Holiday Heart. Margarita García Robayo

back had his crotch so close to her cheek that every so often he brushed against it, although neither of them appeared to notice.

      Pablo stayed in one corner of the backyard, near the grill, which still had a few cuts of meat sizzling on it, and some chorizo sausages brought by the guests. He’d drunk a lot of wine; he wasn’t into cocaine. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on an imaginary fixed point. He thought about his novel, about the island gradually sinking into the dark water, about the insects that are born and die on it: they have claws to cling on to the mangrove roots and keep from sinking into the mud; their skin is a phosphorescent shell which in the daytime means they are camouflaged among the plants, but at night it makes them glow like fireballs at the bottom of the swamp. The villain: a rich and powerful man who wants to destroy everything on the island – including the islanders – in order to build a big hotel. The hero: a biology teacher of humble origins, who’s lived abroad for years. The link between them: they were at school together, and now the rich and powerful man decides to employ his old friend to design an environmental plan that will enable him to build his hotel; the teacher goes there, studies the terrain and discovers that no such plan is viable. During his exploration, he reconnects with his land, with his origins. He falls in love with the natural landscapes and with the villain’s wife too. And blah, blah, blah.

      ‘It’s corny and vague.’ Lucía’s voice echoed relentlessly in his head.

      ‘So, you’re a good boy, are you?’

      Pablo discovered Elisa sitting next to him. Her hair was mussed up and damp with sweat. She was no longer wearing her sandals.

      ‘What makes you say that?’ Pablo sat up straighter in the chair, he had slouched so far that he was practically lying down, and now his lower back hurt.

      The house was separated from the garden by sliding doors. Through them, Pablo could see the Argentinians dancing around the living room, arms flailing.

      ‘Gonzalo’s gone to bed.’ Elisa lit a cigarette. Pablo had never seen her smoke. ‘He doesn’t like coke either.’

      The guys were jumping up and down, singing along loutishly to an Andrés Calamaro song: ‘Y una lanza, en la panza!’

      It had turned into the embarrassing kind of shindig that Lucía associated with patriotism.

      ‘Uprooting ourselves will be useful to you in rhetorical terms,’ Pablo said to her one day – trying to imitate the language of the clean-cut, highly educated young woman she, in turn, also pretended to be – ‘but one day, you’ll realise that a man without roots is a dead man.’ He couldn’t remember Lucía’s response. Something seething and spiteful. Something about how much his argument sounded like a lyric from an Ismael Rivera song.

      Pablo imagined his family being attacked by bears and felt his belly tremble. Elisa’s hand was resting on his thigh. He turned to look at her. Her eye makeup was all smudged, something he found sexy. Did he like Elisa? Not in the slightest. Was he horny? Not until that moment. So how did he end up fucking her so ferociously in the furthest corner of the garden, behind the brick barbecue that they’d built themselves instead of just buying one at Ikea like everyone else? They licked, bit and sucked at one another, right down to the scalp. Before he left, he caved, and snorted a line of coke. It helped to get him back on his feet. As far as the door. But as soon as he stepped out onto the pavement, he felt completely wrecked. He turned to look back at the upstairs windows, afraid he’d see Gonzalo there, pointing a finger at him. Or a shotgun. There was nobody there. He took a few steps in the direction of his house and tripped over something. He fell to the ground. He stood up, stumbled again and fell down on his right knee. A car pulled up alongside him. Was it already morning? Almost. A boy and a girl got out. Supporting him under each arm, they dragged him to his front door.

      ‘Could you give me the key, sir?’ Pablo placed his keys in a hand that opened in front of his eyes.

      ‘Let’s leave him here, baby,’ said the boy. They’d brought him as far as the bottom of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. The girl said, ‘Okay.’

      ‘Let’s go,’ said the boy impatiently.

      The girl said yes, she was just coming, and went further inside the house.

      ‘Let me just make him a coffee.’

      ‘Are you crazy?’

      ‘He’s okay,’ she said, moving dishes around the kitchen. ‘He’s just all alone.’

      ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’ The boy left.

      Pablo crawled up the stairs, pushed open his bedroom door, took his clothes off and clambered into bed.

      The next time he saw Kelly Jane was in the classroom. Pablo asked her to stay behind after class and thanked her for helping him. Their meetings had been very serendipitous, he told her: first in the station, then in his neighbourhood.

      ‘It’s nothing, sir,’ she said in English, waving her hand in the air.

      ‘Please thank your boyfriend for me, too.’

      ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

      ‘Oh, isn’t he?’

      ‘No way,’ she grinned at him with that mass of yellowed teeth. They matched the bottle-blonde shade of her hair.