The Muse

  But Olive, and her paintings, and her parents, had seen to that stance; they had opened Teresa up, made her vulnerable to the whims and worlds of other ­people. Once again now, Olive was forcing her hand. And perhaps there was no good to be had in staying silent any longer; perhaps it was time to have a hand in fate. Perhaps it was time for Olive to truly see, and to free herself for ever.

  ‘A shepherd’s hut,’ Teresa said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go and look for a shepherd’s hut. You will find him there.’

  Olive looked at her in astonishment. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You’ll find him. Ask my brother what it means to be in love.’

  TERESA WATCHED HER DEPART, AND began to sweep away the other girl’s severed hair with a mix of dread and elation. She wasn’t sure exactly what Olive would find, but she had a fair idea. She noted the back of Olive’s newly bared head with something bordering pride. When the reckoning came – and it was certainly going to come now – Teresa knew that they would question her character. At least they would see that she had not left a mark on her mistress. It was not possible to mend Olive’s heart, but at least the girl’s head was finally clear.

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  22

  The plane engines over Malaga had grown quieter as Olive pounded down the hill from the finca, in the direction of the cottage. No one seemed to notice as she tiptoed out of the house. It did not occur to her there might have been no one left in the house to hear.

  At dusk Arazuelo was a ghost village, the inhabitants evaporated, wraiths hidden round corners. The main square was empty, the shutters of the bar on the corner were up; the church was its blackened shell; the butcher was closed; the school and the offices around it blanked of life. Olive patted her pockets, feeling in one the torch she’d grabbed from the kitchen, and in the other, the cold bulk of the pistol Isaac had left with them.

  She could barely allow the hope that he might still be near. Teresa, it appeared, was a locked box of secrets, until you found the right combination. Whilst everything outside her seemed quiet, Olive’s thoughts cascaded with a force she found hard to control. If she could find him and bring him back, everything would be all right. Panting, she tried to regain her breath as she scanned the woods beyond, the line of the trees inkier and inkier as the last natural light disappeared into a

  smoky sky.

  INTO THE GROWING DARKNESS OLIVE ran, switching on the torch. Don’t use a torch, Teresa had told her. You don’t know who else is out there.

  Who else? I’m not afraid, Olive had replied – but now, out in the hills, she couldn’t see a thing without it, and her adrenalin was coursing. She barely knew where she was going, but she supposed it couldn’t be far. Towards the foothills, she would find him; she would, she would. You think he’s gone north? Teresa had said. He hasn’t gone north.

  If you hate him so much, Teresa, why didn’t you tell the civil guard all this? Olive had asked; but she knew the answer to that already. Teresa had not revealed to anyone about Isaac – not to protect her brother, but to keep Olive near.

  I’ll be waiting, Teresa had called out to her, as Olive fled the attic. No one had ever said such a thing to Olive before.

  THE FIRST THING OLIVE SAW was the sardine tin, glinting in the grass. It had clearly blown from inside the hut, and now rested several metres from where Olive stood. She switched off the torch and watched the shepherd’s hut. A faint light was showing between a hewn-­out window hole and a piece of flapping oilskin. Olive crept nearer. She could hear a voice, a low murmur – Isaac’s voice. Teresa had not been lying to her, and her heart rose with joy to know he was here, and she ran forward.

  But then she heard a woman’s laugh. She recognized it. She thought she was going to choke. Her throat tightened, her tongue felt too big at the back of her mouth You don’t know who else is out there.

  A noise, a deep sigh, another and another from inside the shepherd’s hut. and finally Olive understood what Teresa had meant, what she had squirmed to say, resisting the outright truth, sending her here so she could see it for herself. She understood it, even as she couldn’t bear to. And there it came again – regular, deep, and unbearable; an expression of pure pleasure. As the universe above Olive’s head deepened in its darkness, she fixed her fingers on the pistol and pushed the door.

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  23

  Sarah screamed, pushing back against the wall. ‘No dispares!’ shouted Isaac. Don’t shoot!

  Olive lifted the lantern that was on the floor. Isaac and her mother were both naked, their limbs still intertwined. Sarah twisted her body away in a panic, and Olive saw the dome of her stomach clearly risen with a child.

  ‘Olive,’ said her mother, dumb with shock. ‘What’s happened to your hair?’

  They stared at each other. Seconds passed that felt like hours. ‘Does Daddy know?’ Olive eventually said, her voice a husk, the sound robotic. ‘Does Daddy know?’

  Sarah scrambled to sit up, clutching Isaac’s coat to her chest, reaching for her trousers. ‘Liv. Livvi. Put the gun down.’

  Olive kept the barrel up in the direction of her mother. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ said Sarah gasping. ‘Put that down, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Is it yours?’ Olive asked Isaac. ‘Is the baby yours?’

  ‘It’s not his,’ Sarah interrupted. ‘It’s not.’

  Isaac got to his feet. ‘Olive,’ he said gently. ‘Put the gun down. No one needs to be hurt.’

  Olive felt a roaring in her ears. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why?’ The question rose and rose against the night, turning into a shout.

  ‘Ssssh!’ Isaac hissed. ‘Keep quiet.’

  ‘You hypocrite. All those words about going north, about fighting for your country, and you’re less than a mile away, here, with her—­’ Olive put her hand on her mouth, fighting back the sob that was threatening.

  ‘Livvi,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Don’t you Livvi me. Don’t fool yourself it could ever be love with her, Isaac. Is it yours? Is that baby yours?’

  The look that passed between Sarah and Isaac was almost worse to Olive than discovering them. The intimacy of it, the fluency, the complicity.

  ‘How long have you – when did it start? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I—­’

  Isaac began to come towards her. ‘Calm down, Olive. Please. I can explain—­’

  As he approached, Olive fired a shot through the thatch of the roof. ‘Mierda!’ he shouted. ‘Shit! Do you want to get us killed? Now every gang out there will know that someone is here.’

  Sarah let out a low moan and began scrabbling around in the dark for the rest of her clothes. ‘I have to go. I have to go,’ she kept repeating. ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘You snake,’ said Olive.

  Sarah looked up at her. ‘I’m no snake.’

  ‘Aren’t you? I’d say you are. I never want to speak to you again.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ asked Isaac.

  ‘How else do you think?’

  ‘My sister.’

  Sarah groaned. Olive closed her eyes, as if to blot out the scene before her.

  ‘How long has Teresa known about this?’ whispered Sarah.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Olive, and it was the truth. Had Teresa’s silence until now been out of protection, or something else – the power of knowing something that Olive did not? Had they all been laughing at her, so in love with her Boris Mon-­Amour? Better to have kept Isaac a figure in a book, a man in her imagination, than the monster she had created in real life. She could hear one of the last things Teresa
had said to her, up in the attic: Ask my brother what it means to be in love. How could Teresa do this to her?

  ‘Olive,’ said Sarah, more in control now she was fully dressed. ‘I know it’s not always been easy—­’

  ‘Oh, God. No, I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

  ‘And yet you always do.’

  Sarah got to her feet and faced her daughter. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who’s lonely? The only one who suffers?’

  ‘I don’t care about your loneliness. You’re married. To my father.’

  ‘And do you think it’s easy, being married to him?’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up.’

  Isaac was in the corner, hastily putting on his clothes, his face darting between the women with an expression of misery.

  ‘Isaac isn’t yours, Olive, no more than he’s mine,’ Sarah said.

  ‘He is mine – we’ve – what are you going to tell Daddy? He won’t take you back.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘I never knew you were so old-­fashioned.’

  ‘Old-­fashioned?’

  ‘Do you think his paintings pay for all this, Liv? The finca, our travel, our lives? It’s not a question of “taking me back”. One day, Olive, you’ll understand what a mess everyone makes of their life. I don’t know a single ­couple who hasn’t had their problems. Marriage is long, you know—­’

  ‘Stop. I don’t care. When did you first seduce Isaac?’

  ‘Darling, it was the other way round. In fact, not long after Daddy bought Isaac’s first painting.’

  ‘Just get out,’ said Olive.

  SARAH BEGAN TO WALK OUT of the hut with all the insouciance of leaving a Mayfair restaurant, but she faltered at the dark. ‘I can’t see anything thing. I’ll get lost,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure you know the way by now. Watch out for the wolves.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Isaac.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Olive said, lifting the pistol in Isaac’s direction.

  ‘Olive, you’re being so bloody foolish,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Sarah said to Isaac. ‘Olive, come back when you’ve calmed down.’

  Isaac and Olive watched as she disappeared into the night. ‘You shouldn’t have let her go alone like that,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I wouldn’t have shot her, you know. Or you.’ Olive lowered the gun and switched on the torch. In the bright white light, he looked wary. ‘For God’s sake, Isaac. Have you any idea what’s been happening to your sister?’

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose my mother bothered to tell you. How Teresa paid the price for your heroics.’

  ‘Do not hide things, Olive. I do not like it.’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

  ‘What have they done to her?’

  Olive could see the genuine panic on his face, so she relented, telling him about Jorge and Gregorio, the hacking of Teresa’s hair, the castor oil, the midnight wanderings through the finca corridors.

  His face crumpled in pain. ‘But why have you no hair?’ he asked.

  ‘To make her feel better. Less alone.’

  Isaac looked beyond the torch’s orbit, out into the darkness. ‘She told you I was here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she tell you about the child?’

  ‘No. Just that you’d be here.’

  ‘Did she mention Sarah?’

  ‘No. I asked her what she knew about love, that’s all.’

  ‘She is the cause of so much trouble.’

  ‘Yes. But at least now I see you for what you are. I suppose that was her intention.’

  ‘Do you truly think my sister has always had your best interests at heart?’ Isaac asked her. ‘She is like a cat, always landing on her feet.’

  ‘You overestimate her power. You haven’t seen her. And anyway, she hasn’t hurt me. You have.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s true. But you just see an idea of me that suits you. You never stop trying to create me. Your mother – how do you say? Clear-­sighted. She does not want me to change.’

  ‘Yet. But probably because she doesn’t have the imagination. And she’s ill.’

  ‘Is boredom an illness? She is not ill. It just suits you all that she is.’

  ‘That’s not true. You took advantage—­’

  ‘Olive, I never promised you anything. I never told you I loved you. You heard and saw what you wanted.’

  ‘You slept with me, Isaac. Several times.’

  ‘Yes, I said. And I said yes to the paintings too. We all make mistakes.’

  ‘What are you trying to say? The more I painted, the less you loved me?’

  He looked away. ‘I’m trying to say that your mother – it is a different thing. It’s a separate thing.’

  ‘It isn’t separate, Isaac. Her behaviour affects us all, just as my father’s does – and as mine does, I suppose. Did you stay here for her?’

  He hesitated. Olive closed her eyes, as if in pain. ‘You think you’re the first,’ she said. ‘And how can you prove the child is yours? She only slept with you to punish me.’

  He laughed, putting his hands up to his head. ‘You really are an artist, aren’t you? You think it’s all about you, and you never stop looking for pain. It isn’t about you, Olive. You have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I’m going. Good luck, isn’t that what you said?’

  Olive turned her face to the darkness, in the direction her mother had descended.

  ‘What will you do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll go back to England. You were right. I’ll find somewhere to live. Leave my parents to it. See if the art school will take me.’

  ‘That is a good plan.’

  ‘We’ll see. Here.’ Olive handed the pistol to Isaac. ‘You might need this more than me.’

  ‘And Tere?’ he asked, tucking it into the back of his belt. ‘Will you take her with you?’

  Olive sighed. ‘I don’t know, Isaac. She doesn’t have any papers.’

  ‘She has had a hard time, Olive.’

  ‘A minute ago you were saying how much trouble she was.’

  ‘She is only sixteen.’

  Olive couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘She said she was eighteen.’

  ‘Well, there you are. But if Jorge decides – if my father—­’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me. I was there when it happened. When you were up here.’

  He put out his hand. Olive looked down at it. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m glad I painted you with a green face.’

  SHE HAD MEANT IT AS a joke; she had not really meant that he was naive, or sick. It was just an assertion that she was the artist, that she would paint him in the colours that she saw fit. She wanted Isaac to see that she was grown up enough to deal with this, even though she did not feel it. He would always be the man who had changed her life. But as she had gone to take his hand and hold it, and tell him this, Isaac crumpled at her feet.

  It seemed unreal to her at first, as she stared down in horror, her torch darting over the blood that was gushing out of Isaac’s head, the red cascading into his eyes. And then she heard what she’d missed the first time; the muted pop of a gun firing in their direction. Two more shots ricocheted around the hills, their reports cracking the air, thinning to nothingness above the woods. She started to run.

  Jorge, who had heard Olive’s pistol being fired half an hour earlier, had come up to the hills to see if he could find its source, and had been watching them from a distance. He couldn’t believe his luck; Isaac Robles in hiding, and his bald sister, handing him over another firearm. And the stupid girl had kept her torch on, so after shooting Isaac, he could follow her easily enough, the t
orchlight juddering all over the place as she stumbled down the hill.

  Jorge fired three more times, watching as the torch tumbled, coming to rest like a small white moon upon the earth. He waited. Nothing moved. So close was the quality of silence that followed, so sickening that mute after-­note of execution, that it seemed as if the fields were turning in on themselves, and the earth was giving way.

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  PART V

  Rufina and the Lion

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  November 1967

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  XVIII

  The lifts at Goodge Street station were broken, and when I finally caught a Tube in the direction of Waterloo, it kept stopping in tunnels. In total, it took me an hour and a half to reach Quick’s house after leaving the phone box outside the Slade. The front lights of her house, both upstairs and down, were blazing. She had not drawn the curtains, and I could see in the top room a white, cracked ceiling with a naked bulb, which seemed at odds with her usual cultivated aesthetic. A sharp pool of light haloed across the cornicing, a decayed grandeur to the fissures she had not sought to fill in.

  Feeling deeply uneasy, I knocked on the front door and waited, and there was no answer. ‘Hello?’ I called through the letterbox, but the house remained silent. I deliberated – I could stop this, go home back to Clapham and my equally silent flat. But guilt kept me there; and curiosity, a need to see this through.

  It was very dark as I slipped along the side fence, the last of the fallen autumn leaves crisping under my shoes. Even the lights through the side windows shone out – an electric conflagration, every light bulb burning, giving me the distinct feeling of being exposed. It was like a film set – a giant rig of dazzling sodium illumination – a wattage to attract and drown.