Circles of Fate (13 page)

Pepe's mouth split into a grin to show two rows of even white teeth.

“You bet I am! Perhaps I'd be happier married to a fat, homely señora.” But his eyes rested with pride on the luscious figure still locked in Felipe's embrace.

“Why don't we know about you?” he said, turning back to Anita, and now his eyes were a puzzle of mischief and speculation.

“Perhaps because there isn't anything to know,” she said. “I'm on approval. That means I can be sent back to the shop with a note pinned to me. Not the right shape, or size, or colour.”

Pepe's eyes lit up. “I would say you are exactly the right shape and size and” – his strong brown fingers reached out to seize a handful of her yellow hair – “colour.”

“I like black hair best.”

“Black hair is coarse. Yours is soft and silky, like the caress of the sun. Lovely to touch, to run one's fingers through.”

“Touch the sun and you burn your fingers, Pepe, my love.”

Pepe withdrew his hand and fixed wide, innocent eyes upon his wife's acid mouth. The sweet smile just wouldn't stick there and she was murderously angry with Pepe. Anita wanted to laugh. She didn't care whether Pepe had meant it or whether he was counter-attacking his wife's exuberance, she only knew that Isabel wasn't the only one bristling with jealousy. Felipe was also looking ferocious, and yet at the same time he was longing to try out Pepe's theory. He couldn't wait to run his fingers through her hair.

A candle glimmer of light in an otherwise black day. Candle glimmers are soon snuffed out.

“I'll make some coffee,” announced Isabel. “The boys will want to talk, so you'd better come and help me,” she told Anita ungraciously.

The kitchen was small and cramped, lacked sunshine and smelt of garlic.

“Your first bullfight?” taunted Isabel, unerringly going to the key labelled ‘This will hurt Anita'.

“Yes.”

“Excited?”

“No.”

“Have you known Felipe long?”

“No.”

“Not that it matters,” said the Spanish girl, turning the key hard.

“Sometimes time is irrelevant. A second is enough, eh?”

“Why must you torture me?” asked Anita wearily.

“Because you are such a splendid subject,” spat Isabel vehemently.

“Your cool English composure makes me sick. Why aren't you fighting and kicking and relieving your feelings on somebody, anybody who happens to be near?”

“Like I am near to you?” said Anita on a thoughtful note.

“You? You are an ice maiden. You're not near to anyone.”

“Yes, I am. And well you know it. We are sisters in understanding, aren't we, Isabel?”

“I don't know what you mean” – haughtily.

“Yes you do. It didn't click at first. But now I know why you are acting the way you are. Pepe won't be a spectator this afternoon, will he?”

“No. He's part of Felipe's team. He is a picador.”

“Is that very dangerous? I don't know anything at all about bullfights.”

“Not as dangerous as being a matador –” casting a sly, sulky glance – “but dangerous enough.”

“Doesn't it get better?”

“As time goes on, it gets worse.” She clicked her teeth in annoyance. “How can I kick you and hate you when you are so understanding?”

“How does it get worse, Isabel?”

“The children come. Then it is not only your husband out there, dicing with his life, but their papa.”

“How many children do you have?”

“Two. A boy and a girl. Pepito and Pilar.”

“Pilar?” queried Anita, although it was a common enough name in these parts.

“After Felipe's mother, who is also my Pepe's aunt.”

“I didn't know they were cousins.”

“Pepe's mother and Felipe's mother are sisters,” Isabel explained. “Pepe's father was a rough man, a bully and a boor. He was a fisherman and his mother was well rid of him when his boat capsized in a storm. Pilar's gentleman paid out good money for both Felipe's and Pepe's education. He needn't have done that, not for Pepe, anyway, who was nothing to him. Some say he chose to be benefactor to both boys to throw dust in the eyes of his lady wife, but I think it was goodness of heart.”

“Did you know Pilar's gentleman?”

“I know of him, that's all. Even Felipe doesn't know his identity, which I think is very sad. A boy should know his own father.”

Yes, agreed Anita silently. Then, after a moment's speculation:

“If Felipe and Pepe are educated, surely they don't need to do what they do for a living?”

“They couldn't find employment as well paid, but they could find it of a more congenial nature.”

“Why don't they?”

“Because they are men, and men have to prove themselves. Felipe has to prove that he is twice as good as most men because there is no man he can acknowledge as father. And my Pepe has to prove that he is as brave as Felipe, because in his eyes he is the greatest. If our next is a boy, we shall call him Felipe.”

“Next?”

Isabel stroked her flat stomach. “There is another little one in here. You are the first to know. To Pepe the monthly cycle is just dates on a calendar. And he never looks at a calendar.”

“When will you tell him? Tonight?”

“No, not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. Tonight he will be drunk with success. His wants will be primitive. A bottle of wine and a woman. Tomorrow will be time enough to bother him with his responsibilities.”

Tomorrow, thought Anita. But there is no tomorrow ...

No tomorrow she dare think of, anyway.

She sat on a hard wooden seat and stared down at the empty arena, feeling sick and empty. Isabel had gone to fetch some cushions, as if physical comfort mattered at such a time. She had promised to be back before the procession started.

She returned, Anita thanked her woodenly for the cushion, the procession began to make its customary circuit of the arena. The strong, lively music, the brilliant velvets of the matadors, the banderilleros and the picadors. How especially handsome Felipe looked! Splendid horses, bright jewel colours, how could she fail to be moved? Naturally she saw this brilliant spectacle through a blur of tears. It gets worse, Isabel had said. Her own body had never known a man. Like most girls she had thought about that aspect of life, but not deeply or seriously. Until Felipe came along to awaken in her an awareness of herself as a woman. She wanted to belong, to pledge vows and share a life. But such an unfair share-up. She would share his moments of glory, but twist her own hair, weep her own waiting tears, alone. She would share his home and have his children, again bearing the pain alone. She touched her stomach, as Isabel had earlier touched hers. What if ...

But there was no time to dwell on such thoughts. As chief matador, Felipe was asking permission to open the bullfight. The president of the bull-ring threw down the key to the stall where the bulls were kept. Then, very deliberately, Felipe removed his magnificent cape and walked over to Anita. As he handed the cape into her safe-keeping, their fingers touched.

Please, God, don't let me have to watch. Make something happen that I don't have to watch the final kill.

The ring was cleared, save for Felipe and his assistants. The bull pounded in, kicking up a terrific dust as he wildly circuited the ring searching for an exit. A bull with an evil eye and killer horns. An unpredictable beast that Felipe must predict, if he wished to stay alive.

His assistants stepped forward in turn, shaking their capes at the bull, inciting it to charge. Felipe watched, assessing the bull's movements. Anita pulled and twisted her hair until her scalp hurt. Felipe walked into the centre of the ring.

“
Estupendo ... bravo,
” hailed the crowd as he completed one flawless move after another. And Anita hated every moment of it. She hated the loveliness of the women and the strength of the men, strength being a euphemism for all that is cruel and exaggerated. That was the word she sought: exaggerated. Everything here was unduly magnified, overstated. The extravagant representation of the crowd. Need they enjoy this outdated barbaric fête with such an enthusiasm of feeling that bordered on delirium? Need their cigars be so strong, their colours so fierce, their sun so hot? Everything jarred. What was she doing here? She didn't belong. She could never belong.

Felipe was leaving the ring. The accolade of the crowd rang in her ears. She was so completely out of tune with it all that she couldn't think ‘What a magnificent opening! What a good fight this promises to be!' Instead she thought, ‘Five or ten minutes' respite', and her heart calmed and her breath came more easily as the first picador, not Pepe, but a young boy she had never seen before, cantered in on his magnificent mount.

She was looking with her eyes now, and not with her heart. There was something splendid and fearless and immortal about him, like a supreme being who had condescended to step from the earliest ages of mankind. To the spectators, the brave few who risked their lives this afternoon were giants from an early world of myth and magic, who could commit acts of terrible torture and yet could do no wrong, and whom they worshipped as gods. There was a touch of added wonder because these men were mortal heroes, capable of being struck down. Anita felt like a rebel in a righteous war and unconsciously murmured an
Olé!
along with the crowd as the picador's lance found its mark in the thick muscle topping the bull's hefty shoulder.

She felt Isabel tense beside her, and knew it was time for Pepe to come in. He made his entrance to a thunderous
Olé
! Here, Pepe was the local boy and therefore popular. His technique was swift and sure and spiced with a quality that doesn't come about with long hours of practise, his inherent bravery. But skill and bravery aren't enough on their own. To succeed there has got to be one other ingredient: a pinch of luck. Luck is the salt of one's being. Unsalted dough rises like glory, but tastes horrible. An unlucky mortal is likewise doomed.

It happened in the second before Pepe bore down with his lance. His fingers were on the shaft in a down-bearing attitude when the bull stopped its mad earth-pawing and punched its heaving weight at the horse's flank, keeling horse and rider. The horse fell on its side and the bull's horns were able to find the flesh beneath the animal's armour. Pepe, dazed, but otherwise unhurt, struggled to his feet, handicapped by the weight of his own leg armour, aware that the goaded bull would now turn on him.

Despite the fierce onrush of helpers, screaming distractions and wildly flapping their capes, the enraged beast refused to be deflected from its purpose. It was impossible to tell where Pepe had been gored, it all happened so quickly. One moment it seemed he had escaped the bull's frantic attempt, and the next he was rolling in the dust in a tight ball of anguish and pain.

Anita was still in a ‘This can't really be happening' stupor; Isabel raced down into the ring in time to watch her husband's prostrate form being tenderly lifted on to a stretcher. Anita caught them up at the ambulance. How quickly it had arrived at the scene, but of course it hadn't, it had been there all the time, standing by, a symbol of man's vulnerability to injury and hurt.

Isabel smartly followed Pepe into the ambulance. The doors were about to close on Anita, when the Spanish girl said: “You'd better let her in or there will be hell to pay. She's his cousin's fiancée.”

One white-coated assistant said to the other: “The
chico's
cousin is Felipe
el valiente
.”

They both looked at Anita as if to say, ‘This is the valiant one's woman!'

Well, perhaps she didn't look such a dinky piece at that with her face scrubbed fear-white and her hair tumbling all over the place.

She realized how rock-strong Isabel was and knew that she had been included as a kindness, because how could Isabel leave her while she was white and frightened and nerve-ridden? The fiancée bit didn't mean a thing. Isabel knew as well as she did that she could never be Felipe's fiancée. It had been the only way to let her travel in the ambulance.

At the hospital, waiting, hoping, fearing, wondering, Anita asked Isabel: “How can you be so calm?”

The Spanish girl shrugged her shoulders. “If I get excited I shall only have a miscarriage.” She raised huge anguished eyes and said in a voice of quiet hopelessness: “Perhaps you are right at that. Perhaps I should get worked up and excited and do myself an injury. What do I want with another son if I have no Pepe?”

“No ... you mustn't talk like that. You mustn't even think like that. For Pepe's sake you must go on being cool and calm and wonderful.”

“Perhaps it is because I love him that bit more than he loves me,” said Isabel after a longish silence. “Not much. Just a pinch of love more. Enough to make a difference.”

“What do you mean?” said Anita.

“Why I am as I am. Or rather, why I'm not at all as I am. Why I can fall apart inside and yet be all nicely cemented in place on the surface. You don't
have
to understand. But you have to be in love that essential pinch more before you
can
understand. Am I confusing you?”

“No.”

“But I'm making you unhappy.”

“I was unhappy before.”

“I was beastly before. I'm sorry, because I like you.”

“I like you, Isabel. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I think you are wonderful.”

“It is a pity ...” Isabel's voice trailed off.

“What is?” prompted Anita.

“Well, you'd have made a nice cousin.”

“Where is Felipe?” said Anita, suddenly remembering. “Why wasn't he in the ambulance with us? Why isn't he here now?”

Isabel's eyes were faintly reproachful. “Don't be silly. How could he be?”