Dig Two Graves. Carolyn Morwood
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relaxing, as though the word had united them. Togetherness. Togetherness on the strength of a single word and a dazzling smile.
He finished his cornflakes, tipping the bowl to pour the last of the sweet liquid into his spoon. A habit that used to irritate Amanda.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea, Jane?’
He liked her name. ‘Jane Goodman’ was unfussy and a long way from Amanda Brigitte Catherine Downer and his ex’s pride in having an unworkable handle like that. The initials ABCD had been a family thing she had thought cute and he absurd. He shook his head. He hadn’t thought about Amanda for months now and here she was popping up all over the place.
‘Thanks. Black, no sugar.’
He was smiling when he walked into the kitchen. From small things bigger things grew. His mother had said that. His mother the professor, who had been careful to instil in him good diction and a love of language and literature. She had said a lot of things when he was growing up that flashed up even now. He used to think they were trite, but all these years on they seemed increasingly profound.
Alfredo consulted the list of residents that the Fundacion had sent him weeks earlier, but read just the one listing.
Rose Sinclair. Sydney, Australia. Pintora.
He had seen Sydney on TV when the Olympics were on. A city full of sunshine and sea and yachts. Rose would suit it, he thought, with her sea-green eyes and bright hair.
There were a few small images of her paintings that he studied closely. They showed a few clear objects looming out of an unclear background. A woman’s hand. Half a face. A dark curved shape, like a sickle.
Rose. The word was similar in Spanish. El Rosa. The most stunning of flowers. Last night, Rosa, until tiredness set in, had been alive and charming, holding her own in a conversation that moved between cities and things he couldn’t understand.
He liked the way she used her hands when she spoke, as if to demonstrate her point and include others in the conversation. He liked that when she asked a question, she turned her head to the side. A vain woman but captivating too. Every now and then she would turn to him and smile, as if commiserating over his exclusion.
Alfredo wrote a sentence in Spanish, and with the help of his phrasebook, transcribed it into English. He had a day to settle in before the stone arrived. Why not settle in with Rose?
Rose picked up her art case and went to find her assigned studio. Each studio was separated by a tidy stretch of gravel and an orange tree. Studio 4 was furthest from the house and, as such, the quietest. It was spacious and full of light and, all things permitting, she should work well here. She put her case on the bench.
Through the doorway, the orange tree was heavy with fruit which glowed in the morning light like Christmas baubles or tiny suns. Could she use them as a motif in a series of paintings or was that the worst cliché?
She had promised Veronica, the manager of the Terrace Gallery in Randwick, at least another five paintings to fill out her component of the ‘Exotic and Surreal’ exhibition that she was to share with Peter Lin at the end of April.
Sharing had been Veronica’s idea. Cross-pollination, she had called it. Rose had been persuaded because it guaranteed her more exposure in the art world. And Spain was surely the perfect place to come up with ideas on the exotic, even if the name of the exhibition was ridiculous.
There was some traction in the idea of oranges. That they thrived in a desert certainly seemed exotic, if not surreal, but a familiar voice sprang up in her mind.
Oranges, for Christ’s sake, Rose. Next you’ll be painting flowers. One step away from the mad world of your mother.
She shook the voice away and followed Silvia’s directions to the village. The path was uphill and led between a gully and an orange grove. When she’d come through Cabrera she felt it would take a while to appreciate it. All those whitewashed houses seemed almost too contrived to believe, although that also fitted her artistic brief. Only it was the last thing she wanted to paint.
From the village you could see the residence in the valley below. The wide low building with red roof tiles and ochre walls. In the other direction, down a long and sloping road, was the sea. The Mediterranean, that place of myth and story and fable. When she came to it finally, she was disappointed that any sea could be so ordered. The day was still and the sun had slid behind a cloud so that the light was muted. The view was laid out in stripes: the grey of the road, the yellow sand, a dull blue band of sea.
Hotels and resorts and golf courses stretched out endlessly along the beach road, with names that switched between Spanish and English. The Emperador. Hotel Atlántico. The London, with its banners of Union Jacks.
She returned to the village, found a café and ordered, by way of gestures, coffee and a pastry. The proprietor looked right through her and Rose felt her faint hostility. What was that about? Foreigners in general or her in particular?
Back at the residence she said hello to the gardener who was watering the orange trees, while a small dog looked on impassively. From Silvia’s speech, this was Carlos, who didn’t speak English, but was integral to the running of the place. He was one of those swarthy Spanish types, heavy-set and older than she’d thought a gardener might be. The light glinted on his glasses and he didn’t look at her, let alone reply.
Silvia came out of the front door to greet her, making a little tsking sound as she approached. ‘Rose, there’s been a mix-up with the studios. You’ve taken the one assigned to Marion. Yours is studio 2 at the other end of the driveway.’
Rose thought about studio 4: the garden and the view and the lack of noise. She thought about Silvia, who disapproved of her, and Marion, whose conversation served no point other than to fill the silence.
As far as she knew all the studios were the same and Marion could work in 2 just as easily as 4. Bugger Marion and bugger moving, even if it only meant shifting her case. She proceeded to dig in.
Alfredo took his chance to use his carefully transcribed question when he saw Rose sitting on the bench seat outside her studio, staring into space. She looked as if she was seeking inspiration. He knew about inspiration and the lack of it, as did every artist. He was pretty sure that interrupting her wouldn’t take her away from considerations of work.
Rose read his note, seemingly pleased he had sought her out and taken the trouble to find the English.
‘Walk Cabrera Old?’
‘Si.’ Alfredo pointed to the mountain and then his watch and held up three fingers.
‘Three o’clock?’
He nodded. ‘Si.’
Alfredo hesitated, wanting to say more, but he didn’t know how. He headed back to his studio to put his tools in order, his mind full of the sunlight on Rose’s hair.
In the afternoon, Mike spent a few hours exploring the village and ended up at a bar in the plaza, drinking beer. He wanted to listen to some Spanish and have a quiet think. He knew exactly what his work entailed for the month ahead. He’d dug out a half-completed manuscript he’d given away some time ago that had, this morning, assumed a few possibilities. Thin possibilities, admittedly, but there were moments where he’d glimpsed his through-line, moments where he’d forgotten to judge and got lost in his own story. His character, Percy Streeton, had never been to Spain and that was something he could bring in to reinforce the fish-out-of-water aspect of the novel.
That he, Mike Bailey, should be here in this high plaza, in southern Spain, looking out over the sunlit valley below and listening in to people’s conversations, felt amazing. On the wall near the travel agent, posters advertised music at a club called El Techo. If he’d translated correctly, El Techo was open every night of the week. The Spanish, the poster and the beer all added to his sense of wellbeing.
Wandering back to the residence in the late afternoon, he saw Jane in the lane ahead of him, walking slowly in the dark shadows of the