The busy sound of a Spanish bar behind him, its air of ease and banter, a lightness of tone, happily analytical, the spat consonants and sibilant hiss; Andalucía.

‘What you been up to, Sar?’

She hated the abbreviation, its cuddle.

‘Art stuff,’ she said.

‘You mean masturbation and smoking dope?’

A tiny smile threatened the corners of her mouth but – fuckoff! – she held firm against it.

‘That sounds a little busy for me.’

A labour to his breathing gave lie to the jauntiness.

‘Did you talk to your mother at all?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘Please?’

‘She doesn’t mean to be the way she is, Sara.’

‘You’re defending her?’

‘You know I’d be the last to. But Jesus, Sara. Just talk to her.’

A Spanish evening, behind him, and he wanted to be back there, among it – he wanted to be away.

‘Go back to it,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Whatever it is you’re doing there.’

‘Sara?’

‘I have a cake about done,’ she said. ‘A kind of meringue thing? Got to run.’

‘Sara, how long is this going to go on? I mean, I know what you’re going through, and I know it’s been a hard, hard time.’

‘You do not know.’

‘I fucking know! And when it’s blood, Sara, I can’t just give up and not even try …’

‘And blood has given me what exactly?’

She hung up. She turned the phone off. She went around the room and flicked all of the lamps off. She searched the dark for calm. She slid open the glass doors and stepped outside again to chill and night.

Clutch – a pair of hands took hold of her neck. She was held to the spot; a manacle grip. She felt the great restriction of breath. She tried to scream but no sound came from her mouth. It was as though in a nightmare but she was not sleeping no she was not sleeping. Hands everywhere, hands all over. Then, suddenly, a looseness, and she was freed – she dashed inside. She slid shut the glass door. She fell to the floor. She looked up to the window and the faces crowded in from all angles. The dark tunnels of their opened mouths. Then at once the faces disappeared.

She turned the phone on.

A new text message from Granada:

Give it expression.

Fuck off. She saw him thoughtfully sipping a Fino by the darkwood barrels as he texted, and thinking, I’m just so not like other dads?

The Sabatier block was a low steady throbbing in the dark of the open space. She cut for the red vibrancy, for feeling. See the royal red army march in jagged lines down the pale hillside.