A World Apart and Other Stories Read online

  The phone rang. Who else? Wearily, guiltily, he answered.

  She must have feared that he would hang up on her because she blurted out

  ‘I have been to the hospital and the police and this time I am not letting you get off so lightly and you needn't think I'm going to leave you because I never will because I love you.’

  ‘This has got to stop, Irene,’

  but she had already rung off.

  This has to stop.

  A week later Irene phoned again. She wanted a date, to talk about the charges brought against him. She would expect a full capitulation, an unconditional surrender, promises of undying love. In return all charges would be dropped, and she would be his, forever. Defeat. Except this time it was perfect for Juan, it would suit his purpose ideally and serve as a pretext for him to put his plan into action. Poor Irene, tempting fate once more, one last time.

  Irene's room was a curious mix between a young girl's bedroom and a cheap whore's den, two extremes which had at first stirred in Juan the most diverse and perverse fantasies, but which he now found repugnant. Dolls in pink dresses, silver platform shoes, tiny porcelain owls, a pot of vaseline on the bedside table, cushions with ribbons, purple satin sheets. She was mirrored by her soft furnishings and decorations: Irene the little slut, Irene the big kid. Bitter sweet Irene who had a small plaque on the door which read Irene's Room, adorned with tiny wild flowers, and on the door knob, stolen from some hotel, Do Not Disturb.

  Juan had everything planned out....... I'm not going to go through with this........ He had sent Irene for a bottle of whisky.............. you can't force me to do it.............. to soften her up a little. He had finally decided against luring her to the ironmonger's ….... thank you!........... it would be too difficult to explain, to get away with. The blood, the neighbours, the disposal of the corpse, and he'd need a copy of the keys. No, this plan was infinitely better, simpler, cleaner even............. ironic to the end, as always. But his time I'm not prepared to....... It was all decided. Juan had decided that the best way...... Juan has not decided anything of the sort....... that the best way to get rid of Irene was to simulate a suicide..... very clean........ A tepid, fluid, soapy death. Two gentle cuts, deeply and lovingly applied, and her dry life would dissolve in clean water........ a blood bath, as you would say...... A sweet death, painless, smooth..... a pointless death, unnecessary.

  He went into the bathroom and........................... Juan went into the bathroom......... Juan!......It's no good, I told you I have no intention of carrying on with this morbid play...... You will go into the bathroom, Juan, and prepare a warm bath for your beloved Irene.......... you'll have to create another protagonist because I....... We'll see about that. He sat on the bed. Juan, please. Thank you. He sat on the bed as he heard Irene's key in the lock.

  ‘Whisky!’

  She held the bottle up in the air like a trophy.

  ‘And some nuts, too.’

  She looked very happy, as if she'd just won a court case and wanted to celebrate.

  ‘Have you run my bath yet?’

  ‘Very good!’

  ‘What's that? Don't tell me you've been sitting there all this time. Bloody hell. Alright, stay there. Here!’

  She threw the bottle at him.

  ‘I'll do it. Don't drink it all. Back in a tick.’

  And she slipped into the bathroom.

  Everything was going perfectly. Juan would encourage Irene to drink more than she should, then.............. I mean what I say.

  Naturally Juan was tormented by contradictory....... No, don't bother with all that. I know you will try to justify it all, you've been working on it since we started the story. All those apparently harmless fantasies. She's mad, you say, she's as violent as I am, I'm suffering some kind of sexual, physical, mental harassment. Have pity on me............ You will have to do it if I want you to..... Try me...... Juan took a long slug. Juan. Juan. Fuck you man, pick up the bottle right now, enough is enough!........ You can shout and swear and say it as many times as you like, but it all ends here. I'm not going to follow the script. You are sick, can't you see that? The omnipotent writer, the omniscient author, narrating our pathetic drama so that the reader realises just how intelligent you are, how much you understand, and consequently, always consequently, how you are able to justify and explain our actions, all the better to later forgive us our oh so human sins.

  Driven by an inexplicable..... Stop it now. Give us a break, for the love of god. There is not going to be the morbid murder that you illustrious literati are so fond of. The fascination you have with death! Somebody else's death, naturally. One thing I can see clearly now above all the rest; your 'creations' mean absolutely nothing to you. You send us off to do all sorts of barbaric things so that you can come up trumps, the lord and master of reason. Compassionate, understanding, saving yourself for the last pages, your grand final judgement where you analyse the predictable errors of mere mortals. What do you give us? Let me see. A past, some stones in our mouths instead of words (the ability to express oneself is yours, correct?), a preconceived life without the slightest possibility of change, with no chance of salvation.

  ‘Juan, come to me, my love.’

 

  You are incorrigible, but this time I swear you will not have your way. I rebel. Do you want to see her dead? Well kill her yourself, it's easy enough, you only have to raise your pen. You can be sure that I will not harm her, never again. Forget I exist.

  He sat on the bed studying the imperfections of his shoes. He was strangely absent.... thank you....... and he heard nothing when Irene, completely naked, entered the bedroom. He did not even look at her, but instead stared at the carpet, seeing in its pattern Irene's white, bloated body …... forget me....... surrounded by softly curling whorls of red, like underwater clouds, a corpse adorned with roses of blood. So he did not notice that she had picked up the almost full bottle of whisky by the neck and raised it high in the air, like a trophy, before bringing it down with all her might onto his head. The bottled smashed into a thousand pieces as Juan slumped to the floor. But Irene had not finished, her revenge would be complete. She pulled the body of the man who had done her so much harm towards the bath, where a sweet, fluid, limpid death awaited him.

  She would later declare that she had acted in self defence.

  NEWS OF THE WORLD

  'But look at these lonely houses............. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.' Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  It is the seventeenth of November, any year. These crimes against humanity take place in, say, Britain, or any other place on earth of your choice. They are simultaneous and complimentary, and only the dictates of the printed word confer them any logical order.

  Let us prise off the roof of number twenty seven Littleton Road. As you can see, the walls in every room have been entirely covered with newspaper from sensationalist tabloids. Above the bed hang photos of breasts, lots of breasts, in full colour. There are serial killers in the bathroom, adulterers in the pantry. Slander fills the living room. TV celebrities and Win a Car competitions vie for space in the stairwell alongside the printed heads of traitors, placed on spikes for the birds to eat.

  There are double locks on the doors and bars at the window. It is a safe home.

  But that smell.

  He has stuffed newspaper in all the cracks, sealed off the windows, placed draught excluders at the doors. But the odours prevail.

  It is a scent of spices, flavours unknown to him, both exotic and menacing.

  At the dining table, surrounded by three-word headlines, he is once more assaulted by the all pervading stench.

  Cardamom? Mace? Funegeek? The dried roots of plants from distant lands, whose strange names are as mysteriously threatening as fakir, or voodoo. Foreign, like languages. As unintelligible as jargon, in-jokes, sniggering.

 
And as he covers his nose, he desires, in his heart of hearts, that something will happen, no matter how terrible, to make this nauseating aroma go away forever.

  Lilly Tomlinson has recently developed an interest in architecture, design and interior decorating, so she turns a critical eye on her new bedsit.

  The walls are painted murky green, the furniture is cheap and chipped, the view from the window is of office blocks, motorways and petrol stations. Her suitcase is visible on top of the disjointed wardrobe. There is not a lot she can do.

  So she starts with a few posters. These are rising stars. One day perhaps they will achieve universal fame. Then, their exclusivity gone, she will unpin them with a frown.

  She pulls out knick knacks from another era – a joss stick holder, a pocket size video game, a pot of hair dye. They no longer represent her, she has moved on.

  Lilly lives alone through choice. She has shared in the past, with friends, with strangers, with lovers. But co-habitation means compromise, means having to listen to their point of view, watch their programmes, adapt to their time schedules. She prefers to be in command, for the remote control to be in her hands, to apply her own filters. She needs no-one.

  On her squeaky bed she scours her laptop for novelty and inspiration. Not politics, not economics, not international suffering, but a Bright New World, now, as it happens. New releases, the latest fashion, famous divorces - she has to know.

  Then move on. Alone. Because true freedom is egocentric.

  These are the premises of Doctor Ewan Sutcliffe.

  Premise number one: wealth reflects worth.

  Premise number two: money attracts money.

  There are more. No doubt his wife and two grown up sons could draw up a lengthy list, but these are his favourites.

  To back up his statements he has acquired a large reconverted mill in a peaceful village with excellent access to the nearby city. He subscribes to a national newspaper which wholeheartedly agrees with him on almost every economic issue.

  Today he is overseeing a group of men who have been hired to repair and paint the fence that surrounds his property. He is telling them that hard work never hurt anyone, and is the road to fortune. One of the workers, a long in the tooth character with a face like damp cardboard, comments that all Empires are built on cheap labour.

  Dr. Sutcliffe smiles. Being an educated man he is aware that others flout alternative, even contrary theories. Invariably they are the weak arguments of weak men used to justify their own inadequacies and failures. What is required is evidence. In such cases he spreads his arms and shows them the full extent of his grounds.

  Premises and conclusions.

  13 Chisholm Way. At first sight it appears there is nobody at home. As from a black hole, no light escapes. But come a little closer, through the French windows and the heavy curtains, past the living room into the kitchen.

  There she is, Larisse, preparing supper for her family. Like everything in life, it is a thankless task. She has seen the documentaries and read the reports. Now she has the proof that life is a cross to be borne, she forces herself to follow her own harsh rules. There is an ever growing list of forbidden foodstuffs pinned to the cork notice board alongside pamphlets, circulars and magazine clippings detailing the infinite horrors of the modern world.

  Larisse will eat while mothers in poorer countries cook stones to lull their hungry children to sleep. As she watches her husband drink white wine the dry wells of Somalia will torment her. When her teenage children pick at their organic meals and moan about the peas under their mattresses Larisse will fly into a rage.

  She has been informed, the knowledge will not go away. She has no right to complain, no right to be happy.

  She is a convict of conviction.

  On a lighter note there are other news items today. A woman was stabbed to death by her ex husband in what appears to have been a crime of passion. Six people died in a multiple collision in thick fog, and two young boys were burnt to death in a tragic household accident.

  THE LONGEST NIGHT

  1

  Viva la muerte

  Millán de Astray

  In the heart of Andalusia the heavy summer light crept down from the foothills of Sierra Nevada, slid silently across the plains, and fled. Darkness fell over the cemetery, over the terrified houses, over the surrounding countryside.

  The road from Víznar to Alfacar curved and twined as it clung to the contours of the rugged, fir covered hills. In the truck the prisoners knew their fate. Soon a volley would stun the cicadas into silence and their sack bodies would be thrown into an unmarked grave along with councillors, university professors, unionists, shopkeepers...

  After tonight there would be no more poetry, and for generations the dawn would not return.

  2

  When we are all guilty, then we will have democracy.

  Albert Camus

 

  Just up from the Alhambra palace a group of tourists clambered out of their minibus and waited obediently until they were beckoned to enter San José Cemetery. Being one of the oldest in Spain, it had been included as a tourist attraction, forming part of a web of European graveyards. At the entrance they were handed a map, and those who understood the strangled translation of technical instructions downloaded further information onto their mobile phones.

  The cemetery was laid out much as the city of Granada itself, with the important shrines and the most elegant family vaults taking up the centre, as if hoping to maintain their hard earned status even in death, whilst the humbler, simpler tombs were to be found in the quieter, further flung areas. Those closest to the outside wall were placed in row upon row of niches, like so many blocks of flats, closely resembling popular neighbourhoods of Granada such as La Chana or El Zaidin. As the visitors went from patio to patio they learnt about its history, its notable and notorious tenants, its organic urns and electric hearses. Plastic flowers rubbed shoulders with the occasional show of wealth or fame – an image of an angel chipped out of cold stone – as the tourists mingled with the mourners in the bright spring sunshine, unaware that they were also walking through a mass grave of anonymous corpses.

  At the mirador, situated at the highest point of the cemetery, they were given permission to eat their snacks and contemplate the silent peaks of Sierra Nevada, once again covered in forgetful snow. A silence and a forgetfulness which many confused with peace.

  When they left they did not notice the withered wreaths of flowers placed at the base of the perimeter wall. They could not know that this was where so many lives had been scythed during the long nights, or that to this day the bullet holes of the firing squads can still be seen. Their full colour guides made no mention of it, and the bunker-like tribute to 'all those who gave life to Granada', or the sculpture dedicated to the fallen in the Civil War, had been designed to follow the non-committal official doctrine, and as such were deliberately ambiguous. After reading so many epitaphs declaring eternal remembrance of the deceased, lovingly chipped out of grey, death-resembling marble, they would have been surprised to know that for the thousands whose lives had been taken at that very spot there was not so much as a commemorative plaque. Only silence and forgetfulness.

  By contrast life in the city below was energetic and full of noise. From the tapas bars and high street shops, from crowded buses or the backs of scooters, the monuments of the Alhambra hill could not be seen, and time sped on relentlessly, convinced of its healing powers. Teenagers hung around outside fast food joints, caught between showing off and feeling embarrassed, businessmen in uncomfortable suits tried to impress each other and their female colleagues with displays of good manners and acts of generosity. A roar of traffic and klaxons, the hum of a thousand conversations, a stream of men, women and children all intent on making the most of the present as they hurried onwards into the false dawn of twenty first century Spain.

  But one thing time cannot cure is an injustice, and history shows that a proble
m ignored is a problem postponed. Which is why Ricardo Gámez, archaeologist, was sitting in the luminous local government offices waiting for a stamp. Today at last he would be getting formal clearance to start his mission. It hadn't been easy.

  This was not the first time that a hunt for Lorca and his deathmates' remains had been put into action, and that had worked against him. Guided by hearsay and the tenacity of historians, a large area around the olive tree where the poet had purportedly been shot had been excavated and examined. To the frustration of some, and the relief of others, nothing had been found but a huge rock, the top soil being too shallow for a grave. The matter had been forgotten.