The Santiago Sisters

by Victoria Fox

  Before lunch they swam in the sparkling sea. Mia dived to look for fish. The snorkel bunched her hair into a muffin-top while squishing her top lip out. She made silly kissy faces while Tess laughed so much that she struggled to stay afloat.

  ‘Time to eat, you two,’ called Béatrice from the stern, her kaftan fluttering.

  Anton detached the inflatable from the back of the boat and piloted it to shore. The beach shuddered closer in the hazy midday heat, a strip of gold peppered with flickering white parasols, beneath which neat-suited waiters hurried with piled-high plates of lobster and mussels. They took a table by the water and ordered jambon cru and melon, steak-frites and salad, and bottles of wine and Badoit. Tess was stuffed.

  ‘Why don’t you girls walk into port?’ suggested Anton, as they debated the possibility of swimming after such a big meal. So the girls set off for the marina. St Tropez was a hive, crammed with shops and bars and holidaymakers posing in designer beachwear. The quay was stage to an unbelievable parade of gleaming super-yachts, monsters of the sea with elevated sun decks and upholstered patio furniture. Tess thought: One day, I’ll buy one of these. I’ll buy ten. On one, a three-tiered giant named Le Grand Mystère, a woman in a gold bikini was reclining on a velvet chaise.

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Tess stopped, digging an elbow in Mia’s ribs.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Do you see who it is?’

  Mia squinted. Joining the gold-bikinied woman were two girls: one with an elegant corn-blonde topknot, the other boasting a fiery mane. ‘Emily and Fifi!’

  Tess yanked her behind the nearest tree—but it was too late. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ Emily sang. ‘Don’t think you can hide, Mia Ferraris, that tree isn’t nearly wide enough.’

  ‘She is such a bitch.’ Tess balled a fist. ‘I swear to God I’ll—’

  ‘Ignore it,’ said Mia, pulling her back. They heard a weakly chiding response from the gold-bikinied woman, whom they surmised to be Fifi’s mother.

  ‘Are these your friends from school, darling?’ the woman enquired, removing enormous Prada sunglasses and beckoning them over. ‘Come join us, do!’

  As Tess climbed aboard Le Grand Mystère, Mia trailing reluctantly behind, the woman went to greet them. At the same time, Fifi cried out: ‘Oh my God, don’t stand up, Maman! I can see, like, all your rolls of fat when you stand up.’

  ‘Sorry, ma petite fleur.’ The woman shrank back down.

  ‘I told you not to get that bikini. You look like a whale in it.’

  The woman chuckled, rolling her eyes. ‘Darling, behave …’

  ‘I suppose you’ll be in good company now that Mia’s with us. Good job there are life rafts on this thing, otherwise we’d be underwater!’

  Emily snorted a burst of unkind laughter, while Fifi’s mother tutted: ‘The way you youngsters speak to each other these days …’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Tess asked Emily.

  ‘Fi invited me.’ Emily folded her arms. ‘It’s fucking dead at home.’

  ‘We always come when Papa needs a rest,’ put in Fifi. ‘He’s in town right now, screwing everything in sight. Right, Maman?’

  Maman’s face cracked like sheet ice. ‘Don’t be absurd, sweetheart.’

  ‘I wanted to bring Claudette, too,’ Fifi said, ‘but my stingy bastard parents wouldn’t let me. Thank God for the party over at Plage d’Aqua tonight, hey, Em?’

  ‘There’s a party?’ said Tess.

  ‘You’d hardly fit in,’ sniped Emily. ‘This is the big league. Not like you deserve to know, but rumour has it Alex Dalton’s in town.’

  Maman couldn’t help but stir. ‘Alex Dalton!’ she trilled.

  ‘Shut up, Maman,’ said Fifi. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself.’

  ‘I met him,’ said Tess. She practically heard Emily’s jaw drop. Next to her, Mia couldn’t contain her gasp. What was the deal? He was only a waiter.

  ‘Nice try, loser,’ Emily sneered. ‘Like, nobody’s met Alex Dalton.’

  ‘I have. I met him in Paris, at the dance.’

  Emily’s expression tightened. Everyone knew the danse d’éntrée was a sore point for Sainte-Marthe’s golden girl because she had wound up kissing a boy with no thumbs and locking herself in the portable loos for the rest of the night, sobbing.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting so excited about,’ said Tess. ‘He was waiting tables—just seemed like an ordinary guy to me.’

  The relief on Emily’s face was palpable. ‘Well, you can bet your Alex Dalton was not the AD I’m talking about. The Alex Dalton is heir to, like, the biggest oil company in America? His dad’s Richard Dalton? Fuck, you must have been living under a rock. Alex is the ultimate bachelor. And I’m planning to bag him.’

  ‘Em can bag any guy she wants,’ said Fifi loyally.

  ‘That’s right, darling,’ said Maman. ‘Just like I bagged your father.’

  ‘Er—it’s nothing like you actually, Maman? For starters, you’re old and ugly.’

  Maman giggled, loving the joke. ‘So you girls will come, non?’

  ‘Oh, we—’ said Mia, at the same time as Emily spluttered, ‘Over my dead—’ and Tess smiled sweetly and accepted with a, ‘Yes, we’d love to.’

  Plage d’Aqua was the realm of the Beautiful People. The club comprised a wicker canopy over a doughnut-shaped bar, in the centre of which a team of impossibly attractive cocktailmakers rattled metal shuttles and tossed bottles of tequila high into the air. Soft white sand coasted down to the Med, fading to cobalt in the dusk. Some of the glamorous clientele had come directly from their loungers, clad as they were in beach-come-evening-attire, an impression only the seriously moneyed could pull off.

  ‘Wow,’ said Mia, as she helped herself to a drink. ‘See who’s playing!’

  Thumping beats emanated from down the shore. ‘Who?’ asked Tess.

  ‘Felix Bazinet, the DJ—I’m obsessed with him. He’s so hot.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of him. Want to say hi?’

  ‘We can’t!’ choked Mia.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know, we just … we can’t! He’s famous!’

  Tess grabbed her hand. As they approached Felix’s booth, she saw that he was tall and dark with an appealing rash of stubble. Her tummy did a flip in time with the music, but with fear, not excitement. Get a grip, she told herself. You’ve got to do it sooner or later. Tonight’s perfect. He’s perfect. She had to be the last girl in her year to lose her virginity—not that anyone apart from Mia knew. Felix would be the ideal rehearsal. She had to do it before Hollywood and the men she truly wanted to impress.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I’m Tess—and this is Mia.’ Felix liked her confidence—she could tell. Knocking back her drink, she decided alcohol was the way to go.

  In the end, they wound up hanging round the DJ booth like groupies. Every so often, between sets, Felix glanced Tess’s way and shot a lopsided grin.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Mia elbowed her. There was no jealousy with Mia—if Felix was interested in either of them it was considered a win. ‘He’s totally into you!’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘OhmyGodhejustlookedoveragain.’ She spun round. ‘Do you think this is it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know …’

  Tess swigged back the last of her glass and didn’t answer the question.

  ‘Another?’ she asked instead. Mia nodded.

  Alone, she padded across the sand. Lights strewn around the bar liquefied her vision and she stumbled on the uneven beach. Sober up or they won’t serve you.

  She was waiting in line when someone said from behind: ‘Hello, Pirate.’

  To her surprise, Alex Dalton appeared next to her. He was wearing a white T-shirt and his skin was tanned. It made specks of blond appear in his eyebrows.

  ‘I thought you were never drinking again?’ he teased. He spoke to her in English, and now she could hear his American twang.

  ‘I lied,’ she said. ‘Why are
you here?’

  ‘I come out every summer.’

  Tess was about to strike back with ‘On a waiter’s salary?’ when she became aware of something strange happening in her peripheral. Every girl was gazing soupy-eyed at Alex, whispering in groups and biting their lips. An aura of space surrounded him, as if people were afraid to come too close. And there, sure enough, was Emily Chilcott, wearing a barely-there skirt and looking as if she’d swallowed a wasp.

  You can bet your Alex Dalton was not the AD I’m talking about …

  It made sense. Tess looked at him and said: ‘You’re not a waiter.’

  ‘You’re not a pirate.’

  She wanted to bat back a smart response but nothing came. His conceited handsomeness left her at a loss for words, and she hated admitting he was handsome, because right now it was in that irritating way of a friend’s older brother who liked to constantly remind you that you were nothing more than a mildly entertaining kid.

  It occurred to her that Alex was exactly the sort of guy she should go for. Rich beyond measure, good-looking, heir to a massive fortune. But, after that first meeting, and it made her want to wither and die whenever she thought of it, she could never contemplate it: she’d given far too much of herself away. Besides, where did he get off being such a smug bastard? One look in his eye and she couldn’t stand him.

  ‘I left my jacket behind,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can I have it?’

  ‘Funny, I didn’t bring it with me.’

  The barman took her order. At the last moment Alex added to it, saying, ‘I’ll get these.’ She caught his aroma, expensive and clean.

  ‘I can pay for it myself,’ Tess said.

  ‘Don’t get tetchy about it.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  He turned to her and smiled. The way he gazed right into her, just as he had over their table in the Café Convivial, pissed her off. Why had she told him all that stuff? Why had she splurged her secrets? The confession swam back in dazzling, mortifying bursts; how she had spilled her guts—quite literally, when she’d barfed into that plant pot—then barfed again on the ride home, then he’d had to sober her up and she’d sat before him, tear-streaked, mascara-clotted, and confided her woeful story in detail she hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Mia. Alex’s swagger was a stark reminder of the cards he held. She was the meek, pathetic creature he’d stooped to save, Prince Dalton in his glittering castle, surrounded by a moat full of oil.

  The girl he’d sat opposite that night was Teresa Santiago. Not Tess Geddes.

  I’m Tess Geddes now. Teresa’s dead. Fuck meek and fuck pathetic.

  ‘You look beautiful, by the way,’ Alex said, matter-of-factly, as if he were commenting on the weather. Her beauty was, to him, a given truth, an indisputable fact, such as Sunday followed Saturday, or the price of a loaf of bread.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘You been to Plage before?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘You’re very defensive, you know.’

  ‘You’re very rude.’ Her eyes flashed.

  ‘Just being honest.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  Tess was desperate to get away but had to wait for her order.

  ‘Thing is,’ Alex said, ‘I kind of liked the honest you. It’s OK to be real. You shouldn’t feel … I don’t know, embarrassed, or anything. It was fine. It was nice.’

  She pulled a face. ‘You sound like Dawson’s Creek.’

  He grinned. ‘Only trying to say what I mean.’

  ‘And failing.’

  Alex held his hands up. ‘You’re harsh, Pirate.’

  Finally, thankfully, the drinks came. ‘Do me a favour,’ Tess said. ‘Forget that night, forget we met, forget everything I said. I was drunk. I made it up, anyway.’

  ‘What, you’re ditching me?’ He seemed surprised. She was glad.

  I’m not part of your fan club, Alex. Go get Emily; she’s your kind of girl.

  ‘I’ve got someplace to be,’ she said.

  She walked across the sand until she could no longer feel his eyes on her.

  Someplace, it turned out, was with Felix Bazinet. Tess returned to find Mia chatting with a black man whom she introduced as Felix’s friend. ‘This is Henri,’ Mia said, clutching her. ‘Isn’t he sexy?’ Her breath was sweet with pineapple and rum.

  ‘Felix thought you’d left,’ said Henri.

  ‘No way,’ said Tess, emboldened by the liquor. ‘We’re only getting started.’

  Felix’s set ended and he joined them for a dance, his lips flirting with the back of her neck and his fingers snaking round her waist. The drunker Tess got, the more reasonable it seemed to kiss him. It might be OK. It might be better than she thought.

  ‘You wanna get out of here?’ he growled.

  Tess let herself be led down the beach, Felix’s hand in hers a silent promise of what was to come. This is good, she thought. It’s safe. It’s good that I do this. They walked until the crowds faded and the moon shone brightly on silver-pale sand.

  ‘Hey.’ Felix pulled her down on to the beach. ‘Come here.’

  His lips found hers. He leaned her back until she was lying flat. ‘Relax,’ he told her, ‘you’re tense.’ His lips didn’t feel as she’d expected—softer and wetter—and he tasted of cigarette smoke. Tess tried to close her eyes but it made the sky wobble.

  Felix’s hand found her breast. She let out a gasp and, taking it for enthusiasm, he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth. Tess almost choked. She wanted to say, ‘Stop, wait a minute, slow down,’ but she couldn’t. Suddenly her breast was exposed and Felix was tweaking and pulling her nipple. Next he started kissing it.

  She wondered if this was how her papa and Señorita Gonzalez had started that day in the stables. The thought made her muscles tense with revulsion.

  Forget that. You’re not there any more. You’re here.

  But she couldn’t. Felix’s body was too like the body she’d seen, transfixed, afraid, peering round the stable door, and it was associated with violence and death and deceit. Felix lifted her skirt and licked his index finger. ‘You’ll like this.’

  He drove this finger inside her.

  ‘Ah!’ She winced in pain.

  ‘Relax … There you go … See? You like it really …’

  It was a strange sensation, neither pleasurable nor unpleasurable, and Tess felt detached, as if she was watching Felix change a car tyre. Occasionally he would go too far and it made her sore so she moaned, but this only encouraged his attentions.

  ‘If you like that, you’ll want something bigger,’ he whispered. His lips hit hers again, and this time they felt too big, too fleshy, and she fought the urge to bite down.

  He pulled away before she could. Against the lapping waves she heard the sound of his belt unbuckling and the shiver of material as he worked it down his thighs. A hard rod landed between them. Felix grabbed her hand and clamped it round, working it up and down. ‘There you go,’ he groaned, ‘that’s it, stroke it …’

  The stench of lavender hit her nostrils and she struggled.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘No, I don’t—’

  A searing, burning pain cut her off, as Felix sliced his erection into her, carving her insides out. She screamed. A gush swelled between her legs.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Felix murmured in her ear. ‘I like a virgin. I like that you’re tight.’

  ‘It hurts.’ Hot tears rolled down her cheek. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Give it a second …’ But, instead of slowing his pace, Felix speeded up, rocking and bucking on top of her. ‘You’ll get used to it in a second … Lift your hips, baby, that’s it,’ he grabbed her ass and hugged it to his pelvis, ‘that’s it …’

  All Tess knew was that she hated it. Sex was the greatest lie ever told. Lying here with a man she didn’t know, his face pursed above hers, squeaks escaping his lips as his bottom rose and fell, until finally, thankfully,
he ejaculated.

  Tess heard him groan—an echo of that naked, cowardly groan she had witnessed in the stables on her twelfth birthday—and only then did she realise how stupid she had been. Felix flopped out, and started dressing.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘Not bad for a beginner.’

  She watched his figure recede up the beach until he vanished from sight.

  20

  Argentina

  A storm was breaking in Buenos Aires. Warm rain fell and thunder crackled hotly inside a dense bank of cloud. Calida rushed through the capital, clutching her bag to her chest. The city was electrified, living, beating, thrumming with opportunity, and as she sheltered beneath an awning and waited for the deluge to stop, she thought:

  I’ve arrived.

  Cristian had advised she try the Hostel Lima on Avenida Rivadavia, owned by an ex-employee. She took the bus and enquired after a room. It was modest but ample: a bed, a lamp, a desk, a window from which she could glimpse the famous Casa Rosada, and a shared bathroom. She paid a week upfront and unpacked.

  After lunch, she explored the city. The buzz, the energy, the unrelenting motion of Buenos Aires was intoxicating; the people, the vibrant bursts of tango that erupted on the street, the protests that marched past with their banners held aloft, the yellow taxis beeping and weaving, the bustling cafés and ripe scent of cooking and pollution, the wide, leafy boulevards of Palermo, and the cobbled, colourful Plaza Serrano—immediately, she fell in love with it. At Puerto Madero she saw the giant sailboats and the clusters of fragrant passionflowers that adorned the waterfront restaurants. She entered cathedrals, their quiet, liturgical interiors warmed by the glow of Christmas candles, each exquisite Virgen María radiant in her glass case.

  That night, the first in many nights, Calida went to sleep with a smile on her face. She had purpose. Things were changing. Her adventure had begun.