Castro's Dream by Lucy Wadham

felt obscurely that it was necessary for her to be strong this time, for Astrid. She had been seeking a way of paying her debt to her sister. Perhaps she would find it here, in this ordeal. Lola prayed: Give me strength. For once, give me strength.

NINE
    Astrid read Chastel’s note on her way to the kitchen.
    Forgive me. I took advantage of your patience last night. You were tired and I left too late. I was wondering if you would allow me to go on taking advantage of you in all possible ways for another ten years.
    Yours ever, J.C.
    She scrunched up the note and threw it into the kick-flap bin. It fell among some dead carnations and ground coffee. In place of charm, Astrid’s building offered a rubbish chute, washing facilities and a lock-up garage. The flat gave on to a triangle planted with horse chestnuts that blocked her light and referred to itself pompously as a square. The wooden roller blinds on the windows came into the bargain as did the glass-fronted fireplace in the living room and the aluminium clothes molly above the bath. The white Formica cupboards Astrid had personalised with red stick-on knobs but the rest of the flat was as untouched as if it had been rented by three terrorists casing a target.
    Astrid poured water into the coffee machine and turned it on. Chastel teased her about her utilitarian attitude towards her home. His flat in an eighteenth-century building on the Île-St-Louis was all bibelots and scented candles. It was one of the apartments on the Seine that threw its curtains open every night to the liquid floodlights of the bateaux mouches so that the tourists could gaze up at the painted ceilings and chandeliers.
    Astrid watched the coffee drip through. It had indeed been ten years. Perhaps this ictus business was merely a reminder to herself, a kind of metaphor, if metaphor is condensed meaning, for all those years lived in a state of somnambulance. Thomas was right: the motorway was an appropriate image. She had been on a motorway through her thirties, her only moments of consciousness prompted by letters from Mikel. Astrid loved service stations on Spanish motorways. Mikel’s letters were like thecafeterias which served tapas on Spanish motorways.
    She took the coffee jug from the hotplate.
    I can make tortilla . You do not know this about me but I believe it is important. When I get out I will make you a very good tortilla. Potato, green pepper, onion, chorizo and tomato or just potato and onion if there are any of these ingredients that you don’t like.
    She had believed that she was smiling at the simplicity of the wording but she should have been warned by the pleasure the letter brought her. Indeed it was shortly after his letter about tortilla that she had begun to dream about him. She never dreamed about Mikel at night, only early in the mornings, after Chastel had returned to his wife’s bed. These were the days before guilt and the fear that came with it. Then just as she began longing for these dreams, they had stopped.
    The night before she had told Chastel of her intention to take a holiday. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in her hands. Before her lay a pile of articles in English to read and summarise. She was tired and Chastel too seemed to be slower than usual, rising to his feet as if he were moving in something thicker than air. He had turned in the doorway.
    I’d like to take a couple of weeks off, she had told him.
    Good idea. Where shall we go?
    No. I mean I’d like to go home for a while.
    Oh. When?
    She looked steadily at him. This week.
    He had made a face.
    I’m afraid that’s not very convenient.
    I realise that.
    Chastel plucked his earlobe.
    You’re on call for procurement.
    I know.
    We’ll talk about it in the morning. Call me from the lab. We’ll have lunch.
    He did not pause for an answer but left so hastily he forgot his tie on the kitchen chair.
    Astrid now sipped her coffee, her gaze sliding over the surfaces of her