A Bright Moon for Fools (19 page)

With the napkin in his hand Slade put some money on the table and stood up. There was an explosion of laughter. He took the photograph and shoved it into his back pocket. The man was asking him
if he was another model for the English woman’s clay penises. He waggled a Cacique bottle against his crotch again. Slade was sure he was being insulted. He scanned the faces surrounding him
while he thought about punching this man in the face. In one corner there were two young men, watching him in silence. Slade decided to leave.

The man in red shorts poured a glass of rum. He offered it to the foreigner but Slade pushed past him out of the door, slamming it behind him. “¿
Pero qué clase de
coño eres
?” exclaimed the man in astonishment.

Slade headed to his car, his neck stiff with hatred for this country. He turned a corner into the main street and saw Harry Christmas standing in front of the
licorería
.

E
arlier that afternoon, Judith was wiping her hands on her apron and shaking her head. “But Harry can’t go,” she said.
“He’s wounded.”

“I am
fine
, Judith.”

“It’s your birthday party tonight,” said Bridget, ignoring him. “We need to get loads of stuff from Rio Caribe, you’re up to your eyeballs and I need some
help.”

“But—”

“Thanks,” said Bridget, spying the car keys on the sideboard. She swiped them and trotted out into the garden. Christmas felt a surge of elation and began to hum the theme from
The Great Escape
.

“Do you have to go?” Judith pleaded.

“I haven’t left the house in—”

“Don’t be long!” She hugged his chest. She smelt of onions. “Promise?”

“Judith, we’re just nipping to the shops.”

“Yes,” she mumbled, “yes, yes.”

Christmas looked down at her. He must leave. He must ask to borrow some money, but how much? Fifty dollars? One hundred?

“Judith?”

“Yes?”

“I – listen – oh, look, nothing. We’ll talk about it later.”

“About what?”

“After the party. It can wait.”

“OK,” she said, soft-eyed and smiling. She kissed him. “You better take your jacket in case it rains. And be careful on the roads. And don’t be long?”

“I’ll drive,” said Bridget as they walked towards the car. “You’re pissed. As per usual.”

“You say it as if it were a bad thing.”

“You don’t think drinking every day is a bad thing?”

“Not if you like it. Why should it be?”

“Sure you’re not drinking to forget?”

“Forget what?” asked Christmas.

“I don’t know.”

“Have you forgotten?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Perhaps you need a drink –”

“Get in.”

“– help you remember.”

They bounced down the driveway onto the main road and then headed along the coast towards the town. The sun was sharp. Christmas balanced his consciousness between the sea and Bridget’s
knees. He thought about Lola Rosa, how she had looked that night in the club. How was it possible that she’d stood him up? Bridget gave him a smile.
Oh the devil take you, Harry
Christmas
, he thought to himself,
I just want to tell this girl the truth
!

They drove through a village where a long line of children were helping untangle a fishing line.

“That’s something you don’t see at home,” said Bridget.

“Kids? There’s a bloody plague of them.”

“No, I mean, helping, you know, everyone helping out. Our sense of community has just gone. We’re so atomized.”

“Bridget, have you ever lived in place with lots of community feeling? It’s a fucking nightmare.”

“Oh God, Harry, just forget it.”

“No, no, no – this is important; ever since your caveman was trying to find his own little corner of the cave where he could chew on a nice bit of mammoth rib without interruption,
man has been desperately trying to live on his own.”

“Here we go ...”

“Modern man has spent five hundred years trying to get his own flat, and people like you, who’ve never lived in a community the likes of which you’re so keen on imagining, are
determined to send him back to live with his parents. An atomized society is a marvellous, wonderful bloody thing. The summit of human achievement. The less I have to talk to my neighbours –
especially
my
neighbours – the better. Civilization, if it has any meaning, is the ability to choose one’s friends along lines of greater value than the relative proximity of
kitchens.”

“Have you finished?”

“Not sure.”

“So what are you going to do your talk about?”

“Talk?”

“Your speech. For her birthday dinner, remember? You said you’d do a talk.”

“I think I’ll improvise.”

“On what theme?”

“On the theme of improvisation.”

“And what about a present?”

“Dunno. Perhaps a nice bottle of rum.”

“Rum?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Why don’t you just get her a gun? Or a rock.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean a bottle of rum – it’s not very touchy-feely, is it?”

“If it’s touchy-feely she wants, Bridget,” Christmas sighed, “she should be sleeping with a blind man.”

As soon as they parked the car, Christmas went into the
locutorio
, pretending to make a call that would tell him his credit card had not yet arrived in Caracas. When he came out Bridget
had disappeared. He walked down the main street, Avenida Bermudez, wide and empty with pavements raised high for the floods and cars dozing in the shade. He saw a
licorería
. It was
painted yellow and covered with old posters. Men sat on the steps beneath the counter. He bought a Polar Ice and started chatting to them in Spanish.

“So,” said a man in plastic sandals and shorts, “you staying here in Rio Caribe?”

“No. About an hour or so that way. Up on the hills.”

“The English woman’s place?”

“That’s right.” The men looked at each other and started laughing.

“The English woman, the one who makes the—?” The man put an empty beer bottle against his groin.

“That’s her.”

“She make one of yours? Hey!” A couple more friends were sauntering by. “This man stay with the English woman who makes the—” he masturbated his bottle and slapped
Harry on the back. Everybody was laughing. “So she make one of yours?”

“She doesn’t have enough clay.”

“Ha ha ha! Not enough clay!
Que coño
!”

The man offered to buy Christmas another beer, but he saw Bridget coming up the road carrying bags of food. “Another time, gentlemen, another time, excuse me,
adios
.” Harry
stepped out of the laughter into the sun.

“Made some new friends?” said Bridget.

“We’ve got similar tastes in art.”

“OK. I’m going to the car with this lot; you get the booze?” She held the bags with one hand and dug out her wallet.

“As soon as the money comes through—” said Christmas as she gave it to him.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Bridget, “I know.”

“Well, it’s embarrassing.”

“Borrowing some cash after you were beaten up and robbed is not embarrassing. Those breasticles on the other hand ...”

“Oh, very funny.”

“You know, Harry,” Bridget pouted at him then took in a long breath, “my mum is really happy at the moment.”

“Bridget—”

“Shut up. She’s the happiest I’ve seen her, like, forever, and you might be an old pisshead and everything but, well,” she shifted her weight onto the other foot,
“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Thank you, Bridget. I—”

“Back in a minute then, OK?” Bridget flashed him a smile and walked off into town. He watched her go. She disappeared around a corner. He looked at her wallet. He looked at the
licorería
. He looked down towards the sea and saw William Slade running towards him.

S
lade
.

“Oh God.”

Christmas pulled off his hat and erupted up Avenida Bermudez. Within seconds he was out of breath. He swung into an alley and then veered right, behind the
licorería
. There were
pallets stacked beside fencing. He hid behind them, pale, wheezing, stuffing Bridget’s wallet into his pocket.
How the fuck. . .
?

He saw Slade stop at the corner, look around, then continue down the alley. Christmas ran across the backyard into the
licorería
.

The owner spun round as Christmas came out from the back saying in Spanish, “Stop that other gringo! He’s trying to kill me! Stop him!” He dipped under the wooden bar and past
the drinkers. Slade heard the shouts.

Christmas crossed Avenida Bermudez. Puffing out short, high, breaths, his heart was pounding so fast he thought it might split. He ran through the door of the Caribana, a luxury posada, as Slade
reappeared on the other side of the street.

Christmas skittered past two cleaning girls, his belly bouncing, legs quivering, arms paddling, around the central courtyard, down a corridor, past an office and careered out through a
restaurant and into its garden. He heard Slade yell. At the other end there was a high wall with a rickety wooden door. It was locked. He charged at the door with his injured shoulder and busted it
from its hinges. Whimpering with pain, he hopped over the broken door, stumbling right and left down back alleys, his lungs sawing for breath. Hunchbacked with exertion, Christmas came out onto
Calle Zea, a long straight street. He burst into an internet café.

It was cold, air-conditioned, full of boys playing video games. The man behind the counter said something to him. Christmas hid beside the window, dizzy, gripping his hat. He thought he was
going to vomit. Slade ran past.

Christmas couldn’t check his breathing. He was gulping, grimacing, his chest felt snagged on barbed wire. He glanced around the room. It had a concrete floor and white walls. The only
other door was to the toilet. He wiped back the sweat that was flooding his face and neck, looking out onto the street to see Judith’s car turn into Calle Zea, heading his way. Bridget was
looking for him.

Christmas lay trembling fingers on the door handle. Slade was still running up Calle Zea in the other direction, into town, though he had slowed to a jog. Another few seconds and Bridget would
be level. He could flee from the door, across the street, into her car and away. The owner of the internet café was in front of him, firing questions. Ignoring the man, Christmas craned his
head, watching Slade turn around, studying the car. Bridget stopped.

“No, no, no!” Christmas cried.

She parked, got out and went into a vegetable shop. Slade was heading back towards him, past the car. Christmas let go of the door handle. Slade was checking the shops on either side of the
street. Christmas stepped around the owner and ran for the toilet, praying that it wasn’t a dead end.

Slade stepped into a pharmacist’s, a hairdresser’s, a general store. Their atmospheres were undisturbed. He got to the internet café and opened the door. By
the expression on the owner’s face he knew Christmas was in there. Some of the boys had stopped playing their games moments before. They were all looking at him.

In the far corner there was a maroon door marked ‘
lavabo
’. Slade pointed to it. “Is he in there?” The owner replied, but he didn’t understand. He went into
the toilet and found that on the other side of the cubicles the room was not yet built. He was standing in a yard. Christmas was gone.

Slade ran through it into an alley. He could go left or right. He chose right. He sprinted. He found himself back in Plaza Sucre. He looked down Avenida Bermudez, ran the other way and looked
down Calle Zea. Nothing. Slade ran to his car.

He drove through Rio Caribe as night fell, up and down the streets. After he had criss-crossed the part of town near the sea he headed inland, past the police station, the hospital, the town
hall, past banks and taxis and trucks. Rio Caribe was busier here, more bodies and cars to scan, headlights and shadows. He drove past a white church. He found himself in Plaza Bolivar.

Slade stopped. He got out. He stood in the middle of the plaza, cursing. A bus chugged loudly into life. It tooted its horn. It said ‘Caracas’ on the front. Slade watched it pull
away. Many of the curtains were shut but he could still see passengers arranging themselves for the overnight journey. One of the pairs of curtains opened at the back and out peered the hollow face
of Harry Christmas, checking to see if he was in the clear. The two men locked eyes.

Christmas, absorbing his mistake, sat back in his seat, winded by self-loathing. He put his head in his hands.

“Oh dear God,” he whispered.

C
hristmas bit at his knuckle, watching the other passengers wrap themselves in blankets and heavy coats. The air-conditioning was freezing. The man
next to him was already asleep. This was the night bus to Caracas.

They moved slowly through Rio Caribe. Christmas stared out between the curtains, trying to see behind. He saw carefree pedestrians. How could Slade have tracked him here? How had it come to
this? Were these the last moments of his life?

The bus leaned out onto Avenida Romulo Gallegos. They were heading along the coast, out of town. His heart was boxing with his chest. A car pulled alongside the bus, but didn’t overtake.
It was Slade. Christmas looked down. Slade looked up. He grinned. Christmas shut the curtains.

Christmas tried to control the panic. He swept the sweat from his face and hair. He stood up, hauling and squeezing himself over the sleeping man, out into the corridor. He went up to the bus
driver and asked when the next stop was. Carúpano. Half an hour away. He looked through the windscreen. They were in countryside now, sea on one side, mountainous rock on the other, the road
dark and winding. There were no lights save those of oncoming cars. He was travelling in the executioner’s cart. His reflection hovered above the driver’s. Already a ghost.

Christmas went to the back of the bus. A single set of headlights was trailing them. The headlights flashed. Slade. Christmas dropped his head. He clambered over the sleeping man and got back
into his seat. He opened his curtains. Slade, beside the bus now, looking up. Slade revved his engine. Christmas shut the curtains, took off his hat and held it with both hands on his knees.