The Santiago Sisters. Victoria Fox

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СКАЧАТЬ over your floors.’

      Simone flicked ash out of the window. Some of it blew back on her and without needing to be asked the driver activated the rear-seat ashtray; a crystal plate slid smoothly from the leather footrest. Simone tapped her cigarette into it.

      ‘So, which has your vote?’ Michelle asked.

      ‘Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe the one in the middle.’

      ‘That’s my favourite, too.’

      ‘They’re a bit scrawny, aren’t they? Will they grow into their looks? It’s important, Michelle. This girl is going to be my ambassador, among other things.’

      ‘I understand that,’ Michelle replied. ‘I even had one of those photo-fit experts draw up estimates of what they’ll be like in ten years’ time, like they do for missing people.’ She handed the printouts to Simone. ‘Feast your eyes on this.’

      Simone consulted the images. She thought they all looked a bit creepy, to be honest: half botched cosmetic surgery victim, half low-budget drag act.

      She turned to gaze out at the sprawling rustic geography. Argentina. Who would have thought it when, all those months ago, she and Michelle had spoken of adoption for the first time? Since then Michelle had been true to her word. She had dispatched the finest team to every corner of the globe in search of treasure. After countless meetings, endless back and forth, and a spate of ugly arguments with Brian, who couldn’t understand any of it and refused to try, Simone had settled on South America. She desired an exotic-looking daughter. The girl had to be poor, because poverty would make her grateful: Simone wanted to be thanked for this. They had narrowed their quest to an estancia on the Pampas, and a single father with six children to feed and not two pesos to rub together. Simone would be their saviour.

      ‘Aren’t our children enough?’ Brian had complained, the day she’d told him.

      Simone had bitten her tongue—hard. Never mind the fact that Emily and Lysander weren’t hers, they were hideous. Especially Lysander, who had possessed the nerve to pinch her bottom by the swimming pool last Friday, in front of all her friends and during the barbecue she had put on as a charity fundraiser. Hey! magazine had been covering the event and Simone could only imagine her flushed, affronted face, spicy sausage hanging between the grill tongs, as she’d opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Oh, she’d wanted to slap him! Too quick, Lysander had dived into the water.

      ‘I need to do this, Brian,’ she had said. ‘For me.’

      ‘This new one won’t be yours either.’ It wasn’t like meek, mild Brian to take that toxic tone and Simone had been startled. She had almost liked it.

      ‘It will be as close as I can get,’ she replied.

      Brian had stared her down for a moment, but Simone always won a stare-off and predictably her husband cowed, his shoulders rounding, before he skulked away. How could she expect him to understand? He didn’t know. She’d never told him. No child would ever come from her womb because her womb was incapable.

      Hostile, they’d informed her. A hostile womb. Cripes.

      Michelle brought her back to the present. ‘This family is going to get the shock of its life when we turn up,’ she was saying smugly. ‘We told them who you were but of course they’d barely even heard of the bloody Beckhams.’

      ‘Gosh, it must be remote.’

      The car was slowing. ‘Are we there?’ called Michelle.

      Their driver pulled over. He consulted the GPS.

      ‘José, is there a problem?’

      The man didn’t speak much English. ‘We are lost,’ he said eventually.

      ‘Lost?’ Michelle snapped. ‘How can we be?’

      ‘Ah no, it is right way.’ The car started up again. Michelle and Simone exchanged sidelong glances. Does he know what he’s doing? mouthed Simone. She had visions of being driven to a hilltop plateau and sacrificed like a mountain goat.

      Michelle nodded curtly, but didn’t take her hawk eyes off the wavering GPS.

      ‘We’ve lost signal,’ she said, throwing her hands in the air. ‘Typical!’

      José had the indicator on. They came off on to a dirt track.

      ‘Is this it?’ Simone enquired. She was tempted to light another cigarette, but it was so overheated inside the car that she feared something might explode.

      ‘I do not know. We follow trail, ask at house.’

      Before they could stop him, José climbed out of the car and opened the gate, tying it with rope to a knackered wooden post. The sun beat down. Simone sighed.

      ‘I want my hotel, Michelle. I’m tired and I’m cranky. I knew it was a bad idea to do this on the day we arrived.’

      ‘You know what I say: strike while the iron’s hot.’

      ‘Everything’s hot. Too bloody hot.’

      José jumped back in. The engine gunned. They had barely set off when a crunching sound erupted from the belly of the car, quickly followed by a burst and a hiss, like a balloon deflating. ‘What was that?’ shrieked Simone.

      ‘Tyre is gone,’ said José. ‘Problem with tyre.’

      ‘So fix it!’ Michelle roared. She wound up the windows and blasted the air-con, as poor José sweated and heaved outside, attempting to jack the vehicle’s considerable weight. Michelle assaulted her phone for a moment, fishing for signal. The networks were down. Simone rolled her eyes. This was hardly shaping up to be the glamorous entrance she’d envisaged, sweeping into the beggars’ idyll like a fairy godmother. This broken-down heap of trash was hardly the ball-bound pumpkin.

      José was out there for forty-five minutes. The women became crotchety. Simone finished her bottle of Perrier then admitted to needing the loo.

      ‘I can’t go here, what if somebody sees?’

      ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ said Michelle.

      ‘Yes: a completely flat, no-damn-bushes-in-sight nowhere. What about him?’

      ‘José?’

      ‘Of course José—whom else would I be talking about?’

      But Michelle lifted a thin eyebrow and nodded through the windscreen.

      ‘Our knight in shining armour,’ she said. A man of about twenty was riding towards them on a horse. He came in a cloud of dust, his blond hair reflecting the sun. As he neared the Range Rover, his horse began circling and stamping its hooves.

      José stood, and the men conversed in Spanish. The stranger climbed down, tied his horse to a shrub and came towards the car. He had a rugged, tanned face and startling blue eyes. The word gaucho ran through Simone’s mind, and it had the same effect as someone pinching the tender skin on the underside of her arm.

      Michelle СКАЧАТЬ