The Empty Family (15 page)

Carme sat on her own at the table, listening to the noises of the crickets in the grass and snatches of her father’s phone conversation through the open window. He was talking about flights and buses and timetables. She heard him calling the airport then and checking times of incoming flights. She was tired and thought she might soon disappear to the bedroom at the other side of the house that she and Nuria had prepared before dinner.

As she began to clear the last things from the table a man came around the corner looking for her father. He did not look like a friend and spoke to her in Spanish. She was surprised because it was now after eleven o’clock and the man’s tone seemed casual, as though he often called at this time. When she told him that her father was on the phone, he walked past her and into the house. He obviously knew his way around.

She listened at the window again as her father spoke to the man about keys and numbers of cottages and which cottages were empty. She wondered what her father had to do with incoming flights and keys and cottages. Then she collected the few glasses that were left and brought them inside, putting them beside the sink in the kitchen. She went to the bedroom without saying goodnight to either of her parents. Once upstairs, she was tempted to find Nuria, but decided instead that she would wait until the morning and ask her questions then.

She woke early and pulled back the shutters and opened the windows fully. The sky was clear, and the blue of the sea was soft, almost whitened by the morning sun. In London, the sky could be like that as well, she remembered, but it would never mean that the day would remain fine. Even in high summer, she always found a hint of cold in the English wind, and no day passed when there were not some clouds in the sky. She knew that the day here on the island would be perfect, and the night would be warm.

As she looked over to the left she saw the tiled roofs of the new houses she had passed the previous day. She tried to recall what had been there before, and was sure that there had been nothing, that it had been windswept in the winter and too sandy for anything much to grow in any case except tough sparse grass. And then she realized that this land had belonged to her grandmother, that her grandmother had often complained about having to maintain it, but had liked it because there was nothing built on it to break the view of the sea from the house.

Over breakfast, she almost asked them how her grandmother had come to sell this land, but once more there was too much confusion with the children for her to be able to fix on one of them with a direct question. Soon, her father went into the village, Nuria disappeared upstairs and her mother and the children dived into the pool. It was still only ten o’clock in the morning. She wondered how she would spend the day. Despite her mother’s invitation, she did not change into the bathing suit Nuria had found for her and join them in the pool. Instead, she walked around to the front of the house, noticing that the path down to the beach had been blocked off by a new wall. She walked down the drive and along the narrow dusty road until she came to the first group of bungalows, the ones that did not have a view of the sea. A few of them, she saw, were inhabited. The fact that they were joined to each other when none of the old traditional houses on this part of the island were joined like that, and that they had security bars on the windows, reminded her of how much she had hated the grubby tourist villages in Majorca when she had been there years before. She supposed that there were many places like this on Menorca too, but had never imagined that they would come so close to her grandmother’s house.

Later, when Nuria appeared and said that she was going into the village to collect some cooked chickens she had ordered the day before, Carme said she would go with her in the dusty car, their father having taken the new one.

‘What happened here?’ Carme asked as they came to the bungalows.

‘You’d better ask father.’

‘What does it have to do with him?’

‘He built them.’

‘Who let him do that?’

‘Ask him.’

‘I’m asking you.’

When she looked at Nuria, she saw that her sister was concentrating on the road as though there were something dangerous coming towards them.

‘Granny worried about money a lot.’

‘She owned the entire building in Barcelona, and the shares.’

‘The building in Barcelona is rent-controlled, and she didn’t want to sell the shares.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she was afraid to touch her savings or the capital. She wanted the income from them because she wanted to go on sending you money every month in London and she wanted to give me the same, and don’t complain about that.’

‘She had plenty of money.’

‘She didn’t think so.’

‘So she sold that old fool prime building land?’

‘Yes, and he built the houses.’

‘What does he know about building?’

‘Nothing. Which is why he has a problem.’

Nuria parked the car but kept her eyes fixed on a point beyond the windscreen and did not move.

‘And what is the problem?’ Carme asked.

‘She sold him the land, but there was a clause that he could build houses on it if he liked, and he could rent them and the money was all his, but he couldn’t ever sell them without her permission. That’s what the clause said. She insisted on it.’

‘She liked holding on to things, didn’t she?’

‘And now he wants to sell them because he owes the bank money and he’s having problems with the repayments. Or at least he wants to sell some of them.’

It took Carme a moment to understand the implications of what her sister was saying.

‘Did we inherit that clause?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘So he needs our permission, our signature.’

‘Yes, he does.’

Carme almost laughed out loud.

‘Don’t gloat,’ Nuria said.

‘I think we should get the roast chickens before they grow cold,’ Carme said.

As they drove back to the house they did not speak for a while. Carme waited for Nuria to ask her something, but then realized that Nuria intended to say nothing.

‘Have you seen a lawyer?’ she asked eventually. ‘I mean your own lawyer.’

‘No,’ Nuria said.

‘Why not?’

‘I’ll tell you why not, because the man I’m married to invested in some of the bungalows, and he wants them sold too. Both Jordi and father think it is the best time to sell.’

‘Does Jordi have problems at the bank too?’

‘No.’

‘Does he need the money?’

‘No, but he likes selling when the time is right.’

‘Are you sure that father needs our permission to sell?’

‘Yes, I am. And so is he. No one will buy unless we sign.’

Over lunch, her mother suggested that Carme move into the bigger room and leave her parents the room she was occupying, or they could move into one of the other smaller rooms.

‘We can move out now, can’t we, Paco?’ her mother said.

Her father nodded in assent.

‘I mean, you’ve been away for so long.’

Her mother smiled.

‘I think Carme is happy where she is,’ Nuria said. ‘And we’re only going to be here two more nights.’

‘She might like us to move now,’ her mother said. ‘And if she does, we can be out in a second.’

‘I’m fine where I am,’ Carme said.

‘No, really …’ her mother continued.

‘That’s enough about it, mother,’ Nuria said.

The change in her mother’s attitude was too deliberate; she saw that Nuria was embarrassed by it.

‘Well, our room is lovely,’ her mother went on, ‘we always love it, but the two of you will have to decide if you want to redecorate. You know, the plumbing …’

‘Yes, there’ll be plenty of time for that,’ Nuria said.

Soon, the children began to attract everyone’s attention and the man who had come the previous evening returned and went into the house with Carme’s father.

‘I wish he didn’t come during meals,’ her mother said.

‘Don’t offer him coffee, mother,’ Nuria said. ‘We need a bit of peace today.’

Carme asked her sister if there was a place on the island where she bought clothes and Nuria mentioned a shop in Ciutadella where she knew the owner.

‘Oh, don’t go there today,’ her mother said. ‘They have most of it closed off for the festival tonight. You’ll never get parking.’

‘They’ll open again at five,’ Nuria said. ‘But they’ll be closed tomorrow. I can call her if you want.’

‘No, I’ll drive in and have a walk around,’ Carme said.

She went upstairs, passing on the way her father and his visitor, who were going through a ledger with close attention. She had a shower and put on fresh clothes before setting out for Ciutadella. She would have a coffee while she waited for the shops to open.

Almost everything she saw in the small boutique on a shaded side-street in the old city to which her sister had directed her was simple and light. And yet the clothes were designed in a way so different from what she had bought in England that they all seemed strange to her. She tried on a number of outfits, but felt that she would need new skin and new hair and a new expression on her face before she could wear them. She was sorry that she had not asked Nuria to come with her; Nuria at least would have been able to keep the owner at bay. But she might also have given her advice about sandals, or suggested that she deal with her hair, her nails and her skin before she begin to buy skirts and tops, no matter how right they were.

The owner, who was alone in the shop, appeared offended when she handed her back the clothes she had tried on.

‘I’ll need to come with my sister,’ she said. The woman made no effort to disguise her irritation and looked at the clothes as though they had been soiled. She herself was dressed in a severely cut grey dress. She was wearing shoes that could have been slippers they were so light. She was also wearing too much jewellery, rings and earrings that were too big. Her suntan had to be fake, but Carme could not be sure. In London, her look would have stood out, been too elaborate, but here, even in this small city on the island, it seemed almost natural. Carme sighed and checked herself in the mirror and walked out of the shop.

As she made her way slowly along the street, she stopped to look into the window of an antiques shop. Her mother’s remark about redecoration came into her mind and she wondered if she and Nuria should talk about buying some good old furniture. Suddenly, she noticed a piano that seemed familiar. When she pushed the door and went inside to check, she also found two rocking chairs, unmistakably the same as the ones her grandmother had owned, and realized that the piano on display was her grandmother’s piano, which had come from Cuba and had been in the wide corridor leading to the staircase of the house. When she looked around she saw other furniture that also belonged to the house. As the owner approached, she knew that she would look to him like someone who had bought property on the island in the recent past, an outsider. She spoke to him in a deliberately hesitant Spanish.

‘And these,’ she said, ‘where did they come from?’

She pointed to the piano and the chairs.

‘They were from the house of an old lady who died,’ he said. ‘They would need restoration, but they are very good.’

‘How much?’ she asked.

He gave her the price, which was high.

‘Have you had them for long?’

‘No, a month or so,’ he said.

‘I’ll take them,’ she said.

She probably, she thought, should have bargained. Now, as the owner watched her, she did not want to give her name or address, or even a cheque or a credit card in case he recognized her name.

‘Can I come and pay you on Monday?’ she asked. ‘When the festival is over?’

When he agreed, he asked for a name.

‘I’ll give you my husband’s name,’ she said. ‘Ian Lee. Will that do?’

‘Your Spanish is very good,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

He wrote the name down using a large black marker and put it on the piano.

‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said.

‘Enjoy San Juan,’ he replied. ‘Make sure you come in early tonight and see the festival before it gets rowdy.’

‘I will,’ she replied.

Over supper, while Nuria was upstairs, having taken the children to bed, and there was a strained silence at the table, Carme mentioned that she thought she might drive into Ciutadella later to see the festival.

‘Oh, we never go to that any more,’ her mother said. ‘Not for years now. No one goes.’

‘No one?’ Carme asked.

‘No one we know. It’s too full of outsiders and tourists now.’

‘It’s been completely spoiled,’ her father said.

There was silence again, broken only by the sound of crickets and frogs beyond the swimming pool. Carme watched her parents and was tempted for a moment not to say anything, or to wait until Nuria came back. But there was something about the way her mother was eating, something so self-satisfied, that she could not contain herself.

‘Completely spoiled,’ Carme said in a low voice, ‘like the view from this house.’

Her father sipped a glass of water, her mother stared into the distance.

‘Like the view from this house,’ she repeated, raising her voice.

Her parents pretended that she had not spoken.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Carme asked. ‘Spoiled like the view from this house. Don’t you agree?’

As Nuria returned to the table, her mother moved as though to say something.

‘Excuse me,’ Carme said to her father, ‘don’t you agree with what I said? Or have you grown deaf as well as fat?’

‘Carme!’ Nuria said.

‘He has grown fat selling our property to tourists and now he has the nerve to complain about them spoiling things!’

‘Keep calm, everybody,’ her father said.

‘By the way, I bought the furniture back. I found it down a side-street. The old piano and the rocking chairs. And if you sell anything else,’ she turned to her father, ‘I will call the police.’

‘Oh, listen to the communist!’ her mother said. ‘The police! Will that be the Russian police? Or the Chinese police?’

‘The bungalows are ghastly,’ Carme said.