The Outcast Son

by Jacobo Priegue

  My boss looked like a different person in the restaurant. He was happy, smiley, attentive and talkative. I wondered how long it would last, but I tried to enjoy his new version as much as I could.

  “I already know what I want,” he said, and he meant it. “How about you? Are you going to try the same?”

  “I do like spicy,” I said. “Is it, like, crazy spicy, or just a bit?”

  “Well, it’s not the spiciest thing I’ve ever tried, but it’s okay. Even if you’re not used to it, you won’t start shouting and crying for water.”

  “That’s all right, then. I think I’m trying it.” I liked the way he smiled when I told him I’d have the same, but it worried me that he could think I was trying to please him.

  “Great!” he said. “You’re going to like it.”

  Right after we ordered, there was a moment of silence. I was about to say something before it got awkward, but Mark spoke first, saving me the hassle – or the embarrassment.

  “So you’re Spanish, huh?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, a bit shocked by the obvious question.

  “I’ve been to Malaga and Barcelona.”

  “Such a surprise,” I said, only realising my rudeness when it was too late.

  “Excuse me?” He said, frowning and with a half-smile.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, without rectifying, “it’s just that half of the people I meet in the UK have been either to Malaga or to Barcelona – or to both!”

  “Is that so?” he said, accepting my explanation. “I thought most people went to Tenerife.”

  “Well, yes, I was kind of exaggerating,” I said. “All of the places you mentioned are at least one thousand kilometres away from my city anyway.”

  “Really?” he said. “Where are you from, then?”

  “I’m from the northwest. From Galicia.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” he said, with an enquiring face.

  “Well, you may’ve heard of Santiago de Compostela.”

  “It rings a bell now that you mention it,” he said unconvinced.

  “I’m afraid it’s not as popular as the south and the east,” I said. I had always found it annoying to have to tell the same story to every single person I met, but I was enjoying my conversation with Mark, and it was lovely to see him interested in what I was saying for a change, so I carried on with the same enthusiasm as he had shown when talking about food. “It’s very rainy most of the year, and it wasn’t traditionally promoted out of Spain as much as other cities, but I absolutely love it.”

  “Is it rainy? In Spain?” he said, incredulous.

  “It is in Galicia,” I answered. “It rains more than in England, I dare to say. Or at least more than in London.”

  “Really? That’s interesting,” he said, knitting his brows.

  But the conversation stopped abruptly when a full plate of chicken was put in front of Mark’s nose. “Qué aproveche,” was all he said with an awful Spanish accent before he took fork and knife and got mentally absent for around half an hour. He liked to be perceived as an educated gentleman, but I bet he would’ve thrown the cutlery away and devoured the chicken like a wild animal after having starved for a week if he’d been alone. I tried the chicken. It was marvellous. It had just the right proportion of spicy peppers, enough to give the food a touch without spoiling the taste of the meat.

  “Are you single?” he asked when I had my mouth full of chicken. I almost choked out. I had to cough and have a sip of wine before answering.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m not in a relationship, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Good.”

  “Pardon?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s not that,” he said, his eyes open as a blue sky. “I mean that it’d be hard to be away from your husband for such a long time if you were married.”

  “Okay,” I said with a look of suspicion in my eyes. He smiled again, and we both had a sip of wine.

  “I don’t want this to feel like an interview,” he said, “but tell me, why this hunger for helping people in South America?”

  “Well,” I said, “I had always wanted to do something for others. Something fulfilling, you know what I mean? And I feel I spent all my life waiting and waiting and never going for it.”

  “I absolutely understand you,” he said. “And why now?”

  “Well,” I didn’t want to say a word about what happened in Santiago not long ago. He’d probably run away and fire me and refuse to talk to me ever again. “I guess I needed a change.”

  “I started on this to forget my girlfriend,” he said. “It was a long relationship, nearly five years.”

  “May I ask what happened?” I said. He bowed his head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, looking at me again. He lapsed into a short pause. “She died.”

  “Oh, dear! I’m so sorry!” How could I be so clumsy?

  “You don’t need to be. It was long ago.” He cast his eyes down again for a couple of seconds and then carried on. “But let’s talk about more cheerful stuff! I was telling you I started on this because I needed a change in my life. I was just like you at the beginning, getting paid very little money and volunteering for the most part, but now this is more like a lifestyle for me, and I absolutely love it. It’s not that I’ll become rich anytime soon, but it pays the bills, all of them, and it feels really good to help others.”

  “I bet it’s a lonely life.”

  “Well, sort of. It also gives you the chance to meet amazing people,” he said, smiling with intention. I held his stare.

  “Yes, I guess it does,” I said, smiling back, my eyes fixed on his.

  “I love when you do that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You smile with your whole face. It’s a true smile. Genuine.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “I like your smile too. It makes you look like you always get what you want. Is that the case?”

  “I wish!” he said, his grin half-closing his eyes. “But I get what I want sometimes. And I’m very persistent.”

  “And what do you want tonight, Mr Johnson?” I said, biting my lower lip.

  “I think you know the answer to that question, Laura,” he said, “and I told you to call me Mark.”

  “Mark it is, then.”

  I insisted on paying the bill, but he said it was on the company. It sounded like a lie, but I wouldn’t have an argument with my boss over this, so he only got his first strike when he attempted to open the door of the taxi for me.

  “Please,” I said, “don’t be ridiculous.” I stared at him with a serious expression, but I quickly smiled at the sight of his flushed face. I had made it, he was ashamed, and I felt in control for the first time.

  We both occupied the backseats. He was next to the right door, too embarrassed to move closer, but I felt confident, so I slid my body across the leather towards him.

  “These seats are very smooth,” I said as I stroked the space separating our bodies. He looked at me, fully recovered from my reprimand.

  “I bet they’re not the smoothest thing there is in this taxi,” he said.

  He slipped his left hand on my leg. It was warm. I closed my eyes and raised my chin, and Mark started kissing me: my neck first, and then my cheeks and my chin and my lips. A groan escaped my mouth, and I felt the taxi driver’s eyes on me. That excited me more, but I knew I had to stop. For now.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, preventing Mark’s hand from coming any closer.

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said, and we spent the rest of our journey to the hotel playing a game of sensual glances and shy smiles.

  But the hotel wasn’t far, and we got there soon enough. We walked in the lobby together. Only the receptionist was there. We crossed the hallway without saying a word and stopped by the lift. The light of the numbers switched on as it approached the ground floor. Four. My heart felt fluttery with expectati
on. I didn’t dare look at Mark’s eyes. Three. It was strange. I was quivering. A grown-up woman shaking as if I were on my first date. Two. It was almost here. I could already sense the humming of the cubicle reaching the first floor. One. My head couldn’t think clearly. I was melting down like an iron bar in a blacksmith’s hands. Ground. The tinkle of the lift electrified my skin with his high pitch. The door opened. We stepped in. It closed again. I looked at Mark’s face, shy and thirsty, and he jumped into my arms, both of us kissing and grabbing and pushing each other’s faces back against the cold mirror of the lift, staining it with the dew of our sweat.

  “Shall we go to my room?” Mark said, his voice almost unintelligible to me amongst sighs and moans.

  “Yes,” I panted, “whatever.”

  He pulled the key out of his pocket and put it in the lock. I grabbed him from behind and caressed his chest with both hands, feeling how he deliberately tensed his muscles to my touch. I slid my fingers down very carefully, learning all the shapes of his abdomen. By when the door was open, my hands were already trying to undo his belt, unable to repress their hunger.

  We both got into his bedroom, and he turned around, only to take my blazer off and throw it on to the floor. He kissed me, and I lifted his shirt just enough to sense his skin with my fingertips. He took my T-shirt off, wrapped me in his arms and pushed me towards the bed until I had no other option than to sit down and lay on my back. His eyes were on my body. On all of it. Sparkling as he approached my belt and undid my button and unzipped my jeans, which he pulled out with a restlessness that almost made me fall down. His breath was draining the air out of the whole room. It made me tremble. It was hot and wet, and I was hot and wet, too, my blood rushing through my veins and a thin coating of sweat caressing my breasts and my thighs and the space behind my knees. He was naked and excited. His body shining in the blue moonlight. He grabbed my waist and used his force to turn my body and hold me by my breasts from my back as he kissed my neck. My hands were on the bed. My eyes on the window in front of me. Staring at the reflection of a naked woman on her knees and arching her back, her eyes half-closed with pleasure as the man behind held her by her hips, and by her breasts and by her hair, making her head go backwards and her back take all the thrust of his body. It was hot to watch myself as a stranger. It was the only time I let a man take control in our first date, although it wasn’t even a date, but it didn’t matter now. I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted the man reflected on the window, the blue monster who held me prisoner of my own desire. I finished before him, but it didn’t take him very long when he heard me groaning high and loud.

  “That was great,” he said, barely able to utter any words.

  “Yeah,” I answered, “it wasn’t bad.”

  He smiled sardonically. “Come here,” he said.

  “What?” I said as I approached him.

  He kissed my forehead. It felt odd. “Thank you for this night, Laura, you’re amazing,” he said, hiding again behind his tough man disguise. “Now I’m very sorry, but I have some work to do before going to bed.”

  I couldn’t slap my boss, but my stare made him bow his head. “I understand. Boss.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that,” he said, stroking my chin. “We’ll see each other tomorrow. This was an awesome night, and I’d love to spend the rest of it with you, but I need to catch up with some stuff I couldn’t finish in the airplane.” My face had not changed. I could be cold, too. I could be a complete bitch if I wanted. “Let me make this up,” Mark said, “let’s have a date tomorrow. A proper date. What do you say?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Chapter 25

  Leave it as it was

  It had been a week since they took me to prison, and I was anything but accustomed. Days started and finished indifferently, bathed in the dim light of a half-sun. It wasn’t hell, but nothing remarkable ever happened. Always the same idle routine. Always the same faces at the canteen and the garden and the playground. Always the same alarm, the same sound of footsteps and locks and whispers at night, the same sight of the same wall in the same cell.

  My only entertainment was my cellmate. Jane was exactly the person you want to have next to you when you arrive at a new place. She was talkative and kind, but she also knew when to shut up. She had a rough life, with a nasty history of abuse and violence. When she left home, she survived thanks to her ability to steal anything from anybody, until she rummaged into the wrong pocket and ended up in prison.

  “A fucking judge,” she used to say, spitting on the floor, “fuck him!” She was so good that, when the guy noticed his credit card had disappeared from his wallet, it already had a hole of four thousand pounds. “You should’ve seen his face in the trial! Red as a tomato. I thought he’d burn away!” It wasn’t the first time she’d been caught, but never before had she gotten such a loot.

  It was always entertaining to listen to Jane’s stories, but what I appreciated the most was her inestimable knowledge of prison life and routines. She had been there for two years, and she knew everything that was worth knowing: the softest guards, the best jobs and how to get them, the inmates I had to avoid, and of course, how to get stuff from the outside world. I didn’t tell her much, though. I just liked listening to her voice. It made me feel less alone. But I did tell her why I was there because it seemed only fair to return the favour when she asked.

  “I’ve been accused of killing my son,” I told her.

  “Oh, fuck!” she said. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at the floor.

  “Did you actually?” she inevitably asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I don’t think I did.”

  “Oh dear, how is it possible you don’t know? Where you high?”

  “No. I don’t remember. I thought I passed out.”

  “If that’s what you’re going to tell the judge, you’re fucked,” she said. “You know that, don’t you, sweetie?”

  “I know. I’ve talked to this lawyer. He’s pretty good. He’s investigating the case. And there’s also this detective, I kind of like her, and she seems to believe I haven’t done it.”

  “Well, that’s not enough, I’m afraid,” she said. “Even if you are innocent, they’re going to need a murderer, so if they can’t find any, you’d better get used to seeing these bars.”

  It was true. I was there when it happened, every piece of evidence pointed at me, and I couldn’t possibly prove I was innocent with the information I had. I didn’t need a lawyer, I needed magic. Only Jake and Detective Hassan and the favour of the gods combined could save me from aging in jail. If only I could trust Mark, I would know what to do. But how could I? He had talked to the police before talking to me – he was my husband, he didn’t need to, he wasn’t bound to speak by law, but he chose to do it anyway before even giving me the chance to recover and speak by myself. The day he came to visit, he found a grim face and my hideous eyes.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” I answered.

  “I’m sorry, Laura, I want to help, but you need to let me.”

  “Don’t sorry me, Mark! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sorry? I mean, I don’t know. I’m trying to help you. Andrew McNeil is the best lawyer in London. If he represents you, you won’t go to prison.”

  “No, I know!” I said sardonically. “I know I won’t go to prison! I’ll be thrown into a mental hole! And I won’t be able to get out ever again, is that what you want?”

  “But it doesn’t have to be like that!” he said, struggling to understand my obstinacy. “You could be out soon!”

  “Dammit, Mark, you know me. You know my past. No jury will let me out after what I’ve done. They’ll find out about Oscar, and they won’t see me as a desperate victim trying to defend herself anymore. They’ll see a pattern, and they’ll find out what happened to me on the beach too. They’ll connect everything! They just have to join the bloody dots a
nd lock the crazy Laura in an asylum for life!”

  “Andrew won’t let them,” he said, unconvinced. “I won’t let them. We’ll find a way. Together. There must be something we can do.”

  “Yes, there is something,” I said. “We need to find the person who did it.”

  “What?” he said. “What are you saying?”

  “I didn’t do it, Mark,” I said. “I know I didn’t. I’m not mad. I wasn’t angry at Jaime. He was unconscious. And so was I. I couldn’t do it.”

  “But I saw you!” he said. “How do you explain that?”

  “You lie,” I answered, my eyes piercing through his skull.

  “What? Why?” he asked, surprised. “It doesn’t make sense! Why would I do that?”

  “To get away with it,” I said.

  “Okay, I’m going to ask only because I want to believe I’m misunderstanding you,” he said. “To get away with what, exactly?”

  “With murder.” I needed to see his reaction. No veils. No disguises. No lawyers between us. Just the person I had shared my bed with for the past six years. I knew him. I knew his face. Every expression line. Every tic. I knew when he lied and when he told the truth, when he was happy or angry or anxious or relaxed; I knew his bloody face.

  “Oh, please, Laura,” he said, showing a nervous smile. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “Mark, I know you’re lying,” I said. “You didn’t see me kill my boy.” He was about to interrupt me, but I put the palm of my hand up for him to let me finish. “I didn’t have a reason. I hadn’t lost control. I didn’t hold a grudge against Jaime because I loved him and he couldn’t do anything I wouldn’t forgive.” Mark was paying good attention to what I was saying. His eyes were like a book to me. I could read them. He was telling me everything without even opening his mouth. “You, on the other hand…”