I’ve still not spoken at this point and Benjamín has noticed – oh, not that I’m angry and feeling betrayed by him, just that I’m not my regular nice-as-pie self, and it’s making him twitchy.

‘Dolores came on the bus yesterday!’ He begins overcompensating furiously. ‘She has been to see her family in Mexico! She lives in California!’ He pulls on his moustache and scratches the back of his neck. ‘But now she will stay with me for a while, and she will work for you!’

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Yes. In the cabin. For a while,’ he confirms.

‘Doing what?’

‘She will clean for you.’

‘I don’t need a cleaner.’

‘Ah, but she will clean, she will cook, she will work very hard.’ Benjamín is stumbling a little now. ‘Dolores is a good worker.’ At the mention of her name, Dolores creeps behind his back.

‘She has no English,’ Benjamín explains.

‘I thought you said she lived in California.’

‘She is very timid. She doesn’t go out much.’

‘Uh-uh . . .’

‘Yes, Alice, you can pay her four dollars fifty an hour.’ He speaks quickly to Dolores who nods her head. ‘And she can start now.’

‘What a surprise!’

‘Yes,’ he agrees uneasily. ‘She will clean the house today and cook something for tonight.’

‘Is she as good a cook as you, Benjamín?’ I say drily.

Benjamín forces out a laugh. ‘Ha ha ha, Alice. You like my sopa de pollo, yes?’

But I don’t laugh with him and Benjamín finally loses his confidence.

‘There is a problem, Alice?’

‘I came by your cabin last night, Benjamín, I tried to find you.’

Benjamín’s mouth forms an ‘oh’. When I tell him about Emmy, he looks appalled.

‘She was sick?’

‘Very.’

‘She is okay?’

‘Well now she is.’

Benjamín shakes his head woefully. ‘Little M-E. I tell you bad luck will come.’ He puts his finger to his eyes. ‘Mal de ojo . . . Mal de ojo’

Dolores crosses herself and takes one superstitious step backwards.

‘It wasn’t the evil eye, Benjamín,’ I say, deeply irritated. ‘She has an ear infection. I had to take her to Nogales, to a doctor.’

Benjamín sucks in his breath. ‘El médico?’

‘I told you, she was very sick.’

‘You went to Nogales?’

‘I came to find you but you weren’t there.’

‘I pick up Dolores in Nogales,’ he says. ‘From the bus station.’

‘The bus arrived in the middle of the night, did it?’

‘Si,’ he says emphatically. ‘The bus was very late. I wait and wait. And when he doesn’t come I go to the church and light a candle for Dolores.’

‘So you were in Nogales and I was in Nogales, what a coincidence!’

He looks at me anxiously, not understanding the sarcasm, but recognizing the anger driving it. Dolores touches his sleeve and whispers something with a timid look to me.