“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a good day. I had fun. Felix had fun. We missed you, that’s all.”
“It sounds like it,” she said, but it was mock admonishment, tinged with triumph at having eked out the first apology. She smiled and touched the back of his hand. “Ten minutes more, though, and I’d have been in with that bartender.”
They finished their drinks and lured Felix from the pool with promises of chocolate ice cream. Dinner was good, and Cherry did not comment on the amount of wine he pointedly consumed.
Graham carried Felix—who had been nodding off into his dessert—back to their apartment. His mood was souring again; he could still taste the mother’s tears plant, despite the slick of pepper sauce that had accompanied his steak.
Cherry was already in her sleeping attire, and it was the kind she wore to signal to him that she was not receptive to any kind of night maneuvers. Plain Jane knickers in beige. An unflattering sleep bra underneath one of her skintight yoga tops that was accessible only if you had access to a variety of chisels and pliers. He left her to her nocturnal rituals of cleansers, toners, and moisturizers and returned to the bar.
He was pleased to see that Cherry’s barman was off duty and had been replaced by a woman. He thought of turning on the old charm, but realized he was too tired and agitated. And he just did not feel like flirting. Pain lanced his sides, like the colic he had suffered from greatly as a child. He should have just gone to bed and tried to sleep it off, but the churning of his insides had made him jittery. Some late night fresh air—and fresh it was; cliffs of cloud were rising out to sea, signaling a storm’s approach—might do his efforts to relax later the world of good.
He ordered a glass of tonic water in the hope that the quinine’s analgesic effects would counter his symptoms. He took the drink into a far corner of the dining room where a TV was showing grainy repeats of the evening’s football match. He couldn’t tell who was playing, or what the venue was, let alone what they were playing for. But it was something to focus on while his guts seethed and the wind tested the strength of the building with growing muscle.
“Tastes good.”
Graham jerked in his seat; he was not alone. What he thought was a nest of shadow turned out to be a man leaning against the wall, arms folded. He too was watching the game and Graham had sat directly in his line of sight.
“I’m sorry,” Graham said, meaning it as an apology for blocking his view, but the man took it as a request to clarify his statement.
“The taste. It is good.”
“I’d prefer there was some gin to go with it, but yes, it’s a refreshing drink.”
“Not your glass. The juice in the body. The meal of it.”
Now Graham saw that the man held a newspaper in one fist. He brandished it. Graham couldn’t translate the headline, but he recognized some of the words he had already heard today.
O Sedento.
“Ricardo?”
The guide offered a loose salute in return.
“You sound as if you admire him,” Graham said.
“Who said it was him?”
“A woman then. Whoever it is.”
“Who said woman?”
“Then what? A witch? A curse? A bad dream?” Graham wished he’d go away. He wanted to watch grainy football on a shit TV, drink his tonic water and go to bed.
“I don’t know,” Ricardo said. “Maybe all of those things. Maybe none. Maybe O Sedento is the appetite we all carry. The best of us keep it hidden, no?” He folded his newspaper and slotted it into his back pocket. He touched a finger to his forehead. “I sorry. I don’t mean to annoy. Have a good night. Do not go to bed thirsty, yes?”
Any other day and Graham—who hated confrontation, hated the feeling he might have slighted someone in some vague, infuriatingly British way—would have offered some sop in reply, bought the guide a drink, invited him to stay.
But he was glad to see the back of him. The door banged shut and through the window he saw Ricardo’s hair leap in the wind before the shadows consumed him.
Graham finished his drink and headed back to the apartment. Rain was in the air now, a fine mist that the wind seemingly would not allow to settle anywhere. It seethed around him. He was soaked by the time he reached the door.
He toweled himself dry and sat in the chair. Sleep came on like a rehearsal of death. He had not felt like climbing the stairs to bed; the meat from his dinner sat heavily in his stomach as if his teeth had not macerated it first. His hands gripping the arms of the chair, looking too much like the bleached white carapaces of dead crabs they’d seen in the harbor earlier that week. His sweat was dry glue on his skin. His gut rumbled; it was as if the plant had spoiled him for any sort of nourishment.
For some reason he was thinking of the first time he had seen Cherry, on a quadrangle in the university where they had both studied. He was coming to the end of his first year of some Mickey Mouse degree that would prepare him for no job at all; she was cramming for her finals, with a placement at a City bank already secured… but that was knowledge for the future. All that he knew at that moment was the back of her neck and that she was curled on the grass and the pile of textbooks by her side. The sweep of her neck, unusually long, the way her hair was up, stray strands teased by the breeze, the dimples either side of her spine…
He stared at those dimples until he was sure she could feel the weight of his scrutiny; she sat up, her head twitching. She planted a hand in the grass and pivoted on it. Insane dream logic showed him Felix within the circle of her arms, though he was seven years away from being born.
Everything around them shivered, as if he was watching it on a TV screen with a bad reception. And then the mown grass was gone, and he was alone with his family, on the nearby beach where an ancient ship was rusting into the shingle. She dragged Felix away, the both of them casting fearful glances back over their shoulders. They disappeared inside a giant rent on the ship’s port side. He followed, but every time he called their names, the juices in his throat caused him to gag.
He pressed his hands to his eyes and pushed until he saw shoals of color sweeping across that inner dark and when he opened his eyes again he was alone in the room and it was full night, and the storm had matured, was battering the coast and their door was flapping open in the wind.
Alien flavors rose in his craw.
“Cherry?” he called out.
There was no answer. He thought she might have drunk a little too much and decided to reignite the flame he’d seen hopping between her eyes and those of the young bartender. Or maybe she’d decided to go for a midnight dip in the pool. Or maybe she’d just conked out after her long day of leisure.
He closed the door and clattered up to the bedrooms. Empty. Felix’s bed was a mess of blankets, as if he’d suffered restless dreams. Or, his mind mauled itself, he’d struggled with an assailant as he was snatched from his bed.
He checked the bathroom in the insane hope that they’d decided to have a late shower together, but every room was empty. He returned to the lower level, almost tripping on the spiral staircase, and flew into the rain. He called out but his voice was spirited away by the thrashing wind. Shutters all across the complex were rattling in their frames, or, where they had not been secured properly, were crashing rhythmically like stoked metal hearts. The trees seemed aghast. The pool area was empty. All the loungers had been tied down but some of the large cushions had been blown free and floated in the water.