Like One of the Family

by Nesta Tuomey

  ‘Well, yes,’ Claire admitted, meeting Elena’s eyes reluctantly. ‘Terry is in the Air Corps and he’s a terrific pilot. He and I...’

  Elena waited.

  Terry and I were lovers, but he cannot forgive me because he found out that when I was thirteen I became pregnant by his father.

  Her mind sealed up again. She avoided Elena’s eyes and, changing tack again, began speaking about Ruthie.

  ‘She can be so funny at times and says things far older than her years. She’s really great because ...something happened a while back but she seems almost over it now.’

  ‘Something bad?’ Elena enquired gently.

  ‘Yes...’ Claire faltered. ‘She was tormented by some boys and they cut off all her hair. She was only eight at the time and she was terrified.’

  And I was only thirteen but Eddie was always kind to me... he never hurt me physically but he hurt me in other ways ...

  ‘Can we read now,’ Claire whispered, ‘before you become too tired?’

  Elena looked at Claire with a blend of curiosity and compassion, but she nodded.

  ‘Yes... please do.’

  Terry left by the side door of Crowley’s pub, glad to be out in the air again. He bent to tie his shoelace, before setting off at a jog down the road that led to the quay. He had spent the past hour sitting at the counter chatting to the publican’s daughter and when she had gone to the other end of the bar to pull pints, he had seized his opportunity to slip away.

  Terry had taken the girl out a few times. Her company had kept him from brooding overmuch on Claire, but he could see that she was becoming too attached to him and it would be wiser to end the relationship. She was a nice girl, Terry told himself, but there was no future in it. Next thing old man Crowley would be putting questions to him and he’d be lucky not to find himself one of the family. He shuddered between amusement and horror at the thought.

  There was a moon, partially obscured by cloud. Terry gazed at it as he jogged along and wondered if Claire was looking at it in Spain. As always when on his own he found himself retracing the circumstances leading up to her confession on their last night together, and agonising afresh over the whole sordid story. He was conscious of a niggling unease that he had been grossly unfair to her.

  Terry kept a wary eye out for potholes while inwardly engaging in further analysis and heart-searching and was, at last, able to admit that what it all finally came down to, what had upset him most, was not the unsavoury aspect of the affair but the fact that Claire had obviously loved his father. Terry couldn’t understand this at all. The man had despoiled her innocence and yet she didn’t hate him for it. Every time Terry thought about it he felt a rush of helpless anger and found himself hating Eddie even more.

  Troubled by the thought of his own intractability, by strong memories of Claire, and by the sadness of his father’s betrayal, Terry slowed to a stop. Below where he stood the sea held a dark, opalescent shine and even as he watched he saw reflected in its depths a spreading blob of silver as the moon broke free of the restraining cloud and majestically rode the high heavens.

  Terry stared upwards, entranced by the sight and was taken by the sudden fancy that if only he could bounce a message off that shining orb it would bounce right back at Claire. What would he say? That he missed her like hell and wished he’d never been so stupid as to let anything come between them. No, he wouldn’t!

  Terry’s heart hardened when he remembered that she had gone away without making contact with him. Right now she was probably in the arms of that smooth-talking Spaniard. He was passing a warehouse and he bent and picked up a rock and hurled it with all his strength, hearing it smash into the corrugated roof.

  Sadly, Elena’s health was deteriorating, and the readings were frequently interrupted. Often it was the doctor coming to take Elena’s blood pressure or Christina with her tray of pills and lotions to tend to her mistress’s needs. There were times too when the sick woman dropped into a doze or became too exhausted to concentrate, and Claire was learning to recognise and anticipate these moments. But although much of the time was spent waiting about and the hours passed in the stuffy, darkened room were undeniably trying, Claire never regretted the offer to come and read to Elena.

  Despite intrusions and delays Claire began to have an idea of the fortitude and intellectual scope of this uncomplaining woman. She grew very fond of her and felt it a privilege to be allowed help her. Elena had the mind of a poet and a sweet generosity of spirit which was particularly inspiring in a woman who had known so much suffering. She felt no bitterness for her ill-health and allowed it as little space in her life as she was physically able. She was deeply spiritual and put the welfare of others before her own comfort or desires. In some ways Claire was reminded of Jane, whom she was missing deeply.

  One afternoon Fernando came in at the end of an unusually prolonged session and waited quietly until Claire had stood up and made her farewells to Elena. On the drive back to the apartment he spoke little and seemed in low spirits.

  At last he asked, ‘How was my mother today?’

  ‘She slept a lot,’ Claire admitted. Elena had seemed devoid of energy and was unable to concentrate for long. They were making so little progress with Villette that Claire was now convinced they would never finish it.

  ‘She has become very frail,’ Fernando agreed soberly. ‘I think my father will see a great change in her when he returns... and my brothers also.’

  Antonio was in Almeria, where he was supervising the completion of their newest apartment block. In the two weeks since he had gone away Fernando had been kept exceptionally busy at the office and Federico was seldom at home, completely taken up with running the restaurant in his father’s absence. Claire had met him only once and thought how unlike Fernando he was. In looks, he favoured his mother but his speech lacked Elena’s sweet, humorous inflection. He took life muy seriamente, according to Fernando, and was very different from his other brother who was away in some military academy. About this potentially more interesting sibling Fernando furnished no details, not even his name. But then Fernando did not talk much about his family. Claire was learning what a private person he was.

  ‘It is a great relief knowing you are with her,’ Fernando was saying. ‘It is a debt I can never repay. If it wasn’t for you ...’ Sadness swamped him and he could not go on.

  Claire laid a gentle hand on his arm and softly repeated that she was only too delighted to do it and it gave her a lot of pleasure too.

  The following day Claire had hardly begun when Elena’s head dropped suddenly forward on her chest and she slept. The chiffon scarf she used wrapped about her wrist, to lift her paralysed hand, slipped from her grasp and slid to the floor.

  Claire read on for a minute, but when it was clear that Elena was not just dozing, but deeply asleep, she relaxed back in her chair and fell to thinking about her mother. Lately, she was troubled by vague feelings of guilt that if only she had been a different, better kind of daughter or made more of an effort, they might have succeeded in closing the widening gulf between them. But the rift, which had started with the death of her little sister, had deepened with her parents’ separation, and now Claire was convinced that, even with good intentions on both sides, it was beyond their power to heal it. She sighed and turned her thoughts instead to Jane.

  Since coming to Spain Claire had been missing her adopted mother to an astonishing degree. Perhaps this was pearly because Sheena, with whom she normally felt so much in accord, was spending all her time with the attractive young Alejandro. Some nights Sheena did not return to the apartment at all. She worried about her friend and only hoped that Alejandro was as decent as he seemed. Thankfully, Miguel Delgado seemed to have completely faded from the scene.

  The door opened and Fernando entered. He gazed sorrowfully down at his mother and Claire was deeply touched by his expression.

  ’What, sleeping again?’ he said, gently laying Elena’s scarf back in her lap.
<
br />   Claire closed the book and stooped to pick up her bag, knowing that there would be no more reading today. As she straightened up she felt suddenly sick. She thought it might be migraine from sitting so long in the darkened room with just one lamp directed in a blob of light on the page.

  The attacks were occurring with disturbing regularity, which was puzzling now that the strain of the exams was over. Claire put a trembling hand to her hot forehead and swallowed dryly.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Fernando moved forward in concern, and gently helped her up. Claire stood dizzily for a second while he supported her without a word, patiently waiting until she had regained her balance.

  ‘I was feeling a bit light-headed,’ Claire confessed, conscious of his arm about her as he helped her out into the air. She pulled away from him and sank into a chair, a hand to her eyes, and concentrated on not bringing up her breakfast. As she gratefully sipped the glass of mineral water he brought her, Stella came bounding up and covered her bare ankles with affectionate licks. Claire stroked the Labrador’s smooth head, feeling ashamed of all the fuss.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she told Fernando. ‘but I’ll come again tomorrow if your mother wants me.’

  Fernando nodded, his sombre expression softening in gratitude. As he walked with Claire to the car, unspoken between them hung the fear that there might not be many more such visits, and they drove the short journey to the apartment in silence.

  While Claire spent her afternoons in a shaded room reading to Elena, Sheena spent hers in bed with Alejandro. Two days after the flamenco show, when Sheena had returned from sketching on the beach and found Alejandro waiting for her outside the apartment, she had gone with him on a round of the local bars where the young Spaniard seemed to be known and regarded well everywhere. They had finished up the evening dancing in a night-club and afterwards he had brought her back to what she believed was his apartment, but later discovered belonged to his friend Miguel, who had lent it to him in his absence. Miguel had helped him out in various other ways too, it seemed. Once when he was drunk Alejandro had laughingly admitted to Sheena that he owed a lot to the man, too much maybe, grinning sheepishly when she questioned him and murmuring vaguely about gambling debts and other matters.

  Alejandro gave her a spare latch-key and they met there each afternoon. They had a pre-arranged signal - two short rings followed by one long one - and Sheena, who was usually there first, felt very daring as she slipped out from the shower to open the door wearing only the briefest of towels, and pulled him giggling inside.

  Sheena had thought she was in love before, but had never felt quite so helplessly besotted as she felt about this vital young Spaniard. Since she had lost her virginity to Killian three summers previously Sheena had experimented with a succession of schoolboys, but never any mature men. Sean, her sculptor, was the most sexually experienced of anyone she had known, but he did not even come close to Alejandro.

  In the slumbering heat of the Spanish siesta they made love on rumpled sheets, behind shuttered windows, and Sheena was willingly initiated into the art of the orgasm. Each time she would think that nothing could surpass her sensation of excitement and satisfaction, and then Alejandro would surprise her again. ‘Bebé, princesa, bebé,’ Alejandro moaned contentedly. He leaned over the side of the bed and reached for his wine glass, feeding Sheena little sips as if she were the infant he called her. Supporting himself on his elbow, he looked down in approval at her smooth tanned body. He slopped a little wine into her navel and chuckled at her squeals as he bent his head and neatly lapped it up.

  ‘You are just like a cat,’ Sheena praised, loving his firmness, his flat belly and swelling manhood. She held him to her and sighed, ready for love again.

  With a perceptive chuckle Alejandro disengaged her arms and rolled off the bed in one smooth movement. Pouting, Sheena turned over on to her front and rested her chin on her arms to watch him.

  ‘Ah, what perfection.’ Fondly, he smacked her plump brown bottom. ‘Espléndido...incréible!’

  He lifted a lock of her hair and looked deep into her eyes. ‘And, of course, you do not sunbathe nude, Señorita,’ he chuckled.

  Sheena threw a pillow at him and snuggled deeper into the bed, reluctant to get dressed, her senses satiated by wine and lovemaking. She did not give any thought to the future. Alejandro seemed to have cast a spell over her mind, as well as her body, and when she was with him she was incapable of thought or action. There was only him. She grew heavy with sleep and barely registered his murmured goodbye and the slam of the outer door, before she had drifted off. She was not conscious that someone had entered the apartment until she gradually became aware of hands stroking her buttocks and thighs. There was a dreamlike quality about it and she lay there unresisting until she felt herself being pulled gently, but firmly, to the bottom of the bed. Behind her, the skilful fingers continued to stroke and caress and, as her pleasure increased, she seemed to have no will or shame. The seductive touch moved to her breasts. With difficulty she opened her eyes and she glimpsed slim brown fingers with unusually long nails, before she began to gasp and shake out of control. She felt her hips lifted and she moaned and instinctively arched her back. Her body heaved and shuddered in response to the thrusting from behind. When Sheena opened her eyes again she was on her own in the room and the sun had gone down outside the window.

  In Spain in the last week in July the temperatures were in the high nineties. Claire could hardly draw a breath. It was warm and close in the apartment during the day and if she forgot to close the heavy curtains before midday, the rooms became unbearably hot.

  One morning early there was a phone call for Teresa. ‘I don’t believe it,’ the girls heard her whoop. ‘You’re having me on,’ and then, ‘Go on, she never did. I don’t believe you.’ When she put the phone down Teresa reached for her cigarettes and tottered into the kitchen to make tea and recover from the shock.

  ‘Twins! Would you believe it! Babs has gone and had twins and they nearly three weeks early,’ she told the girls, still amazed. ‘Two little boys. One five pounds and the other seven and a half. Now where in the world did they come from?’ she wondered, bemused. ‘There’s never been twins in the family, not that I heard tell of.’

  Claire and Sheena exchanged sleepy, amused glances before hastening to congratulate her.

  ‘I’ll have to go at once,’ Teresa said, ‘I gave her my word. She has three little ones waiting on her at home, God help her.’ And in the next breath in a doomed voice, ‘Oh dear, what am I going to do about you and your Mammy counting on me to stay with you till she comes.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Sheena said. ‘Why wouldn’t we be?’ And Claire murmured in agreement.

  ‘What about little Ruthie,’ Teresa nodded towards where the little girl was still asleep. ‘I could take her back with me. Maybe that’s what I should do.’

  But Ruthie refused to leave Sheena and Claire. ‘Don’t send me away,’ she begged. ‘Let me go and stay with Adela.’

  ‘But you’ll be back again with Mum in a few weeks,’ Sheena reminded her.

  ‘I don’t care. I want to be here now. Oh, it’s not fair,’ Ruthie began to weep noisy pitiful tears.

  ‘Ah, the poor lamb. Don’t take on like that.’ Teresa stroked Ruthie’s hair soothingly and looked helplessly at the girls for guidance.

  ‘Maybe she could stay with Adela,’ Claire said hesitantly. ‘Why don’t we ask Ignacio and his wife. We can ring Jane and find out what she wants us to do.’

  Teresa looked relieved. ‘If you think it will be all right.’ Ruthie, sensing that the battle was nearly won, sobbed more quietly.

  Suddenly, Teresa became conscious of time passing. ‘Oh my! I’d best get myself packed and be on my way.’

  The girls rushed to help her. Claire got her case out of the cupboard and Sheena made her a pile of toast, which Teresa gratefully nibbled while hurriedly piling clothing on the bed. Thirty minutes later she was ready to go. The gi
rls helped her with her case to the taxi rank some yards up the street.

  ‘We’ll ring Mum,’ Sheena promised her, as with a last fond hug all round Teresa heaved her plump bulk into the back of the taxi and leaned out of the window.

  ‘Are you girls sure you’ll be all right?’ Teresa asked, yet again.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Claire reassured her. ‘You mustn’t worry about a thing.’

  They all waved and Ruthie, hopping on one leg, happily blew a kiss after the departing taxi. They had just time to see Teresa, misty eyed, return the kiss and then she was gone from their sight.

  Claire brought Ruthie to the hotel later in the morning. Sheena saidthat Claire would do better on her own. Otherwise, Ignacio might get the idea that they were all pushing to be taken into the hotel. At any rate, she needed to buy a new sketchpad and it would save time if she got it while Claire was away. What she was saving time for wasn’t clear but Claire accepted her excuses with her usual forbearance and set off with Ruthie.

  Clare thought how much she would have appreciated Sheena’s support. For all she knew Ignacio might not be that keen to take responsibility for the little girl. But she need not have worried. Ignacio gave them his usual warm welcome and seemed more than delighted to have la hermanita to stay with them. He called his wife out from the dining-room where she was setting tables for lunch, and as soon as she heard they both insisted that since the chaperone had left all the girls must come and stay at the hotel. Claire was touched by this generous gesture, but assured them, however, that for the time being they would be fine in the apartment. Ignacio and his wife threw up their hands in protest but then, seeing that she was adamant, they did not press her any further. Claire left saying she would be in touch with them as soon as she had spoken to Jane.

  When she returned to the apartment Claire found a note from Sheena saying that she had gone to the beach to sketch and would be back later. Why couldn’t she have waited while she rang Jane? Claire thought. ‘It wouldn’t have killed her to wait. She felt daunted at the prospect of having even more explaining and apologising to do. Oh well, she would just have to manage as usual without her.