Castro's Dream (15 page)

Astrid hugged Lola for too long. Lola pulled away and studied her face.

What is it? You look upset.

They were in the hall. The grandfather clock was ticking imperiously in the corner. Astrid had always hated that clock, the way it would strike just as you were walking past it. Lola laid her hand on Astrid’s cheek.

Tell me, she urged. What is it?

Lola had her head tilted attentively to one side. She was still in her nightdress.

I had a row with Jacques, Astrid said.

She watched the pleasure settle in Lola’s eyes.

What about?

We talked about my abortion.

Lola made her small mouth.

What did he say?

He hung up.

Lola raised her arms and dropped them in an overblown gesture of exasperation. Of course he did, she said, turning and stalking off towards the kitchen.

Astrid looked up the heavy oak staircase towards her mother’s room. She had forgotten how much she disliked this house.

I should go and see Mummy, she said.

Afterwards. Come and have a cup of coffee first.

Astrid followed Lola along the dark hall to the kitchen.

Are you smoking? Astrid asked.

Yes. Do you want one? Lola seemed excited at the idea of sharing a vice with her sister. I have so much to talk to you about. I’m so glad you’re here. God, I can’t believe Chastel.

Astrid sat down at the table with her back to the glass door. Lola began to make coffee. She seemed to stretch for everything. It was the way she moved. Astrid watched her, feeling the sun heating her back.

We’ve never talked about it, she said. Not once.

Lola spun round.

You can’t be serious.

When I found out I was pregnant he was leaving for Gabon to visit a new lab. I had the abortion and went out to join him. It was clear as soon as I got off the plane that he didn’t want to talk about it. I got an infection out there and put myself on erythromycin. My womb is a sieve now but we’ve never talked about it.

Lola was staring at her. She seemed not to have heard. For an irrational moment, Astrid thought that she had been discovered and her heart stopped.

What is it?

I have to tell you something, Lola said, reaching out and touching her lightly on the arm. I woke up this morning and I knew that he’d come to me. It might take a while but he’ll come. I had a dream last night. You and I were on a high wall. You were ahead of me and the wall was getting narrower and narrower. Then it was only a thin line and you were balancing but I knew I was going to fall, it was only a matter of time. You kept on encouraging me, saying it’s alright, Lola, I’m here but I couldn’t go on and my legs began to shake and I knew I was going to fall. And then I did fall and I fell a long way but then I found that if I kicked my legs I could stay up, I could fly and then I was flying and dancing and it was a circus and Mikel was there, sitting in the audience and you were beside him and you were both clapping.

Lola performed a pirouette, then flicked her wrists, flamenco style. Astrid smiled, drawn in.

Today I have hope, Lola said, pulling a stool close to Astrid and sitting down. It may be gone tomorrow but I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here. Then she remembered her solicitude and she looked tenderly at her sister. But I want to hear about you.

Astrid passed her hand over her face.

Can I have a cigarette?

Lola sprang to her feet.

I’ve only got strong ones, she said, picking up the packet from the draining board. She seemed to have forgotten the coffee. Paco gave them to me, she said.

Is he still in love with you?

No. She handed Astrid a packet of Ducados. Yes.

Astrid lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

Lola found a silver ashtray in the cupboard under the sink. It had their mother’s crest on it. She put it in front of Astrid and sat down. For a few moments she watched Astrid smoke. At last she said,

I’ve been thinking a lot since I got here. She paused, her eyes full of compassion. Was prison terrible, Astrid?

Astrid shook her head, holding in the smoke then exhaling. No, it wasn’t. Boarding school was worse. I was less bored in prison than I was at school and less unhappy.

I thought you
liked
school.

I hated it. I hated those English girls. They were insipid and cruel at the same time.

God, I wanted to be like them, Lola said. I wanted to love ponies and be good at tennis. Then she stopped. Why didn’t you ever tell me, Astrid?

I don’t know. You didn’t ask.

Lola looked down at the checked tablecloth.

There’s so much about you that I don’t know.

Astrid put out the cigarette.

I should look in on Mummy.

They left the kitchen and went upstairs to their mother’s bedroom. Outside the door Lola rested her hand on Astrid’s cheek.

I don’t know how I would have got through this life without you, she said.

Astrid took Lola’s hand from her face and held it tightly. She looked at Lola’s smooth forehead and at the deep blue eyes with their golden flecks: five in the right eye and six in the left, like shards of light. The love she felt for this face came from a deep knowledge. She had been reading it since Lola was a baby and knew it better than she ever would her own. As a child she had watched Lola’s eyes flicker and close for sleep. She had seen the way they rolled as her lids opened. Now she felt ashamed of this knowledge, as though she were watching her sister live her life from behind a one-way mirror.

She found nothing to say.

Lola squeezed her hand.

Let’s go, and they stepped into the ornate bedroom.

Astrid, Margot observed calmly. You’re wearing your hair down.

Astrid clasped her mother’s frail body to her. There was that barely perceptible resistance, that inner shrinking she had always felt from her mother whenever she sought physical contact. She now believed it to be something older than experience, something inscribed in her like genetic material. Astrid pulled back and looked into her face: nothing new; the grey eyes, under scrutiny, had always flicked away like that. Her mother patted her hand. Had she been able, Astrid knew she would have drifted away to occupy herself with something else. She had always eluded intimacy, Astrid thought. Even when she drank, she would always be doing something, generally sorting, until she passed out. She had a great many possessions and beyond what she had inherited, had accumulated so many objects throughout her life, that there was invariably something to sort through. Since she no longer had the strength for this, she sorted and resorted her ramshackle mind instead. Astrid smoothed back her mother’s hair. It was soft as cotton wool.

Are you eating, Mummy?

Of course I’m eating.

Properly?

We had some lovely quails’ eggs, didn’t we, Beatrice?

Lola nodded. There had been no quails’ eggs but she did not say so. She noticed how her mother became less composed in Astrid’s presence. She seemed hunted.

Are you taking the pills I sent you? Astrid asked.

No, dear. They make my mouth dry and they give me a fiendish headache.

How are you sleeping?

I’m an owl. I nap in the day but I’m as bright as a button at night. Aren’t I Beatrice?

Lola nodded again.

As soon as I can make these stupid legs work properly I’m going to get up and do some work.

What sort of work? Astrid asked.

Margot’s eyes flicked mistrustfully over her eldest daughter.

Angus can’t do everything himself, can he?

Angus is dead, Mummy. Remember? It’s just Mary now. And the trustees take care of things for her, and for you.

Lola watched Astrid. She was always calm and unrelenting with their mother. She never let her settle into delusion. Lola could see Astrid’s gentleness but knew there was something cold and hard lying there at the core of her feelings for their mother. Ever since she was a child, Lola had seen flashes of it. Suddenly she wanted to leave the room.

I’ll go and see about lunch.

Astrid looked up.

I’ll make it. What is there?

There’s pâté and some smoked salmon that Gachucha brought this morning, Lola said.

Mummy, you can’t live off this deli food. It isn’t good for you.

No, quite right. Margot gave a long sigh. When Josu gets back we can all start eating properly again. He’ll go up and shoot us some
palomas.

I’ll make something, she said, heading for the door. I’ll bring it up.

And she quickly left the room, closing the door.

In the kitchen she reached into her bag and found her phone: one missed call. As she waited for the message, she watched the door, ready to hang up if Lola should appear. She had learnt to practise deceit with the same ease and detachment she used for vivisection.

Mikel did not use her name. His voice had none of the assurance of his letters.

I have a number. You can call it if you want to see me. Tell the man who answers that your name is Carmen. He will tell you where I am.

Then he gave the number twice.

Astrid hovered between the two digits for save and delete. She pressed three for save. Then she turned off her phone and returned it to her bag. She went to the larder and found potatoes, tomatoes, eggs and onions to make a salad. She stood over the sink and peeled the potatoes under the cold tap. Her hands were soon red and smarting from the cold but she did not allow herself to remove them. She was thinking of his first letter to her:

She remembered how appalled she had been by what she recognised as the dead language of liberation movements. But very soon the letters had lost their ideological veneer and Mikel began to use the mystical language of the unrequited lover:

Her memory had kept this letter. Her phenomenal memory, that had carried her effortlessly through her exams, that had charmed Chastel and so enslaved him to its infallibility that he was losing his own through disuse. She hated it.

She drove the point of the knife into the potato and gouged out the grey eye. Do not manufacture belief out of me, she thought.

Kader sat on a bench on the promenade in San Sebastian. He lifted his face to the sun and closed his eyes. The episode with Raoul had depressed him. He believed he had a way with dogs. But that treacherous cunt was no dog.

I didn’t look him in the eye, he murmured. He had not looked the mongrel bastard in the eye.

René had been mortified.

Don’t worry about it, Kader said, patting René on the arm. Raoul’s a racist, that’s all.

That’s what I’m afraid of, René said, looking sadly at his dog who was chained to the back door of the truck, his head between his paws, sleeping unashamedly.

René had driven him into town in his uncle’s Jeep. As they were driving along the river, René had said,

I’ll give you my mobile number, kid. In case you ever need anything while you’re down here.

Fine. Just try not to call me kid. OK? Kader had answered.

But René was all right.

The sea had been as Kader had expected: no more, no less. The sight of it had made him grin stupidly. He had stood staring at it, watching it move in and out. He had stared for so long, he felt himself being gathered up by it, as though the turquoise sea were breathing his soul, in and out. He forgot the pain in his heel and the older pain in his shoulder. He forgot where he was and who he was.

Kader now stood up from the bench and limped back to the ocean. A few people were swimming in the shallow water, splashing in the waves. He wanted to get into the sea too, immerse his aching body, but he wanted to find Astrid’s father first.

He turned his back on the ocean and walked towards the Hotel Londres. He was not sure what he was going to do but a fancy hotel was a good place to start. Kader limped across the wide esplanade towards the hotel. He liked the way this town made
him feel. He liked the smell of the air and the light from the sun, which seemed to make everything sparkle. He looked at the people on the esplanade; three old men conferring in the shade of those graceful trees; two girls, walking fast towards him, arms linked, talking furiously in their language, eyes and mouths serious. He stopped to watch them pass, enrapt. This was a grand and beautiful city but unlike Paris it seemed not to shun him.

He passed the entrance to the hotel bar and walked round the side to the main doors at the back. He did not acknowledge the poor man in livery standing at the foot of the steps. He pushed the revolving door and walked into the lobby as if the whole place were waiting for him and only him.

Kader had never been inside a place like this. It was a palace. Beside this, the Mercure was a dump. But he did not betray his awe. He walked up to the desk and stood in front of an old queen in a grey uniform and waited patiently for him to look up from the checking-in book. Soon Kader knew that to wait any longer would ruin any chance of being taken seriously.

Do you speak French?

The man raised his head and just closed his eyes for a Yes.

I have an appointment with a lawyer called Arnaga. But I’m very late. I got held up. Did he leave a message? The name is Benmassoud.

The man sniffed once, then turned to look in the pigeonhole marked B.

Kader found he was actually irritated when the man informed him that there was no message.

Shit, he said, tapping the desk. Then he looked about him, just to make sure. Do you mind if I check in the bar?

The man opened his hand and motioned towards the bar.

By all means.

Kader made to leave, then turned back and tapped the desk again.

I suppose I’ll have to stay the night. You’d better book me a room.

I’m afraid we’re fully booked, sir.

Kader was truly vexed. He swung his head from side to side, then faced the man with a look that could indicate he was ready to throw a punch. The queen wavered.

You’re going to have to help me, Kader told him. I need to find this lawyer. And I need a room. A decent one. I’ve had a long journey. Do you understand?

The man looked at him with a pinched mouth. Kader held his gaze, knowing that this was the moment: the queen either caved in or called the cops. At last he gave a little sigh and Kader knew he had won.

What’s the name? Arnaga, you say?

That’s it, Kader said. Arnaga.

The man disappeared behind a tapestry curtain and came back with a phone book. He set it down in front of Kader.

I hope you have the first name, he warned. There are a lot of them.

Kader picked up the phone book and went and sat down in an armchair behind a pillar and out of the man’s sight.

Kader sat there scanning the Arnaga pages. He noticed that they all had two surnames. The inside of his head began to heat up, as it had at school when he had a test. He tore out the three pages with Arnagas on them, folded them into his pocket and felt better. He took the book back to the desk, patting it gratefully.

You’ve been very helpful, he told the man. Then he turned and limped away.

In the network of avenues behind the hotel, Kader found a bar called El Bikini with a nice swirling neon sign. He would love to have a bar. But a bar with live music. He would bring Rai, the music of pleasure, to the sexually impoverished and ignorant. He walked into El Bikini and took a seat in one of the booths. The place was pleasantly lit with little lamps on each table. Mick Jagger was crooning ‘Angie’ in the background. Kader had taken the piss out of Amadou for listening to the song. He was overjoyed now to hear it. The smell of chips warmed his heart. On the menu were photos of what he could order. He pointed to number seventeen, a shot of lamb chops, chips and two fried eggs, with tomato, onion and lettuce on the side. He looked up. To his delight, the girl who had come to take his order was wearing a sky-blue bikini.

She had a stud in her tongue, which flashed when she opened her mouth. She did not speak French but she was friendly and she smiled a lot. She repeated what he had ordered in a hoarse voice.
Then she pinched her throat and smiled apologetically to say she was sorry but she was losing her voice. Kader watched her boy’s arse as she walked away. She was thin and muscular and tanned with a frosting of blonde hair all over her body. Behind the bar a kid of about his age with a large tattoo of a sun on his breastbone was cleaning glasses. Kader noticed that he too was wearing a bikini and his was pink.

Kader sat in the bar and looked through the Arnaga pages and underlined two lawyers. When he had finished, the bikini couple handed him a spliff. They slid into the booth opposite him and began to make conversation. They did well considering they had no common language. The boy was called Chech or Ketch or something and the girl was called Natalia. Kader gathered after some lame miming from Ketch that they both liked surfing. Kader managed to take the piss out of them a little, to tell them about the death of his dog and about his run-in with Raoul. After a few joints, the three of them were weak with laughter.