Chapter 10
Henry
Nineteen Summers Ago
Henry hadn’t thought it was possible to love a person more than he loved Violet, but he had underestimated quite how powerful it would be to watch her go through childbirth. Violet was bold, he’d been aware of that since the moment he spotted her legs dangling over his garden wall, but now he knew she was properly brave, too.
‘Do you want to hold him?’ she asked now, her voice still hoarse from screaming. It had been a ‘difficult labour’ the midwife told him. More difficult than many. And while Violet was fit and strong, she was also small – but never scared, not that. His girlfriend was determined to succeed, and so she did, but it had taken the best part of two days.
‘I do want to –’ Henry felt himself welling up – ‘but I’m... What if I do it wrong?’
‘You won’t.’ Violet’s weary smile found his. ‘Just don’t drop him, OK?’
It felt like a relief to laugh, albeit half-heartedly, and Henry wiped his eyes as he approached the bed. It was the first time the three of them had been alone as a family, and he hoped he wasn’t messing things up. He wanted Violet to be proud of him, although nothing he could ever do would come close to matching the sacrifices she had made – to her life, her body, her future.
‘He’s so tiny.’
Violet smiled again as she stared down at their son’s sleeping face. There were faint bruises on his temples from the forceps, and his expression was one of quiet fury.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t,’ Henry said, raising his hands. ‘He looks comfortable with you.’
‘He looks really pissed off,’ said Violet, and they both laughed, quietly so as not to wake the baby. ‘Poor boy, he’s inherited your resting face,’ she added, and Henry frowned on cue. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to hold him sooner or later, and now is as good a time as any. Besides, I want to drink that cup of tea the nurse brought in.’
‘What if he wakes up and cries?’
Violet winced as she attempted to shuffle back against her pillows.
‘Newsflash,’ she said wryly. ‘He’s a baby – I think waking up and crying is basically their MO. That and pooing, and puking, and holding on to your finger with their tiny hand until you forgive them for all the other stuff I just mentioned.’
Henry reached across and brushed a few tendrils of hair off her forehead. Sweat had darkened it to a copper beech hue, while her writhing had swirled the top into an untidy nest. To Henry, she had never looked more beautiful. He wanted to tell her so but felt too choked to speak. The enormity of this moment, and of the decision they had made to keep their baby now so shockingly unequivocal, was at risk of overwhelming him, and Henry looked down to find that his hands were shaking.
He could still recall the day Violet told him she was pregnant. It was the twenty-third of October, and Henry had been working on the house since dawn. Having sourced enough second-hand barrel tiles to fill the gaps on the roof, he had clambered up there only to discover that the wooden panels below were split and cracked, which added not only a considerable amount of time on to the project, but cost, too. He was fast running out of funds now that the peak tourist season had drawn to an end, and his shifts at the Majestic Hotel in Port de Pollen?a were dwindling. Soon, Henry knew, he would have little choice but to accept a job working for his father, but the idea of that made him uneasy. He loved Antonio; he just didn’t like him much.
Violet didn’t know how fortunate she was to have, as she put it, ‘normal, boring parents’. As far as he was concerned, normal and boring trumped absent and dodgy any day of the week, and even though Henry knew that Violet’s dad and especially her mum were wary of him, he still admired them.
Since the first two heady weeks they’d spent together back in late May, Violet had returned to Mallorca twice – once for a long weekend in July, accompanied by her mother, and again for a week at the very end of August. The latter trip had been different to the others because Violet had arrived alone and stayed with Henry in his Pollen?a studio apartment. They had grown close – closer than he ever had to anyone – and lain awake together until the small hours, limbs entwined on his narrow, single bed, plotting their future together. Henry would finish doing up the house while Violet finished her A levels, then he would rent it out and move to England while she studied for her degree. After that, the two of them would travel the world. Violet liked the idea of volunteering, doing some teaching, perhaps, while Henry simply wanted to build. Where he did it was of little importance, so long as she was there with him.
There was no phone at his apartment, so Henry had got into the habit of calling Violet from the telephone box not far from the bus station. As he dialled, his attention was drawn across the street to a bar, and the two elderly men playing a game of cards on a table outside it. One was smoking a pipe, while the other sipped a glass of what looked to be brandy. His father drank a ton of the stuff, enough of it that Henry often smelt Antonio’s pungent breath before he saw him.
‘Hello.’
He only had to hear her voice to feel better.
Henry smiled into the receiver. ‘I love you, Violet Lupton. I’m saying it now in case I forget to tell you later.’
‘Well, I love you, too, Enrique Torres.’
‘I’ve told you before,’ he said with a laugh, ‘it’s Henry – like the Hoover.’
He waited for her to join in with his laughter, frowning when she didn’t. ‘Qué pasa?’ he asked. What’s up?
‘I’m all right.’
She suddenly sounded a long way from all right, and Henry told her so.
‘How did it go with the roof?’ she asked.
‘I don’t care about the roof; I care about you.’
To his astonishment, Violet started to cry. A few minutes passed during which Henry did his best to comfort her, but she seemed unable – or unwilling – to tell him what was wrong. A list of increasingly fraught options lined up in his mind: she was sick, someone in her immediate family was sick; she’d failed an important test, been bullied at college, fallen out with a friend, fallen out of love with him. No, Henry consoled himself, she’d just told him she loved him. It couldn’t be that.
‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’ Henry fed another two-euro coin into the slot. One of the old men at the table stood up and went into the bar, a trail of pipe smoke curling in his wake.
Maybe she had cheated on him? The thought made him turn cold with dread.
‘You’ll be cross with me,’ she sobbed.
‘Of course I won’t.’ But he would, Henry thought, if she’d kissed someone else. He’d be cross enough to tear the world down.
‘I’m so stupid.’ Violet had stopped crying and was hiccupping instead, the tremble of fear in her voice unmistakeable. Henry yearned to wrap her up in his arms, tell her that everything would be OK, protect her from whatever it was making her sad.
‘You’re not stupid, you’re per—’
‘Pregnant,’ Violet wailed. ‘Pregnant is what I am.’
‘But...’ Henry trailed off, disbelief making his head spin. They had been so careful. She’d told him she was taking the pill, but he had insisted they use a condom as well, just to be sure, and he had stuck to that rule every time they had sex – every single time except...
‘Your last night here,’ he said.
Violet sniffed. ‘It must’ve been. I was sick the day before, after the gazpacho. I didn’t want to tell you in case it put you off me,’ she moaned. ‘Which seems really silly now.’
‘Silly,’ he agreed.
‘I knew that if you’re sick, it can stop the pill working, but I never thought that— I thought we’d be safe. I’m so sorry, Henry. I’ve ruined everything.’
‘No,’ he reassured her, ‘you haven’t. This isn’t your fault – it’s nobody’s fault.’
‘You aren’t angry with me?’
‘Vee, of course I’m not angry with you. How much of a bastardo do you think I am?’
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said in a rush. ‘I can take care of it and—’
‘I’m coming,’ he said, his decision made in the moments it took him to say the words. ‘It might take a few days, but I’ll be there. I promise.’
She told him not to, that she would be fine, but Henry was adamant.
‘Promise me you won’t make any decisions until I’m there?’
‘OK.’ She sniffed. ‘I promise.’
He remembered every word they’d said to each other.
In the hospital, Henry’s hands were still shaking, but he did not let it stop him from reaching down and scooping his son into his arms. Violet let out a small, contented sigh, sipping her tea as Henry lowered himself slowly into the chair, his eyes wet and bottom lip trembling.
‘I can’t believe I’m a dad,’ he murmured, glancing up to see tears glistening on Violet’s cheeks.
‘And I can’t believe I’m a mum. Eighteen years old and a parent – definitely a curveball I did not see coming.’
‘I’m going to look after you,’ Henry said, looking down once again at his sleeping son, taking in his feathery thatch of dark hair and tiny pursed lips, the soft black lashes and delicate little nose, his exquisitely perfect ears, and rounded cheeks.
‘You hear that, Luke Christopher Torres?’ he said. ‘I’m going to look after both of you for the rest of my life.’