Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Oh,’ she murmured against his lips, but once again she didn’t pull back. Her tongue met his and played with it.

  After a few seconds she did pull away, and he let her.

  ‘We shouldn’t,’ she said, her cheeks red now, her eyes bright.

  ‘Why not?’ asked the man. ‘We both want to.’

  He kissed her again, trailing his hand down from the back of her head over her collarbone and down to the buttons on the uniform. He unfastened them quickly as he kissed her, pushed the edges of the coat back, then he drew back a little.

  She was wearing a thin, blue-sprigged summer dress. More buttons, running all the way down. He undid these, too; a black sensible bra and panties underneath. It was like trying to break into a fortress, but somehow he did remember how this was done. He leaned in again, kissing her more deeply, his hands busy unfastening the bra behind her back. She had pale skin on her belly, and a few moles here and there, like beauty spots.

  The bra came loose and her heavy breasts fell free of their confines, her large dark nipples already hard with desire. The man brushed his hands admiringly over them and she cried out. His hands dropped to the pants. She lifted her hips and he quickly got rid of them. A thick black bush there, hugely erotic to him. He felt his cock stir to new heights at the sight of it.

  When did I last have a woman? he wondered. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything except that he needed this now.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled her across him so that she was straddling his lap. He freed himself, paused long enough to kiss and lick her nipples, then guided his cock up into her cavernous wetness. She was hot and panting now, and he was desperate for this, rock-hard with lust.

  He thrust crazily into her, holding her tight in his arms, lifting her so that her thighs slapped against his belly in a rocking motion as his penis plunged in and out of her. He wanted it to last, it felt so good, but it couldn’t; it had been a long time since he last did this, he knew that, and his orgasm was approaching, stealing over him, making him shudder and gasp with delight.

  ‘I’m not on the pill,’ she gasped, her arms around his neck, her lips beside his ear.

  He did the decent thing and withdrew – not that he wanted to. The hot pulse of his loins told him orgasm was just a beat away, and almost the instant he pulled out of her he came. In the same split-second of orgasm there was another woman in his head. Dark-haired like this one, but not merely pretty: beautiful. This woman was thinner and with larger, tauter breasts. He saw her face in a sudden flash – serious dark green eyes, sculpted cheekbones, a wide, laughing mouth . . . and then it was gone.

  They stayed like that for several long moments, breathless; then Marta flipped her leg back over, picked up her panties from the floor, set about refastening her bra. She rebuttoned her dress, then her uniform. Then she stood there and stared down at him.

  ‘So, who were you fucking?’ she asked, her mouth curved in a cynical half-smile.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked. ‘It certainly wasn’t me.’

  Again, he saw her. Green eyes dark as tourmalines. Thick, flowing, cocoa-brown hair. Who the hell was she?

  He stared at Marta, hardly even seeing her. Who was that woman . . .? Marta’s face was thunderous.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He didn’t. It was the truth.

  She slapped his face, hard, and stormed from the room.

  After that, it was strictly business with her. She was cold with him, remote; and he accepted that. He mastered the balance board with an effort, and walked the corridors with his sticks, sweated through the physio, ate, grew stronger – wondered what the hell was going to happen to him when the day came that he had to leave hospital.

  But Benito had an answer for that. The doctors were talking about how pleased they were with him now, that his memory should return to him given time, that he had made a most remarkable recovery – but they couldn’t let him out of hospital unless he had a home to go to, and someone to care for him as he completed his recuperation.

  ‘Of course you must come and stay at the monastery,’ said Brother Benito.

  The man looked at the brother, sitting there as he had so many times before, patient, kind; he remembered that this was the man who had in all probability saved his life, who had taken no notice of his surly refusal to accept comfort and companionship, who had come back again and again and again, with whisky and quiet conversation, when all he got in return was anger and abuse.

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ said the man. He stared at the monk. ‘You know, I don’t know a damned thing about you, do I? Except that you saved my life. Have you always been like this?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Kind. Giving your arse away, taking nothing in return.’

  ‘Ah! No.’ Benito was smiling, lighting up his craggy features. ‘I wasn’t always one of the brothers, you know. Once I was a bastard.’ His eyes twinkled with mirth as he said it. ‘Just like you.’

  The man was intrigued. ‘A bastard? You? Come on.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Now the smile drained from Benito’s eyes and they looked sad. ‘I was a soldier once. A Falangist volunteer. I fought in the Battle of Majorca during the civil war in Thirty-six. We drove the Republicans back into the sea.’ He paused. ‘We won.’

  ‘You say that as if you lost.’

  ‘What I lost then, my friend, was my taste for bloodshed. I saw things . . . terrible things. And did them too. We won, yes – but at such a cost.’ Benito shook his head and then brightened again. ‘So come and stay with us. No one will bother you. You’ll be left in peace. I promise.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Benito had already done so much.

  ‘Oh? Why not?’ Brother Benito looked at him. ‘Where else would you go? The doctors won’t release you until they are certain you can manage alone, and, to be honest, you can’t. You need somewhere to stay so that you can recover properly. The hard work’s done, now it gets easier. Accept the invitation. Come and stay.’

  The man stirred uneasily in the bed, aware that he owed the brothers an enormous debt of thanks. And what choice did he have? He had no idea where his home was; all he could do was wander the streets if he turned down the offer. And he had been churlish enough to this good man, he knew that.

  ‘Then . . . thanks,’ he said.

  And it was agreed.

  Chapter 27

  The monastery was a haven of calm, perched high upon the edge of the Tramuntana mountains where they dipped down to the sea. As the monks went about their daily business of prayer and work, the man started to walk outside the monastery walls, going further and further every day.

  Nurtured by good food and sunshine, he grew strong. Months passed peacefully by and he felt shielded from the world, content with his lot, sheltered within the cosy rhythms of this spiritual hideaway. The endless cycle of prayers and the daily singing of the choir in the little Renaissance church were a soothing backdrop to his daily life. He even threw aside the sticks and walked unaided, wearing shorts and a thin shirt, which he stripped off when the day grew too hot.

  His ankles still gave him some pain; occasionally, one or the other would lock solid, and he had to sit down in the pink Mallorquin dust and swear and groan until the crisis past. But he persevered, and grew fitter, until finally he was able to jog along the precipitous pathways with the ocean crashing onto the rocks far below him. When he was able to do that, he knew that his body was back to normal.

  But his mind . . . that was another matter. It frustrated him badly, the weird flickering images that drifted in and out of his brain. The dark-eyed woman. An occasional feeling of urgency, of tension – as if he had missed something vital, that there was something he had to do . . . but what? He didn’t know.

  ‘Come into the town with me, I’m going to get provisions and go to the bank,’ said Benito often, but the man always refused. He felt safe in the monastery, as he had in the hospital. The world could not intrude here.
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  He said no so many times that, finally, Benito’s patience snapped.

  ‘There’s a word for this,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For what you’ve become. It’s institutionalized.’

  ‘What?’

  Benito was looking at him sternly as they stood in the garden. The man had been digging up vegetables for dinner, he was happy – why wouldn’t Benito take the hint and piss off?

  ‘First you wanted to stay in the hospital.’

  That was true enough; he had.

  ‘Now you’re barely going outside these walls except to walk alone. You’ve been living here for a year, my friend. You can’t hide away from the world like this.’

  The man stared at his friend and saviour. ‘Are you saying you want me to go?’ He felt hurt and angry at this unexpected attack.

  ‘No. What I am saying is that you must start to get back into the real world. For the sake of your health. That’s all. So next time I ask you to join me, just come. All right?’

  Benito left him alone. But the following week he came back.

  ‘I’m going down to the town,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘I’m busy,’ said the man. Benito was right and he felt ashamed but he did feel apprehensive about venturing out.

  ‘No you’re not. So you’re coming.’

  It wasn’t a request, it was an order.

  ‘Well fuck you,’ said the man. But Benito was right. This was ridiculous. ‘Start the bloody motor up,’ the man said. ‘I’ll get washed. Ten minutes, okay?’

  The first time out was the worst, but after that he did sometimes go with Benito when he went down to the nearest small town. He drove a battered, wheezing old Renault; it looked as if the journey back up might kill it stone dead. Benito always went on market day to get provisions and do any banking.

  At first, the crush of people and the noise felt strange to the man. But Benito moved confidently among the stalls, filling bags, chatting to the stallholders while the man held back, uneasy among this teeming mass of life. He was usually glad when they got back to the car and started back up to the monastery; but every time he accompanied Benito on these trips, he felt a little more comfortable with it all.

  This particular day, he was sitting there in the rickety passenger seat of the old car as Benito drove them back up to the monastery after their shopping expedition, when he had another flashback; vivid and sudden. He saw himself in the back of a sleek black motor, and someone else was driving him.

  It was there, and then it was gone.

  ‘I think I’m starting to remember things,’ he told Benito.

  Benito glanced at him with a cheerful smile. ‘Are you? Like what?’

  ‘There’s a woman,’ he said. ‘And a car.’

  ‘That’s good. Don’t force it, my friend. Let it happen as it will.’

  As if there’s anything else I can do, thought the man gloomily.

  They turned a sharp bend in the road, and the way ahead was blocked. There was a fallen cork oak lying across it. Benito wrenched on the handbrake and turned off the engine.

  ‘Look at that! Sometimes this happens, they just die of old age.’ Benito got out of the car and walked towards the fallen tree. ‘Come on, I’ll need a hand with this,’ he said.

  But the man held back. The oak hadn’t been there to impede their passage down the mountain, but now here it was. The man looked at the base of the trunk of the tree; to his eyes it looked as if someone had hacked at it to give it a helping hand.

  He felt tension take hold of him, some sixth sense telling him something was wrong with this. The man knew that Benito made this journey every week on the same day and at the same time. And if he knew it, maybe others knew it too.

  Warily, he got out of the car. Brother Benito was already standing beside the oak, pulling up his cumbersome robes to get a good grip on the thing and heave it out of the way.

  ‘Benito . . .’ said the man, moving forward, looking left and right, wanting to say: Wait; be careful.

  Then two men emerged from the shrubbery on their right.

  Fuck it, thought the man. Benito had seen them too – and the man could see that he was instantly thinking the best of people, as he always did; that these kind strangers had been passing and were now going to help them move the obstruction.

  ‘You need help, Brother?’ shouted one of the men, moving forward, his grin a bit too wide, a bit forced.

  ‘Thank you, we do,’ said Benito, and then he bent over the oak and one of the men, young and wearing a sweat-stained red shirt and shorts, ran forward and struck him across the head with a branch. Benito fell forward.

  The other one, who looked older, his dark hair flecked with grey at the temples, wearing a torn grey vest and jeans, was watching the man, who had started forward with a warning shout just before Benito was hit. The older one pulled out a knife.

  The man came from the car at a run, straight at him, then he stopped a yard away, his eyes on the knife. Grey Vest grinned, and lunged, expecting the man to fall back. Instead, he jumped forward, catching the arm with the knife in both of his hands, then launched himself furiously at Grey Vest, hitting him square in the nose with his forehead.

  Grey Vest staggered back, blood pouring down his face. The man dug his elbow hard into his solar plexus and when he started to topple he kicked his knee and heard a satisfying crunch as it broke. Grey Vest screamed with agony and dropped the knife.

  The man picked it up; Benito’s young red-shirted attacker was running at him now with the stick raised. He threw the knife, and it thwacked hard into the join of the man’s elbow. He shrieked and fell to the ground, the stick bouncing away from him, The man came in fast and kicked him in the groin.

  Get them down and keep them down, shot into his brain.

  He turned, ready to inflict more damage. The two men were grovelling in the dirt now.

  Finish them.

  He yanked the knife free of Red Shirt’s arm. Red Shirt yelled, cursed, but the man ignored him. With the dripping knife in his hand, he stepped towards Grey Vest.

  ‘My friend!’ Benito was there by the oak, tottering a little on his feet, clutching at his bruised head. ‘No! Don’t. Enough.’

  The man paused, breathing hard. Looked at the two writhing men, looked back at Benito. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked after a couple of beats. The blood was singing in his ears. He wanted to hurt them.

  ‘Just a sore head,’ said Benito, but he looked ashen.

  ‘Get back in the car, in the passenger seat, I’ll drive,’ said the man.

  He glanced at the knife in his hand, then at the two men who were watching him with abject fear and anguish in their eyes. Suddenly he hurled the knife out over the cliff. Then he approached the oak and, keeping a careful eye on their fallen assailants, he grunted and lifted the thing to the side of the road.

  He went back to the car, got in.

  ‘But what about . . .’ began Benito, his anxious eyes on the two men, still prone in the dust.

  ‘They’ll live,’ said the man roughly. ‘Not that they deserve to. Benito, you have to vary the days for your trips to the town. Don’t just go down on market days, it’s not safe. And always make sure you have someone else with you, an escort, all right? Take more care.’

  Benito was staring at him. There was a large blue lump coming up on his tonsured head. He seemed shaken, but not – thank God – badly hurt. ‘Um, my friend?’

  ‘Yeah, what?’ He was restarting the engine, shoving the gear into first, taking off the handbrake. The car started to move, past the men, up the mountain road once more.

  ‘My friend . . . you’re driving. Did you know you could drive?’

  The man took a breath. Seemed to become aware. He flashed a shaky grin at Benito.

  ‘No, I didn’t. But obviously I can.’

  ‘So . . . you can drive, and you remember a woman, and a black car . . .’

  ‘A Jaguar,’ said the man suddenl
y.

  ‘A Jaguar.’ Benito nodded, then winced and clutched at his head.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘It’s nothing; it was just a glancing blow. I turned away just as he struck me.’ Benito was still staring at his companion.

  ‘What?’ asked the man.

  ‘You seem to know how to defend yourself. With more force than is strictly required.’

  ‘He had a knife.’

  ‘Still . . . you broke his leg.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘I heard it snap.’

  ‘Ah. Well, he deserved it,’ said the man, grim-faced as he steered the car up the dusty road.

  Benito was still watching him. ‘You have a talent for violence.’

  ‘Maybe I’m a soldier,’ said the man. ‘Like you used to be.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what you are?’

  The man thought about it. ‘No. I don’t.’

  Chapter 28

  Several times when he was running along the pathways in the mountains, he glimpsed a boy herding goats, and he wondered if this might be Jaime, the boy who had found him and, with Benito’s help, saved his life. He tried to get near enough to find out, but it was difficult; Jaime was as agile as the goats he herded, and always seemed to be away in the distance, inaccessible. This had become the norm: spotting the boy but being unable to do more than raise a hand to him and have him raise a hand in return. So when he rounded a bend in the track one day and came face to face with the boy and his goats, he was both surprised and delighted. He slowed to a walk, then a stop.

  ‘Are you Jaime?’ he asked with a grin.

  The boy nodded warily.

  The goats milled around the man, nudging his legs with their hard little noses.

  ‘You found me,’ said the man, pointing. ‘Right down there somewhere. Didn’t you?’

  Jaime’s darkly tanned face split in a bright, white smile. ‘It’s you!’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me. I want to thank you.’

  Jaime was shaking his head in wonder. ‘You look so different! So . . . better.’