by Emlyn Rees
Chapter XXXI
Mallorca, Present Day
In central Palma, Rachel hurried across the Costa de la Seu, with its row of yellow taxis and smart, red, horse-drawn galeras, towards La Seu, the Gothic cathedral. Mercifully, the heat had subsided and now, at nine thirty in the morning, the breezy sea air was clear and refreshing after yesterday’s roasting. She stopped in the middle of the road at the crossing, watching the horses swish flies away with their tails. Behind them the fountains in the waterside lakes plumed upwards into the air.
The cathedral stood majestic against the sky. It was odd that she’d become so used to it, but now that she was about to visit it as a tourist for the first time in years, Rachel stopped for a second to marvel at its proportions. Wasn’t it strange, she thought, that something so huge could be such a feature in the landscape of her life and yet she hadn’t really acknowledged it before? It was the second such epiphany she’d had today and she shook her head, a perplexed smile on her face.
She glanced at her watch. She’d been due to meet Bill inside the cathedral five minutes ago, but she couldn’t help that she was running late. Besides, she hoped their break from each other this morning had made a difference to his mood. But maybe she would find him just as uncommunicative and stubborn as he had been earlier.
It was crazy that they still hadn’t talked properly, but as Rachel crossed over to the pavement, smelling the sweet sugared peanuts from the stall in the square and hearing the busker pattering out a tune on his steel drum, she felt vital and alive. Somehow, the conversation with Bill about the past, which had seemed so important a few hours ago, had now lost its significance.
She thought back to their showdown in the house yesterday afternoon. Rachel could hardly believe now that she’d broken down so thoroughly. Of course, she hadn’t meant to, she’d meant to stay in control of the situation, but his verbal attack on the stairs had tipped her over the edge. And once she’d started talking about Laurie, it had been as if she’d come completely undone.
She couldn’t even remember now whether she’d made any sense, but her earlier strength had utterly deserted her, and she’d told Bill everything. She’d told him about her relationship with Laurie and how betrayed she felt. She told him about Sam and Claire and Archie. Then she told him of the pain of losing Anna and how she and Tony had adopted Claire. And then she’d told him about Tony, about their marriage, about the loss she now felt.
It had all come out as a painful, jumbled mess, punctuated by uncontrollable sobs. It was only now, in the clearness of a new day, that Rachel could see that her breakdown had been the final flush of grief. It was as if it had been at that moment that she’d finally realised that Tony had gone. Now she found it strange that it had taken her so long.
At first, Bill had been dismissive, but as Rachel’s outpouring had progressed, he’d had no choice but to comfort her. He hadn’t tried to interrupt until it was all out. He’d waited until she’d regained her composure. Then he’d made her sit down and drink a glass of water, watching her intently, his face pained until she’d finally told him that she was better. It was only then that he’d suggested that they go outside together and talk to Laurie.
Poor Bill. He must have been so shocked by her outburst. She could see now that he’d wanted to mediate, to try and fix the situation with Laurie, but as Rachel had confronted his daughter, he must have seen that it was pointless. He’d looked completely out of his depth. And after Laurie and Sam had left, he’d remained quiet and withdrawn.
She’d managed to persuade Bill to stay the night on the understanding that she’d take him to the airport this morning. She had been unable to look him in the eye as she’d shown him to the guest room. She’d felt too churned up, too embarrassed about her earlier breakdown and Bill hadn’t seemed to want to mention it, let alone forgive her for it. With nothing else to lose, she’d hastily collected all the letters she’d once written to him, and left them on the bed in his room.
And then she’d left him to go and comfort Claire. When Rachel had returned from a harrowing evening at Claire’s apartment, Bill had already retired to bed. She’d waited for ages outside his door, her knuckle poised to rap on the door and wake him, but in the end, she’d tiptoed away.
This morning, she’d been ravaged by lack of sleep. Bill had been up when she’d appeared for breakfast and his greeting had been impersonal, yet courteous enough, as if he’d been staying at a bed and breakfast. They’d both retreated into detached politeness. She’d had no idea whether he’d bothered to read the letters she’d left in his room. He’d certainly given nothing away. As they’d driven out of the villa together, she had realised that she didn’t know him at all.
She’d felt too distant from him to suggest accompanying him on his tour of the cathedral, which he’d decided to do over breakfast, as they had time to kill before the flight home he’d arranged. Instead, she’d left him to it and had taken the opportunity to go to the Ararat office on a damage-limitation exercise.
She’d wanted to ensure that she played Sam’s sudden absence shrewdly. There was no point in upsetting the staff. They’d had enough to deal with having lost Tony. During the previous night, she’d tossed and turned in her bed, trying to work out a solution. She hadn’t been able to separate her anger towards Sam on a personal level from her panic that he’d let her business down. Could the business really survive without Sam? She’d given him everything and now he’d walked away as if it didn’t mean anything.
It had all seemed such a muddle and a mess, but as she’d entered the cool reception area, with its pale carpet and sleek pictures of all Ararat’s hotels, Rachel had felt suddenly clear-headed, as if she were suddenly back on familiar turf.
Being the weekend, there’d hardly been any staff in so early. Still, it had taken quite a bit of persuasion before the new receptionist had relented and let Rachel into Sam’s office. Rachel had had to resort to explaining to her that she owned the company.
She owned the company. Apart from Sam’s 5 per cent holding, which she’d be seeing her lawyer about as soon as was possible. Rachel spread her hands out on the desk, looking around the room which reminded her so strongly of Sam. Maybe there was no need to create a drama. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Maybe she should keep Sam’s misdemeanours within the family. Perhaps she should just tell the staff for now that he’d taken extended leave and buy herself some time.
But then she thought about the last time she’d been in these very offices a few weeks ago and her feelings of exclusion. Only now did she recognise that she’d also been envious. This was her and Tony’s baby – a business that they’d nurtured and loved together. Maybe, after all, she wasn’t ready to take a back seat and hand it all over to somebody else. Maybe Sam’s shattering news had a positive side after all. Maybe it was a wake-up call for her. Was she really ready to retire?
And do what? she asked herself. She wasn’t young, but she wouldn’t consider herself old. Not yet, anyway. And she was fit. What on earth would she do with her time if she didn’t continue working? The one thing she’d learnt in the past few months was that focusing her energy on her children and grandchildren was certainly not the way forward.
Even Claire hadn’t really needed her when it came to it. By the time Rachel had arrived at the apartment the night before, Claire had already been comforted by several girlfriends. Rachel had been so full of anger and vitriol. She’d felt so betrayed and ready to fight Sam on Claire’s behalf, but as she’d listened to Claire talk to yet another friend on the phone, it had become apparent to Rachel that, unbeknown to her, Claire and Sam had been leading virtually separate lives. She’d come away with the conclusion that Claire’s fury wasn’t so much that Sam had left her, but that she hadn’t left him first. It was more a matter of battered pride than a broken heart.
And Archie . . . poor Archie had been asleep. No one had explained to him what had happened yet.
Yes, Rachel concluded, as she sat in Sam’
s chair in the Ararat headquarters, her family were like a hall of distorted mirrors, where the truth didn’t ever seem to be reflected. What she needed was something real. Something solid. Something to focus on. And here it was. Right in front of her all this time.
She thought about Tony and how much she’d felt she’d betrayed him yesterday. And then how much she’d mourned him. Was that it? Was she just going to let him go? Was she going to walk away from all he cared about in his business, too?
No, damn it, she wasn’t. If she’d died and Tony had still been alive, he would have thrown himself into work. Yes, she thought, it was time to wake up and start her life again. This was her business, and if there were tricky times ahead, it was up to her, as the captain, to steer it through.
Inside the lofty splendour of La Seu, it was cool and dark. The sounds of hushed, shuffling tourists reverberated around the vast shadowy chambers along with the echoing monotone of priests at their prayers. It took a while to locate Bill, but Rachel finally found him sitting on one of the rows of densely packed pews in the central aisle, consulting a guidebook through half-moon spectacles.
‘Do you know this place is an astonishing feat of engineering?’ he asked, by way of greeting, as she squeezed past a praying nun and sat down next to him.
She’d forgotten that he’d been so interested in architecture. She knew from Laurie that he’d spent his life as a teacher. She wondered how many of his other dreams had gone unrealised.
‘It took hundreds of years to build. And they kept having to reinforce it. Shore it up with buttress after buttress. But they never gave up. Amazing to have that kind of vision.’
Rachel followed his gaze up the nave with its pencil-thin pillars soaring up to at least twenty metres, before branching out like palm fronds to the rib-vaulted ceiling. She’d been expecting Bill to be cold and unfriendly and she’d wanted to hurry him out of the cathedral and get him to the airport. But the atmosphere in here was so serene that now she felt her thoughts floating away, until the volume of tranquil space above them calmed her racing mind.
‘Fifty years has gone so fast, hasn’t it?’ he said, eventually.
Rachel turned to him.
‘Why didn’t you come back? For the funeral?’ she asked, before she’d even realised she was going to bring up the past.
It took a while for him to answer. ‘I thought about it, but it was too hard. I felt as if I’d failed everyone and going back would have seemed . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t face it. I wanted to be free of that place.’
‘I kept in touch with Richard for years afterwards,’ she said. ‘That’s one of the ways I knew where you were. Where to send the letters . . .’ she prompted.
Bill quietly shut his guidebook and rested it on his knees.
‘Why did Tony lie?’ he asked. ‘About not having reached the house in time to save Mum?’
So he had read the letters after all! Rachel felt a shimmer of hope light up inside her.
‘I suppose he said what was easiest on the spur of the moment. He was frightened and shocked, traumatised by what he’d seen. He thought he was making it easier for me. And for you.’
‘But he did try? He did get to the house in time? What you wrote in the letters . . . it’s all true?’
Rachel could see that, for Bill, knowing that an attempt to save their mother had been made and had failed, was so much harder than believing what he’d believed all these years: that Tony Glover had been a coward who hadn’t tried.
Rachel wanted to punish him for being so obstinate and for ignoring her for all this time. If he’d only listened to her back then . . . if he’d only opened and read just one of her letters, instead of sending them back, then everything would have been different. But she could see now that there was no point in recriminations.
‘Yes, but the point is, Mum didn’t want to be saved. Not by Tony, anyway. It was her stubbornness that killed her, not the flood,’ she said. ‘She refused to forgive him. She refused to see that he was trying to rescue her.’
‘I still should have saved her.’
Rachel sighed. ‘You know, it’s so sad we both feel so guilty. It was just what Tony wanted to avoid. For us both.’
‘Why do you feel guilty?’ Bill sounded surprised.
‘Because I wished it upon her. We had a terrible argument just before the flood. That was why I ran away with Tony. I was so angry, I wanted her dead.’
‘You were in trouble. You were just a kid, Rachel. You couldn’t have predicted the way things were going to turn out.’
‘I suppose.’
‘She was my responsibility.’
Rachel turned to him. ‘But don’t you see? You mustn’t feel guilty either. You did the right thing. You went to try and save Emily.’
‘And failed.’
‘It was an accident, Bill. It was a freak of nature.’
‘But I left Mum to die.’
‘Oh, Bill, I know you didn’t want Mum to die, you just wanted Emily to live more. That’s why you chose to go after her. Emily was your future and Mum was your past. You did the right thing, you must see that?’
They were silent for a while and then Bill stretched and delved his hand into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet.
‘I never forgot her, you know,’ he said. He leafed through one of the leather slots and pulled out a tiny brown envelope. Inside was an ancient photograph of Emily.
Rachel was amazed, as he handed it over. The photo was so worn, and the light in the cathedral was so dim that she didn’t know what he was showing her at first. And then she recognised Emily’s features. She stared at the tiny image, feeling a surge of nostalgia.
‘She was so pretty, wasn’t she? I think I was a little bit in love with her myself.’ Rachel smiled sadly at Bill. ‘I can’t believe it. You’ve kept this all the time? What did your wife say?’
‘She never knew. Not really. Besides, with her it was . . . different. We were older. You’re the first person who’s ever seen this.’
Rachel knew that him showing her the photo was his way of acknowledging all the time that had passed. She handed it back in silence.
Bill sighed and glanced at it once more before he put it back in his wallet. ‘I don’t know why I’ve kept it. Silly, really. But I’ve always felt that having it kept a bit of her spirit with me. Like a lucky charm, I suppose.’
‘She was always so positive, wasn’t she? She would have . . .’
Rachel stopped. She didn’t know what to say. Emily staying alive would have what? Changed everything, she supposed. Would have meant that they’d have all stayed together?
‘Ah,’ Bill said, lightening up. ‘There’s no point in regretting what should have been. I realised that a long time ago. If Emily hadn’t have gone, then I wouldn’t have met Jean. We were happy, you know.’
There was a long pause.
‘So were we,’ Rachel said.
‘I said some things I didn’t mean, yesterday, Rachel. I can see that Tony was a good husband to you. Now I know he did his best, I can see that perhaps I shouldn’t have left the way I did . . .’
‘I wish it had all been different. I wish I hadn’t been caught between you both. You could have known him.’
‘Yes, but not knowing him made it easier for me to blame him. Oh, I know I made out that I hated him, but just for the record, I didn’t really. Emily made me see the light on that one. Maybe if the flood hadn’t have hit, I’d have landed up friends with him, who knows? But at the time, I guess I was jealous of him.’
‘Jealous? Of Tony?’
‘Yes, I suppose. Jealous and angry. Because he took my little sister away and that meant I’d failed.’
‘Failed? How do you mean?’
‘Because I promised Dad. I promised him that I’d always look after you. After you and Mum. And I didn’t. I let him down. I let you get involved with Tony and then when it came down to it, I left you both.’
‘I don’t think you let Dad down,’ she s
aid, quietly.
‘Tell me. Did you ever see Keith Glover again?’
Rachel sighed. ‘No I didn’t. He died in a bar brawl, soon after he got out – before Tony could get to see him.’
‘I know. I heard about it.’
‘So we never told the kids about him. About what he’d done. We put it behind us. We put it all behind us.’
Rachel stared up at the kaleidoscope of light in the distant stained-glass rose window. She’d been wondering what it would feel like to have this conversation and she’d been expecting it to be much harder. Now in the vast cathedral, her and Bill’s ancient emotions seemed so irrelevant. She felt as if something in the cathedral was healing them both. As if they were both letting go and that, underneath, forgiveness had been there all along.
She suddenly remembered her mother’s crucifix around her neck. She reached behind her and took off the tiny clasp.
‘I found this afterwards,’ she said, handing it to Bill. ‘I want you to have it.’
Bill stared at the small necklace in his hand. She could see that the sight of it moved him.
‘Poor old Mum. I guess we’re both more like her than we care to admit,’ he said, looking up at her. His eyes were soft with tears. She felt as if they were children again.
‘I’m not,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be like her.’
‘I’m admitting I’m stubborn, it won’t kill you to admit you’re a control freak like her,’ he said.
Suddenly, they both laughed.
But then Bill turned to her, his face serious. ‘Don’t make the same mistake, Rachel. Don’t do what Mum did to you and Tony with Laurie and Sam.’
Rachel waved her hand to dismiss him, annoyed that he’d brought up Laurie and Sam just when they were having a breakthrough. ‘It’s totally different.’
‘Is it? Laurie’s a good girl, Rachel,’ Bill said. ‘Believe me. She’s like her mother. She feels things deeply. And she deserves a chance at happiness. From what she said, I know she and Sam love each other.’
