The sale completed while I was here, she said. I went to say goodbye to it with Mamá. I know you said you’d done some painting but I didn’t realise how lovely it was. It made me very, very nostalgic. Mamá too, I think. But Luis will be a good owner. He invited us for drinks on the evening of the signing, which was the day before Eduardo’s birthday.
I felt a small stab of envy as I thought of them enjoying drinks in the tranquil garden, but I knew that the Villa Naranja was part of my past. A healing part, obviously, but the past nonetheless. And so I was prepared to tell Mum that somewhere other than Beniflor might be a better option for our trip, when she rang and asked to know what dates I was free because she wanted to book the flights.
‘Are you sure—’ I began before she interrupted me.
‘Absolutely.’ Her tone was bossy. ‘I wanted to visit while you were there but you put me off because, you said, it was too hot. Clearly, you thought I was some frail old woman who couldn’t cope with a bit of heat. But it’s October now, Juno, and the days are getting shorter. I need some heat before the winter. Besides, the vitamin D will be good for my bones.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to go away with you,’ I told her. ‘It’s just that the hotel is expensive, and maybe we should think about somewhere else entirely.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I was always going to pay for the hotel!’ cried Mum.
‘But—’
‘No buts.’ She was quite determined. ‘Let me know your next available weekend. I insist.’
And so, against my better judgement, I found myself at the departure gates for a flight to Alicante once again a fortnight later – although this time with Mum in tow.
‘I do so love the Internet,’ she said as we waited to board. ‘I love being able to pick anything I want from anywhere in the world right from the comfort of my armchair.’
‘Funnily enough, I wouldn’t have thought of you as a tech sort of person,’ I remarked.
‘Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I can’t learn new tricks.’
‘It’s not about your age,’ I told her. ‘It’s about being you. About liking plays more than the cinema, and proper books not Kindles, and preferring to phone people rather than sending texts and all that sort of stuff.’
‘Plays are more personal than movies,’ she said. ‘You’re in the same room as the characters and you’re totally involved with them. Printed books are works of art. They look beautiful, they feel beautiful and they smell beautiful. So why wouldn’t anyone want them? As for picking up the phone to talk to someone – doesn’t that make perfect sense, if you want to have a conversation? I can’t bear watching people tapping away at their keyboards like woodpeckers, when it would be just as easy to have a bloody conversation. But this,’ she continued as we moved forward and she opened her app to retrieve her boarding pass, ‘this makes perfect sense to me.’
‘Thea Ryan.’ The staff member at the gate looked at her ID and then at her. ‘You’re very welcome on board. I love you in Clarendon Park. That Imelda one is a right bitch, isn’t she?’
‘I do my best to be as bitchy as possible,’ Mum assured her, and the agent laughed.
‘I wouldn’t have expected to be recognised at the gate,’ Mum said to me as we settled into our seats. ‘The staff are from so many different countries now that you don’t assume they watch Irish TV.’
‘Clearly, your fame goes before you.’
‘Well, Clarendon Park has been sold to other European stations,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Maybe I’m big in Poland and Romania.’
Despite Mum’s surprise at being recognised, and her general experience of not being asked for autographs, two elderly women did stop by our seats and asked her to sign the back of their snack boxes for them.
‘You make older women acceptable on TV,’ said one of them. ‘We’re not all passively sitting there letting life go on around us, much as the youth of today might like to think that’s all we do.’
‘Absolutely right,’ Mum agreed. ‘Seventy is the new sixty. The new fifty, in fact.’ She signed her name with a flourish. ‘I hope you have a great holiday.’
‘We’re here until New Year,’ said one of the women, whose name was Trudy. ‘Me and my husband bought a lovely apartment in Torrevieja when he retired. He died last year, it was the cigarettes that did for him, the poor love – dreadful habit but, of course, he’d been on them all his life – anyway, I thought about selling it, but then I said to myself, “What would Imelda do?” And I knew that you’d never sell somewhere like that but you’d come back, over and over again, and live your life and be a pain in the arse to everyone around you, and I decided that’s what I’d do. Not be a pain in the arse, mind,’ she added. ‘But everything else.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Mum. ‘But I’m glad you’re doing well.’
‘Ah, you have to get on with it, don’t you?’ said Trudy. ‘We’ll be long enough dead.’
After which they returned to their seats, while the pang I’d felt when they spoke about death was masked by the genuine amusement I’d got from listening to them talk to Mum.
‘I never thought of you as an icon for the older woman before,’ I murmured. ‘I always saw you as a kind of grande dame. But those women just think of you as someone out for a good time.’
‘And they’re right,’ said Mum. ‘About all of it. No point in moping, no point in not getting on with it, life is for living. You should know that by now.’
‘I do.’ I clipped up the tray table in front of me as a cabin crew member told us that we were commencing our descent. ‘If anyone knows that, it’s me. Hell, I’m on a jaunt to Spain with my mother. If that’s not living it up, I don’t know what is.’
‘Cheeky thing.’ But she laughed.
And so did I.
Although Mum had insisted on organising the flights and hotel, she allowed me to be the one in charge of the car hire. The queue was considerably shorter than it had been at the start of the summer, and there was no delay in picking up the keys. I didn’t bother with the satnav, as I was confident about where I was going, but when I turned off the motorway and took the twisting road to Beniflor, Mum gasped.
‘If I’d known what this was like before, I’d have worried about you a bit more,’ she said.
I laughed and took another bend with practised ease.
‘You’re actually liking this, aren’t you? You’re enjoying the fact that I’m terrified.’
‘Kind of,’ I admitted.
‘I underestimated you,’ she said. ‘Maybe I always have.’
And maybe I’d underestimated her, I thought, as the road straightened out and we approached the hotel. Maybe we all underestimate each other in a whole variety of ways.
I turned into the driveway that led to the hotel building and brought the car to a stop under a covered bay.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Mum exclaimed as she got out. ‘It’s beautiful.’
And it was. Even more beautiful in the slightly softer light of the late October afternoon, I thought, than it had been in the full glare of the summer sun. The air was still clear and balmy and a soft breeze rustled through the oleander bushes.
‘This way.’ I led her to the building. As we mounted the steps I could see the face of a small tabby cat in an urn of pink and purple flowers.
‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘It’s one of the kittens.’
‘Ophelia’s kittens?’ Mum looked at the cat with the same level of curiosity as it was giving her. ‘You know my views on them. But he – or she – is endearing.’
I moved towards the kitten who leaped gracefully from the urn and then disappeared into the box hedge.
‘After all I did for you, you could show a little gratitude,’ I called after it.
‘Like I said,’ Mum observed. ‘Selfish creatures. But elegant. At least she hasn’t inherited her mother’s arse.’
I was choking with laughter as we walked into the hotel together. Bridget Johnson, Rosa’s
mum, was sitting behind the large table they used as a desk. I wasn’t sure she’d remember me, but her face lit up in recognition and she came from behind the table to greet me.
‘It’s lovely to see you again,’ she said. ‘I saw your name on the reservation, but I didn’t know if it really was you or not. I thought, if you came back, you’d stay with the Navarros. Or maybe with Ana Perez.’
‘Navarros? Perez?’ asked my mother.
‘The Navarros are the neighbours who bought the house I was staying in,’ I reminded her. ‘Ana is Pilar’s mother, she originally owned it.’
‘Yes, yes, I know about Pilar,’ said Mum.
‘She was here with her family recently,’ said Bridget. ‘It was Eduardo’s birthday and they had a lovely celebration. They booked the entire terrace.’
‘She sent photos,’ I told her. ‘It looked like a great night.’
‘It was,’ Bridget said. ‘Pilar spent a lot of time talking to Luis Navarro. The whole Navarro family were there. Pilar and Luis seemed very taken with each other.’ She gave me a knowing smile.
Luis. And Pilar. Could they become a thing? She hadn’t said a word about it, despite giving me and Cleo what I thought had been a full rundown of the birthday night. I’d enjoyed hearing about it and hearing about the people I’d come to know. I’d felt as though I was there again myself. I thought about Luis and Pilar. It would keep the Villa Naranja in the Perez family, if they became a thing. But that was medieval thinking. People didn’t actually get married to do things like that. And Pilar didn’t care about the house. All the same, I was going to ask her when I got back to Ireland. If only because she’d kept very quiet about meeting Luis.
‘Pep was here too,’ Bridget said. ‘He’s keeping well.’
‘How’s Rosa?’ I wasn’t going to talk about Pep, least of all in front of Mum.
‘She’s great.’ Bridget smiled at me. ‘She’s doing really well this term at college.’
‘She’s not here now?’
Bridget shook her head. ‘She’s sharing an apartment in Alicante with her girlfriends. Far more exciting than here.’
‘Tell her I said hello.’
‘You should’ve let her know you were coming,’ said Bridget. ‘I’m sure she’d have dropped by. She still might, if you call.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t drag her away from her studies,’ I said. ‘Besides, Mum and I are just here for a little R&R.’
‘Juno told such lovely tales about her time here that I had to see it for myself,’ said Mum.
‘Well, I certainly hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us,’ Bridget said. ‘Let’s fill in some info, then I’ll give you the key and you can chill out.’
Ten minutes later, I was opening the door to our room.
‘A suite! Mum . . .’ I turned to her. ‘You didn’t have to book a suite, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I didn’t,’ she told me. ‘I just asked for a room with a sea view.’
I looked around the room, which was divided into a living area and a sleeping area, both beautifully decorated in delicate shades of off-white and apple green. The all-marble bathroom was even bigger than the fantastic one in the Villa Naranja and contained bales of fluffy towels, Acqua di Parma toiletries and a couple of luxurious robes.
‘This is very satisfactory,’ said Mum as she opened the doors to the balcony. ‘Very satisfactory indeed.’
But while she was standing outside, revelling in the evening sun, I was ringing Bridget to check that there hadn’t been a mistake.
‘Of course not,’ said Bridget. ‘Like I said, I saw your name on the reservation. I thought that, if it was you, you’d like to sample La Higuera at its best. And if it wasn’t, well, it would have been a nice surprise for the other guests.’
‘It’s a nice surprise for us,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Actually, I wanted to thank you,’ said Bridget. ‘You were a breath of fresh air for Rosa this summer. Since meeting you and talking to you, she’s become far more focused on her studies. She told me that you’d inspired her and she hoped to be like you some day.’
‘What?’ I was astonished. ‘I’m not . . . there’s nothing about me that’s particularly inspiring.’
‘She said you were very clued-in,’ said Bridget. ‘And that you knew what you wanted and that, even though you’d had a setback, you were getting yourself together. Like all of us, she was very impressed with how you looked after Xavi Ruiz. Truth is, Rosa really looks up to you, and I’m delighted about that.’
I put the phone down with a profound sense of shock. I hadn’t realised that Rosa had seen me as someone to look up to. I didn’t see myself like that at all. But I was someone who’d made mistakes and forgiven myself for them. So perhaps that was something worth celebrating.
‘Champagne?’ Mum came in from the balcony. ‘I do think that evenings in the sun should be celebrated with champagne, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, still dazed after Bridget’s words. ‘I do.’
There were heaters on the terrace, even though the air was still warm. About half of the tables were occupied, and a charming waiter led us to one at the far end. I didn’t say anything but I could feel my entire body tighten as I realised it was the same table I’d sat at with Max Hollander when he’d told me everything about Brad, Alessandra and Dylan. I shivered involuntarily.
‘OK?’ asked Mum. ‘Do you want to sit closer to the heater?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ I pushed thoughts of my previous time here to the back of my mind as the waiter returned with our two glasses of champagne and a food menu.
‘Hungry?’ she asked.
‘Not very,’ I admitted, even though the only food I’d had since breakfast had been some cheese and crackers on the plane.
‘I need something to pick at.’ Mum took her glasses from her bag and began to study the menu.
‘Para picar,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘To pick at. Para picar.’
‘Did you take lessons while you were here?’ she asked.
‘No. But some things sink in anyhow.’
‘Who’s Pep?’ She closed the menu and looked inquiringly at me.
‘Pep?’
‘Yes. The lovely woman at reception said that he was at that birthday celebration. She said it as though it should mean something to you.’
‘He was the pool cleaner at the Villa Naranja,’ I replied.
Mum’s deep-blue eyes regarded me thoughtfully.
‘And?’
‘And another of the Navarros,’ I said. ‘The pool cleaning was his summer job. He’s a student in Alicante.’
‘And?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Mum!’
She grinned. ‘Just checking. That there was someone.’
I shook my head. ‘You’re impossible. Yes, all right, I had a bit of a fling with him, but that’s all it was, honestly.’
‘You needed a fling,’ she said. ‘I told you before.’
‘I know. And I wish you wouldn’t.’
A few months ago, her probing would have annoyed me. But now, even though I made a face at her, I didn’t really mind. She wasn’t asking about Pep to judge me or to measure me against anyone else in the family. She was asking because she was interested and because she cared.
‘I love you, you know,’ she said.
‘And I love you,’ I told her.
Then the waiter came and she ordered jamón ibérico and a variety of bread, which we shared as the sun slid behind the mountains and the stars appeared in the cloudless sky.
After we’d finished the food, Mum declared herself exhausted and said she was going to bed. Although I was tired, I wasn’t sleepy. So I said goodnight to her and moved into the small lounge area of the hotel, which overlooked the pool. I took out my phone and messaged Cleo and Saoirse, who both hoped I was having a good time with my mum (they knew that my relationship with her had always been edgy and had been surprised when I told them I was going away
with her). So far so good, was my response, which was perfectly true. Somehow, for the first time, I was seeing Mum as a person and not as a mother who’d been shocked at my arrival, nor as the actress who was bewildered by my love of practical things. I sent a message to Pilar too and added Luis Navarro?? at the end. Then I sent a text to Dad telling him that everything was great and that Mum had retired early.
I’m sitting in the kitchen smoking my pipe, he sent back. The back door is open. Don’t tell her, though.
You want me to hide your sins?
You’re usually on my side. Especially about the pipe.
I sent back some laughing emojis. It was true that I nearly always sided with Dad in every argument with Mum. But those arguments were few and far between, because they were united on so many fronts. And Dad, to me, was a somewhat distant, literary figure, never to be disturbed when he was working – the head of the household without actually laying down the law, because Mum did it for him.
I might not always have appreciated them, I realised, but I did now.
I put the phone on the glass table in front of me as two small cats strolled through the open doors of the lounge and stopped in front of me. I recognised the one I’d seen earlier. The other was obviously his or her sibling. Both Ophelia’s offspring. Their eyes were fixed on me, and as I leaned forward I half expected them to run away. But instead they came closer and began to rub against my ankles.
‘Do you remember me?’ I scratched them both on their heads. ‘I knew your mother.’
The cats purred like tractors and then settled beneath my chair. The same sense of peace I’d always felt at the Villa Naranja settled over me. I closed my eyes.
My phone beeped and I picked it up again.
Hi, I read. I’m truly sorry about my last text to you. No excuse, just bad manners and grumpiness. Are you still available to buy me that coffee? Max
Chapter 35
I stared at the text in disbelief.
What on earth had prompted Max to send me a text? And why would I even bother answering his message now? Who the hell did he think he was?
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