Chapter 25
Violet
‘Henry, wait!’
He didn’t wait. Instead, he slammed his way out of the house with such ferocity that I feared all the windows would shatter.
‘I need to go after him,’ I said to a decidedly scandalised Mags and Malcolm. ‘Just leave your contact details on the side and close the door behind you when you go.’
While I didn’t exactly relish the idea of two strangers poking around unchaperoned, I was more fearful of the state Henry would work himself into if left alone to brood.
Hurrying out across the front garden, I got on to the street beyond just in time to see him reach the corner and hesitate for a moment before heading uphill, away from the town. There was a spot he liked to go, not far from El Calvari chapel, where a grove of olive trees stood like guards against the hillside. Deep at its heart was a clearing, a small pocket where you could lie flat on the ground and stare up at the sky.
‘You found my hiding place,’ Henry said, not ten minutes later, half turning as I approached. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, the can of beer nestled in one of his discarded boots.
‘I’d have known my way to it blindfolded,’ I said, ignoring the voice in my head that urged me to kneel down behind him, wrap my arms around him, pull him close.
‘If you want this place to stay a secret, you have to stop telling people about it.’
Henry grunted. ‘You’re the only one I’ve told.’
My mind strayed unbidden to the woman I’d seen him with, the relief at knowing he hadn’t yet shared this place with her was palpable.
‘Can I sit?’
‘Knock yourself out.’
‘You’d probably prefer that.’
He took a swig of beer and eyed me with disdain. ‘Then I’d have to carry you back up the hill, and between you and me, I’m not sure I’ve got the strength – not after a morning spent propping up roof joists.’
‘You need an apprentice.’
I regretted the comment as soon as I’d made it. Henry had taken on an apprentice, a young lad, Barney, from a college local to us in Cambridge, who’d found the education system tricky to navigate. One of the many support networks we tried and hopelessly failed to get Luke to engage with put us in touch with him, and Henry had offered him a slot on his team shortly afterwards. Of course, that had all fallen into disarray the summer before last, and though House-a-Home had continued to limp along, fulfilling pre-booked projects using temporary staffers, losing his mentor had come as a huge blow to Barney. Upon learning that Henry planned to stay in Mallorca indefinitely, he had quit and was now working in a pub. I’d seen him there one day by chance, during a leaving drinks for a colleague at the estate agency, and had been shocked by how deflated he was, how sad and small.
Henry must have been thinking about Barney as well, but for whatever reason – guilt, perhaps – he didn’t mention him. Instead, he just shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, arranging myself quietly on the ground next to him.
‘For?’
‘For not warning you about Malcolm and Mags.’
Henry made a gesture of acknowledgement.
‘And I know they’re a bit –’ I looked sideways at him – ‘much, but Mags mentioned two million euros to me as if it was nothing. Two million, Henry – think what that would do for Luke’s future – we’d be able to set him up in his own place, mortgage-free. Remove all the additional stress from his life.’
He considered this, taking a long drink of beer to buy himself some time.
‘Is that really what’s best for him? What he wants?’
‘Isn’t a home and a stress-free life what everyone wants?’
Henry shrugged.
‘Have you ever asked him?’
‘Have you?’
I sighed. ‘Why must we always do this, Henry? Play this game of tug of war with our son as the rope?’
He dropped his chin to his chest. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I want what’s best for him. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘And you think I don’t?’
‘No.’ I let out a bleat of frustration. ‘I just wish our ideas of what was best for him were aligned. They used to be, when he was little, remember?’
Henry picked at a spot of dried paint on his overalls. ‘I always imagined that Luke would inherit La Casa Naranja one day,’ he said. ‘I wanted to hand over the key to him, just like my father did for me.’
We had discussed this precise scenario many times, the first being not long after Luke was born, when my parents gave me a lump sum to ensure my name was added to the deed. ‘An early inheritance,’ my dad had called it, and Henry, who’d been considering giving the house up due to spiralling costs, had been only too happy to accept. He had always thought of it as our home, he’d said. All the money did was make it official. We both wanted it to stay in our family – but that had been before.
‘You were the one who listed the house,’ I said quietly.
He grimaced. ‘I know. I was angry when I did that.’
‘Are you still angry?’
I willed him to look at me, but he didn’t. Couldn’t.
‘I’m sad, Vee.’
I felt myself crumple. ‘Like father, like son,’ I said. ‘Eliza told me earlier that Luke is sad as well. I guess that makes three of—’
‘Why don’t we wait?’ he said, suddenly hopeful. ‘Hold on to the house until Luke has finished his degree at least?’
I shook my head, cringing as he threw up an exasperated hand.
‘Why not, Vee? He’s a student – he doesn’t need a bloody house of his own yet. He doesn’t even know what he wants to do, where he wants to live, who he even is.’
‘That’s all very well,’ I said, staring not at him but at the dry earth. ‘But the fact remains that the house is our only shared asset. If you still want to get a divorce, we need to split everything, and that means selling.’
‘Shared asset.’ He practically spat the words at me. ‘You sound like a lawyer bot.’
I remained silent while Henry raked through the ground with his fingers, stoic in the midst of his agitation.
‘Do you not think you’ve taken enough away from me already?’
I took a deep breath.
‘Why are you so desperate to sell all of a sudden?’ he persisted. ‘Why now?’
‘I live in my mother’s house,’ I said stonily. ‘I sleep in my childhood bedroom.’
‘So, move out.’
I laughed at that, but without humour. ‘Have you any idea what it costs to rent a place in Cambridge? A house with enough space for Luke, should he need it? I can’t very well go into a flat share with a load of students. And work is...’ I trailed off, unwilling to admit I’d all but been sacked. He thought so little of me already.
‘If it’s just money you need, I can help. The business can give you a loan.’
A torrent of self-loathing surged through me. ‘I don’t want to rely on handouts from you any more, Henry; I want my own money in the bank, and to be able to make a bloody decision about what to buy without having to run it past you – or anyone else. I want some bloody autonomy.’
Rather than dismiss me, Henry listened, his jaw working as cogs turned in his mind. I found it astounding that he was still willing to be receptive to me at all, and my body slackened into despair as I considered yet again what I’d lost, who I had hurt. I hated that there was a barrier between us; I hated that I was no longer allowed to touch him, comfort him, love him.
‘I’m not like you,’ I mumbled. ‘I don’t have a career, or a skill set. I never got the chance to get good at anything.’
‘You do have skills,’ he countered, draining the last of his beer. Froth spilled out from the can over his stubbled chin, and he wiped the back of his hand across his face. I studied him for a moment, saw how the scarred flesh had pulled the left side of his mouth down in a permanent scowl, a fixed point of sorrow I was helpless to cure.
‘I never wanted to stop working for our business,’ I said, needing him to know, wanting him to understand. ‘House-a-Home, it was everything to me. Having to leave and go back to being trapped at home all the time broke my heart, but it wasn’t like I had any choice. There was never any question that I would be the one to make the biggest sacrifice.’
Henry’s eyes were wide as he turned to face me. He looked genuinely shocked.
‘Is that really how you remember it? Because what I recall is us not having a choice. I didn’t want you to be stuck at home either, but one of us had to be out earning and you’d made it very clear to me many times over who the better parent was. Can you honestly sit here now, Vee, and tell me that if I’d offered to be the one who spent ninety-nine per cent of their time with Luke, you’d have been fine with it?’
I could not, as he well knew.
‘Jesus, Vee, I know it was hard for you, but it was tough for me, too.’
If I spoke, I would cry, and I didn’t want to cry again, not in front of him, not when he had suffered so much pain because of me. I looked around us at the olive trees, each so strong and salient, and wished I could be more like them; weather every storm and come back stronger; grow a new branch and put out leaves every spring, no matter how harsh the winter had been. But unlike the roots surrounding us, which were grounded deep in the earth, I had rooted myself in the love I shared with Henry, and that had all been ripped apart.
‘It’s still hard for me,’ I said quietly. ‘I feel like he’s a missile and I’m the target he’s locked onto, and all the time, I’m waiting for him to be fired.’
Henry nodded grimly. ‘I know what you mean.’
But did he really? Had he ever had a physical reaction to our son? An ache that brought him almost to his knees?
‘You asked me just now if I’ve talked to him as if that’s an easy thing to do. Haven’t you noticed how Luke hates any mention of the future? Any modicum of pressure to make decisions. What if he’s never able to tell us what he wants? Do we hold on to the house and continue to struggle financially because there’s a chance he might one day want it?’
‘I’m not struggling financially.’ Henry sounded nonplussed.
I clenched my teeth. ‘No, of course you’re not, because you live here, rent free, and you work full time. I don’t have those options; I have to stay in England and—’
‘Why?’ he interrupted. ‘Why do you have to stay there?’
I looked at him sharply. ‘Because our son is there. He might be at university, but he still needs a bolthole in case he... in case things go wrong; he still needs to know that one of us can be there in a few hours.’
‘He needs those things?’ countered Henry. ‘Or you do?’
‘For god’s sake, he’s only nineteen. It wasn’t so long ago that we couldn’t leave him unsupervised at all in case he harmed himself.’
The truth landed hard, and I saw the flicker of hurt as it passed across Henry’s scarred face. The sun had moved as we’d been talking, and the clearing was bathed in warm light. I could hear the chirp of cicadas in the trees, the faintest whisper of wind.
‘I’ll do a deal with you.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘I’ll agree to sell La Casa Naranja to those frightful people if you tell me the real reason you want me to.’
I sat up a fraction straighter, wariness making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
‘You know why. I just told you why.’
‘No, you told me lawyer speak, but I know there’s something you’re keeping from me – another piece to this puzzle that you won’t –’ he frowned – ‘or can’t tell me.’
I started to argue only to be silenced by a look.
‘I know you, Vee,’ he said. ‘I’ve known you a long time. You can be honest with me.’
I shook my head, unable to speak, defiantly not meeting his eye.
‘Whatever it is,’ he said, inching closer to me, ‘we can sort it.’
There was a hole in one of his socks. I could see the nail of his big toe, smooth and pink with health, and burned with the need to touch it – touch him. When I didn’t answer, Henry raised a gentle hand to my cheek. A long moment passed where neither of us spoke or moved, and then, very slowly, I edged away from him.
‘There’s no big secret,’ I said, and the lie was like acid in my throat. ‘I only want the money I’m entitled to so I can move on with my life and you can move on with yours.’
‘And that’s what you want, is it?’ he said. ‘To move on?’
It was the very last thing I wanted.
‘It’s not as if I have a choice, is it?’
This was his chance to save us; find a way to forgive me.
Say yes, Henry. Please say yes.
‘No,’ he said, calm and solemn. ‘I guess you don’t.’