‘Stop with your hair. Stop it.’
Teresa went to grab for the razor, but Olive pointed it in her direction, as warning to keep back. She began to hack and hack at herself, tufts of her thick hazel--coloured hair floating to the floor. Teresa watched her, mesmerised. ‘Now you shave my head,’ Olive said.
‘You are crazy.’
‘No, I’m not. What do I have to do to make -people take me seriously?’
‘Having the same hair as me does not give you the same grief as me.’
‘Teresa, just do it.’
As she delicately scraped away every last hair on Olive’s head, Teresa tried to hide her tears. She could not remember the last time she had cried in front of someone. She thought about that first painting of Olive’s she had swapped onto the easel, Saint Justa becoming a woman in a wheatfield. Isaac had been convinced she’d done it because of the kiss she’d witnessed against the rusty gate, that Teresa was punishing him out of jealousy, taking away his opportunity to shine. Teresa had to admit, seeing what happened between them had hurt her at the time, making her feel left out and ignored, although she couldn’t exactly articulate why. But she also knew her impulse had always been something more deep--rooted, not really connected to Isaac, something else Teresa couldn’t quite understand herself. The nearest way to describe it was as a bond she had made for herself, and about Olive being rightfully rewarded.
‘Tere, I’m going to ask you again. Do you know where he is?’ Olive said.
Teresa almost felt the pressure of the question in her body. ‘Forget Isaac,’ she said. ‘He does not love you in the way he should.’
‘Oh, Teresa. What do you know about love?’
Teresa’s brief time in the house with the Schlosses had taught her more about love and its problems than Olive would ever believe. But she had also known, long before the arrival of the Schloss family and their overflowing hearts, that whilst everything has a consequence, nothing is fate. Teresa had always made her choice – to see, and stay silent. All her life before Olive, she had kept her own counsel.
But Olive, and her paintings, and her parents, had seen to that stance; they had opened Teresa up, made her vulnerable to the whims and worlds of other -people. Once again now, Olive was forcing her hand. And perhaps there was no good to be had in staying silent any longer; perhaps it was time to have a hand in fate. Perhaps it was time for Olive to truly see, and to free herself for ever.
‘A shepherd’s hut,’ Teresa said.
‘What?’
‘Go and look for a shepherd’s hut. You will find him there.’
Olive looked at her in astonishment. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You’ll find him. Ask my brother what it means to be in love.’
TERESA WATCHED HER DEPART, AND began to sweep away the other girl’s severed hair with a mix of dread and elation. She wasn’t sure exactly what Olive would find, but she had a fair idea. She noted the back of Olive’s newly bared head with something bordering pride. When the reckoning came – and it was certainly going to come now – Teresa knew that they would question her character. At least they would see that she had not left a mark on her mistress. It was not possible to mend Olive’s heart, but at least the girl’s head was finally clear.
22
The plane engines over Malaga had grown quieter as Olive pounded down the hill from the finca, in the direction of the cottage. No one seemed to notice as she tiptoed out of the house. It did not occur to her there might have been no one left in the house to hear.
At dusk Arazuelo was a ghost village, the inhabitants evaporated, wraiths hidden round corners. The main square was empty, the shutters of the bar on the corner were up; the church was its blackened shell; the butcher was closed; the school and the offices around it blanked of life. Olive patted her pockets, feeling in one the torch she’d grabbed from the kitchen, and in the other, the cold bulk of the pistol Isaac had left with them.
She could barely allow the hope that he might still be near. Teresa, it appeared, was a locked box of secrets, until you found the right combination. Whilst everything outside her seemed quiet, Olive’s thoughts cascaded with a force she found hard to control. If she could find him and bring him back, everything would be all right. Panting, she tried to regain her breath as she scanned the woods beyond, the line of the trees inkier and inkier as the last natural light disappeared into a
smoky sky.
INTO THE GROWING DARKNESS OLIVE ran, switching on the torch. Don’t use a torch, Teresa had told her. You don’t know who else is out there.
Who else? I’m not afraid, Olive had replied – but now, out in the hills, she couldn’t see a thing without it, and her adrenalin was coursing. She barely knew where she was going, but she supposed it couldn’t be far. Towards the foothills, she would find him; she would, she would. You think he’s gone north? Teresa had said. He hasn’t gone north.
If you hate him so much, Teresa, why didn’t you tell the civil guard all this? Olive had asked; but she knew the answer to that already. Teresa had not revealed to anyone about Isaac – not to protect her brother, but to keep Olive near.
I’ll be waiting, Teresa had called out to her, as Olive fled the attic. No one had ever said such a thing to Olive before.