CONTINENTAL SOUR
Take a bar glass and fill with shaved ice. Into this add a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in water and the juice of half a lemon. Add a jigger of whisky, shake and strain into a sour glass. Dash with claret. A marriage of two worlds.
When I awoke on that beach, I became aware of three things, above all others. First was the smell: baked seaweed and tarred rope and sun-scorched wood. Second was the feel of sand, in my hair, clinging to the sweat on my skin. And third was hunger, like I had never felt before.
No matter how bad things were at the inn, I rarely went hungry.
Perhaps that was why I didn’t entertain thoughts of leaving, until there was no other choice.
Ifrahim and I would often keep back the best for ourselves, sneaking slivers of the choicest cuts of meat, corners of fresh cheese, glasses of wine.
When the rest of the inn was replete, we would take our cook’s reward in the kitchen.
It was a habit I continued after Ifrahim died.
Sometimes, I’d even use one of the best crystal glasses for my stolen wine, and recline by the stove, pretending there was someone to wait on me, to turn down my bed at the ring of a bell.
Full belly, happy heart, the saying goes. Mine had never been so empty as that evening on the beach, the end of my first day as a fugitive. My belly wrung itself out, and my guts lay leaden, unable to stir themselves to help my heart.
I staggered to my feet, thinking only of food.
From along the beach came the sound of shouting and the smell of cigarette smoke.
I made my way across the sand towards it.
There, I saw a small boat rolling in the shallows, men swarming around it.
They had formed a chain, over a dozen of them, and were passing goods from the boat to the beach, to a wagon that stood, half-loaded.
Before another minute was up they were done, pushing the boat back out to sea. In a daze, I drifted forwards. Hunger and thirst drove the fear of being recognized as a wanted woman right out of my mind.
By now, the men were crowding about someone, exclaiming and stretching out their hands.
In the middle of the group, a huge man was paying the workers, counting coins into their palms. Beside him stood a man in a black hat, wearing a starched collar despite the heat.
Money – the thought crossed my brain, slug-like – that was what I needed.
Money for food and drink and a safe place to spend the night.
Finally, the last men were paid. They dispersed, laughing together, weighing their wages in their hands. One of them caught me staring.
‘Hola chica,’ he said, rolling a coin.
I ignored him, watching the man in the black hat instead, the one who was undoubtedly in charge. But he was already walking away, the leather bag held tight. Abruptly the beach looked deserted.
‘Wait!’ I heard myself calling. The worker who had spoken to me turned back.
‘Changed your mind?’ he leered.
‘Please. Can you spare a céntimo? I haven’t eaten for days.’
He laughed at that, showing the dark gaps of missing teeth. ‘You and me both, sister.’
His friends were catcalling, telling him to hurry up and not to bother talking to a perra.
‘Please,’ I said, following him as he walked. ‘I’ll pay you back when I find work. I’m a good cook, I just need to eat. Please.’
The man’s smile sank into irritation. ‘You want work, go do it on the Calle Mirimar, like all the other whores.’
I watched him go, biting back tears of shame and anger.
Except for the Senor, it had been a long time since any man had spoken to me like that.
They didn’t dare; even the truly insolent ones usually held their tongues when they realized that I was in charge of the kitchen, and could easily drop something foul into their food, or worse.
But that world was gone. Out here, I was nothing.
These people didn’t know that I could take offcuts of meat and stew them into spiced softness or make a man sick to the guts with a few pinches of powder in his soup; that I could mix a drink to empty a purse or cook a rabo de toro that could lead a girl to murder.
All they saw was a woman in stained clothes with a bruised, sunburned face.
I truly understood then, for the first time, how the girls at the inn must have felt.
Long hair and a skirt and a pair of open legs, that was all men saw of them.
It was all men would see of me now. I had wanted to disappear into a wash of humanity, but not like that. Never like that.
My wandering steps took me into a town; La Atunara, I saw it was called.
It began as a stretch of shanties beyond the beach, makeshift structures of wood and tin, tar-smeared cloth and whatever else could be found to plug the holes.
Children played naked in the dust, dogs roamed, vines and small trees sprang in yards, where chickens scratched hopefully.
Amongst it all, I went entirely unnoticed.
Eventually, the street widened and the houses became bars, gaudy with tacked-up advertisements.
On one corner, a woman was cooking fish over a brazier.
Sardines, whole, skewered four to a stick, grilled in nothing but salt and their skin.
The scent of food made me stagger with longing, and I reeled out of the thoroughfare to lean against a wall.
It can’t have been more than a minute or two before I heard someone addressing me. I opened my eyes. It was a girl, her lips rouged, her blouse worn sheer, showing the frayed lace of her chemise.
‘What?’ I murmured.
‘I said that’s Concetta’s spot. She’ll beat you if you stay there.’
I blinked at her, but the street seemed to be lurching forwards and backwards. All I could do was steady myself on the wooden wall, and close my eyes again.
She swore and walked away. I willed myself not to faint. If I collapsed, no one would lift me up, and if they did, it would not be in kindness.
‘Here,’ I heard the girl’s voice again, up close now. ‘These are mine but you can have a few.’
She was holding out a newspaper bundle. The smell hit me, fish oil, chargrilled flesh, warm paper. It was filled with scraps of sardines, the bits that had fallen off into the brazier.
‘She lets us have these for cheap,’ the girl said, jerking her head at the fish-woman. ‘Knows we don’t have time to eat a whole stick. I tried once. Made me sick, eating them that fast.’ She picked out a chunk of blackened fish, and ate it. ‘Well?’ she asked, chewing.
I reached towards the paper, took a piece and put the whole thing in my mouth.
It was glorious, burnt salt, sweet flesh that tasted just how the sea had smelled.
We never had fish that fresh at the inn.
Often I had to spice it with a heavy hand, redden it with paprika and pepper to disguise the fact it was bad. But this … I reached for another piece.
We ate like that, chewing and spitting out the sharp bones, until the fish was all gone, and only the oily paper remained.
‘Thank you,’ I told her, my mouth tingling with salt. ‘I was about to die of hunger.’
She dropped the paper to the ground. ‘You just get here?’
I nodded. ‘From inland. Looking for work.’
She laughed and looked me over, her eyes flicking from my bruised nose to the dirt beneath my nails. ‘No offence but you might have to wait till it gets late, there’s that many girls working here. Most of us got regulars.’
‘I didn’t mean—’ I stopped.
She looked at me, her lips twisted. ‘You mean you didn’t come here to whore?
None of us did, chica. Most of us came looking to be domestics, over there.
’ She jerked her head in the direction of the rock.
‘Course no one tells you before you leave home that there isn’t any work, that the Brits bring their own lot in. ’
‘What about the men on the shore?’ I asked. ‘They had work, carrying cargo from a boat. There was a man who paid them. In a black hat.’
The girl smiled. ‘Black hat, beard like a mule’s ass?’
That made me smile too, despite myself, and I nodded.
‘That’s Bautista. He’s got the biggest racket round here.
Runs the show. Usually pays well.’ She glanced about the street.
‘If he had them working tonight, I might have some luck after all.’ She tugged at her blouse, pushed a few hairs back from her face.
‘Wait till they’ve had a few. They’re less picky then. ’ With that she began to walk away.
‘Wait,’ I called. ‘I … don’t have anywhere to sleep. Do you know a place?’
She turned. In the light of a flickering electric bulb that hung outside a bar, I saw that beneath the kohl and the weariness, she was younger than I’d thought. ‘You got any money?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
She sighed. ‘There’s an empty warehouse, border end of the beach. People sleep there, sometimes. Anything worth nicking?’
‘Only a knife.’
She gave me a sort-of smile. ‘Watch your back, chica.’
I wandered, no idea of where to go, or what to do with myself.
The girl was right about other women, there were two to every corner of the main street.
I saw the tell-tale signs of their profession everywhere; a chair sitting empty outside a house, a bit of bright rag tied to a window, the smell of violet perfume, liberally doused.
Finally, at the end of a quiet street, I found a water pump, and stuck my head beneath it, rinsing the salt spray and sweat from my face, drinking until the pieces of fish swam in my belly.
When I looked up, the streets were dark.
I began to feel afraid. The water had washed away a film of grogginess and reminded me of the truth: that I would have to spend the night in the open.
It struck me then just how protected I had been at the inn, despite Morales’ threats.
Road or room, that had been her offer in the past. Now I knew for certain what I had only suspected before: that she knew first-hand the realities of both and had once made the choice herself.
Perhaps her fierceness came from the knowledge of what lay beyond the gates for a woman like her. Like me.
As I pushed the hair back from my face, I became aware of someone watching me.
A man, leaning heavily on a wall in the shadows, his lips slack, his eyes fixed on my chest, where the water had soaked through my blouse.
I didn’t smile, though I knew what the girls would have done.
I knew the tricks and bits of business they used, to secure their clients.
‘Like what you see?’ I asked, my voice hardly audible.
The man looked on without moving. Remembering the Senor’s dog-like stare, I almost turned and ran, but then the man was grunting and lurching forward.
When he got within a few feet of me I realized he was sopping drunk.
In a dark corner of my mind, an idea began to form.
‘How much?’ he slurred. I don’t believe he could see me properly, for his eyes were drifting out of focus. All the better, I told myself, before I swallowed hard, and answered with a price.
He began to fumble with his belt.
‘Not here.’ He turned his vacant gaze on me. ‘There,’ I pointed to a dark alley.
It was a dead end. In that moment, exhausted and half-feral with fear, I don’t believe I had much notion of what I was about to do.
I could hear the man behind me breathing harder.
We reached the wall and he stepped close, his hands going to his belt again.
My own hands went to my waist, to where my guts were coming to life, trying to protect me, to give me strength.
‘All right,’ the man said, his trousers loose, ‘you—’
I turned, and drove my knee into his groin. The air went out of him, and he made a strangled noise of pain as he fell, choking and retching. Before I could think twice, I began to wrestle the trousers from his legs.
When he felt that, he kicked and flailed. I took the knife from my belt and held it against his thigh.
‘Stop,’ I hissed. ‘Take the jacket off.’ When he hesitated, I pressed the blade closer.
He yelped as blood began to well. After that, he did as I said.
In a matter of seconds, I grabbed up the jacket, and the trousers and his cloth cap for good measure.
Before he could utter another word, I fled into the night.