‘Mum!’
Pepper looked across at her father, who had turned a violent shade of crimson.
‘It’s all right,’ Keira reassured her. ‘This can’t be easy for you,’ she said kindly. ‘Either of you,’ she went on, turning towards Pepper.
‘It’s fine.’ Pepper glared at her parents. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to be rude, did you, Mum?’
Her mother said nothing, she merely fixed Pepper with a withering stare.
There was an awkward pause.
‘I think I’ll just find out where that waitress has got to,’ muttered Keira, dropping her napkin on the table as she tottered away.
‘You promised to be civil,’ Martin hissed at his ex-wife. ‘Keira is trying her best. You could at least meet her in the middle.’
‘I shouldn’t like to meet her anywhere,’ Pepper’s mother said rudely. ‘I’m only here to support Philippa.’
‘Come on, Mum.’ Pepper was almost pleading. ‘There’s no need to start a row. We’re all grown-ups here.’
She distinctly heard her mother tut in reply.
‘Just spit it out,’ she said wearily. ‘Whatever it is you want to say, get it out now before Keira gets back.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ her mother replied.
‘Do what?’
Pepper’s father picked up his wine glass only to realise it had yet to be filled.
‘Talk to me as if you’re the parent and I’m the child.’
Feeling wounded, Pepper recoiled in her seat. There were so many words fighting to get out, so much injustice in what her mother was saying.
‘Maybe I am guilty of that,’ she said coldly. ‘But only because I’ve had no choice. Someone had to look after you, didn’t they? Someone had to step up after Bethan died.’
‘Don’t you dare say her name,’ her mother said, in a hissing sort of whisper.
‘Why not?’ Pepper retorted. ‘She was my sister.’
‘And my daughter.’
‘Please,’ said Pepper’s father, sounding drained. ‘Let’s not do this. Not tonight. This is supposed to be a happy evening. I had hoped we could focus on the future for once.’
‘Tch!’ her mother spat. ‘That is typical of you, Martin – running away from anything remotely difficult, trying to pretend that the past never happened.’
‘How could I pretend?’ he exclaimed. ‘When you would never let me forget, even for one sodding moment? Bethie was my daughter, too – you have never made allowances for that. I’m sorry for what happened, we all are, but it was an accident. We should be able to carry on with our lives and be happy. It doesn’t mean we love her any less.’
‘An accident,’ her mother echoed bitterly, shaking her head.
Pepper looked at her father. He looked as if he had aged five years in the past five minutes, and her heart went out to him, out to all of them, for all their sorrow, for all they had been through and were still going through. She knew her mother was in pain, but she wished that she would just try – it was time she forgave herself for still being here, for being alive.
‘I’m sorry, Trin,’ said her dad. ‘It was a silly, stupid accident – a tragedy. But it was nobody’s fault.’
‘That’s the thing, though, Dad.’ Pepper got slowly to her feet. ‘Mum thinks it is someone’s fault – my fault.’
‘No, darling.’ Her father was shaking his head now, as if trying to rid his mind of her words. Pepper braved a look at her mother and found her ashen, her face pinched with misery.
‘I’m going to go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I need to go. I can’t, I just can’t.’
Fumbling for her jacket and bag, Pepper stumbled blindly towards the door and pushed it open, hurrying towards her car. She felt numb, as if her blood had ceased to move, her heart squeezed to a standstill by the same tight fist that seemed to have wrapped itself around her throat.
‘Wait!’
It was Keira, breathless having run across the pub car park in her high heels.
‘Don’t go, please.’
Pepper hung her head.
‘I think I have to,’ she said. ‘It’s not you – it’s my mum. I find it–– It’s too difficult. If I stay, I’ll only upset her more. I never seem to know the right thing to say, you know?’
Keira took a timid step closer.
‘Marty told me,’ she said. ‘About your sister. That must have been so hard.’
Pepper sighed.
‘You can’t change the past, unfortunately,’ Keira went on. ‘You probably think of me as some young bimbo, but I have seen a lot, and been through a lot. My family have their own fair share of skeletons, and there’s plenty in the past that could wreck us, if we let it. But we don’t, because we’re a family – and families pull together.’
‘Mine doesn’t seem able to,’ Pepper said helplessly. ‘We scatter and hide.’
‘It might seem that way,’ she said. ‘But you all came here tonight, didn’t you? That must mean something. Even if you’re bickering, at least you’re all doing it in the same room.’
Pepper was too overwrought to take in what she was saying, too tired of being stuck on a wheel that never seemed to stop circling, churning up the same dirt over and over.
‘I guess I’m just tired of nothing ever changing,’ she said, fighting back the tears. ‘I’m so tired of it.’
Keira deliberated for a second, then opened her arms and enveloped Pepper in a hug.
‘What’s this for?’ she muttered, her arms dangling down by her sides.
Keira sighed, her arms tight around Pepper.
‘Because you look like you need it,’ she said.
Chapter 31
Less than sixteen hours after she had walked out on dinner with her parents, Pepper arrived in Barcelona.
She had barely managed to sleep, and when she picked Josephine up in a taxi with the swollen eyes of someone who has clearly been crying, her friend had known at once that something was wrong and did her best to coax the truth out of Pepper over watery cups of coffee in the departure lounge of Stansted Airport.
But it wasn’t fair to burden Josephine with her problems – especially not when the older woman had so much to contend with already. Now that Pepper was aware of the Parkinson’s, she could see that it was progressing with a steadfast determination – one that made Josephine’s dauntlessness in the face of it all the more remarkable. Pepper had noticed her friend’s facial expressions beginning to change, as if the effort of holding up a smile was becoming too great. It was a cruel affliction for anyone to bear, but it felt doubly cruel to see it strip away the vitality from someone who was so full of joy and mischief. Josephine was refusing to discuss the fact that she was now walking with the aid of a stick, telling Pepper in no uncertain terms that ‘ignorance is bliss, so please let’s just pretend that the horrible thing isn’t there’.
Despite a markedly dour start to the day, Pepper’s mood quickly improved as they drove through the wonderfully chaotic Spanish city. Barcelona was a place that overflowed with life. From the bonnet-to-bumper stream of traffic on the roads to the endlessly bobbing sea of tourists spilling along the pavements, it felt to Pepper as if there was movement and mayhem at every turn. Turning to help Josephine step down from the bus at the main square of Plaça de Catalunya, Pepper almost got the pair of them flattened by a passing Segway tour.
‘Golly,’ Josephine said, as they retreated hastily to a nearby wall.
‘This place is an absolute riot!’
Pepper blew air into her cheeks as she stared around.
‘I don’t even know where to look first,’ she exclaimed. ‘Has it changed a lot from when you and Jorge came here?’
‘Rather!’ Josephine grinned. ‘There were trams rather than trucks back in ’sixty-six,’ she remarked, curling up her nose as one of the latter heaved past belching petrol fumes. ‘And market stalls rather than all these glamorous-looking shops. In fact, I remember it being a quiet and dusty little place.�
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‘Well, it’s the opposite now.’
‘I know.’ Josephine grasped her hand. ‘What a thrill! I suspect that you and I are going to have a marvellous time here.’
Lisbon had been muted by drizzle when Pepper had bid it farewell, Finn’s rainbow-striped umbrella the only bloom of colour as he pulled her against him for a goodbye kiss in the narrow lane beside her hotel. Barcelona was a carnival by comparison, and every surface, statue and upturned face was basking in brilliant sunshine. It was hot, but not uncomfortably so, and the longer she and Josephine sat watching the friendly pandemonium unfolding, the more at ease Pepper felt. The heat was working its way into her sleep-deprived limbs, relaxing her knotted muscles and lulling her into a strangely serene state.
‘Righto, that’s enough rest. Where would you like to begin?’ Josephine asked, turning to Pepper. ‘Jorge and I practically lived in Park Güell when we were here . . . Although, you simply must see La Rambla – it’s iconic. And I have been so longing to set foot on a proper sandy beach.’
‘Whoa, there!’ Pepper said with a laugh, pointing to the bags at their feet. ‘We should probably check in first, no? And don’t bite my head off for saying this, but it would probably be a good idea if you rested for a bit.’
‘Nonsense!’ Josephine lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I assure you, darling. I am absolutely fine. Fighting fit! Eager to beaver! Gung-ho for hotfooting!’
‘I don’t want you to overd––’ Pepper started to say, but Josephine was adamant. Planting her stick firmly on the ground, she got shakily to her feet.
‘Come, come.’ She beckoned Pepper with a hand. ‘Lots to see – no time to dilly-dally.’
Pepper gave in to a sigh that became a smile.
‘You’re the boss,’ she said.
They began by walking the length of Barcelona’s most famous street, La Rambla, each of them wide-eyed in a mixture of glee and bafflement as they tried to take in the madness around them. Groups of travellers streamed along like cut-out paper dollies, chummy stall owners yelled and corralled, music blasted out from speakers and dark-haired local children bashed against adult legs as they nipped and weaved their way through the crowds.
‘It reminds me of Piccadilly Circus in London,’ Pepper said, staring around. ‘Only with fewer neon signs.’
‘You should get a job here,’ suggested Josephine, gesturing towards where a man had set himself up sketching caricatures for people. ‘You would make an absolute killing.’
‘He is way better than me,’ Pepper retorted, to which Josephine rolled her eyes heavenward.
‘It was busy along here even in ’sixty-six,’ she told her. ‘Jorge and I used to sit and idle over coffee for hours, he watching the world go by, and me watching him. I remember falling in love with this beautiful silver anklet, and Jorge haggled with the vendor, eventually getting him down to 750 pesetas, which would be around three-fifty nowadays.’
‘How lovely!’ Pepper exclaimed. ‘Do you still have it?’
‘Alas.’ Josephine looked wistfully down at her bare ankles. ‘It was in a box of my things that went missing during the move, but I never used to wear it anyway. It would have felt disloyal to Ian, I suppose.’
‘Maybe we should get you another one?’ Pepper said. ‘There’s bound to be a place along here that sells jewellery.’
Josephine shook her head. ‘You are very sweet,’ she said. ‘But there really is no need.’
To escape the hordes, they veered right off the main strip and found themselves in a vast indoor market packed with food stalls. There were mountains of fruit, blocks of cheese almost as big as the Britten Shell and enough slices of cured meat to paper the walls of Pepper’s house. Fresh fish stared out at them from trays of crushed ice, their unseeing eyes reminding Pepper of the marbles she kept in jars on her studio shelves.
Tucked away at the back they found a tiny refreshment stand and ordered a glass of fresh coconut juice each, followed swiftly by a second. But while Pepper deemed it the creamiest, most delicately delicious drink she had ever tasted, Josephine pulled a face and said, ‘If you ask me, darling, it would be much improved by a healthy dose of gin.’
‘You’re incorrigible,’ Pepper stated, linking her arm through Josephine’s as they left the market and skirted along the very edge of La Rambla.
Even when you were being bulldozed from every angle by fellow visitors, it was impossible not to appreciate the beauty of the architecture. Pepper almost got a crick in her neck gazing up at the tall houses on either side of the street, with their ornate balconies and grand, shuttered windows. Tiny birds flitted among the branches of the plane trees, dipping and diving for dropped morsels of food, and from somewhere in the distance, she heard the distinctive chime of church bells.
‘I want to bottle it all and take it home with me,’ she gabbled to Josephine. ‘Everywhere I look, there’s something I want to draw or paint.’
Pepper had brought her proper camera with her, and now she began taking endless photos, zooming in to capture a flurry of bubbles being blown by one of the strange living statues, and the young woman leaning out from a high window, her cigarette trailing smoke as she surveyed the scene below. Every face in the crowd was a potential story, every frame of her lens a work of art.
‘I can see why Jorge wanted to come here,’ she said. ‘This is Arcadia for an artist.’
‘Indeed.’ Josephine was smiling. ‘And, my dear, this is only the very beginning.’
Eventually, they reached the end of the road and stepped out under the watchful shadow of the towering Columbus Monument. Pepper admired the noble profile of the illustrious and intrepid explorer, who glared out across the glistening sweep of the Mediterranean.
‘Jorge and I used this fellow as a marker when we went out on our many forages around the city,’ Josephine told her, tilting her chin to get a better look. ‘Good old Chris here prevented us from becoming lost many a time, as I remember it.’
‘Far more romantic than Google Maps,’ reflected Pepper, but Josephine was lost in a memory, her pale blue eyes watery and her fingers laced tightly together on the handle of her walking stick.
‘Hey.’ Pepper touched a hand to her shoulder. ‘We can go back to the hotel if you want to – just say the word.’
‘Hush.’ Josephine blinked and pointed across the road with her cane. ‘Gung-ho, remember? The beach is just over the road. I am afraid that a paddle before dinner is non-negotiable.’
Pepper did not need Josephine to point out that the seafront area had changed beyond recognition since the mid-sixties, because an ultra-modern promenade dominated the shoreline. Boats of every size, shape and level of luxury were packed into the harbour, an enormous drawbridge linked a wooden walkway to a floating shopping centre, and kiosks selling everything from ice cream to beer to buckets and spades had been set up at intervals all the way along the water’s edge.
For Pepper, who was used to the genteel layout of Aldeburgh, the beach came as a bit of a shock. They could barely see the sand for sunbathers, many of whom, to the obvious pleasure of Josephine, appeared to be in the midst of a party. Teenagers kicked balls to one another, shirtless waiters ferried trays of beer, while gulls the size of albatrosses picked at discarded food wrappers, squawking in outrage whenever somebody attempted to shoo them away.
‘Bloody hell!’ cried Pepper, as a football whizzed past only inches from her head.
‘Isn’t it marvellous, darling?’ Josephine exclaimed, shrugging out of her voluminous kaftan and dumping it, along with her capacious tote bag, onto the sand. Laying down her stick and rearranging the front of her blue-and-white striped swimsuit, she gave Pepper an exaggerated wink and declared, ‘I’m going in!’
Pepper was just unrolling her towel when a man with a thick rug of chest hair and a white sailor’s hat lurched into view bearing a tray of bright-green drinks.
‘Mojito, mojito – only three euros!’
‘No, gracias,’ Pepper put up her hand.<
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‘Yes please, lady. Very good mojito. Very good price.’
Recalling what Josephine had said about the absent gin in the coconut juice, Pepper relented.
‘Oh, go on then,’ she said, handing over a ten euro note and ignoring the voice in her head that was berating her because the cups and straws were plastic. She must save them for future collages. Digging two holes in the sand with her heel, she propped the cocktails inside and, extracting her phone, took a photo.
Attaching the picture to a WhatsApp message, she wrote: ‘I think I just met the Barcelona version of Otto. Miss you!’ and added five kisses for good measure.
Finn replied less than a minute later.
‘In that case – run!’ she read, laughing when she saw that he’d added a dancing man emoji.
‘Oh whoopee – is that for me?’
Josephine was back from her swim and dripping water like a washing-up sponge.
Pepper helped her to sit down on the towel, then passed across one of the mojitos.
‘To you!’ they cried in unison.
‘To us,’ corrected Pepper.
Josephine removed her straw and took a large gulp, only to splutter in disgust.
‘What’s the matter?’ Pepper had yet to taste hers. ‘Is it gross?’
‘Worse.’ Josephine shuddered. ‘They haven’t put any damn rum in it.’
Chapter 32
Pepper woke to a text message from her mother.
Rubbing her eyes, she swiped her finger across the screen, then sat bolt upright in bed, staring at the little grey box of text. It contained just two words: I’m sorry.
Her mother had never apologised to her before – not ever.
Pepper wondered what she was referring to. Was her mother sorry that they’d had a row in the pub? Or was she merely sorry that she’d got pregnant with Pepper in the first place?
She typed back a reply, deleted it, then tried another.
What should she say? That she was sorry, too? She did feel slightly guilty for abandoning the dinner, but not for what she had said, because it had all been true. If anything, she should have said it a long time ago. She ought to call her mother, ask her to explain exactly what she meant by ‘I’m sorry’ and have it out properly. But Pepper was reluctant to risk another argument. Being here in Barcelona had brightened her up, like Brasso on a copper kettle – she didn’t want yet more strife to take away that shine.
Hello, Again Page 17
