But what about me? What did I really want? Two years before, Gerard had asked me to give him space, and I’d done that. Eh? Pardon? Me? I frowned at the page, and asked myself a straight question, for the first time. Wouldn’t the real Primavera, if she’d wanted him badly enough, have gone to Ireland a long time before and laid it on the line for him? ‘Dinner’s in the oven, sunshine. Get your ass back home!’
Of course she would. So why hadn’t she? For make no mistake, that woman still exists.
I didn’t have to dig far for the answer to that. The bald truth was that even if Gerard Hernanz had never gone, if instead he’d stayed put in St Martí two years before, and I’d taken him into my home and into my bed, he’d always have been second best.
Inside, the real Primavera would still have dreamed that the dead might arise and walk once more, as she’d done herself in a manner of speaking, after a spell of hiding in mistaken fear.
Inside, she still does.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’
I turned in my basket chair. Tom was standing in the open doorway; still only a boy, a child, but with a look of adult concern in his eyes as he gazed down on me. ‘Of course,’ I replied lightly. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Because you promised you’d come out to the wine fair with me, remember. I sniff, you taste, that was the deal. You never forget a promise, so something must have upset you.’
He’s not a boy you can fob off. ‘I’ve had a letter,’ I told him. ‘From Ireland. From Gerard.’
‘And he’s not coming back.’ There was no question mark left hanging in the air.
‘No, he’s not. I’m sorry, Tom.’
He shrugged his shoulders, in a Scottish way rather than his usual Catalan. (Linguistic shrugging is complex; it has to be seen to be understood.) ‘I’m not,’ he declared, firmly; then he paused. ‘Well, I’m sorry for you, Mum, if that’s what you wanted. But not for myself. I don’t need. .’
His years and his vocabulary weren’t yet at the point where he was able to articulate the concept that while he might have liked Gerard as a man, he had no room for him in his life as an added authority figure, but that’s what he meant.
The letter hadn’t brought the merest hint of mistiness to my eyes, but that did. Before he saw it and misunderstood, I jumped to my feet, beaming. ‘And neither do I,’ I declared. I slung an arm round his shoulders, something that I’m able to do these days without bending at all. ‘Come on, kid. Time for you to do some serious sniffing.’
We strolled out into the square, leaving Charlie on guard duty in the garden, and joined the crowds. The kids were making more din than ever, but I didn’t mind any more. In any event their parents, after a few tastings, were beginning to drown them out. I bought a ticket, exchanged a tear-off for a tapas from La Terrassa d’Empúries, our newest restaurant, and began to explore the exhibitors’ tables. Unlike too many other fairs of its type, only the best is on offer at Arrels del Vi. It’s become a showcase for the growers of the Emporda comerc, and they’re keen to show the world how good they are.
Miles, my brother-in-law, dabbles in the wine business, like many rich Aussies. Some time before he’d acquired a winery, a bodega, near Cadaques, and he’d been nagging me for a while to become involved as a director, since he lives in California and can’t be hands-on himself. With the government job off my hands, I had told him that I’d do it, so my tour around the stalls wasn’t entirely for fun. I knew many of the wines that were on offer so I concentrated on those I didn’t, looking to compare them with our range and to see where it might be deficient.
I’d just taken a sip of a very nice white, one hundred per cent garnaxa grape, and let Tom have a noseful, when a hand fell on my shoulder.
‘I knew I’d find you here, gal.’
‘Hello, Shirley,’ said Tom, before I’d had a chance to turn around, but I’d known who it was anyway. Very few people are allowed such familiarity.
‘And hello to you, young man. God, but you’re growing fast. I’ll bet you’re pissed off with people telling you that.’
He was, but he was too polite to agree with her, plus, he liked her. Shirley Gash, my best lady pal in L’Escala, the town of which St Martí d’Empuriès is a slightly detached suburb, is one of the most likeable people I know. She’s had tragedy in her life, more than I’ve had, the sort that would have destroyed a lesser woman, but she’s overcome it, as far as the world can see. She’s tall, blonde, buxom but elegant with it, and she looks after herself so carefully that people who meet her for the first time don’t have a clue about her age. I’m privy to the secret, and that’s what it shall remain.
‘Hey,’ I greeted her. ‘Where have you been and what the hell have you been up to?’ She’d been away from her big house on the far side of L’Escala for a few weeks. Her departure had coincided with one of my away trips, and I’d known nothing about it till she was gone.
Before she could tell me, my gaze fell on a man, standing slightly behind her, but not so far that he was in the Duke of Edinburgh position. One look, and I didn’t need an answer any more. I knew the ‘what’, if not the ‘where’. He was at the upper end of middle-aged, as dark as Shirley is fair, solidly built but not gone to fat, dressed, immaculately, in slacks, white shirt and gold-buttoned blazer, looking as if he’d just stepped off a very large yacht. All it would have taken was an apricot scarf, and Carly Simon might have been singing about him.
Or might it have been someone else’s song? Not ‘You’re So Vain?’, rather ‘Just a Gigolo’? I fixed on my smile but focused a little harder: no, I reckoned I was being suspicious without a reason. His eyes were soft, warm, and there was a degree of uncertainty in them. I’ve seen quite a few professional Romeos in my time, and in each of them there was the look of the shark.
‘This is Patterson,’ Shirley announced. ‘Patterson, with two “t”s and never Pat, Cowling. We’ve been on a getting acquainted trip, now he’s come to stay for a while, and maybe even for longer than that.’
I extended a hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Patterson.’ He shook it as gently as if I’d been the Queen of Spain. His fingers were thick, like sausages, but soft, like those of a lawyer or a banker. If he had come off a yacht, he’d been on the bridge, captain rather than crew.
‘Likewise,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been waiting for this meeting for a while now. You’re Shirley’s number one topic of conversation. It’s easy to see why.’
Brownie points, Patterson, I thought. That could have made him sound like a smoothie too, but it didn’t, just a friendly, open guy. I frowned at my pal. ‘Oh yeah? And what’s she been saying about me?’
‘That you’re the best friend she has. That you’re the unofficial mayor of this place. That you’re a sort of roving ambassador for HMG. She’s told me everything about you and yet nothing, nothing about what you were or what you did before you came here.’ He paused, and grinned at Tom, who looked back at him, deadpan, as if he was still weighing him up, which he was. ‘Oh yes, she says your son’s a bit of a character as well.’
‘I’ll take all those, save the roving ambassador part; I’ve chucked that. And yes, he is; the loveliest boy in the world, until someone upsets his mum.’ I turned back to Shirley. ‘Are you just here to show Patterson off, or have you come for the fair as well?’
She waved their tickets at me. ‘What do you think?’
They joined us on a leisurely tour. We didn’t visit every producer. . there was no need, since the event was only in its first day and the weekend weather was set fair. . but I made sure that we stopped at Miles’s bodega’s table. The representative there knew who I was, but I didn’t let Shirley in on the connection until she’d tasted, and pronounced the red that she tried, ‘excellent’.