by Laura Marney
‘Okay. Thanks for the tip,’ she laughed.
There was a silence. I drank most of my glass of water and didn’t want any more.
‘I suppose we both have time to see the world,’ she said. ‘We’re about the same age, aren’t we? How old are you?’
‘Twenty-two. You?’
‘Twent-three,’ she groaned.
Chloe was only a year older than me yet she she’d lived in all those countries. She was taller, slimmer, with a better figure than me, if you liked that skinny big-breasted thing, which everyone did. She was amazing.
‘How long are you gonna be in Barcelona?’ she asked.
I shrugged, ‘I’m not sure. I came to live here.’
‘Good for you, Alison,’ she said with a slow, impressed smile. ‘All right.’ She poured us both large glasses of sangria. ‘Enhorabuena: congratulations.’
It was probably raining in Cumbernauld right now. Lovely damp Scottish rain. If I was at home I’d be eating a crisps and fish finger sandwich in front of The Weakest Link shouting out the answers, pressing crumbs on to my fingers and licking them. I’d be looking out the rain-blurred window, waiting for Mum to come back from the bakery and start making dinner. After seeing that poor, bashed head boy, after lying in his blood with him, Cumbernauld and rain and Mum was all I wanted.
Even before I got here I kind of knew something was going to happen. It was inevitable. My life had always been blighted, maybe it was always going to be. Might as well go home and accept it. Anyway, I was never going to find an affordable flat that didn’t have a dead body draped on the stairwell. It wasn’t fair. Lucky people, rich beautiful girls like Chloe who’d lived in ten countries, and had fabulous breasts, these things didn’t happen to them. They didn’t spend their lives dodging death.
‘You?’ I asked. ‘How long are you here for?’
‘Oh, you know, kinda the same, indefinitely.’
I lifted my glass, ‘enorbor…’
‘Enhorabuena,’ she corrected me.
‘Congratulations.’
We laughed and clinked glasses and took long swigs of sangria. Maybe in toasting her some of her good luck would rub off on me. The sangria tasted good, fruity and potent.
‘Whoa!’ I said, putting the glass down. ‘That’s strong. What’s in it?’
‘The usual stuff: red wine, fruit juice, but the real kicker’s the gin. They use kick-ass gin here.’
‘Right,’ I nodded, smacking my lips and taking another slug. I wasn’t supposed to drink at all for six months and after that only in moderation. Extreme moderation Dr Collins had warned me, but the drink had already gone to my head.
The sangria relaxed me. Maybe I shouldn’t rush home at the first hurdle, although Bashed Head Boy was indisputably a pretty big hurdle. What if the murderer saw me? Or if the police thought I killed him? There were plenty of witnesses who saw me covered in his blood. It wasn’t fair. That boy was nothing to do with me. But I’d come to Barcelona to dwell, not to dwell on things. Dwelling on things wasn’t healthy, I knew that better than anyone.
‘I can’t believe how much I totally misread that situation,’ Chloe said. ‘But you know, guys come here all the time on bachelor weekends, the city’s full of them. They get beered up and go wild. All I know is, I see a bunch of guys messing with a girl half their size and it makes me crazy. I thought you were Catalan.’
‘Don’t dwell on it, Chloe. It wasn’t your bad,’ I said, savouring the opportunity to talk American, ‘it was mine. The whole thing was my fault. I shouldn’t have screamed like that. You thought I was what?’
‘Catalan. You look like them, the same auburn hair. They dye theirs but yours looks real, is it?’
‘Yes, but… that’s why you rescued me? Because I have auburn hair?’
‘No, I thought you were from around here! It’s an easy mistake. Jeez.’
Chloe’s shoulders hunched and she curled in on herself. I had offended her. Not knowing how to undo it, I sat with a stupid grin on my face.
‘Right,’ she laughed, ‘I get it, you’re joking. British sense of humour. I see a twinkle in your British green eyes.’
Relieved, I laughed too.
‘You have great eyes,’ she continued.
‘Cheers.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You probably get that all the time.’
I nodded as if yes, I did get it all the time, but it wasn’t true. Apart from old ladies on the bus telling me and then using it as an excuse to launch into how sick or lonely they were, I very rarely heard it. ‘Oh, you’ve got lovely emerald eyes, hen, just like my Jack, God rest him. I miss him, so I do. But Jack’s the lucky one, I wish God would take me.’
‘D’you speak Spanish or Catalan?’
There was that word again.
‘Catalan?’
‘The language of this region, Catalunya.’
‘Eh, no. Not yet, sorry.’
‘Hell, Spanish is easy, you’ll pick that up in a coupla weeks.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure.’
I wasn’t.
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked her.
‘Coupla months. You?’
‘Coupla days. I arrived on Tuesday.’
‘Where’s your apartment?’
‘Eh, I don’t have one yet, I’m in a hostel in Raval just now.’
That was a thought. How could I go back to the hostel? I wouldn’t be able to set foot in Raval ever again.
‘Alison,’ Chloe said, leaning forward across the table with her arms folded and a grin on her face, ‘do you believe in karma?’
I nodded.
‘Because maybe we were meant to meet today. Yeah, go ahead and smile but it so happens we can help each other out.’
I didn’t know I was smiling.
‘You need somewhere to stay and I need someone to look after my apartment. For a few days. I’ll be out of town three days, probably not more, but that should give you time to find your own place.’
I waited for her to continue but she’d stopped talking. I didn’t say anything.
‘Hey, no pressure. I totally understand if you don’t want to.’
‘Where is your apartment?’
‘It’s in Gotic.’
‘Is that near Raval?’
‘No, I’m at the opposite end of Gotic, going into Barceloneta, but it’s a sweet little apartment, it’s on the roof.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay? You’ll move in?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Excellent! Wanna come round now and check it out? I might have a band aid for your arm.’
‘Okay.’
As we moved away from the table I staggered and narrowly missed stumbling into a boy carrying a tray of drinks. If Dr Collins could see me now, I thought.
‘Whoa!’ said Chloe. ‘Sangria overload! We need to get you some coffee. Let’s get out of here.’
I nodded carefully, not wanting my befuddlement to show. I didn’t know if I could trust her. After what had happened, I didn’t know if it was safe to trust anyone in Barcelona.
He was lying on me, his breath coming in loud gasps.
I was crying again.
‘Shhhh,’ he said, ‘it’s okay, pet. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.’
He was too heavy, crushing my chest, I couldn’t breathe. I tried to push him off, to wriggle out from under him but there was nowhere to go. If I moved, he woke up and moaned; then I was too scared to move.
‘Alison, don’t tell your mum,’ he said, as if that was the important thing. ‘Promise.’
Our faces so close together, I couldn’t look at him. I knew he didn’t want me to look at him.
‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘I promise.’
Chapter 3
I let myself be led out of the dungeon bar into the sunlight. Chloe walked me briskly across La Rambla and into the maze of narrow streets of Barri Gotic. This was a much nicer part of town.
At ground le
vel the street was a corridor of bars, restaurants and shops. The shops sold mostly tourist stuff: fans, hats, rails of kiddies’ flamenco dresses, Barcelona football strips, wee models of the cathedral, fridge magnet lizards. Tourists clogged the confined space taking photos. Bored shopkeepers hung about in doorways, keeping an eye on their kids playing in the street. Chloe drew my attention to a shop with a dayglo sign in English. ‘Look!’ she said, laughing. ‘Very cheap presents!’
She caught me when I stumbled, my foot sliding out of my flip-flop on the cobbled street. I managed to avoid knocking over a big pile of stacked cardboard boxes full of rotting vegetables. Water occasionally dripped on our heads from laundry strung on balconies above. At street level there was a potent smell of urine but it was overlaid with the heavy chemical perfume of fresh laundry. We were at the bottom of a deep canyon. I had no idea where I was.
Chloe stopped outside an old building. She turned a key and we passed through a small wooden door within a much bigger wooden door.
‘I’m sorry, the elevator isn’t working. It hasn’t worked since I got here,’ Chloe smiled apologetically. ‘We’ll have to walk.’
She tried the light switch on the wall, popping it in and out three or four times.
‘Shit, the light’s bust too now. We’ll have to feel our way upstairs,’ she said in a thrilled voice. ‘It’s kinda spooky.’
I hung back.
‘It’s okay, it’s only this one that’s out. If you’re nervous, wait here and I’ll get it on the next floor.’
She sprinted up to the next landing and turned the light on. There was enough light to see all the stairs. There was nothing on them.
Chloe lived on the roof beyond the fifth floor. Five and a half flights of stairs, I was puffed out as she showed me in.
‘Sit down and relax, get your breath back, I’ll find the band aid.’
It was a wee cottage plonked on top of a block of flats. A penthouse. It wasn’t spacious; the kitchen and lounge areas combined were smaller than my bedroom in Cumbernauld. The walls were squinty, there were cracks in the plaster and bits had fallen off. The walls were painted with copies of famous paintings; I recognised one that I knew from a gallery in Glasgow. When I was nine I’d done a project on this painting when we’d gone there on a school trip.
As she rifled through drawers looking for the plasters I asked Chloe, ‘Is that Christ of St John of the Cross? ’
‘Hey, you know Dali, I’m impressed. I love his stuff.’
‘Mmmm, yeah,’ I said, nodding.
Some of the cracks and holes in the wall were incorporated into the artwork. There was one hole that had been filled with brightly coloured mosaic tiles and shaped like a lizard. I recognised that as the famous Gaudi lizard from Park Guell, I remembered seeing it in my Barcelona guidebook.
‘Gaudi,’ I said simply.
I wasn’t doing too badly. I knew more about art than I thought.
‘Did you do this?’ I asked. ‘Are you an artist?’
I’d never met an artist before.
‘Yeah, kinda, it’s what I do.’
I didn’t know much but I knew what I liked and I thought these were great.
‘You’re really talented.’
‘Aw, stop,’ she said, but I knew she was pleased.
‘You’ve made the most of this place, it’s brilliant.’
‘Yeah, thanks. I totally fell in love with this apartment as soon as I saw it, even if it does have roaches.’
‘Roaches?’
‘Cockroaches, cucarachas.’
‘How big are they?’
‘Oh don’t worry, just normal size. Don’t you have cockroaches in Scotland?’
‘No, it’s too cold, I think. Is this your own place?’ I asked, wanting to change the subject from cockroaches.
‘No. I was gonna buy it but there was a problem with the real estate survey. The building has subsidence, but most of Barri Gotic has, it’s real old. The Aged P wouldn’t release the funds.’
‘The Aged Pea?’
‘The Aged Parent. My dad. He’s such an asshole, he just doesn’t get it that I love this apartment because it’s cracked, it has character. I only have a short rental lease but I’m never gonna leave this apartment.’
‘Quite right,’ I agreed, ‘it’s lovely.’
She had found the Elastoplast now.
‘Come over here and I’ll put these on you.’
She indicated that I should sit on the couch. She knelt on the floor and dressed my cuts. I’d been out all day running around in the heat, I was dirty and smelly but she was determined to put the plaster on my leg.
‘So, you’re going away for a few days,’ I said. ‘Where are you off to?’
She pushed her breath through closed lips. ‘I have to go to Berlin.’
‘That sounds great.’
‘No, I have to go see The Aged P. I have to spend the fourth of July holiday with him. It’s a duty call.’
She pronounced it ‘dootie’.
‘If I don’t check in with him, he stops my allowance. He likes to keep me on a tight leash. Fucking pervert.’
Alarm must have registered on my face because then she said,
‘No, I don’t mean like that. I mean he’s a control freak. I’m twenty-three, for Chrissake. I inherited my estate when I was twenty-one but my dad told the court it wouldn’t be good for my health. So now, thanks to Aged P, I’m dirt poor. I mean, hello? Like, being a multi-millionaire is bad for your health?’
‘Are you mega-rich then, like Paris Hilton?’
‘Paris Hilton doesn’t have to live on a lame allowance like a little kid, it’s embarrassing.’
‘That must be tough.’
As soon as it was out I realised she might think I was taking the piss but I hadn’t meant it that way.
‘Yup,’ she said cheerfully, ‘I suppose there are worse things.’
She finished putting the Elastoplasts on and eased my leg down to the floor. She had a very gentle touch.
‘There you go, all done.’
‘Thanks very much, Chloe.’
I sat back in the huge couch piled with luxurious throws. There was a huge plasma TV and, on the shelf beneath, a digital frame flashing up different photos every few seconds. All the photos were of the same person. At first I thought I recognised her, a film star I couldn’t quite bring to mind, but I didn’t know her. They were simply high quality photographs of a very beautiful woman. These weren’t snaps from the family album, they’d been taken by a professional photographer in a proper studio. In every shot the woman was alone. She was stunning: long blonde hair, pale blue eyes, full lips, perfectly proportioned cheekbones, nose and chin. Some of the shots were slightly soft focus but even in the close-ups she had not a line or wrinkle or sag, and she was pretty old, she must have been over forty, at least.
‘Is this your mum, Chloe?’
‘Yup, that’s my mom.’
She sounded proud.
‘You look like her. She’s beautiful.’
‘Yeah, well, she gets her looks from me, but thanks, I’ll be sure and pass her the compliment,’ she said, getting up from her knees. ‘You look like you could use some coffee.’
Chloe gathered the bits of backing paper from the plasters off the floor and went back to the kitchen. She immediately came back and turned a switch that began a low hum.
‘Thank God for air con, huh?’ she smiled.
The air was suddenly noticeably fresher.
‘Help yourself,’ she said, ‘check the place out.’
Compared to the other flats I’d seen in Barcelona, this place was fabulous. The bedroom had a huge bed, king size or even bigger. It was the biggest room in the flat and the most untidy. There were three empty glasses on the bedside table and the easy chair was buried under a pile of clothes, but it was a great room. There was what looked like an antique wooden bedroom suite with a massive carved mirror. On the unmade bed lay a small backpack with its contents spilling out
: pants, a bra and two crumpled tops. Beside that, an airline ticket. I could hear Chloe banging about in the kitchen so I risked a quick peek and saw that the ticket was made out to Miss Chloe Taylor. First class. It was for Berlin. First class. One way.
Chapter 4
My inspection of the flat only took a few minutes but I was looking forward to moving in here, even if it was only for three days.
‘Take a look at the terrace,’ Chloe called from the kitchen. ‘I’ll bring the coffee out there.’
The terrace was three times the size of the flat. Glass sliding patio doors led out to the roof from the living room. There was a massive chimney with four chimney pots that rose up out of the terrace, it was about eight feet tall. I had no idea chimneys were that big, I’d never stood next to one before. There weren’t any roof terraces in Cumbernauld. All the roofs in Cumbernauld had steep gradients to let the rain drip off the mossy tiles. But the most impressive thing about being up here, apart from making me feel like Mary Poppins, was how quiet it was. There was no more than a background buzz from the noisy street five flights below. From up here it was all neat squared-off terraces. Beyond the pleasantly hazy green patches of roof gardens, there was a thin bright blue line on the horizon. A stripe of Mediterranean. It was close enough to smell, a nice change from the rank street smell.
Along one side of the terrace Chloe had rigged up some kind of shade with white sheets pegged across two washing lines, making a ceiling and three walls. Inside the makeshift tent there was a low table and another pile of large silky cushions. I poked my head inside but was quickly driven out again by the strong musky smell. It smelled like something nasty had crawled in there and died.
Chloe brought out the coffee on a tray.
‘Ah, so you’ve found my Bedouin yurt,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘it’s brilliant.’
‘If you liked my lizard you’re gonna love this.’
Chloe led me round the other side of the chimney to a pile of stuff: a pair of ladders, dust sheets, bags of plaster, cement, a basin, a tool bag and a bundle of ceramic tiles.
She bent down and fanned out the tiles like cards in a pack.