The Swallow and the Hummingbird(52)

Whenever George looked up at the moon he thought of Rita. He wondered how his family was, Mrs Megalith, his friends in town. But he knew for certain that life at Frognal Point would always remain the same. How tired he had grown of the sea and those cliffs and how refreshing the fertile plains and hazy mountain range of Córdoba were to him. He thought of Susan too. When his mind wandered free, when he was caught unawares, when his thoughts were let loose to do as they pleased in dreams. Always the same image of her leaning against the railings, curling a stray piece of hair around her ear, her reluctant smile and those sad blue eyes that hid secrets he would now never know.

But then the winds of fate, so often blowing an unfavourable course, blew to his advantage. It all began with the melon. Agatha had dismissed the problem as another warped turn in the never-ending drama that was the life of Dolores. The old woman ranted and screeched and berated poor Carlos for the smallest oversight. Agustina was at her wits’ end and often tearful. George grew accustomed to the shouting and, like Jose Antonio, he ignored it. The food she cooked was always good. Then one day in early December Pia ran out onto the terrace during tea shouting for her father. ‘Papa, Papa, Dolores está muerta!’ George now spoke enough Spanish to understand that the child had declared Dolores dead. Agatha pushed back her chair with such vigour one could have been forgiven for thinking her impatient to see with her own eyes the evidence of the fiend’s demise. Jose Antonio strode through the house with the same haste. Even George, who rarely dared enter the kitchen, followed them.

Dolores lay inert on the floor but, much to Agatha’s disappointment, her pulse still throbbed and her lungs still sucked in air, albeit weakly. The doctor was called and Jose Antonio lifted the woman into the sitting room as if she were nothing more than a bundle of twigs. He placed her on a sofa and George noticed at once her distended stomach. He thought of the melon and felt his own stomach heave. She was not a pleasant sight. Old and wrinkled like one of his father’s walnuts. He thought of Trees and smiled inwardly.

The doctor declared that Dolores did indeed have something vast and uncomfortable in her stomach. Not a melon, he added hastily after one of the children mentioned it, but a tumour. It had to be removed without delay. Agatha had no choice but to drive her to Buenos Aires for the operation. The idea of spending hours in a car with the fiend, tumour and all, made her dizzy with repulsion. But she knew it was her duty. Jose Antonio didn’t acknowledge the degree of self-sacrifice this trip involved. But she had to vent her frustrations to someone, and was swift to complain to George.

‘Good God!’ she exclaimed, throwing clothes into a suitcase. ‘What a bloody nightmare. I’ve spent all the years of my married life putting as much distance as possible between me and that ghastly creature some see fit to call a woman. I call her a ghoul or a monster, there’s very little evidence of anything human. And now she goes and develops a tumour. Why God didn’t just take her when he had the chance, I don’t know.’

‘How long will you have to stay in the city?’ George asked.

Agatha huffed furiously. ‘A lot longer than I would like, of that I am sure. I don’t know, ten days, two weeks. It’s a bugger.’

‘Where will you stay?’

‘That isn’t the problem. We have enough friends in Buenos Aires to populate an entire town. Not a word of gratitude from Jose Antonio. Never was very quick with the thank yous! Not that I’m complaining. He’s a good man, just not very sensitive. He considers the domestic side of life my responsibility entirely! That I understand and don’t mind. It’s just a bugger that Dolores falls into that category.’

‘Why don’t I take her?’ George heard himself suggesting, somewhat rashly. ‘Or at least let me accompany you.’

‘No, no. That’s not necessary. Thank you so much, dear George, for offering. What a selfless young man you are.’ Of course there was nothing selfless about his offer. He couldn’t help but hope that, perhaps, if he were in the same city as Susan, their paths might, by some miracle, cross.

George watched the two women depart for the city and felt suddenly deflated. He consoled himself with the fact that he was hardly likely to bump into her in a city of millions. He was naïve to have even imagined it.

Twelve days passed. George longed for Agatha and Dolores to return because, while they were in Buenos Aires, he couldn’t help but imagine Susan was close by, unknown to his aunt. Perhaps they took tea in the same café, or stood side by side in a shop somewhere. If only he had gone with her he might have chanced to see her. Even if Agatha did find herself beside the woman with the dreadfully scarred face, she wouldn’t know how her nephew’s heart pined for her.