Like A Hole In The Head

     "I guess it's too hot to eat," T said and pushed my plate away. She had scarcely eaten anything.

     Without looking at me, she got up from the table and went out onto the verandah. From force of habit, I turned on the TV set. A blonde with a mouth as big as a bucket was yelling about love. I turned the set off.

     Through the open window, I saw Lucy walking towards the sea. I hesitated for a moment, then went after her.

     Side by side, and in silence, we walked along the deserted beach.

     After a while, I reached for her hand, but she didn't reach for mine.

* * *

By lunch-time the next day, I knew there was going to be no miracle.

     For three solid hours, Timoteo fired at the moving cans, using up ammunition and hitting none of them. He was trying all right, but his reflexes seemed to be paralysed. Even when I slowed the moving targets down again to a crawl he still couldn't hit them.

     Finally, I took the rifle out of his sweating hands.

     "Sit down, Tim," I said. "Let's talk."

     He stood there, his head lowered, his face grey and drawn. He looked like a bull with the pies in, waiting for the blade.

     "Tim !" I barked at him. "Sit down ! I want to talk to you!"

     The snap in my voice brought his head up. The despair and the hate in his eyes shocked me. Then he turned and moving like a zombie, he walked out of the gallery and into the hot sunshine. He hesitated for a moment, then set off with his slow, shambling stride towards the distant palm trees.

     I looked at Raimundo who was sitting on one of the benches, watching me.

     "That's it," I said. "I'm quitting. I know when I'm licked. He'll never make it. I want to talk to your boss."

     Raimundo flicked his cigarette away.

     "Yeah, it's time to talk to the boss." He stood up. "We'll go and talk to him now. I'll fix your car."

     I knew this was the end of my dream of owning fifty thousand dollars and I realised with a sense of surprise, I didn't care. No money was worth what I had gone through during the past days. If I had had only Timoteo to handle I might have had some regrets even though I had learned the hard way he was beyond teaching, but it wasn't only Timoteo. Because I had been hypnotised by the thought of all that money, I was spoiling my marriage.

     "I'll meet you at the bungalow," I said.

I found Lucy in the kitchen, preparing the lunch.

     "I'm seeing Savanto now. I'm returning the money. In a few hours we will be rid of them all," I said, coming to rest by her side.

     She stiffened, staring at me.

     "What happened?"

     "I suddenly realised I need this job like I need a hole in the head," I said quietly. "He'll never learn to shoot. I'm quitting, and we're going back to square A." I grinned at her. "I won't be long, honey, I'm getting the money."

     I went out through the back door, dug up the biscuit box and took out the bond. Before, I had handled it with reverence, now I stuffed it into my hip pocket. It was nothing to me but a piece of paper.

     As I returned to the kitchen, through the window, I saw the Volkswagen pull up.

     "I'll be back in a couple of hours," I said. "Wait for me?"

     "Yes."

     There was a fiat note in her voice and uneasiness in her eyes. Then she went on, "Oh, Jay! Why didn't you realise this before?"

     Raimundo, sitting in the driving seat, blared the horn.

     "We'll talk about it. I've got to go. Wait for me."

     There was something in the way she was holding herself that warned me not to touch her. I blew her a kiss and then went out and got in the Volkswagen.

     We drove in silence along Highway 1, heading towards Paradise City. Raimundo drove well and as fast as the car could make it.

     I turned over in my mind what I was going to say to Savanto. I remembered Raimundo's words: If you flop, then you are not only going to lose the money, but you will be in personal trouble.

     A cheap gangster's bluff?

     I looked at him. His handsome profile gave away nothing of his thoughts, if he was thinking: a hard, cruel face : a man to take seriously.

     Personal trouble?

     I felt a spasm of uneasiness.

     This is the age of miracles, Savanto had said.

     But within reason. You had to have talent and a lot of willingness and Timoteo had neither. He did try. I had to admit that, so perhaps unwillingness was unfair. He had some deep mental block that prevented him from shooting. I remembered Lucy had urged me to ask him why he didn't want to shoot. I had never got around to asking him, but I doubted if he would have told me if I had bothered to ask. Maybe, I thought, I should have made the effort, but I was a shooting instructor, not a psychologist.

     I wasn't aching to talk to Savanto. He would blame me for losing him half a million dollars. I had to convince him that no one alive could teach his son to shoot. In some tactful way, I had to tell him that when he got drunk in the future not to make bets. I didn't know how he would take it, but it had to be said.