Chapter Four
As we enter the small kitchen at the back of the house, we see that the women have already set to work like a finely tuned ecosystem. Bottles of balsamic vinegar and olive oil are placed on the table, breads are sliced, and cutlery, plates and napkins are retrieved from their drawers and cupboards and carried out to a long wooden table. I stand watching, feeling useless, until Frannie’s grandmother holds a nut brown hand out to me and leads me to a long counter, in which fruit and vegetables are piled in wire baskets. She says a sentence in Spanish that I don’t fully understand, though I recognise tomates. She hands me the knife and sets down a bowl of just-washed tomatoes, fat and brilliant red, still on clipped stems of the vine.
‘Big wedges.’ Frannie says to me, coming to stand beside me with a basket of small green padron peppers which she rinses under the tap.
‘Sorry?’
‘Cut them into big wedges, like they’re orange slices,’ she calls out over her shoulder, ‘where are the men? I notice they’re not offering to help.’ The older women roll their eyes. ‘Not in my household,’ Frannie mutters under her breath, ‘George is on a work call and Theo is upstairs sweeping the balcony for my grandparents. All the other men are sat in the garden.’
I set to work cutting the tomatoes, placing the wedges into a blue ceramic bowl that Frannie’s mother places next to me, as she walks past carrying wine glasses.
‘Can I help with anything?’ A man’s voice calls from the hallway, I jump before recognising Theo leaning through the kitchen door.
‘Look at you!’ Frannie calls to him, ‘making my choice in a husband look more and more sensible every day.’ One of her aunts tries to shoo Theo away but Frankie steps in with a tea towel.
‘The glasses and water pitcher need drying,’ she says, taking him to the draining board. ‘then put the ice and lemon I just sliced into the pitcher, fill it with water and set everything out.’ She kisses him on the cheek and sends him away.
‘Your husband is hardworking and you’re making him do chores.’ another auntie says, shaking her head.
‘We’re both hardworking,’ Frannie says, ‘we both work full-time jobs, and we both look after the home.’
I’m so focused on my task, watching the knife slice through the juicy flesh of each tomato, listening to the chatter of the other women, that I don’t notice someone else has slipped into the room from the door into the garden, until slim tanned fingers come into my eye line and pick up a wedge of the tomato I’ve just chopped. I follow the hand as it lifts the wedge up to a full, smiling mouth and takes a bite. It’s George. George in a powder blue shirt that contrasts with the warmth of his tanned skin and his dark brown eyes. He winks at me, bites into the tomato and puts a finger to his lips, his other hand holding a phone to his ear, before walking quietly back out of the kitchen before anybody else has noticed him.
I almost laugh. I had spent so long thinking about the first moment we would see each other again, what I would say, what sort of impression I would give, and in the end it had been so quick that I hadn’t said or done anything, just stared blankly into his face until he left again. I’d twisted myself into knots worrying about that moment, and then it had come and gone before I could even think.
‘Are you alright?’ Frannie asks, returning to where she had been standing, and following my gaze through the open doorway.
‘Your brother took some tomato,’ I say, stupidly.
‘Nice of him to show up to be honest,’ Frannie says. ‘If he’s not on the phone with work he’s on the phone to his girlfriend.’
‘Frannie be nice.’ her mother says in a warning way, though Nisha makes a face over her shoulder.
‘Sorry Maa.’ Frannie says, then, when her mother turns her back, exchanges a look with her sister.
Once I’ve chopped the tomatoes, I’m given fruit to wash and prepare, then I help to carry dishes and wine to the long table in the dining room, which has been laid with a long white tablecloth and sunny yellow napkins. Frannie’s grandmother shouts across the garden with surprising force and the cluster of men sitting in the late sunshine lift themselves from their chairs. From another room, Theo and George emerge together and seat themselves at the nearest end of the table. Frannie joins them, and I begin to follow, trying not to worry that I’ll go from surviving the first introduction to George to suddenly being trapped in a full evening of conversation with him. But as Frannie beckons to me, while George is pouring water in the tumblers, a soft bronze arm wraps around mine.
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Frannie’s mother says, ‘she’s had you long enough, I haven’t had a moment to catch up with you.’
I allow myself to be taken away to the other end of the table where Frannie’s father Roberto is helping his mother take her seat. He gives a cry of delight when he sees me and embraces me warmly, kissing me on the cheek. He pulls a chair out for me and pours me wine and water before seating himself next to his wife, across from me.
‘Now this is a face we’ve missed,’ Sameera says, placing a hand on her husband’s arm and looking at me fondly, ‘you must tell us all the wonderful things that have kept you so busy. Frannie tells me you work at a beautiful stationery shop?’
It’s been so long and yet it’s as though I’ve never been away. The two of them look at me so fondly as I rattle off the small, quiet features of my life. I’m reminded of the times in my childhood they had sat and asked about the books I had been reading, or the music Frannie and I had been listening to. They always listened to us as though we were adults, as though our opinions mattered in a way no other adult had ever done for me. I had forgotten the way their warmth and attention emboldened me to become louder, more forthright in their company. It wasn’t until I had grown up that I realised that this style of parenting had produced Frannie and her siblings, all supremely confident in themselves, completely convinced that the things they had to say mattered.
‘We are so happy to see you,’ Roberto says, spooning potatoes in a thick tomato sauce onto my plate. ‘we know you’re busy and you have your own life but we were worried you wouldn’t be able to be part of this. Frannie would have been heartbroken.’
‘I”m sorry I’ve been away,’ I say, ‘I’ve missed you both. I just. I suppose life kept getting in the way…’ I trail into silence, trying to think of some way to explain myself.
‘You’ll never believe what I found the other day,’ Sameera says, covering my awkward pause, ‘Frannie’s little charm bracelet. From those magazines you both used to read, about that band you loved. Do you remember them? I couldn’t believe it. I was looking through a box of her old school things in a wardrobe and there it was. There must have been a year when she didn’t take it off outside of school. And you were the same, weren’t you? Obsessed, both of you.’
‘I’m not sure what I did with mine,’ I say, trying to remember. ‘You’re right we must have worn it every minute of every day for years, then suddenly I took it off one day and never put it back on again. I don’t even remember doing it. It must be at one of my parent’s houses. It might even have been lost when we all moved out.”
‘And how is your family?’ Roberto asked, a little curtly.
‘I think they’re okay,’ I say, ‘I don’t see too much of either of them, but they both seem to be happy now, which is good.’ It’s a sad little answer, and both Sameera and Roberto look at me with a hint of pity. I change the subject quickly.
‘How are you both finding being grandparents? Lila seems so sweet, she chatted to us the whole drive here.’
They both light up like a sunrise and launch into a full and comprehensive list of every one of Lila’s best qualities, all her achievements, how ahead of the other students she is in every class. How proud they are of Nisha as a mother. I’m happy to stay quiet and listen, their affection for their granddaughter radiates out in warm glowing waves, and I bask in it, lifted by how much people can love one another.
After dinner I help tidy things away. Frannie calls to me and I approach, steeling myself to talk to George, but as I reach them his phone begins lighting up on the table.
‘Really?’ Frannie says, scowling at him.
George sighs, shrugs, and picks up the phone, pressing it to his ear and walking out of the room.
‘I can’t believe him.’ she shakes her head and I see her tense with irritation and Theo reaches out and gently takes hold of her hand.
‘Best to leave him be,’ he says, ‘he’s got enough on his plate without us getting at him.’ Frannie’s shoulders visibly relax. She nods and turns to me.
‘Shall we each take a glass of wine and sit on the balcony?’ she asks, ‘they’re all happy to tidy up, I’m going to take a feminist stance and skive off.’
We take a leftover bottle from the table and find a corner of the balcony upstairs with a good view, the last light of the evening tumbles down the mountainside, into the glittering barrier of the seaside towns that have lit up for the night.‘We’ll take you to eat down there one day,’ Theo says to me, as he pulls three wicker chairs into position, while I hold the glasses and Frannie pours. ‘you’ll have the best seafood you’ve ever tasted sitting at that beach.’
‘And the cheapest sangria.’ Frannie chuckles.
The night is warm and we drink the soft, juicy red wine and discuss the wedding preparations while some of the inhabitants of the house say their goodnights below us. Pockets of quiet conversation and a radio somewhere near the kitchen form a low, hazy sound that could put me to sleep if I closed my eyes. Movement from just beneath the balcony catches my attention and I look down to see the little grey cat that Lila had chased that morning. She slinks, as though made of water, along the edge of the low stone wall, avoiding the stripe of light made by the just-open door to the house, her eyes turned to two silver coins as they reflect in the dark.
As I watch, the strip of light begins to widen and I realise someone is carefully opening the front door. A small shadow begins to emerge and, from beneath the balcony, Lila creeps onto the front drive, trying to approach the cat. I watch her as she takes slow, cautious steps along the paving, making each movement as silent as she can. I can feel her desperation to reach the cat, to have the opportunity to prove herself to it. But before she can reach her Nisha shouts sharply from the sitting room.
‘You’d better not be after that cat, Lila!’
Lila stops in her tracks. The cat, looking round and seeing her, scarpers away. Lila stands for a while looking out at where the cat had been, holding her thin arms around herself. I look away, not wanting her to know I have seen her failure.
‘Poor kid,’ Frannie whispers, ‘Nisha means well, but she doesn’t need to police everything she does. She’s not a bad kid for wanting to pet a cat for God’s sake.’
‘She thinks she’s bothering it.’ I say.
‘Of course she is. That’s what kids do, they make a nuisance of themselves. I love Nisha, she’s a great mum in so many ways, but it’s like she wants Lila to be completely quiet and still when she’s not doing something Nisha wants. Like she’s a little doll you can turn off.’
I don’t reply, and neither does Theo. We both understand that Frannie’s opinion of Nisha is something she is allowed to express, and that neither of us are welcome to add to it. I look back over at where Lila is standing, and see that she’s watching something in the distance.
A boy is walking up the driveway, perhaps eleven years old, in scruffy shorts and flip flops, holding something in his arms, and when he steps further into the light I see that it’s the cat, nestled contentedly against his chest.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask Frannie, who cranes shamelessly over the balcony to get a good look at him.
‘It’s the neighbour’s son,’ she says in a hushed voice, ‘I think his name is Camilo. We don’t see much of him, I think he lives with his other parent somewhere else in Spain most of the time. He must be visiting.’
As we watch, the boy walks up the drive to where Lila is standing. After casting a wary glance back at the house, she takes a few steps to meet him. They exchange a few hushed words, and Lila shakes her head. It occurs to me that Lila cannot speak much Spanish yet, and that the young boy probably doesn’t speak much English. Undeterred by the language barrier, The boy leans forward, holding the cat towards Lila. The soft grey head emerges and sniffs the air cautiously. Lila reaches her fingertips towards it, gently brushing between its ears. The cat leans into her touch, and Lila’s posture relaxes as she strokes the cat more confidently, down its back and under its chin. With a huge grin on her face she looks up at the boy, who smiles back down at her.
He’s taller, though only by a head, with a mop of hair that is darker than hers, chestnut curls catching the light. They gaze at one another longer than is comfortable, and I want to scrape my chair, or drop something, to break whatever little enchantment is weaving between them. But I’m spared by Nisha’s voice calling again from inside the house. The two of them part, Lila skipping back into the house, and the young boy carrying the cat back away through the gates and across the road.
‘Well look at that,’ Theo says, ‘you go chasing a cat and find yourself a little boyfriend.’
‘Don’t say anything,’ Frannie says, ‘Nisha will only flip her lid. We’ll keep an eye on her.’
When the last of the light has faded and the sky has turned deep indigo we tuck our chairs away and Frannie shows me back to the landing where my bedroom is. I cross the thin carpet to the door with the flowers painted on, wash my face and change, and am asleep before I can even wonder what the time is.