‘Am I rushing you?’ said Harold. ‘Tell me if so. We don’t have to send her a photograph if you don’t want that. It’s what’s best for you.’ Isaac nodded. ‘You have a great gift, Isa. Truly. I cannot wait to see your future.’
‘It will not be what any of us expects,’ Isaac replied, staring at Olive. ‘Mr Schloss, I have brought something for you.’
Olive put the sherry glass down and began to rise from her chair, but Isaac reached into his knapsack and withdrew a pistol, the barrel made of shining steel. No one spoke as he weighed it in the flat of his hand.
‘Is that real?’ Sarah asked.
‘Real, se?ora.’
‘Why on earth have you brought us a gun?’ said Harold, laughing. ‘Bring me a painting, for Christ’s sake.’
Olive sat back, the relief visible on her face. ‘Do you shoot, se?or?’ Isaac said.
‘I can. I have.’
‘Can the women shoot?’
‘Of course we can’t,’ said Sarah. ‘Why do you ask? This is terribly dramatic.’
ISAAC HUNG AN OLD FLOUR sack, packed with earth, upon a protruding branch of a cork oak at the end of the garden. One word covered the rough sacking, F A R I N A, and they agreed that the makeshift bullseye was the space between the ‘R’ and the ‘I’. They all trooped past the empty stone fountain and lined up to have a go, and there was almost a carnival atmosphere to their endeavour; the silly swinging sack, the birds scattering out of the oak at the crack of Isaac’s pistol.
Harold hit the last A. Sarah shot into the bark and handed the pistol back to Isaac, saying she would never touch it again. She went to lie on her back in the grass, staring at the sky, her hands resting on her stomach. Isaac shot the middle of the N, and looked sheepish. He handed the pistol to Olive and Teresa watched the intertwining of their hands.
Olive lumbered over to the shooting spot and raised the pistol. She squinted, and pulled on the trigger, releasing the bullet with a gasped shock as the pistol recoiled in her hand.
‘Liv,’ cried her father.
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you nearly shot the centre.’
Olive looked in surprise towards the sack. ‘Did I?’
Teresa thought it natural that Olive should have such a good eye, a steady hand. ‘Do that again,’ Harold said.
‘No. It was a fluke.’
Sarah lifted her head up to look at the bullet--riddled sack. ‘Liv, you’ve got a hidden talent. Maybe we should enter you in competitions.’
Teresa hurried over to take the pistol from Olive, and Isaac came to check she was reloading it correctly. Teresa brushed him off, setting the pistol perfectly on her own. ‘You bought this with her money, didn’t you?’ she whispered to him.
‘It won’t be the last. It’s a Soviet T33,’ he replied, with a note of admiration.
‘Are you giving this gun to them?’
‘They might need it.’
‘Why? Are you trying to protect them, or put them in danger?’
‘Keep your eye on the target, Tere. And your voice down.’
Teresa wondered where Isaac was finding the means to source Soviet weapons, but part of her didn’t want to know. She concentrated on raising the pistol, her legs apart, her other hand supporting her wrist. Her body was taut, every muscle tensed on her spare frame, the set of her jaw fixed as hard as the stone satyr in the fountain. She inhaled deeply and pulled the trigger. You’re not the only one who shoots rabbits, she thought. The pistol went off and the bullet sailed through the air, hitting precisely through the knot attaching the sack to the branch. To Isaac’s cry of frustration, the entire thing tumbled to the grass. The packed earth spilled everywhere, and the game was ruined.
?
Late that afternoon, Harold said he was driving to Malaga. He wanted to visit a bodega, pick up some new supplies of sherry. Sarah announced that she would accompany him. ‘I need a chemist,’ she said. ‘Then I’d like a coffee on Calle Larios and a walk along the sea.’
Teresa saw Harold’s hesitation, but he said, ‘That’s a good idea, get some air into your lungs. Isaac, would you join us? A man with local knowledge might help when it comes to the sherry.’ But Isaac, who Teresa knew would once have craved a drive in such a powerful car, who had to content himself with a bicycle, did not wish to join them at all. He demurred, politely. ‘Of course,’ said Harold. ‘You’ve got work you want to do.’
Outside the finca, Olive and Isaac waved her parents off. ‘We could take the photograph for Peggy Guggenheim now,’ she said, as their car disappeared. ‘Daddy has a camera in his study.’ Isaac was silent, staring at the swinging gate, gaping open on the path towards the village. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I was foolish,’ he said.
‘You’re weren’t.’
‘I thought your confidence, your happiness, was out of love for me.’
‘It was. It is.’
‘I do not think so. I think this has always been inside you, waiting to come out. I just happened to be there, at that particular time, in order for you to use me as your canvas.’
‘I love you, Isaac,’ she said. The words landed between them.
‘Your true pleasure is not with me. It is hanging on the walls of the Guggenheim house. How is this going to end, Olive?’ he said. ‘Because it is going to end.’
Olive turned to him, placing a hand on his arm, but he brushed it off. ‘I’ve made you angry,’ she said. ‘But I love you—-’
‘You say one more painting. And then there is one more. A green face, one more, one more, one more.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This will be the last. I promise, I swear. I swear on my life.’
He turned to face her squarely. ‘Did you and my sister plan all this from the very beginning?’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
‘She seems very comfortable with the situation now. She sounds like you. Always, she has a plan.’
‘No, there was never a plan, Isaac. This just happened.’
‘Teresa is a survivor. She was the one who put you on the easel, but don’t think she will always put you first.’