David lied and shrugged and said, No, not really. He didn’t feel like getting into all that, not right now.
But if not now, then when?
‘OK. OK,’ the old man stammered. ‘OK, David. OK. And the new job? Job? You like that? What are you doing, I forget…’
Was Granddad losing it again? David frowned, and said:
‘Media lawyer. I’m a lawyer. It’s OK.’
‘Only OK?’
‘Nah…I hate it.’ David sighed at his own candour. ‘I thought…at least reckoned it might be a bit glamorous. You know…pop stars and parties. But I just sit in a dismal office and call other lawyers. It’s crap. And my boss is a tosser.’
‘Ah…Ah…Ach…’ It was a wrenching, old man’s cough. Then Granddad lay back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Didn’t you get a good college…college degree? Some kinda science, no?’
‘Well…I did biochemistry, Granddad. In England. Not a lot of money in that. So I turned to law.’
Another hiatus. The light was bright in the room. At last his grandfather said:
‘David. You need to know something.’
‘What?’
‘I lied.’
The silence in the room was stifling. Somewhere in the hospice a gurney rattled.
‘You lied? What does that mean?’
He scrutinized his grandfather’s face. Was this the dementia, reasserting itself? He couldn’t be sure, but the old man’s face looked alert as he elaborated.
‘Fact, I’m lying now, son…I just…just can’t…get past it, David. Too late to change. A las cinco de la tarde. I’m sorry. Desolada.’
This was perplexing. David watched the old man talk.
‘OK I’m tired, David. I…I…I…Now I need to do this. Please look in there…Least I can do this. Please.’
‘Sorry?’
‘In the bag at the end…of my bed. Kmart. Look see. Please!’
David got up smartly, and went to the assorted bags and luggage stored in the corner of the room, beyond the bed. Conspicuous in the rather forlorn pile was a scarlet Kmart bag. He picked it up, and scoped inside: there was something papery and folded at the bottom. Maybe a map?
Maps had been one of David’s passions as a child, maps and atlases. As he unfolded this one, in the desert light from the window, he realized he was holding a rather beautiful example.
It was a distinctly old-fashioned road map, with dignified shading and elegant colouration. Soft grey undulations showed mountains and foothills, lakes and rivers were a poetic blue, green polygons indicated marshland beside the Atlantic. It was map of southern France and northern Spain.
He sat down and scrutinized the map more closely. The sheet had been marked very neatly with a blue pen: little blue asterisks dotted those grey ripples of mountains, between France and Spain. Another single blue star marked the top right corner of the map. Near Lyon.
He looked at his grandfather, questioningly.
‘Bilbao,’ said the old man, visibly tiring now. ‘It’s Bilbao…You need to go there.’
‘What?’
‘Fly to Bilbao, David. Go to Lesaka. And find José Garovillo.’
‘Sorry?’
The old man made a final effort; his eyes were blurring over.
‘Show him…the map. Then ask him about churches. Marked on the map. Churches.’
‘Who’s this guy? Why can’t you just tell me?’
‘It’s been too long…too much guilt, I cannot, can’t admit…’ The old man’s words were frail, and fading. ‘And anyway…Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. No one would believe. Just the mad old man. You’d say I was mad, the crazy old man. So you need to find out for yourself, David. But be careful…Be careful…’
‘Granddad?’
His grandfather turned away, staring at the ceiling. And then, with a horrible sense of inevitability, the old man’s eyelids fluttered shut. Granddad had fallen back into his fitful and opiated sleep.
The morphine pump ticked over.
For a long while, David sat there, watching his grandfather breathe in and breathe out, quite unconscious. Then David got up and closed the blinds; the desert sun was almost gone anyway.
He looked down at the map sitting on the hospice chair; he had no idea what it signified, what connection his granddad had with Bilbao or with churches. Probably it was all some ragged dream, some youthful memory returning, between the lucidity and the dementia. Maybe it was nothing at all.
Yes. That was surely it. These were just the ramblings of a dying old man, the brain yielding to the flood of illogic as the final dissolution approached. Sadly, but truly, he was crazy.
David picked up the map and slid it into his pocket, then he leaned and touched his grandfather’s hand, but the old man did not respond.
With a sigh, he walked out into the hot Phoenix summer night, and climbed into