Angela stood in the kitchen doorway, helplessly wringing her hands. 'Oh dear,' she said as though admitting guilt, leaving me surmising that the source of Gloria's distress had little to do with her absent father.
Gloria's search was in vain. Bill was at the supermarket and when Angela at last reminded Gloria of his whereabouts, the child screamed and threw herself onto the living room sofa, hurling all the cushions on the floor.
Seeing that look of alarmed consternation distorting Angela's face, I quickly reined myself in and went to soothe Gloria, attempting to bring that screwed up face and those clenched little fists back to calm.
No enticement worked. It wasn't until Bill returned from the shops that the tension in the house eased. A few squares of chocolate and a new toy settled things down but the strain had become palpable in us all.
I turn over on my back. Gloria emits a soft sigh but she doesn't wake. Bill and Angela are taking her to the Aloe Vera farm today: a much-needed distraction.
Unable to face another family breakfast, with Bill's inevitable 'What's the plan for today?' and Angela's anxious naysaying, I leave Gloria asleep in bed, grab the clothes I had on yesterday and a clean change of underwear, and go to take a shower. Once dressed, I tiptoe to the kitchen and scribble a note on a paper napkin. Then I creep back to the bedroom to stuff yesterday's underwear in my shoulder bag, leaving the house without a clue how I'll spend my time. After yesterday the weight of responsibility is heavy on my back, as though it's down to me and me alone to find my husband.
Celestino has been missing for four days and the La Mareta commission will be announced in five. Sometimes I picture him in that upstairs mill-house room, tied to that chair and gagged. Or hiding out in one of the island's caves, knocking out political art and plotting his next move. Lanzarote's very own Banksy, replete with balaclava and greatcoat. Other times I picture him dead.
Back in Haría I find Shirley's car parked across the street from her house. I manoeuvre mine into the space in front. It's odd to see the Maserati left outside. Shirley must be on her way somewhere. Forgotten something and popped back home. Funny how my mind, suspicious, picks over every tiny detail.
A couple on an early morning stroll pass by. For them, it's no doubt a normal day. My envy trails behind them. I wait until they're further down the street before opening the car door.
I cross to the pavement and look back at the two vehicles, the one shiny and new, the other dull, faded, with a few dents in the body.
Pushing wide the front door, I don't expect to find Celestino at home. Instead I face his absence anew and I can't help wondering if something awful really has happened to him. Straight away I refuse to believe it. Then I have no choice but to convince myself that he has planted that painting. If I don't, then what I am left with? I tramp down the hallway and through the patio to the kitchen and toss my shoulder bag and keys on the table, taking more care with my sunglasses. Then I fish out of my pocket Celestino's necklace and put it on the table with the rest. My note explaining my whereabouts is just as I left it. Nothing in the room has been disturbed. The answer phone light is off.
I slump down on a chair, put my elbows on the table and hold my face in my hands. Despite my empty stomach, I'm more nauseous than hungry, the knot in my stomach, now a fixture, matching the ache in my heart.
I don't sit like this for long. Some inner strength causes me to draw myself up. Tells me I need a strategy.
I remove yesterday's underwear from my bag and toss it in the laundry basket in the bathroom. I water the pots in the patio then go to fetch more underwear to tuck in my bag.
It isn't until I've reached halfway up the stairs that I detect the musky aroma of someone's scent. Is it the same scent I smelled yesterday in the old mill? My hand clenches the banister. I force myself to look, bending to peer through the railings at the space under the bed. There's no one there. I climb the rest of the stairs and cast a quick eye about the room then go over to the front window and look down at the street, taking another sniff. The smell seems to have faded. Or I've gotten used to it. But it is still discernible. Just.
Other than my car and Shirley's, the street in the immediate vicinity is empty. Further along, past the intersection, is a black sedan. It has to be the one I saw parked up the road from the studio, the same one that pulled up in the car park in Teguise yesterday. Yet I can't be sure: I didn't note the number plate. What sort of sleuth am I? A very poor one, I think. From this distance, I'll need binoculars to see that number plate and I'm not game to take a closer look.
I leave the window and cross the room to Celestino's desk. All looks normal. His submission letter remains atop his keyboard. I tug at the drawers. They're still locked. Those folders under the desk look the same as before. Is anything missing? I dare not touch them and besides, even if I do I'll have no idea of the contents. It's with considerable annoyance that I realise I won't be able tell if anything's missing or not. Someone has been up here though; there is no doubting that. And that someone is surely not Celestino, for he never wears aftershave or scent of any sort. As far as I recall, neither do any of his friends.
I head downstairs and into all the rooms checking the windows and then the back door to the garage. It remains bolted on the inside. Whoever it was has managed to gain access without breaking in. Scaled the patio wall maybe? But it's over two metres high, topped with broken shards of old glass and earthenware pots, cemented in place by Celestino after Shirley's boundary dispute. And the base of the wall is littered with pots. It would be impossible to make landfall without disturbing all those plants.
I return to the kitchen and flick on the kettle. Unsure why I'm bothering to boil water for a hot drink I don't want, I flick it off again and lean with my back against the sink. When the phone rings I all but yelp.
I snatch the handset from the console.
'Hola. Who is it?' I didn't mean to sound curt.
'It's Richard.'
He sounds almost apologetic, yet his voice is an intrusion. I rake myself together, summoning all my resolve to seem unflustered.
'Richard, this isn't a good time.'
'Paula, I'm sorry to call like this but I'm at my wit's end. Trent phoned last night seeking a progress report. What on earth could I tell him? I haven't even managed to get to La Corona.'
'Why ever not?'
'It's my back.'
'Your back.'
'I can't take the risk. If anything were to happen, I'd be lying in a ditch.'
'Take your phone.'
'What if there's no reception.'
'Richard, I don't have time for this,' I say, doing my best not to yell.
'Very well, then,' he says and hangs up.
The audacity of the man. He didn't even have the presence of mind to ask me about Celestino. It occurs to me I might have accepted his barely veiled plea. Traipsed with him to the aljibe. At least it would be a distraction. As it is I stare into the void of the day, unsure of my next course of action.
I have to do something. Try to track down Fernando maybe. Visit every gallery on the island—there aren't that many—see what he knows. At least it will keep me busy. It doesn't seem to be the best use of my time but what else can I do? I dismiss the idea of paying Redoto a visit straight away, not wanting to draw his suspicion. Perhaps I should try Pedro again. See if I can extract from him more information. He's definitely holding back. And I'd be behaving like a real detective. Isn't that what they do? Follow leads?
I'm about to head off to the galleries in Arrecife when there is a knock at the front door. Hope squeezes my heart and I race to answer it. I have to fight back disappointment when I see Shirley standing squarely on the pavement in a long and flowing kaftan of lurid green over black leggings. She's topped off the outfit with a jade pendant necklace and silver leaf earrings. She steps forward and makes to enter.
'He's not turned up, then,' she says as I lead her through to the kitchen. 'How long's it been?'
'Four days.' I
grab Celestino's necklace off the table and slip it into my pocket.
'That long. Sorry, I lose track of time. Must be my age.'
'Coffee?' I ask, putting more water in the kettle.
'I won't.'
I shrug and plonk the kettle unceremoniously back in its tray.
'Don't look so despondent. I've come to invite you out.'
'Again?'
'Why ever not?'
She picks up my note, turns it over then hands it to me. 'Just update this.' She rummages through the pot of pens on the small bookcase and extracts a turquoise marker. 'Here you go,' she says, thrusting it into my hand. 'Use this one. More distinct.'
Feeling mild disgust that Shirley even tried to match the pen colour to her outfit, I scribble out the date and write Wednesday in capital letters. I should have thought to amend the note before. With the pen still in hand, I hesitate, momentarily undecided.
'Come on,' Shirley insists.
Thinking whatever she has in mind must be better than, in all likelihood, a fruitless quest to locate Fernando, I say, 'I need to change.'
Shirley gives me an appraising look. 'Might be an idea. Put on some glad rags and we'll try to have some fun.'
I climb the stairs in twos. The smell of scent has faded. I stand in the middle of the floor not knowing what to do with the necklace. I don't want to take it or leave it. In the end, I tuck it away in a shoebox in the bottom of the wardrobe.
When I return to the kitchen wearing a loose cotton blouse and a fawn skirt, Shirley is sifting through the pile of assorted magazines and books stacked on top of the bookcase beside the pens. Upon my entry, she quickly pulls away with an errant giggle, saying, 'That red spine caught my eye.'
What red spine? I never calculated her to be the type to ferret through other people's things. Suspicion swiftly gives way to self-condemnation: I mustn't let anxiety sway my thoughts. I observe my neighbour, standing there looking sheepish in her lurid green kaftan with her skinny black legs poking out beneath. She looks like a beetle, and a harmless one at that.
I go through to the bathroom to apply some makeup. The mirror reflects back my careworn visage: the dark rings beneath my eyes; the pinched set to my mouth. I apply a light foundation, unable to stop the return of anxious thoughts. My mind rushes to those few times I asked Shirley to mind Gloria while I went to the supermarket in Arrieta. How much snooping can anyone cram into an hour? Rather a lot, I imagine, with a two-year old asleep on the couch to watch over. An awake Gloria demands almost all the attention. Asleep, none. But, there's nothing of interest to anyone down in the living room. Shirley would have needed to venture up the creaky stairs and risk waking the child. Besides, Celestino keeps his anti-corruption material locked in his desk, hidden even from his wife. As I apply a thin smear of lip balm, I file away my uncharitable speculations in a folder marked 'paranoid'.
I give her a warm smile as I re-enter the kitchen.
'Will I do?'
'Much better. Now, come on.'
She seems impatient to get going but once on the road, Shirley's driving is thankfully slower. She takes care rounding the bends down to Arrieta and holds back when approaching cyclists. Relieved, I settle into my seat. My gaze, freed from the tarmac ahead, takes in the scenery.
'Never a dull moment on this island, eh?' Shirley says as we wait at the Arrieta roundabout.
'I'm sorry?'
'There's always something going on. Something to be done.'
'I suppose so.'
'Maybe you need to get more involved,' she says, pulling into a break in the flow of traffic heading south. 'Roll up your sleeves and muck in.'
'I have a three-year old.' Surely it hardly needed mentioning.
'Gloria has grandparents. And a father.'
That was uncalled for, I think but don't say. Where is this leading?
'It's no good hanging around in Haría all day long,' Shirley says, clearly on a roll with her topic. 'You need to get south. Network with the expats. Find out what's going on and join a few things. You'll have something on every day like me before you know it.'
'I might not want something on every day.' I watch the houses of Tabayesco slip by in the near distance.
'Of course you do. A busy life is a happy life.' She pauses, shooting me an appraising look. 'Anyway, I've just the thing.'
'I thought you might.'
'Don't be like that. Bentor Benicod is running for re-election in Yaiza.'
'As mayor?'
'Naturally. He was a good friend of my husband. I said I'd help him with his campaign.'
She explains that her husband and Bentor grew up together. They lived in the same street, attended the same schools, and shared a passion for wind surfing. I try to picture the two men as boys but my imagination fails me.
We pass the southern foothills and the saddles of the massif with their long and deep valleys, nowhere as fecund as the valle de Temisa. The further south we travel the drier and more barren the terrain, the volcanoes soon drawing my attention. Before long the traffic thickens and we approach the neat cuboid dwellings of Tahiche.
'You'll like Bentor,' Shirley says, pulling into the outside lane on the approach to the turnoff to Arrecife. 'He's a good man.' She relates how Bentor showed much support when her husband was going through his difficulties.
The way she portrays her husband's dirty dealings is bewildering. As if she's erased all culpability from his shoulders. For she must have known what he was up to. She makes Juan Mobad sound like a babe in the woods at the mercy of vindictive anti-business scoundrels looking for a fall guy. She's referring to the journalists, government officials and independent activists campaigning relentlessly for Lanzarote to clean up its act. She doesn't say it, she doesn't need to say it, but the biggest scoundrel in Shirley's mind is Celestino. Little wonder she couldn't care less what happens to him. Maybe Shirley is privately relishing this opportunity to steer me away from my quest to find him. Lunch? Twice in one week? Coming across the expat ally? Shirley probably wouldn't mind if Celestino is gone for good. But that has to be my most ungracious thought yet. I don't like the way my suspicion keeps landing, first here, then there, on my friends and my next-door neighbour, the only people other than my parents whom I can trust. Besides, Shirley is too caught up in her own world to be bothered with a vendetta. She strikes me as the sort of woman who doesn't invest energy in bygones.
It is Celestino who bears the grudge, I think with a sick feeling in my belly.
I do my best to ignore the feeling, making a few comments about how different the vibe of the island is in the south. Then we fall into companionable silence, Shirley concentrating on the road, the traffic around the capital and the airport thicker and always impatient.
The traffic doesn't thin again until we pass the turnoffs to Puerto del Carmen. I spend what remains of the journey taking in the stark landscape, noting how different it is from the north: the arid plains of sandy clay, black where mulched with picón, accented by the volcanoes and the barren peaks of Los Ajaches; and the neat white cubes of houses dotted around, with their plantings of palm trees, cacti and succulents, each a little oasis.
As we near Yaiza the vineyards come into view, with their orderly rows of cinder pit plantings protected by dry stone walls. Vineyards planted right to the edge of the lava plains of Timanfaya. I venture south so infrequently, the unique harnessing of all that basalt visits me like a surprise. Living on the island is all about the lava. The lava and the picón. There's no getting away from it.
There's no getting away either from the enormous effort that has been made by every municipality to temper the impact of the inhospitable terrain through lovingly restoring buildings and lavishing funds on formal street plantings that speak of civic pride. Yaiza is the exemplar of this phenomenon. A village sandwiched between the westernmost peaks of Los Ajaches and the lava of the Timanfaya eruptions that lapped at its northern fringe, Yaiza is all palm trees and raked picón and pure white lines.
'See that,' Shirley says, pointing at a derelict building set on a large block. 'Redoetoe owns that. And the one next door.'
I see another house, in better repair but empty.
'And he's just purchased the ruin behind it. On quite a large block too. See?'
I can't fail to. It would have been a grand home, once.
'How do you know all this?'
Shirley laughs. 'I have my sources.'
'Maria.'
Shirley makes no comment.
'What does he plan to do with all that land?'
'No idea.'
Whatever it is will be grandiose and designed to draw the tourists, the development most likely receiving instant approval. And if he's short of cash, no doubt Redoto could seek capital overseas. I recall Celestino mentioning how foreign investors were lured to the Canaries after the islands were declared an 'investment reserve', resulting in huge corporate tax savings. Investment reserve; the irony doesn't escape my notice. An endangered species in need of protection? —Corporate investment is anything but. I'm in no doubt that whatever Redoto has in mind, he'll profit from it. And the significance of those three properties—historical, archaeological, cultural—will be lost.
Shirley pulls up in a no-parking bay outside the town hall, a stout building set on its own block and fronted by a small plaza. The fronds of sturdy palm trees flap a backbeat for the flags lined up in a row in one corner, there to tell passers-by the location of the power.
Inside, the foyer is chilly. A reception area corralled by a high counter occupies much of the space. Shirley goes straight over and speaks with one of the receptionists, whom she seems to know. I look around. Doors lead off in all directions. There is nowhere to sit. I can't fail to notice several men dressed in plain pants and shirts—the typical garb of the office worker—who've formed a huddle to the left of the entrance doors. I turn away, not wanting to intrude on a private conversation. When I glance back, I see they're staring at a painting. My breath catches in my throat. Even before I can see it, I know what it's likely to be.
A Matter of Latitude Page 15