Alberto nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said and pointed at the woman at reception. ‘In fifteen seconds the receptionist will touch her glasses. In twenty she will pick up the phone to make a call.’
This was ridiculous. This is not ridiculous.
My eyes consequently darted between the smooth movement of the second hand on the clock on the wall and the fidgets of the bespectacled receptionist. Noted as she pushed her glasses up her nose, then five seconds later as she stretched her arm across the desk, standing just slightly, to pull a landline phone closer and begin to dial.
Lucky guess, I told myself. I touch my reading glasses all the time. There is probably some research out there saying that people touch their glasses at certain times. And as for the phone – well, receptionists probably make five hundred phone calls a day.
‘Good point,’ sighed Alberto.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Sí. Claro.’
‘Okay. I will humour you. If you can predict things, why couldn’t you predict that taking me to hospital was a bad idea?’
He nodded. ‘Sí. Another good point. The answer is I was scared. I sincerely thought you might die.’ He looked genuinely concerned. ‘Most things I find impossible to know with total certainty. And yes, I can do a few party tricks when I am closely observing someone, but really my talents are very minor these days. Once upon a time I was all-powerful, but things have changed. I pick up thoughts now and then. I can see a few minutes ahead sometimes, but that’s about it. Even if it chooses you, La Presencia only reaches out once. I could anchor my boat midway between Formentera and Ibiza every day and dive in that precise spot and it would never touch me. It has done with me. I only ever had the slightest brush with it. Unlike you. Your talents will be quite something when they develop. Beyond even Christina’s. It is because you were so long in the water.’
‘Such nonsense,’ I grumbled, and really tried to mean it.
‘If this is nonsense, how do you explain how you knew the doctor was called Paula?’
‘Magical powers, obviously,’ I said, heavy on the sarcasm. But in my head I was doing mathematics. The time, according to the wall clock, was twenty-five minutes past seven in the morning. Twenty-five multiplied by seven was one hundred and seventy-five.
‘Why are you doing sums?’
‘How do you know I—’
I was sliding into a new reality and I had nothing to hold on to.
He shrugged. ‘Not magical powers. No magic. But powers, yes. Given to both of us by something that is extra-terrestrial. La Presencia. The presence. From Salacia.’
‘Salacia?’
‘The name we give to the planet where the presence came from. It’s a good name, right? Roman goddess of the sea.’
‘I don’t believe in this kind of thing.’
‘The only thing you have to believe at this point is that there is a possibility that we don’t know every single thing about life in the universe. That we aren’t so arrogant as to think that this particular point in history is the one where we know all there is to be known. Is that possible? Now, please, before it is too late. You either follow me out of here or you don’t.’
And with that he stood up. And I didn’t follow him. I just glanced again at the old man opposite. He was waiting for his wife. She was having a scan for a suspected tumour. He hadn’t slept with worry. I knew it even as I knew I couldn’t know it.
Alberto walked out of the automatic doors. I wondered what had happened to Christina. Maybe she was trapped in a military base somewhere.
I stared at my hands. Something was odd, but it took me a few seconds to realise what it was. And then I saw it: the ring. Instead of a ruby there was an emerald. In place of the engagement ring I had worn every day since Karl proposed to me in the library, there was the one I had turned down in the Raj Pavilion restaurant near Hull University all those years ago. The one I had seen on the impossible beach.
Adrenaline surged through me. I felt alert and scared.
I had the sudden urge to follow Alberto.
So I stood up, with the receptionist still on the phone, and walked briskly towards the exit. A man in a green uniform was walking through the automatic doors. It was the Guardia Civil officer I had met. The frowning, taciturn one. I avoided his gaze, but as I passed him I knew he was called Carlos Guerrero. I knew he was at the hospital because he’d had a phone call about a woman who had been brought in by Alberto Ribas after a diving accident. I knew he enjoyed watching quiz shows with a beer every evening. I knew that he had a sofa in his apartment that still had its polythene cover because he didn’t like dirt. I knew that he loved FC Barcelona as much as he hated Real Madrid, but there was another level where he didn’t really care at all. I knew that his inner thighs itched in the heat and that he had back pain caused by sciatica. I knew that he had a recurring dream of being urinated on by a lion, in which he would lie under it, too scared to move. Sometimes the dream had a terrifying sexual dimension that would cause him to wake up in a sweat. I knew he had spoken to Alberto and had ruled him out of his enquiries. But I also knew he had been paid a bribe by someone. I saw him in an expensive villa that wasn’t his, accepting money from someone without a face. The person obviously had a face, but I couldn’t see it.
‘Disculpe, señora,’ he said as I kept walking.
I am not who you think I am, I thought, and I thought it with such force it seemed to become his thought too, because he shook his head and carried on chewing his gum, before heading into the reception area.
The Instructions
‘Listen to me,’ Alberto said, dropping me off like an anxious parent. ‘You will notice some changes over the next few days.’
‘I am seventy-two years old. I am used to changes.’
‘These changes will be surprising ones, and maybe strong ones.’
‘Will I grow horns?’ I wondered, half-seriously.
He shook his head but didn’t smile. He was taking this seriously. ‘No. No horns. No difference to your physical appearance. But you will change. It changes everyone it touches.’
He was very good at being dramatic. I would eventually discover there was an aspect to him that wasn’t quite there, that was always detached, observing, like he was trapped inside an eternally bigger picture.
‘How? How will I change?’
He shrugged. ‘Quién sabe! It’s hard to tell, exactly. It manifests itself differently from person to person. But you are part-Salacian now. It has given you Salacian talents, and from the way it reached you I am imagining the change will be very significant. But the important thing is this – you must not let it be known. Not right now. Not until you have this all under control. Don’t tell anyone, don’t show anyone, don’t let it be seen. This is very important.’
I could write a whole book about what I was feeling then.
After being told I was basically half-alien and that I had some sort of paranormal capabilities. The shock. The bewilderment. But mainly, I felt denial. I didn’t want to believe any of this.
It had been a long time since I had been treated like a child. I felt indignation rise up like lava. ‘I nearly died because of you. Why should I listen to a word you say?’
