Lilia's Secret by Erina Reddan Read Free Book Online Page B

up every morning by tickling him under his chin.
    Another time, Andrés told me, he was walking at two in the morning after a party in his home town of Mexico City. He’d heard a scream. He ran towards it. Around the corner he saw a man waving a gun at a woman cowering inside a Volkswagen. Without a thought Andrés jumped between them.
    Eventually the woman passed a wad of notes to Andrés, who passed them to her pimp. Andrés exhaled. Then the woman crawled out of the Volkswagen and began bashing her huge black handbag against the car, screeching. Andrés only just managed to stop her scratching her long purple nails across the bonnet as the man levelled the gun at his head. That was one of the eight times he had been close to the wrong end of a knife or a gun. So he told me.
    Andrés was a cat who lived in the world as if he owned it. I’d never met anyone like him. Sure, I’d met bullies who acted as if they owned the world, but their skin reeked of insecurity.Andrés lived without fear, without terror, without depression.
    â€˜Sure, I know what depression is,’ he insisted. ‘I was depressed for a couple of hours once.’ He couldn’t understand why I burst out laughing.
    He was a revelation. I wanted to bask in his sun. In those early days I thought it was as simple as that.
    He didn’t get to his conference and I didn’t go on to Europe. After a week we took the same plane back to Sydney, with our arms still entwined and making everyone sick, I’m sure, although I didn’t notice. We took another week off and lay together in my grandmother’s big bed.
    â€˜Maddy, Madelina, Madelina,’ he’d say. ‘Mmm,’ I’d reply, rubbing my cheek against his smooth chest.
    â€˜Nothing,’ he’d say. ‘I just love the sing of your name.’ I looked right into his eyes and felt it was a sacrament, although I’m not religious.
    Andrés was the baby of his family – the one who came after the one who died. One morning his mother had found his one-year-old brother dead in his cot. So Andrés was born into a force field of fierce protection. His two sisters took him to school with them while his mother was at work. By that stage his parents had divorced.
    Andrés said his father, Javier, was a phenomenon. He was too big for the two-bedroom flat the family shared. He would make a bucket-load of money and then pour it away in one big splurge, taking the family out to eat and urging them to order what they liked.
    Andrés recalled the time they were seated in one of Mexico’s best restaurants around a large wooden table with two orange candles flickering at either end. Andrés said the matador in thepainting on the wall opposite, who clutched a wine-red rose between his teeth, seemed to be grinning at him.
    â€˜Try something you’ve never heard of,’ Javier urged his children. Andrés and his sisters giggled as they pored over the menus, the oldest reading to the youngest. The night wound on in a haze of well-being and joy. Javier kept slapping money down on the table for the mariachi trio to sing. They all got to choose their favourite songs. Andrés finally gave in to his heavy eyes as they sang ‘Muñequita Linda’ for the third time. In the early hours of the morning Javier wrapped the little ones up and carried them home.
    One week later there was no money for even rice or beans for dinner. Andrés shook his head when he told me that story.
    He told me that his father had taken his sister, Lupita, on a holiday to Veracruz when she was six. She held her daddy’s hand as she ran along the footpath to keep up with him. When they came to the harbour they’d stopped and looked at the boats and ships. Lupita loved a tiny boat painted blue and white called Joya , which summed up her delight at having her father to herself.
    Beggars crouched against the boat moorings with their arms