Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd

Author:William Boyd [Boyd, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241542095
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2024-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

4.

The Defection of Kit Caldwell

Aznal del Campo was simply a cluster of poor, broken-down houses on either side of the road to Jerez. There was a shuttered church, an understocked supermarket and an old parador where Gabriel booked a room for the night. His room contained a bed, a table and chair and a chamber pot. There was a lavatory off the dining room that he could use, if he preferred. He could order a pan of hot water from the kitchen if he wished to wash himself.

Gabriel went for a walk, trying not to imagine what might be coming next, trying not to think about the consequences of helping Caldwell escape. Not escape, he told himself – defect. It wasn’t too late, he realized, to drive back to Cádiz and tell Faith Green everything and vindicate himself. But what would that make him? No better than Blanco, the lover transformed into turncoat. He felt obscurely proud of his audacity – no one would have expected him to do something like this. At this moment that alone seemed justification enough.

He wandered out of the village, turning off the main road, and climbed a well-used path that led up to a small hill where an ancient orchard of olive trees was in its senescence, the trunks gnarled and hard like fissured stone and with only a few branches sprouting leaves and small, meagre fruit. When was this orchard planted? he wondered. Centuries ago, he supposed, running his hand over the seamed and calloused trunks. He looked around at the trees – it was a kind of natural ruin, a self-made wood-henge, with its own subtle magic. Up here he could feel the breeze on his back cooling the sweat from his climb, and the blonde grass in the orchard was combed by the gentle gusts. Cicadas shrilled their creaking monotone as if this was some ritual music especially designed for the henge. He felt the numinous spirit of the place and was oddly moved. He sensed that finding this dying grove was a good omen for the act of insurrection he was about to commit. He took out his Gitanes and sat down with his back against one of the venerable trees. He had a smile on his face as he smoked his cigarette. He knew he had done the right thing.

He was back in his room as the soft, brumous dusk fell. He tried to read but he couldn’t concentrate, the tension in him mounting. He went down to the dining room and ordered some food – there was only a kind of stew of dried cod and potatoes on offer – it was tasty enough but he wasn’t hungry and left half his meal uneaten. He drank some glasses of red wine and returned to his room.

There was a knock on his door at around eleven o’clock and a boy with a cast in his eye told him ‘Un Ingles’ was downstairs.

Caldwell stood there in the small hallway, with two battered leather suitcases.

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