Free Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

to give up on her but I hadn’t got my voice back.
    ‘Let me ask you, Sofia Irina, where is your father?’
    ‘In Athens,’ I croaked.
    ‘Ah. Do you have a photograph of him?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    My voice had been seen off like the cat.
    Gómez filled a glass with the water that was bottled in Milan but had something to do with Singapore and passed it to me. I took a sip and cleared my throat.
    ‘My father has married his girlfriend. They have had a baby girl.’
    ‘So you have a sister in Athens you have never met?’
    I told him I have not seen my father for eleven years.
    He seemed keen to reassure me that should I wish to visit my father, a rota of staff would be assigned to care for Rose every day.
    ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Sofia Irina, you are a little weak for a young healthy woman. Sometimes you limp, as if you have picked up on your mother’s emotional weather. You could do with more physical strength. This is not a substantial table to lift, yet for you it was an effort. I do not believe you need to do more exercise. It is a matter of having purpose, less apathy. Why not steal a fish from the market to make you bolder? It need not be the biggest fish, but it must not be the smallest either.’
    ‘Why do I need to be bolder?’
    ‘That is for you to answer.’ His tone was reassuring, calm and serious, considering he was probably mad. ‘Now, there is somethingelse I must talk to you about.’ Gómez seemed genuinely upset.
    He told me that someone had graffitied a wall of his clinic with blue paint. It had happened this morning. The word painted on the wall was ‘QUACK’. Meaning that he was a charlatan, a con man, not a reputable doctor. He thought it might have involved the friend of mine who came to collect the car. This man Matthew. Nurse Sunshine had given him the documents and keys and not long after he had left they had found the right side of the marble dome defaced with this word.
    ‘Why would he do that?’
    Gómez looked for the handkerchief in his jacket pocket and discovered it was not there. He wiped his lips on the back of his hand and then wiped his hand with a napkin. ‘I am aware he plays golf with an executive for a pharmaceutical company which has been bothering me for some years. They have offered to fund research at my clinic. In return, they would be pleased if I were to buy their medication and prescribe it to my patients.’
    Gómez was clearly distressed. He shut his agitated, bright eyes and rested his hands on his knees. ‘My staff will clean the paint off the marble exterior, but I can only think that someone wants to discredit my practice.’
    The Mohican boy and his little sister were now dragging the inflated blue boat across the square and down to the beach. Their brother followed them holding the oars.
    Was Gómez a quack? Rose had already voiced this thought.
    I no longer care about the twenty-five thousand euro we struggled to pay him. He can have my house. If he slaughters a deer and divines a walking cure from its entrails I would be grateful. My mother thinks her body is prey to malevolent forces, so I am not paying him to be complicit with her command on reality.

    That evening when I was wandering around the village, I picked two sprigs of jasmine growing on a bush outside the house builthalfway up the hill. A blue rowing boat was moored in the yard with the name ‘Angelita’ painted on its side. I crushed the fragile white petals in my fingers. The scent was like oblivion, a trance. The arch of desert jasmine was a coma zone. I shut my eyes and when I opened them again, Matthew and Ingrid were walking up the hill towards the vintage shop. Ingrid ran towards me and kissed my cheek.
    ‘We’re here to collect my sewing from the shop,’ she said.
    She was wearing an orange dress with feathers sewn around the neckline and matching peep-toe shoes.
    Matthew caught up with her. ‘Inge sewed her dress. I don’t think she gets paid enough. I’m