Hemispheres (25 page)

I sit down on a rock, shade my eyes. As Fabián passes in front of me his skull blots out the disk of the sun, like the knurled
fist of the moon making an eclipse. The sun’s corona spills out around him, straggling in his long hair, making an improbable
halo.

And seven days later in La Paz, the man sitting opposite me also has a halo. Sunlight pours from the thin blue sky and streams,
ghostly, from behind his crisp black shape. The air is attenuated, low in oxygen. Even sitting motionless I can feel my lungs
working, wringing the meagre gas from each breath. Across the table his face remains in shadow, thrown into eclipse, but there
are flames around it where shafts of light ignite his wispy golden hair and solar flares leap out into space, cold and giddy.
He sips at a short dark coffee and one sleeve of his black suit rides up to show a shirt cuff so sharp and white it’s almost
blue.

So, he says, you have decided.

I’m not sure if this is statement or question. His voice is flat, but resonates with the heat of coffee and tobacco. I swallow
a mouthful of coffee and it drips from my vocal cords like golden lava. I look away, beyond the billowing corona of gold,
beyond the pavement café in
Plaza San Francisco and up towards the Altiplano and the bleached horizon, the three peaks of Illimani floating in the sky
like jagged sherds of moon, cupping La Paz like a day-old chick nestling in the hand. Small houses jostle down the steep sides
of the canyon, and below them the encircled city thrusts up buildings of concrete and glass into the emptiness like jewelled
stems of summer grass.

The man with the halo is waiting for an answer, his manicured finger-tips drumming against the white porcelain of his coffee
cup.

I’ll do it, said Dave, earlier in the hotel room. Don Hernán is my contact after all.

Don Hernán is my contact after all, scoffed Joe Fish unkindly. Listen to you. You think you’re a big-shot drugs baron. You
smuggled a bit of snout, end of story. He lolled back in the armchair.

I’m in, said Horse Boy, pacing across the room. I’m sick of this, since the money ran out. He ent offering us much, but at
least we can get back to Europe. I’m ready to go home lads.

I looked around the little hotel room, the metal shutters still closed, pinpricks of light clattering around the room like
small change. Delved into my tobacco pouch and found it almost empty. Just enough bumfluff in the bottom to fashion a loose
cigarette. I lit it and it burned quickly and the smoke was harsh and sallow.

I’m against this, said Fabián, sitting on the bed and running a hand over his straggling hair. There’s too much risk. I’d
rather be penniless in La Paz than in jail. Drug mules can get twenty years.

He paused and exhaled.

I’m against it, he said again. But you’ve drowned me in the Southern Ocean and burned me in that hotel room in Chile and if
you are all for it then I will go.

I have to say it’s tempting, said Joe, gruffly. Passports, good forgeries. Tickets to Europe. And money. Just to take one
suitcase each, and hand it over to somebody at the other end.

I was lying on the bed, hands behind my head. There was a ceiling
fan above me which didn’t work. Flies were buzzing round it, alighting on the blades.

But your man has seen us coming Dave, said Joe. He knows we’re desperate and that’s why the wedge is shite.

The sun was pawing at the shutters, desperate to come in. I couldn’t work out why we were sitting in the dark.

It’s up to me and you, then, Joe, I said. If we’re in, we can tell the man yes. If we’re out, then it’s no deal.

He cleared his throat and tugged at a pendulous earlobe. Raised one eyebrow, and slapped a closed fist on the arm of his chair.
He looked at my hand, flat as a pancake, and rolled his eyes.

Paper wraps stone, I said. We’ll tell him yes.

I walked over to the shutters and lifted the metal bar. Then I threw them back and the sunlight roared across the room like
a breaker, motes of dust and cigarette smoke sparkling and twirling.

Solar flares continue to erupt from the golden mane of Don Hernán. He has finished his coffee now and the bustle of the market
moves around us in Plaza San Francisco, but we sit still like chess players, like boulders in an upland stream. I drain my
coffee and his corona shimmers.

The answer is yes, I say, putting my coffee cup carefully down in its saucer.

I’d normally smoke a cig here but I’m out of tobacco and the money’s finished. I feel restless, rub a finger against my thumbnail,
tracing the same pattern over and over again.

Good, he says.

He picks up his briefcase and gets to his feet. A respectable businessman.

Go back to your hotel, he says. My associates will be in touch about your travel arrangements.

He moves away through the market, starkly black and white among the colourful Indian shawls, his golden head burning like
a field of summer wheat.

*

So we wait for two days and then Dave is handed a brown envelope in a pavement café. Back at the hotel we rip it open and
empty the contents onto the bed. Five passports and five tickets. Somebody will meet us at the airport with our luggage. We
examine the tickets. All flying into Köln–Bonn, but on different days and by different routes. I look at my passport and see
that they’ve done a sound job – a British passport in the name of Michael Cornelius, place of birth Wakefield. How do these
people know about Wakefield?

In with the tickets there’s a small advance of cash, just to tide us over. We walk out of the hotel feeling buoyant, looking
for a bar and some smokes. We look at women on the street and Horse Boy barks like a dog and draws some bemused smiles. The
sun is warm on our faces.

Late at night, in the hotel room, Fabián shells a photograph out of his wallet.

Your kids?

Yes.

He lays the photo down on the table. A boy and a girl.

He has your eyes, I say.

Carlos. He will be twelve this year. Wants to be a footballer. Amazes me, sometimes, what he can do with the ball. You have
a boy also Yan.

Danny. Aye, he’d be older now. Fourteen, fifteen.

Bet he’s a card sharp, like the old man.

You bet. All the fancy shuffles. Bluffs like an old-timer. Thirteen years old he was breaking hearts.

I grin.

Nice kids Fabián, I say. So why don’t you go home?

He tosses his head like a spooked horse.

Why don’t you?

I shrug.

I’m light as a feather, I say. Life is light as a feather.

*

All the fancy shuffles. Bluffs like an old-timer. Why did you tell him that?

I don’t know why I told him that Dan.

Maybes you were ashamed of the real me. The lad who was all thumbs at cards and turned puce whenever a lass spoke to him.

I wasn’t ashamed. It was just – I wanted to make this image for Fabián. To make it a good story, that was all. Maybe I just
wanted to impress him.

That’s pretty sad Yan.

Aye. I suppose it was.

You couldn’t even remember how old I was.

And we play cards for small change, the few pesos and bolivianos we still have rattling around in our pockets. Fabián opts
out, falls asleep on the bed, hands tucked behind his head. Light splashes across the mahogany sheen of the table.

I’m out, says Horse Boy, grey circles around his tired eyes. He lays his hand face down on the table and the light flutters
over a series of faint notches in the edge of one of the cards.

I’ll see you Dave, I say, clattering a handful of pesos onto the table. I run my fingers down the edges of the cards in my
hand. This one has a little notch in, just below the corner. And this one. Both of them are kings.

Thou shalt have a fishy, on a little dishy, sings Joe, thick smoke guttering from his filterless cigarette. I smell you Dave.

He lets a handful of little coins fall onto the table, shimmering like a waterfall in sunlight.

Okay, says Dave, taking a sip of whisky from his glass. Now for the draw. How many Yan?

Three.

Thou shalt have a fishy, when the boat comes in.

He slides them across the table to me, and I notice for the first time how he runs a finger down the edge of each card as
it comes. How he does the same thing when dealing out two cards to Joe, one card to
himself. I take a suck of beer, cold and clear and constant. Keep watching Dave’s hands, not his face.

I’ll stand pat, I say.

Raise you ten, says Joe.

Another shower of clattering coins.

Ten, and raise you twenty, chirps Dave, shovelling more in.

Dance for tha’ daddy, sing for tha’ mammy.

And then I see him do it. Flips a thumbnail across the corner of a card, making a little notch.

I’m out. Slap my cards down, sick to the stomach.

Aye, says Joe, with a wink. Too rich for me, as well.

Come on, crows Dave, reaching out both his arms to sweep up the drift of coins from the centre of the table.

I grab one of his forearms hard, and twist. Suddenly Joe and Horse Boy are deadly serious, looking at me. Dave wriggles like
a fish on the hook.

Marking the fucking cards Dave, I say. I’ve just seen you. What is it, a notch on the court cards? One for a king, two for
an ace?

He twists free, puts both his hands flat on the table. A sheen of sweat across his face.

It’s not on, he blurts. You’re questioning my integrity. What –

And his voice rises to a squeal as I go for his throat and the table goes over, little pesos and bolivianos exploding everywhere,
glinting like fish scales. Glasses smash, whisky slicks the floor. Dave backs against the wall, knocking down a flimsy shelf
as he does so, chipboard splintering and rawlplugs ripping out. I press him against the plaster with my forearm at his throat.

Fucking your mates up the arse for loose change, I say. What kind of a cunt are you?

He backs along the wall. Joe and Horse Boy are on the floor, patiently picking up the spilled money, and Fabián is reclining
on one elbow, watching.

Come on, Dave stammers. Don’t have to ruin our friendship over it.

I pick up the Walther and smash the butt into one side of his head and he squeals again and goes down on all fours. Then I
grab him by the hair and hoist him back up.

Get out, I say.

He hovers, incredulous. I watch a gob of dark blood come adrift from his hairline and sway down the side of his face, making
a neat detour round the eye socket and the corner of the mouth, disappearing below the neckline of his shirt.

But we’ve got a deal with Don Hernán, he stammers, face a ghostly white.

We’ve got a deal. But you just counted yourself out.

His jaw quivers. I’m sorry lads, he says. It won’t happen again.

Just go Dave, says Joe.

Aye, before I kick you up and down the fucking street. Look at him Joe. He’ll be blubbering in a minute.

Dave looks from one of us to the other, his eyes flickering and uncertain and hurt. Then he walks unsteadily out of the door.

I’m the last one to fly out and when the others have gone the time hangs heavy. I’m lonely, I guess. I walk through the city
looking for Dave. We could patch things up, crack a few beers, check out the lowlife. But I can’t find him, so I just sit
in a pavement café and watch the world go by. Street kids beg for money and collapse into gales of laughter when I make small
change appear from their ears. Men in severe suits stride past with briefcases swinging, their faces obscured behind dark
glasses. Every other car here seems to be a Volkswagen Beetle, the city filled with the drone of aircooled engines. I think
of the others, flying into Europe by different routes. Like the wise men, each bearing a suitcase full of snow. I think of
that shimmering explosion of little pesos and bolivianos. But most of all, I think of Don Hernán, his golden head flaming
like the sun.

Danny, I can tell when you’re avoiding me, says Kate, from the other side of the world. You’re a coward with bad news. Always
have been. The longer I don’t hear from you, the more I know something’s wrong.

What time is it there? I croak, blearily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. It’s the graveyard shift here.

Sorry love, she says. Never can work out the time difference.

The echo as her voice bounces from satellite to satellite. I sit up in bed and pull the duvet around me. Kelly’s side empty,
not slept in. I stare into the darkness of the bedroom. Liquid green numerals on the radio alarm and the tired blue glow of
my phone display.

So how are you? How’s Terry? Still working on the handicap?

I stifle back a yawn, but my jaw insists on unhinging itself silently.

We had a pool put in. I’m trying to persuade him to spend more time at home, less in the clubhouse. But you’re changing the
subject. Come on, spill.

I take a deep breath.

Yan’s dying, I say. Lung cancer. A year at most. Probably much less.

There’s a long silence in Western Australia, while satellites poised over the Indian Ocean wait for a response. Then a snuffle
over the line and I can tell she’s crying. I wait.

Thanks for being upfront, she says. That man, he’s hopeless. How is he at the moment?

Still getting around fine. There’s more shortness of breath now. He
needs oxygen sometimes. Think he’s due for another round of chemo soon.

I still love him, you know.

Come back then.

I can’t. I like him best when he’s on the other side of the world.

How do you do it?

What?

Stay so detached.

He gave me plenty of time to practise Dan.

Yan lives in a small Victorian terrace in Hartlepool, the house he bought after the pub was sold. It seemed easy at the time,
the way him and Kate divvied up their assets and turned their backs on each other. The detritus of a marriage. We linger in
the back yard, strewn with binbags and loose rubbish.