now get lost.’

  Fernando tilted his head like he was going to say something but changed his mind. He had a big spot on the end of his nose, all charged up with pus. Ruby said you should never squeeze your spots but this one looked ready to explode at a single touch.

  Jay threw the ball high and straight. When he looked up to find his target the sun burned everything out and he thought he might as well die right here and now, there was no way he was going to head it. He got a foot to the ball though and sent it out across the pitch into the penalty box.

  Running over to fetch it he thought maybe the boys would play with him anyway. Only so they could go on his bike. He wasn’t about to kid himself.

  They passed him on his way back to the bench but Jay knew he would catch them up. Pedro’s trainers were white as prayer and his shirt as red as sin. ‘You know what’s happened to this team?’ he said to Fernando. ‘Yeah,’ said Fernando. ‘I know.’

  The coach took the ball and tucked it under his armpit. Jay waited to be sent away. The coach put one foot up on the bench and squinted at Jay. He looked puzzled or worried or something. The coach was called Senhor Santos. He was pretty old and his gums bled. When he spat – in football you always have to spit – you could see the red blood in the white spittle. You’d think it would mix up and turn pink but that didn’t happen. His hair had grey bits in it and he had a small round belly that sat high up under his nipples. He could still run fast and not get out of breath.

  Jay looked down. The tarmac was breaking up. There were little holes in it. It smelled like something fresh out of the oven, when it’s been in there too long. Jay rattled the matches in his pocket.

  The coach sighed and leaned closer to Jay. He’s going to tell me a secret, thought Jay. Something he’s never told before. Senhor Santos drove an expensive car, a big jeep called an UMM that looked like a posh tank. When he wasn’t being a coach he wore leather trousers in the winter and linen slacks in the summer. But everyone knew that Senhor Santos was sad because he had no children.

  He was definitely going to tell Jay something but Jay wished he would hurry up because Pedro and Fernando were heading back along the outside of the chicken-wire fence towards the village.

  The coach shook his head and sighed again. He was still leaning in close to Jay and there was nothing to do but wait.

  It was worse for Senhor Santos’s wife. Not having children made her crazy. She talked to imaginary people and set places for them at the table. That’s what everyone said. She was called Maria Sequeira de Fatima da Gama. At the escola primária they learned about her grandmother, Ervanaria Guerreiro Sequeira de Fatima, who in 1936 walked on her knees all the way to the shrine at Fátima where the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, appeared to three shepherd children. Senhor Santos took his wife to Fatima as well, so that she could be blessed with babies, but Jay guessed it wasn’t the same if you drove there in an UMM.

  The coach blew on his fingers. He smelled of coffee and Trident gum. ‘We need a better pitch. You think so?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jay. ‘Do you?’

  ‘There’s someone coming to Mamarrosa,’ said Senhor Santos. ‘Someone who used to live here. He’s a very rich man now.’

  ‘Richer than you?’

  Senhor Santos laughed. ‘I thought I would ask him to pay for improvements. Be a sponsor for the team.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jay. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘But first we need a team.’

  ‘Senhor Santos?’ Jay worked the heel of his trainer into the ground.

  ‘Go ahead. Speak.’

  ‘Nothing. I mean . . . why . . . what . . .’ Jay shook his head. ‘No, nothing.’

  O treinador set the ball down and clapped Jay on the shoulders. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Get lost.’

  The old man with one eye went past pushing a black bicycle up the road. He didn’t have his patch on and Jay got a good stare. It was cool the way there was just a hole there. The bike looked heavy, like it was made of lead. The old man kept stopping every ten steps or so. Pedro and Fernando were long gone. Jay didn’t care. That Pedro was a filho da puta anyway.

  Jay cycled out of the village. He thought about jumping off at the building site where two new houses were said to be going up, though they seemed not to be going in any direction at all. A worker in a lumberjack shirt appeared from behind a bunker of concrete bricks and wiped his brow. Jay tucked his head down and pedalled so hard his legs felt watery. At the top of the hill he balanced in the saddle with his toes just touching the ground. Sweet. The moment before you let go was always the best.

  He kicked off and let everything happen. The air flooded his nose and mouth and eyes. His T-shirt whipped up a storm. His ears sang. A stone beneath the front tyre set him free and he wheeled through the high scent of pine and the low sound in his chest and landed on his knees in the ditch.

  The bike was all right. One spoke a bit bent but that was nothing. His knees were cut. That was nothing as well. He took his T-shirt off and wiped his knees and put it back on. He wondered if he should go home. What day was it? Saturday. Dad would still be in bed whatever day it was. When he got up he would light a spliff, a joint, a jay. In England he used to say, ‘That’s how come he’s called it. Jay, like, know what I mean?’ He might say for Jay to take the goats out. Jay didn’t feel like taking the goats out. What did Mum do on a Saturday? Go to the shops, sit on the porch, drag a broom over the floor, sit on the porch, throw grain at the chickens. Same as every day really. If he went back she’d say, ‘For God’s sake, Jay,’ or something like that.

  The pickup was there on the gravel so Jay knew Stanton was in. On the slate-top table on the terrace was a glass half full of beer. Jay sat on the step and whistled. He shielded his eyes and saw out to the hills where they were black from the fires. They looked prickly. They made him want to scratch. He he
ard a hundred people died, but you can’t believe everything you hear. There were only about six houses over that way. A flaming branch fell off a massive eucalyptus on to a bombeiros, skewered him to the ground. That’s what they said. And a baby was found alive inside a ring of fire, just lying there on a white sheet that didn’t have so much as a smudge. That was a great story. Jay didn’t care if it was true or not. He thought the baby should have its own shrine and people should walk to Mamarrosa from all over Portugal, on their knees.

  Stanton wasn’t coming out. Jay whistled louder, giving him another chance. He went up to the terrace and touched the glass. It was cold. He held it for a moment and it seemed to make the sweat pour out of his forehead. He put the glass to his lips and drank.

  Quinta Nova da Alegria stood on the road to São Martinho, set back along a gravel drive and an avenue of palms, just like the stucco villas in the Algarve. The man who owned it lived in Lagos and came with a different woman for every visit. There was a big wrought-iron gate and high walls to stop the happiness escaping. There was supposed to be a swimming pool round the back. Jay leaned his bike up against the wall and looked through the gate. No cars in the drive today.

  There was a dog though and it began to bark in a lazy sort of a way, as if Jay was hardly worth bothering about. Over to the left – Jay had not noticed it before – was a one-room casa with a tiny window and a splintery front door. Of course there would have to be somebody to take care of the place while the owner did whatever rich people do. Jay shook the gate to see about the dog. It snarled and took a few paces forward. It was big and sleek and black, not the usual Portuguese mutt. Now it was really barking. If it was Jay’s house and Jay’s dog he wouldn’t tie it up like that. ‘Never going to catch anyone, are you?’ he said and began to climb.

  The gate wobbled, his foot slipped and he hurt his thigh against the twisted metal. It wasn’t bad but it made his heart beat faster. He sat on top of the gate and felt dizzy from the heat and the climb and the beer and that moment when he lost his balance. The dog was further forward now, waiting to spring. Most of the guard dogs round here barked and wagged their tails at the same time. They were pretty pleased to see you really. This one wasn’t like that. It was flat-faced and hammer-headed and it didn’t want to play.

  Jay jumped. As he let go he knew he had made a mistake. The dog’s rope was still coiled. He opened his mouth to scream but it was stuffed with fear: no sound could come out, no air could go in. He hit the ground and rolled with his hands up over his head, the dog’s breath warm and meaty in his hair, the growl coming up from the ground like an earth tremor shaking his bones.

  He rolled and rolled until he hit something solid and lay belly-up in the gravel. Above, the palm leaves cut black slices in the sky. A tractor went along the road spreading its weary message, off again, off again, off again. Jay rubbed his head and looked at his hands. He smiled and turned to see the dog, straining now at his tether. ‘Sorry, mate, you lose.’

  He remembered the matches just as he was about to dive in and left them on the tiles. The sun smacked down so hard on the water it made little silver scars along the surface. A row of geraniums in earthenware pots gazed thirstily on. Jay shivered, cracked his fingers and took a run up.

  The all-and-nothingness of it.

  The water closed over his head. He kept his eyes shut. Arms wrapped around his knees, hugged in close to his chest. Whatever the water did with him. The bubbles at his mouth, the cold in his ears.

  It let him go, of course, pushed him up and turned him on his side. He opened his eyes and spread his arms so he floated face down. You only got it the first time. He knew it would be different when he jumped in again. Thin ribbons of red dust shifted over the mosaic floor. A grasshopper drifted along on its back. A leaf spun in slow motion and rested. Jay took air and swam. He did ten lengths of crawl, pulse climbing, thrill draining. He held on to the ledge and blinked away the water and panted. Then he got out and jumped in a few times. He swam another length, a good stretch of it underwater, and a blankness entered into him and flattened all desire. He got out, spread his T-shirt on the tiles and lay down. The hot tiles bit at his elbows and feet.

  The sky was so blue it hurt. He closed his eyes and watched the black strands flicker across the red. Ruby might be in São Martinho. She went in that bar near the brick-built pond with the terrapins. She said, ‘Miguel likes me. I’m good for business.’ They used to play together all the time but one day she stopped playing. Just like that. If he found her she might buy him a Coke. She might get Miguel to give him a Coke. She said, ‘Just you wait,’ and ‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ like something was going to happen to him, something bad. He wanted to ask her what but there was no point, she’d never say. There was no point asking Mum either and there was definitely no point asking Dad.

  Jay thought about China falling down last night. He held his leg like he’d been shot and rolled around saying, ‘You’re in or you’re out, mate. In or fucking out.’

  Chrissie said, ‘He wets himself, he stays like that.’ She made herself a cup of tea. She had to step over him to get to the kitchen and again to get to her chair.

  He stayed down there moaning and holding his leg. Chrissie dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief and hummed. She had that look, like her eyes were open but not seeing. That used to scare Jay so he turned her into a princess under a spell. The spell made her sleepwalk but it didn’t make her scary.

  China said, ‘Don’t talk to me about your percentage. You’re lucky I’ve given you a job, you fucking piece of shit.’

  Ruby came in and said, ‘Well, I’m not clearing it up.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Jay, kneeling down, ‘it’s Jay.’

  Ruby waved a hand in front of Chrissie’s face. ‘Hello? I said, hello? Jesus Christ. I mean.’ She went out again.

  ‘Do you want me to help you up, Dad?’ Jay tried to get an arm under him. The alcohol hung like rain in the air.

  ‘Can’t say anything, mate. Lips is sealed.’

  China fell asleep then, or passed out. It was like he’d been tortured. There was a video they had in England – they used to put it on sometimes when they’d run out of cartoons. It was black and white and it was about World War II and this pilot who’d been shot down over Germany and taken prisoner. He escaped and got back to England but he kept staggering around the streets thinking everyone was an enemy and talking in this crazy way. It was because he never told any secrets, no matter what they did to him. In the end it was all right because they took him to a hospital where the nurses had squeaky shoes and stiff dresses and he looked a bit dazed but his hair was tidy and he smiled at a nurse and then the music swelled up and you could see he was going to get better. Jay started thinking of China like that. He never decided to but it happened anyway.

  He was going to try this thing. It was like a science experiment. He picked up an old newspaper on the back terrace and poked around the garden until he found a piece of glass. Back by the pool he scrunched a few pages and laid two matches on top, head to head. Then he held the glass over the matches, making sure he got a good angle on the sun. The glass heated up all right. Jay switched hands. He moved the glass closer to the match-heads. After a while he moved it further away and over a bit to the right.

  Jay put the glass down. Dud matches. He struck one on the tiles and it flared straight off. He tossed it on the paper and stepped back. The paper decided to fly. It took off on flaming wings and began to drift over the edge of the pool towards the garden. Jay knew he should run after it but the message didn’t get through to his legs. Oh, he thought. And then again, oh.

  The paper went nearly the length of the pool then did a kind of backward somersault and chose the water for a soft landing. Two black strings of soot hung in the air like exclamation marks. It was time, Jay decided, to leave.

  He wasn’t going to look for Ruby though. In fact he wasn’t going to speak to Ruby any more, not until she started being nicer to him. And he wasn’t g
oing to tell her that either. She’d have to work it out for herself.

  He needed something to drink. ‘I’ve got a thirst on,’ Dad would say. That meant he was going to drink a lot of beer.

  It was supposed to be different here. That was why they had come. ‘You can play outside, can’t you,’ Chrissie kept saying. ‘All that space. Go on.’

  ‘Am I Portuguese now?’ Jay asked once.

  Chrissie didn’t look sure. ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘Don’t be bleeding soft,’ said China. ‘Course you’re bleeding not.’

  A car passed, hooting and swerving, though there was no need. A moped came from the other direction and the man nodded to Jay, who tried to get the bike on its back wheel as a kind of salute. He managed it in the end but the man and moped were gone by then.

  Jay decided to go to Senhora Pinheiro’s. Senhora Pinheiro’s garden came down to the street with a wall only thirty centimetres high to mark it off. She had the best fruit trees in Mamarrosa, especially the peaches. Most of the peach trees in Mamarrosa were sick. If you bit into the fruit it was always rotten in the middle. But Senhora Pinheiro’s peaches were like Our Lady: beautiful on the outside, sweet perfection inside.

  Pedro said that if Senhora Pinheiro caught a child stealing her peaches she beat it with a brass poker and threw it in the nettles. He said that once, a long time ago, she beat a boy so hard his brains got shaken up and after that he couldn’t speak Portuguese, only Spanish because that’s how dumb he was. Jay knew this was a joke but the first time Senhora Pinheiro caught him stealing he was so scared he peed – just a bit – in his pants. ‘I don’t like dirty little boys in my garden,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’ Jay wouldn’t so she dragged him along by the arm and left him outside her front door. She came back with a damp rag and attacked his face and neck and made him wipe his hands. ‘Now sit there.’ She pointed to a stool. Jay thought she was going to fetch the poker but he did what he was told. She was a very tidy-looking lady in a flowered housecoat and her hair was scraped back with not one strand escaping. It made sense she would want to clean him up before the beating. ‘Now drink this,’ she said and gave him some lemonade. ‘And take this bag of peaches. And if I catch you again you may not be so lucky.’