Canary Islands Mysteries Collection

Chapter 7

I repress a moment of irritation, wishing I hadn"t agreed to have Gloria"s party at my parents" house. It was so much larger, they said, and tidier—something else I can"t dispute. Yet it"s the last house on the northern edge of Máguez and although scarcely two kilometres from Haría, no one will want to risk the drive. A tropical storm, a rare event on Lanzarote, has chosen this very afternoon to lambast the island.

All I can do is wait and hope. I"ve no mobile reception and I never thought to give the guests my parents" number.

There were numerous warnings. The weather bureau saw it coming for about a week. The little supermarkets at each end of Haría"s plaza were both busy when I drove past earlier, locals stocking up on essentials before the storm struck. By then it was already raining. The media advised people to stay at home once the storm intensifies, avoid the roads, and if the road to Yé is any indication, so they have.

Perhaps we should have cancelled, or postponed. I considered it, but Celestino questioned the veracity of the warnings, and my parents said they would never cancel a birthday party over a bit of inclement weather.

The guests were due at two and it"s gone half past. I stand at the guest-bedroom window, peering into the grey for cars emerging from down the road. The thickness of the wall, about a yard of basalt, affords some comfort. I lean against it, the stone cold against my skin. An irascible wind funnels through the gaps in the casements. The shutters, open and fastened to the façade, judder and clap. I"m reluctant to venture out to close them. It would be too much like sealing myself in.

Gloria is in the kitchen, oblivious to my concerns. Her ebullient little voice bounces around the farmhouse walls, off the concrete ceilings twelve feet high, fragmenting into a confusion of numerous little voices, her simple bold talk obfuscated by its own echo.

Angela and Bill are keeping her entertained.

I should join them and make the best of things, but I can"t help holding fast to my post at the window in the absence of Celestino.

He usually keeps good time, although when I went to the studio I understood he wanted to complete the island landscape on his easel, a commission for a Swedish doctor who owns a villa in Mancha Blanca. Finding him crouched over the work, I arranged my face into something I hoped appeared accommodating, but he didn"t look up. It"s a complex piece, a dance of earthy tones in the style of Matisse"s fauvist period, Celestino yet again shunning as a source of inspiration the Picasso-inspired works of Lanzarote"s beloved César Manrique in favour of Picasso"s rival. Even then, behind his back I observed the work with grudging admiration. When he said, "Quiero terminar esta esquina," and pointed at the bottom left corner, adding a polite but firm, "¿Vale?" I knew it would have to be okay, the Swede is keen to take possession and we need the cash, even though I also knew he"d be late for his only daughter"s birthday party. Leaving the studio, I struggled to hold back my displeasure.

The storm intensifies as I watch. The soft branches of the shrubs in the front garden, normally sheltered from the prevailing wind by arcs of stone wall, are receiving a lashing. In the field across the road some newly planted maize is already flattened. It"s a harsh irony that a storm, with its deluge of rain, damages the island more than the long dry spells. All that rainwater lost to the sea. Taking in the thick cloud hanging low, the volcanoes shrouded in grey, it"s a scene anathema to the bright blocks of sunny colour found in those depictions of the island in paint and photograph alike, depictions coveted by the tourists. I fold my arms across my chest, shove my hands up the sleeves of my dress and pinch my flesh. Cheap and cheerful, isn"t that what the world wants? A cheeriness reflected in Manrique"s abstract artworks. But not in Celestino"s. Instead there"s a brutal truth in his paintings; he refuses to sweeten the pill. Celestino, where the hell are you? I stare into the grey harbouring a vain wish that the sun will shine for my little girl"s birthday.

Gloria comes bounding into the room in the pretty dress Angela insisted on buying, holding up her drawing gripped in two hands. "Look, Mummy! Look!" I make my lips stretch wide. "How gorgeous! Aren"t you clever." I ruffle her hair. She"s a bright and animated child. She has her father"s thick dark hair and proud face atop the fine-bone frame she inherited from me. Her eyes are large and inquisitive, yet she"s as content in her own company and in that of her family, as she is playing with the other toddlers in the neighbourhood.

Gloria gives me the painting then takes my hand and tugs. I allow myself to be led away. Satisfied her mother is following, Gloria lets go and runs back to join her grandparents.

"I don"t suppose …" Angela says upon my entry into the kitchen.

"Nobody is going to drive up here in this, Mum." I gesture past my father and the windowed doors, to the patio where the rainwater pools, repressing my annoyance that my earlier misgivings over the wisdom of holding a party in a tropical storm were overridden.

"But Celestino should be here. It isn"t like him to be late."

"He"s finishing the commission," I say flatly. "I imagine it"s taking longer than he thought."

Angela smooths her hands down her apron and turns away to the sink. She"s a petite woman, a little stooped, her short grey hair thinning around the crown. Beyond her, the depths of the kitchen look gloomy. An unusually long room lined with flat pack shelving units and makeshift benches, the challenges of installing a modern fitted kitchen too much for the previous owner. Maybe it"s her way of proving to the world she"s assimilating to local ways by choosing not to renovate. The only change she"s made is the acquisition of a large dresser with cupboards top and bottom, positioned at the table end of the room. The landline is perched at the end beside a silver-plated letter holder.

Angela follows my gaze. "Have you tried his mobile?"

"Last time I tried it went straight to message bank."

I survey the table, strewn with paper and crayons. Bill has drawn up his chair close to Gloria"s, her chair"s height raised by a plump cushion. Gloria leans forward and reaches across for the bowl of potato crisps. I push the bowl closer and watch the grabbing hand, the mouth opening wide, turning away at the crunch and chomp.

Angela goes to the fridge. "What should we do?" she says, more to the contents than to me.

"Wait, I guess."

Out on the patio, the rain sloshes down; the drain in the far corner failing to cope, the water around that end already ankle deep.

"You did tell them all two o"clock?" Bill says.

"They"re not coming." Exasperation rises. "I know I wouldn"t be. Not in a deluge like this."

I picture Kathy and Pedro and their three daughters battling it up the hill from Tabayesco. Pilar and Miguel and their two boys have even further to come. They won"t make it out of Los Valles, the rain surely falling most heavily on the mountain.

Gloria reaches for more crisps. I catch the anticipation in her eyes. I"ll have to explain somehow. Promise we"ll do something special on a different day. Tell my parents they might as well make the most of the afternoon and start on all that food. There are the presents to open, the cake to cut. And Celestino is bound to turn up eventually.

"Shall we…?"

"Shouldn"t we wait a bit longer?" Angela says. "For Celestino?"

Her gaze slides away from my face and settles on the phone. As though summoned, I go to the dresser and press the receiver to my ear. Silence. I put a finger in my other ear to make sure.

"The line"s dead."

The word catches in my throat. I glance at my watch. Bill does the same. It"s three.

"Put the radio on, Angela," he says. "We"ll catch the news."

"What for? It"s in Spanish."

"Paula will understand."

The broadcaster speaks rapidly. I snatch at words. I wait until the report comes to an end then gesture to my mother to turn it off.

"It isn"t good. Haría is the worst hit. The barrancos are raging torrents. Roads have become rivers, many impassable. There are reports of rock falls and landslides. A few cars swept away."

"My word," Bill says beneath his breath.

"Thankfully, no injuries reported, so far. And all flights since midday have been diverted to Fuerteventura."

"It"s sure to pass over," Angela says.

"Until it does, Celestino will be stuck where he is." Wherever that might be.

We fall into silence, gazes settling on Gloria"s painstaking attempt to solve a jigsaw puzzle.

Bill leaves his seat and stands by the patio doors. "I thought when we moved here we"d gotten away from all the flooding."

"It"s rare and it never lasts long. Things will soon dry out." My hopes of forestalling a tirade are dashed at the full stop.

"Not like those poor buggers back home," he says, turning back to the room. "Can"t imagine how they"ll get those houses dry. Sodden they are. Think of the mould. We got out just in time, Angela."

"Oh, Dad."

Since his retirement, he"s become prone to grumbling over "the dismal state of the world" as he calls it. The recent floods that inundated villages and towns in England alarmed him more than almost anyone we know. I share with my mother a wish that he would switch off sometimes and relax. So much negative passion can"t be good for his blood pressure.

I hoped my parents" move to Máguez would bring them both peace of mind; that the warm sunny climate and the invigorating ocean breeze would enliven their spirits.

In the months after Brexit, Bill and Angela sold their Suffolk home and bought the old farmhouse, moving in time for Gloria"s second birthday, my persuasive efforts of the previous two years at last paying off. It was the mild climate that swayed them. Plenty of opportunity to be outdoors. They were holidaying on the island one time and they had taken a walk around the village. A retired high school teacher, Bill began to see in Lanzarote the tranquil lifestyle he craved. Although I suspect the climate was just the catalyst, the deeper reason his attachment to his only granddaughter.

I thought the new climate would help Angela move out from beneath the shadow of her depression that took hold when she was retrenched from her job as school secretary in her early sixties. The move has certainly lifted her spirits, but not in the way I anticipated. It is a fascination for gardening in a dry and windy climate that absorbs Angela. She marvels over the ease with which dracaenas and succulents grow and she"s developed an avid affection for cacti.

Much to my dismay, although not to my surprise, she hasn"t developed a similar adoration of Gloria. For Angela is as indifferent as she was with me when I was young, consumed by guilt that she should be doing more, yet steadfastly not acting on that guilt.

It is Bill who has taken to Gloria, and Gloria to Bill. Watching him help his granddaughter insert the last puzzle piece, watching him take her hand and lead her to the main room, I can"t help feeling warm inside. The way he bends down and points at the long table filled with fare, the way Gloria responds with a look of awe, the lifting of her face to his as if for approval. The way his face lights up at her smile. Gloria has taken years off him. He is a large man, with a tendency to carry too much weight, his serious nature showing on his face in downward curving lines and in the furrows on his brow. Around Gloria, there"s a bounce in his step and an enthusiasm for life"s small adventures, for sharing with Gloria every single detail of the day, myriad little observances. Gloria mellows his heart. Although he will always rail against the injustices of the world. In that, he shares with his son-in-law, Celestino, something meaningful and important.

Celestino.

Who should be here.

Even if he were, there is no denying Bill offers Gloria something Celestino can"t: his complete attention. Not that Celestino doesn"t care. Although I can"t count the times I"ve told myself in the face of mounting dissatisfaction, that he has to work hard to produce and sell his art, especially since there are the three of us. Alone he may have survived adequately if frugally, but with a wife and a child the burden is great. That commission for the Swedish doctor; we"ll have to live off those Euros for a month.

In an effort to push away my cares, I grab a handful of toasted maize kernels and take in the room, recalling the relief I felt when my mother relinquished all notion of shipping to the island the vintage furniture, replete with a tatty Chesterfield lounge that never fitted in any room it was put. Between us, Bill and I managed to persuade Angela to part with all her old pieces, selling some and arranging homes for the rest. Here in Máguez, they have resorted to furnishing their home via Ikea, the effect—modern, clean lines, plain colours—in keeping with the roughly rendered walls of brilliant white, the polished timber floors, the overall simplicity of design.

Hanging on the longest wall is one of Celestino"s larger pieces, a sketchy rendition of the island"s northern landscape, which they tried to buy but Celestino insisted they have. Along with the sight of it hanging there like a chimeric representation of the artist himself, annoyance at his absence gives way to concern. Perhaps the road out of Haría is truly impassable. Or the commission is taking far longer than he anticipated. My self-reassurances can"t replace a nagging thought that something dreadful, even catastrophic has happened to my husband.

I put on a brave face and suggest we play a game to keep Gloria amused.

"What shall we play?" Angela says, directing her question to no one in particular.

"Laloply!" Gloria cries.

"Laloply?"

"She means our Monopoly."

"Good plan," Bill says and goes to fetch it.

It is a game far too old for Gloria, but she loves it. I make space on the kitchen table. Angela brings in some party fare and pours everyone a soft drink.

"Lemonade?" Bill says, entering the kitchen and eyeing his glass.

"There"s rather a lot of it."

He doesn"t respond to the subtext as he lays out the board, making two piles of cards in its centre and lining up the players on "Go".

There is no Old Kent Road or Mayfair to be seen. Instead, arranged in a logical sequence of rising wealth, are the various locations on the island, everywhere from budget holiday complexes to the luxury locales of Costa Teguise, Playa Blanca and Puerto Calero. Stations are replaced by tourist sites, all of them created by Manrique and up for sale like the rest of the board. Celestino has painted a little scene in each square. The result is a visual feast of marinas, beaches, palm trees and volcanoes, and many and varied streetscapes. Houses become holiday lets, and the hotels resorts. The players Celestino carved out of clay, little figurines of islanders in native dress, a dog, a pirate ship and a high-domed wide-brimmed hat. He customised the Chance cards to suit, with the exception of "free parking", the "go to jail" card and "income tax". In keeping with his own worldview, bank errors in the player"s favour have become sweeteners and kickbacks.

He created the game after he found the original Monopoly in my parents" sideboard when searching for placemats for a family dinner, and insisted on playing afterwards. Bill and Angela were just settling into their new home at the time. What began as a tentative introduction to the game became, thanks to a bottle of single malt whisky, rowdy and intense. Towards the end, when Angela was bankrupt and I struggled with half a dozen mortgaged properties, Celestino lost Mayfair and Park Lane to Bill and won a new friend, the two men forming a bond where previously existed common civility. That was the night Celestino introduced Bill to the story of the island"s corruption. I recall the many hours Celestino spent in the following weeks designing the new board, with Gloria leaning over him engaged in every step; the day he brought it over to Máguez for a trial run, and everyone agreed it was much better than the original.

Gloria climbs onto Bill"s lap and chooses the ship. Angela takes the hat and I pick up the dog. The game is helped along by Bill"s enthusiasm but it"s strange to be playing it without Celestino. By the time we"ve all bought up the various streets, promenades and boulevards, Gloria"s attention wanes.

Outside, the wind and the rain are unrelenting. The afternoon rapidly gives way to dark. Conceding an early defeat after having to mortgage Famara Beach, Angela goes about putting the lights on.

"Those shutters need closing," she says to herself, emerging from the guest bedroom and heading to the front door.

"I"ll do it."

Angela promptly turns back.

An angry wind roars up the valley, flinging the rain at everything in its path, slamming the unlatched shutters closed, narrowly missing pinching my fingers. There"s nothing to see beyond the stretch of small, cultivated fields that fan down the hill to the village centre. Low cloud obscures the mountains. Run off from the roof gushes from a drainage outlet, eroding the soil beneath, creating several muddy rivulets which carve their way down towards the garden wall.

I duck back inside, determined to steer my attention towards my daughter, although I soon find I have no need. Gloria has decided to entertain herself by running around the house in search of her grandparents" cat, Tibbles. Bill"s doing.

"Is he under your bed?" he says as she runs towards him.

She about turns and runs off to the guest bedroom.

"No, he"s not there, Granddad," comes a little voice.

Then she reappears, breathless and beaming.

"What about under Nanny"s bed. Have you tried there?"

And off she goes.

After several more attempts she says, "Granddad, where is he?"

"I"m not telling."

"Please."

"You have to find him. He has to be somewhere."

Another unsuccessful attempt and Gloria drags Bill off to help the search. After a short while, as Gloria tires of the game, Bill leads her to kitchen, to the cupboard under the bench. Before long I hear, "There he is!" and Gloria reappears with Bill cradling Tibbles in his arms.