Message From Malaga (9 page)

“No, no! You’ll need it. Don’t lose it.”

So Ferrier pocketed the pencil too. He was puzzled, but he kept silent.

Reid said, “Another thing—you’ll find a lighter in my pocket. Take it. Keep it for me. Keep it safe. Safe.”

Ferrier found the lighter. It was perfectly normal in shape and size, and smooth to hold except for one small bump in its centre—an embossed emblem, some kind of decoration. By this dim light, it was difficult to see what it was, but it could be
one of the service Zippos that everyone used to carry around with them. “It’s safe,” he said, slipping it deep into his trouser pocket.

“Don’t use it,” Reid was saying anxiously. “Just—”

“Sure, sure. Stop worrying. Take it easy, will you?” Ferrier smoothed back the blanket.

Reid was exhausted, but he was intent on speaking. The whispered phrases became spasmodic. “Martin will send—someone to take—charge—” There was a pause.

“Of the office?”

“Yes. Make sure he—he identifies himself. Get him to—write—”

“Write what?”

“Anything. It’s the—the pencil that matters. He uses one—similar to mine.” Reid didn’t elaborate. Either his mind was drifting or he had something more important to say. “If something—something goes wrong—with me—” Again a pause, as if he were still deciding.

“There’s nothing wrong with you that a couple of good doctors can’t fix. So shut up, will you?”

“If it does,” Reid persisted, “the lighter belongs to Martin. It was his. He will expect it.” There was an attempt at a smile. “Sentiment.”

Sentiment? Ferrier was perplexed, troubled. There must be real meaning to all this: a man who had made such an effort to speak through his pain must be taken seriously. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ll see to it.”

“You’ll remember everything?”

“I’ll remember.”

Reid relaxed for the first time. “Thank God you’ve—you’ve
a good memory.” He closed his eyes.

There was a movement on the landing. Ferrier looked up quickly. Tavita was just about to come downstairs, her new dress billowing out in a froth of white and yellow. Her hair was perfect, her face freshly made up. She carried a pink cushion in one hand, held the railing with her other as she started down. Behind her, keeping step by step, was Magdalena, holding up the wide hem of the long skirt to keep it from sweeping the staircase. Everything Tavita did, thought Ferrier as he rose to his feet, had a sense of drama.

She came forward, holding out the cushion, saying, “Put this under his head.”

“Just leave him as he is,” Ferrier said.

Her magnificent eyes took him in, from head to toe. Her voice was cold. “He will be much more comfortable.”

“What he needs is an ambulance. Did you telephone the hospital to make sure someone is coming?”

She bit her lip in annoyance, controlled her temper. She did not enjoy a reprimand, however tacit. “Magdalena made very sure. She even telephoned his own doctor.”

I hope so, thought Ferrier. The waiting had put him on edge.

“Tavita,” Reid said, opening his eyes. “Don’t worry. It takes more than a fall—”

“It was only a fall?”

Magdalena broke in. “I told you,” she scolded, “Tomás was back in his room. He was nowhere—” She saw Ferrier looking at her. She took the cushion roughly, said in a mumble, “I told you it was a fall.”

Tavita shook her head with real sympathy, regret, impatience—a strange mixture that fascinated Ferrier. The anger and fear she
had displayed to Esteban had gone; so had her annoyance with him. “Oh, Jeff, Jeff!” she said slowly. (But she had trouble in pronouncing the first syllable, and it sounded more like Hyeff. Well, thought Ferrier, I can stop worrying about my lousy Spanish accent. We all have our tongue-twisting troubles.) “Why did it
have
to happen at this time?” She looked at Ferrier. “Please.”

“Of course.” He moved away quickly, stood just within the shelter of the doorway, looked at the stage with its tableau of bright colour and postures, listened to the guitars instead of Tavita’s voice. They are friends, he decided, not lovers; at least, not permanently. And the idea startled him. He had assumed, somehow, that Reid’s interest in El Fenicio was a matter of passionate romance. That would have been his own interest, he admitted to himself. She was the most beautiful, tantalising, upsetting, and annoying woman he had ever met. If he had had ten years of experience less, if he were in his twenties instead of the less vulnerable thirties, he’d be in love with Tavita and probably thoroughly destroyed emotionally. It might be worth it at that, he thought. He sensed her behind him, turned to look at her. “You make the most beautiful picture,” he blurted out, watching the angle of her head, the slender neck, the soft skirt ruffling out from tightly moulded waist and hips.

She didn’t even hear the unwilling compliment. “You are his friend,” she said, studying his face. She looked at the steady grey eyes, the pleasant but firm lips, the marked bone structure that gave strength to his features, and found them reassuring. “I think you are a good friend,” she added softly, her eyes lingering on his. “You will help me?” She didn’t even wait for an answer, but—listening to the music, timing the moment of reappearance—stepped into the courtyard, and with that
exquisite grace made her way toward the stage.

Esteban was beside him. “Everything is all right.”

“Captain Rodriguez is not interested?” Ferrier asked with a small smile. And interested in what? He wondered if Esteban would tell him who Tomás was. Or why the feeling of secrecy, of some small conspiracy, inside this room. Or was all this quite natural, and Ferrier only sensed strangeness because he was a foreigner here, plunged into a setting and a group of people that were nothing like anything he had ever encountered before? He looked over at Reid and Magdalena. Goddammit, she
had
moved Jeff, replaced his folded jacket with that pink pillow. She was shaking out the jacket now, lamenting its creases and dust stains from the floor.

“The captain has left,” Esteban said with obvious satisfaction. But if he was relieved, he was also thoughtful. “He left as soon as Tavita had finished her dance.”

“He didn’t stay long,” Ferrier said, making conversation. He was more interested in the view he had from this doorway, here, unnoticed by the people in the courtyard, he could see the middle and front tables as well as the stage. The only table that was fully blocked from sight by the scattering of standees down the side of the courtyard was the nearest one, the one he had occupied with Jeff. As he watched, the little group in front of him moved slightly, parted just enough to let him see the heads of the two men who had taken that table, and then the gaps closed again and the table was hidden. Now if I had been that long-haired guy who slipped out of here, Ferrier thought, I’d have felt quite safe; I couldn’t have guessed when people might move unexpectedly and let someone sitting at that table catch a glimpse of me. But why should I have wanted to feel safe?
What would I be trying to conceal? “I think,” he told Esteban slowly, “that you should keep an eye on the Americans—the ones at the back of the courtyard.”

“But they have left, too.” Esteban looked at him sharply. “Why should I watch them?”

“When did they leave?”

Esteban shrugged his shoulders. “Jaime will know. He was their waiter. But why—?”

“I was just curious.” He turned away from the door. He looked at the staircase. A fall? Yes, that could always be possible—if Jeff had landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. But he hadn’t. He had fallen over the side, about halfway up. And this wasn’t a free-standing staircase, either: it had a decorative iron railing, not too strong to look at but high enough to reach a man’s waist, and you didn’t topple easily over that even if you had been running downstairs, had slipped, lost your balance.

Esteban said, “Do not be so worried, Señor Ferrier. The hospital is excellent. I know it well. I was there eleven times.”

“Eleven wounds?”

“Seventeen,” Esteban said gravely. “Some of them very bad; others just simple gashes from the bulls’ horns. Do not worry. Señor Reid will walk normally again, as I do. He will be in good hands. The best.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Ferrier said, equally gravely. He wondered.

“You must come back another night,” Esteban told him. “Then you can enjoy yourself. Tonight was unfortunate.” He gave that small formal bow of his, returned to the Courtyard.

That’s right, thought Ferrier: everything must continue
normally, even Esteban in his appointed rounds. Seventeen wounds...

Magdalena had cleaned most of the dust from his jacket. She had removed his wallet and passport for safety while she had shaken vigorously, and they lay neatly on a wine barrel along with his car keys and loose coins. She replaced them all carefully and correctly, handed the jacket to him. These people really slay me, he thought. “Thank you, Magdalena,” he said. “Tell me, who is Tomás?” The effect was immediate. Her eyes widened in horror. Then quickly she crossed herself.

“Was that for me or for him?” Ferrier asked. But she did not wait to answer; she was already half-way toward the door that young Jaime had taken. I bet she is going to warn him not to talk about Tomás to me, Ferrier thought. “How’s it going?” he asked Reid.

“Could be worse.”

“Yes. You could have broken your neck. You were damned lucky.”

Reid nodded. He tried to say something, couldn’t manage it.

“Save it. You can tell me tomorrow. Or the next day. I’ll hang around.” Where was that ambulance? Ferrier concentrated on it, as if by thinking about it he could bring it more quickly through the streets to El Fenicio’s back entrance. His sense of helplessness increased his worry; he was a foreigner in a completely strange city. Back home, in a situation like this, he could have taken charge, or at least felt useful. Here, he had to wait and hope that an old woman and a young boy, who only understood half of what he wanted to say, would somehow get everything squared away.

And they did, too. Not badly, at that. When the ambulance
arrived—without sirens or horns blowing madly—the stretcher-bearers were quick and gentle, the intern was efficient. “I’ll see you into the hospital. Make sure you get the prettiest nurse,” Ferrier told Reid just before the morphine hit him.

Magdalena was saying, as she gathered together the cushion and the smelling salts, “Stay here, señor.” She pointed to the courtyard. “You will enjoy the dancing.”

“The best is to come,” Jaime assured him. “I shall find you a good table.”

“Thank you, no.” Ferrier hurried after the stretcher, leaving two worried faces looking blankly at each other. Now what had they been cooking up? he wondered, and then dismissed his question as idiotic. Why would Magdalena and Jaime want to keep him here, except as a matter of politeness?

“Señor!” Magdalena called after him. “Tavita would like to see you.” He pretended he hadn’t heard, and kept on his way.

Hospitals were places that Ferrier usually liked to avoid—big, antiseptic, impersonal factories for the cure of the suffering where a visitor felt lost in a mile of faceless corridors; depressed, too, with the innumerable doors behind which were people in pain, pain forever behind those doors, with beds never empty, continuously filled and refilled. Tonight, the usual gloom fell over him like a cloak as soon as he stepped into the reception room even if the Hospital de Santa Maria de la Victoria was small, one of the smallest in the city, and peaceful and seemingly capable. Bewilderment attacked him, not because of the length of interminable corridors—here they were short, with red-tiled floors burnished to a rich gleam under the subdued lights on the thick white walls—but because he was a foreigner in a completely strange place facing the totally unexpected. Not that he objected to the unexpected if his own choice led him to it. But an hour ago he had been sitting in a courtyard looking
at the stars above him, listening to flamenco, and now he was grappling with a long question-and-answer form to give all the necessary information about Reid and his accident, how it happened and where and when. (The why of it was a question that kept lingering at the back of his mind.) The change was almost too abrupt; like the ice-cold pool after a sauna. But it braced him. A man could immobilise himself by asking questions that had no answers. He stopped wondering about the meaning of that telephone call to Madrid, and prepared to make it. 21-83-35. That’s how he remembered the number. He checked with the matchbook and found he was right.

After all, he thought as he enlisted the help of the man behind the reception desk, hospitals were accustomed to telephone calls, both in and out. The man was elderly, sympathetic, and pleased to break the dull routine of a quiet night with some low-pitched advice. The call went through quickly enough from one of the public telephones in the adjoining waiting room—empty except for two sad-faced women huddled together at the end of a bench. And there was only a brief pause at the Madrid end of the line before a man’s voice answered. Ferrier gave the message, word for exact word, just as he had been given it.

It was a business-like voice, speaking in Spanish at first, and then breaking into English as the man heard Ferrier’s slight hesitations with syntax. No, Señor Martin was not there, but he would receive the message on his return. Who was calling?

“My name’s Ferrier. I’m staying with Mr. Reid for the weekend.”

“How did the accident happen? And when?”

“He slipped on some stairs. About an hour ago.”

“How serious?”

“He says it’s one helluva mess. I won’t know exactly until I hear from the doctors. They are with him now. He’s in the Santa Maria de—”

“Señor Martin will be sorry to hear about it,” the cool voice said quickly. And the call was ended.

And who was that? Ferrier wondered. A secretary of some kind? He had spoken with self-assurance, with decision in his voice. Whoever he was, he was certainly a man in a hurry. In fact, if he had only waited a minute longer he could have had the doctor’s report. Ferrier was lighting a cigarette and watching the cover of the matchbook burn into a twisted black ash when he heard his name being gently called from the doorway. It was the sister in charge, the rolled brim of the large starched hat that covered her hair nodding to him to make haste. Dr. Medina was waiting. So he dropped the remains of the matchbook into a potted plant and followed her, a ship in full sail, with her long wide skirt down to her ankles and her broad swathe of white apron wrapped around the heavy grey dress. It was astonishing that anyone so bundled with clothes could look so neat and cool and business-like on a warm summer night.