Rupert Thomson - Air and Fire

She must have fought the door for an hour. She wrestled with the handle; she shoved and pummelled at the panels. The wood resisted her. She cut her thumb on an uneven hinge and it was so hot in the bedroom that her blood dropped all over the floor. It would not stop. She crossed to the dressing-table and bound the wound in a clean handkerchief, then she pulled the carpet over the blood that led like a trail through the room. And, bending down, straightening a corner, heard footsteps in the corridor. Not Théo’s, though. Softer than Théo’s. More tentative.

‘Imelda? Is that you?’

‘Yes, Madame.’

‘Could you open the door?’

‘I can’t, Madame. I have no key.’

‘There’s only one key?’

‘Yes.’

She turned away from the door. It had lost its function; it might just as well have been a wall. The window was her only hope. She removed the screen. Outside, it was another identical morning. A view of rocks — some brown, some ochre. A view of sea, all tight and pale. She could smell engine-oil, fish-blood, anchor-chains. Her marriage was over. The love that had bound them had dissolved. Their house no longer had a soul.

Hands on the windowsill, she peered down. Below her was a slanting roof of tin. If she could drop down and somehow keep from slipping, she would be halfway to the ground. She sat side-saddle on the sill, and then let go.

Her heels skidded; she lost her balance. She landed on her hip, began to roll. But the pitch of the roof was shallow. She dug her fingers between two sheets of corrugated tin and held on. In the silence that followed she could hear the roof adjusting to her presence.

She sat still, trying to rehearse her next move. There were three wooden stanchions supporting the veranda on this side of the house, she remembered, each stanchion shaped like a Y. She would have to crawl or slide backwards and then feel for the place where the stanchion joined the roof. If she could just win a foothold in the crook of a Y, then she would be able to ease herself over the edge and climb down the stanchion to the wooden rail where the carpets were hung out to air.

In a few moments it was accomplished. She had not been seen, nor had she done herself any further damage. She stood on the pale-green boards of the veranda, jasmine twisting up the wall behind her. Her mind emptied suddenly and she glanced down. The front of her dress was smeared with rust; the white satin had an odd, scorched look, as if it had been held too close to a fire. She realised she could not risk the street; if anybody saw her like this, she would be locked up again — and probably in the hospital this time. And the path that led along the backs of the houses would be no safer: Florestine Bardou spent part of every morning on her back porch, creating yet another waistcoat for her husband. There was only one direction open to her, and that was down the slope, towards the company offices and workshops.

She left the veranda by the kitchen stairs and, lifting her skirts an inch, began to pick her way down the barren hillside. The sun leaned on her bare head. At one point she heard voices, and had to hide behind a rock. Four Indians passed within a few feet of her. One of them wore a beret. She had seen him the day before, leading the march up Avenida Cobre. They seemed to be pointing at the doctor’s house. They did not notice her.

At the bottom of the slope she slipped through a wire fence and into the alleyway between two buildings. The sudden shade was like a benediction. She stood against a wall and looked around. Pools of oil shimmered. Broken cement-blocks lay in heaps. She had to try not to think about her hands. How much they hurt her. How she was carrying bits of the house in her skin. The wall trembled at her back. She found a window and, peering into the building, watched fire arc downwards through the gloom. The molten copper flowed from a ladle near the roof into a huge cylindrical drum. She saw Pierre Morlaix standing below. His silver hair marked him out. It was then that she realised the extent of her own visibility, dressed in white silk, soiled though it was. She hurried down the alleyway. Behind her, she heard the drum begin to turn.

She crossed a factory yard and hid in the gap between a warehouse and a stack of railway sleepers. All in all the circumstances favoured her. With the Indians on strike, there would be fewer people about. Less chance of being seen. She edged past a padlocked door and, rounding the corner, found herself in a passage that led between two high walls of blackened brick. And there, at the far end of the passage, bleached by the sunlight, was the piece of luck she needed. Bleached to the colour of a ghost, but real enough. A horse.

She moved towards the horse — slowly, so as not to startle it. Its head swung in her direction, curious. She recognised it now. All black, with two white fetlocks and a white blaze on its forehead. It belonged to Monsieur de Romblay. She even knew its name.

‘Normandy,’ she whispered.

She pushed one hand against the sleek muscles in its neck.

‘There, Normandy, there,’ she whispered as she untied the loosely knotted reins. Still whispering the horse’s name, she fitted one foot into the stirrups and eased up into the saddle.

She rode through the gates and out on to the cinder track that ran between the office buildings and the sea. Nobody called after her. Nobody had noticed. She had not liked taking the Director’s horse, but it could not be helped. And he would thank her later.

Her first idea had been to ride to Captain Montoya’s house and warn him. But that would have been a mistake, she realised, a terrible mistake. It would be far better to ride in the opposite direction. To put as much distance as possible between herself and the event. For she now believed that it could not happen if she were not watching. Without her, the table could not be raised against that cairn of stones. Without her, the naked women could not dance.

This new belief had come from nowhere, with the force of a revelation. Her dream’s appendix. Ride away from the town; ride up into the hills. It was the only way to save his life.

Back in his hotel room Wilson sat with his boots on the table and his guitar cradled in his hands. He had decided to put the finishing touches to that song of his. It would complement her message to him, which he had got so late. It would be the tune of their reunion.

He was still tinkering with the first two lines when somebody rapped on the door. He jumped so hard, his thumb caught in the strings. An edgy, chaotic chord. He put the guitar down and reached for his shovel. If it was Indians again, they’d be in for a surprise this time. The same went for those half-brothers of the Bony One. The blade’s edge had a blunt grin where he had cleaned the dirt away; the steel gleamed. It was rapidly becoming a traditional weapon in town. But it would do the job, no question. He had seen men killed with far less elegance.

‘Who is it?’ he called out.

He stood to one side of the door with the shovel raised.

‘It is I. Monsieur Valence.’

‘One moment.’

He leaned the shovel against the wall and, looping his suspenders over his shoulders, tucked his shirt into the waistband of his pants. What could the Frenchman want? It must be urgent, for him to venture down into El Pueblo on such a night. He opened the door. Valence peered through the gap.

‘I’m sorry to intrude on you.’

Wilson held the door open. ‘Come on in.’

Showing Valence to a chair by the window, he was momentarily embarrassed by the poverty of his surroundings.

‘You’re taking a big risk coming here,’ he said. ‘I was almost lynched tonight.’