Chapter Twelve
Back at our apartment block I trudge up the communal stairs deciding I won’t inform Mum of the Tiago dinner development.
That sort of information would be too much for her to handle, what with her incessant need for me to make friends and get out into the big wide world.
When I get to the landing outside our apartment, there’s a hiss of voices and a strange man runs down the hallway with only a towel wrapped around his waist. How shameful!
We have an exhibitionist in our midst! So little time, so many mysteries.
I unlock the front door ready to tell Mother that she best be on guard but she’s not there. Unusual.
On silent feet, I attempt to creep to my room, but like the shadow warrior she is, she appears, her face flushed and the buttons on her dress done up wrong. ‘Querida, you’re home, so early!’ Oh dear. The wheels are well and truly falling off. We have another mystery in our midst.
Grinning at her phone over her step count tally.
Flushed complexion and buttons done up wrong.
Mother is suffering a clear case of burnout. She works a physical job in a laundry and obviously there’s the issue of finding out her adoring faithful husband was, in fact, neither adoring nor faithful. This sort of unravelling was always bound to happen.
Time to explode another bomb, a truth bomb this time.
‘I’d like you to know that despite your meddling, you’re an exceptional mother.’
At that her expression softens, the tightness behind her eyes falls away. ‘Well, thank you, Viviane. That’s kind of you to say.’
‘You’re welcome. Do you think perhaps you’re working too much? Taking too much on board?’ I point to her buttons.
‘Oh – I – ah.’
‘Mother, now is not the time for a song. Level with me. Are you planning on seeing someone?’
‘I’m not seeing anyone!’
I frown, why is she so vehement about this? ‘You always rave about the wonders of a good therapist.’
Hand on heart, she exhales a long breath. ‘Oh, see a therapist. Yes, I mean, no. I’m totally fine. I promise, darling. I’d let you know if I wasn’t, you know that.’
What did she think I meant? Dare I make things worse? ‘By the way, there was a naked man in a towel on the landing. I probably should file a police report about it.’
Her eyes widen. ‘No, no, don’t do that!’
I frown. ‘Men can’t swan around sans clothes, Mother. It’s depraved!’
‘He was probably in the pool!’ What pool? Our apartment complex is not exactly fancy, in fact, it’s the very opposite. ‘Anyway, how was book club, tell me every detail, every single thought that fluttered through your mind!’
‘Oh, Mum, we need to find you a hobby.’
‘Ha!’
‘I trust you used your reserves of willpower and managed to stay away from Pastelaria História despite being endlessly intrigued by this strange new turn in my life?’
My notebook of mysteries is crooning to me, but I can’t outwardly show this, or my bloodhound of a mother will get every detail out of me, and then there will be no stopping her, she will find Lucinda and demand answers.
Effective yes, but possibly a step too far while the situation is still tenuous.
‘Used reserves I didn’t even know I had!’ A strangled chuckle escapes her, but I don’t have time to consider it because she launches into the next thing. ‘I met up with your aunty Lara and your cousin Catarina for coffee earlier, and they send their love.’
‘Is Catarina still holding that grudge against me?’
Mum grimaces. ‘Sim.’
‘Unbelievable. Honestly, her bitterness is very unbecoming.’ Cousins, eh?
Mum’s eyebrows knit, giving her a confuddled look. ‘You announced at her wedding that Catarina’s groom was “a desperate, attention-seeking narcissist with little to no intelligence”.’
Not this again. It was all the family talked about for months. ‘I stand by that. He is living proof that the cliché “love is blind” is alarmingly true. What does she see in the guy? I can’t think of one redeeming trait, and I tried. I really, really tried.’
Her lips wobble as if she’s going to laugh or cry, not sure which. ‘Look, I don’t think much of the guy either but dropping that … revelation at the beginning of their wedding ceremony might have been a step too far.’
I scoff. ‘The priest himself asked if anyone had any reason this couple shall not be joined in holy matrimony. Why ask if they don’t want the question to be answered?’ I’m still genuinely baffled by the alleged faux pas I made.
Mum waves my protestations off. ‘Just promise me you won’t say a word if you hear that question asked again at the next family wedding.’
‘Last I heard I wasn’t going to be invited to any more family weddings.’ A cause for celebration if there ever was one. If I’d known that all I had to do was give an honest account of the groom to get a lifetime ban, I’d have done that aeons ago.
Mum’s gaze changes into the shifty variety. ‘The extended family have forgiven you, it seems. Or are at least willing to risk it again.’
I sigh. ‘That’s unfortunate. Which cousin is it this time?’
‘Ida.’
My shoulders slump. Ida’s getting married? Do they not care one jot about their autonomy, these cousins of mine? ‘Do I really have to go?’
‘Sim. Half of Porto will be there.’
I latch on to that piece of luck. ‘Great, so they won’t notice if I’m not in attendance, surely?’
‘Ida wants you there, under strict instructions that you won’t utter a single word at the ceremony or the speeches during the reception. She loves you and looks up to you as her older cousin.’
Absolutely none of that is true. Ida is a petulant twenty-six-year-old who wears far too much make-up and uses some volumizing device on her hair that makes it stand so high above her head that the Sixties called and asked for their beehives back.
She also takes great delight in hiding my noise-cancelling headphones at family parties and watching the fallout.
She hasn’t done it since I mentioned how flammable her hair products are and how I carry a lighter with me just in case it comes in handy one day.
‘Ida loves me but is silencing my voice? That’s not love, that’s control.’
Mum shakes her head. ‘Well, she just wants it to go smoothly and says you can bring a plus one. In fact, she insisted on it.’
I narrow my eyes. ‘A plus one? She insisted, or you insisted?’ I can read this crafty soul like a book.
There’s a guilty twitch of Mum’s lips which is proof enough for me. ‘It doesn’t matter who insisted, it matters that you can bring a friend. It’s going to be a long day and this way, you’d have a friend to lean on, to chat with.’
This is Mum’s way of steering me closer to Tiago or a book club friend in the hopes I’ll cement a real friendship.
Or, quite possibly my wedding etiquette is below par and this may be a way to prevent another public spectacle like the one previously mentioned and they’re willing to sacrifice one of my new friends who’ll undoubtably be interrogated by my family to achieve that.
‘Fine. If I must go I will, but I am not bringing a friend.’
‘Oh, yes, you are. Ida insisted.’
‘Why does everyone around me get to do the insisting? How do I not matter in the equation? Is this because in their eyes I’m a twenty-nine-year-old spinster destined to walk the hallways alone?’
‘You will only remain alone if you choose to be. And as for Ida being the person doing all the insisting, it’s just the way it goes with weddings. Please, querida, do it for me? For the sake of family harmony.’
I harrumph even though it’s quite below my maturity level. This is a side effect of dealing with my many cousins and their many weddings. ‘Allow me to pack my bags for this ridiculous guilt trip you’ve got me marching towards.’
‘Ha! Think about it, Viviane. The family are always asking after you and are concerned that you don’t accept their invites. A wedding is a big deal, more so than a birthday party.’
‘Mother, there are sixty-three álverez cousins here in Porto alone. That’s a lot of events. Elisa’s birthday with all those sugar-happy, ten-year-old terrors pushed me over the edge. She used the pinata bat as a weapon. On partygoers’ shins! What a menace.’
Mum lifts a brow. ‘Remind you of anyone?’ I used to act out as a child in a similar fashion, and it’s annoying Mum remembers this.
My ten-year-old cousin is just a touch more violent, or if her mother is describing it, more ‘tactile’.
‘Little Elisa’s misunderstood, and you of all people should be able to empathise with that. ’
I huff. I hate it when she’s right. ‘Fine. I’ll consider attending yet another monotonous family wedding, but only because I’m being guilted into it and not because I want to go.’
‘Great. And keep that sort of thing to yourself. Who will you bring as your plus one? Tiago?’
‘Why Tiago? Simply because he’s of the male persuasion? Isn’t that a bit sexist? What if I happened to enjoy the company of a female friend and felt more comfortable in their presence, since weddings often send people into a lust-fuelled frenzy?’
‘A female friend is good too. But isn’t Tiago of a similar age to you?’
Wait. I sift through our previous conversations about Tiago and am positive at no time did I mention that he’s of a similar age to me.
I have the mind of a savant and do not forget details such as this.
I kept this information back from her on purpose.
Portuguese mothers hear that magic number and instantly think that he’s of a marriageable age, and before you know it, strings are being pulled and families have come together without the couple in question being any the wiser.
‘How do you know how old he is?’
She takes the tea towel from her shoulder and wipes the banister as if it suddenly needs her full attention. ‘An assumption, that’s all.’
‘Mother! You’ve been spying on me.’
Her face reddens. ‘I needed a loaf of bread from the padaria.’
‘You walked all the way to Rua dos Mercadores when there’s a perfectly adequate padaria nearby? With your ankle pain, you must have suffered up that hill.’
‘OK, fine, I walked there last week and peeped in. I wanted to make sure they were good people. It’s hard for me to let go sometimes. I just didn’t want another Scrapbook Sundays scenario.’
‘And you can tell they’re good people by sneaking a glance through a window?’ I can only shake my head. While she is the worst kind of helicopter mother there is, I remind myself it comes from a place of love.
‘Well, no, not really. It’s more that I looked at you and how you were reacting to them. When I peeked in, you were holding court, chatting away about Detective Amber Quill and I had quite the spring in my step after I left.’
Me holding court? I can’t see that ever being the case but it’s nice to think of Mum seeing me in a positive light, speaking confidently and not being ridiculed by others. ‘Let’s make a deal. I’ll keep my mouth firmly closed at Ida’s wedding if you stop staking out book club.’
‘Deal. If you invite Tiago as your plus one?’
I blow out a breath. I’ll have to set strict boundaries so Tiago understands this is one of those platonic dates with absolutely zero hope of any funny business.
I’ve seen firsthand how inhibitions are lowered at these ghastly curated affairs.
Not me though. Weddings are long, tedious and full of pomp and pageantry, and the only thing I yearn for is escape and the chance to change into more comfortable footwear.
‘Fine. But you’re not to interrogate him. ’
‘Not at all?’
‘Not even a little bit.’
Mother pouts. ‘You’re no fun.’
‘Neither are weddings.’ I arch a brow.