I should tell you right now that I don’t recall Adrienne ever looking her age, except maybe one time. She’s tall, about five ten in her heels, and her hair has always been shoulder length, and dyed a shade of auburn that verges upon red. She drew a few glances from other unofficial taxi-drivers and from a couple of security guards as she spotted us, and headed our way.
‘Darling,’ she exclaimed, reaching out to hug me. ‘I thought I was going to melt in there. I must look bloody frightful.’ (Her makeup was immaculate: I could tell that she’d just spent some time in front of the mirror in the baggage-hall toilet.)
She took a step back from me and looked down at Tom. ‘My God, Primavera,’ she said, ‘what a handsome boy.’ She wasn’t wrong there: the older he gets, the more he looks like his dad, dark haired and blue eyed. For a moment I thought she was going to bend and hug him too, which would have been a wrong move, but instead she reached out a hand for him to shake. ‘We haven’t really been formally introduced,’ she murmured. ‘I’m your great-aunt and I’m very pleased to meet you.’
My son is a very open kid. He hasn’t developed one of the less-endearing male traits, the charm button that can be switched on and off at a second’s notice. I hope he never does: right now you can look into his eyes and know exactly what he’s thinking, and I pray that nothing ever happens to change the fundamental honesty with which he’s been blessed. I hadn’t been sure how he’d react to our visitor, but when he took Adrienne’s hand, said, ‘Hello,’ then gave her a smile that turned into an awkward laugh, I knew she’d cracked it with him.
He took charge of her case as I led the way out of the terminal into the heat of the late-June day. At first Adrienne thought it might be too bulky for him, but he’s tall for his age, over one metre thirty already, and strong from all the swimming, running and cycling that he does, so he could handle it easily, although I had to give him a little help to lift it on to the back platform of our Jeep. (No, I’m not out to kill the planet. It has low carbon emissions, and it’s a necessity where I live. I gave up on the BMW Compact last April after the silencer was ripped off by a tree root that had pushed its way through a badly laid black-topped road.)
‘This is nice,’ said my aunt, as she slid into the back seat. ‘I haven’t had a car myself for twenty-five years. There’s no point in London any more, especially not since that awful man became mayor.’
‘It suits us,’ I told her, as we headed out of the airport car park, towards the northbound N11. ‘The roads can be a bit rough in the smaller towns and villages, plus it takes us up into the mountains whenever we feel like it. We can do that while you’re here, if you like. It’s a bit cooler up there.’
‘Heat doesn’t bother me, dear, the opposite, in fact. Are you far from the beach?’
‘The house backs on to it.’
‘You two must do a fair bit of sunbathing, from the colour of you both. Do you, Tom?’
He looked back at her. ‘Mum does, sometimes. I don’t. It’s boring: I like swimming.’
‘Are you a good swimmer?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘He is,’ I chipped in. ‘I taught him when he was a toddler. He’s always swum, in the sea and in the town swimming-pool, and with his brother and sister when he’s with them.’
‘Does he see much of Oz’s other family?’
‘Janet and Jonathan,’ said Tom, firmly, giving them their names. He’s very proud of them, and protective.
‘Oh, yes,’ I added. ‘I’ve promised him that he can go on holiday with them in August. They’ve been to stay with us, too.’
‘But not. .’
I guessed what she was about to say. ‘Their mother? No, not for any more than a night at a time. She brings them, then leaves them, and it’s the same with me when Tom goes to them. Susie and I are on friendly terms, but you know what they say about two women in one kitchen.’ There was more to it than that, too many memories, too much shared pain, but I didn’t want to get into it with my son in earshot.
‘One woman in one kitchen is too many as far as I’m concerned.’ Adrienne laughed. ‘I’m a stranger to cooking.’
‘My mother did tell me as much,’ I admitted. ‘But surely, when you were bringing up Frank. .’ I knew at once that I’d said the wrong thing. There was a tightening of the mouth, a tensing of the eyes behind the shades. It only lasted for a second or so, but in that time she looked close to her real age. ‘. . but maybe not,’ I added quickly, and as lightly as I could. ‘I have to admit that Tom and I eat out as often as not, especially in the summer when all the restaurants in St Martí are open for business, and all the beach bars. Isn’t that right, son?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I like it when it’s just us.’
‘What’s that over there?’ Adrienne asked suddenly, pointing at a castellated building on the top of a distant hill.
‘It’s a castle,’ Tom told her. ‘There’s lots of them here, even more than in Scotland.’
The rest of the drive home was taken up by my aunt quizzing my son about the local landmarks. His answers usually consisted of two words, ‘Another castle,’ until we passed the first of the roadside prostitutes, and Adrienne asked, innocently, I have no doubt, why she was standing there, in the heat, well away from the nearest village. I sighed with relief when he replied, ‘She’s waiting for a bus.’ He and I had had that conversation a year before, but I couldn’t be sure that one of his little friends hadn’t put him right since then. Before long he’s bound to ask me why no men ever wait there for buses.
Our garage lies below the house, and its entrance is actually outside the village itself, off the narrow road that runs above the beach. I guess that, in the past, it was a cellar or a stable. It has an automatic opener, and I drove straight in. Tom cancelled the alarm, led the way up the internal staircase, and set out to give his new aunt a tour of the house, as I lugged her case behind them. He finished by taking her out into the front garden to introduce her to Charlie, left dozing in his kennel while we had gone to the airport.
I had given our guest a room on the first floor, with access to another terrace from which she had her first proper sight of the village, and of the summer people in the square.
‘This is beautiful,’ she said, ‘remarkable. You should write, Primavera,’ she declared. ‘The ambience is perfect for a creative person.’
‘I’ll pass on that, Adrienne.’ I laughed. . although I’ve changed my mind since then. ‘All my stories are staying locked up in my head. Come on. If you like, I’ll show you the beach.’
‘Please do, dear.’
I went to my room and changed into a bikini. My aunt took a little longer, but when she emerged she was similarly dressed, with a diaphanous garment wrapped around her. Tom had gone on ahead, saying that he had arranged to meet some French kids down below. We left by the front door this time, after refilling Charlie’s water-bowl (dogs are barred from the beach in the summer), walking past the church and the old, restored foresters’ house, then down the sharp slope that leads to the sand.
I have a deal with the nearest beach bar, a season ticket of sorts that lets me have all the sun-bed and parasol time I need. I grabbed a couple of loungers and hauled them over to an available sunshade. Almost before I knew it, Adrienne had lost the drape, stretched herself out and whipped off her top.
‘Bloody hell,’ I heard myself murmur. I’m rather proud of mine, but I don’t expect them to look like that in thirty years.
She smiled as she caught my glance. ‘Silicon, dear, the finest silicon, not those awful water-filled things.’ She tapped her perfect teeth. ‘Crowns, all of them; steel-bonded porcelain set on gold posts. Nature needs some help from time to time,’ she said. ‘If one can afford it, why not?’