Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [18]
‘It was damp to begin with,’ Dad had said after the crash. ‘We knew that from the survey.’
And now there was a bed on my floor.
‘Look, Bernardo will share your room until his ceiling is mended.’
‘When?’
‘When what?’
‘When is the ceiling going to be mended?’
Mum smiled a bright, fake smile. ‘Soon. I’m working on it. We have to sort out the insurance. And it takes time to find a good builder.’
‘He can’t share my room,’ I said. ‘He’s a boy.’
‘He’s your brother.’
‘But I don’t know him.’
‘Oh, try to be hospitable,’ Mum said. ‘Filipinos are the most hospitable people in the world.’
‘But I’m English.’
‘You’re half Filipino.’
‘I’ve only been to the Philippines once in my life.’
‘And you loved it!’
‘I can’t speak Tagalog.’
‘His English is very good!’
‘Why can’t he sleep in the living room? Or how about your room?’
Mum frowned at me. ‘Well, I was going to put him in the living room at first but then I thought, Bernardo is sixteen, he needs privacy.’
‘What about my privacy?’
‘You’re both teenagers!’ Mum said. ‘You have so much in common!’
Brilliant.
15
Bernardo
There was a humming and the bed shivered as if it had suddenly been nudged awake.
I sat up.
Earthquake?
The bed trembled again.
But no.
It was the cellphone on vibration alert under my pillow.
It was just a text message.
I pulled the phone out. The little screen flashed blue in the darkness.
The number had a +44 country code for the UK. It was Mama.
gud night nardo. cant w8 to c u.
I texted back: night ma. c u soon.
I lay back again, awake now. Shadows huddled on the ceiling. Only a few more days and I would be on a plane to London. But in the pit of my stomach, angry teeth nibbled.
You don’t need a player, you need a sideshow. You only want me as the team freak.
I clenched my fists. Jabby might as well have punched me in the face. How could he use his best friend like some sort of thing to barter at the market? How could he?
He didn’t know, did he, that I was about to leave? I imagined it. Jabby turning up at the front door like he always did, touching Auntie’s hand to his forehead before calling for me over her shoulder.
Nardo! Nardo!
And Auntie smiling sadly at him.
Nardo isn’t here! He went to London.
And him gazing down at Auntie, jaw dropping in shock.
London?
I’m sorry. We couldn’t tell anyone. He’s not coming back.
And Jabby would be sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
My face was suddenly wet and my heart seized with guilt.
Jabby would be sorry but so would San Andres.
Everybody would be sorry to see me go.
And frightened.
Because what if the earthquakes returned?
Remorse suddenly had me by the throat. Was I about to bring calamity to my village? How could I even think of leaving? What if something happened?
I rubbed my eyes. No. No. No. Nothing was going to happen. The whole Bernardo Carpio thing, it was just a legend, wasn’t it? Nobody really believed it, surely. I laughed. But all I made was a hollow, rusty sound.
Mad Nena made things worse of course, with her crazy, apocalyptic declarations.
But it was Old Tibo who had made everybody believe. Poor Tibo with all his stories of gods and giants.
Whenever I went to Tibo for a haircut, the old man greeted me like a VIP. When I tried to touch his hand to my forehead to show my respect, he waved me off like he didn’t deserve it. And then he ceremoniously took mine and touched the back of my hand to his forehead. It was so wrong, an old man giving respect to a boy. His dog, Flash Gordon, fluttered around my knees like a little bird, he was so overjoyed to see me.
Every man and boy in the village had experienced their first haircut at Tibo’s ancient hands. It was like a benediction. Tibo was the oldest person in the barrio; his family had run a barbershop on the same spot on our road for almost a century.
The year Ma came to visit with little Amandolina and Uncle William, when the big earthquake hit, we all rushed out into the streets in our nightclothes, Amandolina in her father’s arms, me in Uncle Victor’s, and Ma and