"Like Mickie," Pendel reminded her, but again she shook her head.

"We would say to them: "Get out every trawler and smack and dinghy that you can lay your hands on, load them up with food and water and take them to the Bridge of the Americas. Anchor them under the bridge and announce to the world that you mean to stay there. Many of the big cargo ships need a mile to slow down. After three days there will be two hundred ships waiting to pa.s.s through the Ca.n.a.l. After two weeks, a thousand. Thousands more will be turned away before they reach Panama, ordered to take different routes or go back to where they came from. There will be a crisis, the stock exchanges of the world will panic, the Yanquies will go crazy, the shipping industry will demand action, the balboa will collapse, the government will fail and no nuclear materials will ever again pa.s.s through the Ca.n.a.l."

"I wasn"t thinking about nuclear materials, to be honest, Marta."

She raised herself on one elbow, her smashed face close to his.

"Listen. Panama today is already trying to prove to the world that it can run the Ca.n.a.l as well as the gringos. Nothing must interfere with the Ca.n.a.l. No strikes, no interruptions, no inefficiencies, no screw-ups. If the Panamanian government can"t keep the Ca.n.a.l working properly, how can it steal the revenue, raise tariffs, sell off the concessions? The moment the international banking community starts to take fright, the rabiblancos will give us everything we ask. And we shall ask for everything. For our schools, our roads, our hospitals, our farmers and our poor. If they try to clear away our boats or shoot us or bribe us, we shall appeal to the nine thousand Panamanian workmen that it takes to run the Ca.n.a.l each day. And we shall ask them: which side of the bridge do you stand? Are you Panamanian men, or are you Yanqui slaves? Strikes are a sacred right in Panama. Those who oppose them are pariahs. There are people in government today who argue that the labour laws of Panama should not apply to the Ca.n.a.l. Let them see."

She was lying flat upon him, her brown eyes so dose to his that they were all he saw.

"Thank you," he said, kissing her.

"My pleasure."

CHAPTER NINE.

Louisa Pendel loved her husband with an intensity understood only by women who have known what it is like to have been born into the pampered captivity of bigoted parents, and to have a beautiful elder sister four inches shorter than you who does everything right two years before you do it wrong, who seduces your boy-friends even if she doesn"t go to bed with them, though usually she does, and obliges you to take the path of n.o.ble Puritanism as the only available response.

She loved him for his steady devotion to herself and to the children, for being a striver like her father, and for rebuilding a fine old English firm that everyone had given up for dead, and for making chicken soup and lockshen on Sundays in his striped ap.r.o.n, and for his kibitzing, which meant his joking around, and for setting the table for their special meals together, the best silver and china, cloth napkins, never paper. And for putting up with the tantrums which ran in her like conflicting impulses of hereditary electricity, there was nothing she could do about them till they were safely over, or he had made love to her, which was by far the best solution, since she had all her sister"s appet.i.tes, even if she lacked the looks and amorality to indulge them. And she was deeply ashamed that she could never match his jokes or give him the freed laughter he craved, because even with Harry to liberate it, her laughter still sounded like her mother"s and so did her prayers, and her anger felt like her father"s.

She loved the victim in Harry, and the determined survivor who had endured any privation rather than fall in with his wicked Uncle Benny and his criminal ways until the great Mr Braithwaite came along to save him, just as Harry himself had later come along to save her from her parents and the Zone, and provide her with a new, free, decent life away from everything that till then had held her down. And she loved him as the lonely decider, struggling with conflicting beliefs until Braithwaite"s wise counsel led him to a non-denominational morality so like the Cooperative Christianity championed by her mother and preached throughout Louisa"s childhood from the pulpit of the Union Church in Balboa.

For all these mercies she thanked G.o.d and Harry Pendel, and cursed her sister Emily. Louisa honestly believed she loved her husband in all his moods and varieties, but she had never known him like this and she was sick with terror.

If he would only hit her, if that was what he needed to do. If he would lash out, bawl at her, drag her into the garden where the children couldn"t hear and say: "Louisa, we"re all washed up, I"m leaving you, I"ve got someone else." If that was what he had. Anything, absolutely anything, was better than the bland pretence that their life together was fine, nothing had changed, except that he just had to pop out and measure a valued customer at nine o"clock at night and come back three hours later saying wasn"t it time they had the Delgados to dinner? And why not have the Oakleys and Rafi Domingo as well? Which, as any fool in the world could have seen at a glance, was a recipe for catastrophe, but somehow the gap that had recently formed between herself and Harry didn"t let her say this to him.

So Louisa held her tongue and duly invited Ernesto. One evening as he was on the point of going home she pressed the envelope into his hand and he took it cursorily, thinking it must be a reminder of some sort, Ernesto was such a dreamer and schemer, so wrapped up in his daily struggle against the lobbyists and intriguers that sometimes he hardly knew which hemisphere he was in, let alone what time of day it was. But next morning when he arrived he was courtesy itself, a real Spanish gentleman as always, and yes, he and his wife would be delighted, so long as Louisa would not be offended if they left early, Isabel his wife was concerned about their small son Jorge and his eye infection, sometimes he didn"t seem to sleep at all.

After that she sent a card to Rafi Domingo, knowing that his wife wouldn"t come because she never did, it was that sort of lousy marriage. And next day sure enough a huge bouquet of roses arrived, like fifty dollars" worth, with a racehorse on the card and Rafi saying in his own handwriting that he would be thrilled and enchanted, darling Louisa, but alas his wife would be somewhere or other. And Louisa knew exactly what the flowers meant because no woman under eighty was safe from Rafi"s advances, the gossip said he had given up underpants in order to improve his time and motion ratio. And the shameful thing was, if Louisa was truthful with herself, which largely after a couple or three vodkas she was, she found him disconcertingly attractive. So finally she called Donna Oakley, a ch.o.r.e she had deliberately left till last, and Donna said, "Oh s.h.i.t, Louisa, we"d love to," which was Donna"s level exactly. What a group.

The dreaded day arrived and Harry came home early for once, armed with a pair of three hundred dollar porcelain candlesticks from Ludwig"s, and French champagne from Motta"s and a whole side of smoked salmon from somewhere else. And an hour later a team of fancy caterers showed up, led by a c.o.c.ksure Argentine gigolo, and took over Louisa"s kitchen because Harry said their own servants weren"t reliable. Then Hannah raised a G.o.d-awful stink for no reason Louisa could fathom - aren"t you going to be nice to Mr Delgado, darling? After all he"s Mummy"s boss and a close friend of the President of Panama. And he"s going to save the Ca.n.a.l for us, and yes, Anytime Island too. And no, Mark, thank you, this is not an occasion for you to play "Lazy Sheep" on your violin, Mr and Mrs Delgado might appreciate it but the other guests would not.

Then in walks Harry and says, oh Louisa, go on, let him play it, but Louisa is adamant, and gets into one of her monologues, they just pour out of her, she can"t control them, she can only listen to them and groan: Harry, I do not understand why every time I give an instruction to my children you have to march in here and countermand it just to show you are master of the house. At which Hannah throws another screaming fit and Mark locks himself in his room and plays "Lazy Sheep" non-stop till Louisa beats on his door and says, "Mark, they"ll be here any minute," which was true because the doorbell rang just at that moment and in marches Rafi Domingo with his body lotion and his insinuating leer and side-burns and crocodile shoes - not all of Harry"s tailoring wiles could save him from looking like the worst kind of stage dago, her father would have ordered him round to the back door on the strength of his hair oil alone.

And immediately after Rafi, enter the Delgados and the Oakleys all in short order, which proved just how unnatural the occasion was, because in Panama n.o.body shows up on time unless it"s a stiff occasion, and suddenly it was all happening, with Ernesto sitting on her right side looking like the wise, good mandarin he was: just water, thank you, Louisa dear, I"m afraid I"m not much of a drinker, to which Louisa, who is by now the better for a couple of large ones taken in the privacy of her bathroom says to be truthful neither is she, she always thinks drink spoils a nice evening. But Mrs Delgado down the table on Harry"s right overhears this and gives an odd, disbelieving smile as if she has heard better.

Meanwhile Rafi Domingo on Louisa"s left is dividing his time between clamping his stockinged foot on Louisa"s whenever she lets him - he has slipped off one crocodile shoe for the purpose - and squinting down the front of Donna Oakley"s dress which is cut on the lines of Emily"s dresses, b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushed up like tennis b.a.l.l.s and the cleavage pointing due southward to what her father when he was drunk had called the industrial area.

"You know what she means to me, your wife, Harry?" Rafi asks in mouthfuls of execrable Spanish-English, down the table to Harry. Lingua franca is English tonight for the Oakleys" benefit.

"Don"t listen to him," Louisa orders.

"She"s my conscience!" Huge laugh with all his teeth and food showing. "And I didn"t know I got one till Louisa come along!"

And finds this so wonderfully funny that everybody has to toast his conscience while he cranes his neck for another helping of Donna"s decolletage and wiggles his toes up and down Louisa"s calf, which makes her furious and randy at the same time, Emily I hate you, Rafi leave me alone you sleazeball and take your eyes off Donna, and Jesus, Harry, are you finally going to f.u.c.k me tonight?

Why Harry had invited the Oakleys was another mystery to Louisa until she remembered that Kevin was floating some sort of speculation to do with the Ca.n.a.l, Kevin being something in commodities and otherwise what her father used to call a d.a.m.ned Yankee hustler, while his wife Donna worked out to Jane Fonda videos and jogged in vinyl shorts and wiggled her a.s.s at every pretty Panamanian boy who pushed her trolley for her in the supermarket, and from all she heard not just her trolley.

And Harry from the first moment they sat down had been determined to talk about the Ca.n.a.l, first picking on Delgado who responded with dignified patrician plat.i.tudes, then pressing everybody else into the discussion whether or not they had anything to contribute. His questions of Delgado were so crude she was embarra.s.sed. Only Rafi"s roaming foot and the recognition that she was a tad over-sedated prevented her from telling him: Harry, Mr Delgado is my f.u.c.king boss not yours. So why are you making such a horse"s a.s.s of yourself, you p.r.i.c.k? But that was Wh.o.r.e Emily talking, not Virtuous Louisa who never swore, or not in front of the children and never when she was sober.

No, Delgado replied politely to Harry"s bombardment, nothing had been agreed during the presidential tour, but some interesting ideas had been put forward, Harry, there was a general spirit of cooperation, goodwill was of the essence.

Well done, Ernesto, thought Louisa, tell him where he gets off.

"Still I mean everyone knows those j.a.ps are after the Ca.n.a.l, don"t they, Ernie?" said Harry, branching into inane generalisations that he hadn"t the knowledge to sustain. "The only question is which way they"re going to come at us, I don"t know what you think, Rafi, at all?"

Rafi"s silk stocking toes were jammed into the flesh of Louisa"s knee joint and Donna"s cleavage was opening like a barn door.

"I tell you what I think about j.a.ps, Harry. You want to know what I think about j.a.ps?" said Rafi in his rattly, auctioneer"s voice, as he gathered in his audience.

"I would indeed," said Harry unctuously.

But Rafi needed everyone.

"Ernesto, you want to know what I think about j.a.ps?"

Delgado graciously expressed an interest in hearing what Rafi thought about the j.a.panese.

"Donna, you want to hear what I think about the j.a.ps?"

"Just say it, for Christ"s sake, Rafi," Oakley said irritably.

But Rafi was still gathering them in.

"Louisa?" he asked wiggling his toes behind her knee.

"I guess we"re all hanging on your words, Rafi," said Louisa in her role of charming hostess and wh.o.r.e-sister.

So Rafi finally delivered himself of his opinion of the j.a.panese: "I think those j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.ds inject my horse Dolce Vita a double dose valium before the big race last week!" he cried, and laughed so loudly at his own joke, to the glint of so many gold teeth, that his audience of necessity laughed with him, Louisa loudest and Donna after her by a short head.

But Harry was not put off. Instead, he launched himself on the subject that he knew upset his wife more than any other: the disposal of the former Ca.n.a.l Zone itself.

"I mean we"ve got to face it, Ernie, it"s a nice little piece of real estate that you boys are carving up. Five hundred square miles of garden America, mown and watered like Central Park, more swimming pools than in the whole of the rest of Panama - it does make you wonder, doesn"t it? I don"t know whether the City of Knowledge idea is still a starter, Ernie? Some of my customers seem to think it"s a bit of a dead duck, frankly, a university in the middle of a jungle. It"s hard to imagine a learned professor seeing that as the summit of his career, I don"t know if they"re right."

He was running low but n.o.body helped him out, so he forged on: "I suppose it all depends on how many US military bases are going to be left vacant at the end of the day, doesn"t it? Which requires the a.s.sistance of a crystal ball by all accounts. We"d have to tap the highly secret wires to the Pentagon, I dare say, to know the answer to that little conundrum."

"It"s bulls.h.i.t," said Kevin loudly. "The smart boys have had the land all carved up among themselves for years, right, Ernie?"

A frightful emptiness set in. Delgado"s fine face turned pale and stony. n.o.body could think of anything to say except for Rafi who, indifferent to all atmosphere, was cheerfully interrogating Donna about the make-up she was wearing so that he could have his wife buy some. He was also trying to get his foot between Louisa"s legs, which she had crossed in self-defence. Then suddenly Emily the Shrew found the words that Louisa the Immaculate was piously holding back and they came spilling out of her, first in a series of jerky statements of record, then in an unstoppable, alcohol-induced rush.

"Kevin. I do not understand what you are implying. Dr Delgado is a champion of Ca.n.a.l conservation. If you are not aware of this, it is because Ernesto is too courteous and modest to tell you. You, on the other hand, are here in Panama with the sole intention of making money out of the Ca.n.a.l, a purpose for which it was not designed. The only way to make money out of the Ca.n.a.l is ruin it." Her voice began sliding as she counted off the crimes that Kevin was contemplating. "By cutting down the forests, Kevin. By depriving it of fresh water. By failing to maintain its structure and machinery to the standards required by our forefathers." Her voice became harsh and nasal. She could hear it but not stop it. "And so, Kevin, if you truly feel impelled to make money by selling off the achievements of great North Americans, I suggest you go right back to San Francisco where you came from and sell the Golden Gate to the j.a.ps. And Rafi, if you don"t take your hand off my thigh I"m going to stick a fork in your knuckles."

At which everybody seemed to decide they really ought to be getting back - to the ailing child, to the babysitter, to the dog, to whatever they had that was a safe distance from where they were right now.

But what does Harry do when he has soothed his guests, escorted them to their cars and waved goodbye to them from the doorstep? Deliver a Statement to the Board.

"It"s expansion, Lou" - patting her back while he hugs her - "that"s all it is. Ma.s.saging the customers" - dabbing away her tears with his Irish linen handkerchief - "It"s expand or die, Lou, is what it is these days. Look what happened to dear old Arthur Braithwaite. First his business went, then he did. You wouldn"t want that to happen to me, would you? So we expand. We open the Club. We socialise. We put ourselves about, because it"s got to be. Eh, Lou? Right?"

But by now his patronising attentions have hardened her and she pulls free of him.

"Harry, there are other ways of dying. I wish you to think about your family. I know of too many cases, and so do you, where men of forty have suffered heart attacks and other stress-related maladies. If your shop is not expanding I"m surprised since I recall a lot of stories recently of increased sales and output. But if you are truly worried about the future and not just using it as a pretext, we have the rice farm to fall back on and we would surely all prefer to live in reduced circ.u.mstances practising Christian abstinence than try to keep pace with your rich, immoral friends and have you die on us."

At which Pendel grasps her to him in a fiery bearhug and promises to be home really early tomorrow - maybe take the kids to the funfair, do a movie. And Louisa cries and says, oh yes, let"s do it, Harry! Really let"s. But they don"t. Because when tomorrow comes he remembers the reception for the Brazilian Trade Delegation - lot of important players, Lou - why don"t we do it tomorrow instead? And when that tomorrow comes, I"m a liar, Lou, there"s this dinner club I"ve gone and got myself elected to. They"re throwing a jamboree for some heavy-hitters down from Mexico and did I see you had the new Spillway on your desk?

Spillway being the Ca.n.a.l newsletter.

And on Monday came the usual weekly phone call from Naomi. Louisa could tell at once from Naomi"s voice that she had momentous news. She wondered what it was going to be this time. Guess who Pepe Kleeber took on his business trip to Houston last week, perhaps. Or, have you heard about Jaqui Lopez and her riding instructor? Or, who do you think Dolores Rodriguez goes to visit with when she tells her husband she"s comforting her mother after her bypa.s.s operation? But this time Naomi didn"t come on with any of that stuff, which was as well, because Louisa was of a mind to hang up if she did. Naomi just needed to catch up with all the lovely Pendels, and how was Mark making out with his exam work, and was it true Harry was buying Hannah her first pony? It was? Louisa, Harry is just the most generous man on earth, my wicked husband should take lessons from him! Not until, between them, they had painted a treacly picture of the entire deliriously happy Pendel family did Louisa realise that Naomi was commiserating with her: "I"m so proud for you, Louisa. I"m proud you"re all healthy, and the kids are progressing, and you love each other, and that G.o.d is kind to you and Harry appreciates what he has. And I"m very proud that I knew right off that what Letti Hortensas just told me about Harry could not possibly be true."

Louisa remained frozen to the telephone, too scared to speak or ring off. Letti Hortensas, heiress and s.l.u.t, wife of Alfonso. Alfonso Hortensas, Letti"s husband, brothel owner, P&B customer and crook.

"Sure," Louisa said, not knowing what she was agreeing to, except that by a.s.senting to anything at all she was saying "go on".

"You and I know very well, Louisa, that Harry is not a person to visit some seedy downtown hotel where you pay by the hour. "Letti, dear," I said. "I think it"s time you bought yourself a new pair of eye-gla.s.ses. Louisa is my friend. Harry and I have a long platonic friendship going way back which Louisa has always known about and understood. That marriage is built on rock," I told her. "It makes no difference your husband owns the Hotel Paraiso or you were sitting in the lobby waiting for him when Harry stepped out of the elevator with a bunch of wh.o.r.es. A lot of Panamanian women look like wh.o.r.es. A lot of wh.o.r.es do their business at the Paraiso. Harry has many customers from many walks of life." I want you to know I was loyal to you, Louisa. I supported you. I scotched the rumour. "Shifty?" I said to her. "Harry never looks shifty. He wouldn"t know how. Have you ever seen Harry looking shifty? Of course you haven"t." "

It took a long while for the feeling to return to Louisa"s body. She was into serious denial. Her outburst at the dinner party had scared her stiff.

"b.i.t.c.h!" she screamed through her tears.

But not till she had rung off and poured herself a large vodka from Harry"s newly instated hospitality chest.

It was the new clubroom that had started it, she was convinced. The top floor of P&B had for years been the subject of Harry"s most visionary fantasies.

I"m going to put the fitting room under the balcony, Lou, he used to say. I"m putting the Sportsman"s Corner next to the boutique. Or: maybe I"ll leave the fitting room where it is and put up an outside staircase. Or: I"ve got it, Lou! Listen. I"m going to throw out a cantilevered extension at the back, install a health club and sauna, open a small restaurant, P&B customers only, soup and catch of the day, how"s that?

Harry had even had a model made and done the initial costing by the time that plan too was shelved. Thus the top floor had till now been a perennial armchair voyage that was enjoyed only in the planning. And anyway - where would the fitting room go? The answer, it turned out, was nowhere. The fitting room would stay right where it was. But the Sportsman"s Corner, Harry"s pride, would be squashed into Marta"s gla.s.s box.

"So where will Marta go?" Louisa asked, half-hoping with the shameful side of her that go meant just that, because there were things about Marta"s injuries that Louisa had never understood. Harry"s sense of being responsible for them for instance, but then Harry felt responsible for everyone, it was part of what she loved about him. Things he let slip. Things he knew about. Radical students and how the poor lived in El Chorrillo. And there was something about the power Marta could exert over him that was a little too like Louisa"s own.

I"m jealous of everyone, she thought, fixing herself an essential dry martini c.o.c.ktail to get her off the vodka. I"m jealous of Harry, I"m jealous of my sister and of my children. I"m practically jealous of myself.

And now the books. On China. On j.a.pan. On the Tigers, as he called them. Nine volumes in all. She counted. They had arrived without warning by night on the table in his den, and stayed there ever since, a silent, sinister, occupying army. j.a.pan down the ages. Its economy. The rise and rise of the yen. From Empire to Imperial Democracy. South Korea. Its demography, economy and const.i.tution. Malaysia, its past and future role in world affairs, collected essays of great scholars. Its traditions, language, lifestyle, destiny, cautious marriage of industrial convenience with China. China, whither Communism? The corruption of the Chinese oligarchy after Mao, human rights, the population time bomb, What"s to be done? It"s time I educated myself, Lou. I feel stuck. Old Braithwaite was right as usual. I should have gone to university. In Kuala Lumpur? In Tokyo? In Seoul? They"re the coming places, Lou. They"re the next century"s superpowers, you"ll see. Ten years from now, they"ll be my only customers.

"Harry, I wish you please to define profit to me" - mustering the last of her courage - "Who pays for the cold beers and the Scotches and wine and sandwiches and Marta"s overtime? Do your customers buy suits from you because they keep you up talking and drinking until eleven o"clock? Harry, I do not understand you any more."

She was going to throw the Hotel Paraiso at him as well but her courage had run dry and she needed another vodka from the top shelf in the bathroom. She couldn"t see Harry very clearly and she suspected it was the same for him. There was a film of hot mist across her eyes and what she saw in place of Harry was herself made older by a lot of grief and vodka, standing here in the drawing room after he had walked out on her, and watching the children wave goodbye to her through the window of the four-track because it was Harry"s turn to have them for the weekend.

"I"m going to make it all right for us, Lou," he promised, patting her shoulder to console the invalid.

So what was wrong that had to be made right? And how the f.u.c.k did he propose to correct it?

Who was driving him? What was? If she was not enough for him, who was getting the rest of him? Who was Harry being, one minute pretending she didn"t exist, the next showering her with gifts and going to ridiculous lengths to please the children? Putting himself about town as if his life depended on it? Accepting invitations from people he used to avoid like poison, except as customers - grubby tyc.o.o.ns like Rafi, politicians, entrepreneurs from the drug fringe? Pontificating about the Ca.n.a.l? Creeping out of the Hotel Paraiso with an elevator-load of hookers late at night? But the darkest episode of all was last night"s.

It was a Thursday and on Thursdays she brought work home in order to be sure of clearing her office desk on Friday and having the weekend free for family. She had left her father"s briefcase on her desk in her den, thinking she might grab an hour between putting the children to bed and cooking supper. But then she had a sudden intimation that the steaks had Mad Cow Disease, so she drove down the hill to get a chicken. Returning, she discovered to her pleasure that Harry had come back early: there was his four-track, crookedly parked as usual and no s.p.a.ce in the garage for the Peugeot, so she had to leave it way down the hill, which she did willingly, and trudge back up the sidewalk with the shopping.

She was wearing sneakers. The house door was unlocked. Harry at his most forgetful. I"ll surprise him, tease him about his parking. She stepped into the hall, and through the open doorway of her den she saw him standing with his back to her and her father"s briefcase open on her desk. He had taken all the papers out of it and was flipping through them like someone who knows what he is looking for and isn"t finding it. A couple of the files, confidential. Personal reports on people. A draft paper by a newly-joined member of Delgado"s staff on services that could be provided for ships awaiting transit. Delgado was worried because the author had recently formed his own chandlering company and might therefore be trying to push contracts in its direction. Maybe Louisa would look it over and give him her opinion?

"Harry," she said.

Or perhaps she yelled. But when you yell at Harry he doesn"t jump. He just puts down whatever he"s doing and waits for further orders. Which is what he did now: froze, then very slowly, so as not to alarm anybody, laid her papers on her desk. Then stepped one pace back from the desk and hunched himself in that self-effacing way he had, eyes on the ground six feet in front of him while he smiled a Librium smile.

"It"s that bill, dear," he explained in an under-dog voice.

"What bill?"

"You remember. From the Einstein Inst.i.tute. Mark"s extra music. The one they say they sent us and we haven"t paid."

"Harry, I paid that bill last week."

"Now that"s what I told them, you see. Louisa paid last week. She never forgets, I said. They wouldn"t listen."

"Harry, we have bank statements, we have cheque stubs, we have receipts, we have a bank that we can call and we have cash in the house. I do not understand why you have to ransack my briefcase in my den in search of a bill we have already paid."

"Yes, well as long as we have, I won"t bother, will I? Thank you for the information."

And acting injured, or whatever he thought he was acting, he walked past her to his own den. And as he crossed the courtyard she saw him slip something into his trousers pocket and realised it was the revolting cigarette lighter that he had taken to carrying around with him these days - a present from a customer, he had said, waving it in her face, flicking it off and on for her, proud as a child with his new toy.

Then she panicked. Vision slipping, ears jangling, knees no good. Smell of burning, the children"s sweat running down her own body, the whole scene. She saw El Chorrillo in flames, and Harry"s face as he came back into the house from the balcony, and the oily red light still glowing in his eyes. She saw him coming over to where she was cringing in the broom cupboard. And embracing her. Embracing Mark as well because she wouldn"t let Mark go. Then stammering something to her that she had never understood or contemplated rationally until this minute, preferring to dismiss it as part of the demented exchange between traumatised witnesses to disaster: "If I"d started one that size, they"d have put me away for ever," he said.

Then he bowed his head and stared at his feet like a man praying standing up, the same gesture he had made just now but worse.

"I couldn"t move my legs, you see," he had explained. "They were stuck. It was like a cramp. I should have run down there but I couldn"t."

Then worrying about what had happened to Marta.

Harry was about to torch the f.u.c.king house! she screamed at herself as she shivered and sipped her vodka and listened to his cla.s.sy music from across the courtyard. He"s bought a lighter and he"s going to incinerate his family! He came to bed, she raped him and he seemed grateful. Next morning none of it had ever happened. In the mornings it never had. Not for Harry, not for Louisa. That was how they survived together. The four-track broke down and Harry had to borrow the Peugeot to drive the kids to school. Louisa went to work by taxi. The tile-cleaning maid found a snake in the larder and had hysterics. Hannah had a tooth out. It rained. Harry was not put away for ever, neither did he burn down the house with his new cigarette lighter. But he stayed out late, pleading yet another late customer.

"Osnard?" Louisa repeated, not believing her ears. "Andrew Osnard? Who in Heaven"s name is Mr Osnard and why has he been invited to join us on our Sunday picnic on the island?"

"He"s British, Lou, I told you. Joined the Emba.s.sy a couple of months ago. He"s the ten-suit one, remember? He"s all alone here. He was living in a hotel for weeks until he got his flat."

"Which hotel?" she asked, thinking please G.o.d, let it be the Paraiso.

"The El Panama. He wants to meet a real family. You can understand that, can"t you?" - the whipped hound, ever faithful, never understood.

And when she could think of nothing to say: "He"s fun, Lou. You"ll see. Bouncy. Go down like a house on fire with the kids, I"ll bet you." His unhappy choice of phrase was followed by the new false laugh he had. "It"s my English roots raising their nasty little heads, I expect. Patriotism. Comes to us all, they say. You, too."

"Harry, I do not understand what your love of country or mine has to do with inviting Mr Osnard to join us for an intimate family outing on Hannah"s birthday when as we have all noticed you have little enough time for your children as it is."

At which his head fell forward and he pleaded with her like an old beggar on the doorstep.

"Old Braithwaite made suits for Andy"s dad, Lou, I used to tag along and hold the tape."