Finding You (6 page)

8 - Charlie

‘Did you get to visit Agustina’s grave this morning, Charlie?’

When I drag my eyes away from the grey airport scene beyond the rain-spattered windows at Malaga Airport, Julia’s back already. She’s holding two cups of coffee and a little cardboard tray full of sandwiches.  It’s Sunday afternoon. A little over forty-eight hours since we first got that phone call from Rob telling us we’d be free to leave Spain, and we’re already on our way out. It’s happened far quicker than we could have ever imagined it, but it couldn’t happen soon enough for me.

‘I went,’ I tell her. ‘It felt ... good to be able to say goodbye.’

After all, that’s what I originally came over to Spain to do four months ago: say goodbye to my grandmother.

When Julia hands me one of the coffees, my hand is trembling a little. I hand it back.

‘Too hot,’ I say. But the coffee isn’t too hot. It just reminds me of the habit Agustina had of greeting me every morning, cajoling me out of bed as a teenager on my holidays. I swallow. This is the last visit I will ever make to Spain where I will have seen my Agustina, my beautiful, kind, generous
abuelita,
who filled in as a mother for me as much as any woman ever could after my own mother passed away.  It wasn’t till I was packing up my small black suitcase yesterday that it came to me; that I was now leaving a Spain that could never be the same for me again.

 I had been granted my son back, yes, by some strange and benevolent twist of fate. My gratitude for that will never be diminished and yet, for the first time since her funeral, it hit me: Agustina was gone and Spain would forever be an emptier place without her.

The world would be.

I shuffle Hadyn over a little on my shoulder to make some room for his mummy.

‘You okay, honey?’ As she sits beside me, I feel the soft touch of Julia’s hand on my leg. I sniff. I’m not gonna cry here. Besides, I’m a happy man. I kiss my son’s face and he stirs gently. The love I feel for him washes over us both.

‘Besides, this only
au revoir
,’ Julia is telling me.   ‘We don’t say goodbye. We only ever have to say
au revoir
.’ She glances meaningfully over at our little boy. Maybe she’s right. I got to see him again when I thought I never would, didn’t I?

‘
Au revoir
then,’ I concede. Julia settles our breakfast on the space on the bench beside us. The sun comes out, shining opportunistically through a break in the clouds, and the windows fill with light. Her face looks bright, and I can sense her happiness. Her
peace
. She is a woman who has got what she wanted.

‘I love you,’ I mouth at her and she just smiles, her hair fallen forward, partially covering her face.  I do love her. And I know she loves me, even though for a while she has been a little distant. It’s because she’s a woman uprooted, unsettled. It’s because of the heroic efforts she’s had to make to bring our little family back together again.  All I want is for my two to be happy now, I think. To go home and provide my family with everything they could ever need.  That much, at least, I know I can do. As I watch the woman who will one day be my wife, the sunlight catching the auburn in her hair, my heart swells with a pride and love.
All I
want is the chance to keep them like this forever
, I think.
Near to me where I can love them and keep them safe.

And for this distance between us to be gone.      

We’ve hardly had even a moment to catch up since our walk on the beach together on Friday morning, I realise.

‘So did the two of you have a good time at Antonio’s party?’ I enquire.

J shoots me a wan smile. ‘I
guess,
’ she says, and I nudge her with my elbow. I know what the Santos family affairs are like and it will have been a grand do, no expense spared. Of course they’ll have had a good time.

‘Hey, Buddy.’ I blow on Hadyn’s face and his eyelids flutter, but apart from that, he doesn’t stir. I whisper into his ear. ‘Mummy’s not telling me anything. Did you have a good time at the party, Bud?’

I rub at Hadyn’s back gently. It’s muggy in here and there’s a thin sheen of sweat covering his skin, which is starting to look pink. Julia smiles. A little sadly, I think. I see her lean back and cross her legs now.  She’s got something on her mind, hasn’t she? She appears ... upset. Has she really been upset about something ever since Friday evening and not had a chance to share it with me? It’s entirely possible.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to go with you both Friday evening,’ I apologise. ‘I know you’d have preferred me to have been there ...’

Julia doesn’t say anything. She folds her hands neatly on her lap, looks out over the concourse where a couple of planes are being taxied into position for boarding. Is it my imagination or are her eyes suddenly looking a little shiny?

‘Honey?’

‘It would have been better if you
had
been there.’ She turns to look at me directly. ‘It might have made ... certain things ... a little easier to handle. But it doesn’t matter now, Charlie. It doesn’t, really.’

‘What things?’ I can’t get any closer to her, can’t reach out to touch her because I’m holding onto Hadyn. She looks away and I feel myself frowning. Then a new thought occurs to me. One that had not entered my head, before.

This isn’t about Lourdes, is it?

God, don’t you know she doesn’t matter anymore, Julia?
  I turn away from her and bury my face in the top of my son’s head, go silent for a bit.
My boy turned up,
I think, kissing his curls.
I lost him, but I thank God every day that he came back to me and now I’ve got you back and nothing else matters.

‘There was ...’ Julia clears her throat, obviously nervous. ‘Something that happened that I’ve been meaning to tell you about.’

‘What happened?’ Somebody said something to her? Nothing too terrible could have happened or Roberto would have mentioned it to me already. We’ve all been in a tearing hurry to get everything cleared out and packed up ever since Saturday morning I know, but ...

Julia looks sad.

‘Hey.’ I shake her arm with my one free hand.  ‘What’s this all about? Nobody got hurt, did they?’

‘No,’ she breathes.  ‘But it was ... everybody was
looking
at him.’

‘Of course they were looking at him, J. People know who he is. They’re curious, that’s all.’

‘No, I mean ...’ she shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t that. He
did
something, and some people there made some mean comments. They said he was being naughty, but he wasn’t, Charlie.’

‘
Who
wasn’t?’ My fingers run across the top of my boy’s shoulders gently.

‘Hadyn.’

‘Hadyn
naughty
?’ I give her a bemused look. Is this just a bit of hurt Mummy pride after all? What could he have done? What could my little two-year-old possibly have done that was so bad? ‘Who said that?’  

‘Dona Ana.’ Julia bites her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I know I should have brought this up earlier. There’s not been a single minute, has there? Charlie. I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to you about it before we left Spain, though. I wanted to
leave
it in Spain.’ 

I spread my hands.
Tell me then
. She opens her mouth, but a young expectant blonde woman sidles up to us apologetically now. She looks from me to Julia and then to the space on the bench between us, longingly.

‘Do you think ... would you mind if ...’

‘Of course.’ Julia rapidly moves all our breakfast things along so we can move up and make some space for the woman to take a seat. There’s that odd, awkward silence you get when you’re in the middle of an intimate conversation and somebody else comes into your space. 

‘I’m sorry to trouble you.’ The woman seems to sense this is a bad moment. ‘I’d stand, but my ankles are swollen up so bad at the moment.’

‘No worries at all! When are you due?’ Julia asks politely, indicating her bump.

‘Three months.’ The blonde glances at Hadyn, still sleeping so peacefully on my shoulder and adds, ‘What an angel. I’m sure things will get easier once my child’s born.’

Julia shoots me a rueful smile.

‘I’m sure,’ she commiserates with the woman. Then, leaning a little closer to me, she reveals, ‘Our
angel
managed to tip over Antonio’s birthday cake.’ She lets it out in one long rush. ‘It was a very beautifully-crafted cake. A red Ferrari.’

A cake. If I’d been expecting anything at all, it wouldn’t have been that. I can see how that wouldn’t have gone down too well, but still ...

‘Was there very much damage to the Ferrari?’ I manage after a bit. The woman beside us reacts to that. I can hear her intake of breath and despite my initial amusement, I realise I’d better lower my voice.

‘It was completely destroyed.’            
 
         

‘Ah. What a shame. ’ Is
this
what’s been on her mind since Friday?  I let a moment’s pause go by and then I add, ‘We’ll have to make reparation for it, J. Find out what it cost and we’ll send them a cheque. And ... maybe a bunch of flowers or something? You decide.’

‘You’re not upset, then?’ Julia looks at me tentatively now.  

I smile. ‘Why would I be upset, honey? He didn’t do it on purpose, did he?’

‘No. Of course not.’ She doesn’t sound entirely sure. I lean in, kiss her gently, and I see her cheeks colour.

‘He didn’t. No matter how that Dona Ana made you feel about it afterwards. She can be a bit strict,’ I own. Julia nods.  Then I add, ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that she will never be my mother-in-law.’

Julia goes quiet for a moment then. She looks at me thoughtfully.  ‘Are you
as
glad,’ she asks in a quiet voice, ‘at the thought that Lourdes will never be your wife?’

The question shocks me, coming, as it seems to me, so out of the blue.

‘I thought we were clear on that one,’ I swallow. ‘You know that it’s you I want, honey. I left her. I left her even before you found our son. I came for you that day in the park after someone told me they’d spotted you at the funeral. You
know
that.’ I see her shift slightly, warningly, as the woman beside us glances curiously in our direction.
We’re in a public place here
, Julia is warning. But this is clearly something we’ll need to talk more about later. When we’re in private.  I sigh. What happened at that party on Friday, anyway, dammit?  I know what some of these gossipy old ladies can be like. There will have been plenty of Lourdes’ family members there. A lot of people who’d once expected I’d have been joining their clan.  What was said or what was implied that has stirred all this up in Julia just as we’re about to go back home? Whatever it is, if it’s been eating away at her this much, she could have brought it up before now.

I slug back the last of my coffee as I recall the reason why she hasn’t. She hasn’t mentioned it because she’s barely had a chance to, has she? Because we spent the whole of Saturday packing up and moving out of the villa. Rob and Eva were around for most of that time, helping us to do so. We haven’t been alone, have we?  We aren’t alone now, either.    

‘We’ll speak when we get back to the house,’ she whispers. We’ll have to. My boy stirs and sighs now on my shoulder. He’s getting too warm in my arms, but at least I know exactly where he is. Julia leans in closer. She strokes one of his dimpled fingers, clasped around my neck.

We’re both silent for a while after this. The Flight Information Board above us stops flickering, and it looks as if our Gate information is going to be posted in fifteen minutes.  Outside the wide floor-to-ceiling airport windows, the planes seem to be stacking up a little on the runway. The sky is grey again, hot but muggy, and my thoughts drift to England. I think about how much cooler it is going to feel when we first arrive back home. About the house I left locked up in November and which I have not been back to visit in the last four months. It will be filled with cobwebs, I think now. It will be cold and airless. I was not able to get hold of the cleaner who I used before, not at this short notice.

‘Are you looking forward to seeing your dad again?’ Julia changes the subject deftly now. She too, is thinking of England, but she’s taken it a step further than I have. She knows it’s been a while since I’ve been up to see Dad at Grangeview care home in Thirsk.

‘Do you miss him?’ I feel her arm pressed up close against my arm, her voice intimate in my ear. She wants us to talk about a different thing, a subject other than the one she almost brought up a moment ago, though it’s still live, spiking in the space between us. I focus on what she’s asking me; whether or not I miss my dad.  

I shrug. Do I? I’d say that I don’t. I don’t miss him.

‘I stopped missing my dad a long time ago.’ My voice sounds strange. Croaky.

‘Oh,’ she says, as if that is a difficult thing for her to take in.

‘I was a boarder when I was at school, don’t forget,’ I tell her quietly. ‘He was rarely in the country and I didn’t get to see all that much of him. You get used to it.  And these days, I’m never quite sure when I go up to Thirsk ... if I’m really going to see him at all, the
real
him.’