The Snake and the Goat
An hour later, I was on the beach. A short arc-shaped stretch of busy sand. There was a restaurant—a fresh-fish and paella place. A rustic-looking straw-roofed boutique selling summer dresses and swimwear. The beach itself was full of people and parasols and sun loungers, and a couple of pedalos were out at sea (I remembered me and Karl arguing on one in Corfu, decades before, while Daniel kept diving off the back).
There was an incredible view of Es Vedrà, the rocky islet that rose out of the sea in a dramatic, near-vertical fashion. High limestone dotted with sparse patches of green. The one in Sabine’s painting. The one that had unsettled me on the plane. The one that was meant to have magnetic properties. I strolled along the beach, my hips aching a little. It was baking. I was wearing a long skirt and a blouse, which made me the most overdressed person within a mile radius.
I walked until the sand became pebbles. I reached the beach huts. They had wooden slats for doors, and most had boats or paddleboards in them. A couple had solar panels on their makeshift corrugated iron roofs. One had washing out to dry. A child sat on top of one of the roofs, reading. I wondered which hut Alberto called home. I walked up some stone steps to the terrace of a restaurant and, further, to a dusty car park. It was over the other side of the beach from where I had parked—way up the road—but I kept walking, to the red path and trees beyond, smelling pine and hearing the pulsing chirp of cicadas. And eventually, I found a small shack with a faded sign outside saying Atlantis Scuba – Centro Buceo. It was a concrete cube with a flimsy wooden door. The most easy-to-miss diving center in the world.
I hesitated. I inhaled. I exhaled.
Anxiety made my whole body alert, like the early onset of a panic attack. It was a feeling I was used to—a feeling like my existence was a delicate thread that could vanish in a sudden wind.
My skin prickled.
I knocked. I listened. I heard nothing but cicadas.
This would have been a great time to turn around and walk back to my car and forget all about it. Who did I think I was? Harrison Ford? It was ridiculous. But I was sure I could hear something now. Something above the buzz of insects. So I pushed the door open.
Inside the hut, I found absolutely no one at all. Or rather: no human. The air was thick with heat. I scanned around. A desk, some diving equipment, lots of old cardboard boxes on shelves, two chairs, a computer, a futon and a bed sheet, a bag of washing from a laundrette, a dolphin calendar, an old sticker protesting GOLF, NO! and a wooden signpost pointing to the sky, saying Alpha Centauri 4.367 años luz.
And a goat.
An actual goat, front half black, back half white, with wide, wide horns and a strong musky smell that was far too much in this heat.
‘Oh, hello,’ I said, in quiet surprise.
The goat said nothing and went back to eating oats in a bowl.
I noticed a scruffy pile of flyers on the desk. They were the same as the one Sabine had handed me at the hippy market, advertising the protest against developing Es Vedrà.
I remembered the words of the taxi driver. ‘It begins with A.’ The well-dressed rich man who had visited Christina. Was the A for Alberto?
Then I heard footsteps and a man mumbling to himself.
The man walked into the hut with his flip-flops, denim shorts, and large salt-and-pepper beard. This was not the man Pau had talked about. This man was topless, but his chest hair almost constituted an item of clothing in its own right. His skin shone from coconut-scented suntan lotion. It took me a second to confirm to myself that this indeed was the man from the author photograph. I hesitated because—and I will just come out with it—I was thrown by the fact that he was carrying a snake. It was black with yellow markings and semi-coiled around his arm. The serpent’s head was now upright, its eyes staring at me. I wasn’t particularly scared of pets or any animal, but the combination of goat, snake, and hirsute human male in such a claustrophobic location was a bit much.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked me, in accented English, punctuated with a chuckle. ‘You look like you have seen a snake!’
