The Daily Mail asked whether the whole thing was an elaborate practical joke, that Isaac Robles should have been left where he was found, and that if this was the state of modern art, what fresh hells would we be forced to look at in the 1970s. The Observer, however, went in the opposite direction, congratulating Reede on refusing to rest on his laurels when it came to ‘art history revisionism, forgotten painters and colour.’ It made me laugh, to think all these men had been looking at the same painting.
I felt Quick’s absence through the corridors, knowing that never again would the lunch summons come, never again would the restaurant next door send up a cold bottle of their best Sancerre. Reede was not in; I wondered if he’d seen the papers, and how we would deal with it. Pamela, who’d been informed about Quick, had been sniffling in the loos, and even the empty rooms felt as if they were in mourning. I wondered whether if had Quick been there, the reviews might have taken a more praising timbre; Quick cajoling the critics, forcing them to put their egos aside and see what was in front of their noses.
And yet, if anything, the Mail’s diatribe helped us. There were queues forming to come in and see Rufina, to see if it was really a joke. But for me, it only made things worse. Why hadn’t Quick spoken up? Why was she so determined to keep her life a secret?
I began to meditate on what Lawrie had said about Quick doing me an enormous favour when she sent ‘The Toeless Woman’ to the London Review, and that I shouldn’t waste it. My red notebook had lain untouched for several weeks; but I just didn’t know what I wanted to write about. I don’t think Quick ever wanted me to feel in her debt; she had facilitated something, and was happy to do so. Nevertheless, I began to think about how I might thank her for what she’d done, in a way I hadn’t managed when she was alive. The funeral was scheduled for the following week, and I decided I would use the intervening time to write her eulogy. After all, Reede had left it to me and Pamela to organize, and no one else had volunteered.
The first post came late that day; Pamela was outside dragging dolefully on a cigarette and I was covering reception. It seemed strange to me to receive post at the Skelton, but there it was; an envelope with my name on it.
If the first letter Quick had sent me was a touchstone of transformation, then this was in another realm. Although I have received many extraordinary letters since that time, the one sent to me at the Skelton still beats them all.
A law firm called Parr & Co., whose offices were in Bread Lane in the City of London, were requesting my presence on Thursday – and would I please bring my passport and some proof of address? I recall how terrified I was. If you are made to feel, repeatedly, that you do not belong in a country, despite previous assurances to the contrary, then a letter telling you to bring your identity papers will freeze your blood.
I tried to imagine how Quick would deal with this. I felt lost without her assurance, the shelter of her steel wing. If I’d called Lawrie and told him, he wouldn’t understand, because he belonged. He was wrapped in a web of invisible yet unbreakable tissue, layer upon layer of it, that had begun to spin for him before he was even born, binding him in safety, giving him such a sense of security that no letter from a City lawyer would ever have scared him. His possible amusement at my nerves would only confirm my worry.
I decided to show it to Pamela instead. ‘What do you think it is?’ I said.
‘God knows, Odelle. But it ain’t nothing to worry about. If they wanted to arrest you for something, they’d just do it here.’
Pamela had a point, as ever, and so that Thursday I went. Would I have been less terrified or more – had I known that I was going to hear the final will and testament of Miss Marjorie Quick? I cannot say. The choice was made; there was only ever one path, and just as in life, Quick kept me on it from beyond the grave.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
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PART VI
The Sticking Place
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
....................................
24
They buried her under an olive tree in the orchard. Teresa didn’t remember much about it, but she could always remember the sound of the earth being flung on top of the casket, the same earth they’d once dug together, the rainbow through the falling drops. Padre Lorenzo had left the village, so Doctor Morales led a makeshift service. Harold and Teresa stood by and watched, virtually propping each other up, and Sarah was sedated upstairs.
The doctor would not look Teresa in the eye. Did he truly believe the rumour that she’d been the one to pull the trigger? She knew what was happening in the village. Jorge, probably in a pre-emptive strike against any guilt falling on his own head, had been going around saying that he’d bet a month’s wages it was Teresa who’d shot Isaac and Olive up on the hill. She’d probably wanted to punish her brother. Teresa was sure Jorge was responsible for the shootings, but had no evidence to prove it. And in times like these, the truth was no barrier to men like Jorge. She did not sleep at night, wondering what would happen to her when people started to take Jorge at his word.
And in some ways, Teresa had come to believe that what Jorge was saying was true. She had wanted some punishment for her brother. She had been responsible in sending Olive out, so that Olive might learn the truth about the man she considered the key to her success. Teresa believed that Olive had died because of her, and at night, she howled the guilt into her pillow. That Harold might hear of Jorge’s rumour was both Teresa’s greatest worry and her dearest wish. Harold might kill her in his grief – but at least it would end her misery.
IN THE DAYS AFTER OLIVE was buried, Harold, Sarah and Teresa moved around as if underwater. Teresa felt she was choking on the air. Marbella and Alhama fell to the rebels and still the Schlosses did not move. It was not until a 500-kilo bomb killed fifty-two people in one building in Malaga, and at the Regina Hotel a girl lost both her legs on the eve of her wedding day, that the family shook the stupor off their grief.
The naval bombardment was stepping up, as were the aerial attacks. There were five warships in the waters round Fuengirola. In Malaga, they reported, there was no longer anyone in control, nobody in authority. No public services, no organization whatsoever. The militia were half-crazed, there was no electricity, no trams, no police. Madrid looked like a picnic after its air attacks, they said, compared to Malaga.
‘We must leave,’ Teresa told Harold. ‘Please. Isaac is dead, and half of the village already think that I am guilty – how will I ever live?’
‘You’ll survive,’ he said.
‘Please, señor, I have worked hard. I am innocent.’
He looked at her. ‘Are you?’
Teresa held his gaze. ‘Señor. I have always kept your secret.’
She watched the comprehension dawning on his face, keeping her own expression neutral, although her heart was thumping. She had no choice. ‘Señor,’ she went on, ‘would your wife keep you in money if she knew about the German?’
‘WE’RE TAKING TERESA OUT OF Spain,’ Harold said to his wife the very next day. ‘It is the least we can do. She will go on Olive’s papers.’
‘Fine,’ Sarah said, unwilling to catch Teresa’s eye. Teresa knew full well that Sarah had her own good reasons to wish Teresa far away, but Teresa held Sarah’s secret too, and so the Englishwoman said nothing.
•
It was a cold afternoon when they left. They were a strange reconfiguration, the most fractured trio on that ship – and that was saying something. There was no glamour in departure to echo the way that they’d arrived; the sky a sheet of changing greys, the sea beyond unending. The noise of the rusty chains loosening from the quay at Malaga caused in Teresa a monstrous happiness. Under her sense of relief that she was leaving, she felt already felt the pulse of
guilt. She had paid her escape with Olive’s blood.
Her own expression was mirrored in the faces of the other passengers, as the land began to diminish and thin. It was a bitter miracle. They’d done it; they’d got away, but at the same time they hadn’t, of course they hadn’t. Teresa knew that part of her would never be able to leave.
SHE HAD NEVER BEEN ON a ship; she’d only ever known the land under her feet. Harold said the vessel was called a destroyer. Teresa thought of her ruined notebook, of how blackly apt an English noun could be. She gripped the rail, resisting the desire to jump, to plunge down into the churning waters. It was so many colours, the sea; mud and milk, slate and leaf, and bronze when the light caught the crest of a wave – and at times, where it was still settled beyond, where the bows had not carved through it, a purer blue. Teresa realized that over the months, she’d come to understand how many colours there were that she had never noticed. She wanted the wind to whip her face to ribbons, to sting and numb her, but it wasn’t happening. No force of nature could erase her.
She thought again about the morning they found Olive. Harold still didn’t know why Olive had gone out into the darkness the night before. In his grief to flee, to get out of this hellhole, his daughter dead, he didn’t stop to wonder why Olive might have been out there in the first place. He didn’t consider that other members of his family might also be looking for love, for some purpose or salvation in another person. But when that morning had dawned, and Olive didn’t come down to breakfast, Sarah and Teresa looked at one another, and assumed between them that silence on this matter would be better. So it remained.
The initial, mild discomfort of that morning had turned to horror, as Harold, realizing his daughter was missing, had taken the car out and found her body on the hillside. An hour later the women heard his motor again, the clang of the gate as he clipped it with the car, Olive’s body lolling on the back seat. Harold staggered towards the women, his daughter in his arms. I’m taking her with us, he’d said, his voice oddly dull, as if he were miles away, speaking down the tunnel of his own body. At the sight of her dead child, Sarah had broken down.
Now, trying to recall all this, to force herself to face it in order to carry on – Teresa could only remember fragments of these moments. It was the physical that stuck with her; the thud of her knees sinking to the ground, the taste of the cheap acorn coffee coming up her throat as she vomited onto the flagstones. The touch of Olive’s body. White-skinned but bluish, stiff and bloodstained, three gunshot wounds visible through her jumper.
‘She called this place home,’ Sarah had said, slurring, hours later, the three of them sitting in the front east room. Harold was drunk, Sarah was on some pill or other. It was a living nightmare. They had placed Olive’s body in the kitchen, the coldest part of the house, at the back. ‘We must bury her here,’ Sarah whispered, haggard with grief.
‘What happened to my brother?’ Teresa asked. Sarah covered her face with her hands.
‘Jorge came for him,’ said Harold. ‘I only carried Olive.’
‘Jorge?’ said Teresa. ‘Where did he take him?
‘I don’t know.’
When both Sarah and Harold had passed out – Sarah on the sofa and Harold upright in the armchair, his whisky tumbler beginning to slip – Teresa set the glass on the floor and tiptoed down the corridor. She imagined Jorge, slinging her brother’s body somewhere in the woods, a shallow grave perhaps, no means of ever finding him again. She had to stop and lean against the wall, ramming her hand into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
OLIVE DIDN’T LOOK LIKE OLIVE any more. Mottled, eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar; and her teeth were visible, which made her look even more vulnerable. Teresa reached out to touch Olive’s arm, feeling how solid it was, now the blood no longer flowed. She touched Olive’s head, and felt dead herself – a dead person living, a ghost with flesh on her bones. She saw something sticking from the pocket of Olive’s skirt. It was the photograph from Isaac’s set; Olive and Isaac standing in front of Rufina and the Lion in the attic.
I promise you on my life, she said to Olive in Spanish, putting the photograph in her own pocket, I will not let this go unpunished.
But even as she spoke, a quiet voice inside Teresa told her already how hard it would be to avenge their deaths. How can you battle with a shadow in your own village square? This was the worst of it; that in the face of this senseless waste, Teresa was powerless. There was nothing she could do to bring them back. The only thing she could keep alive was memory.
THE NEXT DAY, SARAH HAD come up to the attic as Teresa was finishing her packing. All Olive’s paints and sketchbooks were stowed away. All that was left was Rufina and the Lion, propped against the wall.
‘Is that it?’ Sarah had asked. ‘The next one?’
‘Yes.’
Sarah stood in front of it, saying nothing, drinking it in. Then she turned to Teresa, fixed her eyes on her, and said, ‘Teresa, what’s Isaac’s painting doing up here?’
‘Olive – was looking after it.’
‘Why? Teresa, answer me.’
‘I don’t know.’
Sarah turned back to the painting. ‘I see.’ She walked towards it and placed her hand on its edge. ‘Well I’ll be damned if that Guggenheim woman gets it, she said, her voice breaking. This is for me.’
‘No, no, señora, it must go to the Guggenheim gallery.’
Sarah whirled on her. ‘Are you telling me what to do? This is the last thing I have—’
‘Señora,’ Teresa pleaded. ‘I am not telling you what to do.’
Sarah narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s that in your hand?’
‘Nothing,’ said Teresa, putting the photograph behind her back.
‘Show me.’
Sarah grabbed the photograph. On seeing Isaac and her daughter, captured in what looked like a moment of happiness, she put a hand to her mouth and turned away, dragging Rufina and the Lion with her along the floor.
Teresa called down the stairs. ‘I think Isaac’s body is in the wood. Will you help me bury it—’
‘Shut up,’ said Sarah. She stopped, but did not turn round. Her hand came up and touched her straggly curls, and Teresa saw that she was trembling. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t help.’ Teresa watched her stumble down the stairs.
To see the painting disappear with Sarah felt to Teresa as if her own strength was leaking away. But she could hardly wrench Olive’s painting out of Sarah’s hands. If she wanted to leave for England, for now at least there was nothing she could do.
TERESA TRIED TO CLOSE THESE memories away, placing her chin on the handrail as the ship gained speed through the water. She wondered what Sarah was going to do with the painting and the photograph. The painting was down in the hull, right now. Idly, Teresa considered sneaking down and putting it into her own trunk. But it was too risky; she had to keep a low profile. The photograph would be easier to lift with light fingers – it was probably in Sarah’s purse. Teresa wondered – was it that Sarah had wanted an image of Isaac, or of Olive? It was hard to tell, but either way, Sarah had clutched that photograph like a talisman. She was vaguely aware of other passengers walking around behind her on deck, taking a walk before night fell.
‘Hello,’ said a man, breaking into her thoughts.
Teresa flinched, her gaze fixed on the horizon as she tugged the woollen hat she was using to cover her short fuzz of hair. She didn’t want to talk.
‘Bloody shame, isn’t it,’ he went on.
He was English; young and upright. Teresa saw his fingers on the rail; black hairs sprouting on each one. ‘Not good at all,’ he said. ‘I should have stayed, but I couldn’t. We had to close the consulate.’
Teresa turned; he had blue eyes and a stern face. He looked like something out of an adventure book. He was frowning, almost talking to himself. She noticed the shadows of
sleeplessness on his face, but he was the one to ask her if she was quite well.
‘I am, yes, thank you,’ Teresa replied, in her best English. She looked over her shoulder. Harold and Sarah had not emerged from their berths. She didn’t want them to see her talking to anyone, but she wondered if they would by this point even care. Sarah had been insistent on going back to London, but Harold wanted to pick up the thread with Peggy Guggenheim in Paris. They were going to separate; Teresa could see it, even if they couldn’t. Olive was a shadow between them, a touchstone of guilt, recrimination and pain.
‘Why couldn’t you stay?’ she asked him.
‘The bombs. That, and other parts of Europe requiring our attention. But still.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Don’t think it’s right.’
‘No.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
She said nothing, and there was amusement on his tired face. ‘I see,’ he went on. ‘Like that, is it? I detect an accent though. Do you speak Spanish?’
‘Yes.’
Teresa could tell he was intrigued by her. In the satchel she had not let go of since leaving the finca, she had Olive’s admission letter from the Slade, and a telegram from Peggy Guggenheim expressing her impatience for the next Isaac Robles. Given that Harold had kept hold of her identity documents, these flimsy bits of paper were all Teresa had left. She touched the satchel, her guard down with tiredness, her mind hopping too quickly to hold her nerve. Picturing being thrown off the side of the boat for her failed impersonation, she gripped the rail harder.