Part 31 (1/2)

3.

When they got me back from hospital, Rox was very nice to me. She spread the picnic rug on the stage, right at my feet. She put soft pillows on my chair so I could lean back without making my cuts hurt. She unwrapped each of the small pink-iced croix cakes and cut them and spread them with blackberry confit.

Whatever she did to Wally's porpoise in the bed that night, it was more than she had ever done before. When he saw the angels, he made high, hard noises in the back of his throat. He went on and on. In the morning he whistled and drove all the way down to the port to buy some fresh bream for our breakfast.

The minute the truck's engine started, Roxanna got out of her bed and came into my room, pulling Wally's blue-checked dressing gown around her. She was still very nice to me, but her eyes were bloodshot and there was a hardness in her face I had not known before.

She took Without Consent Without Consent from my hands and slid it under my pillow in a way that did not brook interference. 'It's a beautiful day out there, Rikiki.' from my hands and slid it under my pillow in a way that did not brook interference. 'It's a beautiful day out there, Rikiki.'

She c.o.c.ked her head, as if waiting for an answer.

'Not a beautiful day,' she said. 'Obviously.'

She kneeled at my feet and opened her handbag. At first I thought she was looking for a Caporal, but when she turned back to me she was holding something in her closed cupped hands. Then she smiled. For a moment it was the old Rox. She blew across her intertwined fingers, like Wally in his magic trick. I could smell the sour wine on her breath. Everything about her was so familiar, so much a part of me, that even this smell, which had initially been so alien, now signalled comfort and security breakfast, warm sheets, b.u.t.tery toast eaten in her arms.

'Mo-chou,' she said. 'Did you hear me, Chocolat? You want to see my present?'

'OK,' I said. I sat up in my bed.

She opened her white hands a small squish-mak frog, bright green with long yellow stripes, sat on her palm.

'Was ... it ... in ... your ... purse ... all ... night?'

'Look,' she said.

'I ... know ... a ... squish ... mak.'

'The world is beautiful.'

'I ... know.' know.'

'It's so easy to forget.'

'You ... don't ... understand ... anything.' anything.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'You be careful, mo-camarad.' She held the frog up to my eyes. 'Look,' she said. She smiled again. The squishmak was wet and s.h.i.+ning, a kind of lime green. It had big wide eyes and long thin fingers. 'G.o.d made it, just like He made you.'

I did not answer.

'Well?'

I could see how tired she was, her skin, her red and yellow eyes. She had a red wine crust around her lips.

'Do you know what I'm saying to you?'

I did not know what I was meant to say. I shrugged.

'Do you want to ruin my life?' she said suddenly. 'Do you?'

'No,' I said, and it was true. I loved her, her lipstick-sour-wine smell, her frowning forehead, the fine blonde down which only showed when the sunlight fell on her neck, along her chin line, her chipped and bitten cuticles when she removed her red stick-on nails, the way she bent her small thin fingers back to explain a point, the bruises on her knees which she rubbed at with her fingers now, as if she might erase them.

'My life has been lousy up to now,' she said. 'Do you realize I'm nearly twenty-six years old?'

'Your ... life?' ... life?'

'For Christ's sake,' she said. 'Your life is fine. Nothing is going to hurt you now. It's been two months, Tristan. Nothing has happened to you. Nothing will. You're not political. No one thinks that you're a threat to anything. If you're a threat to anyone, it's me. Do you realize what happened at the hospital?'

'Six ... st.i.tches.'

'They thought me and Wally cut you up. That fellow with the specs near-as-d.a.m.n-it called the Gardiacivil. I'm the one who should be scared, not you.'

'I'm ... sorry.'

'I already burnt a house down,' she said. 'It isn't smart to make me tense. Please say you'll let us go and live somewhere else. We could be happy, all of us.'

She opened her handbag and slid the frog back in. She snapped it shut, and caught the creature's foot between two golden metal clips. She did not seem to notice what she had done.

'You cannot do this to me,' Roxanna said to me. 'You can't.'

'Look ...' I pointed to the frog.

Roxanna followed my finger to her handbag but did not seem to notice anything. 'I love that man, you understand? I know I didn't used to, but I do.' She looked up at me. 'He's a good man, and he understands me.'

'I'm ... sorry.'

'I'm not going to lose him, Tristan. So I'm telling you, I'll be nice as pie to you while he's around, but either you suggest we go and live some place with light and air or ...'

'Or ... what?'

'Or I'll go away and I'll take him with me.'

'I'm ... just ... a ... kid.'

'Listen, Mr Machin,* I'm a woman. He's a man. I can make him do whatever I d.a.m.n well want. ' I'm a woman. He's a man. I can make him do whatever I d.a.m.n well want. '

'You ... can't.'

'I don't want to do this,' Rox said. She slung her handbag over her shoulder. The frog's fingers were not moving. 'I want us all to be together, Rikiki, but you've got to understand if you want to fight me, I'll beat you.'

'I'll ... tell ... Wally.'

'You don't know who I am.' She ruffled my hair, just like she did when she was nice. 'I'll kill you if I have to.'