Chapter 20
The car did not break down as they skirted Barcelona in mild traffic, missing all of the sights of that historic city. There was no freak storm forcing them to take shelter in Tarragona, no accidents to leave them happily stranded as they passed a place called Miami Platja – ‘Miami Beach’ in Catalan. With only a short stop in a seaside town for coffee and more tomato bread with cheese and anchovies and a plate of fresh mussels, they sailed along the motorway with no hiccoughs, right to the exit for Pe?íscola.
Jo even managed to successfully navigate the complicated off-ramp, past a park that appeared to be populated with fake dinosaurs. Nothing at all stopped them from cruising into the town, where everything from hairdressers to supermarkets seemed to be named after dolphins, right to the beachfront hotel.
She couldn’t quite believe it when she put the car into park in the short-term zone out front. Everything was completely normal, from the patrons drinking their coffee and cocktails at the café next door, to the gentle rush of the ocean. She’d grown to expect drama.
She peered at Adrián to find him regarding her, his brow thick with uncertainty. Did they go in for one last make-out? She licked her lips, not content with the prospect of not kissing him. It was odd, considering the number of years she’d managed to quite happily not kiss him.
‘Mum!’
Positively leaping from the car with both embarrassment and relief that the decision had been made for her, Jo launched herself at the figure emerging from the hotel reception. His eyes were hidden under a thick sweep of brown hair as usual. His shoulders were hunched and he glanced away as soon as he saw her coming, but she’d heard the joy in his voice when he’d called out to her.
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, surprised when his spindly arms came around her in response. ‘I missed you, kiddo,’ she whispered, thinking of when he was small and had to cuddle into her tummy. Now the top of his head was higher than her nose.
Liss appeared and launched herself at both of them, her fierce hug refilling Jo like a jug of sangria – although it was too soon to be thinking of sangria again. ‘Oh, thank God, Mum. We’re supposed to go to the hairdresser this afternoon and I just can’t any more!’
‘Papá!’ A little boy Jo wouldn’t have recognised in a crowd dashed out of the hotel and flung himself at Adrián, who was still getting out of the car.
‘Oof,’ Adrián managed as the human missile made contact with his stomach. But he bent down and hauled the boy up with his good arm, settling his cheek on his son’s forehead and then pressing a kiss there. Oscar had straight, spiky brown hair and Jo guessed he was small for his age. His little arms wrapped around his father’s neck and clung.
Adrián crooned something in quiet Spanish and Jo had to tear her eyes away before she spent too long marvelling at the joy in his body language when he held his son and started thinking about how much she’d miss that casual affection.
Liss caught sight of something over Jo’s shoulder and she turned slowly, slipping her arms around both of her kids. She knew what – or rather who – must be standing there, but it didn’t make it any easier to force herself to turn around.
Her gaze settled on her ex-husband with a flash of feeling she didn’t want. Words like ‘new family’ and ‘first real marriage’ rose up in her throat with a surge of bitterness, along with the urge to shout, ‘Why did you make my life so complicated?’
Instead, she arranged a tight smile on her face and said, ‘Ben. I finally made it.’
He approached and she resisted a grimace as she lifted her face for a kiss on the cheek. She hated that even a greeting was never right between them, that thirteen years of her life were now a source of cold discomfiture.
‘I was starting to believe you never would,’ he said, as though they shared an inside joke. Liss bristled at the suggestion and Jo’s stomach clenched.
‘Jo!’ Mónica swept through the doors in a jumpsuit made of fine red crepe and a pair of sparkly high-heeled sandals and Jo, seven years older, make-up-free, in a pair of cheap shorts and a T-shirt with no bra, felt the comparison keenly. But Mónica was a picture of ease and grace as usual, grasping Jo in a perfumed embrace and kissing both of her cheeks as though greeting Ben’s sister and not his ex-wife.
Jo caught sight of Adrián over Mónica’s shoulder, staring at his ex, and a new anger against this woman rose in her throat. She’d had Adrián’s love and commitment and she’d thrown it away because she’d been too immature to work through change. The stirring of anger and jealousy on her part wasn’t fair – or reasonable – but she felt it anyway.
‘You have eaten lunch? Come and sit down. It’s so hot. I’ll get you a drink,’ Mónica said.
‘Thanks, I’m?—’
‘Where is your suitcase? Oh, silly me, we have it! Come on inside.’
Jo glanced back at Adrián, who only shrugged. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed she hadn’t greeted him.
‘Adrián!’ Mónica called, making Jo jump. She said something to him in rapid Spanish while he jostled Oscar on his arm and eventually had to put him down.
‘Bueno,’ he said, seeming to agree to whatever she’d barked at him. He turned to Oscar, recovering a conspiratorial smile. ‘?Estás bien, campeón? ?Vamos!’
He headed for the street with Oscar’s hand in his and Jo belatedly remembered that ‘vamos’ meant ‘let’s go’. She gazed after him, her thoughts and feelings such a mess. ‘Um!’ she called after him before she’d thought it through. She caught sight of the guitar in the Corsa and hoped that was the reason she’d felt he shouldn’t leave yet. ‘What should I do with the guitar? And your bags.’
He just looked at her for a heartbeat and understanding of several different things passed between them: This is really awkward; we had a good few days while it lasted; goodbye? ‘I’ll find you later to get the keys, if that’s okay?’ Yes, that’s okay. ‘Oscar wanted to go to the park – now.’ His smile grew lopsided and wry.
‘Ah, okay. I suppose the guitar will be all right in the car for a few hours,’ she commented.
‘Yes, it’s not as though Alberto hid the family’s valuable heirloom jewellery in the case or anything. Six ruby necklaces in the lining!’
‘You insisted the guitar itself was valuable,’ she grumbled at his overdone humour.
‘I’ll come and find you as soon as I get back. Don’t you three have a date at the ice cream parlour?’
‘Yes!’ Dec said, his voice breaking with more enthusiasm than Jo had seen from him in weeks.
‘Looks like we have plans!’ she said, tugging him to her and trying her best to leave everything else behind.
Morning dawned on Wednesday – or wedding-minus-two-days, as Adrián grumpily thought of it – with more unpleasant ex-family business on the agenda after a quiet evening when he’d mercifully been able to grab some dinner with Oscar and retreat to their room.
He’d spent the night with a pair of small feet in his ribs because the hotel had no more twin rooms or trundle beds. Oscar slept in any position except with his head on the pillow and performed sleep-yoga at least three times in the night but that was merely one of many reasons Adrián felt groggy that morning.
Even though he was dreading the breakfast room, he hurried downstairs early with Oscar – partly because his son had been up since the crack of dawn. Once inside the room, he made a beeline for the coffee machine. If Adrián had to finally say hello to his ex-parents-in-law that morning, then at least he was going to do so with caffeine in him.
The contrasting feelings should have been enough to snap him out of the haze of contentment from the past five days, but he felt out of kilter, as though he’d travelled to another dimension and hadn’t properly returned yet. Everything he saw, he wanted to talk to Jo about, like the time Oscar had been to see the exhibit of arachnids at the Natural History Museum and then talked spiders for three weeks straight.
The doors of the breakfast room swished open and Jo and her son appeared. She wore a fitted linen dress – something from her own suitcase, in contrast to the cheap T-shirts she’d bought when they were stranded and that one flowery dress that had been dunked in the Mediterranean. He’d liked that dress. He liked this dress too.
She glanced at him and his mouth turned up in a smile before he’d decided how to react. She shared his grin with a quick one of her own and then turned away, making him realise he was probably staring at her with a goofy smile. He forced his attention back to coffee, asking Oscar if he wanted to press the button on the machine.
‘Adrián?’ he heard behind him and he bit back a groan. So much for that coffee.
Turning slowly, he came face-to-face with the man who had gruffly welcomed him to the family twelve years ago when he and Mónica had announced they were married. ‘Buenos días—’ He cut himself off with the word ‘suegro’ for father-in-law on his tongue. What was he supposed to call him now? It would be rude to use the first name of an elder, but the man wasn’t related to him any more.
‘Alberto,’ he choked out when Mónica’s father appeared to be waiting for him to finish.
The man’s only reaction was a twitch in his cheek which Adrián nonetheless interpreted as outrage. Alberto was as austere and straight-backed and paunchy as always, even though Adrián hadn’t seen him in three years. Instead of a greeting, Alberto said, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the old guitar.’
‘Mmhmmph,’ was all Adrián managed in reply.
‘Papá, they don’t have any Weetabix.’ Thank God for Oscar, although his son’s Britishness made more muscles in Alberto’s face twitch.
With a tight smile for the older man, Adrián nabbed his coffee from under the machine and steered Oscar in the direction of the buffet. ‘No Weetabix, but there’s something better – watermelon! It’s like being allowed to have sweets for breakfast.’
‘I can have sweets for breakfast?’ Oscar replied in Spanish, his wide-eyed gaze whipping up to Adrián.
A quick glance around the room revealed many a disapproving scowl. ‘No, mijo,’ he said, ruffling Oscar’s hair. He leaned close to speak so no one would overhear. ‘But those churros have just as much sugar. Don’t tell the tías.’
He’d forgotten how many aunts Mónica actually had, but it was many – and even more who weren’t her real aunts, but the family used the title anyway.
Plates piled with watermelon and churros, he ignored the prickle on the back of his neck that suggested he’d provided the entertainment for the morning in the form of his stilted conversation with Alberto, and located a table for two – coincidentally with a good line of sight to where Jo sat listening to something Declan was saying.
Her hair was down around her shoulders – damp and wavy. Oops, he was staring again. When he glanced away, a middle-aged woman gave him a pointed look and panic spiralled up his throat. If anyone found out he and Jo had… done what they’d done, the disapproving wedding gossip machine would have a field day. Mónica would freak out and Jo – he wasn’t quite sure how Jo would react, but he wouldn’t chance making the situation worse for her than it already was.
Ignoring everyone except Oscar, he sipped his coffee and discussed the episodes of Bluey they’d watched together last night, although his son wasn’t very talkative that morning. His phone buzzed and he glanced at it, snatching it up when Jo’s name appeared on the screen. She’d sent him two emojis, the guitar one and a grimacing face.
He glanced up, briefly catching her eye and trying not to smile.
She’d just fetched a plate of bread and cold cuts – not that he was watching – when the doors swished open again and she froze mid-step. Not a newspaper moved, no plates clinked. The entire room – which was mostly made up of wedding guests – appeared to be watching the ex-spouse show.
‘Jo!’ came an exclamation from behind Adrián. He was desperate to turn around and see, but he wouldn’t, for her sake.
‘Rita, hi. Ford.’
Adrián couldn’t stand it. He peered over his shoulder to see Jo stiffly accepting kisses on the cheeks from an older couple.
‘Sweetheart, it’s been an age!’ the woman, Rita, declared, squeezing Jo’s arms. Sweetheart? All right, maybe keeping a term of endearment after the dissolution of a marriage was more awkward than giving one up. ‘Where are you sitting? We have so much to catch up on!’
Jo’s shoulders sank in slow acceptance of her fate and she gave a limp gesture in the direction of her table before leading them to it. Adrián picked up his phone and sent her a vomiting emoji, inordinately proud when she glanced at it and bit her lip around a smile. He watched her tapping something into her phone and waited for his own to vibrate.
She’d sent him an eye-rolling emoji. Unable to resist, he tapped on the kiss emoji and sent it off. She replied with a finger-to-lips emoji, a clear message that they shouldn’t be flirting in any form in the breakfast room at Ben and Mónica’s wedding hotel.