He nodded. ‘I know. But maybe you will need it…’
Before I had time to ask why, he was back in the taxi.
And then he waited for a gap in the traffic, turned the car around and sped away.
The Pictures on the Wall
And there I was, on the asphalt in the sunshine. My swollen feet desperate to be released from their shoes. I wished I had worn my easy-fit sandals, but they had seemed a bit too outré this morning, when I had woken in Lincoln.
Oh well.
The noise of traffic competed with cicadas, as I stared at it.
At the house.
The rundown white box. And instead of a front door, a blue metal gate to the side of the building, leading to an impromptu patch of gravel and scrubby plants. A battered old car – a Fiat Panda – was parked outside.
‘Right,’ I said, to no one. A feature of my ageing process was that I was increasingly acting like I was on stage, throwing out muttered asides to an audience that wasn’t listening. Or even there.
I went through the gate. I could feel my heart beating. Tingles in my legs. I wondered if it was to do with the vein surgery or to do with the fear. I fumbled around for the door key. Dropped it. My creaking knees didn’t thank me as I crouched down. (Enjoy the ability to crouch down without effort, Maurice. It’s one of the many gifts of youth.)
For a moment, staring at the key surrounded by grit and shining in the sunlight, I felt my own stupidity at coming out here so strongly that I wished I could be swallowed up by the universe. Get hit by a car and let my carcass nourish a wild dog.
I heard my mum’s voice echo through decades. Look at you. Grace Good-for-Nothing.
Ridiculous, I told myself. Pull yourself together.
I grabbed the key and stood up, my body all quiet creaks and cracks.
There was a small, sad patch of garden. A wasteland of weeds and unwatered soil and little scraps of grass. I had never seen anything so neglected.
Inside, it was only mildly better.
The theme for the décor was battered brown. It smelled musty. And the air felt thick and stale. I saw dust hovering in the air, glowing like a tiny galaxy. A macabre thought overtook me. I wondered if there was dead skin among the dust. I wondered if I was inhaling her.
There was a hallway, where I left my luggage and shoes. My swollen feet sang with relief to be out of the loafers. And then the living room with its sofa and a hippyish throw and a rug that needed cleaning. A large fan was visibly clogged with dust and the floor tiles needed a mop. I walked around, still spooked and half expecting to bump into her corpse. I felt like I was intruding. There was something private and intimate about the space, so to be there was to trespass on memories I never knew. I was an interloper, inside a gift that already felt more like a curse.
On the walls there were framed photos. A gallery of Christina’s life here.
A photo of her on a beach with her long dark hair blowing in the breeze and an equally long-haired man, with sparkling eyes, and a Mini Moke beach buggy in the background.
One of a little girl with a nervous smile, holding a teddy bear.
One of her and that same little girl, and that same man.
One of her with a microphone in hand, entertaining a hotel crowd.
One of her standing next to a man who appeared to be Freddie Mercury at some party in the eighties.
One of her in diving gear, with a different man. A man with a wilder beard than the first. He looked made for the sea. A shorter Poseidon in badly fitting Spandex. They looked more like friends than a couple.
One of her at some kind of local festival, dancing in an old-fashioned costume.
In all of them, she looked happier than she ever had as a teacher. But they seemed to be from quite a few years ago. There was nothing recent.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked, to that imaginary audience. I stared at the little girl and her cuddly purple bear. Was this her daughter? Why hadn’t she left this house to her? Or to someone else in these photos. ‘Why me?’
But there were no answers. Instead, there was just silence. And worry. And humidity. And quite a lot of dust.
The Olive Jar
I walked around the place. I was looking for answers, but I couldn’t find any.
I saw a dried and probably dead potted plant in the bedroom on the chest of drawers, drooping and brown. A peace lily, I think. I noted the bed. It looked fine. It had new clean sheets. Then I headed back into the living room and clocked an old eighties hi-fi and rows of cassettes and stacks of vinyl.
And quite a few books.
I always think that the quickest way to understand someone is to look at what’s on their bookshelves. Especially if they are honest bookshelves, not the fancy ornamental kind. And there was nothing fancy or ornamental about this place.
There was an assortment of books, some on shelves, some on the floor near the shelves. Some in English, some in Spanish, and one or two in Greek. Of those in English there were translations of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and a copy of the Tao Te Ching.
A guide to the flora and fauna of the Balearic Islands. A couple of Agatha Christies.
She had a classic that I had read and loved when I was young. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. (Have you ever read The Count of Monte Cristo? You really should. It’s the best book I have ever read. It is about revenge and forgiveness, and it includes a prison escape. I have always loved a good prison escape. As a teen I read all of Dumas, as well as Frankenstein and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. You know. Proper stories.) There was also Zorba the Greek, not in Greek, and the poems of Cavafy, this time in Greek. In Spanish she had more poems (Pablo Neruda) and a Carlos Ruiz Zafón and a well-thumbed Isabel Allende.
And then I saw a jarringly out of place book on clairvoyancy called The Ultimate Guide to Psychic Power: Volume 8. The title caused me to release a little awkward laugh. Music teachers, I thought to myself.
There was another book that also stood out. This was another one of those in Spanish. La vida imposible by Alberto Ribas. Impossible Life. It had a crude cover. A badly drawn illustration of the sea and a rocky islet. A view from a beach. The water had lines coming from it, like it was shining. There was a photo of the author on the back cover. A sun-leathered man with a wild beard wearing a T-shirt with an octopus design on it. He had a big smile and a missing tooth. He looked like an elderly pirate.
