The Peacock Emporium, Page 23

  Son, I was going to write that all is fine here, but I realise, with sincerity, that this is only true for a select few. Your father, God willing, is still among them. There is talk of a new government, but I cannot see how things will be any different. There are now two 'neighbourhood councils' near us, and many of our neighbours have been on the new protests - waving keys at the government buildings. I fail to see what good this will do, but Vicente Trezza, who used to have the offices next to mine, is out there day in and day out with keys, pots, anything that will make a noise. I fear for his hearing. Your mother has refused to leave the house since our local supermarket was robbed by a mob from the shanty towns. Don't misunderstand my report, son. I am pleased to be able to say you are doing well in England. I look forward to our salmon fishing trip.

  Your father

  PS I am booked in to do a lady who asks to be remembered to you: Sofia Guichane. She is married to that rogue Eduardo Guichane, the one on television. She wanted liposuction and a breast augmentation. I agreed only to the liposuction for now as she thinks she may get pregnant soon. Plus she had a fantastic pair. Don't tell your mother I said this.

  Baby Boy, My own dear mother (God rest her soul) used to say: 'In Argentina, you spit on the ground, and a flower grows and blooms.' Now, I tell Milagros, it packs its cases and disappears. I cry for you every day. Santiago Lozano has managed to get a job with a Swiss bank and sends his father money every month in dollars. Ana Laura, the Duhalde's girl, is going to the US to live with her father's sister. I don't suppose you remember her. Soon I think there will be no young people left.

  Milagros's daughter-in-law is expecting twins. I pray that when you return to Argentina you will make me a grandmother. There is little love left in my life, all I ask is something to make my existence worthwhile.

  I will send on some packets of Mate, as you asked (I sent Milagros to the supermarket but she said the shelves were empty). In the meantime, across the oceans that separate us, I send you a precious gift. So that you can remember your family. Be safe. And be wary of English women. With love

  Your Mama

  Alejandro wondered whether his mother was becoming forgetful. He tried to remember whether there had been any packages in his pigeonhole but, sleep-deprived as he was, he was sure that there had been only this lightweight letter. He half hoped she had forgotten: it made him feel guilty when she sent him gifts, even the cheap packets of his favourite drink. He turned the letter in his hands, and rubbed at gritty eyes. Then he reached for the envelope and, almost as an afterthought, pulled it open.

  There, nestling in the corner, light as a feather, so insubstantial he had missed it. Wrapped round with a tiny thread of pink ribbon. A lock of Estela's hair.

  Alejandro closed the envelope and put it back on the table, his heart racing. His fatigue forgotten, he stood up, sat down, then stood again and walked over to the television, swearing under his breath. He stared at the screen for several minutes, then glanced around the room, as if for signs he might have missed. Then, grabbing his keys, he pushed his way out of the flat.

  Vivi shielded her eyes against the sun as the familiar figure loped towards her, becoming larger and more distinct as he came closer, his gait only marginally stiffer than that of the man she had married some thirty years ago.

  He paused, as if considering whether to ask permission, then sat down beside her, brushing stray seeds from his trousers.

  'Your lunch is in the oven,' she said.

  'I know. Thank you. I got the note.'

  She was wearing sunglasses. She turned back to the view, pulling her skirt down over her knees as if embarrassed to be caught with her skin exposed.

  'Nice day for it. Sitting out, I mean.'

  She was squinting at something on the far horizon, then flapped at a fly several inches in front of her nose.

  Douglas's voice was upbeat, casual. 'Not often we see you out here.'

  'No, I suppose not.'

  'Did you have a picnic or something?'

  'No. I just thought I'd sit for a while.'

  Douglas digested this for several minutes, gazing up as a bird wheeled overhead. 'Look at that sky.' He spoke into silence. 'Gets you by surprise every summer, doesn't it? A sky as blue as that.'

  'Douglas, have you walked this far to talk to me about the weather?'

  'Er . . . no.'

  She sat, waiting.

  'I've just come from the house . . . Mother wants to know if you'll be able to take her cat to the vet at some point.'

  'Has she made an appointment with them?'

  'I think she was rather hoping you would.'

  'And is there any reason why she, or indeed you, couldn't have performed this task?'

  He looked at her, wrong-footed by her hard tone, then out at the dun-coloured fields below. 'I've got quite a lot on at the moment . . . darling.'

  'So have I, Douglas.'

  In the bottom field a huge red agricultural beast travelled steadily up and down, great arms sending up dustclouds from the neat, planted rows. As it turned, its driver caught sight of the seated figures and lifted an arm in salute.

  Absentmindedly, Douglas lifted his own in return. As he dropped it again, he sighed. 'You know, Vivi, you can't just dictate how we should all behave.' He lowered his head to check that she had heard. 'Vee?'

  She lifted the sunglasses onto the top of her head, revealing reddened, tired eyes. 'I don't dictate anything here, Douglas. I don't dictate to you or Rosemary or Suzanna or even the darned dog.'

  'I didn't mean--'

  'I just try to keep everything running smoothly. And that's been fine.'

  'But?'

  'But it's not fine now.'

  He waited for a few moments. 'What do you want me to do?'

  She took a deep breath, like someone preparing to recite a long-rehearsed speech. 'I want you to accept that your mother is your responsibility too, and make her understand that I cannot cope with her - her issues by myself. I want to be consulted on matters that affect this family, whether you and your mother feel I have an automatic right to be or not. I want to feel - occasionally - as if I'm not just a piece of furniture.' She studied his expression, her eyes searching and fierce, as if daring him to suggest that this was something hormonal.

  'I - I've never thought of you--'

  She pushed her hair off her face. 'I want you to hand over more of the running of the estate.'

  'What?'

  'I'd like us to have some time together. Alone. Before I get too old to enjoy it.' And if you don't want that, she told herself in the ensuing silence, you'll be telling me what I have feared deep down, all along.

  He sat, staring into space. Vivi closed her eyes, trying not to read anything into her husband's silence, trying to muster the strength to continue. 'Most importantly, Douglas, you need to bring Suzanna back in,' she said slowly. 'You need to make her feel she's just as important as the others.'

  'I'll make sure Suzanna has an equal financial--'

  'No, you're misunderstanding me. It's not about the money. You need to allow Suzanna the same sense of family, the same sense of belonging.'

  'I've never discriminated against--'

  'You're not hearing me, Douglas--'

  'I've always loved Suzanna just the same - you know I have.' His voice was angry, self-justifying.

  'It's Athene.'

  'What?'

  'You need to stop behaving as if Athene is a dirty word.' I can't be a good person, Vivi said silently. Rosemary has shown me that. But in one area at least I can do the right thing. I can swallow my own feelings and do the right thing. She remembered, suddenly, how she had been introduced to Athene formally at Douglas's first wedding. How the girl, exquisite and oddly spectral in her wedding finery, had smiled vaguely and looked straight through her. As if she were invisible.

  Below them, the agricultural roar died, leaving just the sound of the breeze, the distant hum of bees, and birds, and far-off traffic.

  His hand h
ad crept into hers. She opened her eyes, feeling the familiar roughness, the stiff fingers surrounding her own. Beside her, Douglas coughed awkwardly into his free hand. 'I don't know if this is going to be easy to explain, Vee . . . but you've misunderstood me. I don't hate her. Even with what she did.' He looked at his wife, his jaw set against remembered pain. 'You're right - I never wanted to talk about Athene . . . not because she made me uncomfortable, not because I was frightened of making Suzanna feel different from the others . . . Well, maybe in part that was it, but mainly it was because I didn't want to hurt you. Whether she intended it or not, she damaged so many people. You - you protected us all, all these years. You pulled it all back together . . . I . . .' He faltered and raised his hand to his thinning hair. 'I love you, you know.' His fingers closed tightly now around hers. 'Really I do. And I just didn't want her to have the opportunity . . . to damage you, too.'

  She had been sitting alone outside, her long, pale legs stretched out in the sun, her face tipped to the endless blue sky, perversely enjoying the absence of customers. Mrs Creek had sat over her milky coffee for almost an hour, muttering darkly about the lack of biscuits, while Jessie chattered on about some outfit for a school play she was meant to have made until Suzanna sent the two of them off together to get on with it. It was not the right sort of afternoon for working. Too hot. Too humid. As if the sun made movement too effortful even to consider it. I have lost my London habits in some things, she mused, noting how other traders had also set up chairs outside, loitered on doorsteps, seemingly unworried by the shortage of custom, content to enjoy the moment, their conversations with people who might or might not, at some point in the future perhaps, choose to buy. She was still having trouble explaining this to Neil: in the capital, shops rose and fell on profit and loss, were judged by their columns of figures, dealt in notions of footfall, turnover and exposure. Here, she thought, remembering her conversation with Jessie, they were like a public service. A focal point for people who lived often isolated lives.

  When she saw him, his long stride too swift, too determined for the sleepy afternoon, she had scooted her legs under her, adjusted her shirt, as if caught doing something she shouldn't. From the end of the lane, he motioned at her as if to indicate that she need not rise on his account, but by the time he reached the shop she had disappeared inside, was already filling the coffee machine in the cool gloom.

  She found it difficult to look up when she heard him come in. When she did, her expression neutral, she saw that he looked awful, unshaven, his eyes shadowed with fatigue. 'Espresso?'

  'Yes. No. Do you still have iced tea?' (She had introduced it when coffee sales began to fall in the heat.)

  'Sure.'

  For someone whose movements were normally so measured, whose demeanour was so quiet, he seemed distracted, unable to settle. 'You mind if I smoke?' he had asked, when she handed him the tall glass.

  'Not if you take it outside.'

  He had glanced at the unopened pack of cigarettes in his hand, then out at the bright lane, and apparently decided against it.

  'No Jessie?'

  'Gone home to make a daisy outfit.'

  He had raised his eyebrows, but seemed disinclined to pursue it, so that Suzanna felt vaguely silly for mentioning it. He drank his iced tea in thirsty draughts, then asked for more.

  Perhaps it was because of the brightness outside, but in the gloom, the shop seemed to have shrunk. Suzanna found herself acutely aware of her own movements, of the way she moved round the counter, of the shapes her fingers made as she poured the second glass of iced tea. She gazed at him surreptitiously, taking in the crumpled T-shirt, the faint hint of male perspiration. Set against the delicately fragrant soaps, the vase of freesias by the till, it was almost aggressively male and disturbing. She wished, suddenly, that there were other customers after all. 'Smoke in here if you like,' she said brightly. 'I'll prop the door open.'

  He stroked his chin.

  'You look like you need one.'

  'No. No, really. I don't smoke any more. I don't know why I bought them.'

  'You okay?' she said, pushing the glass towards him.

  He breathed out, a deep sigh.

  'Bad shift?'

  'Something like that.'

  'I'll be outside,' she said and, unsure why she needed to leave him there, walked slowly back into the sun.

  To a passer-by, had there been any, Suzanna would have looked relaxed, leaning on her table, sipping a glass of iced water, watching the town's inhabitants meander slowly back and forth on their way to the market square. But she was painfully aware of every minute, felt, or imagined she felt, every glance on her warm back from the shadowy figure inside the shop. So that when he finally came outside and sat beside her, she had to fight the urge to exhale, as if she had been through some demanding test.

  'Who is she?'

  He looked more at ease, she noted. The almost manic glint in his eyes had dissipated.

  'The girl in the picture? It's not you. Your sister?'

  Suzanna shook her head. 'No, she's my mother. My real mother.' The words, for once, came easily.

  'You don't keep the picture at your home?'

  'It's complicated.' He was looking at her. 'She was at my family home. My father's home. He's remarried. But when I moved here they gave her to me.'

  'They didn't want her at home?'

  'I'm not sure it's that, exactly . . .'

  'You don't want her at home.'

  'It's not that either . . . There's a . . . It's just that she doesn't really belong anywhere any more.'

  The conversation already felt less agreeable. She wished she had left the picture facing the wall. She shifted in her seat, reached for the broad-brimmed hat she kept nearby to protect her skin, and put it on so that her face was in shadow.

  'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend--'

  'Oh, it's okay. Jessie's probably told you. I know Jessie tells you -' she corrected herself '- tells everyone everything. But it's just that me and my dad have this tricky relationship. And things are a bit difficult with us at the moment.'

  He had moved his chair round to face her. She shifted slightly in her own, conscious that it would appear rude to keep her back to the wall. She struggled with the conflicting sensations of wanting to leave him, and a simultaneous, almost fundamental need to explain herself.

  'It's to do with inheritance,' she said eventually. 'Who gets what.'

  He looked at her steadily.

  'My family owns a big estate here. My dad doesn't want me to inherit it. It's going to my younger brother. Perhaps you have the same thing in Argentina?'

  'In Argentina it's not an issue.' He smiled, wryly. 'The sons get everything.'

  'I was obviously born in the wrong country. Or my dad was.'

  'It bothers you?'

  She was a little embarrassed. 'You think it's greedy, right? To be so upset about something you didn't earn?'

  'No . . .'

  Suzanna listened for her own words to echo back at her, as if she could judge how they might sound to him. 'I'm not a greedy person.'

  He waited.

  'I mean, I like nice things, sure, but it's not about the money. It - it's about how he sees me.'

  She found the intensity of his attention almost too much. She looked down, realised she had finished her water. 'Sometimes I think it's all because I look like her. I've seen other pictures, you know, photographs, and I'm exactly like her.' She stared at her white limbs, which never tanned, the ends of her straight dark hair, just visible, lying sleekly against her shoulders.

  'So?'

  'I feel like he's making me pay.'

  He touched her hand, so lightly that afterwards she found herself staring at the spot where their skin had met, as if unsure that it had happened. 'For not being your mother?'

  Suzanna's eyes had filled inexplicably with tears. She chewed at her lip, trying to quell them. 'You wouldn't understand.' She half laughed, made awkward by this show of emotion. />
  'Suzanna.'

  'For . . . for being responsible. For her death. I was the reason she died, after all.' Her voice had become hard, brittle, her face strained under the smile. 'She died in childbirth, you see. No one talks about it, but there it is. She'd still be here if it wasn't for me.' She rubbed dismissively at her nose.

  'I'm sorry,' she said, briskly. 'I don't know why I'm telling you this. Because you're a midwife, I suppose. You'll have seen it happen . . . Anyway. It doesn't usually get to me like this.'

  The lane was empty, the sun bouncing metallically off the cobbles. She turned back to him, her smile brave and bright. 'Some inheritance, huh?'

  For reasons she didn't understand, he took her hand gently between his, bent his head low on their clasped fingers, and rested it there, as if in supplication. She felt the skin of his forehead, the electric hardness of the bone beneath, and her tears evaporated at the strangeness of what he was doing.

  When he eventually looked up, she thought he might apologise. But instead he nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if this had been something he had already known, had been waiting all this time for her to say.

  Suzanna, politeness forgotten, pulled away her hand, holding it to her chest as if it had been burnt. 'I - I'll just get some more tea,' she said, and ran for the safety of her shop.

  Alejandro walked back to the hospital, as if he was wading through treacle. It was almost a mile and a half, and he was now so tired that he felt nauseous. He took the short-cut, through the Dere estate, his feet moving automatically on the hot pavements. She had shouted his name three times before he heard her.

  'God, you look knackered.' Jessie and her daughter held hands, their faces bright and open as the sun. He felt relieved to see them, so uncomplicated and good.

  'We've been making outfits for the end-of-term play. Mrs Creek has been helping us.'

  Emma held up a plastic bag.

  'Now we're going to the park. You can come if you want. Push Emma on the swings. I'm not good at pushing at the moment,' Jessie said. 'Bashed my arm.'

  He might have been tempted to say something - he had thought about it often - but his brain was not clear and he did not trust himself to say what he meant. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't hear you very well.'