by Marrs, John
“Yes, British.”
“You’re a long way from home. What brings you here?”
“I’m seeing the world, and picking up a bit of work here and there.”
“What kind?” he asked, carefully stroking his goatee beard.
“Carpentry, repairs, building work, decorating… that kind of thing.”
“You ever hit a woman?”
“Of course not!”
“Do you do drugs?”
“No.” Well, not since I’d left San Francisco.
“Do you like to fuck pretty girls?”
“What?” I laughed and stopped short of snorting whiskey through my nostrils.
“Do you like to fuck pretty girls?”
“Sometimes! But like I said, I’m only in here for a drink.”
He turned his head and shouted towards a room. “Madama! Oiga, Madama!” A middle-aged niblet of woman with grey hair swept back into a ponytail and deep-red lipstick limped quickly but awkwardly towards us.
“Cual as el problemo, Miguel?”
“I’ve found your man. What’s your name, hombre?”
“Simon,” I replied.
The woman scowled as she looked me up and down, muttered something under her breath, then grabbed my hand and bent my fingers backwards.
“Ow!” I winced, and tried to pull them back. But her grip was remarkably strong in comparison to her size.
“Don’t drink my spirits, do the jobs you’re given properly and make sure the men don’t hurt the girls,” she spat in an unidentifiable accent. “And don’t fuck the pretty ones.”
“Okay, okay,” I replied, snatching my hand back and nursing my throbbing fingers. She disappeared into a back room and I stared at Miguel, puzzled.
“What just happened there?” I asked.
“Welcome to Madame Lola’s,” he smiled, raising a shot glass. “You got yourself a job!”
August 1, 1.45pm
I was accorded a peculiar mixture of respect and envy from the male townsfolk for working in a bordello. A walk into town to pick up supplies saw me ignored by patrons if accompanied by their wives. But I was acknowledged with a nod or a knowing smile when they were alone.
I acclimatised quickly to my unusual surroundings. It became the norm to hear a leather-riding crop beating the skin of a repressed businessman from behind a closed bedroom door.
I didn’t think twice when a misplaced key meant I had to cut a naked police officer from a bedpost he’d handcuffed himself to. And I barely noticed the priest in women’s underwear being chased through the corridors by girls in French maid’s outfits, like a Mexican Benny Hill.
The brothel had stood there for as long as the village; a forty-five minute drive away from Guadalajara, Mexico’s second biggest city. Some travelled miles for its courteous and discreet reputation and highly desirable girls.
For an area inhabited by less than ten thousand people, at least a quarter of the bordello’s clientele came from its own doorstep. Some even slipped out of their marital beds once their wives were deep in sleep and crept back a couple of hours later with a smile on their face and a non-the-wiser partner.
For me, it was a place of work and not play. Of course I had urges, but the purpose of exiting San Francisco was to leave behind all that had been faulty with Darren and I.
However, the course of my life was to change yet again when I fell in love with a whore.
October 23, 4.20pm
“You got it bad for her, don’t you, hombre?”
I almost fell off my stepladder when Miguel crept up behind me and whispered in my ear.
“She’s going to break your heart,” he laughed. “Chicas like her always do.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, lying to the both of us. I folded my ladder up and returned it to the storeroom and left the girl alone. But the truth was I was smitten.
*
Those who worked for Madam Lola believed themselves to be the fortunate ones. Skinny women, Oriental women, aging women, tattooed women, European women, red heads, shaven heads and one who tipped the scales at a quarter of a ton… all flavours and tastes were catered for in secure, clean premises.
Other prostitutes weren’t so lucky. It was commonplace to spot them barely-clothed and standing by roadsides, or sitting on broken plastic chairs with their knees pulled apart to attract passing trade. Others hovered in fields like worn out scarecrows.
Most men visiting Madame Lola’s brothel behaved respectfully towards the girls, but the exceptions believed they’d also paid for the right to be heavy handed if it heightened their sexual pleasure. And that’s when Miguel and I stepped in.
I’d always deplored violence, especially towards women. My mother, Dougie’s mother… both of their lives had been destroyed by the unwarranted rage of men.
Beth walked out on Dougie eight years into their marriage. I’d arrive home to find him sharing dinner with my family, desperate to avoid returning to an empty house. And when I wasn’t there to offer support, he bent your ear instead. But I’m sure there was much he hadn’t told you.
“I’ll never have what you have,” he slurred one evening, misjudging the distance between the empty can of lager and the kitchen table. You were upstairs asleep and I longed to join you.
“What do I have then?” I sighed, opening myself up for a fresh wave of self-pity.
“Someone who loves you. A family.”
“You’ll find that. You just need to meet the right person.”
“No I won’t because I’m just like my father. Sooner or later we all end up like our parents, no matter how hard we try and fight it. You will too.”
“That’s rubbish. I’m nothing like Doreen and you’re nothing like your dad.”
“Yes I am.” He stopped and rubbed his eyes before he whispered, “I hit her.”
“Who? Your mum?”
“No, Beth.”
“What?” I hoped I’d heard misheard him. “Do you mean ‘hit her’ as in you did it by accident, or as in you do it a lot?”
“A lot.” He hung his head in shame. I leaned against the back of my chair, astounded and disappointed. After witnessing all Elaine had been subjected to, he’d been inclined to repeat history.
“Why would you do that?” I asked, baffled.
“I don’t know. I just get angry and frustrated all the time and then I lash out. I can’t help it.”
“Of course you can help it! You don’t just hit your wife for no reason. Why?”
He looked up at me slowly, his eyes channelling deep into mine.
“If anyone should know, it’s you…” His voice trailed off and he picked up his jacket and stumbled out of the house.
I reluctantly followed him, propping him up by his shoulders, ready for a long walk on a short journey.
*
I headed towards the pickup truck to drive into town and buy new electrical cables. And as I looked towards her bedroom window, her closed curtain moved ever so slightly.
February 11, 12noon
Each day, I watched her lose herself in a novel. She was loyal to the authors she chose – always novels by Dickens, Huxley, Shakespeare and Hemingway… she seemed drawn to the classics. I presumed they offered her an escape to somewhere far from the whorehouse she’d made her home.
Wherever I was carrying out maintenance work around the bordello, she would stop me in my tracks through proximity alone. Of the thirty or so women who lived or worked in the brothel, she was the only one who ground my world to a halt just by being.
It wasn’t the delicate shine from her shoulder length auburn hair, her olive skin or plump, rose pink lips. It wasn’t the silk camisoles that clung to her hips and breasts, or the brown abyss of her eyes that intoxicated me.
It was her air of complete indifference towards the peculiar juncture she circled. While other girls competed for a customers’ attention, she was aloof. And that made her an all the more attractive purchase for those with deep pockets.
>
Her colleagues took as many men as were willing, but she was discerning; accepting just two per day, and never at weekends. And her self-rationing put her in great demand. Her time between them was spent in Madame Lola’s office or making herself invisible in her bedroom at the back of the building.
We never spoke; we never made eye contact and as far as she was aware, I did not exist. But it didn’t matter. I was obsessed with Luciana.
***
Today, 5.05pm
“Why didn’t you tell me about Kenneth?” she began.
He paused to reflect on a decision he’d made as a thirteen-year old boy. Then she listened closely as he revealed things about himself he’d kept hidden when they were a partnership.
He explained why London had been his first destination, and how he discovered the circumstances surrounding Doreen’s death. He spoke of meeting Kenneth, but neglected to mention what he’d whispered into his ear or why his biological father branded his only son a monster.
She’d never met Doreen and only heard bits and bobs about her through the years. Naturally, she was curious about the mother of the man she loved and she’d wanted to know more. But it was obvious he’d been hurt by her more than he ever admitted. She’d never even seen a photograph of Doreen so she’d built a mental picture of her instead. She looked like Dusty Springfield. She’d told him that once and he’d laughed.
When he spoke of spending the night by Doreen’s grave so she wouldn’t be alone, it reminded her of the sensitivity he was capable of. However, his subsequent actions had all but erased any of the good he’d done in the past.
“I didn’t tell you about Kenneth because I didn’t want to acknowledge him as my father,” he admitted. “I hated the man from the moment we met and I didn’t want you to see in me, what I saw in him.”
“Yet he’s exactly what you’ve become, if not worse,” she replied. She knew it was a callous thing to say, but he hadn’t spared her feelings so she wasn’t going to pull her punches either.
“Not now,” he corrected, “but for a while, maybe, yes.”
“So if you hated him that much, why go to the trouble of trying to find him?”
“Closure.”
“But it took you twenty-five years to offer me the same courtesy, didn’t it?”
He said nothing.
Inside she was hurt that he hadn’t trusted her with such an important secret. But she was angry he hadn’t mentioned Dougie’s violent streak towards his poor Beth. Although they weren’t close like she was with Caroline and Annie, she was sure the three of them could have helped her. And that might have changed so much that followed.
Meanwhile, he was glad it hadn’t worked out with her fancy man. He couldn’t remember his name and he didn’t like the sound of him. No one is that perfect; she’d have found that out eventually. She should have thanked him for saving her the heartache.
“Are you aware you’re dead?” she asked out of the blue. “I mean, legally dead. You have to wait seven years before you can declare a missing person deceased. So on your seventh anniversary, I hired a solicitor and eight months later, I held your death certificate in my hand.”
“But you knew I was alive?” he replied, unsettled by her sudden conceit.
“That’s true. But if you didn’t value your life with us, then why should it have mattered to me?”
He understood her motives yet her nonchalance made him uncomfortable. She enjoyed playing with him.
“It wasn’t easy; either legally or morally,” she continued, “and I had to keep up the pretence you were dead to the children and the authorities. Then I had to prove I’d exhausted all avenues in looking for you. But that was the easy part because as Roger and our friends testified, I’d already been very thorough. And after a High Court hearing, you weren’t just dead to us, but in the eyes of the law as well.”
“Why go to all that effort? To get your own back?”
“Yes, partly,” she admitted, “but also because had you decided to rise like Lazarus - like you have - I wasn’t going to make it easy for you. Your insurance money helped to put Emily and Robbie through university, so the legalities of your death benefited us all.”
She’d knocked a little of the wind from his sails, as he realised once again he’d underestimated her strength of character. He’d never considered it might be a course of action she’d take once she discovered it was a lie. And he wasn’t sure how it made him feel.
“Did I have a funeral?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes, but only for the kids’ sake. In fact they were delighted to draw a line under you because having a dad who vanished into thin air was a millstone around their necks. So it helped them move on. They rarely spoke about you as they got older anyway.”
That last part was untrue, but he didn’t need to know that. In truth, she’d learned to bite her tongue when they brought his name up, and particularly when they talked of him with longing.
He also knew it was a lie. Despite the devious nature of Karma, he remembered word for word what he’d read on that website about James.
“Could you tell me a little about my funeral?” he asked, still wounded by her frosty relish.
“What else is there to say? You have an empty grave and a headstone in the village cemetery. I don’t really remember much about it other than it came as a relief.”
Again, she was not being honest, and he saw through her inconsistencies.
“You buried your husband and you don’t remember much about it? I don’t believe you.”
“And what makes you think I care what you believe?” She laughed as people do when talking about something that’s not actually funny.
“Because if you cared so little, why did you bother with a gravestone?”
“Like I said, for the kids’ sake.”
“But you said they never spoke about me, so why would they want me to have a grave?”
She looked away and didn’t reply. Every few months one of the children still took flowers to the churchyard, and arranged them in a vase Emily had made in pottery class when she was eight. At Christmas, they all still made an annual pilgrimage there together - even her. It was the only time of year she allowed herself to think about him.
He pleaded to her better nature.
“Catherine, I promise you after today, this will be the last you see of me. So please. Let’s be honest with each other.”
“What do you know about honesty, Simon?” she replied flatly.
“I’ve learned it’s what people need before they can move on. There is so much we should have said to each other back then. But I’m here to explain everything, even though a lot of it will hurt you.”
‘You’re right there,’ she thought. He had hurt her many times already that day and she had a gut feeling it might only be the tip of the iceberg. She inhaled sharply.
“The kids begged me to organise a funeral because they felt robbed of a proper goodbye as there was no body to bury,” she explained reluctantly. “Is that what you want to hear? Everyone you’d ever known turned up for it. I even ordered a maple coffin – your favourite wood - for people to place reminders of you inside, like your pub beer tankard and football medals. And after the service, we had a party at the house where they celebrated your life.”
He listened intently and smiled; touched by the effort she’d gone to despite what she knew.
“I didn’t do it for you,” she added sharply. “I felt sick every second you forced me to play the grieving widow. You made me complicit in your lie, and I hate you for that. Had it been my choice, I’d have cremated everything you’d ever touched.”
His eyes sank to the floor like a scolded dog.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Los Telaros, Mexico, Twenty-Years Earlier
May 13, 2.10pm
No matter where in the world I went, death was sure to follow.
It was commonplace for the sounds of grown men, bawling and shrieking from ecstasy and pain, to seep under bed
room doors and echo around the corridors of the bordello. But the scream I heard that afternoon was female and born out of distress, not pleasure. And noises rarely carried from Luciana’s room.
I dropped my paint pot and brush and bolted up the staircase, across the corridor and banged on her door with my fists.
“Are you alright?” I yelled anxiously. “Luciana!”
Inside, a male voice shouted something as he suppressed her muffled cries. I turned the handle but it didn’t budge, so I panicked, raised my leg and kicked as the scuffle inside continued.
Finally the door split from its frame and I ran in, but before I could focus on anything or anyone, something weighty collided with the side of my head. My body hit the wall and I dropped to the floor like a bag of rocks. Disorientated, I began to lift myself up until the second blow stopped me in my tracks.
This time my reaction was instinctive and I grabbed the bare ankle of my assailant and twisted it hard. Its owner was felled like a tree in a storm, but then unleashed a flurry of fists upon my head and neck. I tried to shelter myself and as they attacked in a pounding, furious flurry; my head becoming increasingly numb to the pain. A lucky jab to his bare genitals left him temporarily disabled and I’d almost reached my feet before his knee broke my nose.
As his face moved towards mine, I grabbed both sides of his head but he took advantage of my exposed torso and hit me in both kidneys. Dazed and winded, I landed two clumsy whacks somewhere around his ears but they only riled him further.
For the first time, I took in his appearance. At six foot five and at least twenty stone of sculpted muscle, I questioned whether the naked, hairy creature before me was a man or a beast. I erred towards the latter.
Then he picked up a blurred ornament, raised it above his head and spat as he laughed. I expected his black, widened pupils and salivating mouth to be the last things I’d ever see and accepted the inevitable.
Suddenly, a metal lamp base appeared from nowhere and smashed against his crown. He fell to his knees; his face contorted by shock and misunderstanding. The lamp swung backwards then staved him over and over again. His eyes rolled to the back of his head leaving shiny white ovals before he slumped face down into the wet carpet, convulsing.
