Deborah Levy - Hot Milk

I like the way the satin rests on my hips and slips like a wave between my thighs. My hair is starting to go lighter at the ends and I haven’t brushed it for almost a week. This morning, Ingrid rubbed coconut oil into my curls and on my shins and feet and on my cracked lips.

‘Move closer, Zoffie.’

I move closer. Now her lips are pressed to my ear on our seaweed pillows.

‘You are a blue planet with your scary, dark eyes like small animals.’

I have decided to accept the mistake I’d made when I misread the word Beheaded. It is not for me to censor how she thinks with her sewing needle, even if her thoughts hurt me.

‘Zoffie, why do you burn those citronella coils at night?’

‘How do you know that’s what I do?’

‘Because I can smell it on you.’

‘Mosquitos don’t like it,’ I say. ‘But it makes me feel calm.’

‘Are you anxious, then, Zoffie?’

‘Yes. I suppose I am.’

‘That’s what I like about you.’

Ingrid is slapping her arms because there are horseflies on this particular beach. She usually avoids coming here but has made an exception for me. She tells me about Ingmar, who is doing good business since Pablo’s deranged dog drowned.

‘Don’t worry, Zoffie, you gave him the freedom to die.’

‘No No No’ (whispered in her ear).

‘You did him a favour. He was already dead when he was chained. It was not a life.’

‘He was not dead. He wanted to change his life.’

‘Animals do not have imagination, Zoffie.’ (Her hand rests on my stomach.)

‘He might not have drowned.’

‘Have you seen him anywhere?’

‘No.’

‘Have you heard him howling recently?’

‘No.’

‘Shall I change the subject and tell you more about Ingmar?’

‘Yes.’

She lies on her hip, facing me in her pale blue fringed bikini. Every now and again she flicks the jewel that pierces her belly button. ‘Are you ready, Zoffie?’

‘Yes.’

‘While you were in Athens, the sea police arrived on a special motorboat on our local beach. They were testing the water and concluded there had been a gasoline spill. So they ordered everyone out of the water. Ingmar got annoyed because all the noise was disturbing his customers. He ran out of his tent in his shorts and told the sea police they were wrong, their machines were not accurate, the sea was clear and it was clean. They got annoyed and ordered him to taste the water. So he scooped an empty water bottle into the sea and drank the whole lot and then he agreed that, yes, there had been a gasoline spill. Now he is sick and can’t work and he wants to sue the sea police for forcing him to taste the water.’

‘It might be the corpse of Pablo’s dog.’

‘Definitely, Zoffie! That’s what it is! Pablo’s drowned dog has contaminated the water.’

The sun beats down on her long, golden body.

‘So you ran away from me and went to visit your father?’

‘I didn’t run away from you.’

‘Tell me about your baby sister.’

I describe Evangeline’s soft, dark hair, her olive skin and pierced ears.

‘Does she look like you?’

‘Yes, we have the same eyes. But she will speak three languages. Greek, Italian, English.’

Ingrid lies down on her back again and stares at the sky. ‘Shall I tell you about why I am a big, bad sister?’

‘Yes.’

She puts her straw hat over her face and starts to talk under the hat so I have to move on to my side and lean on my elbow to hear her. She is speaking in a dull, flat voice, and I have to strain to hear what she is saying.

There had been an accident. When her sister was three and she was five she had pushed her on a swing in the garden and she pushed too hard, not knowing her strength. Her sister had fallen out of the swing. It was a bad accident. She had broken her arm and cracked three ribs. Ingrid stops talking.

‘You were only five. You were a child,’ I say.

‘But I was pushing her too high. She was screaming. She wanted to come down, but I kept on pushing.’

I pick up a white feather lying on the rock and run my finger along its edge.

‘Something else happened,’ Ingrid says.

I feel the panic I always feel when I’m with Ingrid start to rise in my chest.

‘My sister fell on her head. When they X-rayed her skull, they found it had cracked and that her brain was damaged.’

While she speaks, I realize I am holding my breath. My fingers are tearing at the feather.

Ingrid stands up and her hat falls to the ground. She grabs hold of the fishing net she has brought to the beach and walks across the rocks towards the smaller bay hidden round the corner from the main beach. I can see she wants to be alone, so I pick up her hat and place it on her seaweed pillow.

Someone is calling my name.

Julieta Gómez waves to me from the shade of one of the caves. Her hair is wet so she obviously has just been swimming. She is drinking from a bottle of water, tilting it up and taking small sips. When she waves the bottle at me she seems to be inviting me to join her.

I climb across the rocks, tucking the white satin dress into my bikini to free my legs, and sit by her side.

‘It’s my day off,’ she says.

I gaze at Ingrid who is leaning miserably against a rock in the shallows. Now and again she scoops up medusas with her fishing net.

Julieta’s teeth are even whiter in the sunshine, her eyelashes long and silky.

She offers me the bottle, but I shake my head. And then I change my mind. The water is cold and calming. The panic I felt when Ingrid told me about her baby sister is still alive in my body like the invisible insects that vibrate in trees at night.

‘You look like a pop star, Sofia,’ says Julieta. ‘All you need is a guitar and a band. My father will play the drums.’

She laughs so loudly that I manage to sort of smile, but my attention is on Ingrid in the shallow bay. She has her back to me. She looks forlorn and alone.

Julieta tells me that one of the paramedics at the clinic dropped her off on his motorbike and will pick her up at the end of the day. Her father was overprotective and instructed his staff to check she was wearing a helmet on the motorbike. He made her mad.

She gestures to her bottle of water. ‘I prefer to drink vodka, because it inflames my father. He hates all drugs. He still mourns for my mother, and so he is offended by the idea that medication can dissolve the pain of his memories and reminiscences.’

Ingrid is still scooping up jellyfish in her yellow net and turning them out on the sand.

‘Medusas,’ I say, as if it is important.

‘Yes,’ Julieta replies.‘It is a myth that if you pee on the sting it calms the pain.’

I jump down from Julieta’s cave and make my way back to the seaweed pillows. Early that morning, I had driven to a supermarket out of town to find Ingrid the German salami she likes, and lettuce and oranges and grapes. When she climbs back to the rock she tells me it is too hot for her on this ugly unsheltered beach. She glances towards the cave where Julieta is sunbathing and says she wants to go home.

‘Don’t go, Ingrid.’ My voice is horribly begging.

I am still shocked about her brain-damaged sister and want to tell her, again, that it wasn’t her fault. She was a child and she made a mistake, but the word Beheaded keeps getting in the way.

Ingrid pushes past me and starts to pack away her things. ‘I want to work, Zoffie. I need to sew. All I want to do now is to find the right thread and begin.’

Near us, a six-year-old boy bites into a giant red tomato as if it were a peach. Juice spurts over his chest. He takes another bite and watches me help Ingrid lace her silver Roman sandals up her shins.