Free The Marks of Cain by Tom Knox

what?’
    The green-blue of the mountains framed her profile. Her conflicted thoughts were written on her face. David offered:
    ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.’
    ‘No,’ she answered, ‘you deserve an explanation. And we are going to meet José, Miguel’s father.’
    Amy turned and regarded David; there was a tension and yet an audacity in her expression.
    ‘We were lovers. Miguel was my boyfriend. Years ago.’
    ‘Jesus.’
    ‘I was twenty-three . I’d just arrived in the Basque Country. I was alone. Young and stupid. I never mentioned it…Because I guess I am…ashamed.’
    David turned the wheel as they drove around a corner; the trees and hedges shivered in the slipstream as they passed. He had to ask: ‘You knew he was ETA. And yet you…?’
    ‘Slept with him?’ She sighed. ‘Yes, I know. Muy stupido . But I was young like I say and…young girls go for bastards, don’t they? The bad boy. That Heathcliff shit, the older man bollocks. Even the glamorous violence.’ She shook her head. ‘I guess it had some juvenile allure. And he was mysterious. And he’s smart and good looking and a famous guy, famously strong and active.’ She forced a weak smile. ‘He looks a bit like you, actually. Except older and a little thinner.’
    ‘Except I don’t mutilate, torture and kill people and…I don’t hit women in bars.’
    ‘Of course. Of course. I realized this myself after about two months, that he was just a nasty piece of work. And…’ She shrugged, awkwardly, then confessed. ‘And there was something sick about him, as well. He was kinky. In bed. I dumped him after two months.’
    David didn’t know what to say; her honesty was disarming.
    He tried another question as they sped past a farmhouse.
    ‘Do you still have contact?’
    ‘No. Not if I can help it. But sometimes it’s inevitable. Miguel introduced me to his dad, to José, who is still a good friend – he helped me get my job. And I really love my job…The same way I love these mountains.’ She sighed. ‘But Miguel is always bloody there, lurking, he’s pursued me ever since…You know what you did in that bar, that was very brave.’
    ‘Did he hit you when you were together?’
    ‘Yes. That’s when it happened. He hit me once and that’s when I dumped him. Bastard.’
    He thought of the scar on her forehead. It didn’t quite match a scene of domestic abuse. But he didn’t want to pry further. The farms were turning into forests, they were slowly ascending the mountains.
    ‘Amy. Thanks for telling me.’ He looked at her. ‘You didn’t have to tell me any of this. In fact, you don’t have to do any of this.’
    ‘I’m in it now.’
    ‘Kinda.’
    ‘Not kind of,’ she said. ‘Definitely. And besides, I feel a…rapport. With your situation.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘Because of my own family.’ Light, spiteful rain spattered the windscreen. ‘My father died when I was ten, my motherstarted drinking soon after. My brother and I practically had to look after ourselves. Then my brother emigrated to Australia. And yet my drunken mum and my distant brother – that’s all I have left, because the rest of my family died in the Holocaust – all those ancestors, the cousinage . They all died. So I guess I feel…a bit of an orphan.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Not unlike you.’
    Amy’s yellow hair was kicking in the cool rainy breeze through the car window. Her monologue seemed to have calmed her; she seemed less alarmed.
    ‘Take the right here. Past the chapel.’
    He turned the wheel obediently.
    ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘I sometimes wonder if my Jewishness explains my attachment to the Basques, because they have such a sense of who they are, and where they belong. They’ve been here for so long . One people, living in one place. Whereas the Jews have wandered, we just keep wandering.’ She rubbed her face, as if trying to wake herself up. ‘Anyway. We are nearly there.’
    David changed a