Read Online Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro - Free Book Online Page B

from the boot of a four-by-four driven by Nene Pérez Ayerra. She too got out of the car and asked Antonia to call her employer. She had to ask twice, because Antonia now stood transfixed by the sight of her daughter, a girl of about eight, who was dressed as a witch, with silver fingernails, pointed fangs and a trickle of red paint running from the side of her mouth. She was wearing a black, floor-length skirt and the top with little diamante stones that had belonged to the Señora.
    â€œI just had to show you this,” said Nane when Mariana came to the door.
    â€œNo way that’s my top!”
    Antonia said: “Yes, it is,” but nobody heard her.
    â€œYou know what girls are like at this age. She saw it when I was laying things out for the jumble sale and she decided on a whim that she wanted it for Halloween, so I took it out of the sale. But she knows that after Halloween she has to give it back to me – right?”
    The girl said nothing: she was busy filling her little basket with sweets from the bag held out by Antonia.
    â€œI’ll let her get her way this time then put it into the next sale.”
    â€œCome on – if she likes it that much, let her hang on to it. It’s a present from Auntie Mariana,” she said, and bent to give the girl a kiss.
    â€œOK, but in that case you’ll have to choose one of your own shirts and give it to me instead,” Nane told her daughter, “because we all have to learn to do our bit, even when we’re little, if we want this world to change – don’t we?”

    But the girl could not answer, because her mouth was engaged in the business of trying to chew a gigantic toffee. Meanwhile Antonia was still standing there, staring at the T-shirt. She counted five diamante stones missing from the concentric circles. Luckily, the gaps did not stand out very much – two were at the side, close to the seam, two close to the hem and one under the bust. It was a shame: none of them had been missing before. At any rate, with fewer diamantes, in the next jumble sale the price of the shirt would be even more “reasonable”, as her employer put it. Damaged goods are always cheaper, she thought.

10
    One summer, the playground at Cascade Heights was completely overhauled. That time of year was chosen to do the work, because there are fewer residents in the neighbourhood and many of the people who are here are holidaymakers, renting one of our houses while we spend the summer somewhere else. The worst choice of holiday destination that year was Pinamar, where the summer season was much affected by the murder of a photographer who had dared to take a picture of a private postal-services tycoon as he strolled on the beach.
    The Children’s Commission had presented to the Council of Administration a detailed report on each piece of equipment to be replaced. The principle thrust of their argument was that, with other sectors of our club evolving, the playground must not be allowed to remain frozen in time. And they closed their presentation with
this observation: “Let’s not be blind; children are our future.”
    The contract went to a pair of architects who specialized in children’s play areas, having designed playgrounds for two shopping centres and for several other gated communities in the area. They drew up a project, put forward three budgets, and the most reasonable of these was approved. Finally the wood and iron equipment, which had been in place since our community’s first days, was replaced with plastic installations reminiscent of Fisher Price. It was sad when the maintenance team dismantled the slide, which was the longest any child in The Cascade had ever seen. But the report made it clear that the replacements would be the safest and most up-to-date available, and that they would require less upkeep. So they changed them. They put new plants along the borders of all the paths and replaced