Free Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali

there and that none was ready with a greeting.
    ‘What kind of man are you?’ China had spoken quietly. Chrissie stood behind Ruby and stroked her hair. Stanton, needing salvation, tried to smile at Jay but the boy would not look at him. ‘What kind of man are you?’ That was all. Chrissie did not speak and Ruby did not speak and Jay did not speak and Stanton had no answer. He waited for China to call him every name under the sun but China did not oblige. China was on his feet and there was hope at first of a fight but this too was clutching at straws. Long after all hope had gone Stanton stood there and waited for something to happen and nothing happened at all.
    On the drive back he swerved to avoid a tractor he had not seen coming. The pickup skidded into the verge and two wheels sank without hesitation into the mud. It was not far to walk home. He drank a good measure before removing his clothes and he found that if he just maintained a constant sipping, very evenly spaced, taking very small sips, he could keep all thoughts from his head. The whisky was warming. If he observed very closely, very carefully, the way it travelled out from the solar plexus along all the major arteries and branched off along each individual vein, he could feel it as a kind of calm radiating out from the core of his being.
    He woke in his chair, naked and half frozen, and when he went to boil water he could not feel his toes and his fingers were too stiff to strike a match. His head hurt. His back was broken; if not broken then something worse. When he bent to get his socks on he nearly cried. He set off to walk up to the telephone box and on the way he thought about how beautiful the place was and how much he would miss it. The rain had stopped in the night and the sun played in the treetops, scattering diamonds here and there and emeralds. It teased purples and scarlets from the ploughed-up field and burnished the far-off hills a fine shade of nostalgia. He breathed deeply and it was good to smell the eucalyptus and the pine and he thought of the air making him clean inside. As he came up to the road he saw an old man in black felt fedora and waistcoat leading a cow along the opposite track, heading for the village at such a slow pace, as if they had all the time in the world, as if arriving were nothing and the journey everything. He raised a hand and the old man raised a hand and they passed each other and Stanton went on his way.

3
    IT IS LATE AND IT IS HOT AND THE GROINSWEAT MAKES bold with his thighs as he wipes for the last time the counter and turns over in his mind, now and now again, his grandmother’s phrase: we live our lives. What a way she had of complaining! There. Pretending she would never grumble and turning her whole life into a complaint.
    Vasco shakes the cloth over the sink, wipes the cash register and stuffs the cloth in the drawer with the travel brochures. What a tedious thing to say. More interesting to say we don’t live our lives, the ones we meant to have. He hitches his trousers. When he got too fat for belts he began to live in fear of his backside becoming exposed. He has braces but no faith in them. More interesting to speak of life as a spectator sport: we don’t live our lives; we wait and watch and judge.
    His legs ache. He would give anything – this café, the apartment above, his savings, his Yankees baseball cap purchased at the actual Home of Champions – for someone to come and rub his legs. Damn that Joelly, shirking off again this morning. He should go over and bang on his door. Joelly, I want you to massage my calves until the muscles are soft enough for a baby to chew. What do you mean, poorly ? In my opinion a man, or even a boy like you, is fit for three things only: work, hospital or the grave. A bit poorly? That is wonderful. That is superb. Absolutely prime.
    His breath is becoming laboured. Vasco switches off the lights and stands in the blue-purple glow of the Insectocutor listening