It was the third week of Brendan’s incapacity; his broken wrist still ached. He was sitting in an air-conditioned coach, reading a book about the Pilgrims’ route of Santiago de Compostela and another about the bombing of Guernica in 1937. Maura flicked through a glossy magazine and an expensive book of Picasso’s paintings. There was a peace in being absorbed in the books, occasionally looking out the window at the changing scenery, the mountains rising from hills and the snow glinting against blue skies. They arrived in Bilbao in time for a brief stroll and a dinner of bacalao al pil-pil, which was a kind of cod stew, best enjoyed with a bottle of local Rioja. Brendan slept soundly despite the aching wrist. He woke the next morning and stood at the hotel window in his boxer shorts, gazing at the mountains. Maura was still asleep so he decided he would take some pictures on his phone and email them to Penny.
After a breakfast of potato omelette and crusty bread in the hotel, they took the coach to Fuente Dé. They queued in silence at the ticket office, their books to their noses, and took the cable car up the Picos Mountains.
Brendan put his books in his backpack as the cable car was hoisted up, parallel to jagged rocks, the ascent efficient and fast. Maura hugged her handbag and gazed out at the scenery. It was warm inside the cable car, nestling close to the craggy rocks, the greens giving way to greys, then broken-tooth rocks holding little snatches of snow before the blanket of whiteness made him blink. He enjoyed the sense of insignificance, overshadowed by crowding mountain crests. It was as if his problems were melting in the sparkling sunshine. The cable car slowed and the passengers put precarious feet onto the firm ground. The perfect peaks were smothered in snow and low-hanging clouds broke around them like mist. He put an arm around Maura’s shoulders and wondered why he had done it. He left it there for a moment and then took it away, pulling his phone out deliberately to take selfies with the mountains behind him, and a picture of them both. She tugged away. Her shoulders slumped. He put an arm around her and took another picture of them both, the crags stretching behind them. Her face was serious and she was leaning away from him, her mouth a little grim.
‘Isn’t this wonderful, up here?’ Brendan said when they reached the top. He wondered why she looked so unhappy; it had been her idea. She stood a little way from him, her head down. He suggested a walk and she trudged along behind, looking at her shoes.
They reached a little café and Brendan was about to order two coffees, but Maura shook her head and asked for a sparkling water. They sat together at the table and gazed out across the valley, the cable cars rising through mist. Maura sipped her water in little mouthfuls. Brendan rested his aching wrist on the table.
‘This was a great idea to come here.’ He indicated the view with his good hand. ‘It’s spectacular. I wish I had time to come out here for a longer walking holiday, maybe spend a week doing all the walks, or even come out here skiing.’ He closed his eyes, saw himself holding two poles, a red bobble hat over his ears and goggles on his face, the mountains huge behind him. In his imagination he was free and happy to enjoy himself.
Maura took another sip and Brendan noticed she was pale.
‘Aren’t you enjoying the mountains?’ he asked her.
‘They’re wonderful.’
He took money from his wallet to pay the bill. Maura lifted her head. ‘Must be the potato omelette,’ she mumbled. ‘I feel a bit queasy.’
‘Maybe it’s the height and all the fresh air.’ He put the money on the table and rose to go. ‘Come on, let’s have another stroll. We’ve an hour before we meet the coach. You never know. It might clear your head and make you feel better.’
He pushed his chair back and was on his way to the door when he heard her chair scrape behind him. She waved an arm, gesticulated to the toilet and then rushed in. He waited for fifteen minutes. When she came out again, Maura’s face was tinged green.
The next day they were back in the hotel room in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Maura was lying on the bed reading Brendan’s book on Guernica, even though he had not finished it.
‘This is an interesting book, Brendan.’ She flicked the pages. ‘I never knew much about Picasso. He had an interesting life. He was a bit of a character.’
‘Yes, my love.’ Brendan was on the floor, his laptop on his knee, his back to the bed, sending an email to Penny Wray, attaching pictures of the Picos Mountains. He looked across at his wife. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘A little better, if I lie still. My mouth has a horrible taste in it, like aluminium. I think I’ll lay off the wine for a day or two.’
Brendan made a low humming noise. She lifted her head and looked across. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Sending emails. People at work.’
‘You can’t possibly be thinking of work, Brendan? It’s almost mid-August. You’ll be back there in a few weeks. You need to rest.’
He didn’t lift his eyes from the screen, but made another low grunting sound between his lips. Penny had been out at sea on a speedboat and seen a tornado. There was a picture of a whirling conical black shape, poised demon-like above stormy waters. Another attachment was one of her holding the fins of two dolphins, leaning forwards, being pulled through streaming water, her mouth open in a scream of delight. Her hair wet and blowing across her face. She was wearing a red bikini top and her body was tanned a deep bronze. The dolphins were rising from the water, their mouths curved in a smile. Brendan smiled too.
‘What the hell are you staring at, Brendan?’ She had slid off the bed and was behind him close to his back, leaning over his shoulder.
‘Maura.’ He turned around as best he could, his body twisted. She was looking at the laptop screen.
‘Is it pornography you’re looking at now, Brendan?’ He heard a thump. She dropped Guernica on the floor.
‘It’s a private email.’
‘A private email, is it? It looks like a woman in a skimpy bikini to me.’
Brendan’s voice took on a whining tone of apology. ‘If you must know, she is a colleague from work.’
Maura’s hands were on her hips, her face flushed. ‘Oh, I’m sure she is.’
‘She’s on holiday in Mexico. She teaches sport with me. We’re good friends.’
‘Good friends is it, Brendan?’
‘Yes, actually.’ He wished he hadn’t said ‘actually’. He wished he hadn’t said anything at all. This was not an argument he intended to have. He turned back to the laptop and saved the photo in a file he had marked ‘PW’.
‘I’m waiting, Brendan.’
‘You’ll wait a long time.’ He was cross with himself, meeting her clichés with silly retorts. He decided to research the history of Guernica and tapped with one hand on the keyboard. Picasso’s painting came up, black and grey, a mass of angular and twisted faces.
‘Are you having an affair with her?’
‘No.’
‘You’d like to though, wouldn’t you?’
‘No.’ His answer was too fast; his voice rose at the end, elongating the ‘o’, making him sound like he was hiding something.
‘Come on then, out with it.’
‘I’m not having this conversation.’
‘Because you’re guilty as hell; you’re having an affair – she sends you sexy pictures of herself when you’re on holiday, to keep us apart, to wreck our marriage.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
Maura huffed. ‘Oh, I get it all now: why you haven’t been interested in me these past weeks; why we have been distant and you’ve been telling me you don’t know how you feel. It’s her, isn’t it? She’s come between us, broken us apart.’
Brendan’s mouth was open. ‘You have it all wrong, Maura. Penny and I—’
‘So it’s Penny, is it?’
‘She has a name.’ He was talking clichés again; he could hear himself; he was in her soap opera. Brendan closed his mouth.
‘So how long have you both been at it, you and this Penny?’
‘At it?’ He shouldn’t have repeated her words. She took it as an admission of guilt.
‘You and her … you and this Penny one …’ She struggled for a word and one came out, angry, laced with spittle: ‘Bonking.’
Brendan laughed at the silly choice, and he knew he had made a mistake.
‘You filthy swine, laughing at me, and you and your fancy woman in her red bikini are having sex behind my back.’
He felt his heart quicken. ‘Maura, for goodness sake. You’re making a fuss over nothing.’
‘Over nothing? You and your tart are sending each other private dirty little pictures … Oh, you must both have been laughing at me.’ Her face was pale now and she was shaking. ‘Well you can keep your fancy tart, Brendan.’ Maura reached out a hand and found her hairbrush. ‘You are a bastard – that’s what you are, a conniving cheating lying filthy b—’
The word was lost as she threw the hairbrush. He raised his arm; the brush hit him square on the plaster-wrapped wrist and he yelped. She hurled a small mirror next. He heard it shatter on the floor. She grabbed Guernica from the carpet and heaved it at his head. It clattered against the laptop, which skidded across the floor and twisted on its lead. She ran at him, grabbing his hair, digging her fingers into his skin and, just when Brendan thought he might lose his eyes to her claws, she stepped back, her face convulsed, tears boiling. She gasped. Brendan gathered himself in tightly for the blow that would surely come. Seconds passed.
‘I hate you, Brendan. You’re a cheat and a liar and I’ll never forgive you.’
He cringed, his mouth still open, horrified by the mess around him. Someone in the next room banged on the wall, shouting in a gruff voice. Maura pulled on her jacket, grabbed at her handbag.
‘Maura—’
‘I hate you, Brendan. When we get back to Dublin I want a divorce. And you can just – just – just – fuck off.’
It was a word he had never heard her use. She slammed the door behind her and Brendan felt the finality in his sinews. The room was a mess, the broken glass, Guernica with its pages spread like a dead bird, and his laptop upturned with a blank screen.