Invisible Blood Read online

  After coffee, Linda thanked Pippa for coming down, and they agreed to meet again.

  Miguel was nearly always late home. She had expected it would be like this at the start, but hoped they might settle into more regular hours. After the flat had been decorated there was little else to do, and the streets were too hot to walk through on summer afternoons, so she seated herself by the open bedroom windows. They were shaded by 4:00 pm, so she could sit and read without having to fan herself. She was trying to revise her Spanish from a schoolbook but the effort invariably made her sleepy.

  She hardly ever saw anyone on the gloomy central staircase. A couple of times an old lady passed her without saying a word. Pippa came down for coffee once or twice a week. At night Linda heard the squeaking of the pulleys, and knew that her neighbours were hanging out their clothes. Each day she found herself checking the washing lines to see who was in and who had been out the night before.

  * * *

  One afternoon she sat in the shade with a translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote in her lap, and her eyelids grew heavy. A squeak from the window directly opposite woke her. The floor-length glass was always heavily curtained and was never left open more than a few inches.

  In place of the usual blouses and the iris dress was a long white cotton gown, a man’s formal shirt and a pair of black socks. Down in the courtyard she could see pink and yellow specks of confetti.

  “Who is Maria seeing?” she asked Pippa on their next coffee afternoon.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Pippa dropped her jaw, appalled. “She has married El Prepotente.”

  “Mr Two Sorrys? No!”

  “Yes, very ugly but very powerful. His name is José Masvidal. He’s in the military division, the one I told you about with the brother who knows Franco. I don’t like him so I did not go to the wedding. Better to smile from a distance than lie close up.” Pippa pulled a face. She was full of peculiar sayings that probably had more impact in their original language. “Now Maria is married he will never let her go anywhere. She is much younger. She is my friend. I say to her, come dancing with me, and now she is too scared to go.”

  “So she’s going to stay in all the time?” Linda asked.

  “Oh yes, she will not be allowed out in the evenings. It is not respectful, it is vergonzoso. You know, shameful. Because she was a dancer and he is a good Catholic in the government.”

  * * *

  Summer turned to autumn. The shadows changed their angle but the temperature barely seemed to fall. She saw less of Pippa because her friend had taken a part-time job in the mercat, working in one of their grain stores.

  Outside the building opposite, the washing on the line had changed.

  Now there were always four large spotlessly white shirts, vests, an old man’s drawers, black socks, a shapeless black shift dress and what she’d assumed was underwear belonging to an elderly lady; an arrangement of baggy, beige cotton sacks. The paper windmills had been removed from the flowerpot and a heavy lead crucifix had appeared on the back wall. The woman who passed through the shadows moved with a supple, fluid grace. She’s so young, Linda thought. Don’t let that happen to me.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon the clock in the kitchen seemed to slow down. The sun took hours to set. It reached a low point in the reddening sky and just hung there without moving. When Miguel returned he asked her how her day had been and proceeded to tell her about his without waiting for her reply.

  “The man opposite has stopped his new wife from going out,” she said one evening over dinner. “He’s making her wear old lady clothes because they’re more respectable.”

  “A nightmare of a day today,” said her husband, looking around for his cigarettes. “Put the radio on, will you?”

  * * *

  The clothes on the line opposite changed from fancy to plain, from bright blue flowers to charcoal grey, from French scanties to beige drawers. How easy it was to dismantle a woman’s personality and replace it with something that smothered and suffocated. In all this time she hardly ever saw the woman behind the washing. She heard the pulley squeak a little before midnight twice a week and always went to look, but it was too dark to see, so she waited until the next morning to look at the line.

  One morning she caught a glimpse of Maria in full sunshine, going to the mercat. She was slender-waisted and had tumbling auburn hair that shone in the fresh early light. She walked happily, bouncing slightly, swinging her basket, glad to be free.

  Linda waited for her return. As Maria approached the building with her groceries she looked apprehensive, as if all her fears were held inside its dark stone walls.

  * * *

  “Your friend doesn’t dance anymore?” asked Linda casually over coffee.

  Pippa stirred her cup thoughtfully. “I asked her to come with me but she won’t. Sometimes I go by her flat but she doesn’t invite me in now.” She lowered her voice as if worried that someone might overhear them. “It’s the husband. He doesn’t like me. He’s had the walls repainted and has changed the furniture. All of her lovely bright things have gone. He moved in his grandmother’s dresser and her armchairs. So dark and heavy. I saw them taking her lovely pink dressing table down the stairs. Such a waste.”

  * * *

  The rains came. Miguel had to travel on business. The trips could last up to a week. For the first time she wondered if she was like Maria, willing to clip her wings for the love of a man. Sometimes she watched Miguel dressing for work and wondered how well she really knew him.

  When she went back to her seat by the window and looked across the courtyard on the next washday she was in for a surprise. Maria was at the window. She looked furtively behind her as if to make sure that she was alone, then hung out her old red panties and blouse, taking them in the second they were dry, which in the afternoon sun was only a matter of minutes. Linda wondered if she had taken to going out while her husband was away.

  “I’ve met him a couple of times,” said Miguel over dinner one evening. “José moves in high circles. He is greatly respected.”

  “José from across the courtyard?” she said, surprised, her fork halfway to her mouth.

  “He married the local beauty. A bit fast, by all accounts. He had to rein her in a bit.”

  “Perhaps it was her job to let him out,” she said defensively.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Miguel replied, placing his knife and fork together.

  * * *

  There was now a pattern, she noted. Whenever there were no white shirts and black socks to hang out, her old clothes reappeared. José Masvidal’s schedule was not unlike her husband’s. He had to travel most at the weekends.

  Christmas came and the flat was closed up while they visited each other’s families. Pippa went home to see her mother. The building was mostly empty. In January the old pattern continued, but in the middle of February there was another change in the clothesline opposite. A man’s shirt with bright blue stripes was hung out to dry beside Maria’s sexiest items. José Masvidal would never wear such a shirt. As soon as the items were dry they were hurriedly taken indoors.

  “It was a tiring journey,” said Miguel, settling into his armchair beside the radio. “Across to Zaragoza, and on to a military facility outside Teruel. José was there. We had quite a talk. He’s a very nice man.”

  “How are things going with his ‘fast’ wife?” she asked, keen for news. It seemed as if the men sometimes found out more than the women.

  “He never mentions her,” Miguel admitted vaguely. “José plays bowls and golf. He likes to tell me when he beats his rivals.”

  “Does she go with him?”

  “I can’t imagine she’d want to watch a group of middle-aged men playing games.” Miguel carefully refolded his copy of El País. “We’re visiting military posts over the next four weekends. Make sure you go to church on Sunday mornings.”

  She studied his face to see if he was joking but found nothing.

 
* * *

  All through March the brightly striped shirt appeared on the washing line. Sometimes it was accompanied by racy blue swimming trunks. One afternoon when Pippa came down, Linda asked her about the owner of the clothes.

  Pippa’s eyes widened. “You mustn’t say!” she cried, shocked. “Do you know what would happen if he found out? Why, he would have her killed.”

  It was Linda’s turn to be shocked. “You don’t actually mean—”

  “Do you have any idea what goes on when those men go out together? They’re on military business.” Pippa pushed her coffee aside and leaned in closer. “The noisy ones in the towns they visit just disappear. I’m not saying they don’t bring it upon themselves, but they’re certainly sent away somewhere, and often they don’t come back. A man is always a danger, but like-minded men in a group—they can go too far.”

  “Perhaps we should visit Maria to make sure she’s okay,” Linda suggested.

  “Trust me,” said Pippa, “she’s fine.” She held her painted nails level to the table top. “So long as everything stays like this. No upsets. It’s best for everyone. And it’s best you don’t know any more.” She flattened her red lips and held a finger against them. “Yes? For all of us.” There was a bang on the ceiling and a slow rising wail. She listened for a moment, then shrugged. “Los niños. Always the boys. One day I swear they will kill each other.”

  * * *

  The flat was so silent at night that the sound of the key in the lock was enough to wake her. She turned on the bedside light and sat up. Miguel came in and set down his briefcase.

  “You’re back early,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you for two more days.”

  “The trip was cut short.” He unbuttoned his jacket with great concentration and hung it on a chair.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said wearily. “Do you really want me to try and explain?”

  “Did you come back with your friend José?”

  “It’s because of him we came back.” He pulled off his shirt and threw it on the floor. “I need to get some sleep. I’m in early tomorrow.”

  By the time she awoke he had already left. She picked up his shirt, washed it and hung it out. The other washing line was empty, and the glass doors remained closed all day.

  * * *

  Later she sat in her seat by the window and read a trashy thriller. When her attention drifted she raised her head and looked across the narrow courtyard. The line was still empty. If José had come back, where were his shirts? She waited by the window, fully expecting that at any moment the glass door opposite would open and the washing would appear, but there was nothing. Miguel called to say he would be later than usual, so she ate alone, the sound of her cutlery ringing in the empty flat.

  Just as she was climbing into bed, she heard the squeak of the pulley. She waited until it had finished turning and the door had shut, then crept over to the window without putting on the lights. The white shirts were back, four of them, with four pairs of black socks. And so were the beige old lady drawers. Maria ironed everything first; the creases in the shirts had perfect sharp edges.

  The bright striped shirt stopped appearing on Saturdays. The red blouses and lace underwear did not return. One afternoon the glass door was left open and she could see inside the apartment. It had been painted grey and was dominated by the lead crucifix on the back wall. Linda tried to imagine what had happened. Mr Masvidal had returned early and thrown out the lover. Now his flighty wife was being made to repent her ways. Maria never even went to the shops anymore. Twice a week a crate of groceries appeared outside the door of the Masvidal apartment.

  * * *

  Linda heard from her friends in England. “When are you coming back?” they asked, but she was unable to give them an answer. Miguel had been promoted and his prospects looked good. Her desire for a child returned, but the doctor had advised against trying again for the sake of her health, so she contented herself with looking after Pippa’s boys from time to time.

  She missed her old job in England. She had only been cataloguing records in a provincial newspaper office, but she had lost herself in the stories they told. The local library here had a pitiful selection of books in English, so she relied on her sister to send the latest novels from London. She wondered if she could write something herself, perhaps about the dancer who had married the military bureaucrat, hoping for a better life. She bought a notepad and a fountain pen, and sat by the open windows plotting.

  The day she started writing, a new dress appeared on the line. It had a little colour, pale primroses around the hem, but its main feature was its size. It was a maternity smock.

  Linda could not wait to take coffee with Pippa. “How far gone is she?” she asked, setting out freshly made coca de forner in thick oily slices.

  “Five months at least,” said Pippa excitedly. “Even I didn’t know. She’s so skinny that she’s only just started to put on weight. I thought, so, she’s eaten a few cakes, but no, she tells me just the other day.”

  “You think this will bring her and José closer together?”

  “How can a baby make that much difference? You know what they say: Lavar cerdos con jabón es perder tiempo y jabón. Washing pigs is a waste of time and soap.”

  “I think it loses something in translation,” said Linda, pouring coffee.

  * * *

  Every Wednesday evening she attended a writing course run by the British Embassy, from one of the chambers in their amber stone wedding cake of a building behind the main plaza. There she learned about murders and motives and mysteries with a handful of bewildered elderly expats and a couple from Kenya who found sexual suggestion in every passing remark.

  After her latest effort had been picked apart by a stern patrician from Henley-Upon-Thames who had never recovered from ending up here after failing to get his novel published in England, she went home and prepared dinner for Miguel. It seemed perverse to want to dash through the flat and check the back clotheslines for the latest update, but lately the washing had come to act as a lifeline to the world, a jungle telegraph that told her there were real emotions flailing behind closed curtains and shut windows. Tonight, there was nothing. The primrose maternity dress, which always made an appearance on Wednesday nights, failed to materialise.

  * * *

  “Terrible,” said Pippa, barely able to gasp in enough air with the shock of it all. She had brought their usual coffee hour forward to the morning, so desperate was she to share her news. “She has lost the baby. That pig—” She went to spit but remembered where she was just in time. “He kicked her. In here.” She waved a bony tanned hand over her own nonexistent stomach.

  “Did Maria tell you that?” asked Linda, wide-eyed.

  “No, of course not. She says she slipped on the stairs, but I know it was him. She told me the baby was not planned and he has three of his own, from his first wife. Did I never tell you that?” She waved the missed information aside. “So, she is in Our Lady of Grace, recovering. The most terrible bruises, right from here to here.”

  “But if you think it was her husband, something must be done,” said Linda firmly. She looked around the sombre room, trying to imagine a course of action. “I can talk to my husband and ask him to find out the truth.”

  “You must not do such a thing,” Pippa insisted. “If you tell him, then José will know it was me who told you. Promise me you will say nothing.”

  Linda promised and the confidence was kept. But the windows opposite had taken on a sinister air that perversely drew her attention, because after Maria returned from the hospital, Linda noticed that something had changed.

  Washdays still arrived twice a week and the shirts were pegged out as they always had been, but now they were badly ironed and no longer bleached to a fierce whiteness. The sleeves were grey and patchy, the collars washed without the studs being removed. Each one was hung with a single peg so that it creased badly as it dried. The maternity dress
reappeared, but had been taken in so that it fitted tightly. Maria was not about to let her husband forget what had happened to their unborn child.

  Summer arrived once more and the temperature soared back to its lethal intensity. The sky was so blue above the rooftops that it looked like the atmosphere was evaporating into space. Rectangles of light slid slowly across the drawing room’s polished floor and over the kitchen tiles, marking off the hours of the day.

  One evening Miguel came home in a strangely sour mood. Whenever he was like this she knew it was better to keep away, but tonight there was something about his face that made her ask.

  “They say he fell,” Miguel told her, half under his breath. “The man was as strong as an ox. Every morning he lifted weights, even when we were away attending conferences. I refuse to believe it.”

  “Who?” It was so rare that she asked questions, she wondered if she could still be heard. Perhaps her voice had shrivelled to nothing without her noticing.

  “José Masvidal,” he snapped back at her, striding about the room. “He was found at the bottom of the stairs with his head—” Miguel grimaced at the image that had formed inside his own head.

  “You mean the marble stairs at the ministry?”

  “No, our stairs—the stairs outside his own front door!” Miguel shouted.

  Linda had experienced the treachery of the unlit staircase often enough, and had wondered if accidents had occurred in the past. She had not ventured up the opposite staircase but could tell it was the same.

  “They should put lights on them,” she said. “The skylights need cleaning and hardly lets in anything. I’ve nearly fallen there myself. Who found him?”

  “She did.” He could not bring himself to say her name. “She says he left for work and something made her go back to the front door. He was lying with his head down, what was left of it. He’d fallen from the top to the bottom. A man like that, as strong as an ox!”

  * * *

  She went down and crossed the vestibule of cracked black and white tiles, heading for the other side of the building. As she climbed the darkened stairs she heard a metallic thump and a slide. Carlos the janitor was working his way across the landing with a galvanised bucket and a mop. Water flooded across the tiles.