Chapter 3
Violet
Our first mistake was thinking that love would be enough.
When you build a house, you don’t simply stack up a pattern of bricks and balance a roof over the top; you draw up a plan, establish the foundations, and create a home from multiple layers of careful craftsmanship. A marriage is the same; it needs so many components, a solid framework for all that love to adhere itself to before it sets, cement-like, into the elusive happy ever after. Perhaps if Henry and I had spent more time constructing us and less time fixing up our house, we could have made it. In my darkest moments, I pretended to myself that I blamed the place – hated it, even – but I never truly believed it.
Standing proud but unassuming on its steep hillside plot, the once ramshackle abode had sun-blushed apricot walls, barrel roof tiles, and a cylindrical turret with porthole windows, which marked it out as unique amongst its Mallorcan neighbours.
Henry had chosen the name in that typical Henry way of his, settling on La Casa Naranja – The Orange House, to use its less glamorous-sounding English moniker – because that’s what colour it was. When I teased him about it, he’d argued that orange was a warm colour, a summer colour, the colour he associated with me, and therefore us. And as I stared up at the rough stone facade now, trying to see it as a stranger might, it was impossible not to feel nostalgic for the two of us as we were then, before everything started to fall apart.
In the week since Henry had sent his message, I had thought of little else, the terse words he had chosen cutting a swathe right through me. When I considered the mess I’d made of my life in England, being here felt like running away, though I knew all I’d done was flee one set of flames for another. There would be consequences to the actions I’d taken, but for now I had to push those fears aside. Focus on the present, avoid dwelling on the past, and remain blinkered to the future.
I closed my eyes and focused on breathing for a few seconds. Below me in the hub of Pollen?a town, a clock chimed three times. If I concentrated, I could make out the faint scent of trumpet vines, honeysuckle, and the acrid dust kicked up by the endless stream of tourists; the smells of what I had associated, for the longest time, with home. Being back here again had unmoored me, set me adrift in a wash of conflicting emotions.
Giving in to a sigh, I stooped to pick up my small suitcase, using my free hand to push aside the decorative metal gate that separated La Casa Naranja from the street. The patio was tidier than I remembered it being. Terracotta pots were arranged in a neat line along one wall, a broom and pitchfork propped beside them. Aside from a few stray leaves and petals, the smooth grey paving stones were bare, and it looked as if someone had recently weeded between the gaps. Holes gaped in the mud, reminding me of tiny screaming mouths, and I averted my eyes as I made my way to the front door. I was in the process of locating my key when I heard a click, followed shortly by a voice. His voice.
‘Oh,’ said Henry. ‘It’s you.’
I made myself look at him. All those hours we’d spent gazing at one another, and I could barely bring myself to meet his eye.
‘It’s me.’
A silence followed, during which we both twitched uncomfortably.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be here,’ I said. ‘I was told you were on a job in Palma?’
‘I was,’ he replied. ‘I finished this morning.’
‘I see. And how . . . How are you?’
I glanced up as I posed the question, my eyes coming to rest somewhere around his midriff. Henry was tall and broad, his form filling the open doorway, and he was dressed in the same tatty overalls I’d seen him wear a hundred times before, the top part shrugged off and the sleeves knotted around his waist. The black T-shirt he had on underneath was speckled with splatters of paint, as were his arms, which he’d folded across his chest. Decorating was the part of his job he relished the least, the task he found the most tedious, but he continued to grit his teeth and get on with it. That was Henry, a doer not a dallier, the kind of man who’d crack a tooth on a steak before complaining to the chef that it was overdone. It took a lot to break through his veneer of affability, but smash through it I had.
He hadn’t answered me, and I hesitated for a moment, torn between sadness and bewilderment, unsure of what I should say or do next.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to stay here,’ he said then, glancing over his shoulder into the bowels of the house. ‘Thought you might find a hotel.’
I spluttered out an incredulous ‘as if’.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Henry,’ I said steadily, ‘it’s June now, and it’s Pollen?a.’
‘So?’
‘So, I’m not made of money, as you well know. Affording the flight was a stretch, and I had to take the bus up here from the airport.’
I loathed talking about money, and it showed, my frustration leaking into my words, making them sound brittle. I could feel Henry’s judgement of me as keenly as I could the sweltering heat of the afternoon.
‘If being here is such an inconvenience, Violet, then why come at all?’
He never referred to me as ‘Violet’ – I was ‘Vee’ to him, always had been. ‘Violet’ made it sound as if we barely knew each other.
‘Because of the house,’ I replied. ‘I assumed the fact you messaged me meant you thought we should discuss it properly, but then you ignored all my calls, so...’
‘So?’ Henry shifted position; his arms still folded.
‘If you’d agreed to talk to me sooner, we could have organised the sale months ago, before the summer. We might even have had everything sewn up by now – the finances, the asset split, the paperwork.’
‘Paperwork’ was the word I had chosen to use in place of ‘divorce’, and I only had to glance at Henry to know he’d understood. It was painful to hold his gaze, and I had to force myself not to give in to the discomfort. In the end, it was he who turned his head away, relinquishing a sad sigh as he did so.
‘This was your idea,’ I reminded him, stepping forwards. The shade provided by the bougainvillea I’d planted enveloped me, and despite the prickling unease I felt at being so close to him, it was a relief to get out of the sun. Henry unfolded his arms and ran a hand through his hair, which was every bit as thick and dark now as it had been the day we met. I’d long envied the Mediterranean blood that ensured he thrived in this climate while I, with my Anglo-Irish auburn curls and pale skin, wilted.
‘You were the one who insisted we split up and divide everything. All the decisions I’ve made since then have been based on that exact outcome. If we’re really going to let this place go,’ I went on, trying to sound resolute, ‘then I want to be involved. It’s my house, too.’
‘And what if I’ve changed my mind?’ he said, not looking at me. ‘What then, Vee?’
Could he mean that he’d forgiven me?
Henry had gone very still, his eyes focused on the ground. I held my breath as I waited for him to continue, yearning to touch him, fearing what would happen if I did.
‘Are you saying that you’re having second thoughts about the house?’ I whispered. ‘Or about us?’
Henry shook his head, and I blinked back tears as the hand I’d raised to grasp his fell limply to my side. I had been foolish to hope; the seed of my longing planted too late; its fragile roots destroyed by his dismissal. It had been a mistake to come here, to see him, to torture myself with reminders of what I’d lost.
‘I’ll go,’ I said, my voice cracking as I reached again for my suitcase. ‘You were right. I should have found somewhere else to stay. Ynes will lend me her sofa, I’m sure.’
Henry clenched his fists, frustration contorting his features.
‘Don’t—’ he began, but I was already moving, already at the gate, already running away from the past before it wrapped any more tendrils around me. I’d reached the pathway when I heard another sound, one that stopped me in my tracks, triggered every sense I had, and twisted my guts into a mess of conflicting emotion.
A single word, one I both craved and abhorred.
Mum.