Living with Saci

by M J Dees

  She switched on the radio. It was an interview with an Irish Catholic priest who had counselled a Brazilian who had been shot in Indonesia for drug trafficking. The priest had explained how the boy, Rodrigo, had schizophrenia and heard voices louder than the real voices around him and that right up to the morning of his death he was unable to understand that he was about to be executed. The voices kept telling him that everything was going to be OK and he believed them. The priest recounted how they sang hymns and prayed while the boy was being tied to a post out of their sight. When a single volley of shots rang out, they began praying harder because they knew that Rodrigo would be groaning in pain now until the moment he died. Teresa listened in horror to Rodrigo’s story which somehow made her feel a little bit better about everything that was going on in her life.

  Her phone beeped. It was from Felipe again. She copied and pasted the message and sent it back to him before climbing out of bed and going to the bathroom where the fading outline of ‘I Love You’ was still visible in the mirror. Reassured by these signs that there was someone who wanted her, she sat on the toilet and had a wee. When she was about to flush she noticed spots in the water. She recalled the date. Not her period. She tried to remember whether she had eaten beetroot. She couldn’t remember the last occasion, so she went back into the bedroom, picked up her phone and set a reminder for her to make an appointment with the doctor. She was aware that Felipe was a doctor, but she didn’t want to trouble him with something that might turn out to be quite trivial. He had seemed very stressed. Perhaps it was his work that was a burden for him or perhaps he, like Teresa, was concerned that all the plans for the wedding should be right. He had frowned a great deal the previous night when Teresa had explained all the preparations she was making and had excused himself for bed earlier than usual but not before having at least three large vodka and tonics, she had noticed.

  She had noticed because she had drunk the same. Her cold was moving through its usual progression of phases. The current phase was the one which involved a blocked nose, a cough which seemed incapable of dislodging any phlegm kept her and Felipe awake for most of the night, and she now possessed tingling fatigue that would make everything she attempted today more difficult.

  Teresa dwelt on the idea that she and her daughter would soon be together. If just for a brief time. Felipe had not questioned the suggestion of a honeymoon in England. He too had often thought about the possibility of travel and had always wanted to see the sights of London. The Queen’s Palace, Big Ben, the house where Sherlock Holmes had lived. He told her he had always dreamt of visiting these places, and now he would have the opportunity. Once Felipe had warmed to the idea of a honeymoon in England, Teresa revealed her ulterior motive, to visit, and to spend time with, her daughter. Felipe was not opposed to the idea, and so she contacted her daughter’s father by email and suggested the visit. This reply was also positive and, for the first time in a long time, Teresa felt optimistic that things were on the up.

  As usual, she caught the metro the wrong way so she could get a seat. A train had pulled into the station as she descended the stairs to the platform, so she rushed to the open doors, dodging the passengers emerging from the train, including a woman carrying a sleeping baby. She leapt through the closing doors and searched for her preferred seat. One by a window, away from the aisle so that she couldn’t be made to feel guilty by someone needier than her. These people had no idea that Teresa had travelled two stops in the opposite direction for her seat and that she was not about to give it up.

  Chapter Thirty-Two - the calm before the storm – 15th October 2015

  Teresa waved Felipe over as soon as he rushed inside to escape the torrential rain. Skype was already dialling on the laptop in front of her, punctuated by bursts of thunder from outside.

  “Come here, would you like to see my daughter?” she beckoned and gave him a short kiss on the lips. Peck would be a better description. Felipe looked at the screen, but all he could see was a grey cartoon silhouette and some numbers.

  The screen burst into life, and a kind-looking man with dark hair, starting to grey, filled the screen though not looking at it but at a slight angle towards the side.

  “Hello,” said Teresa excitement bubbling in her voice.

  A bright flash and a loud crack after which all the lights went off and the image on the screen of the laptop froze.

  “Jesus!” Teresa clutched her hand to her heart which was beating faster with genuine fear.

  “That was close,” observed Felipe.

  After a moment the lights came back on, and the T.V. digital box began rebooting itself. However, the Internet router remained lifeless and Teresa’s screen frozen.

  “What’s happened? Why isn’t it working?” Teresa was beginning to panic.

  Felipe fiddled with the box plugging it into different sockets and turned the switches on and off, but it was dead.

  “The lightning must have fried it,” he said, showing Teresa the now useless lump of plastic.

  Teresa burst into tears.

  “Now what?”

  “We’ll have to get them to come out and give us another,” said Felipe.

  “But I was just skyping with Annabel.” Teresa protested.

  “I’m sorry darling.”

  Teresa went into a sulk.

  “What can I do? It’s not my fault,” said Felipe but this did not placate Teresa who was now determined to remain in a bad mood.

  Felipe sighed a long deep sigh, got up and walked through to the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” Teresa shouted after him. Felipe didn’t answer.

  Teresa contemplated how Felipe had seemed very moody. Teresa felt she had to be careful not to upset him. She heard him shut the bathroom door with a bang and then the shower door bang and the water turn on.

  Felipe had seemed to be working longer and longer shifts, taking more opportunities for overtime. He said that they needed the money for the wedding and honeymoon, but Teresa felt like she hardly ever saw him. She wondered what she was doing wrong to make him not want to be with her.

  She went into the bedroom, sat on the bed and waited for him to emerge from the bathroom. When he did appear, he was wearing his robe and hopped to the end of the bed.

  “What is it darling?” Teresa asked, trying to sound as concerned as possible.

  “It’s not my fault the lightning fried the Internet,” he said, still very upset.

  “I know it’s not your fault,” she said. “I was just upset that I didn’t get to speak to my daughter. That was all.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder and smiled. He turned to look at her.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He pulled her down onto the bed, and they began to kiss.

  Chapter Thirty-Three – The wine – 7th January 2016

  “Did you get it?” Teresa asked as soon as Felipe walked through the door.

  “Here you go,” he said, pulling a bottle from his bag.

  “That’s not the one I wanted?” Teresa exclaimed.

  Felipe sighed and dumped the bottle on the kitchen table.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’ll have to do.”

  “Well, it does matter, doesn’t it,” Felipe complained. “Why are they coming again?”

  “They’re just coming to have pizza. We don’t see them often.”

  Felipe exhaled a deep sigh.

  “Come on,” Teresa tried to reason. “We never have any company. We never go out. Let’s be a little bit sociable for a change.”

  “It’s not my fault you don’t have any friends,” he said.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Teresa protested.

  “I’m joking.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  “What are we going to talk about? We’ve got nothing in common.” Felipe protested.

  Felipe looked like a little boy who had just been told he has to do his homework.

  “Do it for me,
please.” Teresa pleaded.

  “OK, but you owe me,” Felipe warned going into the bedroom to get changed.

  Teresa breathed a sigh of relief and continued tidying the kitchen feeling guilty for putting Felipe through this evening with her brother and sister-in-law. She heard a bird singing outside and stopped to listen.

  “Oh no,” she said aloud.

  “What’s wrong?” Felipe asked from the bedroom.

  “Nothing. I just heard a striped cuckoo.”

  “What?” Felipe asked, appearing at the bedroom door.

  “A striped cuckoo. You know what they say about the striped cuckoo being Saci.”

  “What?”

  “My mother always used to say that if you hear a striped cuckoo that something bad is about to happen. I think there must be a family of them nesting on our roof.”

  “What a load of rubbish,” Felipe said. “You shouldn’t believe in all this mumbo-jumbo. Why don’t you ask your dear Lord to protect you?”

  “You don’t have to agree with my beliefs. But you should at least respect my rights to have them.”

  “Fine, you believe in your imaginary friends if you want to.”

  “Please don’t get into an argument with Selma about God again.”

  “So I can’t believe what I want in my own house then?”

  “You can believe whatever you want, just don’t start an argument with Selma about what she believes.”

  “She better not start praying,” Felipe warned.

  “And if she does?” Teresa argued. “Just leave her.”

  “In my house.”

  “I believe in God as well you know.” Teresa reminded him.

  “Yes, but you don’t pray over your food.”

  Teresa sighed.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “OK.” Felipe consented. “But just because it’s you.”

  Felipe opened the fridge and got out a beer.

  “Are you going to offer me one?” Teresa asked.

  Felipe sighed, re-opened the fridge door, pulled out a beer and set it down on the table in front of Teresa.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I’m not your servant you know.”

  “No, but a little consideration once in a while wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

  “Yeah, cause I’m such a bastard aren’t I?” he said, taking his beer and stomping into the living room where he turned on the TV.

  “Aren’t you going to give me a hand?”

  Felipe delivered another large sigh.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Would you set the table please?”

  Another sigh as Felipe pushed himself up and returned to the kitchen.

  “Thank you,” said Teresa.

  “I’ve had a hard day.” Felipe protested.

  “We can’t all be doctors saving the world.”

  “I’m not devaluing what you do.”

  “Oh no?”

  “No, I’m just saying that I can’t believe your day was as difficult as mine, you’re on holiday, and I’m tired, and I just want to sit down for five minutes and have a rest before your bloody family turns up.”

  “OK, I’ll do it then,” Teresa said trying to take the knives and forks out of Felipe’s hand.

  “No, I’ll do it,” said Felipe, holding onto the cutlery so that a small tug of war contest ensued.

  Felipe managed to wrench the cutlery out of Teresa’s hand, cutting her in the process.

  “You’ve cut me,” Teresa exclaimed as they both stare at her hand in horror.

  “You should have let go.” Felipe protested.

  “You cut me,” Teresa repeated in disbelief.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, looking at the small cut in Teresa’s palm.

  “But you cut me.”

  “Arrghh, I can’t do anything right can I?” Felipe began to shout. “Fuck this!”

  He throws the cutlery across the kitchen, causing Teresa to flinch.

  “Fuck everything! Fuck your fucking family and fuck their fucking pizza.”

  He grabbed the small metal table and threw it to the floor with a large crash that made Teresa back up to the kitchen sink, then Felipe stormed off to the living room, slammed the door behind him as loudly as he could and locked it.

  Teresa stood alone in the silence and began to cry.

  She slumped into the metal kitchen chair still standing, took out her phone and texted Selma to cancel.

  Chapter Thirty-Four - The Morning After – 8th January 2016

  When Teresa awoke, she wondered where Felipe was for a while until he remembered that he’d slept in the living room and then all the horrible recollections of the previous evening came flooding back to her. She raised herself to a seated position, and her hand hurt. At that point, the memory of Felipe grabbing the cutlery from her hand returned. She could see the contents of the kitchen table still scattered across the floor. She heard Felipe get up, unlock and open the door of the living room. She pretended to be asleep as she heard him walk into the kitchen, which Teresa had not bothered to tidy, and across to the bedroom as quietly as he could. The bedroom had never had a door, so Teresa imagined Felipe thought it was quite easy to slip into the bedroom without waking her. Teresa lay with her back to the door, so it was impossible for him to determine whether she was sleeping or not. Felipe crept across the room to the bathroom, closed the door behind him as quietly as he could and turned on the shower. Teresa imagined the warm water felt good. When he was gone, she would have a hot shower and let the water run over her as if it could cleanse her of everything that had happened. But she knew it would be no use. At the end of the shower, all the memories would still be there. It was impossible now to go back and change the past. Everything that had happened had happened and would always have happened, and there was nothing she could do to change that fact.

  Teresa heard Felipe turn off the shower, towel himself dry and take his bathrobe from the back of the door.

  “So you’re just going to sneak off are you?” Teresa said as he emerged from the bathroom.

  “No, I er…” he hesitated.

  “Are we not going to talk?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But I need to get to work.”

  “OK, so that’s it then is it?”

  “No, but…” he didn’t have a but. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “OK, you want to talk, so let’s talk.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Felipe looked tired. Teresa thought he didn’t look like he would be able to complete his shift. Teresa did not need to work. It was the school holidays. For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Felipe looked like he did not know what to say, and Teresa felt it was not her who should need to start the conversation.

  “Are you not going to say anything?” She asked when her patience ran out, which was not long.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  “Sorry isn’t going to change anything.”

  “I know,” he said.

  There was another awkward pause.

  “Look, I’m going to have to go to work. Can I talk about this when I get back?”

  “You don’t care about me is that it?” She accused.

  “Of course I do.” he protested.

  “Funny way to show it.”

  “I know.”

  “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know much do you?”

  He shook his head.

  Another pause.

  “Look…”

  “I know. You need to go to work.”

  “We’ll talk when I get back,” he suggested.

  “Maybe.” her response was designed to be a kind of warning, but Felipe just sighed.

  “OK, I’ll see you later then,” he said, getting up to leave.

  “Maybe,” she repeated. But her threat ha
d no teeth. Where was she supposed to go? He was in a much better position to not return than she was to leave and she knew that he knew this.

  He looked at her once more and left. She buried her head in her pillow and cried. What had she done to deserve this luck? The one man that she thought might be different had also turned out to be a bastard.

  Teresa’s flaw in relationships was that she had a belief that she could change the man into the man she wanted him to be. She had never converted a man into the type of individual she desired and had spent many years, many unsuccessful relationships many tearful nights trying but to no avail.

  There was no evidence to suggest that this relationship would be different to any of the others but she did not want to fail again. She was getting too old, she felt, to keep starting again and she would like, if she could, to have another child. The clock was ticking; time was running out. If there was a chance to make it work, then she had to try. But Felipe had displayed behaviour that was unacceptable. That no one should have to tolerate. Perhaps this was Karma for her betrayal of Mariana whom she had barely spoken to since her relationship with Felipe had begun

  She couldn’t help feeling, however, that Felipe was different and that she could help him change in a way that she had failed with the others. Part of her told her that she was deluding herself, but another part argued that she had to try. This internal argument went backwards and forwards for a while with one voice telling her she should get as far away from this man as soon as she could and the other seeing a possible future, a happy life. It was school holidays, so she tried to get some sleep but neither her agitated mind nor two excited cats, delighted at the fact she hadn’t left for work again, would let her slumber.

  She gave up altogether and got up to make herself some breakfast.

  She fed the cats and made some coffee feeling more bullish by the minute. She should confess everything to Mariana and try to patch things up. Explain what a bastard Felipe had turned out to be and tell Felipe to get out.

  She sent Mariana a text which read ‘Hello?’ but it was ignored.

  Felipe arrived home early. Teresa was surprised by his arrival.

  “Hello,” he said as he entered the kitchen, his face looking just as ashamed as it had the moment he had left.

  “Hello?” She said, pretending to be surprised, even though she heard him opening the entrance gates moments earlier. “You’re back early.”