Chapter 46
Violet
I began the day of Antonio’s wake with a stroll along the seafront. Port de Pollen?a held so many memories, and as I wandered, I saw glimpses of the past. There was the bar beside the bus stop, where Tomas had accidentally hit poor Luke with his toy car, and here was the patch of shade below the sprawling pine trees, where Henry had brought me for our second official date. My mum and dad, not trusting this strange young man I’d happened across by chance, insisted on accompanying us, and sat up at a table along the promenade, sipping glasses of iced tea and watching our every move. I had complained, embarrassed to have such suffocating parents, but Henry had challenged me on it.
‘They care about you,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t ever be cross with them for that.’
It was later he told me more about his own family, the free-spirited mother who’d essentially abandoned him when he turned sixteen, the virtual stranger of a father he’d had no choice but to reach out to, and the bumpiness of their relationship since.
‘He must care about you,’ I’d argued. ‘He gave you a house.’
And while Henry had smiled, there’d been sadness behind it. Antonio had shown his affection through the giving of gifts, extravagant gestures rather than words, and it occurred to me now, as I continued my walk, that the letter we’d found with the black money might have been the first mention of love ever made from father to son.
‘I never told anyone I loved them, until I met you,’Henry had said to me, the first time we exchanged those three momentous words, and I’d felt so cherished, as if I was special, when what I should have felt was pity. Sorrow for this boy who’d had to become a man in order to experience love. Our love. A love I was sure would outlast both of us, the remnants of it passing through each new generation, from our child to theirs and so on, its force for happiness only gaining power as the years unfolded.
How could I give up on it?
Stepping down from the pathway on to the pale sand, I sat for a while by the shoreline, elbows propped on bent knees, staring out at a patchwork sea so busy with movement, as waves displaced pebbles, and the surface glittered brightly beneath its halo of sun. Wisps of indolent cloud stroked the distant mountaintops, boats bobbed offshore, and I felt the tendrils of a faint breeze as it drifted across me.
The knot of anxiety inside me began to ease, only to tighten again as panic intruded; thoughts of Corbin McCabe and his thinly veiled threats, of county court judgements and bailiffs, declarations of bankruptcy and frozen accounts, having to admit how far I had fallen, the extent to which I’d let everyone down. My options had dwindled, but there remained a way to save myself, secure enough money to not only pay back my debtors but be free of them for good, cut up the credit cards and cancel the overdraft. I was convinced that McCabe could be persuaded to take a monetary bribe and disappear back into the rat burrow from which he’d crawled. It could all be sorted out, and I was determined that it must be. Henry, I decided, as I stood up and brushed down my shorts, would have to get on board – if not for me then for the tatters of our family. I had to act now, or risk it being never.
Nobody except Ynes knew about my most recent encounter with Malcolm and Mags, and I had sworn her into reluctant secrecy. Henry would be angry that I’d gone behind his back, but I reasoned that he’d left me with little choice. I’d given him the chance to buy me out, and he had refused. The consequences of that decision were therefore on him, not me.
That was what I told myself.
When I slipped in through the front door an hour later, I did so quietly, sneaking from room to room as I plumped cushions, opened shutters, and tried not to dwell too despairingly over the half-destroyed shell of what had once been the dresser. Henry’s jeep was missing, but I had no idea if Luke and Eliza were in or out, and preferred not to knock on the turret door if I could help it. My son’s mood was a taut string that would vibrate at the slightest touch, and if I wanted my plan to succeed without a hitch, I needed to maintain a serene atmosphere.
When the knock at the door came, I was ready, and opened it with a flourish and a smile. Mags and Malcolm looked bronzed and happy, their week at sea leaving each of them tousled and carefree. When Mags shook my hand, I noticed her immaculate coral manicure had chipped, while Malcolm had swapped his stiff-edged shirt and chinos for a bright green T-shirt with the word ‘Mallorca’ emblazoned on the front.
‘I cannot wait to live here,’ Mags gushed, as she breezed through the lounge in a cloud of sickly-sweet perfume. ‘I have such a vision for the place.’
‘Her mind is a mood board,’ put in Malcolm, beaming at his other half as if she was a pearl that he’d popped out of an oyster shell. ‘I’m hopeless at all the interiors stuff, but Mags can visualise the end result, and once she’s set on something—’
‘Then I always get it,’ she trilled. ‘It was the same with Malcolm, you know. I saw him across the bar at Raffles and kapow –’ she mimicked firing a bow and arrow – ‘love at first sight. I sent him an Old Fashioned, and the rest, as they say...’
‘Is not very PG!’ Malcolm guffawed.
I smiled politely and ushered them towards the kitchen. ‘Coffee? I made a fresh pot.’
They went out on to the patio as I prepared the drinks, neither one commenting on the lack of glass panels in the door, and I listened as they loudly admired the view.
‘I know we said we didn’t want a pool,’ Mags confessed a second later, accepting her coffee with a simpering ‘yummy’, ‘but now that I’m here, I think perhaps it might be nice. What do you think, darling?’
Malcolm nodded. ‘Whatever you think. She’s the boss,’ he added to me, quite unnecessarily.
The thought of a bulldozer being taken to my beautiful garden made me want to sit down in the dirt and weep, but I continued to smile as if delighted.
‘Can we have another snoop around upstairs?’ Mags asked, as we made our way back indoors before I had a chance to reply.
Wondering what excuse I could give as to why she couldn’t see Luke’s room; I went with her into the hallway with Malcolm following close behind and was only a few feet from the front door when it opened to reveal Henry.
The look of horror on his face was met with a sharp intake of breath from Mags.
‘Gosh,’ she said, hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s just, those scars. I had forgotten how awful they lo— You poor, poor man.’
By some feat of extraordinary self-possession, Henry managed not to roll his eyes. Instead, he said calmly, ‘That’s all right. I’m really not poor at all. In fact, I just became extremely wealthy.’
‘Win at the poker, did you?’ boomed Malcolm. ‘Or what is it they play here? Loteria, that’s it. Have you been fleecing the locals?’
He seemed to find this enormously funny, as did Mags, although she was laughing with a fraction less enthusiasm than her other half. When Henry didn’t immediately reply, she looked from him to me and raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Aren’t you going to tell us?’
‘Sure,’ said Henry, folding his arms across the front of his overalls. ‘But I’m afraid you might not like what you hear.’
‘Oh?’ Mags’s usually polite tone was cut through with steel.
Henry grinned. ‘I’m rich,’ he said, ‘because I just sold a house.’