Magic realism

 I suppose you could call this one my attempt at magic realism, where a normal realistic narrative is combined with something surreal and improbable. In this case there's only one surreal element, but I follow it through to some sort of conclusion, logical or otherwise.

 

Prickly situation

 

‘I need to go to South America,’ Jenny said.

‘What?’

‘I need to go to South America.’

‘Lover, nobody from Paisley ever needs to go to South America. Why do you want to go to South America?’

‘I don’t want to, I need to.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as I get the visas. I’ve got the one for Chile, but the Argentinean one always takes longer, I’m told.’

‘What’s this really all about, Jennifer?’ I asked, using her Sunday name so she knew I was serious.

‘Sorry Pete, I’ve got to dash, or I’ll miss my bus and be late for work. Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ I replied absent-mindedly, totally confused by the conversation. I had to get our daughter Lizzie ready for school, but I couldn’t really concentrate.

‘What were you and Mummy talking about this morning, Daddy?’

‘Nothing important, sweetie-pie, your Mum just mentioned South America, that’s all.’

‘Good. It’s a shame I’m too young to go with her.’

I just spluttered, put her lunchbox in her schoolbag, and we headed out to the car to take her to school, and me to work. What was my daughter on about? Why did she know more than I did? What was going on? Not for the first time in my marriage to Jenny, I felt confused and out of my depth. Not quite true, because being out of my depth with Jenny implied we were swimming in the same ocean, but sometimes I wasn’t even sure of that.

I put in my 7 hrs 42 mins daily grind, but my heart wasn’t in it, nor was my brain, my eyes, my fingers or the other bits of my anatomy my employers had at their service in exchange for my less than impressive salary.

Jenny started and finished work before me, so she had time to pick up Lizzie from the school before assembling some kind of edible melange for our tea. She had it on the table when I walked in, but she wasn’t eating any.

‘I’ll get mine later Pete. Got to go to a meeting.’ A quick peck on the cheek and she was off, taking our car with her. So I didn’t get the chance to talk to her over our meal. I gave Lizzie her bath and read her a story in bed. I thought about having a little whisky later, but decided to go to bed to read a very poor science fiction novel on my Kindle. It sent me off to sleep, and I woke up when Jenny slid into bed beside me. She kissed me and said Goodnight, and that was that until the morning.

‘Look Pete, I’ll have more time this evening. We’ll talk, OK? Love you.’ and she was off, before I was able to mumble ‘Love you too.’

I got a call from my co-worker and neighbour Charlie, suggesting we get together for lunch in the pub. He seemed a bit sad, so I asked him what was up.

‘Meg’s off to Mexico on Wednesday, and I’ve no idea how long it will take.’

‘Mexico? Why? You haven’t got relatives there, have you?’

‘No. She just said she needed to go there. I couldn’t get any reasons from her, she just avoided my questions. It’s killing me.’

‘How long is she going for?’

‘She won’t say, and she won’t tell me when she’ll be back.’ And right there in the pub, over his pint of Belhaven Best and his steak pie and vegetables, he started to cry. I felt like joining him, but I thought I should tell my story first, as if it might start to make sense of things.

‘Jenny told me she needs to go to South America. She’s just waiting for the visa for Argentina. Apparently Lizzie knows all about it, but I can’t get any answers out of either of them. Does your son know anything?’

‘Ben? No, he’s as confused as I am. I’ve had to arrange to get a childminder to keep him after school until I get home from work.’

‘So we’re both in the same boat. Do you know if it’s happening to any of our other neighbours?’ I toyed with my battered haddock, chips and peas.

‘I haven’t heard. All Meg would say was that she needed to go to Baja California and Sonora. She might have to go to Sinaloa and Durango too.’

‘What’s there, in these places?’

‘Don’t know, they’re all desert areas. Nothing but cacti and drug cartels, as far as I can gather.’

‘Is she into drugs?’

‘Not as far as I know. Did Jenny say where she’s going?’

‘No, just Chile and Argentina. She said some Spanish words, but they didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t even know she could speak Spanish.’

‘See if you can get any more out of her tonight,’ he said, before he went back to his office.

Just before I finished work that evening I got a text message from Jenny.

<Visa arrived so I’m off. Lizzie is at Mum’s. Please pick her up. Love you.>

I tried to text back, but the phone said she wasn’t available. I fetched Lizzie and asked Jenny’s Mum if she knew where Jenny was going.

‘Chile first, then Argentina. Will you be all right Pete?’

I said I’d manage, then we went home. Lizzie suggested a menu, otherwise I’d have phoned for a pizza. She wanted grilled fish with a salad. I checked the fridge, and found that Jenny had left out a pack of two salmon fillets, and the makings of a salad. I prepared the fish and put it under the grill while I made the salad under Lizzie’s expert tutelage. I have to admit it tasted great, much better than my fish and chips in the pub. Maybe I could do this cooking thing? I know I occasionally cooked for myself when I was a student, so the mechanics of it were familiar to me, but I’d actually enjoyed making our meal that night.

‘Did you make up the beds today, Daddy?’

‘No, honey, I haven’t had time yet.’

‘Well I’ll help you, but only this time. Tomorrow you’ll have to do it yourself.’

Where had this confident, bossy little girl come from? Who had stolen my daughter and left this changeling in her place? But she still had that impish grin, she was still my darling Lizzie, even as she was ordering me around.

I made the beds and tidied up the bedrooms, putting the dirty clothes – hers, mine, Jenny’s – into the laundry basket in the hall cupboard. Must do a washing at the weekend, I thought to myself. The following night I hoovered the carpets, and Lizzie reminded me to move the furniture out of the way so I could get the hose into all the corners. Before that, I suppose I’d just have hoovered only the bits I could see, but I knew I couldn’t get away with it with Lizzie supervising.

‘Where do you suppose Mummy is now,’ I asked her.

‘I expect she’ll have arrived at the first place, but she’ll be pretty tired.’

‘Do you think her mobile phone will be able to pick up any messages? If I texted her to tell her we love her and we’re missing her, would she get the message?’

‘I don’t think so Daddy. She said she’d be out of touch until she got back.’

‘Did she say how long she’d be?’

‘Just until it was finished.’

‘Until what’s finished?’ I was frantic with apprehension and uncertainty, but I didn’t want Lizzie to know how bad I was feeling.

‘Sorry Daddy, but she said you’ll just have to wait.’ And that was all I got out of her, then or later. She made a list of the things I would have to do, and with her encouragement I threw myself into the housework, the shopping and the cooking. Of course it cut into my time in the evenings, I couldn’t slob around watching telly with a beer and crisps. Frankly, I was pretty tired by the time the weekend rolled around.

Then it was time to do the washing. I sorted everything out into whites and coloureds, figured out the programs on the front of the machine, and set the thing going. At the end of the cycle, Lizzie reminded me to set it for an extra rinse and spin, so the clothes would be just that little bit drier. I was going to stuff the whites into the tumble drier when they came out, but it wasn’t raining, and there was a fair little breeze. Lizzie said they’d dry better and smell nicer if I hung them out to dry outside, so I did that. She wasn’t altogether pleased with the way I hung them, but she corrected me. Then I did the coloureds the same way.

While I was hanging them out, I looked along the row of back gardens in our street, and all the men were outside hanging out washing. The ones without daughters to keep them right didn’t have much of a clue, but I knew we were fine, thanks to Lizzie. But where were all the wives? Had all of them gone to South America? I didn’t know any of them well enough to ask, apart from Charlie. I advised him on the right way to hang shirts, towels, trousers and underwear. He’d do it properly next time.

A fortnight after Jenny left I got a text message from her, saying she was on her way home. And it was as if she’d never been away. She kissed Lizzie and I, took her suitcase up to our bedroom, unpacked, and just fell asleep. The next morning, a Saturday, she turned to me in bed.

‘Have you missed me Pete?’

I felt my eyes misting up, and I shed a tear as I told her I had missed her terribly. Then, as quietly as possible so as not to wake Lizzie, we made love.

A few weeks later the three of us went to the botanic garden, and her eyes lit up briefly in the cactus house. She sat down among the plants and seemed to be whispering to a short red-spined one.

‘Hola pobrecito, I bring greetings from Mendoza,’ I think she said. Then she turned and spoke quietly to a tall columnar cactus, whose stem was covered in what looked like dense white hair, ‘Hola my dear friend, do you miss your mountains?’

She stood up and turned round, arms outstretched.

‘This is OK, but it’s so artificial. I won’t come back here again.’

As we left I saw Charlie and his family. They appeared to be arguing, and little Ben was crying. We hurried off home. I had made a Victoria sponge to go with our tea, and I just needed to do the cream and jam filling.

Lizzie grew up and married a nice young man who was respectful to her, and to Jenny and I. As far as I know, she never had a sudden need to go anywhere exotic without her husband. Jenny never went back to South America, if that was really where she went. I never asked her about it, partly because I wasn’t sure I’d ever get a satisfactory answer from her, but mostly because I didn’t need to. At the end of the day, trust is more powerful than suspicion.

Copyright © Colin Will 2021