Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

What a damn night, Ruth said to herself. She’d arrived home in a good mood, ready to enjoy a lovely evening with Carol, and found her hysterical, shouting down the phone, insulting Héctor like a lunatic. Her expression demanded explanations and she’d finally managed to get her to hang up the phone and tell her how this surreal scene had come about. Carol only said: “Look at it yourself. This was inside the box your bastard of an ex gave you yesterday.” And after those words, she pressed a button on the remote. The screen had filled with images of her and Carol taken some days back: both of them on a nudist beach in Sant Pol, naked as night fell. Ruth remembered the day well, but seeing it in that way, seeing their kisses turned into a cheap and crude recording, generated a profound feeling of disgust in her. Their bodies caressing each other on that solitary beach aroused a sudden feeling of shame in her. From there, everything went from bad to worse. She’d tried to reason with Carol, tell her that Héctor was in Argentina when those images were recorded; and that, even if he had been here, he’d never have committed so. . obscene an act. Carol had finally given up, although she kept arguing that there were private detectives to whom these things were entrusted, asking how that fucking DVD had arrived in that box of cakes that Héctor had given her, asking why she defended her ex-husband more than her, finally putting the key question to her: what the hell am I in your life? Questions with no answers, which had plunged Ruth into an exhausting vertigo. She just wanted to throw that film in the bin and forget all about it. But before she did so she thought she should call Héctor to speak to him, a short conversation to calm him, which of course Carol didn’t understand at all. When she hung up, she’d already gone, and all of a sudden Ruth felt relieved to be completely alone.

She kept going over the same idea, although she was fully aware that Carol wouldn’t be happy, and not without reason: they’d planned things to do that weekend, taking advantage of the fact that Guillermo wasn’t coming back until Sunday night. According to Carol, they needed to spend more time together. Waking up, eating, having dinner and sleeping together like a real couple. Ruth had been left staring at her, not knowing how to explain herself: she couldn’t tell her that that string of common actions, stated in a tone more imperious than affectionate, sounded more like a sentence than anything else. I should have more patience with Carol, she told herself, while she attacked the second piece of toast. She was young, fierce and tended to be demanding when she wanted to show affection. That attitude, the extreme frankness that had managed to break down Ruth’s defenses when they’d met the year before, turned out to be exhausting day to day. Carol had the blackest eyes Ruth had ever seen, and a perfect body, strong yet still feminine, sculpted through hours of Pilates and strict dieting. She was without question a beautiful woman: not just good-looking but gorgeous. And on the other hand, her insecurity, her fear of the possibility that Ruth might renege on this new sexuality discovered at the age of thirty-seven, gave her a fragile air which, combined with her extreme characteristics, was irresistible. Nothing was calm with Carol, reflected Ruth: she exploded and regretted; she went from cool jealousy to unbridled passion; she roared with laughter or sobbed like a little girl at any tearjerker. A delight, but a delight that could be overwhelming.

By her second coffee, she’d made a decision. She would call her parents, and if they weren’t going, she would spend the weekend at the apartment in Sitges. She didn’t usually go in summer because the crowds drove her crazy, but she needed a close, familiar refuge and this was better than nothing. All of a sudden the prospect of spending three days alone, doing whatever she felt like, sounded marvellous and in spite of it being early she rang her mother to find out if the apartment was free, crossing her fingers in the hope that the answer would be yes. It was, so without wasting a moment she sent Carol a message describing her plan-a short, succinct text that wouldn’t prompt a reply. However, she hesitated a moment before doing the same to Héctor: she didn’t have to inform him of her comings and goings, but the night before she’d noticed he was worried. His tone of voice was anxious and Héctor, for all his faults, wasn’t a man easily perturbed. She fiddled with her mobile until she finally decided to speak to him.

“Hello?” he answered, almost before the phone rang. “Everything all right?”

“Yes, yes,” she rushed to reassure him. “Listen, you had me worried last night. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

He took a deep breath.

“The truth is I have no idea.” Héctor told her more calmly what he’d said to her the previous night: that veiled threat that seemed to be hovering over him, and perhaps over his family. “I don’t think anything will happen, maybe they just want to make me nervous, create problems, but just in case. . stay alert, OK? If you see anything strange or suspicious, tell me straight away.”

“Of course. In fact I was ringing to tell you I’m going to Sitges this weekend. To my parents’ place. I’ll come back via Calafell and pick Guillermo up on Sunday night.”

“Are you going alone?” He asked more for reasons of safety than anything else, but he immediately regretted it and Ruth’s tone confirmed it had been an ill-timed intrusion.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Sorry. I don’t. . didn’t want to interfere in your life.”

“Yeah.” Ruth bit her tongue so as not to be unpleasant. “Well, it sounded like it. Good-bye, Héctor, speak to you Monday.”

“Yes, enjoy yourself. And Ruth. .” He realized he didn’t know how to say it. “Like I said, if you see anything strange, call me immediately, OK?”

“Bye, Héctor.” Ruth hung up straight away, and saw that she had two missed calls from Carol. The last thing she felt like doing was arguing, so she opted to ignore them and began to prepare the couple of things she wanted to take with her.

Héctor didn’t waste any time either. He had slept very little and very badly as usual, but that morning the lack of sleep translated into hyperactivity. Apart from what he had said to Ruth, he was worried. Above all because, although he sensed the threat, he didn’t know from where it would come or what was really going on. Something told him it wasn’t just he who was at risk from this vague danger; the revenge, if that’s what it was, would extend to those around him. When he had finally managed to reach his son the night before, he’d let out a sigh of relief. Guillermo was loving it at his friend’s house and for a moment Héctor was tempted to tell him to stay a few more days if possible, but he didn’t: he wanted to see him too badly. Between the event before his departure for Buenos Aires and the trip itself, it had been a month since the last time. And he missed him, more than he would ever have believed. In a way, his relationship with his son was stretching as he grew. Héctor couldn’t pretend to have been a model father: excessive working hours on one hand, and the inability to get excited by childish games on the other had made him an affectionate but vaguely absent father. However, recently he’d been surprised by the maturity with which Guillermo accepted the changes in his life. He was a rather introverted, yet not unsociable boy, who’d inherited his mother’s talent for drawing and his father’s ironic air, which made him seem older. Héctor had found himself thinking not only did he love his son, no doubt about that, but he also got on well with the boy and a relationship had begun to be established between them that was, if not one of friendship-which seemed absurd to him-then one that certainly had undertones of camaraderie. The separation and having to spend some full weekends alone together had contributed to improving the relationship between father and son instead of hindering it.