Sleight of Hand Read Free Page A

She’s taller than me (even without her platform soles) and has Pete Burns cheekbones, Angelina Jolie lips, and “surprised” eyebrows. She looks like the subject of a documentary on cosmetic surgery catastrophes.
    I squash my legs against the bulkhead as she slides into the middle seat beside me and think about just how much longer the flight is going to seem with so little legroom. I wish that the four-foot-not-many-inches guy now sitting down on her right was my neighbour instead.
    She glances at him, then smiles at me but says nothing. As she rolls towards me in an effort at extracting the seatbelt from beneath her buttocks I get a retch-inducing whiff of perfume.
    I turn to look out at the Bogotá rain and think about Ricardo heading off to his mother’s house. He seemed fine of course. He was positive and effervescent during the drive to Santa Marta, and then warm and smiley for the flight to Bogotá. When the fifteen-seater went through a white-knuckle patch of turbulence, he even quipped,
“He died on the way to his mother’s funeral.”
But I remember only too well from when Tom’s father died, how quickly “fine” can turn to “breakdown.” But if he doesn’t want me there – and he clearly doesn’t – then there isn’t much I can do.
    Lolita Jackson, as I nickname my six-foot beauty, doesn’t speak to me until the Iberian trolley dollies arrive with our first meal. Given the choice ofchicken or fish, I half expect her to reply, “Neither – I’m a tranny actually,” but she plumps for
“pollo,”
and hearing her voice, I think,
“God, she’s a woman.”
I can’t help but wonder if “tranny” was the look she was aiming for when she embarked on the surgery path all those years ago.
    On hearing me request my vegetarian meal, she breaks her silence and asks me in near-perfect English where I’m from.
    â€œEngland,” I say. “Near London.”
    â€œSo you’re on holiday?” she asks.
    â€œNo, I’m kind of living here,” I say. “Well, living
there.”
    â€œSo you like Colombia?”
    â€œOf course,” I say, reaching past her for my tray which has now arrived. “Everyone loves Colombia.” If there’s one thing I have learnt it’s that the only opinion you should ever express about their homeland is one of pure positivity.
    â€œA miserable country of third-world under-achievers,” she says.
    â€œReally? I like it,” I say, unflummoxed by the remark. It’s very fashionable in Colombia to slag the place off. I know it’s all bravado. “So you’re not Colombian?”
    â€œSure I am, but I live in Valencia these days. It shows, doesn’t it?”
    â€œSure,” I say. I restrain myself from adding,
“You have that euro-tranny look down to a tee.”
    â€œI prefer Spain,” she says.
    â€œWell, Spain is great too.”
    â€œSo you
like
Colombia,” she asks again, incredulously.
    â€œI do,” I say. “It’s amazingly beautiful. Don’t you think so?”
    â€œI suppose. And the people?”
    â€œOh, they’re incredibly friendly,” I answer. “The happiest people I ever met.” And it’s all true. Colombia
is
stunningly beautiful. It’s like a dramatised version of France, only with rain-forests and a few Caribbean beaches thrown in for good measure. And the people
are
the most welcoming, smiling, contented people I have ever come across.
    â€œYes in Europe people love you or hate you, or they just don’t care.”
    â€œRight,” I say.
    â€œIn Colombia we love you or we kill you. Sometimes both at the same time.”
    I laugh. “Yes, well, there is that.”
    â€œAnd that doesn’t worry you?”
    I shrug. “Nowhere is perfect,” I say.
    â€œIt’s got much better since Uribe got in,” she