The next day Toni arrived just before lunchtime, and this time he was persuaded to stay for lunch. Luc looked better again today, and Carla heard him throwing all his charm at Maria to be allowed to help chop vegetables, before he was pushed forcefully out of the kitchen and sent off to walk off his new-found energy out of doors. Grandma seemed to have quickly got the measure of Luc – her kitchen was way too small for him to be allowed off the leash inside!
So Carla helped her instead until Toni arrived, when she sat with him at the table, cup of coffee in hand. Maria stood close to pour him a second cup.
‘Tell me, Toni, how is your mother?’ Maria asked. She sounded wistful, as she only did when talking about people from her village. She hadn’t been back up to Sant Galdric since she left and closed up the family home, and she must hanker after news of her old friends. Toni’s mother was an old protégée of Maria’s in the village, and she’d been Paula’s predecessor – housekeeper at the hill house until she became unwell and Sergi dismissed her.
Toni’s face clouded. ‘She gets more and more breathless, and there’s never enough money to buy her the medicines which help. I asked your mother, Carla, if Senyor Olivera could pay her some kind of a pension, but he’d said she hadn’t worked for long enough to get a pension.’ His lips tightened at the memory, and Carla thought it must have cost him dear just to ask, only to be shot down.
Toni was continuing, ‘She gets by mostly with what I can give her, but the medicines which help the most are expensive.’ He sighed. ‘She’ll be glad you asked after her, though.’
He shrugged off what must be a daily worry, and turned to Carla. ‘So you got your fiancé back then, Carla?’
She smiled. ‘I did Toni, and in large part thanks to you!’
‘And to your mother, it would seem.’
‘You’re feeling better about Mama now?’
‘Getting there,’ was the guarded response. ‘She has surprised me.’
How strange Toni’s life must be, Carla thought, stuck in the hill house with just Paula and Joana for company. It was an upstairs–downstairs relationship, but without enough people to make a life, and they must all just watch each other and revolve in a mesh of suspicion and resentment, in a web that confined and defined them all. Carla thought about Uncle Josep, who had gone from being a boy from the village school of Sant Galdric and had made himself a solid life in Barcelona. His background had undoubtedly set a limit to his ambitions, but Josep had a decent job now, and an independent life that made him happy.
Had it been his mother’s health problems that had kept Toni yoked to her parents all these years, and stopped him from taking the risk of making a move? She thought back to when he’d been a boy, and had crept away to join Carla in teenage plotting in the hill house garden, both of them full of plans for the future. He’d been a gifted mathematician, she remembered, but he soon knew more than the local schoolteacher and could go no further, and when Carla had told her mother Joana had just shrugged her shoulders. No wonder Toni had had so little time for Joana. She’d shut her eyes to the people below her for all those years, undeviatingly following Sergi’s strict lead, and it would take a long time for her to rebuild all her bonds.
How would Toni react to Luc, she wondered? They were much of an age, but when viewed alongside Luc, Toni seemed unsatisfied and unfulfilled. He had a sweetheart in the village that he could never make up his mind to marry, and a hankering for a better life that he couldn’t make happen. How would big, broad, easy Luc strike someone who lived what struck her as life with an itch under the collar?
When Luc came back from his walk he burst into the apartment with his usual energy, wafting the autumn air in behind him. He advanced on Toni with his hand outstretched, and before he knew it Toni had put his own hand in it.
‘I’ve been waiting to meet you,’ Luc said. ‘You’re Carla’s friend from old, aren’t you? Tell me, was she always such a prickly pear? You knew her as an adolescent, didn’t you? Naturally her grandmother thinks she’s just wonderful, but I’m relying on you to tell me the truth so I know what I’m getting myself into!’
She might have known that she would be the butt that he would use to get close to Toni, but how did he know it was necessary? Bingo, Luc, she thought, as Toni smiled and gave a joking answer. She grimaced at them both and got up from the table.
‘This bit isn’t for me I take it, guys,’ she teased, as she went through to help Maria bring plates in from the kitchen. She laid the table around them, and by the time she’d finished they were talking football, and the crucial forthcoming match between Barcelona and Madrid.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, Toni,’ Luc said, ‘I’m not really up on what’s happening in the team. I’ve been in gaol for a few months, and haven’t had much news. Did you say Barça have signed César Rodríguez as manager?’
Toni nodded vehemently. ‘Good news, if he can bring us the same luck as he brought Saragossa! And at least we won’t have him playing against us anymore! But tell me more about what the bastards did to you. Did they have you locked up in Barcelona?’
They were away again, and within minutes Luc was talking more freely about his time in prison than since he had been released. Toni kept asking questions man to man, without pussyfooting around, and Maria came out of the kitchen and stood listening, their lunch completely forgotten behind her. When Luc talked about the prison chaplain she crossed herself and muttered, ‘Forgive them.’ Carla went to her and put her arm around her shoulder.
‘He’s still with us, Avia, and he escaped torture.’
‘You don’t call that torture, that terrible isolation? God help us, how long might Sergi have left him there? My poor boy, you’re a miracle to my eyes!’
Carla winked at Toni. ‘So there’s another one she’s adopted! Don’t get above yourself, Luc – my grandmother adopted Toni long before you, and she takes on all kinds of waifs and strays at the drop of a hat.’
‘Too right, Senyora Garriga! You go ahead and adopt me!’ Luc told Maria. ‘Don’t you let Carla tell you otherwise! I’m a hero, all right – she just doesn’t appreciate me.’
Maria clucked in disapproval. ‘You’re all very frivolous, but you don’t fool me. I know what we’ve been through with poor Carla, and if you’ve had half of what she has suffered, then there’s more on Sergi’s plate than I would want to have to account for when I meet my maker.’
She turned back to the kitchen, and flung over her shoulder, ‘Above all, your young man needs feeding, Carla, so you come and bring through the rice. And as for you, Toni, you’ll eat your lunch with us. We don’t have Paula’s larder, but it was me who taught your own mother to cook arroz negro, so you’ll not dare tell me you won’t eat mine!’
They ate their meal to the accompaniment of a fund of reminiscences by Maria and Toni about life in Sant Galdric. Carla learnt that the Figarolas, her real grandparents, were still alive, although there was no one else – their other son had never come home from the war either. There was an uncle, though, living in a village not too far away, and he had family, Toni was sure. Senyora Figarola had come to Sant Galdric from somewhere nearer to the coast, and she had family she’d left behind there – there was at least one sister who had visited the village, Maria remembered. One day maybe Carla would meet them all!
Carla listened, and took it in, but said little. Being a Figarola didn’t feel very real to her as yet, and her thoughts were on more immediate concerns.
‘Never mind me meeting my long-lost relatives,’ she said to Luc. ‘First you have to meet my mother! She’s waiting for us, remember?’
Toni grinned, and Luc cocked an eye at him. ‘Should I be scared?’ he asked.
But it was Maria who answered, before Toni could speak. Her voice was very serious, and cut through their banter.
‘Being scared is what Carla has experienced for the last few months, facing a life without you and her baby. And it’s what my daughter faced twenty-four years ago, for the same
reasons – a fear she couldn’t share and which changed her life. And yet she’s been overcoming that fear for the last week to embrace us all again, and to become herself again. So enough joking about my daughter, all of you – we’ve all had enough of being scared, and the time is now for a little courage and some big hearts. There should be no more them and us, because you know what that actually means? It means that while we sit round this table together we leave Joana in her corner on her own, and it won’t do. Do you hear me, Carla? It’s what Martin understood, and what you need to understand.’
Carla was silenced. Luc’s hand came over hers across the table, and his other arm went round Maria’s shoulder next to his.
‘I can see why Carla loves you so much, Senyora. Big things are happening to us, and if we can all have hearts even half as big as yours, then we’re sure to come out right.’
Maria went to shush him, but this time it was Carla who spoke first.
‘Uncle Josep said something similar to me, Avia, don’t worry. He told me I have to give Mama a chance. I won’t forget, and as you can see, you can count on the generosity of my big giant here.’
Luc tightened his arm around Maria and smiled his sweetest smile.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘I told you I was a hero!’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Martin had made her go to beautiful Besalú on Monday, just like a tourist, for lunch. They’d stood on the remains of the majestic Viejo bridge, which had defended the town for eight hundred years before twentieth-century man had blown away its heart during the Civil War. It was in the final stages of rebuilding now, and almost restored to its former glory.
‘This is what they say they’re going to do in Girona, to restore the old monuments and buildings,’ Joana said. ‘But for now what they’re doing is more about pulling down everything that’s old and building completely new.’
‘They’ll protect the real old town, though?’
‘Oh yes, and maybe one day they’ll clean its poor old face and make it look like this,’ Joana said, wistfully, looking around at the beautiful yellow stone of Besalú’s town walls.
She stood for a long time watching the river Fluvià as it flowed away below them, its waters low and sluggish now, at the end of this dry summer. Then she took Martin’s arm, and they strolled together through the stone gates into the untouched stone streets. They had lunch in a little inn behind the main square, a simple dish of lamb and beans, which they washed down with a rich Tempranillo.
‘None of your silly sparkly wine with a dish like this,’ Martin had joked, and Joana had rapped his knuckles with her fork, and insisted on ordering some Cava with their mel i mató dessert of soft goat’s cheese and honey.
It felt like being on holiday. ‘I’d love to have gone to the coast,’ she said to Martin. ‘To Cadaquès. It’s so beautiful, and I haven’t seen the sea for such a long time. How strange, when we live so near, but once we’d built the hill house, Sergi always wanted to be there in summer, and we would have house guests all the time, especially for the hunting in August. I suppose the last time I was on the coast was near Escala, when we were invited by friends who had their summer home there. That would be three years ago!’
‘Bah!’ Martin dismissed, ‘Cadaquès is full of French tourists nowadays. Give me a place like this any time! I live by the sea, and love it, but your backdrop of hills is so majestic – it takes a lot of beating.’
‘Not all year round!’
‘No,’ Martin conceded. ‘Maybe not all the time, or at least, not to live in them on your own. You need to work on that one, Joana. What will you do when Carla and Luc are safe and living their lives somewhere else in Spain? You won’t just accept your fate anymore, will you, and imprison yourself quietly on demand? You need better than that.’
His voice of concern wrapped her like a fur coat, and she thought how extraordinary it was that this young man should care about them all so much.
‘We’re not there yet, Martin,’ was all she replied. ‘When Carla and Luc are safe, as you say, then you can ask me again, and I’ll maybe figure out an answer. For now I just want to see them arrive.’
And so on the Wednesday afternoon she was on the watch, fidgeting around the veranda, listening for the sound of the Mercedes on the track. Martin was outside chopping wood, burying his own fidgets under the cover of exercise.
It was Martin, sharp on the lookout, who gave the call. ‘There’s the car!’
Surely they must be with Toni! Otherwise he wouldn’t be back yet – they’d agreed he would wait in Girona until evening if necessary, in case they arrived. Joana went down the steps from the veranda to stand beside Martin, and together they watched as the Mercedes snaked up the hill towards them. It would pass to the left of the house to stop in the back yard, so they ran round to be there when it arrived.
There were three people inside the car. Carla was beaming from the front seat, and tucked in behind her sat a young man – Luc, this must be Luc! Carla burst from the car as soon as it stopped, and a flash of memory went through Joana of her daughter’s unwilling, unbending arrival at the hill house eight days before. This couldn’t be more different.
‘He’s here!’ Carla called, unnecessarily, and she pulled open the rear door of the car before Luc could even reach the handle.
Martin moved forward towards the car, but Joana hung back, suddenly very nervous. Before her, Carla was waiting for Luc, who unfolded himself from the back seat and emerged slowly from the car, his eyes taking in all around him. Heavens, what a size! The boy was huge! But he looked strangely abashed for one so big, and on impulse Joana took a step towards him, and Martin stepped back, so that it was Joana whose hand Luc took first.
He was no beauty, she thought, but he had a face that hinted at an interesting personality. Then he smiled, and it lit his eyes, and involuntarily she gave him a smile back. Here was a man who would be kind to her daughter, she thought, with a surge of elation. There would be no hard-edged relationships with Luc.
She turned towards Carla, who was watching her intently. ‘What a mountain, vida meva!’ she said, ‘Can we feed him, do you think?’
Carla grinned. ‘He eats for two, but he’s cheap to run – he’ll eat anything you give him, and he just mops up other people’s plates when he’s hungry! He’s so thin, though, after being in gaol. Grandma was trying to feed him up, down there in Girona.’
‘Paula will undoubtedly want to do the same – she’s already been on a mission to build you up in the last week or so, and now she’ll have two to feed. She sourced some chanterelle mushrooms yesterday, so I think you may be in for a feast this evening.’ She smiled again at Luc, and found he was watching her with grave, discerning eyes. But there was no disapproval, no prejudged ideas. He just looked as though he wanted to know her, and she squeezed his hand a little before she let it go. She wanted to know him too.
No one wanted to sit still on the veranda, so they all went out for a walk in the last of the afternoon sunshine, tailoring their pace to Carla’s as they meandered along the forest tracks, aiming for a clearing on a rise that gave panoramic views of the valley, and of the house behind them. Luc was absurdly solicitous about Carla – he hadn’t been present for much of her pregnancy, Joana mused, and must have been caught up in powerless, pent-up worry as he sat in his prison cell.
‘Watch Joaquima!’ he yelped at one point, as Carla caught her foot on a root. She didn’t even falter, and turned on him with her tongue stuck out.
‘Joaquim is just fine, thank you!’ she answered, and then when she saw her mother’s perplexed face she laughed.
‘He wants a girl,’ she explained. ‘But how could a bump this size be anything other than another great manly lump like Luc?’
‘It can be anything it likes, as far as I’m concerned, provided you don’t call it Joaquim!’ Joana retorted, amused.
‘Absurd name, isn’t it?’ Luc agreed. ‘A good name for a bump!’
‘Have you any names i
n mind for what may come out of the bump?’
‘We’ve not had much time to talk about it yet, Senyora Olivera. I guess we’ll wait and see what pops out first, before we commit! Do you fancy Joana for a girl?’
‘No way! Do you fancy Luc for a boy?’
It was Carla who answered. ‘Not Luc, but a family name, yes. We could name him after grandfather, your father, perhaps – I don’t even know his name! I’ve only ever heard him called by his surname.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Joana answered. ‘Everyone called him Vigo, for some reason. His real name was Juan, which is where my own name came from, but it’s not a name he would have needed to see passed on to the next generation. Should you think maybe of Luc’s father, instead?’
‘Or we could call him Alex.’ Luc’s words fell into a sudden silence, and Joana drew in a sharp breath. It was astonishing how jagged the knife was every time she thought of Alex. Carla too had frozen, and exchanged a quick look with Martin.
He shook his head at her. ‘No,’ he mouthed. ‘It’s all right.’
What on earth was that all about, Joana wondered? Carla was looking at him as though the words had special significance, but only nodded in response. She was such a private, complicated person. Joana looked at Martin, who was still watching Carla’s face. He too was so self-contained, even secretive at times. Of all of them, Luc was the only open, straightforward one. She’d only just met this future son-in-law, and already she found him easier than her daughter had ever been. She shrugged in unwonted acceptance. What she couldn’t control she wouldn’t chafe over, and let’s face it, she was just grateful to be included right now in this fragment of their lives.
Later she sat with Carla on the veranda, just the two of them on their own. She wanted to talk to Carla, just to talk normally, like mothers and daughters were supposed to do. With Martin she could talk about anything – about the weather, or food, or more seriously about politics, but simply, with no other agenda. But with Carla the past hung between them, and it blocked all normal conversation. When Martin and Luc were around, Carla would entertain, and amuse, and be amused, but alone with her mother she became, not mute, but guarded. If we can talk the past into history, thought Joana, then maybe things will become easier – our relationship has become stiff from lack of use. So talk, then, you fool, she chided herself. Let’s open up the past, if we must.
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