Читать книгу Dig Two Graves - Carolyn Morwood - Страница 11

3

Wednesday 5th January – Miercoles 5 enero. Mike opened his laptop to commit the details of yesterday to his diary. There was a lot to get down, he thought, as his fingers flew over the keys. One of the best things was the dawning appreciation that all the endless tasks of keeping alive – the shopping and cooking and washing – were being taken care of by someone else. Add to that the small miracle of his stomach feeling better.

Better again was the half-hour he’d spent with Jane after dinner. It had been easy and relaxed, with Jane filling him in on Rose and the studio switch. Below him, he saw her come out onto the patio and his thoughts changed direction. He tidied himself up and hurried downstairs.

On the patio at breakfast, Jane decided she liked the activity of the residence. She was back from her morning shoot, showered and hungry and enjoying her surroundings. The garden here was lovely, with its grapevines and fruit trees: almonds and olives, oranges and figs. She could smell the rosemary in pots along the terrace and realised a lot of the produce grown here would be used in the kitchen. She had planted her garden in Maroubra with grevilleas and banksias and calistemons, but when she got home she might find room for an orange tree alongside the old lemon. It would remind her of Spain.

The three members of staff had arrived half an hour ago and she could hear Luz at the dishes. Beatriz was hanging washing on the line, battling against a small breeze, the white towels flapping out in front of her. Her dark, sturdy body made a good contrast and the movement was dynamic and evocative of all the women who had done that particular task through the ages.

Silvia, she assumed, was in the office working on administration. No doubt, with the January intake bedded in now, they’d be working on February.

Alfredo was supervising a block of stone into his studio by means of a hoist and trolley. Jane took shots of it all, if not for art then for reference.

Interesting what the different artists had to bring to work here. She and Mike were the lucky ones. Mike’s work came contained in laptops and drives. Hers was much the same, but with cameras and lenses and battery chargers, all of which fitted in her backpack.

After breakfast she would bring up the images of Madrid she had taken on her way here. The city was so different to Sydney it sat clearly in her mind. Splendid old buildings and wide thoroughfares and more Christmas decorations than she had ever seen. It had been festive and fabulous and she couldn’t get enough of it.

Today she would find the cemetery Mike had told her about. With any luck there’d be a funeral. She could position herself out of the way and use her long lens to capture faces and clothes and expressions. She imagined the women dressed in black, grave with grief. The men, sharp-faced and resolute.

Using people’s grief for art was callous, Jane thought, but she had worried about this before and let it go. Besides, weren’t all artists callous? If detachment was a virtue it was just as well it came to her naturally, even if she had honed it to an art form.

Mike collected his breakfast and went out on the patio. Jane was sitting with her face tilted to the sun again. Her hair was wet and he could smell the clean scent of her shampoo. Even though the morning was cold, it reminded him of sunlight and summer. Tendrils of damp hair curled around her ears. He would like to reach out and touch one.

‘I wondered—’

‘If I’d like a cup of tea,’ Jane finished. ‘Thanks.’

‘Well, that too, but something else.’ How to ask? Even in his twenties he’d been tongue-tied when it came to moving things along. Amanda, characteristically, had taken care of all that. ‘I wondered if you’d like to have a drink at El Techo after dinner? Escape from this place for a while. It has music.’

She looked at him for a long moment and he wondered what she was thinking. Was he pushing too hard to expect her company at breakfast and after dinner?

‘Why not?’

Mike’s pleasure at her acceptance was diminished by two thoughts. His pushiness and his opting out. He might have secured Jane’s company for the night, but he had made his motivation an escape from the residency rather than appreciation of her.

He didn’t much like himself for that small cowardice. He needed to be more courageous. This time, at least, there were compensations. He still had weeks to get it right and Jane had flashed him a brilliant smile.

Rose woke slowly, taking in the shaft of sunlight spilling into the room, wondering where she was and feeling pleasantly content. The memory of last night flooded in and she stretched in delight. It had indeed been memorable. Good sex. The warmth of sleeping together, the comfort of Alfredo’s belly against her back in the narrow bed. The way he held her through the night, as if protecting her.

Alfredo had gone, but there was a note on his bedside table, written out in neat lettering, her name at the top. Beside it was a yellow daisy.

It was interesting to be in his room without him. It was tidy and ordered and on his desk was a tiny photo of a woman in an exquisite silver frame. She had soft brown hair and eyes. The word Isabella was inscribed on the frame. The wife, she assumed.

But last night he had been lost in passion, drowning in her like a starving man. Just how married was he? Inside his wallet a driver’s licence told her he was Alfredo Riera of Calle Flores 16, Valencia. His photo showed a younger version of the face that had hovered above hers last night.

His writing was fluid and this time he hadn’t bothered with an English translation.

Mi Rosa querida, gracias por esta fantastica noche. Caminara la Vieja Cabrera fue maravilloso al igual que el estupendoregalo que me diste. Una noche encantadora en brazos de unamujer maravillosa. Alfredo

‘Mi Rosa querida,’ she said out loud, liking the sound of it.

Alfredo Riera. Wonderful in bed. Hopeless romantic. She recognised a few words and took out her phrasebook to translate a few more. No need to do it word for word. Enough to know he liked what was on offer and was eager for more. Exotic, though, to have a love letter in another language.

She dashed off her own note and placed it on his bedside table, next to the photo and a packet of Ducados cigarettes in their blue and white box.

My pleasure. Rose

In his studio, Alfredo regarded the block of stone and whistled. He was full of regret not to be with Rosa when she first opened her eyes, but the delivery had to be supervised and she had his note to explain his absence and tell her how he felt about her. Rosa querida.

He slid his hand over the stone’s cool surface, pleased by its smoothness, and replayed the feel of the woman he had spent the night with.

Isabella, who had sat within his bones for the last four years, loosened her grip slightly. In place of a familiar desolation, warmth spread within him, soft and fluid as air. The stone had offered something up. He could see where Rosa’s head would fit, the shape of her limbs, one hand curled slightly like a flower.

Love made everything possible, Alfredo thought. In a rosy glow he saw the month ahead laid out before him. He would learn English. He would fall in love again. He would complete this new and special work.

He arranged his tools, setting them up in groups, largest to smallest, and took out his new sketchbook. He would ask Rosa to model for him, sketch her in various poses to help reveal her in the stone. He had a name for the piece. A simple one-word name that said it all. Amor.

He sent a brief message to Paola.

Inspiration has struck. Much love.

Rose might have dug in over the studio allocation, but she hadn’t yet picked up a brush. Instead she drifted around the place, taking in the landscape absently, her thoughts all over the place. In the afternoon, she settled with a book on her reader and napped for a while, justifying her laziness as tiredness after the journey, or last night’s lack of sleep.

Dressing for dinner, she selected a low-cut top that made the most of her breasts. Skimpy tops were a bonus, she decided. They took up hardly any space in a suitcase and gave an instant glamour. It was just as well she could look glamorous on a shoestring, and she’d had plenty of practice over the years.

A diamond on a chain drew the eye to her cleavage. It was her mother’s diamond and the only thing she had of hers. That and a string of pearls were the only things of value her mother hadn’t hocked before she died. Towards the end, her brain had turned to mush and the concept of hocking had been beyond her.

After a bit of persuasion, Lily had taken the pearls. Rose didn’t like pearls, with their insipid passive glow. She wasn’t mad about diamonds either, but it was valuable and well set and bright enough to draw attention.

Rose took her seat opposite Alfredo and considered the pleasures and pitfalls of the dinner table. It was vaguely amusing that Jane was trying to divert the conversation away from Marion, who was still going on about the wonders of New York that no one gave a rat’s arse about. Why either of them bothered she couldn’t imagine.

For her part, she was enjoying every well-cooked mouthful of a chicken dish that the Americans were trying to translate into English. No doubt, when that was done, they’d go on to translate every bloody thing on the table. Rose’s interest was that it tasted delicious and that, across the table, Alfredo was watching her closely.

To his great surprise, Mike was having a good time. He had lived on his own now for eighteen months and, apart from four shifts a week at his local, was forced out to find snatches of human behaviour to weave into his stories. Some of the exchanges around the table held his interest. And, at other times, the topic of New York left him free to pursue his own thoughts.

‘The best paella I ever had was in a restaurant in Brooklyn.’ This was Marion again, oblivious to the idea that paella was Spanish and she was in Spain. ‘The saffron was genuine. I know because I asked the chef. Most of the time it’s the artificial stuff they use. Even here, I imagine.’

Jane winked at him and he grinned. Annette knew the same restaurant and the conversation got bogged down in geography and cuisine. Rose and Alfredo had eyes only for each other. From time to time Marion scratched the back of her neck as if embarrassed. There were people who couldn’t stop talking. One of the teachers at Mike’s last school had been like that. An intelligent, perceptive woman, with this strange affliction that embarrassed her, but she couldn’t seem to change it. After a while, people, Mike included, took to avoiding her in corridors, darting into offices and toilets if she appeared in the distance. There was a limit to how much you could stand and nod or cut her off mid-sentence. There was a limit to how much time in any workplace you could give to one-sided conversation.

He finished his coffee, so absorbed in these thoughts he almost missed Rose sliding her hand under the table. Not significant in itself, but Alfredo’s reaction was the giveaway. He froze mid-movement, almost comically, in the process of lifting his glass.

Mike looked at Jane to see if she had noticed. She had finished her dessert and was sitting back listening to Marion. He couldn’t read her mood from her expression. Was she merely being polite? He took a leaf from Alfredo’s book, scraping his chair against the tiles as he stood up.

Everyone looked at him, surprised.

‘Jane and I are going to the village for a drink,’ he said, with no hint of wanting to extend the invitation. ‘That’s if you’re ready, Jane.’

‘I’ll get my jacket,’ Jane said.

Rose stood up too, as if eager to get dinner finished with. Thoughts of politeness would rarely cross her mind, Mike sensed. Lucky Rose. From the hands-under-the-table incident, she had a more imperative agenda ahead than a drink at the pub.

In his room, Mike cleaned his teeth and gargled with breath freshener. Somewhere in the house he heard a door opening and closing softly, a pause and then the sound of another door.

Rose and Alfredo at it already, taking advantage of their shared terrace and ease of access between rooms. Mike was half-amused, half … the thought trailed off. What was that feeling? Jealousy? Scorn at their haste? But when he’d first got together with Amanda, they didn’t hang about either. He spat the gargle out with a grimace of disgust. He’d kept it in his mouth too long and it tasted foul.

Rose checked herself in the mirror before crossing the terrace to Alfredo’s room. Again, that breathless feeling at the speed of things and the thought of the next half-hour. It seemed as if only minutes had passed since she left the dining room. Tonight the terrace door was ajar and she slipped in quickly.

Alfredo had bought a rose in the village and practised some English to go with it. ‘Bonita. Beautiful Rosa.’

‘Thank you, Alfredo.’ The colour was a rich scarlet, so dark it seemed tinged with black. ‘It’s beautiful.’ Only she hated people giving her roses. The gesture was too stupid for words.

She put it on the table, led him to the bed and stood above him, removing her shirt and then his. Last time he had worked on her more than she him. It was only fair to return the favour.

Alfredo watched her intently as though he was watching a film or committing every part of her to memory. Rose played it up. A bit much maybe, but she liked his steady appreciative gaze.

Jane ordered white wine and beer in halting Spanish, enjoying the moment when the waiter nodded to let her know he understood. El Techo was smaller and smokier and far more intimate than the bars at home. With the drinks came a plate of tapas. Four small snacks of potato and anchovy on bread.

‘Did you work out about Alfredo and Rose?’ Mike asked when he had settled into his beer and the tapas had been demolished.

‘Alfredo and Rose?’ She laughed in surprise, mixed with sudden certainty. Rose at the dinner table, glowing. Clearly the prospect of sex added more lustre to her shine. That was the word for Rose. Shiny.

Jane had wanted to invite Alfredo to go with them, but knew it meant she’d have to ask everyone. Lucky she’d held back.

‘It’s crazy to start anything at a residency,’ Jane said, considering the pitfalls of love she had seen during her ten days in America. All that attention taken away from work and the potential for it to go wrong. And, despite the language barrier, Alfredo came across as a shade too innocent to deal with someone like Rose. ‘She’ll eat him alive.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Mike said. ‘I’d say Alfredo can take care of himself.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Envy.’

‘Envy?’ she repeated. ‘Seriously?’

Mike hadn’t fully explored this thought. Yet he had the feeling that with Jane, unlike Amanda, he could say anything he wanted.

But there was surprise in her voice and something drier. ‘I didn’t realise Rose was your type.’

What an idiot he was. He’d been too busy considering the fact he could say anything, he’d said absolutely the wrong thing. He felt a rush of hot blood to his face. For god’s sake. He should stick to writing. At least with that you had days, if not months, to consider the impact of your words.

‘I didn’t mean envy of him … with Rose. I meant … the envy of making love with someone you …’ He trailed off.

Did love still go with sex as it had, or at least was meant to, when he was growing up? From what he saw on TV and film, and sometimes in the bar back home, sex seemed not much more than a handshake. He would like it to mean more than that. He would also like to move off this treacherous ground. ‘Rose is the last person …’

For a long moment, Jane seemed lost in her own thoughts, but then she was smiling at his floundering.

Mike put his hand over hers and grinned, bringing her back to the moment. ‘You were teasing and I need to get out more.’

‘Well, I could be wrong, but somehow I couldn’t imagine you and Rose—’

‘Nor me,’ Mike said, remembering the way she had dropped his hand. He had a mental picture of Alfredo at the dinner table, absolutely in tune with Rose, watching her like a schoolboy would a sporting hero, or a canary a cat.

‘I’m pretty sure the only person Rose loves is herself,’ Jane said quietly. ‘But Alfredo looks like he’d fall hard.’

‘So, not-so-lucky Alfredo.’ Mike had talked enough about Rose and the dangers of love. ‘What do you make of the rest of them?’

Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you know Marion is an expert on antique silver? She’s quite a collector, apparently, and was telling us about tracking down a Georgian decanter and all the places it led her to. It was quite … interesting.’

He smiled at her delivery. He had tried to block Marion out, while Jane had listened and learned. It was contemptuous of him. And limiting too. If he was meant to be a writer, then he needed to start paying attention.

Who knew what would be important down the track? Perhaps some day he could work an expert on silver into one of his novels. Could Percy Streeton be a trader or was that too much work? He broke away from his thoughts. Jane was suggesting they order the stuffed almejas with garlic and parsley.

A sculptor’s touch, Rose thought, when Alfredo took over, indicating with a gesture that he wanted her still, positioning her hands and feet on the bed like the points of a star. Spread-eagled.

His tongue began at her throat, travelled slowly down the length of her body, lingering, teasing, exploring. His hands went before his tongue, measuring shape and distance, as if committing every inch and facet of her to memory.

Spread-eagled. The word evoked a game she used to play with Lily on Bondi Beach when they were kids, smoothing the sand with their arms and legs. Standing up to see the fan-like pattern in the sand, spoilt by inevitable feet marks. Strange where the mind could go during sex. She hadn’t thought of that for years.

Not a sculptor anymore, unless working on the small details, but a musician teasing pleasure in tiny responsive movements. She lost herself in the rapture of it, closing her arms down on him, locking him in, wanting to keep him there forever.

To Mike, the walk home was almost the best part of the evening. Town lights and house lights grew dimmer as they reached the narrow downhill path beside the gully. The light from his torch bobbed along in front of him, almost happily, as if catching his mood.

He put his arm around Jane, half-expecting her to pull away, but instead she leant against him. He wasn’t sure if she needed support against the drink or warmth against the cold. Whatever the reason, he liked the feel of her slim body and the reassurance of another person close to him.

Near the residence, his torch snaked out over the black of the gully into the amber eyes of a wild animal. Light and eyes held together momentarily, then just as he gripped Jane’s hand to show her the creature – cat or fox or something Spanish he had no idea of – it howled fiercely and sprang away into darkness.

Rose lay awake after Alfredo had slumped into an exhausted sleep, his body pressed against her, his arm resting heavily on her. He slept hot and the room smelled of sex and tobacco, and, past the initial rapture, she’d found herself wishing he wouldn’t do that thing with his tongue in her ear.

That was the downside of sex. The messy aftermath. The need of those who clung too tight. And, worse, Alfredo snored like a train cresting a hill. He hadn’t done so the previous night, but then she must have fallen asleep first.

Outside in the dark, an animal shrieked loudly. What made a noise like that? She had no idea about the wildlife in Spain. A wolf or a mountain cat, perhaps? Whatever it was, she doubted anything pinned it down.

Jane went to bed slightly drunk, thinking of Mike. Making love? In that measured English accent. Which century had he wandered out of? But she liked his honesty and humility and even his gaucheness. Thank god for someone not as polished and plausible as William, who would make a move on anyone who stood still long enough. Well, that had been true enough in the early days, but towards the end he’d been entranced with just one person and it wasn’t her.

Mike’s company over the past two evenings had been a pleasant change from too much time spent on her own. She couldn’t fault his behaviour. She’d glimpsed his intelligence and perception, but equally she recognised the signs and needed to be careful. It was the shy and awkward ones who wanted too much.

What, even if she felt like it, would be the point? In a few weeks they’d be gone from here and living halfway around the world from one another. The world was blighted by people disappointed in love. She wrestled with her pillow, awash with competing thoughts. Mike’s fingers winding through hers. The warmth of his body against hers on the cold walk home.

She fell asleep on well-spun words. What you didn’t feel wouldn’t hurt. What you didn’t dwell on wouldn’t bring you down.