Victoria Fox - The Santiago Sisters

‘Does Julia know?’

‘She doesn’t need to know.’

‘Hey, Dani, what’s going on?’ The blonde came over.

‘Nothing,’ Daniel said, stepping away from her.

‘Who are they?’

‘Girls I work with.’

‘Shit, what are they, like twelve?’

‘Too young to be out, that’s for sure.’

Teresa glared. ‘I’m still here, you know. I can hear just fine.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be here,’ Daniel said. His voice softened somewhat when he addressed Calida. ‘I’m surprised you did this, Calida,’ he said. ‘You should have known better. Why did you bring your sister with you?’

Teresa wanted to scream. Why do they have to treat me like a baby ?

All Calida did was to grimly lift her shoulders—and then, to everyone’s embarrassment but most of all her twin’s, a sob broke out of its carefully assembled cage. Calida sniffed and wiped her eyes, trying to contain it so nobody would notice.

Daniel extricated himself from the blonde and pulled her into a hug. Teresa heard her sobs honking against his sweater. Daniel held the back of Calida’s neck tenderly, and the blonde became agitated. ‘Are we going or not?’ she said irritably.

Calida drew away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I just … I’m sorry.’ Her face was blotchy with tears and humiliation and the wound of an exploded dream.

Daniel led his girlfriend away and began speaking to her intently. The girlfriend sighed, rolled her eyes, then turned on her heel and went back inside.

‘Come on,’ he told the sisters, ‘we’re going home.’

‘We don’t have any money,’ said Calida. She sounded utterly dejected.

‘It’s a good job I do, then, isn’t it?’

On the ride back to the farm, they barely spoke. Calida was curled against the window. Teresa wondered if she was asleep, and leaned into the front so that her mouth was inches from Daniel’s shoulder and she could smell the smoky scent coming off him. ‘You won’t tell Mama, will you?’ she whispered.

Daniel waited a moment before responding. When he did, he reached into the back and touched Calida’s knee. Perhaps he thought she was the one who’d asked it.

‘I won’t tell,’ he said.

‘Money,’ said Simone Geddes’ manager, as they took a car from the airstrip and began the long drive through northern Patagonia, ‘plain and simple. Once we show these people the kind of cash we’re carrying, it’s a free pass straight to your kid.’

Simone opened her diamond-encrusted compact and reapplied SOS lip cream. Travel made her horribly dehydrated, and the trip from London had been exhausting; first the city-hop to Amsterdam, then the fourteen hours to Buenos Aires, then the final leg to this deadbeat part of the world that looked as if it had never seen a car on four wheels, let alone a Range Rover Lumma CLR with built-in sound system and a sun roof that allowed Simone’s headscarf to whip prettily in the breeze.

‘Well,’ she turned to Michelle, ‘I trust you know what you’re doing.’

‘Naturally. I’ve had my contacts working round the clock on this for over a year, Simone. I don’t make mistakes.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ Simone lit one of her super-slim menthols—she was trying to give up, but these hardly counted. ‘That’s why you’re my manager.’

Michelle Horner delivered a tight smile, the equivalent of a raucous laugh from an ordinary person, and consulted her papers. She passed a file to Simone.

‘Six daughters, the right age, and a nice spread of light and dark.’

‘I’d like one with dark hair.’

‘I meant skin tone.’ Michelle tapped a sharp red fingernail on the photo, which showed half a dozen grinning tweens holding hands on a farm. They looked poor, but happy. ‘We’ve got everything from mocha to cappuccino.’

‘I feel like I’m buying a puppy!’ Simone trilled joyously.

‘With any luck this one won’t pee all over your floors.’

Simone flicked ash out of the window. Some of it blew back on her and without needing to be asked the driver activated the rear-seat ashtray; a crystal plate slid smoothly from the leather footrest. Simone tapped her cigarette into it.

‘So, which has your vote?’ Michelle asked.

‘Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe the one in the middle.’

‘That’s my favourite, too.’

‘They’re a bit scrawny, aren’t they? Will they grow into their looks? It’s important, Michelle. This girl is going to be my ambassador, among other things.’

‘I understand that,’ Michelle replied. ‘I even had one of those photo-fit experts draw up estimates of what they’ll be like in ten years’ time, like they do for missing people.’ She handed the printouts to Simone. ‘Feast your eyes on this.’

Simone consulted the images. She thought they all looked a bit creepy, to be honest: half botched cosmetic surgery victim, half low-budget drag act.

She turned to gaze out at the sprawling rustic geography. Argentina. Who would have thought it when, all those months ago, she and Michelle had spoken of adoption for the first time? Since then Michelle had been true to her word. She had dispatched the finest team to every corner of the globe in search of treasure. After countless meetings, endless back and forth, and a spate of ugly arguments with Brian, who couldn’t understand any of it and refused to try, Simone had settled on South America. She desired an exotic-looking daughter. The girl had to be poor, because poverty would make her grateful: Simone wanted to be thanked for this. They had narrowed their quest to an estancia on the Pampas, and a single father with six children to feed and not two pesos to rub together. Simone would be their saviour.

‘Aren’t our children enough?’ Brian had complained, the day she’d told him.

Simone had bitten her tongue—hard. Never mind the fact that Emily and Lysander weren’t hers, they were hideous. Especially Lysander, who had possessed the nerve to pinch her bottom by the swimming pool last Friday, in front of all her friends and during the barbecue she had put on as a charity fundraiser. Hey! magazine had been covering the event and Simone could only imagine her flushed, affronted face, spicy sausage hanging between the grill tongs, as she’d opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Oh, she’d wanted to slap him! Too quick, Lysander had dived into the water.

‘I need to do this, Brian,’ she had said. ‘For me.’

‘This new one won’t be yours either.’ It wasn’t like meek, mild Brian to take that toxic tone and Simone had been startled. She had almost liked it.

‘It will be as close as I can get,’ she replied.

Brian had stared her down for a moment, but Simone always won a stare-off and predictably her husband cowed, his shoulders rounding, before he skulked away. How could she expect him to understand? He didn’t know. She’d never told him. No child would ever come from her womb because her womb was incapable.

Hostile, they’d informed her. A hostile womb. Cripes.

Michelle brought her back to the present. ‘This family is going to get the shock of its life when we turn up,’ she was saying smugly. ‘We told them who you were but of course they’d barely even heard of the bloody Beckhams.’

‘Gosh, it must be remote.’

The car was slowing. ‘Are we there?’ called Michelle.

Their driver pulled over. He consulted the GPS.

‘José, is there a problem?’

The man didn’t speak much English. ‘We are lost,’ he said eventually.

‘Lost?’ Michelle snapped. ‘How can we be?’

‘Ah no, it is right way.’ The car started up again. Michelle and Simone exchanged sidelong glances. Does he know what he’s doing ? mouthed Simone. She had visions of being driven to a hilltop plateau and sacrificed like a mountain goat.