The Santiago Sisters (13 page)

‘I left my jacket behind,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘Can I have it?’

‘Funny, I didn’t bring it with me.’

The barman took her order. At the last moment Alex added to it, saying, ‘I’ll get these.’ She caught his aroma, expensive and clean.

‘I can pay for it myself,’ Tess said.

‘Don’t get tetchy about it.’

‘I’m not.’

He turned to her and smiled. The way he gazed right into her, just as he had over their table in the Café Convivial, pissed her off. Why had she told him all that stuff? Why had she splurged her secrets? The confession swam back in dazzling, mortifying bursts; how she had spilled her guts—quite literally, when she’d barfed into that plant pot—then barfed again on the ride home, then he’d had to sober her up and she’d sat before him, tear-streaked, mascara-clotted, and confided her woeful story in detail she hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Mia. Alex’s swagger was a stark reminder of the cards he held. She was the meek, pathetic creature he’d stooped to save, Prince Dalton in his glittering castle, surrounded by a moat full of oil.

The girl he’d sat opposite that night was Teresa Santiago. Not Tess Geddes.

I’m Tess Geddes now. Teresa’s
dead. Fuck meek and fuck pathetic.

‘You look beautiful, by the way,’ Alex said, matter-of-factly, as if he were commenting on the weather. Her beauty was, to him, a given truth, an indisputable fact, such as Sunday followed Saturday, or the price of a loaf of bread.

‘Whatever.’

‘You been to
Plage
before?’

‘No.’

He looked at her quizzically. ‘You’re very defensive, you know.’

‘You’re very rude.’ Her eyes flashed.

‘Just being honest.’

‘Don’t bother.’

Tess was desperate to get away but had to wait for her order.

‘Thing is,’ Alex said, ‘I kind of liked the honest you. It’s OK to be real. You shouldn’t feel … I don’t know, embarrassed, or anything. It was fine. It was nice.’

She pulled a face. ‘You sound like
Dawson’s
Creek
.’

He grinned. ‘Only trying to say what I mean.’

‘And failing.’

Alex held his hands up. ‘You’re harsh, Pirate.’

Finally, thankfully, the drinks came. ‘Do me a favour,’ Tess said. ‘Forget that night, forget we met, forget everything I said. I was drunk. I made it up, anyway.’

‘What, you’re ditching me?’ He seemed surprised. She was glad.

I’m not part of your fan club, Alex. Go get Emily; she’s
your kind of girl.

‘I’ve got someplace to be,’ she said.

She walked across the sand until she could no longer feel his eyes on her.

Someplace, it turned out, was with Felix Bazinet. Tess returned to find Mia chatting with a black man whom she introduced as Felix’s friend. ‘This is Henri,’ Mia said, clutching her. ‘Isn’t he sexy?’ Her breath was sweet with pineapple and rum.

‘Felix thought you’d left,’ said Henri.

‘No way,’ said Tess, emboldened by the liquor. ‘We’re only getting started.’

Felix’s set ended and he joined them for a dance, his lips flirting with the back of her neck and his fingers snaking round her waist. The drunker Tess got, the more reasonable it seemed to kiss him. It might be OK. It might be better than she thought.

‘You wanna get out of here?’ he growled.

Tess let herself be led down the beach, Felix’s hand in hers a silent promise of what was to come.
This is good,
she thought.
It’s
safe. It’s
good that I do this.
They walked until the crowds faded and the moon shone brightly on silver-pale sand.

‘Hey.’ Felix pulled her down on to the beach. ‘Come here.’

His lips found hers. He leaned her back until she was lying flat. ‘Relax,’ he told her, ‘you’re tense.’ His lips didn’t feel as she’d expected—softer and wetter—and he tasted of cigarette smoke. Tess tried to close her eyes but it made the sky wobble.

Felix’s hand found her breast. She let out a gasp and, taking it for enthusiasm, he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth. Tess almost choked. She wanted to say, ‘Stop, wait a minute, slow down,’ but she couldn’t. Suddenly her breast was exposed and Felix was tweaking and pulling her nipple. Next he started kissing it.

She wondered if this was how her papa and Señorita Gonzalez had started that day in the stables. The thought made her muscles tense with revulsion.

Forget that. You’re not there any more. You’re here.

But she couldn’t. Felix’s body was too like the body she’d seen, transfixed, afraid, peering round the stable door, and it was associated with violence and death and deceit. Felix lifted her skirt and licked his index finger. ‘You’ll like this.’

He drove this finger inside her.

‘Ah!’ She winced in pain.

‘Relax … There you go … See? You like it really …’

It was a strange sensation, neither pleasurable nor
unpleasurable, and Tess felt detached, as if she was watching Felix change a car tyre. Occasionally he would go too far and it made her sore so she moaned, but this only encouraged his attentions.

‘If you like that, you’ll want something bigger,’ he whispered. His lips hit hers again, and this time they felt too big, too fleshy, and she fought the urge to bite down.

He pulled away before she could. Against the lapping waves she heard the sound of his belt unbuckling and the shiver of material as he worked it down his thighs. A hard rod landed between them. Felix grabbed her hand and clamped it round, working it up and down. ‘There you go,’ he groaned, ‘that’s it, stroke it …’

The stench of lavender hit her nostrils and she struggled.

‘Ready?’

‘No, I don’t—’

A searing, burning pain cut her off, as Felix sliced his erection into her, carving her insides out. She screamed. A gush swelled between her legs.

‘It’s OK,’ Felix murmured in her ear. ‘I like a virgin. I like that you’re tight.’

‘It hurts.’ Hot tears rolled down her cheek. ‘Please stop.’

‘Give it a second …’ But, instead of slowing his pace, Felix speeded up, rocking and bucking on top of her. ‘You’ll get used to it in a second … Lift your hips, baby, that’s it,’ he grabbed her ass and hugged it to his pelvis, ‘that’s it …’

All Tess knew was that she hated it. Sex was the greatest lie ever told. Lying here with a man she didn’t know, his face pursed above hers, squeaks escaping his lips as his bottom rose and fell, until finally, thankfully, he ejaculated.

Tess heard him groan—an echo of that naked, cowardly groan she had witnessed in the stables on her twelfth birthday—and
only then did she realise how stupid she had been. Felix flopped out, and started dressing.

‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘Not bad for a beginner.’

She watched his figure recede up the beach until he vanished from sight.

Argentina

A
storm was breaking in Buenos Aires. Warm rain fell and thunder crackled hotly inside a dense bank of cloud. Calida rushed through the capital, clutching her bag to her chest. The city was electrified, living, beating, thrumming with opportunity, and as she sheltered beneath an awning and waited for the deluge to stop, she thought:

I’ve arrived.

Cristian had advised she try the Hostel Lima on Avenida Rivadavia, owned by an ex-employee. She took the bus and enquired after a room. It was modest but ample: a bed, a lamp, a desk, a window from which she could glimpse the famous Casa Rosada, and a shared bathroom. She paid a week upfront and unpacked.

After lunch, she explored the city. The buzz, the energy, the unrelenting motion of Buenos Aires was intoxicating; the people, the vibrant bursts of tango that erupted on the street, the protests that marched past with their banners held aloft, the yellow taxis beeping and weaving, the bustling cafés and ripe scent of cooking and pollution, the wide, leafy boulevards of Palermo, and the cobbled, colourful Plaza Serrano—immediately, she fell in love with it. At Puerto
Madero she saw the giant sailboats and the clusters of fragrant passionflowers that adorned the waterfront restaurants. She entered cathedrals, their quiet, liturgical interiors warmed by the glow of Christmas candles, each exquisite
Virgen María
radiant in her glass case.

That night, the first in many nights, Calida went to sleep with a smile on her face. She had purpose. Things were changing. Her adventure had begun.

The following day she found work in a pizza bar on the square. It was a casual affair, waiting tables as she had done in Mendoza, and she slotted in quickly. It paid enough for her to extend her stay at the hostel while she found somewhere permanent to live.

Daniel sent notice, via Cristian, that the farm had been sold. She searched his missive for a shade of affection or clue of regret but there was nothing. Calida let the news wash over her in a thick, sad wave, leaving her breathless before rinsing her clean. Her home was gone. It belonged in the past. She found it too painful to think of the land and the horses, so she didn’t. Too painful to think of Daniel, so she didn’t.

She bundled the note in a drawer and closed it.

It was a friendly gang at the pizza place and Calida was open enough to secure their trust but not so much as to give herself away. She protected her story as if she were a fugitive, which in a way she was. The girl who had left Patagonia was not the same as the one who donned a cap and uniform every day for work, who drifted up and down San Telmo market on a Sunday, who visited the Recoleta Cemetery with her camera, photographing pre-Raphaelite angels in states
of contemplation, who ate
bife de chorizo
at her favourite steakhouse and drank beer in the bustling
plaza.

Early March, a small apartment in Belgrano came up on a six-month lease. She moved in straight away. It felt good to have her own space again.

One night, out by herself and ambling down Honduras, an eager queue of people caught her eye. The line trailed outside a tall stone building, strewn with climbing plants that soared to a ladder of delicate, twisting balconies.

The café name was emblazoned above its arched entrance in red Vaudeville letters: EL ANTIGUO SALÓN. Everyone had heard of Antiguo, the ultimate
porteño
café. Built in the nineteenth century, it had been home to the creative thinkers of the age; writers, artists, and philosophers gathered here to sip Fernet and smoke
cigarros.

Calida crossed the avenue just as the grand doors opened and the line trickled inside. Fascinated, she followed them in. The salon was a dimly lit cavern of gleaming circular tables, chequered floors, and a ceiling embroidered with
trompe l’oeil
skylights. The walls were covered with framed paintings and snapshots of the Antiguo set through the decades. Calida ordered a
café cortado.
Waiters in starched cream aprons rushed to take orders and a jazz record played fuzzily. She could have stayed for hours, but the popularity of the place meant there was already a chain forming and she ought to ask for the cheque. The waiter laid it down with a flourish.

‘Not staying for tango?’ he asked.

She must have looked blank, because he smiled and said:

‘Through the back.’ The waiter nodded towards the rear of the room, where a thick, scarlet curtain was pulled. The curtain seemed to pulse, a vital, breathing thing, calling her. ‘Rodrigo Torres is dancing tonight. Show starts in ten.’

A middle-aged woman wearing masses of gold jewellery crossed the floor, flicked open the curtain and disappeared behind it. The material parted for a moment before shivering back into place. Calida stood and went towards it. The rest of El Antiguo Salón receded around her, the conversation lulling to mute, until there was nothing but her tread, one foot in front of the other, and the curtain coming closer.

She peeled it open, was struck by a smell of old leather and musk, some citrusy aroma draped over years of cigarette smoke, and stepped inside.

It took moments for her eyes to adjust. A girl was flitting between glass-topped tables, lighting candles in jars that flickered orange and gold. A shaft of white funnelled on to the empty, black stage, like a divine message spilling through clouds.

Calida took a chair, and waited.

Slowly, the room filled. Calida kept seeing the gold-jewellery woman, at one moment vanishing backstage and the next greeting customers. Above her own table was a picture of a young girl with her hair in a plait, mid-tango, her elbow at a sharp angle and her head turned, and her leg stretched behind her in that classic, sensual pose. Calida decided it was the same person. She wondered if the woman still danced.

A steward came to collect money and the lights went out, making that pool of white almost blinding. A reverential hush descended. Calida was mesmerised.

The music began. Spiky, seductive rhythms heralded the arrival of the dancers with such urgency that Calida felt the need to sit up straight. When the pair strode onstage and she saw him—Rodrigo Torres, the man they had come to witness—she breathed in so sharply that a woman on the next table turned and caught her eye.

Rodrigo Torres was a vision. His silhouette was neat as an artist’s outline, the way he moved more liquid than flesh and bone. He wore tailored black trousers and a white shirt buttoned halfway up his chest, his hair oiled and his hips winding. Fluently he led the dance, steps stroking the floor and caressing that surface in the way he might caress a concubine, his feet hooking and licking and kicking up invisible dust. Never was there more than a sliver between the dancers, the heat and hunger almost too intimate to watch. Raw sexuality pounded off their bodies, as real and unstoppable as the tempo. Calida was spellbound. Watching him, a strange, hot tingling rippled between her legs.
I want to do that,
she thought.
I want to do it with you.

Teresita’s voice came at her, telling her she couldn’t. She shouldn’t even try.

How monstrous it had been to see her twin at that premiere, glittering and wicked. How cruel it was that one path should lead to gold and the other to dust.

I can do whatever the hell I want.

The next night Calida came back, and the next, and the next. She discovered that Rodrigo Torres performed at El Antiguo for a week every month. Each time she grew more addicted to his performance; it sated her like water and filled her like a hot meal and it did something else to her, too. When she got home after a night watching Rodrigo she touched herself in bed, her fingers working beneath the sheets until she arched her neck and shuddered to climax, her hips raised, panting and fevered.

Think of all the things he could teach me …

Beneath Rodrigo’s touch, she could become as bold as Teresita. She could learn the ways of her body, the ways of
pleasure, all those things she had never felt worthy of. Rodrigo was nothing like Daniel: there was no risk, no danger.

She started taking her camera. Then she could steal Rodrigo home with her, even if he was caught in motion like a moth on a pin. But the images were far from static: Calida was stunned at how much movement they conveyed. Rodrigo was fierce as a bull yet tender as a lover, as he bathed in a lake of light. She examined the sexy, earnest concentration on his face. These were the best pictures she had ever taken.

One evening, the woman in the gold jewellery stopped her.

‘What are you doing?’ She snatched the camera from Calida’s grip. The show had ended, the crowd filtering out. ‘It is forbidden to take photographs in here.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Calida reached to claim it back. The woman scrutinised her. She had piercing eyes and was wearing a shawl around her shoulders. At her throat was a pink gem that reminded Calida of the grapes she had picked on Cristian’s farm. It looked edible.

‘Do you work for De Tanturri?’ the woman asked suspiciously.

‘I don’t know what that is.’

The green eyes narrowed. After a pause she granted, ‘All right, I believe you,’ and passed back the camera. ‘Though I’m not sure why. De Tanturri is our rival. They are always spying on us, seeing how we do things and trying to steal our clients.’

‘I can’t imagine anywhere rivalling this place.’ Calida couldn’t resist saying his name. ‘I mean, Rodrigo … he’s incredible …’

The woman’s expression softened. ‘Ah,’ she said, understanding. ‘I see.’

‘Oh, no,’ Calida was quick to clarify, ‘I don’t just take pictures of
him …
’

Then, suddenly, she had an idea. Her photographs were miles better than the ones on the wall. ‘Here.’ She dug into her bag and withdrew a stack. ‘Look.’

The woman took some time flicking through the images.

‘These are good,’ she said. ‘
Son muy buenos.
’ She regarded Calida differently this time. ‘I am Paola Ortiz,’ she said. ‘Manager of this place.’

Calida gestured to the picture on the wall. ‘Is this you?’

Paola’s expression became wistful. ‘A long time ago.’

‘You were a brilliant dancer. I can tell.’

‘I was a young girl, then. Flying to the stars.’

She took a chance and said: ‘A bit like me.’

‘Oh?’

‘One day I might even reach them—if someone gives me a shot.’

Paola smiled. ‘What is it you want?’ she asked.

Calida lifted her chin. ‘A job.’

It was a paid evening slot, once a week. Calida captured the dancers’ movements, the drama and poise of the ritual, fluid and sharp and always irresistible. Once the photos were developed, Paola, with much admiration, selected the best. These were framed and put on sale in the tango hall—where they stayed for all of half an hour. Each time, Calida’s pictures sold out. She couldn’t think why she hadn’t considered it before. She was
good
at this; she could make a living from it. Probably because she’d never imagined making a living. Her life had been the
estancia …
but that was gone now.

A month passed before she approached Paola again. She’d had the idea of taking the audience’s portraits; gifts or souvenirs to carry home at the end of a show. Her suggestion
was welcomed, and coincided with Paola introducing Friday night beginners’ dance classes, and soon enough Calida was spending all her time outside the pizza café either at El Antiguo or developing her pictures. It wasn’t long before her work was fed into the famous salon gallery; the very one she had sat and admired not twelve weeks before. She thought of Diego, and knew he’d be proud.

‘
Adios
, De Tanturri!’ Paola sang as she counted up the club’s takings.

Calida lived for the nights when Rodrigo was back. He danced at other clubs in town, but Paola liked to proclaim that his heart belonged to this place. Taking the ultimate portrait of him, the one that captured him absolutely, obsessed Calida. Nobody saw the flaws she did in her pictures—the angle of Rodrigo’s head, slightly too low, or the shadow on his cheekbone, a touch too deep—but she came to know her subject’s face as thoroughly as her own. Everything about him pulled her.

Teresita would like him.

That thought enticed her. The notion that Rodrigo had never met her twin—nobody here had, and thus had nothing against which to compare—was thrilling. For the first time, Calida was unique. There was only one of her. Her sister would never meet Rodrigo: she’d never be able to ruin him for Calida in the way she’d ruined Daniel. But the thought of her liking him, that invisible competition, drove her on.

You think I can’t be with a man like Rodrigo? Think again.

One evening she stayed late, slowly and deliberately packing her kit, and listening out for his movements. Finally, he emerged from his dressing room.

Just as she’d planned, they collided on their way out. The scent of his body was dizzying. White teeth sparkled in a deep-tan face.

‘Hello,’ said Rodrigo Torres. ‘So you are the photographer.’

Calida nodded. Rodrigo’s stare burned into her.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Calida.’

Lightly, he touched her arm. A shiver travelled up to her collarbone.

‘Well, Calida …’ His voice was deep and commanding. ‘You must have passion in your soul to love the tango this much. I see you out there every night.’

Rodrigo put a thumb to her chin and lifted it. The gesture was achingly intimate. ‘I see passion in your eyes,’ he said, ‘and I like it.’

Calida returned his stare. She fought the urge to go weak, to surrender to her nerves. But she stood strong. As strong as him. She was passionate, all right.

‘What do
you
like?’ Rodrigo asked, so quiet it was almost a whisper.

‘I’d like to do what you do,’ she said.