Calista allows a long silence to develop. She counts the beats.
“Dead?” she whispers. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. We have been contacted by the Spanish police. I’m afraid there is no doubt. Omiros and his uncles left Limassol for Madrid as soon as we received the news. He asked me to call you.”
“How is my son?” This is not in Calista’s script, but she can no longer help herself. She begins to cry sobs of bitter relief, of rage, of revenge long postponed and finally delivered.
“He is, naturally, grief-stricken. But he understands his duty. He has gone to take care of his father’s arrangements. He wants you to know that.”
“We were estranged, Alexandros and I. We have not seen each other in some years. Does my son wish me to be with him? May I go to him?”
The reply is gentle; Calista knows she has made it easy for him. “I’m afraid he does not wish you to be there, Miss McNeill. He is quite adamant. The family asks that you do not travel to Madrid. We will contact you again as necessary.”
“I see.” Calista pauses. She allows her voice to crack. “Please let my son know that I love him. That I am always here if he needs me. Please tell him that. I must go now.”
“I understand. May I ask if you have someone with you?” The man’s tone is delicate, probing.
“No. I am alone.”
“Is there perhaps someone—”
“No,” Calista interrupts him. “No one at all. Thank you for your kindness. I must go now.” And she hangs up.
Omiros. Her son. The last time she spoke to him, he lashed out at her. He wanted, above all, to punish her. Calista can still see the rage on his unformed features. Eleven years old, still vulnerable, still a small child struggling with all the past hurts of his fractured family.
“I had no choice, Omiros,” Calista told him. “I had to leave. I’ve tried to explain that to you. Perhaps you’ll understand better when you’re older.”
It was on one of Calista’s visits back to Cyprus, the time with her children carefully orchestrated by Alexandros. Imogen sat quietly in the armchair in the hotel foyer, reading her book. Listening, Calista knew; children were always listening, no matter what their age. But Imogen created the illusion of being occupied while her brother made another one of what she called “his scenes.”
Omiros drew himself up to his full height. He was so physically like his father that Calista’s words faltered as she looked at him.
He would not allow her to speak. “I am old enough now,” he said. “I don’t want to be here. I prefer to be with Papa. I can’t go sailing today because of you.”
Calista felt as though something was slowly crumbling inside her all over again. Somewhere inside this angry boy was the small child she had once played with, joining in his delighted laughter as she read him nursery rhymes, played “peep,” sang to him.
But now he was glaring at her, his hands clenched by his sides.
“I won’t stop you if that is what you want to do.” Calista spoke quietly. She could already see where this conversation was going. They had traveled together to its familiar destination too many times already.
“You came back; I know you did. Papa told me. But you only saw Imogen. You never came to see me.”
Calista nodded. “You were too small, Omiros. You would not have been able to understand. I’m sorry if that hurt you.” She stopped. There was no point. Those earlier visits back to Cyprus should have remained secret, always. Calista would never forgive Alexandros for turning her son against her.
“Why don’t you just leave me alone,” Omiros said. His voice cracked on the last word, and Calista held her breath.
“I can’t leave you alone because I love you. You are my son. I want to get to know you properly, little by little. That’s all I want.”
“Take me to Papa,” he said. “That’s all I want.”
* * *
Too many of her visits ended like that. Calista regrets, bitterly, that she cannot change the past. But there it is: a past that leaches continually into the present, a past that is even now playing out its final act.
Calista glances at her watch. It would not be good, if things were ever to come to light, to be seen out and about after a telephone call such as the one she has just had. She must be careful to do what appears to be the correct, the appropriate thing. People who have just received news about their murdered spouses do not dress up and go out for lunch. Calista will stay at home and shut herself away. She will call Rosa and make some excuse.
* * *
Afterwards, Calista climbs the stairs to the living room, waiting for the hollowness inside her to fill. Waiting for the elation to flood her veins and arteries with satisfied righteousness.
Instead, she sees her children’s faces. She sees Alexandros’s face when he loved her, once. She sees herself, her empty home.
But above all, she sees Imogen. Her daughter: beautiful, precious, talented. Then the anger begins to seep.
I hope you suffered, Alexandros, Calista thinks. I hope you were in agony and that your death was painful and savage. I hope you died long after your slut of a wife, so that you knew what was coming to you. Above all, I hope it was lonely. And in your final moments, I hope you thought of me, of how I must have done this.
Calista sits and looks out at the Extremaduran countryside, watches people go about their daily tasks, imagines what might have been.
She pulls her packet of cigarettes towards her and lights one. She inhales, sits back, and waits for whatever comes next.
pilar
Madrid, 1970
* * *
Pilar goes walking. That is what Pilar does these days. She is reminded of her earliest days in the capital. Back then, she mapped the city streets in her head as she walked. Making her way around in the early hush of Sunday mornings, Pilar’s sense of being overwhelmed had slowly ebbed away. She came to enjoy the wide, tree-lined avenues, the imposing buildings, the elegant elderly ladies walking their dogs after Mass before stopping off at one of the many pavement cafes for an aperitif. Pilar loved the buzz of conversation, the drifting cigar smoke of the loud, suited men, the sense of all that peacock-display that went hand in hand with the weekly paseo.
She had enjoyed above all her place as an outsider: Pilar could own these streets in the same way as everyone else and stop for a coffee wherever she chose. She could observe and make judgments and watch the comings and goings of the affluent citizens of Madrid. She could even get happily lost among the meandering side streets and nobody would stop her; nobody would exclaim at her presence, or ask what right she had to be there. Back then, the freedom of it all had been heady, exhilarating.
These days the walking has become a reflex, a way to fill the emptiness, a way to still the steady seep of disappointment at what her life has become. Ever since the loss of Francisco-José, Pilar’s days have become filled with meaningless hours. With whole weekends of Maribel and Alicia. And so Pilar walks.
She has tried many times over the past three years to change the contours of her life. She has tried to mold its shape into something that might fit her better, might chafe less against the tender flesh of her grief. But it is as though she has been handed some fixed pattern, some immutable law that hems her in, that stitches and sews the fabric of her existence in a way she is powerless to change. Everything she does has the familiar force of old habit. Once, she threw out all the furnishings of her portería, believing that new surroundings would help her meet the world in a new way. But even the newest of objects seemed to adapt themselves to the shape of whatever had been there before. Within weeks, her new portería felt just the same as her old one.
Pilar traveled then, secretly and compulsively. She went to Cuba, to New York, to London. Once she almost went to Cyprus, but her courage failed her at the last minute. Each time, she bought new clothes, had her hair s
tyled in a different way, stayed in new and apparently exciting places.
But always, each optimistic setting out, each longing for adventure became nothing more than a package holiday of sameness: routine, tired, predictable, sometimes even squalid. And after each journey, Pilar returned home to the inevitability of her life. To the inevitability of her remorse.
And so Pilar walks once more.
* * *
This morning, she has made her way towards the Church of San Andrés. She discovered it by chance some years ago. Once inside, she had been soothed by its hushed and ancient tranquillity. Its flickering, candle-lit silence and its peace have drawn her back many times since. As she approaches the main door, Pilar stops. To her right, a few hundred meters away, a line of children makes its way towards the church. The children seem to shimmer as they walk. Their small hands are joined together in prayer, their faces luminous, their white suits and dresses brilliant in the May sunshine. At the head of the line, and at the end, a nun walks. Their black habits are dark punctuation marks to the sentence that is the children. Pilar looks and waits, unable to move. All of her strength has deserted her.
First Holy Communicants. She will never see her son become one of these seven- or eight-year-olds, walking in solemn procession towards the main door of the church. Pilar waits until the last child has stepped over the threshold, finally forcing herself to move. She follows them inside and slips into one of the pews at the back. The church is almost empty apart from the children and the two nuns, one young, one elderly, who are speaking now, but Pilar cannot catch what they say. And then, at the older nun’s signal, the children begin to sing.
An elderly woman pushes her way into the pew beside Pilar. She nudges her after a moment, one bony elbow digging into Pilar’s side. She looks like one of the market women that Pilar sees every day, her gray hair scraped back into a bun, her dress black and dusty. Her fingers are dirty, the knuckles swollen and twisted into the strange roots of arthritis. Pilar sees that rosary beads are wrapped around both hands, the small crucifix swinging free as the woman lifts it to her mouth to kiss the figure of a tiny Christ. “Angelitos,” she whispers as she nudges Pilar for the second time. Her eyes glitter. Little angels.
Pilar feels a lump in her throat. The children rehearse their hymns, their voices high and sweet in the incense-filled air. Her eyes cannot help themselves; they seek out all the small boys with hair so black it sheens blue.
“Those angels are the same little bastards that thieve from my stall every week,” the old woman hisses now, nodding her angry head in the direction of the altar. A thin thread of drool clings to one corner of her downturning mouth.
Pilar looks at her. She has no answer. She glances once more towards the children and sees only questions. And she cannot bear it any longer. She stands up and flees, pushing her way past the hissing woman, not caring if she topples her, not caring any longer if she hurts her.
Old women like that terrify Pilar. They bring with them the bitter air of Torre de Santa Juanita everywhere they go.
calista
Extremadura, 1989
* * *
The afternoon is cooling now. The light in the living room is green and wavery, a tranquil underwater world. Calista leaves the blinds down as she sits, replaying the lawyer’s phone call in her head over and over again. Apostolou’s call is one of the final steps in the complicated dance that Calista has choreographed from afar.
First the anonymous messenger. Then the transaction that was Alexandros and Cassandra. Now Omiros, on his way to Madrid with his uncles; perhaps they are there even now.
Calista doesn’t much care what happens next, to her or to anyone else. Earlier, she had gone downstairs and swept up the remaining glassy splinters of her perfume bottle. They had lain in wait, glittering on the hall floor, hiding in corners and crevices. But she’d managed to winkle them all out, and the sense of one last cleanup had satisfied her.
* * *
Calista remembers, all these years later, the power of the hook of hope.
She remembers how Alexandros reeled her in, time after time: a willing fish. He would lure her with his bright promises that he would never hurt her again; dazzle her with his words that he loved her; soothe her with his earnestness that he would change. Their new house, he said, where everything would be different. His green eyes were brilliant with future that day, the day he told her. They would turn everything around, she’d see. A new beginning.
Their own place, their own space, away from all the pressures of living with others. A place where they could each be themselves.
A proper home. Their own family home.
* * *
Calista looks around her. It is summer 1972.
She is unable to conceal her delight. She can feel tears begin to well for the first time in months, and she half sobs, half laughs: a strange sound that echoes around the empty room. Her five-year-old daughter looks up at her at once. Such a serious face, always: concerned, curious, watchful.
“Mummy,” Imogen says, frowning now. “What’s wrong?”
Calista clutches the child’s hand tightly. “Nothing, sweetheart. I’m just so happy to be here, happy that we have our very own new house. Imagine! A house just for us—you and me and Papa and the new baby. You’ll have a big room all to yourself. What do you think of that?”
Imogen smiles, and her small face lights up. “Can it be pink?”
Calista laughs. “It can be any color you like!” She bends down, kissing her daughter on both cheeks. “You can choose the paint and the bed and the furniture and the rugs . . . all of it! Now, let’s look around downstairs first, and I’ll tell you where everything is going to be. Careful, now—mind the wet paint.”
Alexandros has warned her that the painters aren’t finished yet, and Calista has promised to make sure their little girl’s curious fingers will be kept in check.
“Stay close to me, Imogen,” she says now. “I want to take some photographs.”
“Can I be in them?” The child hops from one foot to the other, her eyes bright, her expression pleading. “Please, Mummy?”
“Of course you can,” Calista says, pulling Alexandros’s Nikon out of her bag. The villa is beautiful. Even with its renovations unfinished, light floods the three huge, interconnecting rooms. One flows into the other, drawing the eye onwards and outwards towards the wide paved space that will eventually be the terrace. There are plans for a swimming pool, too, and a large play area for the children.
Children: this new baby will be here in less than three weeks, and when he arrives—Calista is convinced that it is a boy this time, although she hasn’t told Alexandros this—they will all move together into this villa, several blocks away from Petros and Maroulla. Calista doesn’t know which gives her greater pleasure: the move into their new home, or the move away from Petros and Maroulla.
Our house, she thinks; our home. Our own family home. She can hardly believe it. She takes several photographs quickly; she can feel her small daughter’s growing impatience.
This villa is the long-awaited seal of approval on Alexandros’s career, on Alexandros’s family, maybe even on Alexandros’s wife. Calista has worked hard to be accepted over the past five years, throwing herself into the roles of wife and mother and daughter-in-law. She has had some success, she thinks, although it can be a difficult thing to measure. Sometimes, she wonders whether people’s disapproval has simply acquired a mask of acceptance, whether their true feeling is still there underneath the polished surface of the things they say. Other times, she doesn’t care.
Imogen tugs at her hand, pulling her towards the staircase. “Let’s go now, Mummy. You promised to show me my bedroom,” she’s saying.
Calista smiles at her. “We’ll go up straightaway,” she says, “but you must keep to the middle of each step. Otherwise we’ll ruin the paint, and then the painters will b
e cross.”
Imogen nods, her serious face absorbing this. “I know, Mummy,” she says. “You told me already.”
Calista smiles gravely. “You’re right. Let’s go. I’ll be right behind you.”
She feels happy this day. Mainly thanks to Yiannis—although Calista will never let her husband know this—Alexandros has recently gotten his promotion, a bigger office, his name on the door. He seems to have expanded to fit his new role: he has grown larger, more imposing, his now bald head making him look uncannily like Petros. Calista hopes Alexandros will soon begin to find contentment—that he will feel, finally, that he has emerged from his brothers’ shadow, particularly the larger-than-life shadow cast by Yiannis.
* * *
Yiannis takes his role of godfather seriously and never fails to visit Imogen at least once a week. Calista looks forward to his arrival; Imogen adores him. Over the past year, he has used these occasions to take Calista into his confidence.
“I think my father is ready to give Alexandros more responsibility,” Yiannis told her several months back. “There’s a couple of things he could do, though, a few initiatives he could take himself that would really help his case.”
They were sitting by the swimming pool in his parents’ garden, keeping an eye on Imogen as she splashed up and down.
“A real water-baby, this one, isn’t she?” Yiannis said, amused.
“Yes.” Calista smiled. “She has no fear.” After a moment, she said: “What sort of initiatives, Yiannis?”
“Look, Uncle Yiannis! Watch me swimming!”
Yiannis waved at Imogen, laughing. “You’re brilliant! You’ll be able to catch me soon!” He turned to Calista. “There are some accounts that need to be managed more carefully than others. An English firm that we’re courting at the moment. Personal attention from Alexandros would go a long way in securing their buy-in.” Yiannis paused. “If I suggest it, Alexandros will just bristle.”
The Years That Followed Page 16