Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing by Teresa Solana, Peter Bush Page B
Book: Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing by Teresa Solana, Peter Bush
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Authors: Teresa Solana, Peter Bush
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rocky patch and he wasnât sure he could survive the test of spending an evening alone with such an attractive, sensitive woman as her without falling in love. In truth, he sweetly snubbed AlÃcia with his flattery, but from that day on, as his words had half-opened the door of hope, she kept fantasizing about a mortal illness or timely accident that would remove his wife from the scene and turn her dream of becoming the second Mrs Bou into a reality.
She had taken the first sip of her margarita when she saw him sitting at a table at the back of the bar. He wasnât alone and she wasnât his wife, whom AlÃcia knew. Even so, it wasnât difficult to see that the emotional intimacy between this woman and Bou had been spawned in bed: his hand on her thigh, his passionate looks, the words he whispered in her ear. AlÃcia gulped down her margaritaand asked the waiter for another, feeling her voice shake and her cheeks redden.
Horaci had deceived her. He hadnât rejected her because he wanted to remain faithful to his wife, as heâd said, but because he already had his bit on the side. The rumours that were rife in the centre were true. And this other woman, the object of his attentions, was no youngster with a lithe, supple body, but a woman her age, and nothing out of the ordinary. That made her even more furious. What did that bitch have that she didnât? More class? More cash, perhaps? She knocked back her margarita, asked for the bill and walked out of the bar with a broken heart, blurry eyes and a snotty nose.
Once in the taxi she started to wrestle with an idea. By the time she opened the door to her flat, she had reached a decision. That was it. The time had come to give up, to accept sheâd never find a man with whom it was worth the turmoil of falling in love, that she would never be happy again. The most she could hope for at her age was to grow old eating ice cream and drinking vodka in front of the TV, like the woman in that film. Faced by such an unappetizing future, she might as well end it. It was time to bring the curtain down.
She went to the chemistâs and bought the pills, then opened a bottle of vintage Rioja and put an opera on her CD player at home. She didnât really like the opera but she felt La bohème was a more appropriate soundtrack to suicide than Julio Iglesias, her favourite crooner. She sat on her sofa, took her shoes off and started stuffing pills, washing them down with Rioja. There were almost two hundred, in small bottles, and it took her some time to empty them. Luckily, they were small and easy to swallow.
At around two a.m., after seeing off the Rioja and starting on a Penedés, expecting death through overdosing onhomeopathic pills at any moment, she got terrible stomach ache. She felt the need to vomit and shit all at the same time, but, as she was drunk and her head was in a spin, she didnât make it to the bathroom in time. Prostrate on the floor in the hallway in her flat, she realized the light had gone out on the theatrical scene she had been imagining. The forensic investigator would find a pathetic, drunken fifty-year-old swimming in her own sick and shit in the hallway at home, and that would be the only thing that everyone, Horaci included, would mention at her funeral.
Feeling miserably sick, she managed to reach the phone and ring a girlfriend for help. Half an hour later, an ambulance was rushing her to the emergency ward at the Sant Pau hospital, its siren wailing away. The results of the tests they did showed that the vomit and diarrhoea were caused by alcohol and the huge bag of sweets sheâd crunched at the cinema. The two hundred homeopathic pills had made no impact whatsoever. The doctor who saw her didnât take her attempted suicide at all seriously.
âBy the way,â she told her as she signed her discharge form, âIâll give you a prescription for an ointment to cure mange. You should use
She had taken the first sip of her margarita when she saw him sitting at a table at the back of the bar. He wasnât alone and she wasnât his wife, whom AlÃcia knew. Even so, it wasnât difficult to see that the emotional intimacy between this woman and Bou had been spawned in bed: his hand on her thigh, his passionate looks, the words he whispered in her ear. AlÃcia gulped down her margaritaand asked the waiter for another, feeling her voice shake and her cheeks redden.
Horaci had deceived her. He hadnât rejected her because he wanted to remain faithful to his wife, as heâd said, but because he already had his bit on the side. The rumours that were rife in the centre were true. And this other woman, the object of his attentions, was no youngster with a lithe, supple body, but a woman her age, and nothing out of the ordinary. That made her even more furious. What did that bitch have that she didnât? More class? More cash, perhaps? She knocked back her margarita, asked for the bill and walked out of the bar with a broken heart, blurry eyes and a snotty nose.
Once in the taxi she started to wrestle with an idea. By the time she opened the door to her flat, she had reached a decision. That was it. The time had come to give up, to accept sheâd never find a man with whom it was worth the turmoil of falling in love, that she would never be happy again. The most she could hope for at her age was to grow old eating ice cream and drinking vodka in front of the TV, like the woman in that film. Faced by such an unappetizing future, she might as well end it. It was time to bring the curtain down.
She went to the chemistâs and bought the pills, then opened a bottle of vintage Rioja and put an opera on her CD player at home. She didnât really like the opera but she felt La bohème was a more appropriate soundtrack to suicide than Julio Iglesias, her favourite crooner. She sat on her sofa, took her shoes off and started stuffing pills, washing them down with Rioja. There were almost two hundred, in small bottles, and it took her some time to empty them. Luckily, they were small and easy to swallow.
At around two a.m., after seeing off the Rioja and starting on a Penedés, expecting death through overdosing onhomeopathic pills at any moment, she got terrible stomach ache. She felt the need to vomit and shit all at the same time, but, as she was drunk and her head was in a spin, she didnât make it to the bathroom in time. Prostrate on the floor in the hallway in her flat, she realized the light had gone out on the theatrical scene she had been imagining. The forensic investigator would find a pathetic, drunken fifty-year-old swimming in her own sick and shit in the hallway at home, and that would be the only thing that everyone, Horaci included, would mention at her funeral.
Feeling miserably sick, she managed to reach the phone and ring a girlfriend for help. Half an hour later, an ambulance was rushing her to the emergency ward at the Sant Pau hospital, its siren wailing away. The results of the tests they did showed that the vomit and diarrhoea were caused by alcohol and the huge bag of sweets sheâd crunched at the cinema. The two hundred homeopathic pills had made no impact whatsoever. The doctor who saw her didnât take her attempted suicide at all seriously.
âBy the way,â she told her as she signed her discharge form, âIâll give you a prescription for an ointment to cure mange. You should use
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