Alentejo Blue (32 page)

‘Don’t be stupid, Vasco. Let me go and we’ll forget about it. Come on now, let me go.’

‘Stupid, am I?’ squawked Vasco. ‘Stupid, blubbery octopus.’

‘Yes, you are,’ screamed Eduardo. He managed to wriggle free.

Eduardo launched a punch but the blow landed weakly on Vasco’s chest. Vasco grabbed his opponent, convinced he could squeeze him to death. Eduardo clung on grimly with his face pressed to Vasco’s neck. The pair waltzed slowly around the dance floor, and all those who had fallen quiet began to shout once more.

*

Vasco felt he was falling, falling through a big, black space. Eduardo was falling with him and Vasco loved him for that.

He was weightless now in this falling, weightless and totally free. He thought he would tell Eduardo, who was spinning so beautifully with him. He opened his mouth to tell him and everything spilled out, everything, from the bottom of his stomach it came.

The Potts family sat at their table and watched the chaos erupt. Ruby got up once from her seat but sat down again, shaking her head.

‘Mum,’ said Jay, screwing his nose up. ‘See what Vasco done?’

‘What Vasco did,’ said Chrissie. ‘Yes, I saw. But don’t stare. It’s rude.’

Stanton went out and gazed at the North Star, which appeared unaccountably bright. He cupped the back of his head and thought it was time. He wanted to go somewhere cold and preferably Teutonic where writers met in cafés with notebooks and grievances and discourse flowed on the meaning of life and of death. He rather fancied a road trip. He hoped to make it as far as Prague.

The next morning Eduardo went to Vasco’s and let himself in at the back. He went upstairs and found Vasco sitting up in bed.

‘Octopus,’ said Eduardo.

‘Goat,’ Vasco replied.

Eduardo sat down and laughed.

‘Hand me my puffer,’ said Vasco. He took two puffs and laughed as well.

‘Seems to me that some people are more trouble than they’re worth.’

‘Are you thinking,’ said Vasco, ‘of a certain relative of yours?’

They went together to Armenio’s house to ask Marco Afonso Rodrigues to leave.

Marco’s room was empty. Vasco opened the wardrobe door. ‘He’s gone. The cupboard is bare.’

Eduardo went to the bed and picked a sheet of paper off the pillow. ‘He’s left a note,’ he said.

‘Read it, then,’ commanded Vasco. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘I’ve read it. It says peace.’

‘Peace? What else does it say?’

Eduardo held out the paper to his friend. ‘Peace. That’s all. Just that.’

Vasco hurried across and scrutinized the page. He turned it over and turned it back. ‘You know, the moment I saw him I said to myself “hippie”. And that is what he is.’

A few people still spoke of Marco Afonso Rodrigues as winter turned into spring, but many more talked of the price of cork, which had fallen yet again. When the topic was not cork it was usually drought, which was widely predicted this year. Vasco pronounced on the state of the world and Bruno readily agreed. And when they were feeling generous they listened to Eduardo aver at length that Marco was an impostor and not Marco Afonso Rodrigues at all.

João told his pig the story, on a beautiful December day, with the sun shining through the woods and dancing as the leaves danced on the sow’s bristling and attentive back.

‘Eh, eh,’ he said, ‘my beauty. But there’s more than one way to look at it.’ And he began the story again.

THE END