‘I was not going to beg from my family.’ María shook her head. ‘And we have managed, Pepe, somehow.’
‘Mamá.’ Pepe stood up and walked over to her. ‘I am so sorry. If I had known I would have helped, but I did not. Anyway, now I am back and I can look after you. I brought all my savings here and if we are careful it is enough to keep us fed for many years. And also . . .’ Pepe fingered his moustache.
‘Yes?’
‘I reminded Papá about Isadora before I left. Then I asked him to give me some money for her. After all, Lucía was her mamá, and by rights, all she earned and everything she owned should pass to her daughter.’
‘You are right. And did he give it to you?’
‘He said it had been a difficult year, that the cuadro’s wages had been eaten up by new costumes for the show. He gave me some, but nothing like what Lucía was owed by him.’
‘So, he does not change,’ María said with a deep sigh.
‘No, Mamá, he does not. But before I left, I took the liberty of selling Lucía’s furs and all her jewellery. I did not get what I should have done, but at least Isadora now has a good sum for her future. Tomorrow I will go to the bank in town and open her an account. With luck, as Spain’s fortunes change for the better, her inheritance should grow. Perhaps we should not tell her, but give it to her on her eighteenth birthday.’
‘Yes.’ For the first time, María smiled. ‘Then at least she will have something to begin her adult life with. Best we forget all about it until then. How long are you staying, Pepe?’
‘Well, there is no cuadro any more. After Lucía’s death, they all went their own ways, and I have had enough of being on the road. So’ – he took his mother’s hands in his – ‘I have come back for good, Mamá.’
‘Then that is news that does make me happy! And you can use Ramón’s cave as your home.’
‘He lives here with you?’
‘Yes, he does,’ María nodded, no longer wishing to hide her love for the man who had been everything her husband had not. ‘I hope you understand, Pepe.’
‘Mamá, I do. I may have idolised my father as a child, but it did not take me long to work out who he really was.’
‘Without Ramón, I would not have survived,’ María shrugged. ‘And what about your father? Where is he?’
‘I left him in San Francisco. He likes California because of the weather. He has a job playing at a bar in the town.’
‘Is he alone?’ María asked, realising it no longer hurt her heart to do so.
‘He . . . is not, no. His latest girlfriend is called Juanita, but I am sure she will not last.’
‘And neither do I care if she does or doesn’t,’ María said firmly, finding it was the truth. ‘And what about you, Pepe? Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘No, Mamá, who would want me?’ he chuckled.
‘Many women! Look at you. You are handsome, talented, and still young.’
‘Maybe I am just not the marrying kind.’
‘You wait until the girls here in Sacromonte see you. You will have them queuing up at your door,’ María said as she rose. ‘Now, I must get on and make our supper. Go and see if Ramón is back with the water yet, will you?’
‘Yes, Mamá.’
As Pepe left the cave to walk down the hill, he sighed, wondering whether he should tell the truth to stop his mother trying to marry him off. But there were some things that even a mother who loved her son to the bottom of her soul could never know. The shock of what he was might kill her. He knew it was a secret he’d have to keep to himself for the rest of his life.
*
News travelled fast around the mountain, and the next day it seemed that every gitano left in Granada had come to María’s cave to pay their respects for La Candela, the greatest flamenco dancer to have ever been born in Sacromonte, and to attend the burial of the ashes Pepe had brought with him. At dusk, María and Angelina led the pilgrimage to the woods, the women keening and singing the mourning songs as Angelina murmured the spells to guide Lucía to the Upperworld.
Pepe held the carved wooden box that contained Lucía’s ashes in one hand, and her daughter’s small hand in his other. He looked down at Isadora, who was focusing on the path ahead of them, her eyes dry, her face sombre. He felt his heart splinter at the thought that she would never know her mother, never be held by her, never dance with her . . .
When they reached the clearing in the woods, everyone grew hushed. In the row of crosses where generations of Albaycíns had come to rest, a small plot had been prepared next to Lucía’s brothers. As Angelina intoned a prayer, Pepe and María gently settled the box into the ground and used their hands to cover it with the rich brown earth, María’s tears mixing with it.
Pepe stood and crossed himself as he looked down at Lucía’s grave. My dearest sister, he thought, you saved my life in more ways than you knew. As he walked back to Isadora and lifted her into his arms for the long walk back to the caves, he offered a silent prayer to the heavens. I swear to you, Lucía, I will care for your daughter until the day I die.
Tiggy
Sacromonte, Granada, Spain
February 2008
White stag
(Cervus elaphus)
A red deer stag with the leucistic genetic pattern, causing a reduction of pigment in hair and skin.
The rarest of creatures, they are considered messengers from the Otherworld in British folklore.
35
Pepe yawned and blew his nose. ‘I think I speak enough now,’ he finished with a nod. ‘Angelina will take over, okay?’
We watched as Pepe stood up and left the terrace.
‘Poor Lucía,’ I said, dragging myself quite literally out of the ‘Otherworld’ I’d been in for the past hour. ‘She was so young.’
‘Yes, she was, but also selfish. She live just to dance. Like many truly great artists, they do not make best wives or mothers,’ said Angelina.
‘I think I can guess the secret Pepe wanted to keep from his mother,’ I said quietly.
‘Yes, I see it instant I meet him. Nowadays, is fine to be who you are – to like men, women, or sometimes both – but back then it was not. Especially in the gitano community. Poor Pepe, he was born in the wrong century.’
‘So, he stayed on with you, María, Ramón and my mother in Sacromonte, yes?’
‘He did. He make his living as a guitar player. Somehow we all manage. It was poor life, but not unhappy one. And you already hear that Pepe brought with him some money from America. Also, thanks to Pepe, Isadora receive inheritance from her mother when she was eighteen years old. It is what helped the family to prosper.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean she use the money to help her husband grow a business. Your father, Erizo.’
‘Who was he and what was he like?’ I asked her eagerly.
‘You already hear his name. He is Andrés, the boy she met as a child, his parents own the ice-cream café in the plaza. Of course, they did not want their son marrying a gitana, but Andrés, he did not care and when they marry, he move up here. Ramón, María, Pepe and I made Ramón’s old cave our home and make bigger so that Isadora can grow a family with Andrés in her own. Isadora used her money to help Andrés and Ramón set up in business. After Pepe tell him of the portable drink carts he see on the streets of New York, Andrés decide to buy orange grove. Ramón grow and press the oranges, Andrés sell the juice in the city. Your father and Pepe design a refrigeration contraption that harness to side of his moped that held the fresh juice. With this, he make not a fortune, but enough, selling the juice in the plaza. There were enough wealthy payos left, and more tourists coming to make it possible. After a while, he make two more machine and in summer he employ others to sell both the orange juice and the Coca-Cola drink that had become so popular. Andrés was, how you say, the entrepreneur.’
‘So, when did my parents marry?’
‘When your mother was eighteen.’
‘But
that means . . .’ – I did the calculations in my head – ‘that they didn’t have me for almost twenty years! Why did they leave it so long?’
‘“They” did not, querida. More than anything they dreamt of a family, and there was no couple who deserved one more. Such love between them . . .’ Angelina sighed. ‘I try to help of course, but it seem your poor mother could not become pregnant and they give up long before you arrive. Then, as is sometimes the way, once they stop trying and relax, you decide to come.’
‘But if they were happily married, why on earth did I end up being given to Pa Salt?’
‘Ay, Erizo, remember that even though the Civil War was finished long before, Franco had taken Spain to a very bad place. The years that followed were, for many, nearly as bad as time before. The whole country had money troubles, and again our community was hit hardest. But it would not have mattered if . . .’
‘What, Angelina?’
I saw tears appear in the old woman’s eyes. She tried to gather herself together and I prepared myself to finally hear what had happened.
‘I have seen the bad times in my life, but the tragedy of your mother and father was the worst, I think. Yes’ – she nodded – ‘the worst.’
‘I understand, but you must tell me what happened, Angelina.’
‘Well, first I tell you that I have never seen such joy in a human as the day my beloved Isadora come to tell me she is with child. And then your father arrive on his old moped, his arms filled with flowers for her. I never see a man so happy. But I tell your mother she is old and she must rest. Andrés too treat her like precious china doll – he work overtime so he could put away extra money for when you arrive. Every week that went by whilst you are still in her belly is a miracle to them both – after losing so many babies, you can imagine.’ Angelina nodded sadly. ‘And then, one evening, when the weather was very bad and the roads washed with too many rain, your father, he did not come home. Pepe went down to police that night and is tell that, yes, a man had been found dead in a ditch, his moped on top of him. It was Andrés . . . the contraption he attach for selling the orange juice was heavy and the police said it made the moped unstable in the bad weather. I . . .’
I watched Angelina pull out a large pink handkerchief and blow her nose. I clenched my hands together, trying not to cry.
Angelina shook her head and shuddered. ‘All those years they try for you, but he never live to see you born. Your mother take Andrés’ death very hard; she could not eat or drink, although I tell her she must for baby’s sake. You arrive a month early – and even though you must believe I try everything to save your mother, there was nothing I could do. I could not stop the bleeding, Erizo, and when the ambulancia men that Pepe call arrive, they could not either. She die the day after you were born.’
‘I see.’ There wasn’t anything more to say. We both sat in silence for a while, me thinking again how cruel life could be.
‘Why them?’ I whispered, more to myself than Angelina. ‘After all those years of trying, surely they deserved to have some time with their baby? I mean, me?’
‘Yes. It is terrible story, and you understand how it break my heart to tell it. Yet, maybe their lives are both short, and you are not allowed privilege of meeting and being cared for by them, but I meet so many people who live a long time, and never find the love your parents did. Be comforted by this, querida, that you could not have been more wanted. Many times I feel your mother around me. I feel her happiness – she always so happy, that was her gift. I . . . adored her, yes, I did.’ Angelina blew her nose hard on the handkerchief then shook her head. ‘Pepe, I think her death, it break his heart forever. That is why he left us just now – he cannot even bear to talk about it.’
‘So.’ I pulled myself together, knowing my time here was running out and I needed to know everything before I left. ‘How did I end up with Pa Salt?’
‘He came to visit me for a reading just after your mother die. You were there, just a few days old. He hear of your story, and offer to adopt you. You must understand, Erizo, me and Pepe, we were old and poor. We cannot give you life you deserve.’
‘You trusted him?’
‘Oh yes, I trusted him,’ Angelina reassured me. ‘I consult with Upperworld and they tell me yes, this is right. Your father is – was – a very special man. He would give you life we could not. But I make him promise me that he send you back when you were older. And look!’ she smiled weakly. ‘He kept his promise to me.’
‘What about María? Was she still alive when I was born?’
‘Ramón died the year before María. They both lived long enough to see Isadora marry your father, but sadly not long enough to see you born, Erizo.’
‘Had my mother named me before she died?’
‘Not properly, no, but . . . when you were born we all say you look like the hedgehog, with your hair that stuck up. She – and we – call you “Erizo” while you were still with us.’
‘And then I became “Tiggy”, nicknamed after a fictional hedgehog.’ I pondered the coincidence, if that’s what it was. ‘You know my proper name is “Taygete”?’
‘Yes, your father tells us he will name you after one of Seven Sisters. I . . . did he find more of you?’
‘One more, yes. My sister Electra arrived a year after me.’
‘And the Seventh Sister?’
‘No, he said he didn’t find her. There are just six of us.’
‘I am surprised,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I . . .’ Angelina opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again. She shrugged. ‘Sometimes the messages, they are confused. Now, Erizo, would you like to see a picture of your mamá and papá?’
‘Yes, please.’
I watched her rummage in the capacious pocket of her kaftan. She drew out a colour print.
As she handed it to me, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I stared in wonder at the image.
‘This is them on their wedding day?’ I murmured.
‘Sí. It was the year 1963.’
The couple in the photograph were gazing at each other, the love and adoration shining out from their innocent young faces. The colours had faded to pale imitations over the years, but I saw that the man had tightly curled brown hair and warm light-brown eyes, and the woman . . .
‘You can see you look like her,’ Angelina ventured.
And yes, I could see. Her hair was darker than mine, but the shape of her eyes and the planes of her face were very familiar.
‘Mi madre,’ I whispered. ‘Te amo.’
*
It was past two o’clock already, and I had to be at the airport for four thirty. I had so much to think about but it wasn’t for now. Leaving Angelina dozing in the sun, I went to collect my rucksack from the hotel, then I walked back to the blue door and pulled aside the curtain to bid farewell to her and the most recent arrival to our family. Bear was suckling at Ally’s breast.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye, darling Ally. Take care of yourself and the little one, won’t you? And thank you so much for coming here to find me.’ I kissed them both.
‘No, thank you and your wonderful relatives for being here with me. What a present I’m taking home,’ Ally smiled. ‘I’ll see you at Atlantis very soon, I hope?’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘Are you okay?’ she asked me. ‘You’re very pale.’
‘Angelina just told me about my mother and father. And how they died.’
‘Oh Tiggy.’ Ally stretched out her hand to me. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Well, I suppose it helps that I never knew them. To be honest, I just feel a bit numb.’
‘I’m sure. Well, one day, if you want to, I’ll tell you all about my birth family and you can tell me about yours. But for now, darling Tiggy, go back to Atlantis and get strong.’
‘I will. Bye, Ally. Bye, Bear.’
In the courtyard garden, I woke Angelina and told her I was leaving.
‘Come back soon, Erizo, won’t you? And bring that nice Mister Charlie with you,’ she said as she winked at me and I blushed.
Pepe appeared from inside the cave, holding a stack of CDs.
‘Here, Erizo,’ he said, handing them to me, ‘although you not meet your abuelo Meñique, you can listen to the music he made. You listen, and you feel the duende here.’ He put a hand over his heart and smiled at me, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling. ‘Vaya con Dios – be safe, querida.’
Both Angelina and Pepe hugged me and kissed me on my cheeks, which were running with tears.
Marcella was waiting for me by her Punto to drive to the airport. ‘Ready, Tiggy?’
I gave one last wave and a smile to my family. ‘Ready,’ I nodded.
*
Later that evening, I flew home to Atlantis in the private plane Ma had arranged, my head still full of my past, but also my present. Things being how they were, I decided I wouldn’t even contemplate the future. When Ma met me at the dock and Christian handed me off the speedboat into her warm, comforting embrace, I remembered what Angelina had said about those who loved us wanting to be given a chance to care for us. I was here for a few weeks to rest and that was that.
So, I surrendered to the comforting cocoon that constituted convalescence at Atlantis. My bed sat in the middle of the room to take advantage of the wonderful view of Lake Geneva. I lay like a princess in my airy attic retreat, and found that – both mentally and physically – I was far more tired than I’d imagined. When I reflected on the drama of the past few weeks, it probably wasn’t that surprising, so I listened to my body and gave in to its demands. Often, to the sound of Meñique’s soothing voice and guitar music on my old portable CD player, I’d find myself dropping off after lunch, coming to an hour or so later. Claudia, our wonderful housekeeper, insisted on bringing me up breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a night-time mug of hot oat milk and homemade cookies.
But by the end of the first week I was becoming restless. ‘Please, Claudia, won’t you let me come downstairs for supper tonight?’ I begged as she delivered yet another tray of food. ‘You must be worn out climbing the stairs ten times a day! And I really am feeling stronger . . .’
The Moon Sister Page 53