Chapter 41
Violet
There looked to be close to a million euros, as well as a letter addressed to Henry. I had been the one to find it, the slim white envelope sliding between my fingers as I bent to help the others stuff the money back into the broken chest.
‘Here,’ I said, offering it to Henry. For a moment, he just stared at it, then snatching it from my hand, he folded it in half and shoved it deep into the pocket of his overalls. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, the priority was getting the cash off the street before someone noticed; the letter would have to wait.
Nobody spoke again until we were all back in the jeep, Luke in the passenger seat with Eliza behind him and me beside her. Henry had gone very pale, his jaw working as he chewed over his shock and, what, excitement? It certainly wasn’t an everyday occurrence to discover a real treasure chest, and when I made this point, Luke grinned in amusement.
‘I always did think of my father as a kind of pirate,’ said Henry. ‘I think if he could have got away with flying a Jolly Roger from the boat, he would have.’
‘What do we do with it all?’ I asked. ‘I mean, shouldn’t we take it to a bank?’
Henry turned around in his seat. ‘No, not yet – not till I know where it came from.’
‘We do kind of know,’ I said, glancing towards the remains of the chest. ‘It can only have been Antonio’s money, and he clearly wanted you to find it.’
Henry shook his head, both hands gripping the steering wheel. ‘I want to know where he got it,’ he said. ‘Whose money it is really.’
The compulsion to plead with him was strong, but I forced it down. Did he not see what this money could do for us – for me? If La Casa Naranja was worth the two million euros that Malcolm and Mags were willing to pay for it, then my share amounted to half that. Now that Henry had this cache of, well, cash, he could afford to buy me out, meaning the house would not have to be sold. It was a simple fix to a sticky problem and, as far as I was concerned, made perfect sense.
Henry had begun to tap his foot against the bottom of the jeep, his head lowered towards his hands as he considered his options. Luke glanced from Eliza to me, the three of us exchanging a ‘what now?’ look.
‘Henry,’ I began, only to be interrupted by the engine firing up. ‘I thought we were staying in Palma for dinner?’ I said hesitantly, although in truth, I was glad of an excuse to miss it. As much as I loved the tapas and extensive wine selection at our family favourite La Boveda, I didn’t have the funds to pay for either – not even close. Then again, it would’ve been nice to spend time wandering through the backstreets of the old town, past wooden doors and brightly painted shutters, artful graffiti, and sculptures, as well as perusing the craft stalls clustered opposite the harbour. I’d never known Palma not to throb with people, and to lose myself among the crowds, if only for a fleeting few hours, would perhaps have been a tonic of sorts.
‘Can’t.’ Henry tooted the horn, startling a group of tourists who’d idled into the road. ‘Need to stash this lot somewhere safe.’
Barely giving the passers-by time to reacquaint their shoes with the pavement, he accelerated forwards, the jeep’s brakes squealing in protest as we circumnavigated a small pla?a and powered out on to the main road. I watched as the capital fell away behind us in all its distinguished splendour, turning my gaze to greet the vast blue carpet of the Balearic Sea as we beetled along the waterfront.
Almost as if he sensed my yearning, Henry let out a low whistle.
‘Apologies,’ he said, addressing the car at large. ‘We can come back on another day.’
The others told him not to worry. They’d been here a few times already, having taken the bus down from Pollen?a, and Eliza had done ‘all the touristy stuff I wanted to do’. ‘I much prefer Pollen?a anyway,’ she said loyally, and Luke smiled to himself.
The further we drove out of the city, the harder I was finding it to focus on anything other than the stack of banknotes, my mind unhelpfully doing sums and presenting me with enticing facts. Each of those bundles, it whispered, comprises twenty thousand euros; one of those would go a long way towards solving your problems, two would wipe them out. Who would it really hurt if you took them? Wasn’t this fate’s way of ensuring that everyone got what they needed? Luke has his inheritance from Antonio, Henry has his share of the house, plus the business. It’s not fair if you’re the only one to end up with nothing at all.
Or was it? Hadn’t I ended up exactly where I deserved? An image of Henry from the previous night came to me then – his body above mine, his moan of pleasure as we moved together, the flick of his tongue against the hollow of my throat. During those moments, the rest of the world had fallen away, our desire too ferocious a component for even bitterness and resentment to beat. He had forgiven me, or so it had felt, and I’d wanted that feeling of relief to go on indefinitely; had hoped that a vestige of his mercy would survive the dawn, and that we would at last be able to try again.
It was with a certain amount of reluctance that I clambered out of the jeep an hour later, legs stiff and throat parched, unwilling to face whatever was coming next in this strangest of sultry hot days.
‘Wait here a minute, will you?’ Henry tossed me the keys. ‘Guard the mon— jeep. I need to get something.’
Luke and Eliza offered to stay with me, but I shooed them towards the house. Henry was back within a few minutes, an empty canvas bag in his hands.
‘Where are you going to stash it?’ I asked, as he scooped up the bundles.
‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure yet,’ he admitted. ‘I was thinking the loft, you know, that small space above the turret, but—’
‘But?’
‘What if that’s not secure enough?’ He frowned. ‘What if there’s a fire?’
‘It’s survived this long,’ I pointed out. ‘And unless you have a friend with a vault we can borrow, I don’t see what choice we have. La Casa is our safest place.’
‘You’re right,’ he agreed, pulling across the zip before lifting the bag from the jeep. ‘Whoa, that’s seriously heavy.’
‘Let me have a go.’
He stepped back and I took hold of the leather straps.
‘Bloody hell, it really is,’ I said, teeth gritted as I heaved it off the ground. ‘I suppose we should be grateful that he didn’t collect it all in two-euro coins.’
‘There’s probably another hoard of those somewhere else – under the floorboards of the boat perhaps? Buried in his back garden.’
‘Maybe he put a treasure map in with the letter.’
Henry raised a hand to his pocket. ‘I should read it.’
It was obvious he found the prospect daunting, that he was primed for further disappointment or upset. Other than the initial bout of grief that had spewed out of him so devastatingly the night Antonio died, Henry had remained outwardly impassive about the loss of his father. And while I’d wanted to broach the subject on multiple occasions, events had conspired against us. All I yearned to do now, as he stood turning the envelope over in his hands, was comfort him.
‘I’ll stay with you,’ I said quietly. ‘I won’t read it, if you don’t want me to, I’ll just be here, in case.’
He didn’t say anything for a while, nor did he raise his eyes to mine. A stray cat stalked out from where it had been sheltering in the shade of the low wall and rubbed its scrawny body against my ankle. I should feed it; take it inside and pour a bowl of milk, scrape some tuna from a tin on to a dish. Heat scratched and leaves stirred, a moped engine growled into life, leaving in its wake the sweetly cloying scent of gasoline, thick in the dry air.
‘Shall we go into the garden?’
I glanced up. There was a beseeching undertone to his words, and I thought I could understand why. The garden had always been where I went to feel protected, connected, and to have my soul nurtured – but I hadn’t guessed that Henry hankered after those feelings, too. Now, as I led the way around the side of the house, I wondered how I could have overlooked his affection for the space we’d both had a hand in creating. I had planted in beds that Henry dug, picked fruit from the trees he’d pruned, admired the distant mountains from pathways laid down by him, and all the while I’d selfishly deemed the area mine.
In silent consent, we followed the steps down until we reached the spot beside the wall, not far from where the fuchsia blooms of the gladiolus pushed proudly through the soil every year. The first flower Henry had ever picked me I had pressed behind glass. I still kept it propped beside my bed, a faded yet no less beautiful reminder of the delicate nature of love. I wished we had endured as it had.
Henry waited until we were settled, then he slid a finger under the flap, tore through the envelope, and cleared his throat. There was a single sheet of paper inside, messy blue scrawl covering one side of it, and I watched as he scanned what was written. It was all in Spanish, and his lips moved as he read, sounding out the words, making sense of their meaning.
‘I knew it,’ he said, tapping the page with his finger. ‘It’s black money,’ he said. ‘Ill-gotten gains. The profit he creamed off the top of every dodgy deal he did over the past ten years.’
Black money.We had discussed it, the four of us, joked about it during that first awkward dinner we’d had on the evening I arrived. It felt like a lifetime ago.
‘Can you face reading it to me?’ I asked, not really thinking he would.
Henry frowned, then nodded, and having straightened out the letter, he started to speak:
For my beautiful giant boy,
I am confident that you will be the one to find this, and I want you to know that I have saved it here for you. Do not be angry that the house and the business have gone to Mateo. It is the proper way of such things, and he will do what is right.
Now, I must be truthful and confess that I write this letter knowing I will not live to be an old man. I have been ill for some time. The doctor told me that I must stop doing the things that bring me pleasure, but I cannot exist in a life of rules and boundaries. That has never been my way. It is why I have saved this black money for you; I have it because of the fact that I refuse to obey the rules. Do not feel ashamed of your father; understand that he did not ever wish to do harm.
You are not similar to me, Enrique, and yet we are the same. When I look at you, I see the man I could have been, but I guess that you must think of me as a lesson in how not to be. Our path has not been a straight one, but what is a journey without hills and mountains? I have tried to challenge you, never lie to you, and always, my son, fiercely love you and—
Henry broke off, lowering the notepaper and wiping his eyes against his shoulders. Without waiting for permission, I stepped forwards and put my arms around him.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, easing away from me. ‘I’m all right – it’s just reading it aloud is hard. I’m being stupid.’
There were tears in my eyes, too. ‘What is a journey without hills and mountains?’ I murmured. ‘I’d no idea Antonio had it in him to be so poetic. I thought my father took the lead when it came to making profound statements, but it turns out they were both at it.’
He smiled a watery smile. ‘I still miss Christopher,’ he said.
‘And Antonio?’ I managed, though it was hard to get the words out.
Henry relinquished a weary breath, before glancing again at his father’s words. Defiant to the last, cheerfully unrepentant, and stubborn as ground elder, Antonio had, in the end, focused on the thing that mattered more than any other. Love.
‘Yes,’ Henry said, and for a split second, as he smiled at me, I saw a glimpse of the boy he’d once been.
‘But I wish more than anything that I didn’t have to.’