On His Own

On the first day he went looking for her, though he’d heard the car arrive and knew she wouldn’t be in any ditch. Trini said she hadn’t been to the shop. He carried on to the bend below, looking for footprints in the grass along the edges. At four he came back soaked, having found nothing, and sat in the kitchen with his boots on.

On the second day he couldn’t manage anything, and that frightened him more, because he always found something to keep himself busy. He stayed in the hammock until eleven, then made a coffee he ended up drinking cold. The floor went unswept, the slates stayed down below and the balcony door frame was still half finished, as it had been since July.

At midday he went out onto the balcony, which was where there was a bar of signal, and looked at his account. A hundred and thirty-eight euros. Úrsula’s ladder not paid for. And in Trini’s book, three weeks of beers the three of them had drunk and still hadn’t paid for.

He went down to the garden and looked at the half-covered slope of the roof. Judging by how long it had taken him the last time he’d worked without Eva, he reckoned he still had a good three weeks of hauling buckets and laying slates. He had thirty-five days until the deadline on the notice, but it had rained on four days that week and he couldn’t set foot on a wet roof. He did the sums again, in case he’d been too pessimistic. The strange thing was finding he didn’t care.

That night the feeling came back to the pit of his stomach. He’d gone so many weeks without it that he’d almost remembered it fondly, thinking it was so far behind him. It was exactly the same. Even half a roof built with his own hands hadn’t made it come back any smaller.

The other hammock, a metre and a half away, was empty. With the fabric still sagging where she’d slept.

On the third day he rang Hortensia from the balcony. He told her everything, without dressing it up.

Hortensia went quiet for a very long time.

“Oh my God, love. It was me.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“It was me, I took the phone off the Guardia Civil.” Her voice sounded odd. “I’ve spent my whole life sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted. I’ve sorted out weddings and I’ve sorted out inheritances, and it’s always come off, and you get used to it coming off.”

“Hortensia.”

“What?”

“You took that phone to tell her to let Eva live her life.”

On the other end there wasn’t a sound.

“And then you texted me to make sure Eva knew. With an ‘okay?’ on the end. I’ve got it here.”

“I know,” said Hortensia. And blew her nose.

He couldn’t get his own “I’ll let you know” out of his head. It came back all the time, in the same voice he’d used to promise Irene. Then Víctor’s followed: “And you didn’t say anything either, did you?”

On the fourth day he came down to the kitchen and made himself a coffee. The first hot one in four days. When he turned round with the cup, Gorgorito was sitting on the back of the chair opposite.

Axel waited for a crack about chocolate, or one of his usual remarks, but Gorgorito just kept watching him from the chair, his hands on his knees.

Axel sat down and drank his coffee. The other one didn’t move the whole time. Not a word.

When he got up to wash his cup, the chair was empty.

The postcard came on the fifth day. Trini brought it up herself, and she only came up that hill for birthdays.

“This came.” She handed it over and didn’t leave. “And another thing. If anyone rings the landline again asking about you lot up here, my shop sells bread and nothing else.”

“Trini, it wasn’t you, love.”

“I know it wasn’t me.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “But it was my phone.”

A cardboard postcard, with a hideous photo of a beach that had nothing to do with anything. On the back, Clara’s handwriting, very round:

AXEL! Your parents gave us the address. You’re in a house! With a roof and everything! Send us a photo, we don’t believe it. We’re keeping the games, thanks. We play nearly every Thursday. Love, CLARA.

And underneath, squeezed into the bit that was left, in much worse handwriting:

I thought you’d get over it in two weeks. I was wrong. B.

Axel sat on the step and read the postcard again. Through the open door he could see the unopened milk and the blue backpack on the table. There, with his friends’ handwriting in front of him, he finally managed to cry.

His eyes were still red when the folder guy came up, with his gilet zipped to the neck in that heat.

“Afternoon.” The advert smile. “Álex, isn’t it?”

“Axel.”

“That’s it. Axel.” He looked at the rucksack through the open door. “I heard, man. I’m sorry.” He really was sorry, and that was the worst bit. “One thing and I’ll be off.”

He sat down on the wall without anyone asking him to.

“Look, I’m going to be straight with you, because you’re one of the authentic ones. We don’t buy houses. We restore heritage. We give the village a second life.” He opened the folder without looking at it. “And the thirtieth’s coming up fast. The council’s already asked the demolition people in Valdoria for a quote. For the third.” He looked at the sky. “We don’t want it to come to that, yeah? But it will.”

He took a small metal plaque from the folder, identical to the ones on the bricked-up houses, with its little leaf and its two English words. He’d brought the four screws in a bag as well.

“We brought that one ready-made,” he said, seeing him look at it. “Saves two trips.” He shut the folder. “You know the lady. She trusts you. You tell her when the time’s right.”

Axel opened his mouth to say okay. It was his automatic answer, like “it’s fine”.

“No,” he said.

The folder guy smiled harder.

“Have a think about it, mate. No rush.”

“No.”

The folder guy sat there a second with the smile on, waiting for the rest. It didn’t come. He got up, took his phone out and took a photo of the front of the house, with the order on the door and Axel on the step.

“For the ‘before’ shot,” he said, smiling.

And he went off down the street.

Axel watched him go, hoping a slate would fall in front of his trainers, or that something, anything, would make him stop. The man reached his car without trouble and the four-by-four drove away without a scratch.

That night he got up on the stool and looked up the chimney. Yayo was still there, curled in a ball, with his bit of blanket underneath.

“Oi, mate.”

Nothing.

“I’ve fucked it up.”

Nothing.

“And I don’t even know how to say sorry. I just start explaining myself.” He shifted his weight onto the other foot. “Which is what I’m doing now with you, and you’re asleep. That’s how bad I am at it.”

Getting down from the stool, he felt a rage he didn’t know what to do with. He grabbed the broom and swept five days’ worth of dirt and ash straight towards the stairs, viciously, knowing full well he shouldn’t.

When he got to the last step he lifted the broom and stood there waiting.

Nothing happened. The milk on the table, the rucksack next to it, and upstairs the elder tree moving in the air.

He stood there with the broom in his hand, feeling like the stupidest bloke in the northern hemisphere.

In the end he gathered it all up and started again, slowly, towards the door, the way he’d been taught. It took him twice as long, because first he had to work the ash out from between the stones.

At quarter past twelve, down below, outside the hotel, a car started honking.

The car blared for a minute, stopped and started again. At one it was still at it. By two, lights were on in half the street, and at three Axel went onto the balcony in his pants. He saw the four-by-four outside the hotel, all on its own, with all four indicators putting on a fairground show.

A hotel window opened.

“Somebody turn that thing off, for God’s sake!”

The window closed again and Axel burst out laughing, alone in his pants at three in the morning. He hadn’t managed that for five days.

It honked till ten past six.

At half seven he went down for bread, because he hadn’t bought anything in five days.

The folder guy was in the shop, with bags under his eyes down to his chin and his gilet done up wrong, paying for a coffee.

“All night,” he was telling Trini. “Nobody touching it. And it’s new, you know? New.”

Trini rang it up without looking up.

“Martens.”

“Sorry?”

“Martens.” She tore off the receipt. “They get in the engines for the warmth. One twenty.”

The folder guy paid and left looking at the floor.

Trini looked at Axel for a second over her glasses and went back to her boxes.

He went up with the baguette under his arm and stopped in front of the door. The order was still in its plastic sleeve, with its stamp and its date. He read the whole thing again.

Then he went in, put the bread on the table, next to the milk, and opened the milk.