A Prison in the Sun

by Isobel Blackthorn

In the shower, I put my nocturnal disturbances down to frayed nerves and too much excitement and put an end to further speculation. My time in Fuerteventura was meant to be a relaxing retreat. Admittedly, I had been on the island for only one week, and I couldn't hope to have unwound and settled into a routine in that time, certainly not one conducive to composing fiction, yet I remained far removed from the stresses of my ordinary life, and I was feeling more relaxed than I had been back in England. My physical transformation had already begun, too. All that pedalling and hefting at the gym hadn't changed my physique, but the effort was starting to generate feelings of wellbeing, even if my body was sore, top to toe.

  And what a week it had been! First, the disturbing discovery that a local youth hostel had once functioned as a prison that incarcerated gay men, a matter that had been nagging at the fringes of my mind since Angela suggested I write about it. Now that awful history, only a short walk from my bedroom window, had been eclipsed by a present-day drama unravelling before me, right from the moment I found the rucksack. It appeared life had plans for me on this island, plans that did not involve rest and relaxation. It seemed as though I had been co-opted as a character in some sort of saga which I wished was fiction so I didn't have to endure the anxiety that came with it.

  I stood before the bathroom mirror and inspected the sunburn. My skin was crimson and making up its mind whether to tan or peel. My nose had already decided. Whatever I chose to do with the day, I had to stay out of the sun, or at least cover my burnt bits. I dabbed on Savlon and followed with a liberal dollop of the moisturiser I had acquired from Jackie. Stepping out of the bathroom, I smelled vaguely antiseptic and florally scented.

  Over a breakfast of toasted sourdough topped with thick slices of tomato and goat's cheese, the whole drizzled with olive oil, I checked my inbox, at last braving the “Pending” folder and opening the email from Jackie.

  Two short sentences and she was wishing me a happy trip. That was it. Should I reply? Thank her? But then she would reply to mine, expecting updates. She would end up demanding a full account of my stay to satisfy her curiosity. Given the circumstances, the least said the better. I deleted the email. If she was curious, let her stew.

  Amongst the usual junk, there were three short writing assignments: A fitness company wanted more content for their website, a blogger wanted an article on men's health, and the last was a request for ten top tips for hikers. I imagined a possible Tip Ten: If you see a lone rucksack on your hike, leave it where it is.

  All were good payers. I went against my earlier decision not to take on more assignments and accepted them each in turn. I made a pot of coffee and set to work.

  It was midday before I stopped to prepare lunch. I was halfway through dicing salad vegetables, my knife poised over a cucumber, when my laptop emitted its Skype trill.

  Angela. Had to be.

  I wanted to ignore her, but the ring was too demanding. Knife in hand, I was thrown into a moment of confusion. I needed to finish preparing my salad or it would ruin. If I told her to call me back, she would want to know why. Besides, it would be her lunch break, too.

  I put down the knife and went to answer the call, rushing to the little dining room where I had set up my work station and hitting the accept button. Angela instantly appeared onscreen. I smiled at her even though she couldn't see me; I had left my webcam switched off. Without video, at least she couldn't laugh at my sunburnt face.

  'Poor connection,' I said before she asked.

  'Hi, Trevor. How are you doing?'

  'I'm great,' I lied.

  'Thrilled to hear it.'

  I carried the laptop to the kitchen bench and continued chopping, as quietly as I could, the knife making rhythmic thwacks on the chopping board.

  'What's that god-awful sound?'

  'Sorry.'

  I took to slicing slowly, easing the knife down as it hit the board. I had moved on to a carrot.

  'How's the writing?' she said.

  'I just completed three assignments.'

  'That's not what I meant.'

  'A man's gotta eat.'

  It was true, my meagre savings would not last forever.

  Angela ran a hand through her hair.

  'You really should consider writing about that prison.'

  'No.'

  I thrust the blade down hard on the last segment of carrot. Must have sounded dreadful her end, but Angela made no comment. There was a moment of silence. Then she said, 'Don't sound so emphatic. You are the perfect writer for it.'

  I wasn't. I knew full well I wasn't. I had enough turmoil going on inside me, and the last thing I needed was to embody gay characters, especially those incarcerated in a concentration camp. It would be too much.

  'What about that Richard H. Parry?' I said dismissively. 'Give it to him.'

  Into my salad went artichoke hearts and a roasted whole red pepper which I tore with my fingers.

  'He doesn't have your cultural sensitivity,' Angela said. 'He is too old-school to do justice to the theme.'

  'Of a prison camp?'

  'Of gender preference.'

  I tossed the salad around in the bowl and doused the lot in an olive oil dressing and left it on the bench, taking the laptop and Angela back to the dining table.

  'And I know all about it?' I said, installing much sarcasm into my voice as I sat down. 'Well, I don't.'

  'Trevor, you do.'

  'Not this again. Leave it alone, Angela. I'm straight.'

  'As straight as a banana.'

  Irritated, I brushed a speck of dust from the bottom corner of the screen that had been annoying me the entire call. There was a long pause, then she shrieked, 'What happened to your face!'

  A ripple of shocked humiliation went through me. Damn my fumble fingers! She was staring straight at me, tears already rolling down her cheeks.

  Caught off guard, I blurted out the whole story of my ordeal at Puertito de Los Molinos, including the bit about not taking into account the tidal range, an oversight that led me to the false belief I had ample time to return to the main beach.

  'Trevor,' she gasped when I finished speaking, 'this one you simply must write.'

  'I can't. I'm living it, Angela, and it's, well, terrifying.'

  'All you need do is hand the rucksack in to the police then make up a story of what would have happened if you hadn't.'

  'You mean if I kept the cash?'

  'Surely your imagination can run to that?'

  'Not while the rucksack is sitting on my bench.'

  'Of course not. It's making you too anxious.' She glanced at her office door. 'Gotta dash.' The screen went blank before I could say goodbye.

  Angela was right, as usual. I needed to hand in the rucksack.

  At least she hadn't mentioned Sandra Flint and her undeserved shortlisting. Then again, the work did deserve it, I thought with sudden pride. That shortlist was mine, and I should at least allow myself a little satisfaction even if any prize money would be denied me.

  I retrieved my salad from the kitchen and munched my way through to the last morsel as I scrolled through images of Fuerteventura. When I got bored with photos of sunshine and sand, I located the nearest police station.

  Stalling the inevitable, I washed up, dried and put away, my eyes flitting to the rucksack still on the bench. After folding the tea towel over the oven door, I fetched my sunglasses and hat and then I slid the rucksack off the bench and slung it over my shoulder, realising before it landed on my scalded skin that I should not have done that. I stifled a yell, eased the bag off my shoulder and let it fall to the floor.

  It took a few moments for the pain to subside. I dared not rub the skin, which instinct compelled me to do.

  Outside, it was another furnace of a day. I rushed to my car and opened all the doors, including the boot, to let out the heat. As I stood, waiting with the rucksack at my feet, a car drove by, slowed, did a U-turn then stopped outside my house. The muscles in my gut constricted. There was no ti
me to run inside. No time to jump in my car and drive off. All I could do was look casual and wait.

  There was a long pause while whoever was in that car made up their mind to get out. Maybe they were loading a gun.

  At last, the passenger door opened.

  It was Paco and Claire.

  Paco and Claire

  'Are you going out?' Claire said, all smiles as she approached, her copper hair piled high on her head, her sunglasses wedged in the mass. 'Cars get so hot here left in the sun. I bet you can't touch the steering wheel.'

  I emitted an awkward laugh that sounded more like a grunt.

  Paco wandered past me and on down the short drive. I had no idea what might have drawn his interest. The property looked out over the back blocks of the village, and there was nothing much to see of interest or beauty. He stood with his back to us, as though surveying the landscape, but it occurred to me his behaviour was simply a pretence. Taking him in, he seemed uncomfortable, restless as though eager to get going.

  Oblivious, or perhaps indifferent to his demeanour, Claire pointed at the rucksack at my feet.

  'Still not found the owner?'

  'I, um, was taking it to the police.'

  'The police? What on earth for? Why not put it back where you found it if it is troubling you that much?'

  'The cave is very hard to get to,' Paco said, joining Claire, whose gaze never left my face. She must have noticed my panda-look, but she made no comment. I found her discretion endearing.

  'We watched you struggle back as the tide came in,' she said. Her face creased as she grinned. 'You were amazing. I'd have freaked.'

  I was taken aback and didn't take kindly to having been their midday entertainment. 'You never said.'

  'We didn't want to embarrass you.'

  Well, you have now. 'What brings you to Tefía?' I asked lightly, keen to change the subject.

  'We were heading to the garden centre, and then we saw you.'

  'We stopped on impulse,' Paco said. 'Claire's idea.'

  There was a long pause. I wasn't sure how to fill it, then social etiquette broke through my anxiety, and I found myself inviting them inside and giving them a tour.

  'You don't find the traffic disturbs your writing?' Claire said as she noticed the road through the front room window, only about three metres away.

  The farmhouse was ancient, and I thought the road had been built a long time after. Four steps leading down from the pavement to the front veranda meant vibrations from passing vehicles could be felt in that front room.

  'I am rarely in this part of the house and there is never much traffic,' I said. 'I'm not writing much in any case. I don't seem to have the inspiration.'

  She turned back to the room and gave me a sympathetic look. 'Not with your skin. That's pretty bad sunburn. What are you putting on it?'

  'Savlon.'

  'Aloe Vera is best.'

  Claire was beginning to remind me of Angela, of Jackie, of all the women I knew who seemed to know everything and took pleasure in dishing up advice.

  I led the couple through to the bathroom with its claw-foot bath and from there to the second living room.

  Paco, who had thus far not been talkative, said, 'It isn't his sunburn that's affecting him, Claire. It's this place.'

  Claire shot him a puzzled look.

  'Not the farmhouse,' he said quickly as we carried on with the tour. 'The area. Tefía has a strange energy.'

  'You think so?' I said with interest. I was inclined to agree with him.

  'I know so. There has been a lot of tragedy here.'

  I was about to ask him what he meant, but he had gone straight into my bedroom. I had no choice but to follow. First, he inspected the four-poster bed. I hid my embarrassment over the crumpled sheets that I had inadvertently forgotten to straighten, my mind flashing back to my erotic dream and the outcome I was forced to enact. Then, to my relief, he went and stood by the window. Claire, the more considerate of the two, remained in the doorway.

  'The prison?' I said, thinking he must have been referring to the hostel. 'I heard about that. I've walked to the windmill a couple of times.'

  'That place was a labour camp.' He pointed out the window, not that the camp was visible. 'The men worked in the fields all around here, breaking rocks and building walls. You would have seen them from here, like scrawny, half-starved ants.'

  No one spoke. I began to rail against the thought of all those poor men suffering just beyond my doorstep not that long ago, and for what? Their sexuality? It seemed an unconscionable injustice. I was born just a few years after General Franco died, and I had only ever known Spain as a democracy. But the dictatorship was all too recent, and, of course, I had read Hemingway and Orwell and seen pictures of Picasso's Guernica. That Franco had also persecuted gay men seemed almost par for the course, but it didn't change the iniquity, the horror of it. We all knew about Hitler and what the Nazi's did to minority groups. No one I knew had ever given a thought to what had happened under Franco.

  'Claire,' Paco said. 'Those prisoners saw the lights of Mafaso.'

  I had no idea what he meant. He chose not to fill me in. Claire said, addressing me, 'It's an ancient myth. Although maybe not a myth. I have seen them, too.'

  'Really?'

  'Small darts of light,' Paco said, fixing his gaze on my face. 'They are from the souls of disturbed graves.' He turned to the window. A poignant tone infused his next words. 'I think the other tragedy has added to the dark energy here.'

  'What other tragedy?' Claire looked at him inquiringly.

  He let his gaze slide away and muttered, 'I don't like to talk about it.'

  Then why even mention it?

  'Tell us,' Claire said. Her tone was authoritative. In a flash, she again reminded me of Jackie. It was disconcerting. Although she was nothing like Jackie, in appearance or manner. For a ghastly second, I thought I might be turning into a misogynist, tarring all women with the same brush.

  Paco appeared untroubled by her manner. He stayed by the window and spoke in a grim voice. 'In 1972 the area witnessed a terrible event. Thirteen parachutists died in those fields, and many more were injured.'

  'What happened?' Claire said, a look of concern appearing in her face.

  'It was during a military exercise. Some idiot commander ordered a mass jump. I think ninety men jumped. The wind was so strong, it dragged the men harnessed in their parachutes for three kilometres across the plain. Many men were smashed against stone walls. Others were slammed into fig trees. They say there was so much blood. The whole island was traumatised.'

  'I never knew.'

  'You haven't lived here that long. I'll take you to the monument if you want. They put it in the middle of a field behind the windmill. Access is on foot. Only the locals know it is there.'

  Well hidden, then, rather like the prison.

  Paco said, 'At the time, they supressed the news.'

  'Sounds like they are still supressing it.'

  'I'm not surprised,' I said.

  'Why?' They both turned to me.

  'The military would have been ashamed.'

  'Ashamed?' Paco said, pausing to reflect. 'Yes, probably that is the right word. Can you imagine the carnage?' Paco turned his back to the window and looked at us both in turn. 'There were no ambulances here back then. The villagers used their own cars to take the wounded to the hospital. Others were taken in taxis. A tiny hospital with few doctors and nurses to cope. They had no blood, no plasma – they had to put the men in order of seriousness. Some were evacuated to Las Palmas.'

  'How do you know so much about it?' Claire asked.

  'I lost an uncle on my father's side, and an aunt on my mother's side was a nurse.'

  'I'm so sorry.' She walked past me and joined him by the window, placing an arm around him.

  I was stunned. I couldn't speak.

  'If you are looking for inspiration for a novel,' he said grimly, 'now you have it.'

  'I couldn't possibly
write about something so horrific.'

  'Why not? People need to know about these things.'

  'I was hoping to write about something more convivial.'

  'Like what?'

  'To be honest, I have no idea. I can't seem to muster my creativity.'

  'No wonder. The trauma here on this land would suck it out of you.' Paco made a curious gurgling sound with his mouth.

  'You should cut things short here and come and stay with us,' Claire said almost urgently.

  I was grateful for the slight change of subject and used it to vacate the room. They trailed behind me through to the kitchen where I had dumped the rucksack on the bench.

  'He won't get a refund,' Paco said, apparently not keen on her offer.

  'Then he can stay with us for free!' It was a magnanimous gesture, and I could see she meant it.

  'As you wish,' Paco said. He didn't seem to share her enthusiasm.

  I felt more awkward than ever, but Claire wasn't about to let it drop. It seemed when it came to such matters, she wore the trousers.

  'The poor man is stuck up here with no company, wandering around aimlessly on this godforsaken plain. There is no telling where he will end up.' She glanced at the bench. 'Or how many more rucksacks he'll find.'

  We all laughed, and the atmosphere grew less tense.

  'I really don't know what to do with the blasted thing?' I said, wishing even as I spoke that I had said nothing.

  'What's in it?' Claire asked.

  Paco picked it up. I was instantly on my guard.

  'Feels heavy.'

  'Gold? Jewellery?'

  They exchanged playful glances.

  'Definitely suspicious.'

  'If you must know,' I said, making a grab for the rucksack in a sudden rush, 'it's full of cash.' I instantly regretted my loose tongue.

  'Wow!' Paco said, releasing his grasp. 'Then, you can't go to the police!'

  'Why ever not?'

  'Many reasons.'

  'Such as?'

  'Think about it. What will it achieve?'

  'It's evidence.'

  'Of what?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Look, it is hardly lost property. No one forgets that amount of cash.'

  'But if I keep it, whoever it belongs to will be after me.'