Bay of Secrets (40 page)

But of course, he was not.

Andrés crept back inside Casa Azul and tiptoed up to his father’s studio. He could hear their voices and he could tell it was not just painting that was going on. But he must be sure, so he opened the door just a crack and put his eye to the slit. He recognised the girl as Stella, one of his father’s models. She was just eighteen and had a boyfriend in the village who Andrés played soccer with sometimes. Enrique Marin played dominoes in the Bar Acorralado with the girl’s father; he was one of his best friends.

They were both naked. She was lying on the chaise longue and he was kneeling in front of her, feeding her segments of an orange; dropping them between her moist and open lips.
His father was caressing her breast with his other hand. They were talking and laughing and … Andrés shut the door. He did not want to see any more. He could not. And he knew that there had been others – so many others.

That night over dinner, when Izabella had gone round to a friend’s house, he told his parents what he had seen.

‘I came back to the house this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I went up to the studio.’

His mother got up from the table and started clearing the plates.

‘I saw you and Stella.’ He addressed this to his father. ‘How can you take advantage of her like that?’

His father shrugged. ‘She is desperate to be painted,’ he said.

‘To be painted!’ Andrés laughed. He turned towards his mother but she was opening and shutting cupboards, seemingly not even interested in their conversation. ‘I did not see so much painting going on.’

‘What do you know of women and their needs?’ his father growled. ‘You are just a boy.’

Andrés sat up straighter. ‘You are taking advantage of her. She thinks you are such a big man. So important. She is young and stupid. And so you are fucking her and fucking up her life.’

His father just sat at the table and watched him. Andrés even thought he saw a smirk hover around his lips. Why should he worry? He had them all under his control.

‘Hush, Andrés!’ His mother scurried back to the table. She
seemed more shocked that he was saying it than that it had actually happened. ‘You do not know what you say.’

‘I know exactly what I say.’ He looked right back into his father’s coal-black eyes. Others might, but Andrés would never look away. ‘I saw them. Naked, the two of them. I saw him touching her. It was disgusting.’

‘You’re a liar, boy,’ his father said. He took another swig of his beer.

‘I know what I saw.’ Andrés looked from one to the other of them. He was doing this to protect his mother, to show his father up for what he really was. So why did he feel that they had both turned against him?

‘Take it back,’ his father growled.

‘No.’

‘Take it back!’

‘I saw you with her,’ Andrés shouted. ‘I know what you do. I know what you are. People think you’re such a great man. But you’re not. You’re not. You’re a filthy—’

‘Enough!’ His roar was loud enough to waken the dead. ‘Get out of my house.’

‘Enrique … ’ Only now did his mother try to stop him. ‘Enrique, no … ’

‘Get out of my house, boy!’ he roared. ‘Do not darken this door again. And do not dare to come back.’

*

Andrés continued cutting the pipework into manageable sections with the hacksaw. At one point the blade broke and he had to fit a replacement.

And so he had left.

Those women … Those girls … If that was what a marriage was, then he wanted none of it.

But now. He had to go back there. He had thought he could avoid it, but how could he? He had to go back. He should be there with Ruby at this time – she needed him. And if Enrique was dying? He would need to help his mother and Izabella through it too. It was his responsibility. Something hurt inside his chest and Andrés breathed deeply, trying to free it, trying to free himself. His blood. His father was his blood.

He owed it to himself. He had a ghost to lay to rest. He had to go home.

And Ruby …

He thought of the picture his father had painted of the beautiful young girl with long blonde hair and sad blue eyes. He had to find out if Ruby’s mother had been one of those girls.

‘Come round to the
casa
again this afternoon,’ Izabella had said when they parted. ‘I will talk to Mama. She will let you in this time.’

And so Ruby was here again, waiting outside.

Reyna Marin came to the door. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You are a friend of my son. Please. You must come in.’

‘Thank you.’ Ruby followed her into the house, past a spiral staircase which wound from the hall into the upper reaches of the house, and through into the kitchen. It still had the look of a Spanish kitchen about it, Ruby thought, with its colourful tiles and curtains, but it also had all the mod cons.

Reyna Marin ushered Ruby to sit down in a wooden chair at the table. She moved a chopping board and some vegetables she was preparing to one side.

Again, Ruby wondered about their lives. It touched her that despite her husband’s success, Reyna Marin – and possibly Enrique too – seemed to prefer the life of simplicity that they had probably always led.

‘How is Andrés?’ his mother asked hesitantly.

‘He’s very well.’

Reyna Marin looked as if she might cry. She spoke swiftly and softly in Spanish. Ruby couldn’t understand what she said, but she felt the emotion behind her words.

‘What I would not give to see him,’ she added. She hugged her arms around her chest and slowly rocked her body from side to side. ‘What I would not give to hold him in my arms again.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Andrés. My son … ’

Ruby got to her feet, put her arm around the woman and tried to offer some comfort. First Izabella and now Reyna. Why wouldn’t he come home? And another thought struck her. Here was another woman – like Laura – who had lived for a great deal of her life without her child. Whatever had happened between Enrique and Andrés, she clearly loved her son. Ruby could feel her pain.

Reyna’s eyes snapped open. She looked vague, as if she’d suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone. ‘You want some coffee,
si
?’ she asked.

‘Yes, please,’ said Ruby.

Reyna filled the percolator with water and coffee and put it on the stove. ‘And you want to talk to my husband about your mother, you say?’

‘I want to trace her.’

Reyna didn’t seem to understand. She frowned.

‘Look for her.’ Ruby sighed. She might as well tell this woman the story. ‘She gave me away when I was a baby,’ she said.

Reyna spoke again in Spanish, went to the doorway, looked up the stairs. Clearly, she was uncomfortable with the
conversation. ‘A baby,’ she repeated. She shook her head, although whether this was in response to what Ruby had said or whether she was thinking of her own children, Ruby had no idea.

‘I saw a portrait of my mother on your husband’s website,’ she explained.

‘A portrait?’ Again, her eyes darkened. ‘A portrait, you say?’ The frown grew deeper.

‘I spoke to Andrés … ’

Reyna was watching her intently. She was on edge, Ruby realised. But why? Was it just because of Andrés – or was there something more?

What could she tell her? ‘I am sure he misses you all,’ she said weakly.

‘And we miss him.’ Reyna Marin got up to pour the coffee. ‘We miss him from the bottom of our hearts.’

‘Reyna?’ A man called from upstairs. It could only be Enrique.

‘
Si?
’ Reyna sighed. ‘He is not well,’ she said to Ruby. She got to her feet and called back to him, speaking in Spanish.

‘I promise not to tire him,’ Ruby said when she came back into the kitchen.

‘Hey there!’ He called out in English this time. His voice was guttural and thick. It must once have been a powerful voice, but Ruby could hear the fragility in it now.

She went out into the hall. He stood at the top of the spiral staircase, and she was shocked to see not the great artist she had expected but a small and wasted man of about seventy.
She barely recognised him from the photos on his website. ‘
Hola
, Señor,’ she said. She could manage about that much Spanish.

‘Who are you?’ He coughed as soon as he had spoken. But he recovered himself well and stood – more erect – looking down at her. Ruby recognised a glimmer then of what he had been. It was in his stance, in the kind of aura that, despite his illness, still clung to him.

‘My name’s Ruby Rae. I came here because I wanted to speak with you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I believe you painted my mother many years ago.’

‘Your mother, eh?’ He frowned. Muttered something she couldn’t understand. ‘What do you want then? What can I be expected to do?’ He was shaking his head.

‘I’m trying to find her.’ Ruby looked up at him.

He sighed heavily. ‘What was her name? No, do not tell me, I do not remember names. Come up, come up.’ He beckoned her up the stairs.

‘I saw a portrait of her on your website,’ Ruby said as she climbed the spiral staircase. Her words seemed to echo from the stone walls. ‘I just want to talk to her, that’s all.’

‘Oh, that is all, is it?’ She was level with him now and Enrique Marin was looking her up and down, appraising her.

Ruby stood tall. The man was old enough to be her father – older – and yet he was undressing her with his eyes and making absolutely no bones about it. Could you call that artistic licence? Whatever. He simply didn’t care.

‘She had long blonde hair and blue eyes,’ Ruby said. ‘I can show you the picture.’

‘No need, no need.’ Slowly, he walked along the landing, wheezing as he went, beckoning her to follow him. ‘Come with me.’

They entered a light, airy and magnificent room with windows on all sides. A studio, Ruby realised immediately. An art studio which was full of canvases, easels, and trestle tables loaded with paints and brushes and other paraphernalia. Automatically, she walked over to the window. From here she could see the ocean, the lagoons, even that lighthouse. ‘It’s amazing up here,’ she breathed. A bird’s-eye view.

‘Yes, yes.’

He sounded impatient. And why was there no need to show him the picture, she wondered.

‘Here she is,
si
?’

Ruby spun around. Enrique Marin was holding a canvas. It showed a woman – Laura – sitting on a flat rock on the beach. She was wearing an indigo sarong and a loose cream blouse. Her legs were bent, she was leaning back slightly on her hands; her hair was blowing in the wind. She was staring out to sea, and she looked as desolate as the scene in which he’d painted her. Laura … ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s her.’ She turned to him. ‘How did you know?’

He shrugged. ‘You have her look.’

‘I do?’

‘Noticed it straight off.’ His eyes were black and sharp as
flint. ‘I loved painting that girl.’ He let out a harsh cackle. ‘I’d paint you too if I still had the strength.’

Ruby thought of Andrés. What would this man say if he knew that his son had got there first? Andrés hadn’t painted her, no, but he had sketched her portrait as they sat on Golden Cap. And even Ruby could see how Enrique Marin had recognised her. There was a resemblance between them; she could see it from this picture more than ever before. Like a stranger, she thought again. Like a stranger you’ve always known …

‘You never sold this one?’ Ruby asked him. After all, an artist generally sold his work if he could.

He shrugged. ‘I made some prints. Call me a sentimental fool, eh?’

Somehow Ruby couldn’t quite see him as either. ‘Can you tell me anything about her?’ Ruby asked him. ‘Do you know – is she still around?’

He shrugged. ‘I knew nothing about her even then,’ he said. ‘Apart from her sadness and her bone structure and that she could keep still for hours.’ He laughed again, though the laughter turned into a rasping cough that seemed to come from deep within him. ‘Why should I know anything more? I did not care. What was important? To talk or to paint, eh?’

Ruby saw what he meant. Even so. There must be something.

‘She was a free spirit though, that one.’ He chuckled. ‘I do not know if she is still here on the island. But I liked her.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Yes, I liked her.’

‘And that’s all you can tell me?’ Ruby asked him. It might be a dead end, but at least she now knew for sure that Laura had lived here – once. Talking to someone who had known her, who had painted her, was helping Ruby get more of a feel for her too.

‘
Si
.’ He moved with some difficulty towards the other end of the studio. ‘I keep all my old sketches and roughs. Some of the originals too. An artist’s prerogative, eh?’

‘I suppose so.’ Ruby smiled.

‘And you?’

‘Me?’

‘What do you do, hmm? Are you as free as your mother?’

‘Not really. I’m a journalist. And I play the saxophone. Jazz.’

He stopped what he was doing and stared at her for a long moment. ‘Ah. So that is what you do?’

She nodded and he resumed his sorting through the stack of paintings.

‘Your mother, eh?’ He nodded. ‘So do you want to see the rest, hmm?’

*

Ruby said a quick goodbye to Reyna Marin, who examined her face as if she were looking for the answer to some question, squeezed her hand and said, ‘Come again, Ruby, please.’

Then she left the Casa Azul, and pulled out her mobile to call Andrés.

It had been a revelation. She had talked to the father. And now she wanted to talk to the son.

‘Ruby.’

At least he had answered. ‘Hello, Andrés,’ she said.

‘So you are there?’

Ruby got to the end of the street and turned right according to Enrique’s directions. ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she said.

She heard his exhalation of breath. ‘And is it the place?’ Though he sounded as if he already knew.

‘Yes, it’s the place.’ She thought of the lighthouse she’d seen in the distance. The bay with the turquoise water and black volcanic rock. ‘But I have no idea if she’s still here.’

‘People come and people go,’ Enrique had told her in his gruff voice. ‘Some people stay here for ever. This place – it gets you. Here.’ And he had thumped his chest.

Had Laura stayed for ever? Enrique hadn’t seen her for thirty years, he told Ruby. But in a place like this, that didn’t mean a thing. Most of the time he was in his studio, he said. He spent time in Rosario too. He didn’t go to the sort of places Laura would go. Not any more.