‘Yes,’ I said. And the sadness leaked out. It was there on my face and in my eyes. Grief was a flood that ran through you and caused others to stand aside. Or at least wind up the conversation.
Rosella seemed to notice. She stiffened a little. My awkwardness rubbing off on her.
‘That’s forty-seven euros and forty-nine cents.’
I got out the purse Karl had bought me years ago, the once-bright crimson fabric now a dull pink.
‘But if you go diving, don’t go to Atlantis Scuba. It is where Christina went. But she is the only person who has ever said anything good about the place. It is run by a madman.’
‘A madman?’
‘Yes. Alberto Ribas.’
Alberto Ribas.
The smiling pirate.
The Spanish woman Rosella had chatted to was now behind me in the queue. I decided not to take up any more time.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ I said.
Rosella smiled. ‘It was nice to meet you too. Chao.’
I walked out of the shop into the pine-scented heat of the afternoon and stared up at the vast picture of the azure-lit Dutch DJ, wondering what had happened to her mother.
The Yellow Flower
On my return to the house, I noticed a plant growing right outside the front door. It was quite tall, nearly reaching my knees, thin yellow petals, and right in the middle of the dusty path.
Though tall, the flower seemed too beautiful and delicate to be there all alone. I don’t think it was a weed.
Of course, weeds don’t really exist. They are only a matter of perception. If someone doesn’t like a dandelion growing on their lawn, they will call it a weed out of spite, because we human beings have to draw a line between everything. Us/them. Mathematics/poetry. Weed/flower.
But what I mean is: it wasn’t the kind of flower people would call a weed. It was the kind of flower people choose to plant. But why would Christina, or anyone, plant a flower on a dry path directly in front of a door? And, more pressingly, why hadn’t I noticed it before?
I took a photograph and sent it via WhatsApp to my sister-in-law Sophie in Australia. Not only did she run a florist, but her partner had a degree in botany. Maybe they would be able to tell me its name. I was going to have to look after all the plants on the premises if I stuck around.
I went inside and noticed another thing.
The jar of seawater was now full. Not a third full. But full. There was sure to be a rational explanation. The lid was still screwed on but I still looked up for a sign of a leaky pipe. There was nothing but a dry ceiling, and it certainly hadn’t been raining.
Yet there it was. An olive jar that had somehow refilled itself with seawater.
A kind of reverse evaporation, an extreme condensation that – at least according to the laws of nature I was familiar with – would be impossible. I felt, again, like someone was playing a practical joke on me.
When I was young, as I have told you, I read quite a lot of Sherlock Holmes alongside my Alexandre Dumas. The novels and the short stories. There is a famous line in the most perfect of all the novels, The Sign of Four, where Holmes tells Watson that when you ‘have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.
So that is what I was faced with. All the explanations as to why an olive jar would refill itself weren’t possible. So I was left with only illogic and improbability. And I have to say, I didn’t like that at all.
The Knock at the Door
I was hungry and in need of a drink.
I washed down some bread and cheese with a gin and tonic. I was on Christina’s little sofa, half-watching a dubbed version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I have always liked Harrison Ford’s face. It was comforting. Like an old slipper. That is the thing with movie stars. The good ones are so familiar you kind of wear them whenever you see them. They cover some lonely part of us. Make us warmer.
Daniel had loved the film before this one. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, especially the banquet scene where there is an eyeball in the soup. That and Return of the Jedi were his favourites. This added a bittersweet note to watching the film. Films from the eighties may be four decades old, but also – for me – too modern.
At home I’d often stick an old movie on. Something black and white, from another world. Roman Holiday. It Happened One Night. His Girl Friday. Or, if I am feeling more Technicolor, An American in Paris. Proper classics that you are still too young to have come across, I imagine. I liked watching things from before I ever met Karl, from before I’d become a mother, sometimes even from before I was born. It was like not existing for a while. Escaping to a world before my pain began.
As I watched the movie something happened that made me jump in my seat.
There was a knock on the door.
It must have been pretty late, as it was dark outside, and this was June, remember. Long days. But I suppose this was Ibiza and Ibiza didn’t really understand the concept of ‘late’.
I opened the door to find a man. A large man, broad in the shoulders. Arms all muscle. Stare of a buffalo. Bleached hair and a tattoo of a crucifix or a dagger by his left eye. Had a dangerous, twitching energy to him. His skin a tapestry of scars. He could have been seven foot for all I knew. It was as though a boulder had been given sentience via a tub of creatine. He looked like he had taken considerable effort to look this intimidating. He had one hand behind his back. I wondered if it was holding a weapon.
‘You’re not Christina,’ he said. He was British. Cockney. Or Essex.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘No. I’m not.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Not here.’ I didn’t want to tell him she had died. I didn’t want to tell him anything.
The man smiled. Quite a shy smile.
‘Tell her it’s Frankie. Tell her she was right. She was right about everything. Tell her thank you. And this is for her.’
