Bay of Secrets

by Rosanna Ley

  She closed the book and replaced it in the drawer, locking it and pocketing the small key. And she stared out into the darkness of the courtyard below. How she longed to be free of it all. To be free to live simply here at Santa Ana, to study and to read, to pray and to reflect. To be free of the clinic and the pain. Because the years did not lessen that pain. She still felt every maternal parting as if she was once again reliving her own.

  Could she do more? Every day and every night she asked herself this question. She had challenged the doctor so many times and she had tried to make the reverend mother see how it was. But what power did she have – a nun in a convent – against figures of authority such as Dr Lopez? She had seen the people who came to the clinic. She knew how many connections he had in high places.

  No. All she could do was what she was doing already – helping the women and children as best she could. Keeping a record of it all. It might not be much, but while she was doing these things, how could she leave?

  *

  When Sister Julia’s own mother came to visit her this time her eyes were red with weeping. She was dressed in black and immediately Sister Julia knew.

  ‘Papa?’ she whispered.

  Her mother nodded. ‘Pray for him, Julia,’ she said. ‘For he has gone.’

  *

  The following week, Sister Julia stood with her family at his graveside. She watched the simple wooden coffin as it was lowered into the earth and she held her rosary beads gripped between her fingers. It seemed impossible that his body was encased within that box. That she would never see him again. And her loss seemed all the greater when she thought of all those years they had not been together, all those years she had been cloistered away from her family. Lost years. Years which could have been so different if she had stayed in the family home, suffering with them – the hardship, the hunger, the pain.

  She looked around at the small group that made up her family. At her mother, the webs of her black lacy shawl only half hiding her tears; at Matilde, cool and erect, her arm in her husband’s, but barely touching. And Paloma, sad Paloma, here without her husband Mario who had found something so pressing to do that he could not attend his own wife’s father’s funeral.

  The priest intoned the words that Sister Julia knew so well. Our Father … Glory to God … In his name. Amen. Sister Julia murmured her responses. Her sisters did not speak. And their mother cried.

  When the service was over Sister Julia stepped forwards. ‘Why did he never come to see me at Santa Ana, Mama?’ she asked. She had to know.

  ‘He could not bear to, my child,’ her mother said. She turned from the graveside and took Sister Julia’s arm.

  ‘He could not bear to see me?’

  Her mother slowly shook her head. ‘He could not bear to see what he had forced you to do.’

  Sister Julia looked down at the ground. Dear God in heaven, she thought.

  ‘Your father was a proud man, Julia,’ her mother went on. ‘It shamed him that he could not look after you as a father should.’

  And Sister Julia felt the tears come to her own eyes. For her father, for her mother, for her sisters and for herself. For all those who had suffered, and those who were suffering still.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was Wednesday lunchtime. Mel had left her assistant in the hat shop and she and Ruby stepped out of the shop door and straight into Pridehaven’s weekly market.

  ‘Are you OK, darling?’ Mel asked. ‘What’s been happening?’

  Where should she start? As they strolled past the stalls – antiques, bric-a-brac, vintage; bedding plants, herbs and home-made curry – Ruby tried to explain to Mel how the bombshell from Frances had left her feeling. As if some sort of tornado had picked her up and spun her into ever accelerating circles before throwing her to the ground – until she wasn’t quite sure of where she was or what she was thinking, let alone feeling.

  ‘And what about your mum’s letter?’ Mel picked up a brass pig doorstop and eyed it suspiciously. ‘What did it say?’

  Ah. ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Ruby. ‘I haven’t opened it.’

  Mel raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘Why not?’

  It was a good question. Ruby might have put it on the mantelpiece but she certainly hadn’t forgotten about it. ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘I suppose I still just feel so angry with her, with them.’ So many years of deceit, and then her mother does the old cliché – leaves a letter with a friend to be given to her daughter after she dies. Honestly. She turned to Mel. ‘Why couldn’t she have had the courage to tell me face to face?’ she demanded. ‘It’s just not fair.’ She knew she sounded like a child, but she felt like one right now.

  They had moved on to a vintage jewellery stall. Ruby picked up an art deco brooch nestling in a dusty blue velvet box. A cocoon. Did jewellery absorb the vibes of its wearer? Absent-mindedly, she fingered the gold locket of Vivien’s, which she’d found in her old jewellery box. It was bevelled on the outside and engraved with a rose. Even though Ruby now knew that she wasn’t her biological parent, this locket – with the picture of both her parents inside – seemed to embody Essence of Mother in some indefinable, intangible way. It seemed to give her back a bit of what she was missing.

  ‘So you’re being a rebel?’ Mel asked. ‘By not reading the letter you’re saying yah boo sucks to them all?’

  Ruby had to smile. ‘Maybe.’ She would read it – but she would read it in her own time; when she was ready to. After all, she knew the whole story now – what more could it possibly say?

  ‘Hmm.’ Mel took her arm. ‘Just be careful you’re not saying yah boo sucks to yourself,’ she said.

  They wandered past the fruit stall and on to local ceramics. Mishmash market. No wonder it was so popular. No wonder people came from London for the weekend just to experience it. The sun was warm. Ruby had just finished a health and beauty feature commissioned by Leah with two days to spare. So tomorrow she could do some song writing, maybe fix up a rehearsal for the band. She thought of the cottage she’d soon be renting and she thought of Andrés. Smiled. Her emotions felt as if she’d been through a cement mixer. But things weren’t so bad.

  ‘You’re looking rather cheerful, considering.’ Mel narrowed her eyes and flicked back her auburn hair. ‘Is there something else you’re not telling me?’

  Was there? Ruby wasn’t completely sure. Not yet. She’d had a lovely day with Andrés. And then of course there was that kiss. It had taken her by surprise. It had been nice – given her a warm glow inside. And she was quite keen to repeat the experience. ‘Well … ’

  ‘Who is he then?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who’s brought a smile to your face.’

  You could never fool Mel. Ruby shrugged. ‘Remember that dinner party you persuaded me to go to?’

  ‘Ye-es?’

  ‘Well … ’ After a bit, she stopped talking. Mel was staring at her. ‘What?’

  ‘You really like this man, don’t you?’

  Did she? They were at a vintage clothes stall. Ruby grabbed a faded print dress and held it up against her. ‘What d’you reckon?’

  Mel stood, hands on hips. She shook her head. ‘You don’t do faded.’

  No, she didn’t do faded. ‘He’s nice enough,’ she admitted. He certainly had something. And he was different too. About as unlike James and some of the other men she’d met in London as he could be.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing.’ She met Mel’s gimlet stare. ‘Honestly. There’s nothing to tell.’ Not yet anyway. And right now she had plenty of other things on her mind.

  She picked up a little honey pot. A tiny yellow and black bee sat on the top of the lid. She checked the price and got out her purse. Like …

  ‘Where would you go to look for someone?’ she asked Mel.

  Pridehaven market was an odd place to be having this conversation but sometimes it was easier to talk when strangers were shifting in and out of your
orbit. The market was a transient place. People were only within earshot for seconds.

  ‘As in your birth mother, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As in Laura.’ Her birth mother. It was a weird thing to say, to think. She still hadn’t quite accepted it, she supposed. Laura was the woman who had carried her and given birth to her. What had that experience meant to her? It must have meant something. And what about her father – whoever he was? Did he even know of Ruby’s existence?

  ‘You’re going to look for her then?’

  ‘I have to, Mel.’ Ruby had been given a glimpse into the past – and now she wanted more.

  But where should she begin? She had the photographs – that was a starting point. Where had they been taken? She thought of the turquoise ocean, the orange beach house, the lighthouse. But she could hardly travel around the beaches on the Mediterranean looking for an orange beach house and a lighthouse. And even if she ever found the place – how likely was it that Laura would still be there? Although … In the photos they’d seemed like a community; it seemed like the kind of place Laura might go back to.

  ‘Have you checked out her last known address?’ Mel suggested. She paused to dip a cracker into some chilli sauce taster on a local produce stall. ‘Ouch, hot!’ She fanned her face and rolled her eyes at Ruby.

  ‘I’ve tried that.’ She’d gone back to her parents’ old house, spoken to the next-door neighbour – where Pearl Woods used to live with Laura – in the hope of getting a forwarding address.

  ‘And?’

  ‘A complete blank.’ It was much too long ago; the house had changed hands a couple of times at least since then. Laura and Pearl … Ruby had thought as she stood on the doorstep. Her mother. Her grandmother. Would she ever be able to get her head around it?

  ‘What about Laura’s father?’ Mel suggested. She had moved on to another stall and was now examining a cream-coloured platter with red hand-painted poppies.

  Ah yes, Ruby’s grandfather. Derek Woods. Was he still alive? ‘He’d be well into his eighties,’ she said. ‘But Laura hated him.’

  ‘Maybe they were reconciled,’ Mel said. They moved apart to examine the sheen of a blue glass jug (Mel) and the design of a Clarice Cliff plate (Ruby). Then back together again. Like a dance, thought Ruby. They drifted apart to opposite sides of the stall, sent one other a contemplative look and then walked on.

  It was possible that they had been reconciled, she thought. Had Laura ever come back to England? And if so – had she been tempted to look for Ruby? She had to keep on searching for Laura – if only to find some of the answers to her questions.

  At the square, where a band was playing rock and roll swing jive, they sat on a bench to listen. Ruby’s feet started tapping. She always felt a bit more alive when music was playing. It vibrated inside her, as if it was in her blood.

  Mel went to get coffee and returned with two cups and two pieces of Dorset apple cake. ‘A continuing battle,’ she muttered, taking a bite out of one of them and handing the other to Ruby.

  In front of them the rock and roll jivers began to dance, she in a swishy, swirly skirt, him in skin-tight black trousers. ‘But there are other starting points,’ Mel said.

  ‘Such as?’

  She shrugged. ‘Finding out where Laura went to school. Putting an ad in the local paper – “Is anyone still in contact with Laura Woods” – that kind of thing.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Ruby nodded. She must have had friends here when she was seventeen. Maybe they were still in contact – or at least knew where those photos had been taken. At least she could extend the radius of her enquiries out a bit further. She took off the cover of her take-out cup. The coffee was strong, frothy and steaming.

  ‘Facebook?’ Mel suggested. She was on a roll. ‘Friends Reunited?’

  ‘Why not?’ Social networking sites were a brilliant idea. Ruby nodded. She would scan the photo on to Facebook. Ask all of her contacts to ask all of their contacts. Didn’t they say there were only six steps between any two people in the world?

  ‘But what would I say to her?’ Ruby muttered. ‘“Hey, I’m the baby you abandoned thirty-five years ago. Will you be my friend?”’

  Mel laughed. ‘Or you could hire a private investigator – they have access to all sorts of public records that the general public can’t get to see.’ She checked her watch. ‘You know, sensitive data and all that.’

  ‘I could do.’ She’d thought of that too. But she just had the feeling … Laura wasn’t in the UK. She was outside of ‘public records’. She’d placed herself outside – of all the bureaucracy, all the authorities, all the paperwork. She was a free spirit, wasn’t she? People shouldn’t be labelled – that’s what she’d believed when she was twenty. And Ruby sensed that’s what she’d still believe now.

  Mel got to her feet. ‘I’ve got to get back to work, Ruby,’ she said. ‘But let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Oh, I will.’ Maybe she’d never find her. But she had to at least try.

  They hugged and when they drew apart, Mel didn’t quite let go. ‘And about that Spanish guy from the dinner party … ’

  ‘Majoreros,’ said Ruby. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Sometimes you have to just close your eyes and jump,’ Mel said. ‘Otherwise you’re not really living at all.’

  After Mel had gone back to the shop, Ruby finished her coffee and cake and watched the rock and roll jivers. They were closing their eyes and jumping – really letting go. Mel’s eyes had been a bit sad when she’d said that. Was there something she was keeping to herself because she thought Ruby was too fragile right now to be of any help? She’d call her later to find out, she decided.

  She thought of her walk with Andrés on the cliff top, the way he had sketched her portrait, a half frown on his face as he focused on getting the drawing right. It had been a good resemblance. But more than that: it had reminded her of something, of someone. The photograph of Laura. In that moment, as Ruby looked at his drawing, she had recognised not only something of herself in it, but something of Laura too.

  Was that why she hadn’t opened Vivien’s letter? Was she forging some silent allegiance with her birth mother, saying not yah boo sucks, but this is where I came from; and this is where I’m going now.

  She pulled the photos out of her bag, found the one of Laura holding her when she was a baby. Was that why she had kept looking at this – even before she’d known the truth? Looking at Laura was like looking at a complete stranger. And yet it was also like looking at someone she had known all her life.

  CHAPTER 26

  Ruby was playing at the Jazz Café.

  Andrés sat at his usual stool at the bar drinking beer. Everything was as before. Tina hustled and bustled behind the bar fetching beer and ice and bottles of wine, chatting to him when she wasn’t serving. Couples and singles and groups of friends milled in through the doors and mingled by the bar, sitting down, sometimes getting up to dance. The light dimmed as the evening progressed; the atmosphere was laid-back, the mood was blue.

  And yet everything had changed.

  Because Tina hadn’t asked ‘How are you two getting along?’ She knew how they were getting along. It was obvious.

  They had arrived here together tonight, eyes bright, not touching but nearly touching. Tina had looked at them just once.

  Andrés knew that at the end of her set, Ruby would come and sit on the stool next to him at the bar. She would drink beer, laugh, chat a little. She would be tired, but still on a performance high; still buzzing. And when they left, Andrés would take her home.

  He had helped her move her things into the cottage in Pride Bay yesterday. Before that he had dropped the work he’d intended to do that week and put forward the work on the cottage, wanting to get it ready for her. His client wouldn’t object to the few added extras; Andrés was, after all, increasing the rentable value of the place.

  ‘You really don’t have to do all this, Andrés,’ she had told him more
than once during the past week. ‘I don’t even know how long I’ll be there for.’

  He was aware of that. She’d negotiated a rental contract of only three months. It wasn’t long, but …

  ‘By then I’ll know,’ she’d said.

  And he’d seen the restlessness in her eyes. What would she know? Where she wanted to be? In three months’ time her parents’ house could be sold. Would she look for something to buy around here – in the landscape of her childhood? Or would she be leaving?

  ‘It does not matter,’ he’d said. He understood that she needed to move out of her parents’ house and that she had to get on with her life without them. And he wanted her to be able to do that. He wanted to help her. It was a strange and unfamiliar feeling. He barely knew her and yet he felt protective of her. Andrés quite liked that.

  He watched her play. She was wearing a red dress, close-fitting and silky, with a slashed neckline and high heels. She had on a black choker and a bracelet of jet that fell from elbow to wrist as her right arm moved up and down over the keys. Her blonde hair was slicked back from her face. She wore the usual red lipstick. She looked amazing.

  It wasn’t just that though, was it? There was something bright about her, even as she poured her sad soul into the mouthpiece of the saxophone and out in the music whose plaintive beauty wove itself around him until Andrés almost wanted to cry. That something bright just shone from her, like a jewel. He loved her sadness, he loved the shining. Like a star in the sky, he thought. Un-gettable.

  When she played, when she took the instrument and bent and swayed to the rhythm of its tune, Ruby travelled somewhere, far from the Jazz Café, far from Andrés, far from everything else in the world he could see. Where did she go? Who did she become? God only knew. He understood it though. When he was absorbed in a painting, he often felt that sense of transportation too. Life almost ceased to exist, time stood still, the world might come to an end and he would barely notice.

  Last night he had taken her out to dinner to celebrate the move. Their first proper date, he supposed you could call it. It had been a great evening, even though he had been nervous – ridiculously so – and she had seemed distracted. She was in the middle of something, she told him. She had a lot to think about right now. It was something to do with her parents. And she had paused and frowned for a moment in that way she had as though she wanted to tell him about it.