Chapter 22
Violet
In the days that followed our conversation in the rubble-strewn garden of Tomas’s Pollen?a home, Henry and I barely spoke. He was up and out of the house before I woke, then back long after dinner. On the few occasions I’d waited up for him, a hopeful bottle of wine open on the patio table, a plate of food covered in cling film in the fridge, he’d done little more than grunt ‘goodnight’ at me before disappearing off upstairs. But as much as those interactions saddened me, they were preferable to the alternative – him not coming home at all. I hadn’t heard anything from Juan about the mystery woman, but the anticipation was making me jumpy. Every time my phone beeped or buzzed, I snatched it up instantly, only to baulk at the sight of an unknown number, or a text instructing me to call. I was close to breaking point, the growing tension making me nauseous, my nerves set on edge.
When I opened the door after breakfast on the fourth day to find Ynes waiting on the step, I almost wept with relief.
‘Cabecita roja,’ she said, dragging me towards her with such gusto that my chin ended up buried somewhere in her bosom.
‘No Enrique today?’
‘No,’ I said, as I righted myself, and proceeded to fill her in briefly on my estranged husband’s recently errant behaviour.
‘It does not have to be this way,’ she said, pushing a Tupperware box of home-made empanadas into my hands. ‘Eat these, la flaca – skinny girl – and then fix your marriage.’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
We went through the kitchen and out into the garden beyond, where Ynes busied herself with deadheading an antique rose while I pinched out the side shoots from a tomato plant. It was what we’d always done, worked side by side, talking while we pruned, dug, and watered. Our friendship had been nurtured in this garden, and the familiarity of it, of the two of us together, soothed me now.
‘I’ve missed this,’ I told her. ‘Missed you.’
Ynes started to answer, then winced.
‘Thorn?’ I asked, and she nodded, cursing under her breath as a bead of blood oozed from the top of her forefinger.
‘Nature is a cruel mistress.’
‘A bitch,’ Ynes agreed, sucking her finger. ‘But this is why we love her, sí?’
‘Why do you think that is?’ I mused, as Ynes extracted a pair of gardening gloves from her apron pocket. It was the same deep-green colour as the dress she wore beneath. ‘That as humans, we’re programmed to love the thing that hurts us the most.’
Ynes looked at me shrewdly. ‘When Manuel left me, I thought the fire of that pain would devour me,’ she said, bashing her palm against her chest. ‘But the flames died down; I am stronger now.’
‘You were so young,’ I said, remembering the tale as she’d told it to me not long after we met. She and Manuel had defied the wishes of their parents to marry in secret, only for him to be lured away by someone else not three years later. Ynes had explained pragmatically that he’d grown impatient at her failure to conceive, yet I knew without needing to hear the words how much agony that must have caused her. My relationship with Luke might well be a complicated one, but the thought of not having him at all was untenable.
‘Sí, solo una bebé,’ Ynes concurred, with a sly grin. ‘An excuse to never grow up.’
The two of us were still giggling when Luke appeared around the back door. Clad only in boxers, his hair was a slept-in mess.
‘Chico hermoso,’ crooned Ynes, clapping her gloved hands together. ‘Look at you!’
‘Probably best not to, considering I just woke up,’ Luke replied dryly.
‘Shall I make you and Eliza some breakfast?’ I offered. ‘I can pop out and get some—’
‘No, no – don’t worry.’ Luke ran a hand through his fringe, pushing it off his forehead. ‘We’ll get something in a bit.’
‘Did you need me for anything else?’ I hurried out. ‘The washing you gave me is done, I left it folded on the landing.’
‘Is Dad here?’
I felt my face fall and, with some effort, hoisted a smile back into place.
‘He left early. Work. You know what he’s like when he’s on a new project.’
Luke nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
‘If there’s something you need, then—’
‘It’s fine, Mum.’
‘I can call him if—’
But Luke had gone, thankfully not slamming the back door behind him. I waited, knowing it would only be a matter of seconds before Ynes spoke.
‘Your boy is a man.’
I hadn’t expected that. I’d assumed she would chastise me for being so eager to please him, or for not reacting when he’d interrupted me mid-flow. I turned away from the house to face her, taking in the dark bun streaked with grey, her soft, lined skin and kind eyes. My friend might be forthright, but she was also fair, and the most generous person I knew, both with her time and her emotions. She’d always loved my boy, had never wavered in her adoration, not even in his most difficult years. The two of them shared an understanding, a bond of mutual respect that I knew was lacking between myself and Luke. I’d have felt envious of anyone else, but not Ynes.
‘Sometimes, I look at him and see only the little boy he once was,’ I confessed. ‘To me, he still has that vulnerability. I can’t seem to shrug off this need to mother him all the time.’
Ynes shot me a bemused look. ‘You believe that it wears off one day, this “need to be a mother”? That you will one day stop – poof!’
I plucked another tomato stem, clumsily so the fruit came loose and dropped to the ground. I stooped to pick it up, using my thumb to wipe the dirt off its pale green surface. It was not ready to eat, would likely upset the balance of my anxious stomach, though I loathed the idea of it going to waste.
‘I thought it would get easier as he got older,’ I said. ‘That he would need me less.’
‘And that is not happening?’
I sighed, not wanting to lie to her. ‘OK, that I would need him less.’
‘Ah.’ Ynes studied me for a moment, then she took my hand. The rubber coating of her gloves was coarse, her fingers firm as they gripped me. She didn’t speak again, didn’t try to coax or second guess, she simply held on to me, waiting while I worked out what it was that I was trying to say. The truth was there, but I couldn’t reach it, not quite, and perhaps sensing that a rope had begun to tug inside me, Ynes let go of my hand.
‘He is better,’ she said, though with more uncertainty than I was accustomed to hearing from her, as if she were testing the word out, rather than settling on it.
‘I think so,’ I said with a shrug. ‘I hope so.’
‘There have not been . . .?’
I shook my head and she smiled rather grimly.
‘Nothing like that – not yet anyway, but I can sense it there, his temper, frothing away beneath the surface. Being in the same house as him, even this house,’ I went on, glancing around with a sigh, ‘feels like living with a grenade. The pin has been pulled out, and we’re all waiting for the bang.’
Ynes put her head on one side. ‘But you stay?’
‘But I stay,’ I agreed solemnly, helplessly. ‘He’s my son.’
‘And Enrique? Where is he?’
‘Working,’ I said, to which she rolled her eyes theatrically.
‘Hiding,’ Ynes corrected. ‘You are the matador, and he is un cobarde.’
I blinked at her, not understanding.
‘A coward,’ she said, punctuating the word with a terse flick of her wrist.
I should have defended Henry, but it felt nice, for once, to have an ally. Bad cop parent was a role I’d never wanted – it had been foisted on me by my own reluctance to push back. Luke needed someone to side with him, even when he was being impossible, and more often than not that person had been his dad. I’d sleepwalked into it, not grasping how much of a routine we’d got into until it was too late, until I was trapped in a part I’d never read for. When it came to being a mum, I considered myself an understudy at best. If I’d been better, perhaps Luke would have been too.
‘You should not let him do this,’ Ynes said, drawing me out from my deep, brooding well. ‘I do not believe that what happened could be so bad, so bad that all the blame has been given to you.’
I hadn’t told her everything. My shame had prevented me.
‘I deserve it,’ I said, hanging my head. ‘Henry’s accident... it was my fault.’
Ynes shook her head violently. ‘Were you driving the car? No.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I said wearily.
Another tomato hit the ground by my feet, and this time I swore in frustration as I bent to retrieve it. My face grew suddenly hot, my chest tight. Ynes was scrutinising me, I could feel the weight of her gaze and glanced away, unwilling to meet her eye. A dark shape passed across the kitchen window, and I heard the sound of voices.
‘I should go and see if they want help with breakfast,’ I said, relieved to have an excuse to scarper.
‘Violet.’
I exhaled slowly, turned. Ynes was looking at me pityingly, which was almost worse than the judgement I had been expecting. Sympathy of any kind was liable to unmoor me, and I smiled through the tears that pressed to be shed.
‘You must stop,’ she instructed. ‘All this blame. It is not fair, it is not right.’
‘But—’
‘But? But nothing. It is time to be selfish.’
‘Who, me?’ I laughed at the absurdity of such a suggestion, but Ynes’s expression was pure steel.
‘If the men can be selfish,’ she said archly, ‘so can you.’