She opens her eyes and looks down at her leg. The girl is already pulling her bikini bottoms back on, and she could swear that the wounds are less livid. She doesn’t want to touch them yet, but the angry red is already fading to mauve.
She looks up. The girl is smiling. Suddenly she looks almost pretty. She has bright blue eyes, and her teeth are white. But oh, that jaw.
‘Better?’ she asks.
Mercedes nods, still astonished. ‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Lucky I didn’t pee in the sea,’ says the girl. ‘I was just about to.’ And without another word she sets off up the beach to where her little pile of belongings lies.
Mercedes watches as she collects them and comes back. She’s about her age, maybe a little older if her pubic hair is anything to go by. She carries some puppy fat, but her body is strong. Not hard-work strong; expensive strong. She’s seen similar stomachs on the yacht women. A mysterious flatness – skin sliding loosely across rigid muscle as though they’re not actually connected. Mercedes has scars and blemishes – on her knees, on her shins – but this girl’s skin is as perfect as the day she emerged from the womb. The bikini fits as though it were made for her, and its print of tropical flowers is gaudy and bright, brand new. But lord, she has a face like a goblin.
Mercedes, in Donatella’s faded black hand-me-down swimsuit, with its heavy thigh-length skirt and top that’s cut high to the collarbone, feels dowdy and poor. And somehow exposed.
The girl flops down beside her, digs in a cotton beach bag that actually matches her bikini.
‘Ah!’ she declares, and produces a foil strip of little white pills and a bottle of water. She offers them. ‘Take one of these.’
Mercedes inspects them. ‘What is?’
‘Antihistamines.’
Mercedes shakes her head, none the wiser.
‘I have allergies,’ the girl says, proudly. And when she sees that the word means nothing, she tries again. ‘Alergia. Allergie.’
She wheels through facial expressions as she wheels through the languages. Alert as she speaks Spanish, supercilious when speaking French. When none of them work – allergies don’t exist on La Kastellana – she shrugs. ‘It’ll help,’ she says. ‘For the—’ and she fake-scratches her own arm, showing her teeth like a flea-ridden dog.
Figuring that she’s just allowed this girl to piss on her leg, Mercedes takes one. What harm can it do? It’s only tiny. She drinks some water. Even rich people’s water is delicious. It tastes of mountains, and sky.
‘You like swimming?’ asks the girl. She squeezes a stream of water into her mouth, the bottle never touching her lips. Mercedes looks away, embarrassed once again by her faulty etiquette.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I love.’
A poor description of the degree of love she feels. How do I explain it? she wonders. When I feel the sea’s caress, it’s like being held in the encircling arms of a tiger.
‘Yes,’ she says again.
The girl holds up her snorkel and mask. ‘You should try one of these,’ she says. ‘It’s better. You can see everything.’
To see beneath the surface. What a thing. They have one of these on Felix’s father’s boat. She’s been fantasising that she might get to go out on that boat one day, put on that mask and see how it feels to soar above the ocean depths.
It will never happen, of course. A young girl who went alone on the water with the men would ruin her reputation forever.
Maybe when I’m older, she thinks. Maybe one day I’ll have a boat of my own. She shakes her head, sadly.
The girl, this stranger, holds it out. ‘Take this one,’ she says.
Mercedes hesitates. This thing of glass and rubber represents more money than has passed through her hands in her whole life. Then she shakes her head, reluctantly.
‘Go on,’ says the girl. ‘I’ve got two more on the boat.’
She feels slightly tearful. She longs to say yes, but how will she explain it to her parents? How will they explain it to the village? Girls who come home with mystery gifts are inviting speculation.
‘Thank you, no,’ she says.
The girl seems annoyed. ‘But why not? I told you I have more!’
She’s embarrassed to say. Suspects the girl won’t understand. ‘I don’t know how.’