by Lucy Wadham
He now watched her lock her car and walk towards him on her high heels. Txema prepared his countenance. He turned on the engine as she reached the passenger door. She climbed up and immediately pulled down the sun visor to reveal the vanity mirror, checked her teeth for lipstick, then reached over and kissed him on the mouth.
So, she said, leaning back against the window so that he could get a good look at her. Are you ready? Shall we do it?
Do what?
Let the cat out of the bag, she said smiling. Her lovely smile, that she could use to great effect, sometimes made him uneasy. Now, at night, in this enclosed space, with this ghoulish light, was such a time.
You’re the cat, he said, driving off.
Stop, she said gleefully.
You’re my Siamese cat, he said. Clever and elegant.
Oh Txema. He could feel her giving him a longing look. He kept his eyes forward. He had an urge to put an end to this mood.
Where are the letters, then? she asked shrilly.
They’re in the glove compartment.
Lorea pulled out the green folder and hugged it. It was a precious package indeed, although it had been easily won. Until February of that year, when he had retired and moved to Baiona, Mikel’s lawyer, Gomez Igari, had smuggled his client’s letters out of prison for him. He had posted them all for Mikel but not without photocopying them first and giving the copies to Txema, who had convinced Gomez that it was for everyone’s good to keep a record of Mikel’s correspondence. Thanks to careful insinuation over the years, Gomez had come to believe, like Lorea, that his client was an informer. The letters in the green folder were all addressed to Astrid Arnaga.
Shall I visit Lola in the morning? Lorea asked.
No, he said dryly. We’ll watch her first. And wait. He may contact her.
Lorea puffed out air and pulled down the mirror again.
Of course he won’t, she said sulkily. He doesn’t give a shit about her. I can’t wait to wipe that smile off her dolly face, she said, keeping her eyes on her reflection. She now faced Txema. Honestly, what a sheltered life. They’re both spoilt, that’s their problem.
Txema found Lorea’s jealousy of other women more and more distasteful.
I don’t agree, he said. They’ve had hard lives.
But they don’t believe in anything, she pleaded.
You don’t know that, Lorea. Don’t be so quick to judge. He felt her will slacken. We’ll wait.
Lorea faced forward sulkily. Txema knew that she was going to bring up her brother again. As they drew near their spot he accelerated.
Are we going to our spot, she asked?
He nodded.
Oh Txema.
He kept his eyes on the road, keeping his pleasure from her. He looked at his watch.
I’ve got seven minutes, he said.
That’s plenty.
As he came off the road he felt her watching him with admiration. He raced through the gap in the hedge, turned left along the dirt track and skidded to a halt beneath the chestnut tree.
He took off his shades.
Just one thing, she said.
Seven minutes, Lorea.
She smiled.
I know. Can’t Anxton follow Lola Arnaga? He’s good. He’s had years of experience on a bike. He needs someone to trust him. He needs to prove himself.
I’ll think about it. Then he reached behind her head and pulled her gently towards him. Come on you dirty girl, he said, and she gave a little moan. He saw her eyes close as she sank to his crotch.
This was their pact. This was what held them together. Neither of them liked taking off their clothes, nor were they particularly interested in penetrative sex. After that first night in the hotel there had been an unspoken agreement not to repeat the experience. They both preferred these fleeting encounters. Lorea, he soon discovered was perfectly frigid. Her pleasure seemed to be entirely in her head. She liked being dominated and told that she was filthy, which suited him fine.
Clasping a handful of her hair, he kept one eye on the dark road in his wing mirror because they could come for him at any time. His constant watchfulness did not interfere with his pleasure. He had the gift of being able to be on the outside and the inside at the same time.
*
Txema waited until the rear lights of Lorea’s car had disappeared down the mountain, then he started up the engine and drove up the hill in the opposite direction. Ahead of him a large yellow moon hung oppressively in the sky. He drove past a cluster of modern houses, built in a geometric version of the vernacular that he himself had approved. As he went by, his car triggered the floodlight on the side of one of the houses. He turned into his mother’s gravel drive and parked on the concrete ramp that led to the garage door. He turned off the ignition and sat for a moment with the window down. Behind the dusty smell of hydrangeas was a smell of sewage. It was coming from behind the neighbours’ row of newly planted spruces. Txema climbed down from his car and stood looking up with hatred at the high wall of conifers. He knew that he could block the planning permission for their swimming pool, at least for a few summers, but this seemed thin compensation for the discomfort of their presence. They had bought the ruined farmhouse behind his mother’s villa as well as three hectares of land and there had been nothing he could do about it. It was his great misfortune that the second wife of the Basque Minister of the Interior was from the village and had set her heart on a house here for their retirement. Now of course the minister came up from Vitoria almost every weekend with a brochette of bodyguards. It meant that at the weekends Txema could not risk coming to check on his money.
He walked up the steps and unlocked the front door. He hoped that his mother would be asleep. In his present mood he would not have been able to be kind to her. He stepped into the dark hall. His mother’s light was on and the radio was blaring from her bedroom on the first floor. This did not necessarily mean she was awake. She was deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other and the new quietness of the world frightened her. Even as she slept, either the TV or the radio was left on at full volume. He closed the door behind him and walked up the stairs.
His mother’s door was ajar but he did not look in. He continued up the stairs to the attic. He had moved the last of the money here as soon as his mother had become bedridden and there was no chance that she might come upstairs. In prison he had lived in terror of it being found by the organisation or by the Guardia Civil. Both sides were always roaming the hills in those days, training or scouting for caches. Now that the hills were no longer safe, the organisation hid its weapons in town and trained people in rented flats, which they made soundproof. After his release Txema had moved the money several times to various locations in the hills and each time had involved considerable risk. Today the hills were teeming with health fanatics. You could hide nothing there. Having it here meant that he could come and look at it whenever he liked. And since he had started visiting his invalid mother so regularly his popularity in the village had increased.
But it had been Lorea who had been his saving. When he met her it soon became clear that she would do anything for him. She understood that Txema Egibar was as close as she would ever get to the organisation.
When Txema had told her about the money, she had been overcome with love and gratitude. He had indicated, without ever saying as much, that he was holding it for the organisation. In January 1993 she had driven it all the way to Switzerland, except for a small portion of it which he had decided to keep with him to remind him of his good fortune. She had placed the money in an account in his name. The three days it had taken her to make the trip had been the beginning of Txema’s addiction to tranquillisers. His libido had certainly taken a knock since then but he didn’t care. The money was safe and not once had Lorea asked him where it came from.
Txema stepped into his mother’s attic. It was filled with his father’s possessions. She had moved all his stuff up here after his death in 1954 when Txema was ten. His father�
�s guns were here and his clothes, his shoes and his fishing gear, every single magazine he had ever bought and his letters to and from his brother, Txema’s Uncle Iñaki, who had been killed by a bull in Pamplona. Txema’s mother had thrown nothing away but he knew that it was testimony not of her love but of her indifference that she had not sorted through any of her husband’s possessions. Since Txema had started coming here to look at his money, he had developed a new attachment to the memory of his father. He fancied that this attic carried his father’s smell, believed that up here he could remember him quite clearly.
What was left of the money was concealed in a trunk beneath his father’s civil war uniform. Txema loved this uniform, its smell of camphor, its weight, its lichen green. It carried a solemn magic for him. Indeed it was the symbol of his father’s legitimacy and so of his own. It had guaranteed Txema a place in the world. He lifted it from the trunk, laid it reverently on the floor and pulled out his father’s leather satchel. He did not open it straight away but clutched it to his chest and looked at the moon, now as it should be, filling the attic window.
Txema had always believed that he knew Mikel. He was one of those people who never did anything out of character and this, Txema felt, would ultimately be his downfall. He believed that if Mikel were to suspect him of having kept the money, he would not betray him but confront him. It was this confrontation that he had been dreading all these years. That Mikel should now hide from him, that he should elude him in this way, made Txema very uncomfortable. His heart filled with hatred at the memory of Mikel’s friendship. He was aware that he hated Mikel the more for having lost him.
He opened the satchel and looked inside. The top notes were a little dirty. The notes beneath were clean and crisp. For Txema the satisfaction brought by these moments was dwindling. He had once felt entirely safe up here with his money, as safe as he had felt on the top shelf of the airing cupboard in his grandmother’s house, where he would hide, burying his face in the lavender-scented linen, for hours on end. He would let Lorea go to Lola Arnaga. She had earned it. She could go in the morning while he was at his meeting with the blind man.
NINETEEN
It was past two a.m. and the barman of L’Amiral had locked the doors and stacked all the aluminium chairs and covered the bar with a powerful deterrent in the form of cleaning fluid, but the three men were still drinking. Mikel knew that the barman’s name was Jean Louis but the little man to his right had not yet revealed his identity. It had occurred to Mikel more than once that he might be a cop. For some reason, he took the fact that he smoked Lucky Strike as an indication that he was not. At any rate, the man spoke little and Jean Louis did most of the talking while he replenished their glasses with Pastis 51. Jean Louis was having problems with a wife who was, he believed, too attractive for him. Cidalia, her name was and she was Portuguese. Mikel also knew that she had a tattoo of a dolphin on her hip. Jean Louis had pulled up his shirt and revealed a voluminous white belly in an attempt to show the exact spot. Mikel wanted to tell Jean Louis to stop believing the girl was his superior, that here lay the root of all his problems, but he was too drunk to find the words. By the time Jean Louis was ready to leave, Mikel was so far gone, he needed both men’s help to walk.
They went out through the back door of the café. Outside in the street the smell of jasmine hung in the air and Mikel found himself on the verge of tears again.
He tried to hold out his hand.
Mikel Angel Ortega. Pleased to meet you.
Jean Louis held on tightly.
You’re all right, he said. I don’t usually get on with Basques. They’re too touchy. But you’re all right.
Mikel tried to grab the little man’s hand but he was too busy holding him up. In spite of the fact that he was half Jean Louis’s size, he seemed to be carrying all the weight. Mikel could not seem to make use of his feet, which were trailing along behind him.
I’ll call you Monsieur Lucky, if I may, he said. Monsieur Lucky or Monsieur Strike. Which do you prefer? You’re very strong for a man of your stature. Here! he shouted suddenly. Leave me here. This is good.
He wanted to sleep on the bandstand.
But Monsieur Lucky was objecting.
I have to sleep here, friend, Mikel explained. Just leave me here.
The little man was holding out something in his hand but Mikel could not focus. He noticed that he smelt strongly of fish. He must, Mikel thought, be a fisherman. Then he sank to his knees.
*
When he woke up it was still dark and he was still drunk and there was a large ginger cat lying on his feet. He looked at the cat and the cat looked at him. Mikel did not want to move because the cat was keeping his feet warm.
I wanted a dog, he said out loud.
At this the cat got up, stretched itself and walked off.
No! Mikel tried to coax it back but the cat broke into a trot and disappeared into the night.
Mikel was more or less dead centre of the bandstand. His head was still spinning. He lay back and closed his eyes. The fantasy, to take Astrid into his arms on the night train to Paris, now seemed hollow. She had been to see him only once and they had not made love. He had run his hands over her body, compulsively, as though he were indulging in some complex scanning process for his memory. And indeed he had become dependent on that memory, her body under his hands, running beneath the sliding material of that green dress, and of her smell, that sometimes came to him at night, so powerfully that it woke him up. They had not made love during her visit, though the ‘facility’, as the authorities referred to the video-monitored coupling, was available to him. Mikel had wanted to wait until he was a free man. When she never returned he had cursed himself for having been so sentimental.
For some reason the sight of that ginger cat walking away had brought home to Mikel the fact that Astrid’s visit had been an act of compassion directed not at him but at a human being deprived of his liberty. She was a woman of infinite compassion but she could no more love him than Jesus Christ could have loved Mary Magdalene.
TWENTY
Astrid looked at Kader’s sleeping back. From the doorway she could see it rise and fall with his breath. She looked at the smooth, golden skin and the purple shadow made by the deep indentation of his spine. She looked at the back of his head. His face was turned to the window and she could see the hairline tapering into a V at the base of his neck. A brownish light from the lamps in the car park cast warmth over the dreary room with its white textured walls and its grey carpet that reeked of household insecticide. She hesitated at the open door, put down her bag, took out the disinfectant, four compresses and a roll of sticking plaster for his wound and set them on top of the TV at the end of the bed. Then, without looking back, she picked up her bag and left the room.
In the reception she pressed an electric bell that buzzed intermittently until the door behind the reception desk opened and a middle-aged man with an ashen face stood blinking sleepily at her while she explained that she wished to pay the bill for rooms 201 and 203. When she stepped out into the night, she found she was a little breathless. She stood for a moment facing the parked cars. The breeze was warm and smelt of lavender. Then she crossed the car park, grateful for the purposeful sound of her heels on the tarmac.
At the gate Astrid was forced to press the intercom and rouse the man a second time. He did not answer when she apologised but simply raised the barrier and hung up.
As she drove out through the gates she looked ahead at the sky turning pink on the rim and at the black lake set in its pale valley. She held her eyes wide open, letting them absorb the beauty of the world. The warmth spreading in her chest was gratitude. That boy had stepped into the stale room of her life and made her see its contours, shown her how ugly it was and how urgently she must leave it. She pulled out onto the motorway and accelerated hard.
The night before they had had dinner in the hotel dining room. He had told her, leaning forward confidingly, that he had never been any
where this smart before and Astrid had let herself become infected with his delight, had felt laughter gathering inside her as she watched him tease the waiter, a pompous, jowly old man with dyed, auburn hair.
But then she had said joylessly:
We’re not going to have sex, Kader.
And he had looked up at her and given her a dull, unseeing look and gone back to spearing his chips:
I can wait, he had told her.
After dinner they had gone upstairs and he had hovered beside her as she opened the door to her room.
Let me come in. I won’t jump you, he had told her. Promise, he had said, lying his hand on his heart. And she had let him in because she found to her dismay that she did not want to be alone. He had sat on her bed watching loud TV while she changed into her nightdress in the bathroom. As she climbed into bed, he had averted his eyes.
She was on the dual carriageway that cut through the vast pine forest of Les Landes. She would have liked to show Kader the magnificent beach that swept unbroken from Bordeaux to Bayonne. He would have enjoyed the German bunkers dotted along the sand dunes. He would have marvelled at their indestructibility. She considered her meeting with Kader, saw how quickly and securely he had become woven into her life. In just twenty-four hours they seemed to have acquired a past. She remembered why she had for so long put up a wall between herself and other people.
Kader had asked her if he could hold her again and she had said, No. And he had not pushed it but nor had he moved from his place on the bed beside her.
