Page 1 of The Last to Know
1
CJ
Lisbon in April is the beginning of a promise. It starts with the sky. Blue, yes, but as anyalfacinhacan attest, the sky is nearly always blue in Lisbon. There’s pre-spring washed-out Tiffany blue, and thick late-October Yale blue, and the shy cyan blue of January, as if green and blue couldn’t decide on their annual leave and so compromised with a fifty-fifty split. A full and deep aqua-coloured sky is the purview of high summer, but spring blue is the colour of today: baby blue, everything in its infancy, the start. In April the earliest Tagus trees begin to sprout their mantle, especially after a warm winter, invading Lisbon with feathery lilac jacarandas that echo the city’s history: the seeds are said to have been brought in from Brazil by Portugal’s leading nineteenth-century botanist, gifted to anyone who wanted to cultivate them – a mandate ‘all things beauty should come with’, Luis (and we’ll get to him) once declared.
Oh, yes, Lisbon in April. Up in Bairro Alto it’s possible to get the best sweeping views of the rest of the city, overlooking the river and the São Jorge castle, which rises abovethe terracotta roofs of Alfama with earned pride. The streets here lead a double life. By night a thirsty crowd unites, lanes packed with locals and tourists alike, everybody gathering for a party. But by day, it’s quiet and restrained, and so for now, at 9.23 a.m., the emerging street art, the historical sights, and the culinary treats from all around the world are in a sleepy, sedate state. The background noise of a grumbling funicular echoes along the cobblestones and narrow paths, the picturesque yellow cars moving up and down the hills to help its passengers avoid the near-vertical climb. Old terraced houses line up uniformly in height order, with their green shutters and faded facades, wrought-iron lamps outside, their window boxes of peachy blooms. The weather is a pleasing daytime high of around nineteen degrees in April: warm enough for a simple T-shirt outside, with a breeze cool enough to provoke exposed nipples to bullet-like attention if, like Catherine Jane Hall, you are currently lying the wrong side up on the wrinkled cotton sheets of a double bed, naked and shagged out, the windows of the third-floor apartment flung open for fresh air. Such as it is for CJ, who has celebrated the start of the day with a good, hearty fuck – the sticky remnants of Luis Santos between her thighs further evidence of the glorious event.
‘Jesus, Luis,’ she admonishes him, fingering at the mess and deciding, in lieu of any tissues on his nightstand, to use the bed sheets for clean-up duty. ‘We really need to talk about what the pull-out method actually means – because, dude, there’s enough here to get twenty women pregnant, let alone me – and I’m good with the one kid I’ve got, all right? Trymy stomach next time, or my back? Shit, in the right mood you can even go for the face. But this, this …’ CJ catches Luis’s eye from where he’s propped up against the fabric headboard, all lean muscle and straight teeth, full lips and dark, melted-chocolate gaze. He smirks, prompting the corners of her own mouth to curl upwards. Nothing is ever serious with them, with CJ and Luis – it never has been, not in ten years of friendship. CJ presses: ‘This …jizz discoon my thighs …não é bom, Luis.Não.É. Bom.’
Luis runs his tongue over his teeth amusedly, puts up an arm to slip a hand behind his head, bicep pulsating,The Fallen Angelhimself.
‘Jizz disco?’ he repeats, sardonically. He narrows his eyes, willingly confused, and CJ grabs a pillow from the floor, lobbing it at him and his obtuse self in one swift, smooth movement.
She launches herself at him playfully and he grabs her wrists. She ends up straddling him, arms pinned to her sides, tits bouncing gaily in his face. He looks pointedly at them and sighs.
‘Mmmmm.’ He leans to nuzzle his face between them. ‘Such a perfect specimen.’ His English is almost faultless, only the tiniest, sexiest trace of a Portuguese accent. It allows him to get away with murder, that accent. His voice is heavy and lazy, drizzled honey over thicksalame de chocolate. He could make a killing reading bedtime stories to legions of viewers on OnlyFans with that accent, although granted he’d probably have to do it with his cock out.
CJ looks down at the top of his head, his mass of wavyblack hair and the tops of his thick black eyebrows. Grey-speckled stubble aside, the man could be on the back of a Roman coin. He’s the platonic ideal ofbeautiful man to make you come (twice) before work. Thank god her cousin has been on school drop-off for her today. CJ lets Luis linger across her chest with heavy wet kisses, and then he releases his grip on her arms to pull her even closer. She can feel him grow beneath her, the head of him swelling to invade her most sensitive part. With a hand on his shoulders, CJ circles her hips, teases him, uses a finger to pull his angular jaw closer to her so that her lips meet his. He finds her, moves deftly inside, slowly, slowly, inch by inch, and with a final thrust CJ gasps, both full and fulfilled, and the last thing she hears is Luis murmuring, so quietly it is pornographic, ‘No jizz disco this time. I promise.’
They’re late for work, but since she’s the manager and he is the owners’ grandson, it doesn’t make a difference – plus, they both work overtime more days than they don’t. If anything, they’re probably owed the time, not that anybody is counting that way. As long as everything gets done (including one another, Luis might caveat), everyone is happy. CoLab is one of Lisbon’s most popular co-living and co-working spaces, populated for weeks or months at a time by any cross section of the swathes of laptop-toting digital nomads continuing to flood the city for all the reasons CJ herself left Nottingham, back when she was twenty-eight and experiencing the kind of Saturn’s Return that could capsize a lesser woman. Lisbon has the weather, the culture, the nearby beaches, thelow cost of living, not to mention the food and wine and men. Luis isn’t a standalone example of what makes Portuguese men such exemplary lovers – and CJ has happily,hungrily, done the research. If folks the world over dream of tall, dark and handsome Latin paramours, they often flock to Spain or Italy or France. But Portuguese men pull out your chair, hold open the door and love to cook you dinner in the evenings – plus, they don’t seem to prize youth as tops, commanding an equal-opportunity approach to seduction which favours anyone over legal age, not just 22-year-olds who haven’t yet had to experience exactly what 11s are, or a suddenly stalled metabolism.
Fortunately for many of the tourist population, much of Lisbon’s male community has caught wind of their high net worth and is eager to please. Unfortunately, as somebody who lives here permanently herself, it screws CJ over. Expiration dating works for whoever is passing through, but as a long-term resident of the city CJ struggles to find a virile yet committed companion, often citing the fact that she, herself, has more balls than most men she meets. Yes, she’ll fuck Luis – but Luis lives and dies by the thrill of the chase, and CJ keeps a coterie of men for mutual pleasure too. Neither of them expects anything from the other. CJ doesn’t expect anything from any man, as it happens. As soon as she started full-time at CoLab she was able to use the most useful thing her father left her – Portuguese dual nationality – to secure a flat, permanent resident status, and eventually the courage to get pregnant via sperm donor. Five years ago she had Jorge. Then she moved her cousin and his husband inas roommates whilst they save for a down payment, essentially becoming Jorge’s live-in help as thanks. So now, without needing a (straight) man to give her the family she has always craved – in her own imperfectly perfect way she has it, actually, thanks for asking – CJ now finds the uses for (straight) men … limited.
All this to say: Lisbon is lovely, and CJ has accepted its few romantic restrictions with grace. They’re convenient for a commitment-phobe, anyway.
Luis saunters alongside CJ for the seven-minute walk to CoLab, slinging a tanned arm over her shoulder, pulling her five-foot-four frame into him to kiss the top of her brunette-cropped head. CJ pulls away – surprised, mildly suspicious – to look at him: public displays of affection aren’t what they do. Their situationship is like a spare chair for dinner parties: whipped out occasionally, but behind closed doors and strictly temporary.
‘What was that for?’ She’s in cut-off denim shorts, battered Birkenstocks, and an open shirt over a sleeveless white top, a jumper in her tote for later, after the weather has peaked and it gets chilly again. Girly, CJ is not. She likes to be comfy, and casual – although that’s an easy style statement to make when her best accessory is a body so ripped she looks like she squats sacks of potatoes in her spare time. Which, she kind of does – staying active is as much of her vibe as knowing she could defend herself on a darkened street corner, if she had to.
‘I love you,’ Luis answers. ‘I just wanted to show you.’ He checks himself out in the darkened window of a clothes shop yet to open, jeans slung low on his hips, T-shirt tightand right. ‘You don’t take me seriously when I say it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’
CJ watches him preen to his reflection, desperate to take the piss for the way he doesn’t even look her in the eye as he declares this supposed love. It’s pure Luis, letting sweet nothings drip from his lips like water from a fountain, flooding the space around his feet, but crucially without the action to back the words up. CJ accepts that Luis believes what he is saying: Luisbelievesthat he loves her, and Luisbelievesthat they could have a happy life together. Luisbelieveshe can engage with fidelity, and hebelieveshe’d never let Jorge down as a stepfather, that Luis would always be there, always follow through on his promises. But CJknowsthis is all hope on his part. CJknowsthat, deep down, he’s not ready for any of it. On the eve of turning forty soon, Luis has been making more noises than usual about ‘settling down’, but it’s an age thing, just a panic. Once his milestone birthday has been and gone, he’ll forget he ever once suggested CJ and him get married. CJ is certain of it.
‘I love you too,’ she decides to say, because now isn’t the time for damning condemnations about hope in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Her words get Luis’s attention and he turns to her, pleased. CJ adds, ‘And I love that we understand each other.’ That’s her code forwe’re fuck buddies, babe. Don’t push it.
Luis sighs. ‘You only want me for my body.’
They carry on to the corner, where the CoLab entrance is. It’s a gorgeous building, with an oversized door Luis unlocks and pushes open, letting CJ go on ahead of him.
‘And your heart, and your soul,’ CJ counters, flicking on the entryway lights. ‘You’re my best friend, stupid.’ She’s not focusing, busy as she is flirting with Luis to keep the peace, and so she doesn’t see the pile of three suitcases and four boxes at the bottom of the stairs, promptly going arse over tit with a beleaguered ‘Argh!’ She crashes down comically, a mass of weird sounds and limbs. Stunned, she looks around at the culprit from the floor, unhurt but outraged. ‘What the hell is all of this?’ she asks Luis. ‘Somebody’s …luggage?’ She can just about make out a tag dangling from one of the huge silver Rimowa cases. Somebody once told her that the brand is the definition of stealth wealth in the suitcase world – they don’t look like it, but they cost a fortune, and you’d only know if you knew. The initials on the tag say A.J.D. in embossed gold. It’s all adding up quickly to mean somebody with money is on the verge of checking in. Although why they’d choose CoLab and not, say, the Four Seasons Hotel Ritz is anybody’s guess. Another travelling princess to make CJ’s life harder, no doubt. ‘Help me up, then!’ CJ instructs Luis, who is biting his lip in an attempt not to laugh, brow crumpled, eyes creased at the edges.
‘They belong to the new arrival,’ Luis confirms, as he finally holds out a hand. ‘Ashley something, gets in early this afternoon.’
‘And she’s sent all this ahead of time?’ CJ clarifies, dusting herself off.
Luis nods confirmation.
When CJ moved out here she brought a 15-kilo backpack on a wing and a prayer. That was it. Imagine being so highmaintenance, she thinks, as to need all of this. She’s sure the newbie is only here for a few weeks – and it’s spring already. Hot-weather clothes don’t even take up much space! What could she possibly have needed to pack? It’s so typical of most of the girls that pass through CoLab: overpacked, preening sovereigns, here for their social media content and seasonal flings. CJ has seen it all, and is unimpressed by most of it.
‘I hate her already,’ CJ decides, as is her way. There aren’t many people she does choose to like, after all – on account of most people being idiots.
2
Ash
She can’t believe she’s here, doing this, finally, against all the odds. From the back of her people carrier taxi with the blacked-out windows and a pleasantly silent driver, speeding along the motorway towards an impending three-month Spring Fling with Life (working title), Ashley Jane Davies feels that she can take her first deep breath of the day. The year. The past ten years. This is happening. She’s in Lisbon. And she’s going to … enjoy it? Question mark needed. Seriously. She’s beyond nervous.
Ash stares out the window and thinks about her day with disdain. She’d allowed three hours to check in and pass security at Bristol airport, and thank god she had: the lines for both were maddeningly long, full of screaming kids who wailed as frustratedly as she’d felt, and then after they’d boarded there was a delay until take-off. It’s one thing to be delayed when you can walk around the terminal but to be squashed up against the window next to a couple sickeningly in love and quite obviously on their first trip away together – the hand holding, the giggles, the way they did a crosswordon his phone and told each other,great job, baby!every time the other guessed the answer right, it was disgusting. Ash had wanted to warn the young girl, who must have been about twenty-five, her boyfriend a few years older:Be careful! He might steal your best baby-making years and then leave you high and dry, taking your hopes and dreams with him! Don’t count on him! You can only count on yourself! Freeze your eggs now, whilst you can, or you’ll end up like me: man-free, child-free, and with not a hope in hell of the future you want!Of course, if the girl had been anything like Ash was, thirteen years and two failed long-term relationships ago, she’d simply smile, ask to switch seats, and later refer tothe crazy lady on the plane, I don’t think she was well, bless her. Deranged, really.
