Canary Islands Mysteries - Books 1-3

5. Haría-2

The media now had another angle to cover and the following day the La Mareta coverage was front-page news. For weeks after, the complaining and campaigning and protesting went on. Celestino ignored it all. Whenever I broached the topic, he waved it away with one of his dismissive scoffs.

Yet the campaigning proved a success. An opportunity arose, one shrouded in controversy and debate, for another artist to display their work in one small section of the residence. When I read the news, I could scarcely contain my excitement. I hurried Gloria into her shoes and walked briskly to the studio to tell him.

"What"s up?" he said after I pushed open the studio door and stood panting. I"d carried Gloria for half the trip.

I proffered the newspaper folded open at the article and explained in hurried sentences. The criteria were strict. The artist must be native to the island and all artwork must be identifiably of authentic indigenous merit.

"It"s made for you, Celestino."

"It is?"

"You must apply. Surely you can see that."

He wore his intransigent face. Even as he turned back to the work on his easel, I urged and cajoled, pointing out that the commission would sustain us for months if not years, and it would establish Celestino"s reputation and give him the prestige he so needed.

"Paula! Stop it!"

I froze. I"d never heard him yell like that before. Defiance rose up in me and I folded my arms and tilted my head to the side and told him that once La Mareta opened, in all likelihood coachloads of tourists would stop coming every Saturday to marvel at the Manrique residence in Haría. Privately I knew they wouldn"t but Celestino hesitated and I knew I"d got through to him.

As much as he couldn"t help but admire the late César Manrique, he despised the way one solitary man claimed all the attention, albeit posthumously, leaving little room for any living artist to make their mark. He especially despised the way this harsh reality was ground into his soul on a daily basis by the trickle of tourists passing by our house on a post-Manrique ramble about the village. Even then, I spent several tense weeks wondering if he"d go through with a submission.

I place the letter back on his keyboard. One quick glance around and I head downstairs without a clue what to do next.

The coffee I drank for breakfast on an otherwise empty stomach has left a cloying taste in my mouth. I go and brush my teeth. Moments later, I"m hungry. Without a second thought I down the last of the orange juice in the fridge, straight from the carton. After the toothpaste, it tastes bitter. I throw the dregs down the sink, leave the carton on the bench, and fetch a glass from the highest shelf, far from Gloria"s reach. The flagon of water we store on the floor under the sink. It"s almost empty. I fill my glass and put the flagon on the bench beside the juice carton. As I swill my mouth I collect my thoughts. It"s possible, not likely but possible, that Celestino is still at the studio. I have a vague recollection of a spare key. But I"m standing right by the phone: the logical next step. I don"t want to alarm our friends or appear to be overreacting but given the situation, there seems no choice. Pedro is Celestino"s closest friend. I dial his number first.

Three rings and his wife picks up.

"¿Hola?"

"It"s Paula."

"Espera un momento," she says in carefully enunciated Spanish. There"s a long pause. I hear scuffles in the background and Kathy"s muffled admonishments. Three daughters, six and under—must be a handful by anybody"s measure.

"I"m sorry," she says, at last coming back to the phone, "but we couldn"t make it yesterday. The storm was crazy."

"That"s okay."

"How did it go?"

"No one made it."

"That"s no good. Poor Gloria."

"She"s fine. She didn"t seem to mind. My father kept her entertained."

"¡Ay, los abuelos!"

Did she really need to show off her Spanish like that?

"I have a present for Gloria. I"ll call in with it next time I"m up your way."

"No rush. Look, this might sound like an odd question but have you seen Celestino?"

"Celestino? Why?"

"He didn"t make it either."

"That is strange for him to miss such a special party."

"I know. I haven"t seen or heard from him since yesterday morning. He was finishing a painting and said he"d come later. But he never showed up. I"m worried, Kathy. I"m thinking of calling the police."

"The police? Calm down, Paula. Have you checked his studio?"

"I went there. It"s locked. I knocked but no one answered."

"Maybe try again. He might have gone up the street for some fresh air. You know what he"s like when he"s working on something."

"But…"

"He"d never put his art before his daughter," Kathy says as though finishing my sentence for me.

I can"t help wishing he would feel the same way about his wife.

"Don"t worry Paula. He"ll turn up." There is a brief moment of silence. Then, "I have to go. Pedro"s at the market and I said I"d join him with the girls. Aye …" her voice trails off as she attends to a commotion in the background. Then she comes back to the phone with, "We"re just heading out the door. Hasta luego."

"Bye, Kathy."

"Hey, maybe Celestino"s there too. I"ll have a look around."

"Would you? Thanks. Please call me if you find him."

"Of course." And she hangs up.

I have an almost identical phone conversation with Pilar.

"Something urgent must have come up," Pilar says in that reassuring tone people put on at times like this, a tone I"m already finding tedious.

"Then why hasn"t he phoned?"

"He probably ran out of battery."

I spy his phone charger plugged into the wall over by the kettle.

"I expect you"re right," I mutter.

"I better go. Miguel"s outside clearing up. We lost a section of wall."

"Is the house okay?"

"Sure. Thank goodness. And yours?"

"All good."

"Don"t worry, Paula."

"I"ll try not to."

Fernando hasn"t seen him either. He curates for a museum in Teguise, and is busy cleaning a new acquisition when I make the call. "He"ll turn up," he says, and abruptly rings off. The flippant tone of his voice seems dismissive. Yet perhaps he"s right. Perhaps they are all right, and I"m worrying about nothing.

I can"t think who else to call. Kathy and Pedro, Pilar and Miguel, and Fernando—they are Celestino"s only friends. Celestino, I discovered once I started living with him, is an intensely private man, maintaining his reserve with few exceptions. He interacts with his fellow villagers in a cordial manner, as though they are acquaintances; scarcely evident he"s known them all his life.

Standing alone in the kitchen of a house two hundred years old, situated in an ancient village on a narrow tongue of land barely three miles wide, I feel excluded; not only from aspects of Celestino"s life, but from the island I now call home. My reaction is strong, surprisingly strong, and I struggle to contain it. He appears to me now an absent presence. I sit down at the table, giving my mind the latitude it seems to want, as though through my recollections I"ll have much more success in manifesting the real man.

It was impossible to grasp when I first arrived how guarded the Lanzaroteños were when it comes to outsiders, especially in the relatively isolated villages of the north. The old ways are almost a distant memory, the island having long given itself up to tourism. Is a deep-seated resentment alive in the hearts of not just Celestino but many a local, especially the artists? Why shouldn"t it exist, fed by a knowledge of the perpetual injustices meted out against the people and their land? But it does nothing to alleviate how I feel, sitting in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. If I belonged, if I could enter the closed world of the locals, then I"d have a far better idea of what to do next. He might be inside the home of any resident of Haría, doing heaven knows what.

Then again, if I were in the islanders" shoes I"d maintain my privacy and do my best to ignore the foreigners in my midst. They"ve lost so much. Or am I romanticising? Gone the arduous tradition of farming to the mountaintops, yet gone too days spent amid those breathtakingly expansive views of land and sea. All sacrificed to the tourist dollar. Dollars lining the pockets of developers while the ordinary locals see little benefit in wages and conditions. Tourism in England is different. There"s so much else going on in the economy. It isn"t the be all and end all. Those, like Celestino—sensitive, creative, concerned—see in the development trend an enormous tragedy and they harbour a moiling discontent, one that sooner or later will erupt. It"s what drew me to him in the first place, his passion. For him, Manrique"s iconic sculptural tribute, Fecundidad, and the accompanying Museo del Campesino, constitute memorials, not venerations of a lifestyle still lived.

I"ve always known Celestino is staunch and outspoken when it comes to protecting the island"s interests. Although at first, I had no idea the extent of his passion, the lengths he would take to expose shady deals, especially when, as they invariably do, those deals impact adversely on the environment. Having worked in the tourism industry my whole adult life and seen first-hand the way the holiday mentality changes people into amoral pleasure seekers, I share his discontent. I have even started to help translate into English some of his reportage and exposés, which he posts on his anti-corruption blog under the pseudonym "Dana", after he pointed out that the mainstream media pump out pro-tourism p********a.

"Someone has to get the word out."

Yes, but why you?

I study the phone in my hand, run a finger over the buttons. What if Fernando is wrong and Celestino isn"t going to turn up? The thought that his disappearance has nothing to do with the storm and everything to do with his anti-corruption campaigns begins to insinuate itself into my mind. I should be looking for him but I"m strangely frozen. How dangerous is it to take his stance? I"ve often heard references to the island"s mafia but up until now I"ve never taken it all that seriously, despite the scandals. That an island so small, with a local population miniscule by global standards, could have the lucrative wherewithal to support the operations of the mafia has always seemed to me ludicrous. If the mafia does exist, it couldn"t compare to the real mafia of, say, Russia or Albania.

Only the once did I express this view to Celestino. I expressed it with a laugh, thinking how quaint, but my mirth fell away when I saw the outrage spread across my husband"s face. I"m embarrassed thinking about it. Have I underestimated the gravity of the island"s shady dealings all along? I"ve often wondered if his campaigns would put him in danger but he"s always reassured me that no one knows who Dana is. But any hacker with an ounce of know-how could discover the identity of a blogger. Celestino is being naïve. What would become of him if those corrupt officials did find out? I can only surmise it wouldn"t be pleasant.

The phone is still in my hand. I clasp it as if it alone will bring him back to me. But there is no one else to call.

Richard Parry pops into my mind and I despatch him immediately. An old acquaintance of Celestino"s after he purchased several of his large paintings, Richard is a temporary resident who uses his island home to compose his books. Since we married, Celestino has had little to do with the author. Richard no longer seeks him out on market days, and ever since he took offence at not having received an invitation to our wedding, things have been strained. He was at home in Bunton at the time, dealing with his irascible wife Trish, and we saw no point in posting an invitation. Once, I even saw Richard skirt the markets warily, and on another occasion, upon sighting Celestino"s stall he about faced and headed in the direction of his home. For an inexplicable reason, Richard chooses to hold Celestino responsible for what he conceives a personal snub, which allows him, conveniently perhaps, to remain on cordial terms with me. Although I suspect his animosity is due to the flop of Ico"s Promise, a book Richard hoped Celestino would help him research after his friend and local potter, Domingo, moved to Gran Canaria. His hopes were in vain. Whatever the reason for their strained relations, Richard will know nothing of Celestino"s whereabouts.