Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘Why d’you let me bring you to a gin bar if you don’t like gin?’

  ‘Dunno. I wanted to go where you were going.’ My face heated up. Even serial killers get embarrassed, you know. I realised that the day I was aggressively scratching my minge and the postman was watching me through the window. ‘I’ll have whatever you are.’

  ‘I’m having a beer. What you wanna eat?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  And so he did. He returned to the table with six Pacificos in a bucket of ice cubes and cut limes, followed by a waiter with a large tray heaving under several different little bowls and plates of piping hot food.

  ‘Oh, I love this!’ I squealed. ‘We did this in Spain, me and my friend. I tried jamon and fried sardines and baby squid and pintxos. It was great!’

  ‘Well, here you got manta ray and yellowfin taquitos with pico de gallo, Caldo de Siete Mares, which is a kind of fish stew, chiles rellenos – stuffed bell peppers – duck croquetas, chips and guac, grilled broccoli and a chocolate and pecan brownie to share.’

  ‘This… this makes me so happy. That’s so sad, isn’t it?’ I laughed. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  Rafael wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Buy me dinner tomorrow, we’ll call it even.’

  ‘Deal.’ We clinked bottles.

  We chatted long into the night. I told him about The Alibi Clock, my ill-fated attempt at writing a book and getting it published; he told me about his army career and his dabbling in oils and watercolours, as evidenced by the artworks on display in Salomé’s gallery.

  ‘Yeah, I saw those,’ I said, swerving around what I wanted to say – that they were shite – and instead opting for the less offensive ‘They’re all sold’.

  ‘Did you like them?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about art.’

  ‘But what did you think of them?’

  ‘So colourful and… you’re incredibly talented.’

  The lie stuck in my throat like a bone but he beamed at the compliment. I’d tell a thousand lies to make him look at me like that all the time.

  ‘I was nervous to talk to you before. At the airport.’

  ‘You were?’ I sank half my beer in one go to get the butterflies drunk. ‘Why were you nervous, Army Boy?’

  ‘Some women have that effect on me.’

  ‘What women?’

  ‘Ones I like. Ones I want to like me back.’

  I sank the other half of my beer. ‘So you like me?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  We’d got so flirty, all of a sudden. ‘Good. Well, feel free to check out my arse again any time you like.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When I was coming up the stairs and you were behind me – you were totally checking out my arse.’

  ‘I was not checking out your ass,’ he said, all faux-annoyed.

  ‘Oh, all right. I was checking out yours earlier, that was all.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘In Salomé’s gallery. You were putting my bike in her store room and you bent over.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t checking out yours.’

  ‘All right.’ I held up my hands in surrender. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘I was actually studying a tropical bird that had flown into the bar,’ he explained. ‘And if I did happen to glance up at—’

  ‘—stare at.’

  ‘—your ass, it was completely by accident.’ He couldn’t help smiling.

  I couldn’t help it either. ‘I don’t know where we stand anymore on arse-checking. I mean, can we do that?’

  ‘I guess so,’ he shrugged. ‘If the ass-checkee doesn’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I quite like it. I’ve done a lot of squats so I kind of like people looking at my arse. Actually, I want people to look at it. I want people to queue up and buy tickets to fucking worship it.’

  I had him laughing then, loud and unabashed, head back. And if I thought his smile was great, his laugh was glorious. Like Christmas bells.

  It had all gone a little bit too Kate Hudson for my liking.

  We got onto the less important shit like our favourite colours, swear words and best/worst movies. His were yellow, motherfucker and Saving Private Ryan but he couldn’t think of a worst movie.

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ I replied. ‘No question.’

  He laughed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Ugh, I just hate it. Everything about it irks me. Like, if I worked for a woman like that I’d be lacing her coffee with arsenic and shitting in her bed. Minimum. But Hathaway puts up with it.’

  He delighted in my irk and I couldn’t help comparing him to Craig. He’d have told me to shut up or ignored me until I’d finished. Raf seemed to find me fascinating. ‘What else don’t you like about it?’

  ‘I hate her unsupportive curly boyfriend. I hate that whole glow-up makeover montage. I hate that speech Streep does about the colour of the jumper. I hate that mean Mary Poppins bitch. I hate that smug Mentalist guy. I hate that she leaves the steak. The whole thing sucks endless ass.’

  ‘But it’s got a positive ending, right? She goes on to better things.’

  ‘Yeah right at the end though. You have to sit through an eternity of chronic Ugh to get to that bit.’

  He chuckled. ‘I see what you mean. So what’s your favourite movie?’

  ‘Rocky.’

  ‘No hesitation. Why that one?’

  ‘Reminds me of my dad. He was a boxer. He died, a few years ago now.’

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I adored him. Daddy’s little girl. I don’t have much family left so… when Uncle Tenoch said I could come out here for a few months and help him on his… farm, I jumped at the chance.’

  ‘You like it here?’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘Well, I do when my uncle doesn’t invite his stupid friends over for constant beer nights and belching competitions. I like it down here though. The people are so friendly. And the men are so hot.’

  ‘So you’re on the prowl, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m simply appreciative of male beauty. Before they open their fucking mouths and ruin it.’

  ‘I’m glad I found you again.’

  ‘I came down a few times and went to Salomé’s gallery to look for you.’

  ‘I came down here too, in January. And again in February when she moved premises, I came to help and—’

  ‘—I saw you. Heaving boxes. And walking hand in hand with a girl.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Your sister. But at the time I thought she was your girlfriend—’

  ‘Ah shit. You shoulda talked to me.’

  ‘I should have done a lot of things. I just protected myself until I was strong enough to deal with it.’

  ‘Deal with what?’

  ‘Being let down. I can’t go through it again. I can’t go through a relationship again until I know I can handle it ending. A tough girl is what I have to be.’ I started singing ‘Daddy Lessons’ by Beyoncé but he didn’t smile.

  ‘I would never cheat on—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I smiled. ‘I can’t rely on you or anyone else to make me happy. It has to come from me. I’ve been hurt before.’

  ‘I get that.’

  ‘You know what it’s like to have your heart broken?’

  ‘Big time.’

  I reached for another beer. ‘Show me some more of your tattoos,’ I said, leaning forwards. He pulled back his shirt sleeves to reveal another eagle with a sparkling 3-D blue diamond in its claws on his right forearm and a crescent moon on his left. I was lubricated enough by this point to touch him on the arm. ‘I get the eagle and the flag but what’s the jewel for?’

  ‘My mom’s nickname for me. Joya. Means jewel in Spanish.’

  ‘I grazed over the ink with my fingertips. ‘That’s… nice.’

  ‘Mi corazon, mi luz y mi joya preciosa.’ He rolled his eyes but his mouth smiled. ‘That’s what she calls the three of us, me and my b
rother and sister. My heart, my light and my precious jewel.’

  The more we chatted, the more I just wanted to be in his company. Not even touching. Being near him was enough. I could have stayed all night. But there was a point when my stomach rolled over like a manatee in custard.

  ‘Ooh God, I don’t think I should drink anymore. Or eat. Or speak.’

  ‘Do you wanna go home?’

  I swallowed hard. ‘I think I better. Where’s my bike?’

  ‘Salomé took it into her store room, remember? Let’s go get it.’

  Not only did he not let me cycle back up to the Hacienda half-cut and vomitous, but he put my bike on the back of his dad’s car and drove me up there instead, allowing me to hang my head out of the window like a spaniel. ‘Thanks for dinner,’ I said when I got out, five minutes away from the Hacienda. He got out too and unhooked my bike. ‘Sorry I got so pissed. I haven’t drunk in a while.’

  ‘It’s cool. I can’t see a house here. You sure we came the right way?’

  ‘It’s just over the brow of that hill. There’s a red security light on the gate post. I would invite you in but I’m not allowed visitors.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘My uncle… is a private person.’ I swallowed down an over-eager surge of vomit, desperate not to puke in front of him on our first date.

  ‘OK, well, if you’re sure you’re gonna be OK?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine,’ I said, wafting him away and wheeling my bike in the vague direction of the gates. ‘Honestly, go. I’m good.’

  ‘Can I see you tomorrow?’

  ‘You sure you want to?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re buying me food, remember?’ By this point he was a white blur careening round my vision on a background of stars. ‘I’ll pick you up at noon.’ He wrote the time on the back of my hand and walked back to the car. Didn’t even try to kiss me, the chivalrous prick.

  ‘Noon. OK. I’ll see you at noon,’ I said, forcing myself to imprint his handwritten note to memory as I edged away from him, vomit rising.

  The next thing I remember is waking up in my bathroom with one side of my face on the toilet seat, mascara smudged and a long string of orange drool dangling from my lip. I’d been there all night.

  Tuesday, 7 May – Playa Tortuga, Rocas Calientes

  Note: no Kill List again. Where there’s no Kill List, there’s no reason to kill. There’s balance in my mind. There is Happy. And with Raf, I was permanently, irritatingly, sickeningly happy. Honestly, if I’d seen us out and about holding hands, kissing necks, stroking hair, I’d have wanted to smash us in the face.

  I didn’t tell Tenoch about him – for some reason I wanted to keep him as my secret for the time being. And I don’t know but I thought maybe he might throw a spanner in the works.

  I spent the next few days with Raf – each morning after chores I’d ride down to the hotel and we’d hang out with his family, mostly eating, playing drinking games, swimming or wandering the town desperately trying to learn more Spanish so I could join in with all the conversations.

  Raf and I talked a lot, and we laughed a lot too. We licked ice cream off each other’s noses, watched sunsets from the shoreline like two bloody idiots. The only reason I’d watched sunsets before was to gauge how dark the sky was before going out to stab a rapist.

  We were now on a Kate Hudson schmaltz level, bordering on Meg Ryan Tier. And I wasn’t used to it. I wasn’t used to how often Rafael would kiss me, hold me, reach for my hand in a way that let me know he was glad I was there. My cheeks would ache every day so I knew I must be enjoying myself, but I couldn’t convey it as easily as he could. Raf and his family conveyed emotion the same way they danced – freely and easily. No holding back at all. I conveyed emotion like a typical Brit – rarely, painfully and only then once accompanied by a shitload of alcohol.

  And I told him that. I had to. I’d pulled back from him too early when we had hugged on the beach one evening, watching said sunset.

  ‘If I’m coming on too strong—’

  ‘You’re not, you’re absolutely not. No, I love it. I think I’m stopping myself feeling too much. Does that make sense?’

  He laughed. ‘No. It’s not because of your uncle, is it?’

  ‘Why would it be because of him?’

  ‘Well, he seems a little… over-protective of you. Not letting you bring people home. Not letting you stay out.’

  ‘I can stay out. I can stay out all night if I want to. He’s not protective of me – he’s just protective of his house – but it’s not just that. I think I’m protecting myself. Guys come along and ruin stuff. Or make me ruin it.’

  He gently dropped my hand, but he said the perfect thing. ‘Well, I don’t want to ruin anything here. I can try and like you a little less?’

  ‘No,’ I said, taking his hand again. I didn’t like the emptiness when he wasn’t holding it. ‘Like me a lot. I think I need you to.’

  ‘You got it,’ he winked and my stomach flipped over as he pulled me closer and ran both his hands through my hair, leaving me breathless.

  I wasn’t thinking about Craig. And I wasn’t thinking about how much Rhiannon didn’t deserve this. I was simply content. Being with Raf and his family made me feel like the person I should have been: Parallel Universe Me.

  I liked his family almost immediately, once they’d all stopped kissing and hugging me upon introduction – I thought that was weird but only cos I’d never had that reception before. Salomé closed her gallery for the evening and came down to the beachfront to join us – she hugged me like an old friend. But it was his parents, Mike and Bianca, who particularly fascinated me.

  ‘They were childhood sweethearts,’ Raf told me as we sat around one of the outdoor tables. ‘Grew up on the same street in Chihuahua. They’ve been like this since they were teenagers. I don’t think they’ve ever even argued.’

  I watched them; Michael stroking Bianca’s arm; her nuzzling his shoulder as they listened to an uncle telling a story. Sometimes Michael would say something just for her and her eyes would close slowly, as though it was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever heard, then they’d kiss, and rejoin the conversation. It was like they’d stepped out into their own little world, only for a second, before stepping back in. Bianca would present him with little gifts – a napkin folded into the shape of a bird or a heart bitten out of a slice of cucumber. Silly shit, too pure for even the likes of me to take the piss out of.

  I started doing the same with Raf, to show him all his loving gestures weren’t in vain. I’d kiss him when he wasn’t expecting it. I’d present him with little gifts – a shell I’d found, a grey pebble in sort of the shape of a heart, and a little wooden turtle with a nodding head I bought from Salomé’s gallery.

  But unlike his parents, me and Rafael didn’t know each other inside out. Rafael hadn’t known me long at all. We hadn’t even had sex by this point. He didn’t know anything about me, except my name. My fake name. And that was the difference. With him, I could be anyone I liked. I didn’t have to be Rhiannon. Nobody knew me as Rhiannon in that family.

  And if I wanted it to last, that’s the way it would have to stay.

  Thursday, 9 May – Holiday Inn en el Agua, Rocas Calientes

  Rafael invited me to join him and the fam at their hotel for a pool party – they had taken over the whole place, it seemed, and the men were in the water playing a particularly violent game of volleyball. There had been three nosebleeds so far, one of them an elderly aunt.

  There were a lot of people on the pool terrace when I got there, all different family members from the previous two nights, so I had to endure another punishing round of hugging and kissing but I was strangely used to it by this point. I almost welcomed it. I met his older brother, Nico, who was an older, more hench version of Raf, and his wife Ariela with their three kids, Ana, Elijah and Mateo – the little dude I’d given the shells to.

  ‘Ah so you’re the girl who’s brought the smile back to my l
ittle brother’s face, eh?’ said Nicolas, enfolding me in a gentle chokehold with his enormous Popeye arm. ‘Well, you were a little late in getting the good-looking brother, sadly. I’m afraid I’m already taken by this old ball and chain.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Ariela, giving her husband a playful shove, her arms dripping in bangles, hair all knotted up in a scrappy bun. ‘Come and grab a drink and something to eat before these guys snag all the chicken wings. And word to the wise – don’t eat too much of Abuela’s capirotada – you will not float in that pool afterwards!’

  ‘Good advice, thank you.’

  I properly met Raf’s older sister Olivia too – Fun Times at Guantánamo – who was more strikingly beautiful than I’d given her credit for. I noticed she wasn’t joining in too much with the conversation when the rest of the aunts and uncles were doing their Getting To Know You bit and she was the only one who didn’t smile as easily.

  During the second half of the volleyball contest, I was staring into the void, wondering where Raf had got to, when an iPhone was thrust before my face and a picture of a teenage boy with buck teeth assaulted my eyes.

  ‘He hasn’t always been that gorgeous, just so you know,’ said Liv. ‘So start praying your kids get your teeth, not his.’

  I grabbed the phone from her and stared hard at the picture. ‘That’s him? Jesus. I didn’t know he was Bugs Bunny’s understudy.’

  ‘Yeah, he really beat the shit out of puberty, huh?’ she chuckled darkly.

  I handed her back the phone. ‘He really did.’

  ‘So you and him for real?’ She tossed the piece of melon from her cocktail towards an iguana basking on the deck.

  ‘Yeah. I like him a lot.’

  ‘He’s had a tough few years,’ she explained, shifting round to face me on her lounger, top boob teetering perilously out of her bikini; one hand behind her head revealing a line of dark bruises. ‘He was kicked out of the army, which hurt him a lot.’

  ‘He doesn’t talk much about that.’

  ‘It’s cos he’s ashamed. He regrets it big time. We all do. Fucking idiot.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She reached back to pick a hibiscus flower dangling over us from a planter. ‘He beat up his buddy – the dude who slept with his wife.’