A Thousand Cuts

by Thomas Mogford

  Tito was over at Jack’s house again. His mother doesn’t seem to mind, and Jack is very patient with him. He’s got this clapped-out Royal Enfield motorcycle engine from somewhere, and they spend hours tinkering with it. Jack says Tito’s got a good mind for mechanical things – he even took him to the Dockyard the other day to meet some of the boy labourers. I suppose I should be pleased that he’s got something to keep himself busy. All I have is my journal.

  April 7th

  Yesterday the evacuation roster was published. We are to leave on the ‘Gibel Dersa’ on May 21st. Tito was horribly upset, so when Jack and Tony called round to ask if they could take him over the border to get some part for the Enfield, I didn’t have the heart to say no.

  I should have known better. For they decided that the best way to cheer my little brother up was to take him drinking in La Línea. Then they knocked on my door at 10 p.m. and slunk away, leaving me to deal with a vomiting 14-year-old who’s too heavy for me to get up the stairs on my own. And the fact that they left a case of oloroso on my doorstep ‘For the “Mil Cortes”’ didn’t make me feel any better at all.

  April 9th

  I still can’t believe it. Just when things seemed to be getting a little better, it has all gone wrong. And as always, it is Tony’s fault.

  It was Tito who found it, hidden in that box of sherry. When I saw what it was, I sent him to fetch the others. And when they all got back, I packed him off to bed.

  As soon as Jack saw the small metal weight, curved like a tortoiseshell, he put his head in his hands, while Esteban just paced around the kitchen. Only Tony seemed to be master of himself, checking the blackout curtains and helping himself to a spoonful of my soup. I wanted to knock it out of his hand! How could they have done it? Taken my little brother out drinking with Raúl de Herrera? Because that’s what they’d done. And I wanted to know everything. Whether they’d known what was in the box? Let Tito carry it over the border?

  Tony did all the talking. Denied everything, said Raúl had been going on for months about ‘direct action’, but that he’d never taken him seriously – not until now. Then he opened a bottle of Papa’s best brandy and said he’d sort it all out and that I wasn’t to worry about a thing.

  The brandy certainly did its work for Jack. Why shouldn’t we? he kept saying. Why the hell shouldn’t we do it? Not to hurt anybody, just to teach those British bastards a lesson. They told us they were coming here to protect us – but what had they done? Attacked my father; lorded it over loyal men like him who broke their backs on behalf of the Empire at the Royal Naval Dockyard. And I have to admit, something of what he said made me consider, just for a moment, if he might be right. But then Esteban told Jack that he didn’t know what he was talking about. That there was no such thing as violence without bloodshed, and that anyone who’d lived through a war like him would know that.

  But what about the “Mil Cortes”, I was thinking? Esteban must have seen my face, as he turned to me with this sad smile and said that poetry was just pretty words. And though I knew he was right, for the first time I noticed that his grey eyes were just that little bit too close together.

  Then Tony stood up and said he’d find a way to get rid of the thing, but that we must lock it up till he worked out what to do. So though I wanted it out of the house there and then, somehow it ended up in Mama’s rosewood bureau, next to her book of pressed flowers. As I closed the door behind them, I thought I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. Just for a moment I thought it was Papa, but when I looked round there was no one there.

  April 10th

  As I sit here in my bedroom, with Tito’s head in my lap, I still don’t understand how it could have happened. It’s my fault, I suppose. I should never have let Tony persuade me to keep that thing in our house.

  I knew something was wrong as soon as I came through the door. The grate was cold and even before I’d turned round, something told me that Mama’s bureau would be open and it would be gone. I ran up the stairs, calling Tito’s name, but his room was dark and empty. So I started pulling open all the drawers. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but what I found when I turned over Tito’s mattress chilled my blood. There were two words written on the square of paper – ‘Dique Seco’ – and even a child would have recognised the tortoise from the drawing on the other side.

  I felt horribly light-headed then, but there was no way of knowing how long Tito had been gone, so I staggered downstairs and hurried over the road to Jack’s house. When he saw my face, he told me to go home, and that he would be over with the others right away.

  I remember Jack made me sit down as they all stood around the kitchen table watching Tony examine that bit of paper. All I could hear was the tick of the clock – and all I could think of was whether they would have caught Tito yet.

  Then Tony started firing questions at Jack. Asking him what a boy like Tito could know about the Dry Docks. About how he imagined he could get in at night without anyone seeing. Then Jack started stammering, saying, yes, he’d shown Tito round the Dockyard, but he couldn’t be sure what he’d said to him – or who else he’d spoken to – but in any case, everyone knew that Tito wasn’t all there, so no one could blame him if he’d… Well, I don’t know what Jack would have said next, because I flew at him and I would have scratched out his eyes if Esteban hadn’t come up behind me and pulled me away. Then Tony put on one of Papa’s old coats, and Esteban did the same, and they were gone.

  They’d told Jack to stay with me, I suppose. But I couldn’t bear to look at his pasty stricken face, so I turned Papa’s chair towards the fireplace and waited. Then finally we heard it – the sound I’d been dreading.

  The explosion was like nothing I’ve ever known. The whole house shook, and when I ripped away the blackout curtains, I saw a funnel of smoke rising into the sky. Then the sirens sounded, and I started to shake, because I knew then that Tito must be dead.

  So when Jack came over and took me in his arms, I didn’t have the strength to push him away. I let him cover my face with kisses, and I probably would have let him make love to me if Tony hadn’t burst through the door, his face all covered in soot, holding Tito in his arms.

  As Tony laid Tito down on the kitchen floor, he told me that Esteban had been lost, and there was nothing to be done. And even though that should have made me sad, when I looked down and saw Tito open his eyes, I felt nothing but joy.

  April 14th

  The whispers are everywhere. This morning, the ‘Chronicle’ said that two men were killed in the blast. The authorities have confirmed there was one survivor, but that he is badly injured – and no one knows who he is.

  Tito still won’t speak. He just stares up at me from his pillow with those pleading eyes that remind me so much of Papa, then turns away.

  April 15th

  Tony came to see me tonight. When he saw Tito he barked at him – said he should make himself scarce – and my little brother jumped to it like a beaten child.

  Tony told me to sit down, and then he said that Esteban was still alive. He didn’t look especially pleased, just said that we must all get our stories straight. And then he told me what I was to say when they came.

  I was relieved when he got up to leave, but at the door he turned and asked me if I was sure I could make Tito understand what must be done. Because otherwise, he said, he would deal with it himself. And when I saw that icy glint in his eye, I made myself smile and say thank you, but that I was sure I could manage things quite well by myself.

  Later, when I was washing my hair, for the first time I thought about what Esteban has done for us. And though I felt grateful, all I could think of was of the police dragging Tito away in the middle of the night because of something that Esteban might tell them. And the darker part of my heart wished that he was dead.

  April 21st

  The knock came last night. An Englishman with a black eye and a fake smile. He showed me a photograph of Esteban and Tony at a bar
with a man in waxed black moustaches. And then he pointed at Esteban and asked if I knew him, and I swallowed and said, ‘Yes. Why yes. That’s Esteban Reyes. Doesn’t he look handsome!’ Then I opened my eyes up wide like Antonia used to do when her father smelt cigarette smoke in the parlour, and I heard myself say, ‘He works at the Dockyard, doesn’t he?’ Once the man had left, I was sick in the sink.

  May 15th

  Tito is a little better. We spent today shutting up the Piccadilly. I suppose we could have kept it open longer, but I can’t muster the energy to smile at the customers – and there’s still so much to do before we leave. I’ve seen other families packing up heirlooms and turning up on the quayside in their Sunday best, only to have their treasures discarded as they’re led wailing onto the boats. And looking around the house where Papa and Mama died, I can’t think of much that doesn’t fill me with sadness anyway.

  May 21st

  As we waited for the ship to be ready, there was the most distressing scene. It’s been very humid, and as no one is sure where we will end up, all the evacuees were wearing overclothes and swooning in the heat. Then there was this horrible sound of wailing, and I turned to see three British officers dripping with sweat as they dragged Magdalena Reyes along the gangplank, kicking and scratching like a cat. Then she fainted, and they picked her up like a sack of flour and laid her on deck. They kept their heads low as they marched back down the gangplank so as not to meet anyone’s eye.

  She is lying on a blanket now ten yards in front of me. I can see the swell of the child inside her as the ship rolls up and down. Everyone knows who she is. Who her husband is.

  May 22nd

  The soldiers have pitched tents for us in the scrubland behind Tangiers Harbour. The stink is almost as bad as on the boat. But I try not to think of my own troubles.

  May 25th

  Our ‘official representative’ has just come into the tent to break the news. We are to be moved to a derelict phosphate mine in the desert.

  Today is my sixteenth birthday.

  July 4th

  Paris has fallen and France has surrendered. Everyone at the camp says we will be made to leave French Morocco. The uncertainty is terrific, and every time I pass Jack I can tell from his eyes that he feels as I do. That however bad this may be, all three of us deserve it.

  July 6th

  Magdalena was well enough to get up today. Her legs are so thin that I can’t imagine them bearing that swollen belly of hers much longer. She smiled at me as she passed, but I was too ashamed to hold her gaze, so I looked away.

  July 15th

  The Vichy soldiers are expelling us, and we are to return to Gibraltar.

  July 19th

  When the Captain weighed anchor, everybody cheered. But then he sent us a message to say that the Governor will not give us leave to come ashore. Most of the children are ill with dysentery, and Magdalena is very weak. She just gazes out at the Rock, thinking of her husband, I imagine – wondering what they have done to him. And seeing Esteban’s beloved so reduced, I find myself thinking that if there is a God, He must be a vengeful one to have dreamt up such a torment for me.

  July 20th

  Today we were given permission to disembark. But only for one night – so they can clean the boats. Then tomorrow we set sail again. This time for England.

  And walking through Irish Town past my school, everything boarded up and silent, I realised that the Gibraltar I knew is gone. That there is nothing left here for us. Just tanks and aeroplanes and soldiers and sailors.

  When I passed the Piccadilly, I saw workmen inside. The notice on the door said it is being converted into an Officers’ Clubhouse – under the management of Peter Zammit, Esq.

  July 21st

  Thinking back, I suppose they could have done it on purpose. For as we were funnelled down Line Wall Road towards the Nissen hut, the officer blew on his whistle and ordered us to stop to let an armed guard pass by.

  We all turned to stare at the prisoner, at his manacled arms and that horribly twisted foot dragging behind him as he walked. Then Magdalena gave this terrible shriek and tried to run to him, but the stevedores held her back.

  But I think that Esteban saw me, standing there holding my brother’s hand before they led us back onto the boats. It was only for a moment, but our eyes met and I saw no anger in his. Then they took him away.

  PART SIX

  50

  That was the last mention of Esteban Reyes in the diary. Spike skim-read the few entries that remained and found no trace of the voluble, naive young girl who’d fallen in love with somebody else’s husband. It was a more cynical Marcela who’d written in London, and she described her life as an evacuee as though it were being lived by someone else – someone she didn’t care for especially. There were perfunctory descriptions of the dilapidated boarding house on the Fulham Road where she and Tito had been billeted; the temporary Catholic school that they’d attended at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Then, some months later, a report of the death of the first Gibraltarian evacuee during a London air raid, notable only for its phlegm. The last entry, dated March 7th 1941, amounted to little more than a complaint about the bitterness of the English winter and the unrelenting blandness of the food.

  Pushing his hands through his hair, Spike sat back from the kitchen table, trying to take in the enormity of what he’d read. He never would have claimed to have known Marcela well, but the events that she described seemed impossible to reconcile with the forthright, high-minded woman he remembered. But there was no way to get around it. Every one of them – Marcela, Anthony and their friend Jack – had colluded to let Esteban Reyes take the blame for Tito’s crime. Hard as it was to believe, Christopher Massetti had been right all along. There had been a conspiracy against his father. What Massetti couldn’t have known was that Esteban had been complicit in the deception.

  Spike picked up the Jiffy bag and turned it in his hands. The postmark was local, the address label computer-generated. Who could have sent it? And why to him and not the police?

  He was just trying to work out which of Jessica’s colleagues she might persuade to run the diary for prints, when he remembered that she had left him, and was finally able to place the nagging dread that had been lurking at the back of his mind. Now that his anger had faded, he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid as to let her go. He dialled her number, feeling his chest tighten as he waited for the call to connect. But it rang straight through to voicemail, as he’d known it would, so he slipped the diary into his briefcase and headed for the front door.

  Outside, the Church of the Sacred Heart was chiming eleven. Jessica had an antenatal appointment at noon; he might catch her if he hurried. As he moved through the Old Town, he replayed their argument in his head, rehearsing better excuses, more persuasive justifications for what he’d done. But the lawyer in him knew there was no defence for putting his future wife’s career in jeopardy, and that the only way he could have salvaged the situation was to have offered her some kind of explanation, rather than retreat into a detached silence, as he always did when he knew he was in the wrong.

  Somewhere in the distance, he caught the beat of marching drums, a sound he’d always found faintly sinister. The Gibraltar Regiment, rehearsing for the Ceremony of the Keys, the tedious annual re-enactment of life during the Great Siege. How had a year passed since the last one?

  Slipping into a side street to avoid the crowds, Spike pressed on towards Nuno Navarro’s apartment. He couldn’t recall the exact address, but he’d picked Jessica up from the flat often enough in the early days of their flirtation, checking the time in irritation as he’d waited for her to run down the stairs to him. On more than one occasion, he remembered looking up to see her younger brother laughing down at him from the balcony, cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth.

  The medium-rise tower block was as unloved as Spike remembered. But today, the third-floor balcony was deserted, a small drift of dead leaves heaped agai
nst the closed shutters. Spike rolled his shoulders, then held down the buzzer.

  A throaty voice responded, ‘Sí?’ No surprise to find Nuno at home at this hour. The travel agency where he worked used him only in high season, and only when no one else was available, which suited Nuno and his surprisingly lucrative online-poker habit just fine. The brief coughing fit that followed suggested his most recent attendance at smoking cessation classes had lapsed. Jessica would not be pleased.

  ‘It’s Spike.’

  There was a long pause, then a sigh. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done, man,’ Nuno said. ‘But this time she’s really craka, know what I mean?’

  Spike almost smiled. ‘Yeah, Nuno, I know what you mean.’ He and his future brother-in-law usually restricted their conversation to the vagaries of Spanish football, so this territory was as unfamiliar as it was uncomfortable. ‘Can I come up?’

  Spike heard the buzzer click off, and guessed that Nuno was consulting with Jessica. He could imagine her leaning against the door-frame, chewing her lower lip as she ran through a mental profit-and-loss account of their relationship. His most recent indiscretion would put him deeply in the red, that much he knew. He heard another click: ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’ Nuno lowered his voice: ‘You know what Jessie’s like when she’s pissed off. Just give her some space, compa. A couple of days.’

  The intercom fell silent, and Spike stared up at the shutters, willing them to creak open. But a minute went by and nothing happened, so he turned away, catching the desolate wail of a military bugle in the distance.

  On the roundabout of Harbour Views Road, Spike paused to look at the bronze statues of the Evacuation Monument, a tearful father running with arms thrown wide to greet his returning wife and children. Usually the mawkishness of the thing brought out the cynic in him, but this time he leant in to read the plaque: ‘The Evacuation of the Gibraltarians, 1940–1951’. A list of the outposts where the evacuees had been sent was engraved around the plinth: Madeira, French Morocco, Jamaica, England, Northern Ireland . . . Marcela had married Andrew and stayed in London after the war. After reading in her diary what she and the others had done, Spike couldn’t say he blamed her.