‘You?’
‘Yes, me.’
‘But just like a brother-sister thing.’
I pause, keeping his eye. ‘Not always, no.’
He exhales slowly, painfully, riding the wave of this revelation.
‘But as far as where our heads were, always a brother-sister thing,’ I say. ‘And nothing more.’
‘This is difficult.’
‘I don’t expect you to like it, or to like me for it. But I wanted to tell you so that you knew the size of the problem. And believe me, it’s tiny. It’s nothing. Because she is devoted to you.’
Telling him was the right thing to do. His mind is no longer blitzing him with the worst it can muster. But it isn’t going to make my life any easier. Now, he has the tough gristle of this fact to focus on, and work over.
He looks at me, aghast. ‘What am I supposed to do with this information? I don’t want to have to start hating you.’
‘You don’t have to do anything. I’m the one who has things to do. You should go home and see Melissa. Call me if you want to shout at me, or make an appointment to beat me up.’
‘What do you have to do?’
‘A lot, as I am beginning to realise.’
The promise I have made to Ernesto is crazy. Attempting to enter the favela, track down the dono of a drug gang, and persuade him to sacrifice some of his business is suicide. It’s more than that; it’s violent torture, then suicide. And there is a ticking time bomb waiting for me in the shape of Flávia’s son. But something has changed—I want to face up to these things. I want to put myself in harm’s way. Inexplicably, this realisation and my confession to Ernesto combine to give me one of the best night’s sleep I can remember.
Angel Park. I am fourteen, and Rebecca has come to wish me goodnight. By my bed stands the photograph I have always known, taken on the day she came to rescue us: my mother and Rebecca with their bowls of beans, sharing their flashlit black and white smile over my infant form. The look between them in the picture is so trusting and complicit that it is hard to believe they have only just met.
‘Are you settling in OK?’ Rebecca asks, sitting on the bed. ‘Is there anything you need?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You aren’t missing home too much?’
‘A little. But I’m excited to be here.’
She picks up the photograph, which is leaning on my bedside light, and smiles at it. ‘It’s a long time since this was taken. Look at you, sweet little baby.’
‘Do you think my father was there then? On the day you came to find us?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I sometimes wonder whether he was living in the same favela as us at this time—or whether he’d already run off.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You know—if the camera had been nudged at the time the picture was taken you might have seen part of his arm, or something. Looking at this, he could be just at the edge of the photo, in the background.’
‘He wasn’t,’ Rebecca said, standing up abruptly. ‘Take it from me. I was there. Goodnight.’
The set, slightly flushed expression on her face as she leaves the room is puzzling. If I didn’t know better I would think I had angered her. It takes me hours to get to sleep, and I resolve to steer clear of the topic of my father in future. No good ever comes of it.
Driving past the office gatehouse, under the shady mantle of the avocado tree, I wave at the guard behind his bulletproof screen, and he waves back to signal that he is letting me in. The twin red and amber lights above the entrance to the underground car park blink their ambivalent message as the metal gate slides sideways on rusty hinges. Bright sunlight is extinguished as I drive down the ramp with a squeal of tyres, and I remove my sunglasses to accustom my eyes to the gloom. The cosy, rubbery smell of subterranean safety and the echoing rattle of the closing gate tell me that nothing can come for me now. As I lock my car and walk to the lift I wonder how Melissa’s and Ernesto’s evening ended last night. Even if she is furious with me for exposing the fact that she lied to him, I still think I did the right thing.
At the ground floor the lift doors open on Dennis, looking worried, standing by a potted cactus. He gives me a hesitant look before stepping inside, so I conclude he must be brooding because I laid into his work. But I am well rested and feeling optimistic, and I greet him warmly.
‘About yesterday,’ I say. ‘I hope you weren’t too upset by what I said about your ideas. They just got me thinking.’
‘I’m not precious. You spoke your mind.’
‘Good. I wouldn’t like you to think—’
‘I’ve been doing this a long time. Don’t give it another thought.’
‘OK.’
‘But listen, I spoke to Oscar. He said that in the absence of any better ideas we should at least run mine past a test audience. He mentioned one of the cleaners here—someone you know?’
‘He said that, did he?’
‘She works in the building, right? So we could do it this morning.’
In the absence of any better ideas. By the time the lift doors unleash me on the second floor, that good mood has evaporated completely.
I scour the building, trying not to look as if I am listening outside the door of every toilet—which I am—before I hear the shrill blast of her waistband radio.
‘Get out of here. You know this is the Ladies?’ she says shooing me away from the door of a fourth floor facility painted bright green.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘I’m working. I don’t want to listen to your crap today.’
‘This is work too. I need you to come to one of the meeting rooms.’
Our intimacy was so hard earned and so fragile that this remark destroys it completely. ‘What’s the matter? Is the room dirty?’ The sudden formality in her voice is hateful.
‘No, we just need to ask your advice about something.’
I try to make conversation during the walk to the room but her retreat away from me is complete, and she barely responds. At least Oscar isn’t going to be there as well, I think. But I have reckoned without Dennis’s enthusiasm.
‘Good morning, Senhora. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Ludo tells me that you work in our building,’ says Oscar from the doorway, somehow managing to smuggle through this ridiculous slight in a gush of charm. He must have walked past her a thousand times.
‘Pleased to meet you, Senhor,’ she says, quietly.
‘We wondered if you could help us by looking at some work in progress, and telling us what you think of it.’
‘OK.’
‘These posters are very early ideas, so please say whatever you like about them. We would greatly value your opinion.’ He speaks slowly, in a voice so patronising I want to punch him.
The Australian lays out the boards he presented in yesterday’s meeting. MaxiBudget: On Your Side. MaxiBudget: Now It’s Your Turn. He and Oscar stand back to watch Flávia as she looks at them.
‘I’m sorry, Senhor. I don’t understand.’
‘Just tell us what you feel when you see them, please.’
‘You want me to say what I feel?’
‘Yes please. Anything at all.’
My stomach lurches. What if she can’t read?
‘Now It’s Your Turn,’ she says. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. My turn to do what?’
Oscar and Dennis laugh indulgently, as if she’s making a joke.
‘Your friend Ludo thinks that positioning MaxiBudget in this way is wrong, because it’s talking down to people. But don’t you think having an ally like this in your life would be a good thing?’ says Dennis.
Oscar jumps in quickly. ‘I think what we’re asking is a much more simple question. Would you be tempted to shop at this supermarket?’
‘What supermarket?’ says Flávia.
‘You didn’t know this advertisement was for a supermarket?’
‘No, Senhor. How was I meant to know that?’
‘From the food in the pictures. And the logo.’
‘But the pictures are mostly of children. And the food is all rotten.’
Oscar is losing his patience. ‘You really didn’t know it was for a supermarket?’
‘Sorry, Senhor. No,’ she says, quietly.
‘But I thought Ludo had been doing research with you into your feelings about budget supermarkets.’
She looks at me, bewildered, then back at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I see. You can go now. Thanks for your help.’
Oscar’s words pursue me as I slip out of the room to follow her. ‘You’re a fucking liar, Ludo.’
Flávia has collected her rubbish sack from the bathroom she was cleaning before I interrupted her, and is dragging it slowly up the stairs to the next floor when I intercept her.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say, trying to sound friendly. ‘Shall we have lunch?’
She turns on me quickly. ‘Please don’t ever speak to me again, unless you’re asking for more toilet paper.’
‘What do you mean?’
She stops on the stair, breathing heavily. ‘These supermarkets. How cheap are they?’
‘I think they are going to be very cheap.’
‘Give me examples. How much is a kilo of rice at this supermarket? How much is a piece of salt pork? How much is a papaya?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘Then I will give you some advice, and it won’t cost you one damn milkshake. Don’t tell me that It’s My Turn. If you want me to shop at your supermarket then tell me that I can feed my son for a handful of coins, and then I might think about it.’
I stare at her. ‘Why are you being like this? I wasn’t the one asking you those questions.’
‘Yes you were. If you want me to be your guinea pig, then tell me that’s what’s going on. But don’t ever pretend to be my friend again.’
It is darker today, and without Flávia the favela feels different. Loud, jarring music plays from unseen windows, and the air feels charged. As I pass the tattered fragments stuck to the billboards on the outskirts, I hear an argument raging behind a door, and pass it quickly, afraid that I might bring the anger down on my head. The intimacy that pleasantly surprised me before—the noise, the lack of space, the sweet smells of rotting garbage—all this seems oppressive today. But I can’t afford to be nervous. I stopped wondering whether coming here was a good idea some time during Oscar’s screaming fit in his office. I decided it was better just to do it.
I don’t care who you are. I don’t care who your father is. Start taking this seriously or there will be no job. Why do you always have to let me down like this? Why do you have to disappoint me?
This time I think he means it. But Oscar could shout all day and it wouldn’t make a difference, because at work nothing stands to change for me whatever I do. That is not the case where I am now.
I think I’ve lost my way, and feel a squirt of panic in my stomach. Then somehow I manage to find the steps to the low door that leads to Flávia’s home. Unsure of what is polite, I knock on each door and surface that I can find, quietly announcing myself between each home. I make my way through, clutching my gift of Polaroid film.
The old man is out, and I know Flávia isn’t here either. She’s still pacing the corridors at work, furious with me.
‘Come in,’ says the girl.
She’s doing homework. I have time to notice that the exercise book she is writing in is one that I designed two years ago as part of a Books In Schools campaign.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘What are you doing here?’ Something is wrong. The look on her face is very different from before. She looks almost scared to see me.
‘I brought you these.’ I hand her the packets of Polaroid film. ‘You said you had run out.’
‘You came all the way back here just to bring me camera film?’
‘It’s not far.’ I shift awkwardly in the low, cramped doorway.
‘I work nearby.’
‘That’s kind. Thank you. But now you have to leave.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re in danger here. I mean it. Get out.’
‘Why?’
‘My brother is about to come back. And I swear he will kill you if he finds you.’
‘Your brother?’
‘Milton. Flávia’s son.’
Shit.
‘He’s your brother?’
‘Half. Same father.’
‘Shit.’
‘What did you do to him? You should have seen what happened when he came home this morning and found the photograph of you and Flávia pinned to the wall. I’ve never seen anyone flip out like that before.’
I try to keep calm. ‘I want to see him. It’s part of the reason I came here. I need to explain what happened between us.’
‘I don’t think you should do that. He is not in a good mood, he’s been drinking since this morning, and he has a terrible temper. Did you think you could just come in here and talk to him?’
‘Sister, sister,’ says a voice from the street. And then the curtain parts, and in he comes: quick, athletic, etched with intent.
He looks older than I remember. There are heavy bags under his eyes, though he seems to have put on weight in the last couple of days. He’s probably been fed restorative meals while out of town. He’s also washed his hair and put on a decent T-shirt. Were it not for the fact that I was expecting him or for the sling that hangs across his arm, I might not even have recognised him. But there isn’t a chance in hell that he will fail to recognise me.
At first he’s incredulous. He thinks he’s dreaming. Then he weighs in, screaming and pushing. He wants to get started before I even have the chance to say anything.
‘What is this, man? What are you trying to do to me?’
‘Let me explain.’
‘There is no explain!’ he roars. ‘You got me shot in the street.’
‘It wasn’t my fault. I tried to stop it happening. You didn’t have to try and mug that guard.’
‘And now you’re in my house?’
‘Listen to me for a minute.’
‘There is no listen. And I’ll tell you why.’ He rips aside the curtain and ducks into Flávia’s room, emerging immediately with the photo in his hand, the drawing pin still stuck through it from where he plucked it off the wall. ‘This is why. I don’t care what this is. All I know is I don’t ever want to see you again.’
‘Listen—’
‘No you listen, you son of a bitch. You are not safe. Understand me? You could disappear in here if I wanted it. So get out while you have the chance. Final warning.’
‘If you’ll just let me talk to you for a moment—’
‘You don’t get it, do you? I’m trying to control myself.
But this . . . photographic evidence, man. It’s enough to drive me crazy.’
He’s waving the picture in my face, and as I’m staring at it, at those saturated Polaroid colours, at Flávia’s smile and mine, at the ghost shape between us, something shifts in my mind. Something enormous.
I feel as if I might pass out.
Photographic evidence.
‘OK, I’m going,’ I say. ‘Let me just tell you that I regret what happened. OK?’
‘Get the fuck out of here.’
My head is still spinning by the time I reach the alley. I break into a run down the steep hill, trying to remember the way out, but I take a wrong turning. I follow a drainage ditch choked with plastic bags, assuming for some reason that following the sewer will flush me away from danger. Looking up through chaotic bundles of electric wire, I see shadows against the sky—the shape of someone running across the rooftops, hurdling the aerials and satellite dishes and bright blue-water tanks, tracking me. I hear the metallic squawk of voices spoken through a walkie-talkie, and the panting of athletic bodies on the move.
He only kicked me out so he could hunt me down—so that his sister w
ouldn’t see what’s about to happen.
I start running faster. The low doors and rusty staircases and the music from the open windows close in on me. I no longer know which way I’m going. I’m just running. When I emerge panting into a tiny courtyard that I haven’t seen before, I know for sure that I’m lost. A fat dog in a doorway lifts his head to look at me. I return his gaze. And the sack comes down over my head.
CAKE
I am twenty-two. My new friends look on as I perform my signature trick of drinking tequila from the cavity of the stuffed caiman I keep on a shelf in my apartment. The guests have gorged themselves on a four-course meal, and spirits are high.
A roar of approval crashes round the room as I swallow the final dregs and hold the desiccated, laminated creature mouth-side down to show that it’s empty. Things will get worse before they get better.
Stepping on to the campus was like entering a film set. I felt I had lived through this cold autumn before, with its fallen leaves, its spotless pavements, and its cast of effortlessly entitled characters. Which does not mean that I felt at home.
My English was good when I arrived, but not fluent—and my character changed as a result. This is the personality transplant of a language barrier. Severed from your mother tongue, you resort to slapstick and other clownish behaviour to make friends. My classmates were generally rich, older than me, and supremely confident of getting what they felt they deserved out of life, which was nothing more or less than inheriting the universe—or at least the helm of a multinational company.
I had nothing in common with them at all, and yet I found myself wanting to impress them. So I turned myself into a sideshow. It was I who drunkenly ate live goldfish for a bet, I who took reckless quantities of drugs for the diversion of the others, I who won money for sticking my fingers in plug sockets.
But I learnt, and capitalised on the opportunity in a way that Melissa never would have. My English improved. I honed my cooking skills. I participated eagerly in all the mindless group team-building exercises. I read voraciously. I learned a little about the workings of corporations. I bought popularity with flamboyant meals and raucous parties. Even so, it was a lonely time. The people around you define you. And if you spend enough time alone you forget who you are.
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