by Zoë Folbigg
At least his romances seemed to finally be getting closer to his culture – he and Pilar did speak the same language after all, even if her Gallega lisp made their friends laugh. And Pilar is the only woman to match Hector drink for drink and laugh for laugh, which he marvels about every time he looks at her. But five minutes from the altar and looking back up at Orizaba’s disdain, Hector thinks of the one girl he’s tried to forget about, but can’t, for the past few months – the past five years. The strangest extranjera of them all because he can’t imagine anything about her snowy life on top of the world, even though he thinks she could have been his soulmate.
If I climbed that mountain, would it bring us closer?
A woman with crisp orange curls hurries up the steps of the cathedral, almost late.
‘Ay, what a handsome groom!’ she says appreciatively, holding her hand to her chest before opening her arms out. The woman wears a grey jacket and matching pencil skirt, the uniform from Lazaro’s department store from where she’s ducked out for an hour to see Lupe’s boy wed. ‘You know your mother would be have been very proud of you today, Hectorcito,’ the woman says, embracing him.
Hector feigns a grateful smile. ‘Thank you, Cintia. I’m glad you could come, it means a lot.’
‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world!’ Cintia puts a hand on each of Hector’s upper arms and breathes out a sigh of admiration. They both know what she’s thinking as she lingers over his face; how much Hector looks like his mother. ‘Now, come inside, Hector, I thought I was late, she’ll be here any minute!’
Hector hugs Cintia tight, accidentally tasting hairspray from a crunchy lock.
‘I’m just getting some air, guapa, I’ll be a little second, you go,’ Hector says with a reassuring wave before he puts his hands back in his pockets.
‘OK, don’t run off now!’ Cintia says with a wink as she rushes up the stairs in the hope of getting a decent seat, her tight grey skirt testing the seam that runs down her squashed bottom.
Alejandro walks out of the cathedral, looking for his grandson. His straight hair is white and neat, like a frame around his head.
‘Everything OK, mijo?’ he asks, as he puts a hand on Hector’s shoulder from the step above.
I miss her.
‘Sure thing, Abuelito.’
I will never touch her.
‘It’s time to go, Pilar will be here any minute.’
‘I know.’ Hector takes his hands out of his pockets and opens his arms wide, up towards his grandfather.
‘I’m very proud of you, you know, Hector,’ says his grandfather, falling into Hector’s embrace and patting his back with a liver-spotted hand.
Hector smiles and lifts Alejandro off his step a little and both men laugh, very differently. Hector’s is wholehearted; when he laughs, his thick straight brows rise in the middle and he shakes all the way down to his shoulders. His grandfather’s laugh is sedate, just a little lift of his eyebrows and the flash of a playful flicker in his eye.
Beeps and cheers in the distance signal Leonel and Pilar approaching in the bridal car.
It is time.
‘You know your mother and father would have been very proud of you today,’ Alejandro says sombrely.
Hector gives a wry laugh. He wouldn’t be sick of hearing it if he thought it were true.
‘No they wouldn’t,’ he smiles, kindly, as he pats his grandfather on the back to usher them both up the steps.
Hector doesn’t really remember his mother or father. He remembers the noise of metal being punched by branches and bracken; he remembers last gasps and young cries of despair. But when Hector tries to remember what his mother and father looked like from memory, he only sees them with blank faces. He filled in the blanks from the few photos of them his grandfather gave him, his favourite is pressed to his heart on the inside pocket of his suit jacket right now. It isn’t their wedding photo, it’s the photo of a young Victor Herrera, his hair straight and neat like his father’s, his arm draped around a woman with beautiful soft waves that tumble around her bare shoulders. Behind her ear sits a pink hibiscus flower, its petals are yellow at the edges and the colour bursts out from behind Lupe’s black curls, even though the photo is faded. Hector imagines his father had recently picked the flower for his mother and gallantly placed it behind her ear. She gazes, almost flirtatiously, at the camera. Victor’s slightly serious face is imbued with pride, and it always struck Hector that the face could have been cut and pasted from a photo from the nineteenth century, not the 1980s, his look is timeless.
As Hector walks the stone steps to the cathedral door, he wonders how Victor and Lupe might have felt on their wedding day. He wishes he could time travel, to escape here, to be a guest at their wedding, in the same cathedral, almost forty years ago. Just to witness a snapshot in their lives, to be able to sketch in the blank faces in real life. To look at his father and gauge what face a groom ought to have on his wedding day. To see movement and laughter and tenderness and contentment, to see more than the wedding photo pinned to the wall above his desk at home, or the photo hugging his chest from the inside pocket of his jacket. To hear their voices. For their stories and their laughter to be so much richer than the anecdotes told by the older ladies who still work in Lazaro’s. Hector imagines his mother’s laughter as infectious.
As Alejandro and Hector enter the cathedral, a hundred faces turn towards them in excitement. Best men Ricky and Elias stand at the front, seeming relieved by the groom’s arrival. Elias gestures to his wristwatch and gives Hector a nagging look. To his right, a curve of chubby hands wave at him in excitement and unison. Hector swallows the rising bile and smiles back at little faces, his eyes creasing playfully at the corners, glad at least that his wedding has brought joy and excitement to the children of the Villa Infantil De Nuestra Señora.
Five
March 2018, Suffolk, England
‘Kids! Breakfast! It’s getting cold!’ bellows an angry voice, meekly, up a flight of stairs. The intention was there but her execution was wobbly, as often is the way with Kate. Her voice lets her down. ‘Honestly, George,’ she flounders across an octave, ‘they’re not listening, you need to tell them…’ she says, trying to get them to be a team again, but her plea is lost among the clatter of breakfast bowls, pans and spoons.
A paper-thin film forms over three bowls of porridge, waiting to see which is first to be devoured without gratitude or appreciation.
‘I don’t know why I bother talking,’ Kate puffs, as she clutches a damp tea towel tightly and puts a fist on each hip. ‘Or cooking their breakfast. Or packing their bags. The girls are old enough to do it themselves for that matter…’
‘Well what else would you do?’ A caustic voice cuts Kate down in her tracks.
‘George!’ she gasps, with round, hurt eyes.
George shrugs as he finishes his coffee and clumsily places his mug on the thick wood surface of the island in the middle of the kitchen. Kate knows those bumbling hands will have caused a coffee mark on the worktop, but there are so many piles of paperwork, letters from school, forms to action, that Kate doesn’t know where to begin in tidying it up, so she lets the coffee mug go while that comment stings her. She’ll clean it up later when everyone has gone to work and to school. When they’ve forgotten about her and what she might be doing.
Kate looks back up at George, searching for support, for kindness. Her husband feels guilty enough to give an explanation.
‘Well, I imagine this happens every morning. Just let them experience the displeasure of cold porridge. Or go to school hungry, they’ll soon learn. Don’t let it wind you up so much. If it does, get a job and we’ll get a nanny.’
George’s flippant tone shocks Kate.
‘Why are you still here anyway?’ she bites back daringly, punctuating her question mark with a light, wobbly, laugh to lift the tension.
‘You said I had a bloody dentist appointment at eight thirty, I thought you were taking me before you t
ook the kids to school?’
Kate gasps again and puts the damp tea towel to her mouth. The fact that it doesn’t smell of fabric softener any more reminds her that it needs a wash. ‘Oh bother. Your check-up.’
‘You’re taking me in the S-Max yes?’
Kate flattens her heavy brown fringe and rejigs her mind. ‘Yes. There’s no point you driving, it’ll take you so long to park and walk to the surgery and back to the car. You’ll miss the train.’
‘Yes. I thought that’s what we discussed,’ George says matter-of-factly, as if Kate is his PA.
‘OK, so I’ll drop you and take the kids, then you’ll get a taxi from the surgery to the station, yes?’ she says, now smoothing the hair in her ponytail.
‘Yes, that’s what we discussed,’ repeats George, flatly.
‘I’ve got a WI planning meeting straight after drop-off, otherwise I’d race back to the surgery and take you to the station myself. KIDS!’
A slight boy with a swishy blond fringe pads down the stairs and skulks through the glass double doors to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. ‘Mum, can I scoot to school today?’
‘No, we’re dropping Dad in the village first, so we’re all going by car. Anyway, you haven’t been wearing your helmet, you’re not scooting to school without a helmet.’
Kate turns her back on the conversation, puts on her pale green marigolds and fills the sink with water and washing-up liquid, the sound drowning out the protest she knows is about to come.
‘But that was the garden, Mum! Do I really have to wear a helmet even in the garden?’
George laughs to himself while he ties his tie and their son, Jack, tries to negotiate.
‘You’re so cautious, Kate,’ George undermines.
Kate turns around sharply, her cow-like brown eyes looking at George again, hurt and confused. She changes the subject.
‘Where are your sisters?’
‘Dunno,’ Jack shrugs.
‘Well, you eat your porridge before it goes cold. GIRLS!’
‘I’m going to clean my teeth,’ announces George.
‘Send the girls down will you?’
George scratches his cropped silver hair and jumps up the stairs two at a time. Kate starts to wash up the porridge pan. While she circles the inside of it with the brush, she goes over her revised plan for the day ahead. Drop George outside the dental surgery; take Chloe, Izzy and Jack to school; head to the village hall to meet Christine Leach, Antonia Barrie and Sheila Eldret from the WI to discuss the spring fair…
Who’s got the keys to the village hall?
Bake for the PTA coffee morning on Friday…
I’m sure Sheila took the spare key after the last meeting.
Pick up the kids from school. Take Izzy to Brownies. Take Chloe to drama. Bring Jack home to do his homework. Collect the girls. Do tea.
Sausage and cannellini bean one-pot.
Take Chloe to look around the new school she’ll be going to in September.
Check the babysitter can still make it.
Kate sighs and pushes her thick fringe to one side, leaving soap suds on top of it.
Did I book Susannah or Philippa?
Jack laughs but decides not to tell his mum about the bubbles on top of her head, sitting like a wonky tiara on a deflated prom queen. It’s worth a laugh from his sisters when they do eventually make it downstairs for breakfast.
Kate rinses the pan and ponders her baking options. She can’t do a Victoria sponge again, she did a three-tiered one at the NCT Easter party last week and half of her NCT friends are also on the PTA.
What about a Sachertorte?
Antonia Barrie made the most beautiful one for last month’s WI meeting, as glossy and as polished as Antonia herself.
I’ll bake one of those, no one at school will know I copied Antonia Barrie. That’s if she even made it herself, one of her staff probably did it. That mirror glaze…
Kate laughs to herself for being so petty, removes her marigolds and places them over the brushed-steel tap. She squeezes her engagement and wedding rings back into alignment and washes her hands. A little diamond solitaire she knows she would never pick out in a line-up clings onto a gold band beneath it, and Kate notices how her rings have never felt so tight. She smooths down her apron over her hips and feels a pang of guilt when she remembers the big bar of Fruit & Nut she managed to finish when she was watching the Sewing Bee last night while George was at badminton.
Perhaps I’ll dig out my Weight Watchers gumpf.
‘Stop nicking my stuff!’ shouts a banshee entering the kitchen.
‘I didn’t! It was just in my room, I don’t know how it GOT THERE!’
‘Mum, tell Izzy to leave my stuff alone – I spent ages looking for my rose-gold skinny scarf and she had it all along!’
‘I didn’t take it! I don’t know how it ended up in my room!’
‘Girls, girls,’ simmers Kate through gritted teeth. ‘Please sit down, eat your breakfast, we have to drop Dad in the village on the way to school.’
Chloe and Izzy sit alongside Jack at the breakfast bar on one end of the island and, Kate, joining them on the stool nearest the sink, decides to forgo breakfast for coffee.
I’ll finish up their leftovers when I get home. I’m sure I kept all my Weight Watchers booklets.
Kate gazes at her girls. So angry, so beautiful. She wishes she had been so sassy at their age. Her daughters are eleven and nine, Jack is seven. A biennial production line of babies Kate managed to birth (all by herself; without drugs she’ll have you know), and each baby caused her tummy to become a little bit softer, a little more ravaged by silvery tracks – and caused George to become slightly more repulsed by the goriness of it all, and by her body.
George walks into the kitchen with his suit jacket slung over one hand and his phone in the other. Silence consumes the light, bright family kitchen while the children eat lukewarm porridge and, for a brief moment, Kate feels like she might be in the calm at the centre of a storm. Papers and school photos and bank statements rise in a pile threatening to topple over. Kate takes a sip of coffee and the silence is interrupted by a beep coming from somewhere on the island. She looks for her phone and finds it under Jack’s homework folder. A text from George. She looks up at him, puzzled.
Can’t wait for lunch X
‘Lunch? Are you not going into London after the dentist?’
George looks confused. And pale. His small blue eyes seem to recede a little into his head. ‘What?’
‘A text from you about lunch…’
George puts both hands to his thin cheeks in panic, creasing his jacket into the crook of his arm.
Four faces look at him expectantly.
‘Lunch!’ he says, with a strained laugh. ‘I’m having lunch with Baz Brocklebank from the Sydney office – we’ve got a mega deal up our sleeves that is going to wipe the floor with anything Tim and his team will pitch. Did I just send that text to you?’
Chloe plugs in her headphones, this conversation is boring; Izzy returns to her porridge, feeling uncomfortable about her dad’s ill ease, and Jack studies his father’s face.
‘You put a kiss on it. A big one.’ Kate’s mouth is upturned, her face quizzical.
The ends of George’s crow’s feet become pink and he brings his hands to his face again.
‘Did I?’
‘Awkward…’ sighs Izzy, nine going on nineteen, as she stares down at her bowl.
‘How embarrassing!’ bumbles George. ‘Thank god I didn’t send it to him! Oh well, Baz is OK, he would have laughed it off if I actually had sent him a kiss. But… well… dodged a bullet there…’ he mumbles.
Kate studies George’s face and he keeps talking.
‘We’re going to Hutong up The Shard; the octopus is amazing, Kate.’
‘You know I hate seafood, George, the risk of tummy bugs from marine toxins is so high.’
‘Well this is worth the risk. I’ll have to take you there.’
&n
bsp; Kate’s brown eyes flicker as she searches for reassurance.
‘Me too?’ flutters Izzy, a daddy’s girl.
‘You too, sweetheart.’
‘It’s just you sound very chummy with Baz,’ Kate says. She can’t escape the ill feeling in her hollow stomach.
‘Hahahaha funny,’ says Jack. ‘I called Mrs Francis “Mum” the other day. I suppose it’s a bit like that.’
‘Well thank god I didn’t send it, it would be embarrassing, as cool as Baz is…’ George smiles at Jack, his ratty morning demeanour has disappeared.
‘OK, kids, clean your teeth, we need to get moving,’ George says, looking at his watch.
Kate tries to shake the disquiet she feels by focusing on the shine of a Sachertorte.
Do you heat the cream and add the chocolate or is it the other way around?
Six
Kate plonks the keys in the bowl on the little table next to the front door and removes her scarf. It’s late March, and there’s a distinct feeling of spring, having taken a long time coming, starting to lift the veil of grey from the lawns and the faces of the people in Claresham village.
Kate looks at her reflection in the long mirror. She didn’t realise when she joined the WI that she would come away from meetings and get-togethers feeling like the dowdy one. Her small face looks both young yet mumsy, as if she might have looked this age since her teens but has now caught up with herself. Her narrow shoulders, wrapped in a navy long-sleeved jersey top under the hug of a black cardigan, belie her soft stomach and doughy bottom half, squeezed into black boot-leg trousers that she knows won’t fit for much longer.
Unless I do something about it.
Her brown hair is tied in a scrunchie and remnants of washing-up liquid that bounced unmentioned on her fringe this morning now make Kate think she walked through a spider’s web somewhere between Claresham Church of England Primary School, having deposited two embarrassed daughters and one cuddly boy into their classrooms, and the village hall.
