He went back to the sandbank, but this was when he started to neglect the work in hand. He fired the shotgun far more often than he had before, and set up two more fishing lines, with five hooks on each. He anchored one as close to the river mouth as possible, and then the other two, which included the one he’d started with, at twenty-metre intervals.
He was baiting the lines on the morning when he heard Colorado Chico’s boat coming from the Pajarito. He’d stopped off at the house, most likely.
He heard the engine once again a half-hour later but now, instead of heading west, the droning grew towards him.
He’d gone into the reeds. It was coming here for certain. So he headed for the shore.
When the boat came into view, as it turned the final bend, he was some way from the bank, standing up there on the top beside the shelter, to be seen.
Colorado Chico cut the engine of the boat — the same craft that he’d used when he’d brought down the Ailsa Craig — and let its momentum land it very gently on the shore.
The man waved.
‘Hello!’
‘Hi!’
‘How you getting on?’
Boga shrugged his shoulders. Colorado rubbed his neck. He had a heavy build, with a reddish face and hair.
‘I’ve just come from the house,’ he said. ‘That old man’s really buggered. I don’t know if you’ve realised that, the pair of you…’
Boga shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’d take him down to San Fernando Hospital if I were you.’
‘They’ll kill him there and no mistake.’
‘This isn’t some kind of joke.’
‘How would we do that?’
‘I’ve explained it to the old woman.’
They stood there in the silence for a while.
Boga shook his head. ‘We’ll have to see.’
‘If you want to, you can use my boat.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘As you like. If it’s decided that you’ll take him, come and get it at the house…’
He started up the engine and reversed out at full throttle.
‘Hey!’ he shouted then, from the middle of the river.
Boga cupped his hand behind his ear.
‘I sold on the Ailsa Craig, to Della Vedone!’
‘Didn’t that old codger die?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘I’m glad.’
That can happen with these engines. You pass the dud on to someone else. And everyone makes something, except the one who tries to get it going.
‘See you!’
‘See you!’
At first he showed some interest, but then as time went by he didn’t ask about the reed bed. Sometimes Boga told him this or that to let him know, but when he saw the old man didn’t listen to his words, he said no more about it. He was thinner still by now, and yellower.
Old Bastos came more often, but he tried, if he could, not to argue. He spoke of very general things, or else he didn’t speak. He also grew to understand the old man didn’t listen. The three stayed in the passage, dispirited and silent, as if they were expecting that the night would bring some news.
The sight of the old man became etched into his big eyes that were like those of a dying fish, so even when the shadows came he’d see the old man’s face before him, looking rather awful, eaten by some inner flame. The old man was a long way off. It was a while since he’d died and now only his spirit remained, but turned away to other things, towards a point so distant that the others couldn’t see it.
‘Spring is here already,’ Bastos said, to say something.
It would have made them glad to see the spring in other times, but now they were so gloomy that it seemed to be for others in the world, not for them.
Boga felt a jolt, notwithstanding all of this, in the depths of his being, a kind of dark call. It really was the spring. October is the end of the winter fishing season. Now the patí season starts. The colour of the light would now be different on the river, on the sandbanks.
He shifted in the shadows, feeling suddenly unsettled, something in him restless, and reached out with his toes to brush the cream-coloured dog. The dog got up and moved to lie a little further off.
No one said a word but no one could forget the thing that Bastos had announced. He felt the spring had started with that unforeseen revelation. A tingling that unnerved him ran around inside his body. He braced himself against the boards and lit a cigarette. He’d been too long among them. And now they felt like strangers. The old woman scuffed around in the darkness of the kitchen. The fire’s glow made its way out through the doorway. Now she’d light the lamp.
When everyone was finally convinced that the old man was dying, Boga noticed something faint, a note of pleasure on his face, perhaps a note of jest. It seemed as if it pleased him that they’d finally agreed.
Spring was now advanced and Bastos, to say something, said:
‘I’m thinking of putting an engine in this little boat.’
No one said a thing.
‘What do you think, friend?’
‘That it’s rotten.’
‘It’s not in its bottom, and that’s where it counts… They’ve told me there’s one going, in the Corporation yard.’
‘It wouldn’t be an Ailsa Craig?’
Bastos gave a shrug.
‘If you’re going past that way, I’d like it if you had a look.’
‘No harm in that.’
When they first spoke of taking him, the old man cursed them all. The second time, he drove a burning look into each one, a look that was condensed, as if two flames had lighted in the depths of his eyes, but so deep it was incredible.
This last time it was mentioned, he neither said nor did a thing.
They dressed him in his best fleece shirt, his wide-brimmed black hat, his waistcoat and the neckerchief that matched it.
Boga had gone off to look for Colorado Chico’s launch. The cream-coloured dog began to bark when he appeared, as if it didn’t know him.
Bastos helped him down the steps, his arm around his waist, while the old woman shut and barred the doors. The sky was cool and limpid and the morning shone below it. The gently leaning house, all the trees, the little path, they seemed strangely still and silent, made sleepy by the sun. Men were setting out. Silence would move in, and a peaceful kind of sadness. Something, like a secret veil, kept men and things apart.
The old man stopped along the path, halfway to the bank. He patted at the pockets of his waistcoat.
‘My watch,’ he said at last, in a whisper.
His voice was strange and deep and, in a certain way, urgent.
The old woman turned around and went back for the watch, and they stood there without moving, not knowing what to do, slightly annoyed, as if they weren’t really needed.
The old woman reappeared and shuffled her way sideways down the steps, as she always had, leaning on the handrail. She was holding the watch and carried a blanket on her arm. It was the first time that he’d seen her in this floral-print dress, cut too short and just a little youthful for her age. It was sure to be her only one, and dating back forever. She also wore a straw hat that was wide and flat, with cloth flowers stuck on one side. The ensemble was a little sad and also rather comical. She’d put on woollen stockings but she kept her brown ankle socks over the top and was wearing a pair of men’s shoes. Signalling the journey was her black, enormous leather purse that hung down from one arm.
Once they’d put his watch on, the old man moved again. This was the moment when the cream-coloured dog, which had gone back to the passage with the old woman and was shifting restively, let out a plaintive bark and tumbled down the steps. When they took the old man on the launch it started to whine, sniffing at the vessel from the bank.