Chapter 12
Violet
As soon as the two of them were out of sight, I set off back to the house, all thoughts of Ynes and the promised cups of coffee abandoned. My dithering of that morning was replaced by a fervent need to act, to do something, a single thought repeating itself mantra-like in my mind as I barrelled past the hordes of tourists.
The sooner you do what needs to be done, the better for everyone.
Selling would mean an escape from so many of the mistakes I’d made, and now that I knew Henry had moved on with someone else, getting as far away from him as possible was the only thing I wanted to do.
Having stowed the few items of food I’d bought from the market in the fridge and set the cactus Ynes had given me on the windowsill, I retrieved a roll of refuse sacks from the drawer beneath the sink and tore a load off in quick succession. One for charity donations, a second for the tip, and a third for anything I would take back to England. Letting the kitchen door bang shut behind me, I crossed into the lounge area and went straight to the dresser – a hideous mahogany relic that had belonged to Antonio’s grandmother, and to which Henry was inexplicably attached. Over the years, it had become a dumping ground for all the detritus of our lives that we no longer used but were unwilling to throw away. Until now.
I sat down cross-legged on the floor and opened the first cupboard, easing out a tatty-looking cardboard box that promptly came apart and spewed a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle depicting an image of Palma Cathedral into my lap. It had been bought for Luke during his puzzle-loving phase, and that had to have been over a decade ago. I contemplated trashing it, but that felt wasteful, so instead I laboriously scooped the pieces back into the box, fastened an elastic band around to keep it secure, and put it carefully in my designated donation bag. There were more jigsaws stacked inside the dresser, and old board games such as Pop-Up Pirate and Hungry Hippos. I could not imagine myself, Henry and Luke ever sitting down as a family to do something as light-hearted as gobbling tiny balls with mechanised hippopotamuses, and so these, too, I decided to give away. In a papery thin carrier bag stuffed down at the back, I unearthed a sketchbook of Luke’s early drawings, and lost myself for a time flicking through its pages. He had taken to illustration in much the same way foxgloves do to abandoned churchyards, flourishing over the course of one summer into a naturally talented artist. Rather than create strange creatures from his imagination or draw stick people with bulbous heads, Luke turned to the things around him for inspiration. Among the early efforts in this book were a bank of artichoke plants, lemons in a wicker trug, the grey tortoiseshell cat that used to snooze under our patio table, and Henry’s old red jeep, complete with its driver. I touched a finger to the crayon scribble of dark hair, running it down over the pink, unblemished face below. Luke had depicted Henry in sunglasses, his mouth not a semicircle of cheerful red but the straight black line of a frown.
Closing the book, I placed it in the ‘keep’ sack and got started on the second overflowing cupboard, my hand almost immediately encountering the soft edge of a photo album. I thought I’d taken all of these back to the UK two summers ago, but this one must somehow have been missed. It was an old-style album, with adhesive pages and peelable plastic coverings. Looking inside risked becoming upset, but my glimpse of Henry had pushed me into a ‘to hell with it’ mood. Flipping open to the first page, my breath came to a sharp halt as I was confronted with an image of myself, pregnant and impossibly young, beaming up towards Henry. His eyes were on me rather than the camera, a tanned hand placed protectively on my swollen bump. I remembered that Ynes had been the one to take it. She’d passed by with some baby clothes and a few bits and pieces, and Henry had asked her if she’d mind capturing the moment. He’d tried to fit us into the frame himself, he told her, but my belly was far bigger than his arm was long. Our shared laughter was clear in the image, the pair of us aglow with happiness and excitement.
I’d seen enough, and putting down the photo album, I stood and left the room, not stopping until I’d slopped a double measure of gin into a glass and topped it up with a small splash of tonic. This time, when I took a gulp, I didn’t wince. All I felt was relief at having doused my tears in time, and distemper at my own hot-headedness. There could be no more nostalgia; no more dredging up the past. I would have plenty of time to mourn my marriage later.
The front door opened. I heard it, but didn’t move, watching through the gap behind the kitchen door as Henry came into view. He must have spotted the spilled innards from the dresser through the front window, because instead of going upstairs he strode briskly through to the lounge. There was no call of ‘Vee’ or an exclamation of surprise; Henry remained silent, and when a few minutes had passed and he had yet to re-emerge, I drained what was left of my gin and went in to join him.
‘Hello,’ I said, from the doorway.
He was kneeling on the rug, head down, the scarred half of his face shadowed by the peak of a blue cap. He turned at the sound of my voice.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he said.
‘Thought I may as well get a start on things.’
Henry nodded slowly. ‘Find anything interesting?’
‘Plenty.’ I went further into the room. ‘Some of Luke’s old drawings. I’d forgotten quite how good he was, right from the first time he picked up a crayon.’
A whisper of a smile passed across Henry’s lips. ‘Another skill he inherited from you.’
‘Hardly,’ I retorted. ‘The only thing I’m any good at sketching is plants. Luke does the flowers and the vase, and the table it’s sitting on, and the view through the window behind it. Do you remember the year he decided to draw the Calvari Steps – all three hundred and sixty-five of them?’
Henry made a small noise of amusement. ‘He made me count them to make sure he hadn’t missed any. I was cross-eyed by the time I’d finished.’ At the mention of his eyes, he raised an unconscious hand to the one that was damaged – a gesture that made my heart contract as if pierced. But no sooner had my sympathy been stirred than I remembered the dark-haired woman in the lane, her hand in his, mouth open, skirt swirling, and everything inside me that had softened hardened once again.
Henry picked up the photo album I’d been looking through, and I watched as he turned over the first page, mumbling something I didn’t quite catch.
‘What was that?’
Henry looked at me with a steadiness that did nothing to soothe my agitation.
‘So young,’ he said quietly. ‘We were just kids.’
He was right, of course, but that did not stop the remark from rankling.
‘Well, sorry if I didn’t turn out to be world’s number one wife and mother.’
‘That wasn’t what I— Why do you always react like this?’ He blew air into his cheeks. ‘I mean, what’s the point of me saying anything? You always find a way to twist it into an attack.’
I folded my arms. ‘If I’m taking offence, it’s because you’re saying things that I find offensive.’
Henry gawped at me, understandably bewildered. ‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ he said. ‘I can’t do it. I decided after—’ He put down the album and got to his feet. ‘You’re obviously on top of everything,’ he gestured to the mess, ‘but please don’t throw things away simply because you’re in a huff with me. You might not want to look at photos of the two of us, but Luke might someday – or his children.’
‘Fine,’ I said curtly, picking up the sack I’d been using for charity donations. ‘No photos.’
As I continued to haul items out from the dresser, Henry stood and watched. The sorrow that had settled between us felt oppressive – a fog through which my emotions could do little more than stumble. We’d had so much, he and I, and now there were only remnants, scraps of a marriage, wisps of what once had been love. A fuzzy-felt farm went into the bag, followed by a Care Bear teddy and a pencil case full of felt-tip pens, and throughout all of it, Henry said nothing – not until I extracted a blue wooden box.
‘Not that,’ he said, crouching to take it from me.
‘I remember this,’ I said, as he slid open the lid. ‘It looks good as new still, doesn’t it?’
Henry appeared stung as he rocked backwards on his heels, the toy clutched close to his chest. ‘That figures,’ he said, so dolefully that I almost gave in to my perpetual yearning to reach for him. ‘It’s been in the back of that cupboard for years. I put it there when Luke...’
He trailed off, but I knew what he’d been about to say. Both of us carried wounds from that day, though I saw now that it was Henry’s whose ran the deepest.