The Amnesia Clinic (22 page)

I sat down in the sand next to her, trying to stay upwind of the sickly, decaying smell that emanated from the whale and simultaneously to stay as far away from the bickering
vultures as I could. Fabián and Sol emerged together from the bar and walked away from us in the direction of the cliffs below the dome. They were tossing a ball between them, and Fabián was already smoking his first joint of the day. I hoped he wasn’t going to do something stupid like trying to get Sol stoned, though as she was Ray’s daughter she’d probably been toking since she could walk.
Let him be
, I thought. Something told me it was the best policy. I would talk to him later and make sure that everything was okay.

‘Want to tell me why you’re called Sally Lightfoot, then?’ I said.

She leant back, scowling, as the whale’s body voided some new pocket of trapped odour.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It goes like this. When I got married, I was told that the reason why I was expected to take the name of my future husband was that this was the person in whom I could trust from now on. This was who I relied on. This man was my
life
,’ she grimaced, tearing away at a difficult strip of cartilage. ‘Could you please scratch my nose? Not there. Higher. Oh, yes. Great. Thanks. You can wipe that off your hand on to the back of my shirt if you want.

‘Anyway, let’s just say that after a year and a half of marriage I found out that all this reliability was a myth. One person is always a crutch for the other. And in my case it turned out that my man didn’t just expect to lean on me, but to beat me up from time to time as well. Not what I had been led to expect, I can tell you. So, after we had … gone our separate ways, I decided that the next name I took would be one in which I really knew I could trust. The obvious thing might have been to take back my old name, but I didn’t want that either. I decided to become someone new. Could you shoo away that vulture? Just take a swing at him with the spade if he won’t go. Thanks.

‘Anyway, I ended up working as a marine biologist out in the Galápagos. That’s what I trained as. That’s how I know how this lovely lady works, and how to chop her up. There I am one day, sitting on an island populated by no human beings at all, watching the turtles, minding my own business and playing with my wedding ring – just wondering whether or not to throw it into the sea there and then, but aware that I might soon be needing it for the money. And something in the movement of the metal attracts this crab. This
huge
crab. Two things you need to know about the Galápagos: one, the animals aren’t afraid of people, because they’ve never known any predators; two, you get bigger versions of everything there, for the same reason.’

‘I know. I was there last year.’

‘In that case I’m surprised you’ve never heard the name Sally Lightfoot before. It’s a kind of crab. Named after a famous dancer from the Caribbean. It only exists in the Galápagos. A stunning bright blue and crimson crab. One of the most beautiful things you ever saw. And it’s the kind of crab that scuttled up and snipped at my wedding finger, just at the point when I was wondering what to do with myself. It cut about halfway down the finger, right down to the bone, then scuttled off again. It was like a sign.’

‘It only cut your finger
a bit
?’ I said, waiting for the rest, picturing a bloodbath.

‘Yes.’

‘So, what …?’

‘Well,’ said Sally, calmly, ‘I cut the rest off myself. I went back to my little boat, took a scalpel from my medical kit and finished the crab’s job off for him. It was obvious to me that that was what I had to do. I’d never felt so good in all of my life. I sat on this black shelf of rock near my boat and cut straight through the middle joint, letting the finger and the ring tumble away into the water in front of
me. The ring disappeared straight away, but the finger sank more slowly. I remember watching this smoky, rusty trail it left as it went down, and I just sat there, watching the fish crowd round and holding the place where it had been. At the time, it didn’t even hurt. I bet it got eaten in seconds. And now there’s a nice, clean little piece of bone of mine down there somewhere. Just … like … THIS one. Got it.’

I stared intently at the edge of a pile of grey blubber, lapped at by the surf. I was certain that if I looked up, I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes away from Sally’s missing finger.

‘The crab had made my decision for me. Taking that piece of me away, however painful, would make me stronger, even if it meant sacrificing a piece of myself. I called myself Sally Lightfoot after the crab. And now that is my name.’

Sally Lightfoot tossed the bone she had just extricated into the red plastic bin beside her. She glanced at me before going back to work.

‘You did ask,’ she said.

In the morning, I had watched as Fabián and Sol picked their way along the cliff base at the north end of the beach. I planned on keeping an eye on them to see how far they got, but at a certain point they disappeared from view. I stayed with Sally for most of the day, making a couple of trips to the bar to fetch a beer or some sandwiches, but she never moved from the carcass and barely looked up from her work during our conversations. She had resolved to finish the job before the whale left Pedrascada.

‘This is almost a dangerous mania, you know,’ I said, slurping a beer. ‘If you aren’t careful, you’ll be washed back out to sea with her and the vultures will start picking away at you too. Zoologists will marvel at it:
the blubber of a whale, with the skeleton of a woman … remarkable … Have you ever seen anything like it, Jones
? And you’ll be
sent off on round-the-world tours to be looked at in museums alongside shrunken heads and frozen Inca princesses.’

‘Quite an imagination you’ve got there,’ she said, cutting away quietly.

‘It’s no joke. Without me here you’d be in serious danger.’

As the day wore on, I’d been glancing towards the north end of the beach at regular intervals. Sea-spray spouted intermittently over the rocks. Above, the northern rock pile towered, and beyond it shone the occasional glint of light from the lurking, malevolent dome. Of Fabián and Sol there was no sign. I was conscious of the tide, which would soon be coming in and sealing off their return pathway. But as afternoon became early evening, just when my niggling worries were building to genuine anxiety, two details of colour appeared on the jutting headland and became the moving figures of Fabián and Sol.

Leaving Sally at work, I picked up a fresh beer from the bar and walked up the beach to meet them as they climbed off the rocks. Bursts of their laughter filtered back to me between blasts of wind.

‘Find any more treasure?’ I said, passing Fabián the beer as he reached me.

‘Most kind,’ said Fabián. ‘Not as yet.’

‘But we will,’ said Sol.

‘We will,’ he confirmed. ‘You can’t get lucky every day.’

We ambled back to the cabins.

‘But,’ said Fabián, ‘we did find something very interesting. Sol showed me this cave you can get to if you climb round the cliff base. Obviously you can only make it there when the tide’s out, but when you do, it’s awesome. It goes really far back into the rock. So far that we didn’t even get to the end because it got too dark to see. But Sol says she thinks
there might be a tunnel cut in there, with steps, that allows you to get all the way up to the dome.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really. Wouldn’t it be cool to find some secret passageway up there, like a smuggler’s cave or something?’

I spoke evenly. ‘After what Ray said, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to be trying to get up there.’

‘You do what you like. We’re going back tomorrow with a torch, aren’t we, Solita? It’s up to you whether or not you join us.’

‘And what have you been doing over there all day?’ I said.

‘Usual cave-like activities. We caught this monster crab in a rock pool, and I wanted to cook it over a fire but Sol wouldn’t let me, so we set it free again. Then we looked for treasure for a while. Told each other a few stories.’

‘Fabián told me all about how you beat up the muggers in Quito. The ones who attacked you with knives and water bombs,’ said Sol.

‘Really?’ I said. ‘I’m flattered. But don’t go believing everything he tells you.’

‘I think Fabián is the best storyteller in the world,’ she announced. ‘One day he’s going to put his stories in a book and be a famous writer.’

‘Is that right?’ I said.

‘Yes. I think it is,’ said Fabián, beaming. ‘It’s my new plan. Good, huh?’

‘Very good.’

Sol peeled off towards the bar in search of her father, who had been busy preparing a grand ‘culinary experience’ for us for most of the day. Fabián swigged his beer comfortably as we drew near our cabin.

‘You know, that kid is incredible. I really do wish I had a little sister like her.’ He put a friendly hand on my shoulder. ‘What about you? Have you and your whale been having fun?’

He undid the padlock on our flimsy wooden door and we stepped inside the cabin.

‘You’re sure Ray doesn’t mind your taking his daughter caving?’ I said, picking up a towel to head for the shower hut.

‘Come on, man, he’s a hippie. Anyway, he and Cristina have been busy all day cooking up stuff for dinner tonight. Glad to have her off their hands. Free babysitter. And I told you – I like her.’

I could have said anything at this point.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s this silence bullshit?’

All I had to do was say
something
.

‘You think there’s something dirty about this, don’t you?’ said Fabián, lowering his voice. ‘Jesus Christ. She’s only ten. I would never …’

Finally I found my tongue. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. I know. Hey, I’ll go and wash this whale blubber off myself, then how about we get really, really drunk?’

‘You’re fucking sick,’ he said.

I sighed and closed the door.

Sally Lightfoot had told Ray from the moment she arrived that she wouldn’t eat red meat, and Ray had decided to rise to this challenge by cooking a feast of fish for us that evening. He’d disappeared in his boat straight after breakfast. Whether he’d been fishing himself or just motored round the point to visit the fishmonger’s in town, he’d reappeared with a splendid haul: shrimps, crabs, two types of fish I’d never seen or heard of and one, like a huge goldfish, that I had seen – floating dead just beneath the water’s surface as we sped past it the day before. Ray assured me that the two weren’t one and the same animal.

Since his return, he’d been at work, marinating the white fish and shrimps in lime juice and coriander to make a huge
ceviche, and burying the goldfish with handfuls of herbs under a heap of hot coals on the beach. For her part, Cristina had been baking and the area round the cabins was alive with smells: the citrus tang of the ceviche, the homely waft of fresh bread. The two clashed intoxicatingly and also served the useful function of masking the lingering odour of rotting whale blubber. Ray and Sally had discussed the matter of the whale, which, as the evening drew on, was gradually reclaimed by the sea. They concluded that it would wash back up the following day, just further south, towards the town. The roasting pit on the beach, which evolved into our communal bonfire as the evening drew in, also helped to combat the smell, as well as scaring away the few hopeful vultures that lingered.

But other dangers were circling. Fabián had been laying into the beer since his return from the cave and had already graduated to rum by the time we were ready to eat. I decided again that the best thing to do would be to stay out of his way and hope he would cool down, so I installed myself beside Sally Lightfoot on one side of the bonfire, leaving him, Sol and Cristina on the other.

Ray had just gone to the bar to fetch the ceviche when Fabián lit himself a Lark with the glowing end of a piece of driftwood and turned towards Sally as he exhaled.

‘So. Happy with your animal?’ he said.

‘Very,’ said Sally Lightfoot. ‘Just one more day’s work and I’ll be done. The whole skeleton.’

‘I didn’t mean that animal. I meant your new pet there.’

I knew better than to respond to this.

‘No aggression round my fire, guys,’ said Ray. He brought over a huge white dish, crouched down and ladled the mixture inside it into bowls. We fell silent as everyone gave in to the ceviche and to Cristina’s warm, doughy bread. The combination of lime juice and coriander, so fresh and sharp
it made you shudder, seeped in and saturated us just as it had the fish. The goldfish, when it had been disinterred from the coals, was charred, smoky and succulent. Sol made her own contribution by popping corn in a saucepan over the fire.

‘That was truly spectacular, Ray,’ I said, licking my bowl. I lay down with my head in Sally Lightfoot’s lap, watching the movements of her firelit chin from beneath as she ate. I hadn’t asked permission, but it seemed like the natural thing to do. She’d changed into a sarong, and the material felt warm to the touch and soft under my neck, though the thigh beneath it was tensed firm.

‘Do you think that the whale died of natural causes?’ asked Ray, who had clearly retained his suspicions.

When she spoke, I felt faint reverberations shimmer through her body. ‘Obviously, there are lots of ways they can die, most of them perfectly natural, but I’ve seen no sign of disease on her. When I found her, there was a strange puncture wound to her head that I’m almost certain was responsible.’

Fabián, who was devouring his food messily on the other side of the fire, looked up. ‘A puncture wound?’

‘Yes. She could have just swum into something, I suppose, but it was weird. Perfectly round. As if someone or something had meant to do it to her. And a fisherman I spoke to up the coast said he’d never seen anything like it.’

‘Is that right?’ said Fabián. He loved a mystery. His mind was already at work, embroidering some far-fetched explanation.

‘There’d be no way to prove it, of course. And what about you? How was your day?’

‘Sol and I have been exploring,’ said Fabián.

Sally smiled. ‘Exploring, eh? Sweet.’

Fabián’s tone sharpened. ‘What do you mean, “sweet”?’