‘What happened to Dominic wasn’t about—’
‘The rules have changed, hija. These people! They’re not gentlemen. They don’t respect the old ways, the old blood.’
‘It was only a haircut.’ Aunt Mary’s tone seemed suddenly wheedling, conciliatory.
‘No one else in this street has a right to come before your own boys. Least of all this Jennie person,’ Lola Lovely said icily.
‘I have always put them first!’
‘Dominic can come to Manila with me. It’s about time he stopped this pop-star business. He must go to college. You have to tell him so.’
‘I will not order him about. He has the right to run his own life.’
‘So that’s what this is about!’ Lola Lovely said. ‘Is this why you won’t play the piano? Because your horrible mother locked you in the sala and forced you to practise?’ Aunt Mary pushed the pile of music from her lap onto the floor and stood up to leave, but Lola Lovely was between her and the door. For a moment, the two women faced each other without speaking and then Lola Lovely said, tiredly, ‘Why do you insist on rotting here anyway? You could put on a little make-up at least.’ Aunt Mary pushed past her mother and marched out of the sala. Lola Lovely dropped into a chair. I draped my rag over the banister and slipped into the sala to pick up the papers. As I worked, I heard Lola Lovely leave, her footsteps heading for the kitchen, and shortly afterwards the sound of the door opening into the courtyard. I left the music on top of the piano in no particular order and went back to polishing the staircase. On reaching the landing, I glanced through the open door of the nearest guest room and saw Aunt Mary standing over a suitcase, packing her mother’s things.
The following morning, in the shade of the flame tree that leaned over the front yard, beside an idling taxi, Lola Lovely hugged first the boys, then America. She patted me on the shoulder and winked at me. Finally, she turned to her daughter. Aunt Mary, stiff in her mother’s arms, allowed herself to be embraced. Lola Lovely held her like this for a long time.
Psychic Surgery
The Reverend Julio Orenia, World Famous Psychic Surgeon, was to appear in the auditorium of a girls’ school on the other side of Salinas. A fortnight before the show, at her mother’s insistence, Aunt Mary had procured tickets through a Lopez family connection. But now Lola Lovely’s early departure had left an empty seat. America watched me mischievously as she told me I was going. Only the day before she’d listened, bristling, as I denounced psychic healing as unscientific. I turned away to hide my excitement.
The school was an easy walk from the Bougainvillea but Dub insisted on taking his motorbike. Benny clamoured to ride with him but Aunt Mary wouldn’t hear of it, declaring instead that I was to go with Dub while Benny went with the others in a taxi. Being around Dub was the last thing I wanted at that moment and I opened my mouth to protest, closing it again almost immediately on glancing at Aunt Mary; she was rarely to be persuaded out of something once she’d made up her mind, and certainly not by me. Her voice was terse as she dispatched me to fetch a cab.
The afternoon sun picked out the planes and edges of Esperanza as I rode back with the cab. The world felt solid, defined. I rolled down the window to disperse the stale air inside the car. A fine breeze blew in from the direction of the jetty, bringing the smell of the sea with it as it stirred the leaves of Aunt Mary’s cheesewood hedge. I’d have enjoyed the walk.
Dub smiled sheepishly at me as he handed me a helmet. I felt Benny’s eyes on me and, turning, I held his gaze for an instant longer than I might have before. Since the news about his real mother, the household had carried on around him as if nothing had changed, Aunt Mary and America fussing over him and berating him in equal measure as they always did. For my part, I couldn’t help but look at him differently now, though I was careful not to betray it. Of course he was the same Benny as ever, but he was half the same substance as I, even if, like his brother, the rest of him was descended from what my own mother had always referred to as good stock.
The schoolyard was heaving and it was as much as we could do to stay together as we pushed our way inside. We were early, but most of the seats were already filled and there would be many people standing for the evening. People in wheelchairs lined the walls, crowds streaming slowly past them.
Aunt Mary walked straight to the front of the auditorium and along the first row, counting off with little nods of her head the number of seats for our group. Across the hard wooden back of each seat a strip of paper asserted in capitals: RESERVED. I removed mine, studied it for a moment. Next to me, Benny leaned back in his chair, crumpling his paper strip in his fist after barely a glance. He made to drop it on the floor, hesitated as he looked at mine still in my hand. He watched as I folded it carefully into my pocket. His eyes met mine and he flushed lightly. He pushed the ball of paper into his pocket and settled back into his seat.
Beside me, Dub scanned the crowd with a studied casualness. I looked around too, as much to avoid catching his eye or having to make conversation as out of curiosity, but I saw no familiar faces in the packed hall; people had come from far afield to see the reverend’s show.
The reverend walked onto the stage late but no one protested, for he was, immediately, a charismatic performer. He was smaller and much younger than I’d imagined and he had about him the impatient demeanour of the city dweller. He wore a suit, the jacket unbuttoned so that when he raised his arms, dark rings of sweat could be seen on his shirt under the lights. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You know,’ he continued, his voice like a game-show host, ‘it’s through the Holy Spirit that my healing occurs.’ Although the flyer had described it as a prayer meeting, his show was flamboyant. He rushed about the stage, his voice booming into a microphone. People continued to arrive after he’d started, sliding in carefully at the back, but he waved them forward without pausing in his speech, as if calling friends to join a picnic.
He led the audience through prayers and we sang ‘Holy Spirit, Truth Divine’, a hymn I didn’t know and mumbled along to. I heard Aunt Mary’s voice rise up, clear and sweet over the others, but even she couldn’t remember all of it.
Halfway through the hymn, I felt Dub shift in his seat and, turning, I saw Eddie and his associates settle themselves noisily at the other end of our row. They were all in suits. BabyLu was with them and she’d dressed up for the occasion, but demurely, in an outfit that wouldn’t have been out of place in church. I wondered how Eddie had conspired not to bring his wife.
On stage, the reverend apologised that he wouldn’t be able to treat everyone who had come for healing that day; he hadn’t expected such a crowd. ‘You make me feel like one of The Beatles!’ he said. He announced that he would be holding clinics in a nearby chapel over the next few days where he would see anyone who came through the door. He called on the spirit messengers to guide his hands. The audience quietened. I looked around. People were smiling, swaying, some praying with their eyes closed, some still humming the melody of the hymn. Others were laughing, though nothing funny had been said since the Beatles remark. I looked back to the stage. The reverend seemed to stumble, his eyes rolled back so that the whites underneath were stark under the lights. He held his arms out to the crowd and asked who wanted to be healed. The air was immediately full of hands. I saw BabyLu crane round to look at the crowd. She didn’t raise her hand and neither did Eddie, but from their group Cesar, his face a little feverish, his lips still moving in prayer, raised his. As BabyLu turned back, she stole a glance at Dub but she didn’t hold his gaze, turning her eyes quickly back to the stage.