The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers

Author:Caroline Brothers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781408844502
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-04-13T09:37:48+00:00

9

London

January 1990

The rain has stopped and the streets, rinsed clean, are gleaming; tyres suck at the tarmac, and exhaust fumes from the buses and taxis billow on the clarified air.

Night has already fallen when I go to meet Daniela and find her waiting at the entrance to Bush House. I kiss her and ask her about her day as we set off through the city; the rings I expect to feel cold on my skin are warm from the heat of her hand.

We cut through Covent Garden and head towards Cambridge Circus. The West End’s neon turns the puddles to cathedral glass that is shattered by the passing cars. We are heading to the Italian bistro that, even on a Friday evening, always finds a way to fit us in.

Beads of moisture race down the steamed-up windows; inside, the tables are crammed with students going on to the movies or the Comedy Store.

We tear open the packets of grissini, and suddenly, fleetingly, I am reminded of the girls as children: of the breadstick duels they engaged in, the orchestras they pretended to conduct.

We start on the wine before the cannelloni arrives in dishes that sear the tablecloth as if marked by a burning tyre. Pepper is added from a grinder the length of an axle and the Parmesan comes in a bowl with a hubcap lid.

The warmth inside the restaurant is soporific. When the cinema rush thins out we order espressos, and Daniela fights and then succumbs to the temptation to smoke.

The food and wine make me feel expansive, and though I hadn’t intended to revive the issue this evening, the subject seems to arise of its own accord.

‘Daniela,’ I say, my hand on hers. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about Mexico again.’

She looks up at me, curls of smoke tangling with the rain-damped twists of her hair.

‘Thinking what about Mexico again?’

Too late, I realise I should have waited. But now that I’ve started, I have to plough on.

‘About going,’ I say.

She throws me a guarded look, trying not to anticipate my words.

‘Going – what – for a visit? For a holiday? Forever?’

I take a breath, and tell her. ‘I want to go back to Latin America.’

Suddenly the things that have been building come pouring out, unstoppable as the morning’s rain. That I’m getting older. That I want to move to some Spanish-speaking place that isn’t Argentina. That I’m tired of living this rootless, provisional life.

I can see her face adjusting. Her dancing eyes are wary, trying to gauge how set upon this I am.

‘We all miss home, Osvaldo, and moving to Mexico won’t change it. It will only give you another place to miss.’

Her rings catch in the skeins of her hair as she runs her fingers through it, then she folds her hands on the table in the form of an X.

‘I know, Daniela. But I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. This job, this whole commercial thing . . . It was only meant to be for a little while.

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