Gerard sighed; I had shaken him. ‘Did he ever confess these sins?’ he asked.
‘As in, to a priest? No chance; I was as close as he got to that, and we were hardly in the confessional at the time. . although I suspect that there may be as much truth told between the sheets as in your wee cabinet.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that. . but it could be that there is less omitted.’ He shivered for a second. ‘And you, Primavera,’ he whispered. ‘What are you capable of?’
I looked him in the eye again. ‘Protecting the people I love, whatever it takes.’
‘Does that include me?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then please promise me that you never will, not for me, that you’ll always leave me to look after myself.’
‘I’ll make that promise when I can tell the future, but not before.’
We sat in silence for a while, sipping wine. (One of the great things about being out with a priest is that he always insists on driving, so you’re never going to be stopped by the police.)
‘Are you really going to pay this money?’ He had moved on.
‘Sure. I’ve said that I will.’
‘But two million pesetas is a ridiculous amount. What if Justine refuses to sanction it?’
‘She will. Planas went to see her this afternoon, and she called me as soon as he had left her office, to check that he wasn’t lying in his teeth. When I told her he wasn’t, she was livid. She told me that she wouldn’t allow the council to be a party to blackmail. I told her that it was an agreement between the old man and me and that I was prepared to pay for his approval. She took a bit of persuading, but eventually she agreed to sign the permission.’
‘I feel the same way as she does,’ said Gerard. ‘You are my sister, and I don’t take kindly to seeing you being abused. As for calling you a whore, if he was a younger man, I would take off my collar and meet him after dark.’
‘Father! Wash your mouth out and say a hundred Hail Marys, or whatever the going rate is.’ I made light of it at the time, but I was taken aback by his smouldering anger. ‘You never have done anything like that, have you?’ I asked.
He looked into his glass. ‘None of us is perfect, Primavera. A long time ago, but it was within my family. . although that’s no excuse.’
‘Who did you fight with?’ I asked. ‘Your brother? Santiago?’
‘No, no. Santi and I could never come to blows; we’re too close. Primavera, I really don’t want to talk about it.’
I took his hand, linking my fingers through his; maybe I expected him to flinch from the physical contact, but he didn’t. ‘You know, Gerard, I think the opposite’s true. I believe that you’d love to talk about it, that you’d love to have someone to share your pain, other than a confessor. Well, that’s what I’m here for.’
He gave my hand a quick squeeze, then released it. ‘Not my brother,’ he whispered. ‘My father.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a harsh man, a cruel man; he was heavy handed with Santi and me when we were kids. All the time we were growing up, there were never words of encouragement, only complaint. We lived with it, and got out of there as soon as we could. I went to the seminary, Santi joined the Spanish air force. One time, I was given a weekend’s leave, unexpectedly; I went home, and let myself into the house. As I did, I heard a scream, from not far away. I rushed through to the kitchen and found my mother, on the ground and bleeding from the mouth. He was standing over her, cursing her.’ As he spoke he clenched his hands into fists. ‘I yelled at him to stop, to leave her alone. He told me to go back to my novice’s cell, although not in those exact words. I pulled him away from her, and he punched me. And then he laughed, and said, “Go on, Jesus, turn the other cheek.” He stopped laughing when I hit him, when I knocked him across the room. Instead he roared like a bull, and launched himself at me. He was a big man, my father, a locksmith, with strong, heavy hands from his work. But I was full-grown, and I was more than a match for him. I threw him outside, into the small courtyard at the back of the house, and we had it out. I knocked him down half a dozen times, until finally he stayed there, cut above the eye and with blood and snot coming from his nose. I left him lying, went back inside and locked the door, locked him out of his own home, and tended to my mother. She told me that he’d been abusing her since the beginning of their marriage, Primavera, as he’d abused my brother and me, but she’d kept it from us. I told her that she’d be safe from now on. I packed some clothes for her, and took her to my aunt’s house, close to the Alhambra, above Granada. Then I went back home to confront my father again. I had cooled down, and I wanted to talk to him, to try to understand why he had this thing in him that made him behave that way. But he was gone. I waited for him at the house, for two days, but he didn’t come back. Before I left for the seminary I went to my local church, confessed what I had done, and received absolution. I also received my priest’s promise that he would look after my mother, and ensure that she could live in safety once he returned.’ He shook his head. ‘But he never did, Primavera. He never came back. That’s my last memory of him, seventeen years ago, lying where I left him in the yard, spitting out teeth. What a farewell between father and son, eh, my dear.’
‘Is he still alive?’
‘I have no idea. I’ve never tried to find out.’
‘Has your brother?’
‘Not that I know of. Santi doesn’t know what happened. Mama and I let him think that the old man ran off with another woman; maybe he did. If so, may God have kept her safe.’ He tried to smile, but didn’t get halfway there. ‘So, Primavera, my precious, what do you think of your perfect priest now?’
I wanted to hug him. I wanted to take him somewhere quiet and make him feel better, in any way I could. But that wasn’t possible, so I turned his face towards me and I told him, ‘I think he’s only a man, and I’ve never met the perfect specimen yet. But I’m proud of him, for doing the right thing. After all, God’s smitten a few foes in his time, hasn’t he? And didn’t JC lay into the money-changers in the temple? What would he have done if he’d caught Joseph hitting Mary? I don’t think any the less of you; if anything, I admire you even more.’
He squeezed my hand again, and this time held on to it; we were in a corner, and his back was to the rest of the diners. ‘Thanks. Your absolution means more to me than the other one. But I still don’t feel cleansed. Because I know that when I fought him, it wasn’t just for my mother. It was more than that, it was for Santi and me too, for all the thumpings he gave us when we were kids, for all the cruelty, and for the denial of all the love we should have had as his children.’
‘He had it coming. Tell me, if it had been Santi who’d beaten the crap out of him, rather than you, would you have absolved him?’
‘Totally.’
I raised his hand to my lips and kissed it, then set it down on the table ‘Then do the same for yourself.’
Eleven
I went to church that Sunday. As I’ve said, I’m not an adherent, but something drew me to put on a skirt and a black scarf that also worked as a shawl and a head cover, and go next door. I took a place right at the back on one of the long wooden pews. They were not designed for comfort. ‘They are all penitents’ benches,’ my father is fond of declaring. ‘Church-going is not a social occasion; you can’t win true believers with comfortable seats.’
You might think it was social for me, but you’d be wrong if you did. I was there to see my men at work. Even though my relationship with Gerard had defined limits, my feelings were proprietorial as I watched him conduct the service, and even more so as I looked at his white-robed assistant, my son the altar person. After the travails of the previous week, there was a. . a niceness about it, a family feeling, that gave me a warm glow inside. Maybe I shouldn’t have been there; once or twice I caught women in the congregation glancing at me over their shoulders. But I didn’t feel that there was anything wrong about it, so I simply smiled at them, redirecting their attention to the main event.