by Rosanna Ley
‘Time for one last walk?’ Andrés suggested. And he seemed to know instinctively where she wanted to go.
They walked hand in hand along the beach, heading for the rocks that bordered the bay, in a silence that seemed to be underlined by the heavy, grey clouds above, by the wary stillness of the day. They’d said so much, Ruby reflected. Apart from the one thing that mattered the most.
She was eager, though, to drink in the last of the island landscape that she would see – at least for a while. She couldn’t believe that she’d only been here a week. Already everything seemed so familiar to her. Sand fine as gold dust, corralitos built with the black volcanic rock which surely was the island’s heartstone, and in the distance those gentle, mushroom-coloured mountains streaked with rust and lichen. Andrés’s landscape. But was it still his home?
They began to climb up the rocks, Andrés leading the way. He was sure-footed and confident. And she saw it – the way he belonged here.
When he had turned up like that at the convent, the facts of his adoption as he had explained them to her, the expression in his eyes when he saw that entry in Sister Julia’s book of names … It had been a shock – for both of them. But it all made sense. The pieces slotted together. Enrique had sent Ruby to the convent because he knew about the book of names and because he had realised immediately that the journalist in Ruby could help Sister Julia in her resolution to reveal the truth of the adoptions she had witnessed at the Canales Clinic. And of course Enrique was the only person to whom Sister Julia had told her story, because he had told her his story first. She had known then that he too was involved. That he too had something to pray for forgiveness for. That he had been there and part of it.
As indeed they all were.
They reached the top of the rocks and Ruby looked out once again – over the perfect horseshoe crescent of the bay, in the distance the red and white faro and Laura’s Dali beach house built by that German boy with a crazy dream where Ruby had met Trish a few days earlier. The clouds were gathering and the bay was deserted.
Just you and me … Ruby looked at Andrés. She had come to the island to find her birth mother and had unknowingly uncovered the birth story of the man she had fallen in love with. Because she had, hadn’t she? Fallen in love?
Would Andrés try to find his natural parents now that he knew the truth? Would he ever feel that same pull that Ruby had felt? That need to know? Maybe in time. Before he made any decisions, she guessed he would want to make his peace with the family he already had. That he would need to forgive, even though he would never forget what they had done. At least the reconciliation was on the family table. And, like Vivien and Tom, they had only done it because they so much wanted a child of their own to care for. It seemed to Ruby now that they were delighted to have him back in the family fold. Enrique Marin had done wrong by Andrés, there was no doubt about that. He had never bonded with his adopted son and he had unfairly resented him – both for the artistic talent that he knew he couldn’t possibly have passed down and for refusing to be controlled by him as the rest of the family were. But Enrique was not well. He was clearly a shadow of the man he once was, and he was sorry. When he had raised his glass at that first family dinner and offered a toast to ‘our son’ with tears of emotion in those dark eyes, Ruby had almost cried herself. Because she had been right and in the end it was all about love, wasn’t it?
Or was it? It was impossible to read Andrés’s expression. There was a slight frown on his face. Ruby wanted to reach out; wanted to run her fingertips along those slanting cheekbones, to smooth away that frown, to gently touch his mouth. But she held back. He was looking out to sea, where the wind was picking up and the tide was heaving, the waves rising high before breaking and crashing into the rocks below where they stood. On the other side of the rocks the bay was serene. But it felt as if it were waiting.
Ruby thought about the trip to Barcelona. She had already done some initial research. The Canales Clinic still operated, although it was now run by Dr Lopez’s son Rafael. Ruby wondered what he knew of what had gone on before? That, she decided, was where she would start.
Where the investigation would take her, she didn’t know. But she would ask some questions and hopefully get a few leads. Most of her information would come from Sister Julia herself. She had already emailed Leah her editor and received a positive reply: Sounds good. It’s a definite for us. Get a feel for how you want to play it and contact me again when you know a bit more.
She would do that. And then she would write it up. The whole story. It would be a challenge. And she’d have to handle it in a sensitive and compassionate way. The last thing she wanted was to hurt Sister Julia but she would write the truth. She had to. And then— She heard a faint rumble and glanced up at the sky – surely it wasn’t going to rain on her final day on the island? She didn’t know exactly what would happen then. But Sister Julia’s book of names would certainly cause quite a stir.
Andrés turned to her, his green eyes troubled. ‘How many do you think you will be able to help?’ he asked.
She knew what he was talking about; his mind had been travelling along the same direction as her own. How many children were looking for answers? How many of the Niños Robados would ever be reunited with their birth parents? She shrugged. ‘It depends how many of them come forward.’ On how many mothers admitted that they had never believed their children had died. And on how many adoptive parents – like Enrique – ever told their children the truth. For some, there would be DNA testing; a long search, in many cases, for a match. But for others there would be Sister Julia’s book of names.
The rain came in a deluge as if someone had unbolted a gigantic hatch in the sky.
Ruby gasped and Andrés swore. He pulled her towards him so suddenly that she gasped again. ‘It happens like this sometimes on the island,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘It is very sudden. Very dramatic.’
He could say that again. ‘Shall we make a dash for it?’ The raindrops were massive. Ruby was soaked to the skin already.
‘Where to?’ He laughed.
And he was right. There was nowhere to run. What should they do then? Just open their arms and embrace it?
‘Come over here.’ He pulled her round to the other side of the rocks where there was at least a bit of shelter, and held her into his chest, his back to the worst of the rainstorm.
She was warm there. She could feel his heart beating, the fabric of his linen shirt rough but strangely comforting against the skin of her face as it had been once before. Around them the wind howled like a banshee, the sea whipped over the rocks below and the rain continued to pour from the leaden sky. But Ruby didn’t care. She was in his arms, safe and held. She breathed in the scent of him – amber and resin. It was such a good place to be that she felt she could stay there for ever.
After a while, she felt the rain ease and Andrés loosen his hold. She emerged, blinking, and laughed. His shirt was sodden. His dark hair was plastered to his head and to the brown nape of his neck. He was blinking too – blinking raindrops out of his eyes. He looked gorgeous – like a wild man of the storm. Ruby wasn’t cold, but still she shivered. He was worth waiting for, she realised. Worth fighting for. She wanted to have the sort of love that she’d seen first-hand while she was growing up. And he was the man she wanted to have it with.
‘Come and look,’ he said. He beckoned.
‘We should get back.’ Ruby didn’t want to linger. She didn’t want to say goodbye. She hated goodbyes. In some ways Andrés was just at the beginning of his journey. But Ruby worried that she might have come to the end of hers. Coming to this place and hearing about Laura’s life might be the closest she would ever get to her birth mother, let alone to her father. She might never find out everything she wanted to know. But over the past few days she had come to an important realisation. She was the same Ruby she’d always been. In a way Mel had been right back then when she’d said it. Ruby Rae is still Ruby Rae. And would always
be. She fingered the gold locket of Vivien’s that she still wore around her neck. The parents who had brought her up were the same loving people they had always been too – and they were her parents. She couldn’t be angry with them. They had loved her. They had nurtured her. They had shown her what really mattered. Through them she had become who she was now. So in a way it was the end of a journey, wasn’t it – even if a new one was beginning?
‘In a minute.’ He held out his hand and helped her back over the rocks. ‘Be careful. It’s slippery.’
And it was.
‘Look,’ he said when they got to the top.
She followed his gaze. It was incredible. The sand hadn’t just shifted; the bay had been washed out by the rainwater and the tide. It had been swept clean. No more secrets, she thought. The sun was out again already, bursting through the clouds and making the black rocks glisten. The golden sand looked as if had been sprinkled with diamonds and the clear turquoise water was spangled with light as the sun shone through.
Ruby gripped on to Andrés’s arm. Walking across the sand, in the distance, away from them, was a female figure wearing a multicoloured patchwork dress of red, orange and blue. She wasn’t a young woman, though she held herself straight and tall. On her back she carried a red, faded rucksack. Ruby stared down at her. She was walking slowly but with a sense of purpose, towards the beach house – or towards the path that led to el faro, perhaps? And as she walked, she looked around her at the sea, at the rocks, at the sky. There was something so calm about her. Her fair hair was blowing in the wind. She too looked as if she belonged.
‘We’d better go.’ Andrés’s voice jolted her out of her reverie. ‘Or we’ll be late picking up Sister Julia.’
‘Yes.’ But it was hard to look away from her, whoever she was.
Gently, he turned her to face him. ‘Will you come back, Ruby?’ he asked. His eyes searched hers. He seemed uncertain of what she might say.
‘Back here or back to England?’ she whispered.
‘Back to me,’ he said.
It was what she’d been waiting to hear. Our life … Yellow evening light and sunsets of fire. Was this the place where she would make her future with the man she loved? The place that Laura, her birth mother, had also loved so much? Ruby could continue her work here as well as anywhere – her journalism, her music. And Andrés? That was easy. Andrés would continue with the artistic legacy his adoptive father had created. He had, after all, been born to it. Yes, somehow she knew now where he would be.
She looked again down into the bay, but she wasn’t surprised to see that for now the figure had gone.
‘Yes, Andrés.’ She lifted her face towards him. ‘I’ll come back. You can count on it.’ And she reached up and touched his lips with hers. ‘I’ll come back – wherever you are.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Teresa Chris my agent for her constant support and faith in my writing. She has been relentless in her encouragement and created some evocative visual pictures which have become integral to this story. And thank you to everyone at Quercus Books including Margot Weale who has been terrific, Kathryn Taussig, and most especially my editor Jo Dickinson, whom I cannot praise highly enough for her structural eye, sensitive editing and for being such a pleasure to work with.
This story has been a long time evolving. At its root was a different story – but one that impacted hugely on the finished product - and for their help in discussing with me the psychology and impact of the characters and events involved I should like to thank Caroline Neilson and Peter Fullerton, both experts in their field. Thanks to Alan Fish whose reading and comments are always much-valued. Thanks to Magda Taylor for helping me get to grips with the saxophone – so to speak – and to Chris Forbes, Grey Innes and Jackie Deveraux for discussions on painting in water colours. Thanks also to Peter English for his musical contributions, Bernie from the Tindaya Arms in Fuerteventura and everyone else I have talked to over there who has given me information on the island’s history and culture. And thanks to Mario Pulini for his insight into Barcelona and the Spanish language. Have I forgotten anyone? I hope not. Special big thanks to Grey Innes, my wonderful, favourite idea-stormer, who also listens to everything with a very perceptive ear. And finally, massive thanks to everyone who worked so hard to promote The Villa, especially my daughters Alexa and Ana, who have been amazing.
I should like to add that although I have used actual historical events in this story, any resemblance to any actual person is not intentional; all characters are entirely fictitious. The Canales Clinic does not exist. Neither do the convents mentioned in this story. I have used various sources – both fictional and non-fictional - for the historical information and have tried to be as accurate as I can. Any inaccuracies are my own.
Keep reading for an extract from
A new novel by Rosanna Ley
Available in print and ebook spring 2014
Eva opened the front door and let herself into the house. She had been feeling pretty low when her grandfather had phoned her last night, and perhaps he had picked up on it because he’d immediately suggested she come home for the weekend. ‘You need a rest,’ he’d said firmly. ‘You sound exhausted.’
She was. But—
‘And besides …’ She heard the determination in his voice. ‘I’ve got something I want to talk to you about, my dear.’
Was that a ruse? Eva didn’t know and she didn’t care. ‘OK, then,’ she said. After the day she’d had, she needed something. Home was the best place to come for serious R & R – she could already almost feel the anxiety slipping from her shoulders.
She put down her small suitcase. ‘Grandpa!’ she called. ‘It’s me.’
‘Hello, my dear.’ He appeared in the kitchen doorway – a little more bent than the last time she’d seen him, but still tall and lean, hair snow-white, mouth creasing into a smile, blue eyes twinkling. He opened his arms. ‘Sorry to drag you away from Bristol,’ he said.
‘I wanted to be dragged.’ And the way she felt right now, she never wanted to go back there. Bristol meant the auction house and it meant Max. And right now she wasn’t sure which was the most unappealing.
She gave her grandfather a hug. Every time she saw him he seemed a bit more lined, a bit more fragile, but she wouldn’t think about that now. He smelt of eucalyptus and wood, a fragrance Eva seemed to have lived with all her life. Her grandfather loved wood too; he had worked with it most of his days and he’d passed his passion down to his granddaughter. Eva had left home at eighteen to do a degree in antique furniture restoration with decorative arts; wood and history – it must be in her blood.
They drew apart and her grandfather’s brow creased into a frown. ‘You do look tired, my dear,’ he said. ‘And thin.’
‘Whereas you look wonderful, darling Grandpa.’ Eva smiled, slipped off her coat and hung it on the hook by the door. He meant the world to her. He wasn’t so much a grandparent as the life force behind her childhood. ‘But what did you want to talk to me about? Is everything OK?’
‘Well now …’ He made his way back into the kitchen and Eva followed. It looked reassuringly the same as ever. The Aga’s cosy heat filled the room and there was what looked like one of Mrs Timms’s stews on the hob, a rich, meaty fragrance emanating from the pan. A bottle of red wine had been uncorked but not poured and the kitchen table of worn oak was set neatly for two. Grandpa had always been independent and with Mrs Timms to help with cooking and housework, he could manage very well now that he was on his own. To be honest, Eva couldn’t see him anywhere else but in his own house, big, rambling and impractical as it was. It was part of him – it always had been.
‘I really didn’t like the sound of you on the phone,’ he said, scrutinising her once again. He shook his head. ‘But is it the right time? I had been intending to talk to you, to tell you …’
Eva was intrigued. ‘Tell me?’
He seemed to come to a decision. ‘But I think it can wai
t a bit longer. Get yourself warm. Have a drink. Relax.’ He sat down in the old rocker. ‘How’s Bristol?’
Eva didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She had dumped her boyfriend and lost her job in one day. How was Bristol? He might well ask.
*
Two hours later, after a dinner that whizzed her straight back to her childhood and two glasses of warming Bordeaux – Grandpa wasn’t so old that he couldn’t still appreciate a good wine; he was still a member of the local wine club – Eva had thawed out.
‘And what about work?’ her grandfather asked her. ‘You haven’t said much about that, Eva, my dear. Everything still going well?’
‘Not really.’ No, she hadn’t said much about that. Nothing, in fact. The truth was that Eva hadn’t loved her job; hadn’t even liked it much. But neither had she wanted to leave, at least not quite so suddenly. A job paid the rent – in her case for a small flat not far from the centre of town – and the bills. She’d got to know the people who worked there, the salary was good, she knew what she was doing and it was well within her comfort zone.
OK. When she’d done her degree, she hadn’t envisaged working in an auction house in Bristol cataloguing and assessing the value of goods. Because yes, it was a long way from what she’d dreamt of: restoring furniture and textiles to something resembling their former glory, reliving their history, making good; all that seemed a bit like a distant dream these days. But it wasn’t the first job she’d had whose thread to the degree she’d done and the work she loved was more than a little tenuous. Before the auction house, she’d worked in a second-hand furniture shop for a man who specialised in house clearances and cold-calling with the express purpose of parting old ladies from family heirlooms with as little money changing hands as possible. That had lasted only six months; Eva could almost feel his smug smile destroying her soul. And before that she’d worked in a museum shop – little more than a glorified sales assistant, which wasn’t exactly the kind of museum work she’d wanted to put on her CV. Toss in a year or three working as a seamstress in wedding hire and some secretarial, and that summed up her job experience to date. So what now?
