FLAMENCO BABY

by Radford, Cherry

  Chapter 14

  papá m daddy

  Father. Daddy. As in when Daddy comes you could show him that. But Daddy often missed the show, Charlotte and I waiting around in our party dresses while Mummy tidied the house and prepared something yucky for dinner that he’d seldom stay for. If he did turn up he’d call himself Papa. As in Papa’s missed you, ma chérie.

  Father, Daddy, Papa: he wasn’t really any of these. Charlotte said he might not have even had a part in her creation anyway, with her dark hair and fine features. I said Mummy wouldn’t have done that; she said, no, but she wished she had.

  I leant against the plane window examining the ends of a lank bunch of hair before pushing it behind my ear; no such let out for me. I often wondered how Mummy could have loved me so much, my blurred features and pale hair a constant reminder; my inattentive music-filled head a frequent and familiar concern. Only once, when I’d asked to take up the saxophone to join a friend’s band, had she looked at me in horror and said no. I could borrow Uncle Tim’s, I’d said, reminding her that she wouldn’t have to ask Grandpa for help with the expense, and that not all band players ended up… well, like him.

  What was he like? All I had were a few scenes, but I could still hear his voice - clipped and hesitant, as if he was forever trying to find the right word. As well he might have been; he was trilingual - English, Dutch and French and, according to Charlotte, not fluent in any of them. Nor in music either, it would appear: a singer-songwriter, drummer, lead and bass guitarist - but switching between them, and between bands, and, apart from a brief entry into the bottom of the Top 40, never achieving any real success. Anybody else would have given up - would have had to - but apparently Jean-Michel ‘Mitch’ Martin always had a sponsor. A wealthy, female one, willing to take him on in return for enjoyment of his irresistible butter-blonde appeal. Until, presumably, they discovered their enjoyment was not exclusive, or was marred by the drink and other excesses, and he had to move on.

  But that was later. Mummy never asked him to move on; he just left. His visits became increasingly infrequent and unreliable, until Charlotte, off to university, said we were old enough to decide not to bother with him anymore.

  The Corbière lighthouse and the wide yellow beach of St Ouen’s came into view; perhaps Father had looked down and remembered family outings there when we were little, wondering if Mummy would allow him to take us there. Now it was Charlotte vetoing his plans.

  I pulled the letters out of my bag.

  My Dear Yolande,

  How wonderful to see you after all these years, beautiful, looking so happy holding your flute. How I would love to hear you play.

  Yolette, I don’t want to waste any more time, we have to put the mistakes of the past behind us and try again, before it’s too late.

  Call me or write, please.

  Affectueusement, Papa.

  The mistakes. Shouldn’t that be his mistakes? But perhaps… I took out the other one, written just four days later; never a patient man.

  My Dear Yolette,

  Don’t listen to Charlie, make your own decision this time.

  Come for dinner. Judy is looking forward to meeting you almost as much as I am. If it is easier for you, bring a friend.

  But call soon, because on 6th April we are away until 10th June. Please, ma chérie.

  Charlie and Yolette: I’d forgotten about them. I folded the letters and put them deep inside the side pocket of my bag; perhaps I wouldn’t show them to her after all. I’d tell her he’d written, but reading them to her would make her think I was contemplating a reply.

  ‘It’s like summer,’ I said, stretching out on the woolly rug.

  Charlotte finished sorting out a sandcastle power struggle. ‘Auntie Yolly will help you with the finishing touches, just let me have some time with her first okay?’ she yelled to the kids.

  Eddie and Phoebe looked over and smiled; George took the opportunity to grab the larger spade. If it had happened, Javi and I would have had a gentle child like Eddie. Or Sophie. Phoebe was cute but self-centred - arguing about the chocolate duck I’d given her not being as big as the boys’ chocolate bunnies, for heaven’s sake - and a bit of une princesse with all that swishing back of the hair. But that could be Simon’s fault, having a limited but over-indulgent input. Javi would be a more hands-on papá, changing nappies without a twitch of the nose, winning over a stroppy toddler with a joke and some physical play…

  ‘Yolly?’

  I opened an eye.

  ‘Thought you’d nodded off. So come on, how it’s going? When’s he coming over?’

  I turned my head, shielded my eyes from the sun. She was smiling down at me.

  ‘D’you know, I can’t tell you how nice it is to hear some enthusiasm - everyone else is so damn cynical or anxious for me.’

  ‘Well Jeremy’s bound to be worried - how would he manage without you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not chuffed about the possibility of you ending up in Granada either, but you haven’t seemed this happy in ages. So is he coming over or…?’

  ‘Both. In fact he’ll get in to Gatwick just after I do on Sunday, so we’ll go home together. Then I’m going over on the eleventh for a week.’

  She nodded and grinned. ‘So… I know I shouldn’t ask, but… how quickly could he get divorced from his wife, having been separated for so long?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno.’

  ‘Haven’t you Googled Spanish divorce laws?’

  ‘No.’ Why hadn’t I? All I’d done was look up Violeta and regretted allowing her beautiful arch-backed image to make an imprint on my brain. ‘It’s not important yet.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Look, just for once I’m not thinking about it too hard. Probably where I went wrong with all the others. He just makes me feel good, and that’s enough for now.’

  She patted my arm. ‘Quite right, I’ll shut up.’ Then she lay down next to me, propping herself up on her elbow so that she could still see the kids. She leaned over to me. ‘Makes you feel good, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So… he’s good, is he?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said without opening my eyes.

  ‘No Yolly, I think… it’s another thing that might not have been right with the others.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Sisterly intuition.’ She nudged me.

  ‘Well? Am I right?’

  I put a hand to my face. ‘Okay, yes he is. But end of discussion.’

  ‘God I shouldn’t have had that,’ I said, hauling myself out of the car.

  ‘Sorry - beach and pizza’s become a bit of an Auntie Yolly tradition.’

  ‘Hey you lot, take some of the stuff,’ I shouted after the kids, who were running off without carrying anything in. They ignored me, just like they did their mother; she really needed to make them help more. But then maybe it’s easier to get that sort of thing right when you’ve only got one, which is probably all Javi and I would have.

  ‘I’ll make amends and give you a salad for dinner. Got to have you looking good for your señor. What does he look like by the way, you haven’t said.’

  ‘Big brown eyes, quite tall, fair…’

  ‘Fair?’

  ‘Apparently there might have been a Dutch great-grandfather.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I know, bit of a coincidence, eh.’

  ‘And it didn’t put you off.’

  ‘What? We can’t write off the whole Dutch race.’

  ‘Suppose not. Anyway, it was probably the French side that was to blame; apparently grand-père Martin was a right sod.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Left him and his mother when he was about the age we were when he left us.’

  She handed me a mug of tea and I followed her out to the patio, sat down and admired the daffodils and forsythia, the cows looking over at us from the next-door field.

  ‘So he hasn’t tracked you down yet then.’

  ‘Well… he’s writt
en to me through the Trio website, Helen’s address.’

  She shook her head. ‘And did you reply?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did he say, exactly?’

  ‘Oh… the usual stuff, do let’s talk bla-bla.’

  ‘Perhaps he thinks you might come in with him on his latest stupid business venture… something to do with the Trio, maybe.’

  I’d Googled and discovered a recording studio and rehearsal room in a Fulham mews; perhaps she had a point. ‘I thought you said he was shacked up with some wealthy woman.’

  ‘Maybe he wants to impress her, needs to act out the caring father. Believe me, there’ll be an ulterior motive.’

  I started to feel rather weary, and dug fingers into my pelvis in the usual futile effort to stop the ache. ‘Can I have a couple of those co-thingumies? My tum’s completely clenched.’

  She went inside and came back with a fizzing glass.

  ‘Shouldn’t be this bad if you’re on the pill. You are on the pill, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Well, since yesterday.

  ‘Then you should see someone. Can’t be right, Yolly, every time you’re here you’re bent double. I’ve got a friend who was like you, same age, and she went—’

  The boys charged past us, waving foam swords.

  ‘Get Javi some treatment and have one of those,’ she said. ‘That’ll sort you out.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ve only just met him, remember.’

  ‘Yes, but I can tell there’s something serious here… The only thing that worries me is you’re on such a high you’ll go and do something stupid like agreeing to see Father. He might start pestering Helen, coming to her house… you’ll end up giving in.’

  I swallowed the medicine, pulled a face.

  ‘Remember, if it wasn’t for him, Mummy would probably still be with us. Think of that,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t give someone multiple sclerosis.’

  ‘Autoimmune diseases can be caused by stress.’

  ‘But she got it years after he’d left.’

  ‘Probably started long before she was actually diagnosed.’

  ‘Well we don’t know that, do we?’

  Charlotte folded her arms, her mouth hard. The real reason she couldn’t forgive him hung in the air, a door we didn’t open.

  She got up. ‘It’s getting cold out here, I’m going in.’

  ‘Can I come in too?’

  She looked back, then came over and put her hand out, pulled me up from the chair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Don’t let’s argue about this. It’s up to you, I know that. Just be very, very careful.’

  ‘I will.’ I gave her a squeeze. ‘I’ll just take my bag upstairs.’

  She apologised about some extra furniture, something to do with having Marie-Claire’s room decorated while she was away. Just be very, very careful. She’d said this before, many years ago. One of the random phrases from my childhood. I climbed the stairs, looked out of the window at the boys laughing on their climbing frame…

  I was going to the play park with Daddy. Papa. Charlotte was staying at home with a friend, considering herself too old for it. Papa and I drove to the place with the really scary tall slides, and the roundabout thing that could be lovely if there wasn’t always some boy spinning it dangerously too fast; I was going to be very careful.

  But when we got there Papa wouldn’t let me go in; he didn’t like the look of some of the big lads on the swings, you could get hurt, he said. So we went for a walk by the reservoir instead, and he helped me climb a knobbly tree, finally shoving me up by my bottom to the thick Jungle Book branch, where I sat dangling my legs. A girl Mowgli fighting off the snake; Tarzan’s little sister, escaping the panther trying to catch my feet with his paws…

  Later, she asked me if he’d touched me. You know, down there. I thought, well yes, I suppose he did. He pushed me there to get me up to the branch. Then it had come to me that perhaps it wasn’t right. And much worse, perhaps it wasn’t right that I hadn’t minded…

  I flung my bag onto the bed. I had to stop thinking about Papa. Father. It was all so long ago now, how could it possibly matter? Unpack, get downstairs. Play with the kids, help Charlotte with the garden. I unzipped the bag and lifted out a clump of clothes, turned to put them in the usual chest of drawers. But it wasn’t there. It had been moved into the corner to make space for some hulking mahogany pieces I hadn’t seen for a while: a dressing table, Mum’s old bureau, a wardrobe. The wardrobe.

  Smaller than I remembered, and the keyhole had been replaced by a near-matching knob. I opened it: the same mournful squeak and dark-woody smell. I half expected to see Charlotte’s blue school pinafore and blazer, but now it just held a few ball dresses and a witch’s costume. I closed it…

  I could hear our cousins running around the landing choosing somewhere to hide, Papa’s voice downstairs counting backwards - thirteen, ten… he’d had a lot of wine at lunch.

  ‘Quick, lock me in,’ Charlotte said, crouching there under the skirts and dresses.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He mustn’t find me, not when he’s like this.’

  She pulled its door closed. I wiggled the little key from side to side. I wanted to ask her how to do it but I was suddenly alone. Then I jumped as she banged on the inside of the wardrobe door and shouted something about the bedroom door key too.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t want him locking it anymore.’

  ‘Why does he—?’

  ‘Come on Yolly, hurry.’

  Then I got that thing that happened at school: I was listening but the words would jumble, I’d separate the words but lose the order. I looked at the key in my fingers, and over towards the bigger one in the bedroom door. I turned the little one round in one direction, then round in the other. Just as I was wondering how I’d know if it was right, it came out in my hand. That’s it, I thought, I had to take it out, that’s what she’d said. Now I just had to do a lock with the big key. I went over and held the door in one hand and twisted the key with the other until it made a click. Then I dashed out onto the landing after a beckoning cousin, the door making a rebounding bang behind me.

  Later she must have found the wardrobe key, slipped from my sweaty fingers, and replaced it. Taken out the bedroom door key and got rid of it herself. Much later. After the game, after Papa had found her and… And after she’d grabbed my arm and asked me why can’t you just listen, Yolly, why didn’t you lock it, you’re such an idiot.

  ‘Oh no… Why didn’t you say you wanted a lie down?’ She was unpacking the rest of my things, lifting the bag off the bed and sitting next to me.

  ‘No, I’ll come down, the pills are going to kick in soon.’

  ‘We’ll put you on the sofa with a hottie. I can watch the kids from there and show you the DVD of the school play - but you’ll have to hold on to your tummy, it’s hilarious.’

  We went downstairs, sighed and laughed at Eddie’s heartfelt Mayor of the Munchkins, George’s hyperactive monkey, Phoebe vainly swishing her green skirt but forgetting to sing. I sank into the squishy sofa, light-headed and wondering if they did the Wizard of Oz in Granada schools.

  ‘Oh… is that your phone?’ Charlotte asked. I looked at my watch to see if it could be Javi. ‘Kitchen? Stay there, I’ll get it.’

  She came back with it to her ear. ‘Yes, that’s what I said… well, she’s perking up now.’ She handed me the phone. ‘Guess who.’

  ‘I’ve been trying all day, Yol. Are you alright?’ Jeremy.

  ‘Course I am. How’s the festival?’

  ‘It’s great but… I’m ready to come home now.’ He asked me again if I thought my periods were normal, was I sure I didn’t need to see a doctor. I gave him a string of yeses.

  ‘Haven’t you got to give a Masterclass in a minute?’

  ‘At three, yes.’

  ‘Well stop fussing about me and go and get yourself ready.’

  ‘Oka
y. But Yolly, you’ve forgotten about Romeo and Juliet on Tuesday, haven’t you.’

  ‘Oh no…’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll give my ticket to Javi if you think he’d like to go. Presumably he’s never been to a ballet.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well I can hardly take you off to it and leave him on his own, can I? Call it making amends… I’ll see you Sunday night then - oh no, better leave you two to er…’

  ‘We’ll come and see you some time on Monday.’

  ‘Okay. Look after yourself.’

  ‘You too. Bye now.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘Tell Mitch you don’t need a father in your life - you’ve already got one.’

  Chapter 15

  problema m problem

  Three nights, four days. Exactly what we’d had in Granada. Javi had planned a tit-for-tat length of stay, as if we were a couple of teenage exchange students… What’s the matter with me? I’m lucky he’s coming at all. Must be these hours of jitters and cold. I squinted up at the board: still delayed. Atrasada. No, atrasado, a plane is a boy.

  ‘Another?’ The café guy pointed at my soup-bowl mug.

  ‘Go on then. Might as well.’

  And it’ll give him something to do, I thought; everybody else seems to have winged off, arrived, or got who they were getting. Hm, story of my life. But hopefully that was to change. Four days. Counting the hand-squeeze shower-fixing evening, perhaps you could call it five. But still very few. I’d been so busy pondering the future with Charlotte or defending our relationship with everyone else that I’d rather lost sight of that.

  A reassuring buzz in my pocket. But it was Jeremy.

  ‘Are you alright? Did he miss the flight?’ Obviously listening out for us.

  ‘Plane delayed. Spanish always late,’ I texted back, although rather unfairly - Javi was a superb time-keeper. In many ways.