“I’m going to come soon,” I grunted, more in warning than anything else.
Her mouth was too busy for an answer, and she merely rolled her eyes sarcastically as if to say “I would never have guessed!” then gave my bottom a slap of encouragement with her free hand.
When I came it took us both by surprise. Neither of us were expecting the force of my ejaculation (“It was like a fireman’s hose,” she said later), nor its abundance: she swallowed several times then gave up, letting it cascade over her lower lip and chin in a milky dribble.
Later, she removed her clothes too, and rode me until she cried out again, the sound of her cries making a little echo, so she became self-conscious and gently bit my shoulder instead.
We lay there, naked, talking, until the air became too cool for comfort. As I made to pick up my clothes I glanced up and saw three small heads silhouetted at the top of the gorge.
By the time Magdalena lifted her head to see what I was looking at they had vanished. As we set off on our downward climb I thought to myself, “Mine may be a disappearing island, but at least it has its traditions.”
*
Nicky fell silent and we all wanted to know what had happened next. Had the beautiful Magdalena returned to her previous profession? Or had Nicky married her and even now she was eagerly awaiting his return with a child on her hip? But the Sea Captain sensed that these questions may have been unwelcome so he just said, “Yes, traditions... which reminds me...” and he started on another story of his own.
SAN SEBASTIAN
Justine Dubois
Justine Dubois is a Parisian, who has lived most of her life in London. She trained as a painter, which explains some of the visual intensity in her writing. She reads widely, and has travelled adventurously. For all her career she has been involved in the Arts, and is now writing full-length fiction. Her favourite place in London is Kensington Gardens; her two favourite places in all the world: Venice, and Jailsamer in Rajasthan.
It is half past five in the morning. The sky is a haze of half grey. Under a canopy of wrought iron the fish market is setting up. The street shutters are painted blue and orange. He is tall and she only a little less so. His dark hair is slicked back from his forehead, above eyes that are cool and grey. His wide mouth, whose smile spells sensuality, is down-turned in disappointment. She dances at his heels. They pass another couple quarrelling. There’s something familiar in the shape of the other man’s head, distracting him momentarily.
“It seems as though the whole world is quarrelling today,” he sighs. “Not just us.”
“Can’t you understand that I am too tired to climb some damned mountain at five in the morning,” she says shrilly, “just in the hope of seeing an exceptional sunrise?” He looks at her with a frown, shocked, as always, by the philistine in her. But she doesn’t notice.
“You always were impossible, and selfish,” she continues. “Yesterday, we walked all round Madrid in the midday heat, which was your idea. We stood up all night on the train without a seat, and now you want to go for a walk, rather than find our hotel?” The look in her eyes is close to hatred.
“But it is almost dawn and still cool enough to climb,” he pleads gently. “The view of the town and the bay will be breathtaking. God knows, we only have one night here. And you can rest as much as you want later on. By this time tomorrow morning we will be back on the train. And it could be years before we return.”
He scans her face for some sign of relenting good humour.
“Couldn’t you just make the effort?” But she is closed off. The fishermen and traders watch them knowingly, warily. The fish pass through their flat, bronzed hands in flashes of colour, the turquoise of a fin, the rose-pink underside of an octopus. Bouffant heads of carnations form mini hedgerows, dividing the stalls and their produce.
This is a different aesthetic, he thinks to himself, this is Lorca country. The land where hatred and beauty and love form an eternal triangle. “Perhaps it is fitting for us to quarrel against such a backdrop of emotion and colour,” he says.
“How pretentious,” she says.
He glances down at his wife’s tight features. She is almost unrecognizable. He abandons the argument. “I’ll go on my own,” he says, trying to conceal his disappointment; he feels that touristic pleasures ought to be shared.
“Which would you prefer,” he asks, resorting to chivalry, “to go and find the hotel now on your own? It is too early to check in. Our room won’t be vacant until midday, but we could leave the luggage there. Or shall we find a café where you can wait for me, have some breakfast, a tortilla jamon?”
She looks up at his handsome head, all its charm dissipated in strain. His eyes are pale, too pale, no feeling animates them. His formality and politeness are a bad sign.
“How long will you be?” she says. He glances away. He can just make out the distant silhouette of the statue of Christ on Monte Urgull, one arm outstretched in benediction. “Difficult to say exactly.”
The early-morning heat is still burning off the moisture from the night before. There is a haze in the air. Distances are deceptive. “One hour, two at the most,” he hazards.
“You always were a bore,” she says. He looks at her coolly, assessing her in terms of distances too.
“Maybe,” he replies uncertainly. He is hurt and attempts to explain. “This is something I have always dreamed of doing.”
She shrugs. “Very well. Let’s find a café. I’ll wait for you there and then go to the hotel if I get fed up.”
“Won’t you change your mind and come with me?” he says, his mood softening.
“No chance. I don’t know how you even dare ask after the night we’ve spent.” He tries to smile. Perhaps she is right? Maybe his demands are too many? His stamina is greater than hers. He frowns, but guilt does not sit easily with him.
They choose a café on a street corner midway between the fish market and the near end of the bay. Its chairs are made of glossy wicker, interwoven with strands of bright red and green. The tables are fat, menthol-green circles of glass. She sits down, fussily trying to arrange her luggage around her. The waiter appears, his body like a toreador’s, his features immune to charm.
“Are you going to stay and have a coffee with me first?” she says hopefully.
“No, I want to catch the dawn light over the bay.” He glances impatiently at his watch and looks towards the statue, just visible now in the distance above the mist. “No time to lose.”
“Very well.” She orders herself coffee and croissants, a tortilla jamon and a small glass of Spanish brandy. He raises his eyebrows.
“You had better go,” she says. He turns on his heels. It occurs to him to plant a kiss on her face, but her expression forbids it.
As he turns to leave, he again half registers the back view of the man sitting alone at another table. Was it he and his girlfriend who had also been quarrelling in the fish market? Perhaps they were on the same train? He glances back once more at his wife and then moves on swiftly. He feels guilty, like a recalcitrant schoolboy who has insisted on his own way. But, as he turns away from the café, his mood begins to improve. He begins to breathe freely again. Two more turnings and he is on the Passeo Nuevo, the wide promenade that almost encircles Monte Urgull and opens on to the Atlantic and La Concha, a superb long curve of bay lined by elegant Edwardian hotels and gardens. His destination is the sculpture of Christ, which stands high above one end.
He walks at an even pace. The sea is still grey with the remnants of the night. The path ahead of him begins to climb, imperceptibly at first. Then, suddenly, he is above the bay, higher up than he anticipated. The walk is part woodland, part shrubbery. He climbs further. The path zigzags from shelf to shelf of terraces. The land has the luxuriant quality of green, uncultivated gardens. Halfway up, he pauses to catch his breath and look back at the view. Now that he is alone, he begins to feel exhilarated.
He feels intoxicatingly free, as though only this
minute and this view and this exquisite feeling count. He senses all the possibilities of freedom, of hope; also the senselessness of shackled love. He begins to feel at one with nature.
He stops briefly to light a Gitane, its heady perfume mixing with the bougainvillea and the salt from the Atlantic. As he smokes the cigarette he takes a battered book from his pocket and reads a scrap of poetry by Lorca. By now he has lost all sense of time. His wife and her discomfort have disappeared.
Within the dark eyes of the Nun
Two horsemen gallop...
He shuts the book and starts to climb the final stage. Suddenly, towering above his head, is the statue of Christ, welcoming him.
The girl is sitting at the base of the sculpture, as if waiting for him. Her smooth dark hair moves as a single, well-cut shape about the delicate features of her face. She is dressed simply in white skirt and blouse. She looks out greedily over the bay, anxious not to miss the first bright slivers of sunshine. He guesses she is American. She turns her head towards him and smiles.
“I have been watching you climb, saw you stop to read. I thought you might get here too late.”
He half apologizes. “I expected to be alone.” He laughs thoughtfully. “So, I expect, did you.” He sits down next to her.
“I have seen you before,” she says. He scans her features. She is beautiful, delicate, with a body as agile as a cat’s. A distant glow in the sky; it is getting lighter. “I am ashamed to say that I don’t remember.”
“You are reading Lorca,” she says, surprise in her blue eyes.
Under the blaze of twenty suns
How steep a level plain inclines.
She takes the book from his hand. The first piercing rays of sunshine, pink and gold, appear over the bay. They both fall still, spellbound. As he turns towards her, her features are suffused with the pink light of the sun. They glance at one another, with a cold hard light of recognition and then they look away. They refocus on conversation.
The book falls from her lap and they both scrabble to retrieve it. In the dust at their feet their hands meet; a quicksilver electricity has run between them. They look at one another in surprise.
“I was quarrelling too,” she says. They sit back, seeking some equilibrium. They both feel sharpened by their respective quarrels, both wracked with emotion. The sun is warm on their faces. Around them the light begins to dapple the trees.
The sunshine plays a game of chess
Over her lattice with the trees.
It travels across the cold stone of the statue. They look outwards, tension in their arms, and turn towards one another at the same moment. Afterwards, he cannot remember thinking of kissing her. Yet her lips beneath his are soft and sweet. Her body folds, yielding and urgent, within the circle of his. As his arms engulf her, he feels the narrow, bird-like cage of her diaphragm, feels her rapid heartbeat. Her skin has the dry, burnt musky perfume of sea and sun. They exchange one last glance of recognition, before closing their eyes against the piercing sun.
His hands slip over her, laying her bare on the stone, teasing and spreading her body. She picks shyly at the buttons of his shirt, at the buckle of his trousers. It is her last positive act before he invades her. As he enters her, her legs curl around him. His muffled kisses sweep her breasts, her neck, her mouth. He tastes her skin. She judders in his arms; sweet abandon. He still does not ask her name. Beneath his caresses, she softens.
He pulls her upright in his arms to sit on his lap. Her legs tighten around his waist. The figure of Christ looks down on them in blessing. They move in unison, excitement building. Almost, almost... And then he pulls back, and props her in front of the statue, her naked back on the cool stone. She is now a rag doll. His whole body overwhelms her; a threshold of pain, and then twin cries. He falls in love with her. He feels his old life fall from him, like a useless garment. He rocks her in his arms, stroking her hair, kissing her lips and neck, teaching her true ownership. She is pliant, exhausted and joyous. She smiles up at him, a strange familiarity with the unknown.
Hand in hand they walk back to the bay and go, fully dressed, straight into the sea to swim together. By now the sun is hot. As they emerge, their light cotton clothes dry on them. They walk back towards the café. They have both decided to be brave, to explain.
His wife is no longer sitting alone. The man at her table rises to greet him. “Hello, my friend, I thought I recognized you earlier. It must be years since we last met, since I left for America.” He turns to the dark-haired girl at his friend’s side. “Oh good, I see you have already met my fiancée. How was the view, darling?”
His wife also smiles up at him, no longer ill-tempered. “Was it wonderful...?” she begins enthusiastically, but the question dies in her throat.
TORN LACE
Justine Dubois
Justine Dubois is a Parisian, who has lived most of her life in London. She trained as a painter, which explains some of the visual intensity in her writing. She reads widely, and has travelled adventurously. For all her career she has been involved in the Arts, and is now writing full-length fiction. Her favourite place in London is Kensington Gardens; her two favourite places in all the world: Venice, and Jailsamer in Rajasthan.
There is something gentle about him. He is like a giant sleeping panda. They are both good at sleep, he better at it than she. She leans over him, tucking him in, as though he were a baby. He snuffles contentedly, caught half way between the softness of the duvet and consciousness. He emits sweet smells of lavender, mixed with his own shadowy musk.
She pulls open the curtains and there, framed pictorially in the distance, is the mainland, its coastline of torn lace dazzled by the heave and height of waves formation-dancing towards her. The green land runs low in the picture frame, like ill-pegged tarpaulin sheets, haphazardly dotted with bright white Monopoly-piece houses, local excuses for architectural design and shameful apologies for the crofters’ cottages on which they are based. Nothing that is man-made in this landscape is any match for the drama of sea and sky.
Their visitors left yesterday. They are now alone on the island. She wonders if he is afraid. He is not physically brave. His placidity can easily turn to anxiety. From beneath their windows, soft bleatings fade on the buffeting winds; a row of goats congregate in disciplined, follow-my-leader line, their sweet muzzle faces looking peacefully out to sea, as if they silently anticipate something. The sky is streaked with red, “Shepherd’s warning”; the calm before the storm.
She turns to find him watching her, his eyes shiny with dark pleasure, against the planes of his handsome, sombre face. They have long dispensed with speech, except in moments when they set out to converse with one another in graceful minuets of shared opinion. For the rest, they rely more precisely on demeanour and bearing, on shared glances. His features are fundamentally impassive. Nevertheless, he has a repertoire of twenty or so inflected faces and she has learned to decipher them all, to read them and say nothing. She knows that he also studies her, keeping his thoughts to himself.
The moment when he first detected her adultery had passed her by. Yet, he had never complained. Was it at the time, three years earlier? She knows him too well. He would simply have accepted her infidelity as a gift of freedom, as a waiving of responsibility that would allow him a platform from which to do whatever he chose, so long as the status quo prevailed unchallenged. He does not want to lose her, loves her still in his own silent way, loves her more than before perhaps, respectful of her bid for independence. The only outer sign of his perception, the way that she knows he knows, is his new habit of washing himself, soap and warm water, immediately after they make love. And even this habit would remain his secret, if it were not for the way, each time, he instinctively misplaces the soap, left like a fish out of its dish, stranded and guilty on the expanse of bleached ceramic.
Setting had always been an important clue to deciphering him. She remembers the early days, when her love for him was raw and tinged with desperation
. She would go out before breakfast to get the Sunday papers, a brief span of minutes, but by the time she returned the phone would be reversed in its cradle (the cord spiralling from the top and not the bottom of its oval shape). At the end of the month when the phone bill arrived, it would be clouded by details of long-distance calls to numbers she neither recognized, nor dared ring. In those days recognition had made her unhappy. Now, her watchfulness is only designed to protect the fine surfaces between them. She knows that these surfaces, strong and elastic as they are, nevertheless camouflage potential chaos.
In her mind, she conjures her lover, temporarily left behind in London. How different he is from the sleeping panda; a man more becoming, more graceful. Yet, she loves them both. Nothing in one overlaps the other. They represent sweet difference, neither better nor worse.
She has ceased to ask questions. She knows that if she is patient the brown eyes and twenty faces will tell her everything. At the moment of her infidelity, her love for him had still been undiluted. Her decision to be unfaithful had been both inspired and calculated. Yet, she had never regretted it.
He sits up in bed, suddenly alert, his attention caught by a distant sail. “Someone is making for the island.” She glances behind her. “Are you sure?” He nods. “But we are not expecting anyone.” He shrugs. “Day trippers, maybe.” In spite of his shrug, she registers his anxiety. The panda in him disappears to be replaced by a bear, a brown grizzly bear, baleful and potentially angry. He gets dressed, not bothering to shower.
In spite of the windswept beauty of the island, he dresses formally in jacket, shirt and tie and grey flannel trousers. He can scarcely conceive of casualness. He vacillates always between formality and abandon; nothing in between. One of his many faces tells her that he is troubled, cross. Five minutes earlier his brown eyes had been benignly appraising. Now they are hard and introspective, his face fierce with the emotion of conflict. She recognizes it as the face that heralds anger at his own miscalculation, and for which she will certainly be blamed. It is as though he has perceived a danger that she has not yet had the wit to anticipate.
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