‘What?’
‘The casino wants it back. They believe it was won unfairly. Several witnesses reported seeing you bring your own cards to the poker table.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s a lie. Art is making them think that. That’s what’s happening.’
Sofía shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. But you have to go now.’
Alberto stayed staring at her. ‘You don’t know this, but I am from the north of this island too. We are from the same village, Sofía. Santa Agnès de Corona. I was already an adult before you were born, but I was there. In the little house opposite the church. The house with the almond tree outside the window.’
‘I know the one…’
I wondered momentarily what Alberto was doing. But then I saw her memory. She was a child, watching as they carried the coffin of Alberto’s grandmother across the street to the church.
‘I am of this island as you are,’ he was saying. ‘And like you, and unlike that man there, I want what is best for it. I remember when travelling from the north to the south took half a day, not half an hour. I liked that. You had to respect the shape of the land. The topography. You had to respect the hills. The pines and the soil. All of it. And it helped to keep ourselves whole too. If you destroy the nature around you, you destroy the nature inside you soon enough.’
‘We are in a different time,’ Sofía said, softly, as she looked across the beach towards a Guardia Civil officer. The frowning, difficult one I had spoken to, walking over the sand towards me. Carlos Guerrero. The one who had the recurring dream of being urinated on by a lion.
‘Cheating at a casino is illegal,’ Art was saying. ‘They treat it very seriously here in Ibiza. Quite rightly so.’
I felt terrible, weak and useless, standing there in that heat.
Alberto looked more upset than angry, standing on the beach and staring out to the sea beyond Art. ‘Hijo de puta.’
‘I will tell the truth,’ I told Art, with a fearless defiance I’d never experienced. ‘I will tell the police. And I will tell everyone else. Over and over. Until I am believed. And I can make them believe.’
Art ignored these words and stayed in his chair, staring up at me. ‘You look ill,’ he said. ‘You look tired. Do you want to sit down?’
He was doing something. I knew he was doing something. I realised every time we had felt we had the upper hand over him – like last night at the casino – was only because he wanted us to feel we had the upper hand.
‘Grace?’ Alberto’s voice spun around my head.
Sofía stood up. I heard her voice, as she came towards me. ‘Are you okay? Do you want to sit down?’
‘I’m…’
Everything suddenly felt very heavy, as if the sky began at my shoulders and had a real weight, and then things began to spin and I staggered forward, trying to balance, my eyes on Art’s stare, following the slope of the beach until I was almost at the sea. And that is when I collapsed.
Salacia
I was between the tall trees and the glowing sea, trapped in that other world.
The Beach of Truth
‘Why am I back here?’
I was so weak it took me a moment to notice the red bicycle leaning against the sand. I knew this bicycle. I even knew the model. It was the only bicycle in the world I knew this well. An old red BMX from the eighties.
And then I noticed the footprints in the sand.
Leading away from the bike, towards the trees.
I followed the footprints into the forest, each step a growing struggle, but I kept going. I wanted the truth that Christina had promised.
Eventually, I reached him. A boy sitting cross-legged on the ground. He was in shadow. When I trod closer I could see he was wearing his paisley shirt that he had made in textiles class and the skin on his face shone with dark blood. His hair was matted with it. But he was smiling when he saw me.
It was him. I could finally see him. The truth of him. He wasn’t in Salacia. But he was in this Salacian vision, which like all my Salacian visions was trying to show me the reality of something long denied.
Our son. Our beautiful, darling boy.
‘Daniel.’
I ran over and hugged him.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy. Please don’t cry.’
It was his voice. It was his exact voice. Right there, as if nothing had happened for thirty-two years.
‘Daniel, I’m sorry. It was my fault. I should have looked after you. I shouldn’t have let you out on the bike in that rain.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Mum. It was no one’s fault. I was angry for no reason at all…’
‘You wanted to go to the shops with me and I didn’t go. Because it was raining.’
He shook his head. Adamant. ‘No. No. I didn’t want you. I wanted to be on my own. I took off on my own. I’m sorry, Mum, but you cramped my style.’
‘I…I…’ Guilt is hard to let go of. So I stuttered for a while. ‘I still shouldn’t have let you go out in that downpour.’
‘You didn’t have a chance to tell me not to go out. I was already headed down Wragby Road by the time you even knew I wasn’t there.’
