TE19 Iberian Adventure

Three Stories

off, walking slowly and steadily and keeping my eyes on them all the time without seeming to. Mum had said once that was what you had to do if you met a stray dog. It was already dark by the time I arrived at another playground. Shadows were bustling about all over it, and there was a sweetish, burnt smell in the air. In the sandpit shapes bundledup inshawlsandheadscarveswerebending over full buckets and washing-up bowls. They were using long sticks to stir the blood. A few more were standing around the concrete ping pong table in slippery, black rubber aprons with their shirtsleeves rolled up delving around in a pig that had been cut in half. I was just about to run away, when one of the shapes suddenly turned around and shone a headtorch in my eyes. He asked me what I was looking for, to which I snapped, ’The bridge.’ He gripped my arm and leant very close to my face. He asked me if I was my father’s daughter. My eyes had given me away again, my Dad’s husky-dog eyes, which meant that people who had never seen me before would knowwho I was. Not waiting for an answer, the man in the rubber apron sliced a piece off the pig’s thigh, wrapped it in newspaper and then pressed the meat, still steaming, into my hand. “Tell the doctor that little Csabi Lupescu’s Dad sent it,” he said, then with a gallant sweep of the hand, he pointed to a nearby street, at the end of which I could make out the familiar lights of the bridge. • 233