All My Mothers

by Joanna Glen

  The phone rang.

  Nigel answered.

  ‘Evzy came,’ he said.

  I took the phone and told Jean I was sorry but I had to leave for the airport.

  ‘Why didn’t you say you were coming?’ she said.

  I stuttered.

  ‘I didn’t think Cherie would want to see me,’ I said.

  ‘Were you here to see your birth mother?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cherie will really struggle with that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jean,’ I said, ‘but none of this was my idea. I was a zygote.’

  I left the pink case and the presents under my bed, and I put the unopened cards in my rucksack.

  On the plane, I opened my pile of birthday cards, each with the age on the front, all saying To My Daughter in gold foil.

  Signed with love from Jhazmin.

  Chapter 109

  In June, Gabriel and Carrie got married.

  Carrie had sewn several layers of white feathers to her dress.

  Gabriel carried her over the threshold of La Convivencia, and she looked like a tiny swan nesting in his arms. She was three months pregnant, and occasionally had to disappear to throw up, but this was one of those weddings where you know you’re in the presence of true love.

  You can’t stop staring at it.

  You look away and you look back to check it’s real.

  And it is.

  I had the feeling that this marriage was something that was beginning well and would end even better.

  Their wedding reception was held in the candlelit courtyard, overlooked by the Angel Rafael, and they left for honeymoon on Gabriel’s motorbike.

  When I went to bed that night, my heart felt swollen with joy.

  When they came home, Carrie swelled with baby.

  By August, the baby had broken through Carrie’s stomach muscles, and by September, she started holding her lower back and sighing a lot, so I told her to stop working and employed a temporary cook called María.

  Bridget loved to put her hand over Carrie’s belly to feel the little kicks and punches of cherub-limbs, and when I watched her, I knew that she was someone who should have babies.

  Jhazmin, now living in Gibraltar, wrote to tell me she’d bought a mobile phone, so we could text each other.

  Sunny day! she would text.

  Another lovely sunny day!

  Beautiful again!

  Exclamation marks these days, rather than commas – Bridget’s favourite.

  Barnaby kept coming, three times a year, to deliver his lectures at the Research Centre. One night we stayed up late drinking coffee and – I’m not sure how it happened – we kissed again.

  I told no one about that kiss.

  It was more shameful and depressing than the first.

  A text arrived from Jhazmin.

  ‘I can’t stand it here!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Everything!’

  ‘The bar is terrible!’

  ‘All I do is cook!’

  ‘Chris and Liam spend all day drinking!’

  Bridget came around to say that Gerónimo had taken her to Granada for the weekend and they’d climbed into the hills, and the peaks of the Sierra had a dusting of snow on them, and he’d proposed, and she’d said yes, and she was moving into his flat. Straight away.

  Straight away?

  My spare bedroom would be empty again.

  I forced my mouth into the biggest smile I could manage.

  ‘I was wondering if we could hold another reception in the courtyard,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, hugging her and trying to sound as happy as I’d sounded for Carrie.

  Carrie barged in with her big baby belly to hug her too.

  ‘Did you talk to Gerónimo about babies?’ she said.

  ‘He hasn’t changed his mind,’ said Bridget, staring at her diamond ring.

  Should we have said something then?

  We didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  Adriana called loudly from Reception: ‘Eva, someone’s here for you!’

  And who do you think it was?

  Chapter 110

  It was a woman, not a man.

  I’d wondered if it would be my priest-father with sunflowers – I don’t know why.

  I’d started staring at priests’ faces.

  No, she had a pink suitcase on wheels, to match mine – except huge.

  There she was, my Jhazmin-mother, staring around her at the courtyard, at the angel and the wagon wheel leaning against the wall, and I immediately felt, what was it, burdened by her arrival.

  ‘The last time I was here,’ she said, looking at me, and then gesturing towards Carrie. ‘I was the same size as you.’

  ‘You were pregnant with me? That’s a weird thought,’ I said.

  ‘You look so like each other,’ said Carrie.

  I guess we do.

  ‘That bitter smell of geraniums!’ she said.

  I felt as if I should try hugging her, but I didn’t.

  ‘This is my mother,’ I said to Carrie and to Bridget.

  My mother, my actual mother, though I definitely didn’t call her Mum.

  ‘Bridget’s just got engaged!’ I said.

  ‘And I’ve just run away from my husband,’ said Jhazmin, and she had a strange air of euphoria about her, as if she’d escaped from prison.

  ‘Congratulations all round!’ said Carrie, waddling over with champagne glasses.

  Jhazmin pointed at the awful pink suitcase: ‘This is all I have in the world.’

  It really was.

  Her father had left all his money to Chris – man to man, it was what he was used to.

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve done it. I got away.’

  We clinked glasses.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said.

  ‘Have my room!’ said Bridget.

  I dragged the huge pink suitcase up the stone steps.

  Jhazmin collapsed onto Bridget’s bed, and Bridget threw her things into an enormous suitcase and left.

  I had a strong coffee, and then felt faintly sick.

  The next morning, Jhazmin didn’t get up.

  She lay pathetically in bed, like Pink Mother, and I felt out of sorts, put upon and guilty.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me,’ I said to Carrie. ‘Again.’

  ‘You need to get up,’ I said, impatiently, opening the shutters, around eleven o’clock.

  ‘I think it’s being back here,’ she said. ‘And feeling the pain again. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been looking after people my whole life. Holding it together. Holding everyone together. And I’ve stopped. And I’m exhausted.’

  I didn’t feel sympathetic – is that terrible?

  She finally came downstairs at noon and sat sipping peppermint tea in the courtyard, reading the English newspapers and ¡Hola! magazine, before having a siesta as a break from doing nothing. This became her pattern.

  I, on the other hand, got up extra early, slamming cupboard doors to wake her up, and headed down to greet María, the temporary cook, who wore thick black tights and white plastic clogs, and who resented cooking eggs for breakfast because, she said, this was Spain.

  Meanwhile, Carrie gave birth to Ignacio, and he lay in his pram in the courtyard being admired, like perhaps I had.

  One morning, María the cook didn’t turn up at her allotted time of six o’clock, nor did she answer her phone when I called.

  Six thirty, six forty-five.

  I wondered if I could manage breakfast, though I was a truly awful cook.

  I phoned María again.

  She didn’t answer.

  I left a loud angry message on her answerphone.

  Jhazmin appeared on the stairs.

  It was seven o’clock, and she was dressed.

  ‘I heard you on the phone,’ she said. ‘I’ll do breakfast.’

  I nearly collapsed.

  She pulled her
hair into a bun, put on an apron and headed for the kitchen.

  I watched, spellbound, as she made her special mix of olive oil and tomato with paprika and bay leaves and oregano, and served it with jamón serrano on toasted sourdough bread. I watched as she made churros from wheat flour dough and served them with rich hot chocolate. She squeezed oranges and made fresh fruit smoothies. She fried and poached and boiled and scrambled.

  It gave me goose pimples watching her, how good she was – the joy of expertise! – and I think this was when I began to like her a bit more.

  The guests went crazy with delight, which must have helped.

  But it was also that she started to be interested in me.

  Having hardly spoken, she now asked me questions.

  About my childhood.

  About Cherie.

  And my not-father.

  My schooldays.

  My struggles.

  My relationship with Michael.

  How I ended up in Córdoba.

  She talked about her relationship with Chris, the multiple ways she didn’t love him, the terrible way he drank.

  The terrible way her son, Liam, drank.

  How Liam could never hold down a job.

  She tried to make contact with Liam, but Liam wouldn’t answer.

  ‘He was such a lovely baby,’ she said, and I tried not to mind.

  ‘His father will be poisoning his mind,’ she said.

  Liam still didn’t answer.

  There were endless phone calls and texts and letters.

  ‘When you think what I gave him,’ she said. ‘My whole life.’

  I tried not to mind again.

  ‘It’s so hard being a mother,’ she said.

  I told her about my endometriosis.

  ‘It’s so hard not being a mother,’ she said.

  (These two statements are both true, I think.)

  She said she was so sorry, and she patted my upper arm.

  It was what she could manage.

  Gabriel helped her find a lawyer to fight for her father’s money, but the lawyer said it would be complicated.

  At Christmas, I drove her to Alvera, leaving Carrie and Gabriel and Bridget and Adriana in charge, and we stayed at Hostal Playa. We went for walks on the beach and looked at the two hundred palm trees over the stone wall.

  Back in Córdoba, she read books about the history of Spain.

  She came to my lectures and sat in the front row, taking notes.

  It touched me.

  Liam still didn’t answer, and the lawyer had no news.

  We drove to a nearby village called Cazorla to have lunch.

  There were crinkly scarves hanging from a tall wooden ladder against the wall of a little shop, arranged in rainbow order: reds giving way to oranges and corals and golds.

  ‘I’ve always loved those scarves,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ I said, my heart racing, remembering Blue Mother’s electric blue one, twisted around the banisters.

  ‘Eva,’ she said.

  And she stopped.

  ‘I’ve been wondering.’

  We went on grabbing at the scarves, nervously.

  ‘Would you ever think of calling me something else?’ she said. ‘Not Jhazmin?’

  We were both crinkling and uncrinkling the scarves, and I was also panicking because I knew what was coming.

  ‘I was thinking …’ she said. ‘I don’t know … Would you ever consider calling me Mum?’

  It felt like a marriage proposal that had come too early.

  ‘I think it will come,’ I said. ‘Eventually. But I’m not sure I’m ready. I’m sorry.’

  I was biting my lip, and my chest hurt.

  ‘The thing is,’ I said. ‘If it helps. I’ve never managed to call anyone that.’

  ‘Let me buy you a scarf,’ she said, and maybe it was a way to talk over the awkwardness, but it still felt kind. ‘Which colour would you like?’

  ‘That emerald-green one, if it’s OK,’ I said.

  Chapter 111

  Bridget bounced Ignacio on her knee as we planned her wedding, and Carrie and I worried about the baby she wasn’t allowed to have.

  Naomi was about to begin a canoe journey up the Amazon, and wasn’t coming.

  I tried not to look pleased.

  It was still so strange not telling Bridget what I felt about Barnaby.

  Barnaby lost contact with Naomi, and had to fly out to Brazil with Azahara, meaning he’d probably miss the wedding.

  Bridget was sad.

  So was I, but I still didn’t tell her.

  I went to the station to pick up Mr Blue, and he took both my hands in his.

  ‘Well, Eva Martínez-Green,’ he said. ‘What a pleasure to be here.’

  Martínez-Green, I thought, do I really want to be called Martínez-Green any more?

  Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

  Benalcazar would be more glamorous.

  I could have a name-changing party.

  With dancing.

  And speeches.

  And a long white dress.

  And presents!

  And no husband.

  I introduced Mr Blue to Jhazmin.

  It was strange seeing them together.

  She disappeared into the kitchen, and Mr Blue and I sat on wood-and-wicker chairs, next to San Rafael.

  ‘We’re inside M’s painting,’ said Mr Blue. ‘She got it just right. Except the walls were green – for longing. Did you get what you longed for?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Look at this place. How utterly beautiful it is.’

  Mr Blue stared into my eyes, and he said again, ‘No, but did you get what you really longed for?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ he said.

  ‘You said that the energy between us is so powerful it can turn our life around,’ I said. ‘But you also said that it’s powerful enough to destroy us.’

  ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘It’s seventeen years since M died, and I suppose I did let it destroy me. Bridget must have told you what a useless dad I turned into without her. I got stuck.’

  ‘So did my mother,’ I said.

  ‘Is she what you’d hoped for?’ said Mr Blue. ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Who knows what I was hoping for?’ I said.

  ‘But you get on with her?’

  ‘At the beginning, it was pretty disappointing. But since she took on the cooking here, she’s come to life a bit and we’ve had a common purpose, and …’

  ‘You’ve come to love her?’ he said.

  I looked at Mr Blue’s walnut face.

  I felt my green crinkly scarf.

  ‘I’ve never thought this before,’ I said. ‘And I’m not sure when or how it happened. But yes, I do love her now.’

  ‘Sometimes these things happen when we’re not looking, like falling asleep on the sleeper train and waking up in another country in the morning,’ said Mr Blue.

  ‘She’s had a sad life,’ I said. ‘She fell madly in love with my father, but they only had thirty-one days together.’

  ‘I had seventeen years,’ said Mr Blue. ‘Over six thousand days of love. But no matter how many days you have, it’s never enough. Life is never enough for us. That’s the great tragedy of being human.’

  The next evening, Mr Blue took Bridget and Gerónimo out for a special dinner at La Bodega (so perhaps it wasn’t such a terrible place).

  I sat next to San Rafael, and I told Jhazmin the story of my life with the Blumes. I told her about the fossil-hunting and the metal-detecting and the picnics. I told her about the liver pâté sandwiches and the flapjacks and the meringues and the brownies and the pots of white chocolate mousse. But I left out the moment Blue Mother put her arms around us and we looked out to the feather-yachts at sea because I thought it might be hurtful.

  The next night, I saw her chatting to Mr Blue by the angel.

  ‘I was just saying that you’ve brought me back to life,’ she s
aid to me.

  ‘Have I?’

  I still felt bad about not calling her Mum.

  ‘It’s the way we’re doing this together, as mother and daughter. We’re running a hotel. An actual hotel. Together!’

  Oh my word, I thought, bring on the Sunday Times, we could be interviewed on the spot!

  ‘Perhaps Bridget’s wedding will cheer Mr Blue up,’ she said as we blew out the candles in the courtyard.

  I think it really did – he waltzed with Jhazmin round the courtyard, and I was mesmerised.

  Bridget and Gerónimo were dancing amongst the flowers, when I heard the bell.

  I went to the door.

  It was Barnaby.

  With Azahara.

  Who was now eight.

  A small version of Naomi – dark-haired, pale-skinned and exuberant.

  Bridget was shrieking with joy as Barnaby hugged first her, and then Gerónimo.

  ‘I found Naomi in the end,’ he said. ‘It was some problem with the satellite, or something.’

  Barnaby took Bridget onto the dancefloor, and I watched them.

  Gerónimo danced with little Azahara, spinning her round and round.

  ‘Come on, Eva!’ said Barnaby when the song ended.

  I’d had a lot of champagne.

  A lot of champagne.

  I felt Barnaby’s arms around me, pulling me closer, and the small of my back was hot under his palms, and he held me tighter and tighter, hard against him, and the courtyard was flooded with my desire, it was lapping at our feet, and I closed my eyes, and then, in a flash, Carrie danced me off the courtyard and up the steps into my flat, and she said, ‘If anything happens with you and Barnaby tonight, you will have hijacked and ruined Bridget’s wedding. Do you hear me?’

  ‘I bet they all wish he’d married me,’ I said to Carrie. ‘Bridget and Mr Blue and all of them.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’ said Carrie.

  ‘No more than you are,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t do something you’ll regret,’ said Carrie, as we went downstairs. ‘And not in front of his daughter.’

  Gerónimo and Bridget left in Luis’s horse and carriage, and they were off to New York, where he had a business meeting.