All Yours (4 page)

It was my lucky day – I really never expected the doors to Truelove’s home to open so easily to me. It was a heavenly blessing. More than a blessing: a message. Someone up there wanted me to search that apartment before the police got there.

I ran down the stairs, feeling radiant with happiness. “Triumphant” would be the word for it. I never could have imagined that visiting my husband’s office could turn out to be so beneficial for our plans. For both of ours, Ernesto’s and mine, although he was still away with the fairies. I beamed a smile at the receptionist. Catching my reflection in a mirror on the way out, I winked at myself.

As I watched myself walking towards the door, I played with the bunch of keys hidden in the pocket of my sand-coloured trouser suit.

9

“Who sent you?”

“My friend’s cousin.”

“Has she been to us?”

“I don’t know, she didn’t say.”

“What’s her name?”

“Belén Aguirre.”

“Oh yes. Do you know what the procedure is, Mum?”

“Yes, well – more or less.”

“How far gone are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was your last period?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try to remember, because that’s important.”

“Well… about two months ago.”

“Right, if that’s the case, and if we act quickly, we can do it by aspiration.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s suction, Mum, with a little tube you’ll barely notice. It goes in, sucks, and everything comes out. You don’t have to do a D and C or anything.”

“…”

“It comes out easily, really easily.”

“…”

“Are you not feeling well?”

“A bit sick.”

“Oh, don’t worry, that’s quite normal. You’ll feel better soon. Let’s fix a date, two days of rest and afterwards, if I ever see you again I don’t remember who you are. You’ll have a fresh start, life back to normal.”

“Will it show?”

“Will what show?”

“The thing I’m going to have done.”

“How will it show if we’re not going to do anything!”

“…”

“Look, Mum, if you don’t want anyone to know, nobody will know, all right?”

“Yes.”

“Now I’m going to write up a prescription for a few things you’ll need. Antibiotics for afterwards, and a Valium for the day before, so you’ll be nice and relaxed, all right? This can shake you up a bit. Is someone coming with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well I recommend you get a friend, I don’t know – someone you trust, you know, because what with the Valium and the anaesthesia you’re going to feel a bit faint, and it wouldn’t be good for you to be wandering about on your own, Mum.”

“OK.”

“Anything you’d like to ask?”

“No.”

“Then let’s talk about the fee. This is going to cost you a thousand pesos. You’ll need to bring it in cash because we don’t use a bank account, OK? Dollars or pesos, either is fine.”

“…”

“You’ve got the money, haven’t you, Mum?”

“Yes, yes, I’ve got it.”

“Good, so, shall we fix a date now? What do you think of the 10th of July?”

“No, I’m going on an end-of-school trip that day.”

“But how old are you, Mum?”

“Nineteen.”

“Sure?”

“Yes… I stayed down a year.”

“Because look, we can’t treat a minor unless an adult accompanies her.”

“I’m nineteen.”

“We’re very strict about that – we don’t want any trouble.”

“I’m telling you that I’m an adult.”

“OK, Mum, but bring me your ID card on the day of the operation, will you?”

“All right.”

“Do you want to do it before the trip or afterwards?”

“Afterwards.”

“Look, we can’t leave things too late because then it takes hold and can’t be sucked out, do you understand? When do you get back?”

“On the 18th.”

“The 18th is a Sunday. Monday I’m fully booked. Does Tuesday the 20th sound all right?”

“Yes.”

“Then Tuesday 20th at ten a.m.”

“I’d have to miss school.”

“Well yes, you haven’t really got a choice, Mum.”

“…”

“Shall I put you down for Tuesday 20th, then?”

“Yes.”

“Right, I’ll see you on Tuesday the 20th at ten o’clock in the morning. Please don’t forget your ID card, and payment in cash.”

“…”

“Take your prescription for the Valium.”

“Yes.”

“Bye, Mum.”

“Bye.”

“Have a good trip.”

10

I walked right into Truelove’s apartment as though it were mine. The thicker key was for the main door. I didn’t meet anyone, either in the hall downstairs or on the landing. Before going in, I put on some rubber gloves I’d bought on the way. I had seen way too many crime drama series in my time to go leaving my prints everywhere. I rang the bell – just in case the dead woman had not lived alone. There was no answer. I put the key in the lock and went in. It was a two-room apartment, small but stylish, and very tidy.

Before going through drawers and cupboards, I had a quick look around the place. There were masses of framed photographs. Family photos. All of them with toothpaste-ad smiles. “To think that these people will soon be crying,” I thought. Two photographs stood out because of their size and position: a portrait of Truelove in black and white, and a colour photo in which she was hugging a girl of about twenty, very tall with long black hair. I looked around for a picture of my husband flashing his own teeth, but he was mercifully absent. That was a relief, because if he was not worthy of a place among all these smiling relations, there must be a reason for it. “You can’t go putting a photo of your lover between one of your great-grandmother and another of your cousin, as if it were all the same thing,” I thought. But I was mistaken, there was more to it than that.

I began a more thorough search in the living room. I found nothing incriminating there, no mention of my husband, or anything that could be linked to him; not even work documents. After that I focused on the bathroom and the kitchen. Nothing there, either. I left the bedroom for last. I knew that if I was going to find anything, it would be there. And so it was. I opened the door and was shocked to see a double bed. For an instant I imagined Ernesto rolling around on that bed, sweating, working away to give pleasure to Truelove. I felt a very dark mood come over me, a kind of rage and a desire to kill someone. But she was already dead. I relaxed, took a deep breath and focused once more on my objective. My job here wasn’t to fan the flames but to put out the fire. And you have to see the positive side to these things – in this case, the bed – because, if it bothered me to think of him rolling around on it, one thing was clear: he was never going to roll around on it again. All I had to do in that room was remove any incriminating traces. And a double bed incriminates no one, because rolling around leaves no marks. “Except that it does,” I thought. So I got to inspecting the sheets. They were impeccable, as if nobody had slept in them. Not a stain or hair, not so much as a crease.

Twenty minutes later I had finished with the wardrobe and the countless little boxes where Truelove kept all sorts of rubbish. Most of it rather naive. Postcards, ribbons, photographs, shells, paper napkins bearing the names of different cafés, cocktail twirlers, reports from her primary school. Clearly Truelove enjoyed amassing clutter. It crossed my mind to chuck everything out and do a favour to whatever bereaved relative was going to have to empty the flat, but I didn’t want to dispose of things that weren’t mine.

The real surprise came when I opened the drawer of the bedside table (there was only one). In it I found a revolver and, underneath it, two envelopes. It wasn’t the revolver that particularly took me aback. It’s not so unusual for a single woman like Truelove to keep a gun handy. After all, there are a lot of weirdos out there. I know a bit about guns myself because, when Daddy left us, Mummy bought a revolver and showed me how to use it. “Two women on their own aren’t safe without one of these,” she said. But we never actually used it. I think the real reason Mummy bought it was to use it on Daddy, in case the perfume and war paint didn’t yield results. But he deprived her of that pleasure, because he never came home. I picked up Truelove’s gun and confirmed that it was loaded. As my mother used to say, “If we’re going to have one, it may as well work.”

When I had finished with the gun, I opened the first envelope. The rubber gloves made my movements rather clumsy. Inside it were two tickets to Rio. One was in the name of A. Soria, or rather Alicia Soria – Truelove. The other was in the name of E. Pereyra, or rather Ernesto, my husband. This merely confirmed to me that the relationship was a farce. Ernesto had always hated beaches and hot weather. He would never have arranged to go to Rio, not with anyone. Not even with Lali and me. And I began to think that that woman had been harassing him. She must have arranged the trip and booked the tickets. Perhaps the argument that had ended with Truelove hitting her head on the log had been about this trip. If the tickets had been for Bariloche, then the thing could conceivably have been his idea. But Brazil? Never. I knew Ernesto – I’d known him for twenty years. The date on the ticket was two weeks away. But God had been merciful because, if we were lucky, and the police took their time, by then Truelove would still be wherever Ernesto had left her.

I put the tickets away in my bag and opened the other envelope. And there I found something I certainly had not expected. In fact, the contents would have strained the credulity of anyone with an ounce of intelligence. At first I was angry. I admit that I was really angry. But that emotion was quickly followed by pity. What else could one feel about these pictures? They were black-and-white photos, tiny, like those sheets they make at parties so that you can choose one afterwards. Photos of Ernesto. Naked. Who would ever think of making Ernesto pose naked! Ernesto’s a nice-looking guy – but
dressed
! When he’s naked there’s a lot of sagging going on. Let’s face it, he’s not twenty any more. Everything’s looking a bit slack. Not even I look at him when he comes out of the bathroom naked, and I’m his wife. It’s not pleasant viewing! With clothes on, yes – that’s a different matter. Ernesto was always a handsome chap, elegant-looking. But imagine making him sit naked on a chair, then look into a camera and put on that ridiculous expression. Didn’t he spare a thought for all the people who would have to look at those images when the film was sent off to be developed? You might as well put them in a frame for all to see!

Feeling something close to revulsion, I put the photos back in the envelope and tucked it into my handbag. Everything else I left exactly as it was. But at the door I had second thoughts; I went back to the bedside table and took the revolver out of the drawer. Don’t ask me why – it was on impulse. Also, a gun always arouses suspicion. Especially if it’s loaded.

I opened the door a fraction and made sure there was nobody on the landing. On the way down in the lift, I congratulated myself for having made the decision to go there. The contents of my handbag constituted damning evidence against Ernesto. False evidence, because he and I both knew that everything had been accidental. But it’s not enough to
be
blameless, you have to look it too and if anyone had stumbled on those lamentable photographs and the tickets, it would have been hard to make a case for Ernesto’s innocence. Besides, the mere thought of those pictures being made public is enough to put my hair on end. Talk about destroying a man’s reputation at a stroke! Thank goodness I was there, to prevent such a disgrace.

I left the building but had walked only a few paces when a taxi pulled up and a dark-haired girl I recognized from one of the framed photographs jumped out. The tall girl, with the long hair. She was scowling. And she looked in a hurry. Leaving the taxi waiting for her, she opened the door with her own keys and went inside. If I had taken only five minutes longer, she would have found me still in Truelove’s flat. I looked around for somewhere I could keep watch on the building without being seen. There was a bar across the road. I went inside and sat at a table in the window. A waiter came and stood beside me. I asked for a coffee – not because I wanted one but to get rid of him; I needed some time to collect myself. He kept standing there staring at me, staring at my hands. Following his gaze, I realized that I was still wearing the rubber gloves. “What an idiot – I left the house in a hurry and forgot to take them off,” I murmured. Then I removed the rubber gloves and put them in my handbag. The waiter turned on his heel and went off to get my coffee.

After a while, the dark-haired girl came out, talking to a man who looked like he might be the building’s caretaker. She looked worried. The man, shaking his head, also appeared worried. He walked with her to the taxi and opened the door for her. She gave him a card, got into the taxi and went off.

By the time the waiter finally brought my coffee, I was already gathering my things and preparing to leave. He got a bit annoyed. He was quite coarse and his appearance didn’t do him any favours: his grey hair was so long he could have worn it in a pony-tail, while his moustache was completely black. To make things worse, he accidentally kicked the table and tipped half the sugar bowl over me. I flung the money for my coffee onto the table and walked out without drinking it.

It was a lovely sunny morning, so I strolled unhurriedly through Rivadavia, thinking all the while, though somewhat distracted by the sugar grains falling out of my silk skirt as I walked. I stopped to shake the rest of them out, so that I could concentrate on a new theory taking shape in my mind. Unless I was mistaken, I was no longer the sole player in this business. And if the dark-haired girl was worried about the absence of her “whatever it was”, someone was going to start taking steps that would have a knock-on effect on mine. I had a few hours’ advantage; even so, I couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong. Things were becoming more complicated, but also more fun…

I stopped at a hairdresser and got my legs waxed. As my mother used to say, “a woman should never go out without waxed legs and clean underwear”. And I have to admit she was right about that. In this life you have to be prepared for any eventuality because nothing’s written in stone.