by Monica Ali
It was a second, an hour, a second, before Antonio came. He took off his shirt and closed the door. ‘If you don’t want to any more . . .’ he said.
If she could she would take off her dress. There were thousands and thousands of things to say. Or maybe, in fact, there weren’t.
She grabbed her hairband and tugged it out. So much freer now, she was.
Antonio, sweet Antonio, sat on the bed and she pulled him down with her.
She kept her eyes open the whole time, watching the bamboo ceiling and counting the insects that fell.
7
CHINA KICKED ME OUT. WHEN I SAY KICKED I MEAN IT. Strange this, but when I’m sitting I can’t feel it. It’s when I walk around that it hurts.
I wasn’t arguing. When you’ve been caught out telling lies you take what’s coming. Thing is, he was happy when he walked through that door thinking he was going to be a grandfather. I didn’t see that. He was shouting, where’s my pregnant daughter? Ruby was right there in front of him. Bet it was Bruno did the gassing. Might have been Vasco. He’s always had it in for Ruby. Who’s to say? The whole damn village knew. Even the father, I guess. ‘I ain’t pregnant,’ Ruby said. He kept going on and on and she kept saying no I ain’t and then I said she definitely ain’t and China said how do you know and Ruby said I ain’t any more, like that and then it all came out.
I’m in Michelle’s caravan. She wouldn’t mind. She’s back in England doing two months in a factory, packing lightbulbs. I’ve never had a job. When I was at primary school I was top of the class up until Miss Macleary’s. Something’s gone wrong with you, Christine. She kept a pair of glasses balanced on the end of her nose and looked at you over the top of them. Do you want to tell me what it is? Did I hell.
No, I’ve never had a job. Michelle is probably hating hers right now. It’s no place for an eco-warrior, is it, a factory? She built a compost toilet all on her own. It’s a bit too close to the well.
She’s left some clothes in the caravan, underneath the seats, and we’re more or less the same size.
When I was growing up I knew what I wanted to be. What I wanted to be was small. I had a book about these tiny people who lived under the floorboards. They used matchboxes for storage and postage stamps for paintings. For dinner they ate half a pea.
It was called The Borrowers. I also had Anne of Green Gables and Ballet Shoes. I kept them in a box under my bed, with my charm bracelet and a photo of my father. There were five other books in our house. A Bible which we weren’t allowed to read because we’d only spoil it, a car manual that we stood muddy boots on next to the back door, and an ancient book about guinea pigs called Shaggy Shelties and Waxy Rexes: A Complete Guide to the Care, Maintenance and Breeding of Guinea Pigs. We never had a pet. Mum had a cookery book on the kitchen windowsill. She didn’t need it for what she made. The last book was the Collins Concise. The corner of the cover was chewed right off. Mum said I did it when I was teething. I used to take it up to my bedroom. a 1. the first letter and vowel of the English alphabet. 2. any of several speech sounds represented by this letter, as in take, bag, or calm. 3. also called: alpha. the first in a series, esp the highest mark. 4. from A to Z. from start to finish. Eating the dictionary again? Harry never asked if I liked books. People think they know so much about you and they haven’t got a clue. To be honest, I don’t like books much. I only like words when they float about on their own.
Ishmael’s a good word, don’t you think? I’ve always liked epiphany too.
The hospital is over at Beja. A hundred and thirty kilometres there, a hundred and thirty back, and we must have managed six sentences between us. Ruby took the blanket off her bed and sat pulling fluff off it. Sometimes she put it over her head. It never heats up in the car. She never said thank you but I don’t expect that anyway. The doctor looked like a goat. I swear his eyes were yellow. I remember his shoes. They were black with brown laces and they were built up very high like you see if someone’s got one leg shorter than the other, only both of his were like that. I bet he’s got hooves in there.
Dr da Silva speaks good English. He said, ‘Simply rotten weather today.’ And he said, ‘It’s rotten luck.’ Have you noticed how some words, if you say them over a few times, go silly on you? Rotten is definitely one of them.
He said, ‘It is a complicated situation, Senhora Potts, but I will help your daughter. It is fortunate that I am the one who took your call.’
They took Ruby off on a trolley. She was making eyes at the orderly. Honest to God.
There’s a Dutch ship anchored somewhere off the Algarve. Michelle had hers done there, a couple of years ago. If you go to the floating hospital it’s not illegal because you’re not actually in Portugal. How do you find it though? Start swimming and hope they throw you a line.
Ruby bled on the seat on the way back. I cleaned it up. No point asking her to do it. Well, if there’s one thing I know about it’s getting out bloodstains.
Jay came to see me yesterday. He brought my scraps and my wool and my needles and the eight peg dolls I did last week. There was nothing else left to sell. You know what, they look a bit miserable. They shouldn’t because I drew smiley faces on them. Jay forgot to bring more pegs. He was cross with himself about that but I said let me see if anyone buys these first. No point working for nothing. The car-boot sale’s only a couple of days off. I’m making coconut ice and no cakes because there’s only a fridge here and no oven. I don’t know how much to charge for the dolls. They took hours and hours, putting all that detail on, but I don’t think anyone will want them. Jay said, ‘I’ll help you, Mum, with the sewing and that.’ He blushes just with his ears. That jumper with the train on the front is a bit babyish but it’s stretched over the years, sort of grown with him. I thought I was going to cry so I said if you keep wagging off school you’ll be a moron just like your mother, now go on and try to fill that space between those ears and don’t keep popping up round here when you know you’re not supposed to.
I could have kept him here with me.
The rain’s coming down, day after day. You hear it, then you stop hearing it, then you know it’s there but you’re still not really hearing it, then you start listening and in the end that’s all you can do, listen to the rain and think oh, it’s got a bit lighter now, no, it’s slow now but heavy, and then you imagine there’s a tune in the raindrops and you try to follow it and it really pisses you off because you can’t because it’s just rain for God’s sake, just bloody rain on a bloody tin roof.
I’ve always liked this word: dogged. Don’t know why. Dogged is the opposite of me. Sum yourself up in three words. What would you say? I could give you a list of the things that I’m not.
As soon as Jay left I wanted him to come back. I ran through the mud in my socks, Michelle’s socks, but I couldn’t make him hear me. Sometimes I think I can’t really exist. I dig my nails into my skin to see if I’m really there. I’m doing it now, and it’s good when the blood comes because that proves something and you can’t just believe, you have to have proof.
It’s warmer outside than in tonight and I’m sat out under the stars. I can see a few house lights. They look so far away, like you could walk all night and never reach them. Every now and then a little dot of silver slides across the black and disappears. It’s a car going over the hill and down towards the sea. There are shooting stars as well. I’ve seen one tonight already. You never see them in England hardly because of all the light pollution. Some things you only see clearly in the dark.
It was the car-boot sale today. I sold all the dolls for two euros each so that was sixteen euros and all the coconut ice and chocolate crispies went in about an hour. Nearly forty euros altogether which is not bad. I gave Ruby and Jay ten each. Ruby will have spent hers by now.
The Portuguese loved my peg dolls. Bonita, they said. Que beleza! Requintada! I almost started thinking yes, aren’t they? Aren’t they beautiful, my dolls? But they’re the same with anything small, the Portu
guese. Any little child, they stop and tickle it on the chin and pat its head and pull its cheeks and say que coisa fofinha, que graçinha. It might be cross-eyed and dribbling and stink of shit but if it’s small it’s gorgeous, end of story.
She was wearing my clothes but I didn’t say anything about that. They were too tight for her. Ruby’s always been bigger than me. I thought she was smiling when she started across. There was a dog in one of the gardens that backs on to the square, chained up like they always are. It went mad when it saw Ruby. I thought it was going to die right then and there, just strangle itself to death.
She wasn’t smiling anyway by the time she got to me. I said how’s your dad and she said he’s all right and I said is that all you can say and she said well what do you want me to say and then we were both quiet for a bit. When she was a baby she used to stare at me all the time, follow me round with her eyes, head wobbling all over. If I left the room she screamed. She’s always driven me crazy, one way or another. I said your eyebrows look nice. They didn’t. She’s plucked them so there’s just a thin line like a child would draw.
‘He’s furious,’ she said, ‘about what you did. He ain’t never going to speak to you again.’
Someone came up and bought one of the dolls. My hands were shaking.
‘Good job,’ she said, ‘good job he’s got me to look after him.’
The worst thing is, while she was saying it I was listening to the words falling out of her mouth and landing on their heads and I was thinking you might be young but you’re not so pretty it cancels out that voice. How do you like me as a mother? I said Ruby, it was your decision too. She said have you got any money so I gave her ten and she walked off shaking her hips like she’s Marilyn Monroe and I think she’s split the seam in my good velvet skirt.
You know what, the day we got back from Beja she went out that same evening. I was getting a hot-water bottle ready but no, she had to go out. What did she think she was going to do with a baby? Like I want another to look after. Like I did such a good job with my own.
China was in Mamarrosa today. I saw his motorbike outside Vasco’s. He’ll come over when he’s ready, never mind what Ruby says. God knows I’ve tried enough times to leave. He fetches me back in the end. There’s never going to be anyone else. No one else would be so stupid.
The sky isn’t really black, you know, not even out here. When your eyes adjust it’s more purple. That’s a word I love. Purple. It sounds like what it’s saying, like thud and crack and patter, only you don’t expect it with a colour. There’s quite a lot of purple in churches, the Catholic ones. It must be a religious colour. I went into the church, the igreja, today after the fair wound down. No service on but there were three women inside, two down on their knees and their eyes closed and the other lighting a candle up near the front and looking very stern like she was really going to hold it against Him if she’d just wasted her fifty céntimos. Another woman came out of the confessional box. She was about a hundred years old, dressed all in black like they do, legs like two black bananas and a white lace apron over her dress. What did she have to confess? Forgive me, Father, for today I have not done the dusting. She crossed herself and said something to the woman with the candle and they both had a bit of a laugh. If I’ve ever hated anyone, I hated those women then. I mean, they have it so easy, don’t they: press your hands together, light a candle, ask to be forgiven.
To be honest, I didn’t hate them but I wanted to. I’m not even capable of that. I like to look at the stars and think my own thoughts. This man I read about once said he had an out-of-body experience on the operating table. His body was being cut open but he just drifted off and up and away. I was so excited because that’s what I have sometimes but I never knew it had a name. Out-of-body experiences. I’ve had them most of my life, ever since I was in Miss Macleary’s class.
I bought some more pegs and I’ve made three more dolls. They’re a family. I’m working on the mum. She’s got yellow wool for hair and black beads for eyes. The dress is blue stripes, out of an old pair of Jay’s underpants, and the apron I made from a bit of old bandage. It looks a lot better than it sounds but the eyes keep falling off. I’m wondering if anyone remembers to feed the chickens. They’ll be cross with me when I go back, the chickens. They’ll try to peck my toes, just letting me know they missed me. This caravan is a bit of a dump. There’s moss growing along the inside edges of the windows. Michelle’s supposed to be building herself a log cabin. You don’t need planning permission if you build out of wood. She’s been here three years. I guess you get used to anything in the end. When Harry said he wanted to stop seeing me I felt awful for about a minute and then I got used to it. When Ruby told me they’d been together I didn’t believe her at first. I thought she was saying it because I made her do the dishes and sweep the floor. Then I did believe her because she told China but I wasn’t really sure, not until Harry came round and then I knew it was true because I saw his face go dead and that was the proof of everything. I got used to that too.
That’s what all this is about though. Harry bloody Stanton. I mean, it can’t be about the baby. All that anger. He’s got a talent for it, I’ll give him that. My husband is good at being angry and it made him good at his job. It’s not much use to him out here. He’s got a chance now, I suppose, so he’s making the most. Bet he doesn’t even think about the baby. I do. If you’re Catholic you believe a new life is created the moment the sperm enters the egg. That’s another soul being born. And then you’ve got to believe that when the body dies, the soul carries on. The soul doesn’t die. You’ve got a soul but no body. I can’t say that sounds so bad to me.
This happened.
I was at the well, getting water to boil up the sheets. The sun was shining and it was raining that needle kind of rain. It looked like someone had thrown a stripy sock across the sky. The rainbow was that bright. There was a woodpecker in the cork oak that spreads across the toilet hut; a nuthatch flew into the mimosa and an eagle no less fussing about over the pines. Sometimes it hits you like that. All this nature.
I’d got two buckets up and I was going to go back when I heard the car. In this place, when you hear a car you always wait to see who it is. Imagine doing that in Yarmouth. The two men got out first. They looked like locals but with suits and ties, which was confusing. Then China got out. Then Jay.
He said, ‘Mum,’ and gave me a hug and backed away, all without looking at me.
I said, ‘Your hair’s getting long, almost an inch now.’ There was a hole in the top of his trainers and I thought, not another pair.
I don’t know who spoke next and I can’t remember who said what as we went up to the caravan. When we sat down everyone’s knees were almost touching like we were about to play pat-a-cake. The man with the blue tie and the fat neck was Senhor Luis Costa and the one with the green tie and the high forehead was Senhor Helder Pedro Something Something de Araujo. They were policemen and they had come down from Lisbon.
After that they switched to Portuguese because, please forgive them, their English was not too good and Senhor de Araujo said that Jay was going to translate for everyone.
‘What’s she gone and done now?’ I was prepared for anything.
My husband rubbed his palms on his knees. I thought, there’s hair growing out of his ears like an old man. I’d never noticed that before. I felt sorry for him then, if you can believe that.
‘She’s done nothing,’ he said. ‘If,’ he said, ‘you don’t count opening her legs to every Tom, Dick and Harry.’
When we were courting I used to look into his eyes and they were such a soft, soft blue. I thought that meant something. The blue’s turned watery now, if you see it at all beneath the red. But we had some wonderful times. Our parties were the best, nobody would say different, China holding court in that smelly afghan he used to wear, my saviour. I was saved, for a while. I was.
Senhor de Araujo said something to Jay. Diga a ela, he said. Tell her.
Jay wrapped his arms across his chest like he was cold, though it was getting quite hot in the caravan with all of us steaming it up. He says they’ve come here to talk about something serious. He says that he wants you to help him and not to hide anything. He says that they are going to interview you and he wants your full . . .
Jay didn’t know the word. My husband leaned forward and he smelled of the goats. ‘Cooperation.’
‘Ah yes, cooperation,’ Senhor de Araujo said. If you’re a policeman perhaps you know that word in many languages. His forehead looked like an eggshell, the exact same shade I get from my best layer. His friend had taken a little spiral-bound notebook out of his jacket. The end of his pen was chewed. Senhor de Araujo spoke some more.
‘He wants your name and address,’ said Jay.
I didn’t say anything.
‘Get on with it,’ my husband said. ‘You know who she fucking is.’
Senhor de Araujo and Senhor Costa looked at each other. You could tell what they were thinking.
Senhor de Araujo talked at Jay, who twitched and fidgeted and drummed his feet on the floor until I almost gave him a slap. I thought, when Michelle gets back and hears that my husband tried to have me arrested for breaking into her property she’s going to wet herself. I smiled at the one with the fat neck, Senhor Costa, but he just stared at me like I was going to break down and confess because of how powerful he was. I smiled at my husband as well because he of all people should know that I have never, not ever, told the police a single thing. Eggy Head had hold of Jay’s elbow. He lifted it up and down. Policemen always come in pairs like that, the one that talks and the one that doesn’t. The stringy ones usually do the talking.
‘Come on, Jay,’ I said. ‘Get it over with. Nothing to worry about.’
He turned his face away from me. His ear was like one of those sunsets you get sometimes at the end of a long summer’s day, all red and swollen and throbbing.
