‘No,’ Celina said, shaking her head. ‘No, I don’t believe it. Talk to him. Ask him about it.’
‘Never.’
Turning away, Bartolomé stared at the blank wall facing him. Nothing would induce him to talk to his brother about the Goya skull. Nothing. Gabino had been too secretive this time, too clever by half. And he would return his brother’s cunning in full measure.
‘I’m disinheriting him.’
‘What!’
‘I’m cutting him off from the family,’ Bartolomé replied, his tone fixed. ‘He’s done nothing for years except spend money and disgrace the Ortega name. I’ve talked to him about it over and over again, but he never listens. He runs with the wrong crowd, the wrong women; he plays at working, wastes money on the useless projects of his cronies and invests in the schemes of men eager – and clever enough – to dupe him.’ Straightening his tie, Bartolomé put up his hands to prevent his wife’s protestations. ‘I’ve tried for years to love him. Even like him. But when I look at Gabino I see only a liar and a fool—’
‘Bartolomé, he’s not like you. He’s reckless, but he has good qualities.’
‘He has no goodness in him. While I’ve spent years behind that desk working, he’s been undermining me. Hard work is a joke to him, my pride in the family name regarded as comical. He pities me!’ Bartolomé said fiercely. ‘You think I don’t know it? You think I don’t look into Gabino’s eyes and see it? He wants to fuck and spend money, but nothing else. Nothing else is sacred to him.’
Her voice was soothing.
‘Darling, think about what you’re saying. Gabino is your brother—’
‘I have a son. I have Juan.’
‘We have a son,’ she corrected him, walking over to her husband and touching his shoulder.
Feeling the muscle tense under her fingers, Celina moved away. When Bartolomé was in one of his rare tempers, nothing could comfort him. Of course she realised the real reason for her husband’s decision. It wasn’t just that Gabino had been mean-minded, petty-spirited, withholding from his brother – who had given him so much, so willingly – something he would have treasured. It wasn’t the deception that hurt, it was the contempt. Despite decades of being indulged, Gabino was indifferent to his brother’s one passion.
‘Think about it—’
‘I have thought about it.’
‘He’s your brother,’ Celina said again, coolly controlled. ‘A member of the Ortega family.’
‘But is he a worthy one?’ Bartolomé asked. ‘Our name’s been corrupted in the past. I’ve spent my life trying to undo the damage my ancestors – especially my grandfather – inflicted on it.’
‘And what price a name?’ she asked, standing up to him. ‘You put a name above a brother?’
‘This brother, yes.’
‘But not another brother?’ she queried. ‘What kind of brother would you approve of? Someone hard-working, loyal? Trustworthy? Dull? What brother would suit you and the Ortega name?’
‘I hate him!’ Bartolomé spat out. ‘God forgive me, but I do. I hate his face, his mannerisms, his lies. And now he’s gone too far—’
‘Gabino’s no different to how he always was.’
‘And you always make excuses for him!’
‘Yes, I do,’ Celina replied, her tone icy. ‘Because I try and make you see that this is more than just an argument between the two of you. You are more than siblings – you are part of a family, a business, a heritage. Your arguments can’t be petty – your lives are on a grander scale.’ Composed, she leaned against the desk again and folded her arms. ‘You’re right, we have a son. And because of Juan – because he will carry on the Ortega name – we can afford to be more lenient with Gabino.’
‘My grandfather would have cut my brother off—’
‘Your grandfather was a killer,’ she replied, without a flicker of emotion. ‘You know it, Madrid knows it, I know it. Where do you think Gabino’s aggression comes from? It’s in his blood. It’s in yours too, Bartolomé. It’s only your responses which differ. You control it, he does not. You fight it, he surrenders to it. You are afraid of it, Gabino revels in it.’
Slowly Bartolomé turned to look at his wife. He was, as ever, impressed by her.
‘It would have been such a small thing to tell me about Goya, but it was such a massive thing to hide. It required such spite.’
‘I agree.’
‘And yet you ask me to forgive him?’
‘No, not forgive, accept.’
‘I accept, he rejects.’
Nodding, Celina studied her husband. ‘If you throw Gabino out, if you cut him off from the family, think about what will happen. You think it will be the last you hear of him? Gabino is not your grandmother, Bartolomé. Not some woman without power. He’s got friends and cronies. He could gossip, talk about your business, betray you.’
‘He might be doing that now.’
‘No,’ she said briskly, shaking her head. ‘There would be no profit in it now. No sport either. But if you disinherited him, Gabino would expose every detail of your life and work. You treasure your privacy, Bartolomé; think what it would be like to have your life trawled across the papers. How would you cope with that? Everything about you would be public gossip. Everything about us, our son, our home. By the time Gabino had finished we wouldn’t have an inch of earth to ourselves that hadn’t been tainted.’
Bartolomé could picture the life she was describing and paused. He wanted desperately to be rid of the brother he disliked and reviled; had hoped that the affair with the skull of Goya had presented him with an opportunity to finally cut off the restless scion of the Ortega family. But once again his wife had stayed his hand.
‘Why didn’t he tell me?’
‘About Goya?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why does the tide come in and out?’ Celina asked, walking over to Bartolomé and cupping his face in her hands. This time there was no resistance. ‘I know how hard this is for you. Remember, I know Gabino too … But listen to me, and think about this carefully – you can hate him, mistrust him, even banish him, but you’ll never be rid of him. Instead accept him and watch him. Something that is easier to do close by than from a distance.’ Unflinching, she held her husband’s gaze. ‘Gabino was born an Ortega and he will die one.’
33
Madrid
Sitting in the kitchen of the old house, Ben listened as Gina walked about the rooms upstairs. Noises from the past shuffled around the old table, Ben’s initials driven deep into one corner and beside them, lighter scratches – LG. Staring at the initials, Ben reached out his hand, his fingers covering the marks, Detita’s voice coming back to him.
Can’t you hear it, Ben? Leon can hear it. Leon can hear the dead talk.
And just as easily he could hear his own reply:
The dead don’t talk. The dead are dead …
His hand pressed down on the wood, on his brother’s initials, the wind muffled against the window, the creak of the weathervane making little rusty sighs. Hardly breathing, Ben thought of his brother as a boy, saw him turn on the drive and wave. Saw him older, wearing glasses to read, picking at some bread Detita had made. Saw him crying, trying to speak, but shaking instead because he could hear noises.
The tree told me to do it …
And then he remembered Leon at the head of the stairs on the day their parents died … Other sounds came back, unwelcomed. The noise of a lost bird cawing from across the river, the smell of the Manzanares in a swampy summer, flies droning against the catch of tide. Throughout how many queasy summers had they lived here? Ben thought, glancing around him. Perhaps he should never have left Spain – should have stayed with his brother, worked in Madrid.
I should have saved him. I should have saved him …