Secrets of Spain Trilogy

by Caroline Angus Baker

  Luna took a few breaths and her heart pounded in her chest. “Just for a split-second, I felt back there, about to fall down the hillside.”

  “I’m sorry, preciosa.”

  “No, ignore me. Try that again.”

  Cayetano slipped his arms around her tiny waist and pulled her tired body against him. He kissed her neck, much easier with her super short hairstyle. “Better?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Much better,” she replied and put her arms over his.

  “After all this time, you aren’t still shocked by the photo of Papá and Franco, are you?”

  “No, not really. I’m just thinking of José, telling me all about meeting Franco that day in Valencia. He looked happy as we sat on the bridge in the dark, recalling the meeting. He said it wasn’t the sole time he met Franco. José got to meet him several more times in the sixties, first with his work, and then with Paco at the bullfighting. But I wonder why there is no photo of José and Franco together.”

  “I guess no occasion ever called for a photo,” Cayetano said as he rested his head against Luna’s, careful to avoid her surgery scar.

  “There must be photos of Franco’s visit to Valencia in 1957.”

  “There are bound to be. But perhaps Papí didn’t have a camera then. I doubt he earned much in Valencia.”

  “When he told me about meeting Franco, José said Consuela wore a fur coat. It seemed like they had plenty of money.”

  Cayetano frowned as he looked at a photo of his mother and father, taken in the late sixties when Inés was pregnant. “It’s odd that Papí told you that story, but no one else.”

  “Valencia is my town, and he knew the place well. Going to Valencia was a rough homecoming for José. His face, as he stood on the bridge in the dark, recalling when he found his friend’s body in the mud… I feel so ashamed for causing him that pain. But then I think of the people José hurt…”

  “I know. Papí lived a double life - one good, one evil. How can we love one half of him?”

  “Because we need to let go of José’s secrets. It’s all in the past now, and we shouldn’t feel remorseful; we didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I’m still young,” Luna sighed.

  “Well spotted.”

  Luna smiled at the silly reply. “I don’t want to worry about the past, or about being injured, or losing babies, or digging up bodies. I want to be happy and carefree. As carefree as I can be with two sons, anyway.”

  “Everything passes, even great pain.”

  “Except grief. But…”

  “Oh, here we go again.”

  “I was going to say that it would be advantageous to read the journals José said he wrote. It would fill in a lot of gaps about his life.”

  “We don’t even know if they exist.”

  “Perhaps they don’t.” Luna turned in Cayetano’s arms and gave him a slow kiss. “Perhaps I should just let it all go.”

  “We could just get on with our lives, without mysteries and dead bodies.”

  “I’m not going to be myself for a while yet anyway.”

  “Do you still want to get married before you’ve recovered?”

  “Can we? Would it be a bit insensitive?”

  “I think my grandmother would love the distraction. You know old women, they love weddings.”

  “Stereotype much?”

  “Let’s get married. No one else has to be there.”

  “No, everyone should come. Everyone was there when I needed help after my accident. But they are some things we can do, just as a couple.” Luna threw him a cheeky smile. “When we head back to Valencia in a few days…”

  “You can’t wait to rip my clothes off again?”

  “My motor skills aren’t sturdy enough to do up buttons yet, but I’m sure I could fumble my way through a night in bed with you. Some things come naturally.”

  “Isn’t it a bit soon?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Save it for the wedding night, my darling. You can’t stay awake for more than an hour. You still aren’t feeding yourself without making a mess. There’s no rush.”

  “Luna?”

  The cozy couple turned to see Paco in the doorway. “You love to interrupt, don’t you, Papá?” Cayetano wisecracked.

  Paco rolled his eyes. “Luna, I assumed this is your phone, given the Valencian flag cover on the back. It was beeping in the kitchen.”

  Luna wiggled away from Cayetano and took it from Paco with smile. “Ugh, a bureaucratic email.”

  “Toss it out the window,” Cayetano suggested.

  “I checked on the boys on my way up here,” Paco replied. “They are fast asleep.”

  “Thanks, Paco. You’re turning into quite a soft grandfather.”

  Paco took a deep breath and shook his head. “Shit, that makes me feel very old.”

  “Sorry, I take it all back.”

  “Nonsense.” Paco turned and sat down on the dark leather couch by the full length window. Thankfully, Rebelión’s bullring sat hidden in the darkness in the distance. “I have no problem with being called soft. My wife has told me I’m soft with her for our entire marriage.”

  “Why weren’t you soft with me, Papá?” Cayetano joked.

  “Because you’re lazy and need to be pushed through life.”

  Luna sniggered as she sat down across from Paco on a matching couch. Cayetano joined her, and put his arm around Luna as she flicked though her emails. “Oh crap!”

  “What?” Cayetano asked, and leaned over to read her messages.

  “When Alejandro died, he left Escondrijo to me, and also the two houses he owned in Cuenca, number 15 and 16 San Martín. The paperwork is complete at the Town Hall in Cuenca. I own two more properties now.”

  “Don’t worry, leave them to me, I will arrange everything. You’re not ready to deal with Spanish bureaucracy yet. Wow, I guess now we can get inside the houses!” Cayetano said.

  “No one lived there after our grandparents fled at the end of the war. The houses will be a mess.”

  “Still, could be a quite a homecoming,” Paco said.

  Luna paused as Paco looked outside at the darkness. “You should have inherited these places, Paco. Juan Pablo Beltrán owned them; he was your grandfather and Alejandro was your father.”

  “But Alejandro didn’t leave them to me. He left them to you, Luna.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. It’s fine. Alejandro was my biological father, and nothing more. He left you those houses in Cuenca, and the farm in Valencia, because you’re the granddaughter of Cayetano Ortega and Scarlett Montgomery. That meant a lot to him. I’m fine with that.”

  “Can I ask you something, Paco?”

  “Of course, my girl. Anything.”

  Cayetano smiled. “Papá, I suspect you like Luna more than you like me.”

  “I do.”

  Luna tried not to laugh at Cayetano’s angry scowl at his father, who just chuckled in reply. “Paco, are you angry with me, since I discovered that Luna Beltrán was your aunt and not your real mother?”

  The smile dropped from Paco’s face. “It hurts. Even after almost a year since we found out the truth that Sofía Pérez was my mother, it still hurts. I love the woman who raised me, even if our family is a lie. But I’m not angry at you. You were just trying to find Cayetano Ortega’s body, not uncover my family secrets.”

  “Do you wish you never found out?”

  “Sometimes. Why?”

  “It’s about the bodies at Escondrijo.”

  “Yes, Miguel told me that his DNA is a match for one of the bodies.”

  “Did he tell to his theory, about how he thinks that perhaps Pedro wasn’t José’s biological son?”

  “Yes. I’ve heard Pedro, and Jaime and Luis all ponder that question. Inés never has wondered about her parents, so her brothers never said anything to her.”

  “So what do I do with the bodies?”

>   “I think, right now, if you were to expose the fact that José’s sons might not be his, for whatever reason, it would kill Consuela. She has lost her husband, and if you raised paternity questions now, it could do damage that wouldn’t ever be repaired.”

  “I’m just confused,” Cayetano said. “Mamí loved Papí so much, so how could she cheat and have three sons behind his back? Three boys that look alike, no less.”

  “That’s easy,” Luna said. “She didn’t have three sons. All that adoption talk from José? They adopted three sons, and José knew their real mother was buried somewhere outside Valencia. That’s why he wanted the dig to stop. Fear.”

  “My wife loves her family,” Paco said. “Inés has lost her beloved father, and her mother is in mourning. I’m in shock from what happened to José.”

  “Me, too,” Luna said. “It reminded me of when my father died. José’s death does nothing for my confidence in bullfighting.”

  “It’s a timely tale about mortality, that’s for certain,” Cayetano added.

  “If you dare suggest that Pedro, Jaime and Luis are not Inés’ brothers, all that will do is hurt people. If, and I stress if, the story is true, telling the truth won’t help. It will hurt.”

  “But can we live with the knowledge and not tell anyone?” Cayetano asked his father.

  “We have to live with the lie,” Luna shrugged.

  “Miguel knows what’s happening so he can know the results of the tests, but no one else. No good could come of exposing such a family secret,” Paco warned.

  “And the other bodies? How can we help those people?” Cayetano asked.

  “Oh shit,” Luna muttered. “I know who they are. José told me, and I wasn’t listening. We stood outside his old house in Valencia, and talked about a ripple effect when someone dies. He said a doctor and his wife disappeared and four of their five daughters drowned in the Valencian flood. He also talked about his neighbour, a woman named Aná, who disappeared and José saved her eight children from the rising water. When he talked about the ripple effect of death he understood because he knew something about the deaths of these people.”

  “So maybe Pedro, Jaime and Luis are three of Aná’s children?” Paco pondered.

  “No,” Cayetano said. “Escondrijo has four bodies. Papí told me about a woman he knew. A beautiful gypsy woman named Carmelita. Beautiful behind stunning sad eyes. She had a horde of children, and it seemed so unfair God gave sons to her.”

  “We could search all those who died in the Valencia flood, and see if any descriptions match these people,” Luna said. “There could be family in Valencia, who might be able to help. Could be a little murder mystery to solve.”

  “You should ask Jaime’s wife, Alysa to help you,” Paco said. “Alysa was raised in Segovia, but is part-Valencian. She spent time in Valencia, trying to find the identity of her father, so she knows the process as well as you do, Luna. The story of Jaime and Alysa meeting is quite a compelling tale. The seventies were a crazy time in Spain’s history.”

  “Which decade of the 20th century wasn’t a crazy time?” Luna quipped.

  “Can’t Jorge and the historical memory team figure out who the bodies are?” Cayetano asked.

  “They can try.”

  “Can’t we let them? Isn’t our part in this all done, if we agree not to tell Pedro and others about the DNA results? This whole incident almost killed you, Luna.”

  “Caya’s right,” Paco added. “In the future, things might change. But for now, let’s cease with the amateur crime solving.”

  “Okay.” Luna glanced at the email on her phone again. “Cuenca?”

  “What about it?” Cayetano asked.

  “Let’s get married in Cuenca. It’s where my family met your family, halfway between Valencia and Madrid. It’s like ground zero for the Beltrán’s and the Montgomery-Ortega’s.”

  “You should marry soon, and give my wife and her mother some happiness,” Paco said. “If you can cope, of course, Luna.”

  “That what I said!” Cayetano agreed.

  “We could get married in the cathedral there.”

  “Our grandparents would have done the same, if they had got the chance.”

  “Oh no, they wouldn’t have,” Luna replied. “They would have had a Republican revolutionary wedding, free of the shackles of the church.”

  “Thank God Himself that they didn’t marry, or you two wouldn’t exist,” Paco laughed. “There could be people in Cuenca, who knew Alejandro, Luna and Cayetano when they lived there in the thirties. And certainly people who knew the foreigner, Scarlett Montgomery. She wouldn’t be easy to forget.”

  “Back to Cuenca, our original murder mystery,” Luna mused.

  “When do we get to be normal people not solving murders?” Cayetano joked.

  “As you’ve told me before, Caya, we’re not normal people,” Luna reasoned.

  “Sometimes we’re normal,” Paco said. “In some respects, we are like everyone else. This is Spain, so we are living in the history of the country. Everyone has a crazy uncle or similar, who was a questionable figure in the past. Luckily, most of them are over the hatred of the past.”

  “As long as I’m posing naked on the covers of magazines and marrying a celebrity bullfighter, I can’t feel normal,” Luna joked. “And that doesn’t even cover the trauma of my head injury, which makes ‘normal’ life even harder.”

  “On the bright side, I now don’t have to hide from José about who I vote for in elections,” Paco said, and slunk back in his chair.

  “Oh, Paco, you and your secret left-wing ideals,” Luna joked.

  “No more speeches from Papí about how things were better in the old days,” Cayetano mused.

  “No more rants about how the government are destroying Spanish society,” his father added.

  “Wow, you gents make Spain sound like a fun place to live,” Luna said.

  “Any day where the right-wing Partido Popular bastards aren’t in power, Spain is a good place to be,” Paco replied.

  “Wow, Paco, José won’t even be cold in the ground and already you’re coming out of your shell.”

  “I may have lived with José for years, but I was always an unashamed leftie, just in private. I vote PSOE every election.”

  “What about you?” Luna asked Cayetano. “Do you did vote PP like José?”

  “I’ve abstained for the last few elections. I don’t know where my loyalties lie.”

  “That’s okay. Given that you’ve been trapped between your father’s ideals and your grandfather’s religion, that makes sense.”

  “Well, things will be easier now,” Cayetano said, and Luna glanced at him. “Remember you’re Spanish now.”

  “Technically, I’m of dual citizenship because I’m too injured to visit the New Zealand embassy to surrender my passport,” Luna said with a smile.

  “Is that legal?” Paco asked.

  “Thanks to loopholes in Spain’s lazy bureaucratic system, yes, it’s legal.”

  “Welcome to Spain.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Shit,” Cayetano said, “what if the PP do get back into power next year?”

  “Riot in the streets?” Luna suggested.

  “I do worry about the coming fate of our nation,” Paco said. “At my age, what I need is pretty simple. You two are young, and Luna, children the age of yours have a rocky road ahead.”

  “Unless you have plenty of money.”

  “But still, you have to live in a land of discontent, rich or poor,” Cayetano countered.

  Luna nodded in agreement. “The world is changing, and we need to make sure we all play our part in shaping it well.”

  “And hope the crushing authoritative Partido Popular doesn’t get into power and crush our liberal ideas,” Paco said.

  “I like your style, Paco. But who is the enemy of the future; the government or the recession?”

  “The banks,” Paco and Cayetano said in unison.

&nbs
p; “I have question, Luna,” Paco continued. “My daughter has jetted off to Paris, so when her new boyfriend wins the Tour de France in a few days, she can be there. Will this Darren James character hurt my Sofía?”

  Luna looked at her phone on the couch next to her and sighed. “No, Darren won’t hurt Sofía. I don’t think she knows him very well yet, but I know she has fallen in love with him. Darren is a good guy. He’s a talented guy, caring, loyal, funny… he won’t hurt her.”

  “Are you disappointed you won’t be in Paris?”

  “I don’t know…” Luna could try to be tough all she wanted, but it did hurt. Darren was about to win the Tour de France. After all those years of work, training and patience, all with Luna’s help, she wouldn’t be there. Darren wasn’t the person she knew anymore. She wasn’t even herself anymore. “Let’s just say I’m disappointed.” She shut her eyes and begged herself not to cry.

  “Jesus Christ, 2010 has been a shit year,” Cayetano said and held Luna close. “And we still have five months to go!”

  “Which means it’s not too late to turn things around,” Paco replied.

  “I’m just happy not to be dead,” Luna said, her voice small compared to the men.

  “Everyone is carrying a huge amount of grief,” Paco said. “José is dead, and your poor baby is gone. An accident almost killed you, Luna, and Cayetano’s career is at a crossroads yet again…”

  “Then we need to work on getting him back in the ring.”

  “I can’t. I can’t leave you and José just died,” Cayetano replied, and kissed Luna’s forehead.

  “Do it for José,” Paco said. “You collect the Fine Arts medal in a few months. Finish the season. Then retire if you want.”

  “And don’t stop for me. I’ve lost cycling forever, and I don’t want you to feel as lousy as I do,” Luna added. “How many fights is Caya meant to appear in this season, Paco?”

  Paco counted them on his fingers as he recalled the schedule. “August and September have Gijon, Bilbao, Malaga, Cordoba, Linares, San Sebastian, Santander and Cuenca. That’s eight more. He has missed just six in the few months, but all the big fights – Valencia, Madrid, Seville, Jerez and Salamanca were all early in the season.”

  “Perfect. Go back to fighting and then after the last fight in Cuenca, we’ll get married! I think we’ve all taken enough shit this year,” Luna suggested.