Lucy turned back to the woman—to the present—and smiled. “I don’t think I know that saying.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “No? Well, perhaps I’m just imagining it then.” She stuck out her hand, still gloved. “I’m Martha.”
Lucy took the outstretched palm, the sweat on her own transferring to the starched material. “Alice,” she said, trying it out, shifting her voice just a bit, so that the a was higher, more rounded.
Martha frowned. “Now, am I wrong, or do I detect a bit of a British accent?” she asked, leaning in. Her own vowels were long and drawn out, like the lazy flies that circled overhead, so that Lucy imagined hot, dusty weather, with mud the color of burned ochre.
Lucy smiled. “My mother was American, but my father was British.” She paused, feeling the gears of the boat as they began to churn at last. “Though I was raised by my aunt in London.”
“By your aunt?” Martha questioned.
“Yes,” Lucy said. She felt the boat pull away, but she resisted the urge to turn and look out of the window. She had already said her good-bye to Tangier. “My parents died when I was young.”
Martha’s hand flew to her cherry-stained lips. “Oh, my dear, that is awful.”
Lucy lowered her eyes. “Yes, yes, it was.” She let out a deep sigh, feeling the movement as it made its way through her entire body, until she was no longer certain whether it was the exclamation of relief or the churn of the mechanics that rumbled there. “But that was a long time ago now.”
“Of course,” Martha said, nodding eagerly. She started to speak, but then hesitated. Lucy thought that she could read the conflicting emotions there—politeness and interest, the two of them fighting within the woman. Her back pressed against the window, refusing to look backward, Lucy waited to see which one would win.
The boat surged then, and the woman gave a sudden lurch, slapping Lucy lightly on the shoulder. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed.
Lucy frowned, startled. “What?”
“The saying,” Martha replied, shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe that Lucy didn’t know what she was referring to—as if they were already fast friends. “There is a local saying here—or there, rather,” she said, indicating over Lucy’s shoulders, toward the retreating image of Tangier and her shores. Martha paused, watching Lucy expectantly. And then she said: “‘You cry when you arrive, and you cry when you leave.’”
Epilogue
Spain
IN HER DREAMS, SHE’S SITTING AT CAFé HAFA. THERE IS A glass of mint tea before her, only recently delivered, and she marvels at the colors. A rich forest-green on top, a golden amber on the bottom. It is one of those perfect Tangier days, she thinks. The skies are a deep blue, the clouds a startling white. She wishes, not for the first time, that she was able to capture it all somehow—perhaps with words on a page, or paint on a canvas—just so she can keep it with her, always.
Her reality upon waking isn’t entirely different. The sun still shines, set against an azure sky. Only instead of the sapphire blue of the Mediterranean, she faces mountains—green and budding in the first days of spring.
Today is Tuesday, her favorite day of the week.
On Tuesdays, she wakes early, ladles out coffee grinds into a cup—just enough for one, as she has somewhere else to be. Afterward, she climbs the stairs and drinks her coffee on the balcony, which overlooks the street and one of the town’s many steep inclines. She is high up enough that she can see the vast stretch of it, the mountains beyond—at night, when most of the town falls quiet, she can observe those places that stay awake, their lights pulsing in this otherwise darkened mountain town.
Today someone has moved into the flat across the street. She can, from her vantage point, see into the belly of it as they move around, pulling sheets from the furniture, shaking the dust out the window and onto the street below. One of the pieces is an old piano, pushed up against the back of the room. As she is finishing her coffee, music begins to drift out of the window. Two drifters, off to see the world, There’s such a lot of world to see. She sits and listens, smiling, drawing out the moment as long as it will stretch.
Today will be her last day in the house.
She waits patiently at the bus stop, nodding to the other faces that have since grown familiar to her. There is the couple who owns one of the three restaurants in town and who serves her cerveza with a small tapa, fish that she doesn’t recognize but that is always oily and salty and satisfying; there is the tramp who has taken up residence in the abandoned shack behind the doctor’s house; and more, other familiar smiles. She nods at them all but does not speak. No one, it seems, understands English or French in this little town, and so she remains apart from them, happy in the barrier that exists.
She climbs onto the bus, pausing in front of the driver. “Málaga,” she says, handing over the required coin.
It is an hour’s ride away, but a pleasant one. She sits alone, looking out the window, watching the dips and curves of the mountains as they rush past—a sprinkling of flowers, purple and yellow, coating the green fields. There are moments when she wishes that the drive would go on forever as she rests her head against the window, her eyelids fluttering. She feels nearly content in these moments, almost at peace.
In Málaga, the noises seem to assault her—she has grown used to the quiet of her little mountain town. Here, there are too many people, moving frantically from one place to another. It is too hot somehow, though it is most likely the same temperature. Still, it is uncomfortable here, so that after she walks a block or two, her shirt sticks to her back and her breath comes hard and fast. She pushes her sunglasses farther up the bridge of her nose, trying to shield herself from the sun.
Once there, she finds her sitting in the corner of her room, alone.
Maude would, she knows, prefer to have Alice somewhere in England. So far, however, the doctors have advised against such a move, and so she has had to be content with sending over a personal nurse, a young redheaded girl who looks frightened at the prospect of spending her time in Spain indefinitely. At least it is not Tangier, Maude had said, months ago now, shaking her head. She had told her then about the state that Alice was discovered in, and the arrangements, the arguments, that Maude had endured before finally convincing the police that the best place for her niece was an institution in Málaga, not a jail cell in Tangier. That everything had already been arranged, at her behest, by a friend of Alice’s, a capable young woman named Sophie Turner. Eventually they had relented. It had all become too difficult, too messy for their taste. Independence had arrived and they were eager to start again, to focus on their own, to leave the problems of expatriates to their own countries. They were only too happy to expel the British girl from their shores, in the end.
She stands next to the bed, looking down at what remains of the girl she had once known, had once loved. It is a curious thing, she has thought often, over these last few months as Alice’s caretaker, how the feelings she once had have slipped away, dried up, so that she knows it is time to leave at last.
There is a slip of paper on the bed, and reaching down, she sees her own name written there. The nurses had warned her of this some weeks earlier, that this obsession with the name has only increased, along with the torn pieces of paper, hidden throughout Alice’s room.
She slips it into her pocket.
Leaning down, she places a kiss on the girl’s forehead and leaves. She does not look back. This will be the last time they see each other.
HER STEPS ARE HEAVY as she heads to Banco de Málaga.
Behind the counter, the tellers are startled by her appearance—usually the courier is sent to deliver the allowance to Alice Shipley, in care of Sophie Turner. She shakes her head and smiles, explaining that she is better now, that her caretaker has returned to England and that she has come to withdraw funds from the trust she now has full access to, her birthday only the day before. At their frowns, their confusion, she places a hand to her cheeks and asks, “Oh dear, didn’t my aunt leave a note with instructions?”
“No, se?orita, nothing,” they say, blushing.
They do not speak much English—but this is to her advantage.