Turning, he jumped, startled, at the sight of Detita standing in the kitchen door, Tall, her expression impassive, her white nightdress fluttering in the draught from the window.
‘Ben?’
He blinked and the image had gone. Instead it was Gina watching him.
‘My God,’ she said, walking over. ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded abruptly, but he could feel the heat coming from her and when she sat down at the table next to him he could see the outline of her breasts against the thin fabric.
Fanning herself with her hand, she shrugged. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Thinking of Leon?’
‘Can’t stop thinking about him. I miss him so much,’ she said simply, pushing her hair back from her face with an impatient gesture.
As she reached up, her breasts pressed against her nightdress. Ben glanced away. He felt hazy, oddly light-headed. Not because he wanted her, but because he was uncomfortable. Surely this woman – Leon’s woman – wasn’t flirting with him? His gaze moved to the wall over the old grate, where a mirror suspended from a brass hook reflected the back door. Sometimes – when he had been a boy – he had crept out at night, running to the bridge. And there he’d stood and clapped his hands, as Detita had taught him.
… When you need me, come at midnight to the Bridge of the Manzanares, clap your hands three times and you will see black horses appear …
And he had clapped his hands, but had seen no horses. Except once. Only once did he see the black horses and, panicked, he had run back to the farmhouse. Run in at the back door which he could see reflected now in the mirror, and stood in the kitchen, waiting for the thudding of the hooves to pass … I never told you I saw them. Ben thought blindly. I should have told you, Leon.
His gaze moved upwards into the knotting of pipes above his head, almost as though, illogically, he believed he would see his brother there.
‘You don’t have to leave straight away, do you?’ Gina said softly. ‘This is your home … I’d like you to stay. I’d like the company.’
‘I have to sort out Leon’s things …’
‘We can do that tomorrow. I can help.’
Ben wasn’t listening. ‘… I was brought up here …’
‘I know.’
‘… with Leon.’ He paused, looking around, painfully lost. ‘I should have visited him more often – you were right.’
‘You came when you could.’
‘I should have come more often. He must have been lonely.’
If she took the words as an insult, she didn’t show it. ‘He was a lonely man, but you couldn’t have done anything about that, Ben. I couldn’t. No one could.’
‘He had no one.’
‘He had me.’
He turned to her. ‘Sometimes.’
She blinked. Once.
‘Why are you still here, Gina? You were scared before, asking me if you were in danger.’ He was baffled, and showed it. ‘Why would you want to stay here?’
‘I wouldn’t – unless you wanted me to.’
His confusion was so absolute he couldn’t answer and the silence yawned between them.
Then suddenly the mood broke, Gina drawing back, and shifting tactics. ‘I asked you before, did Leon tell you about the baby?’
‘No.’
She shrugged in reply, turning away so that he had to fight to hear her.
‘I miscarried, Ben. I lost your brother’s baby.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Leon was too. It mattered to him so much. He wanted that baby …’ She looked at him desperately. ‘I keep wondering if the miscarriage didn’t play on his mind. He was already overworked, under terrible stress – then that happened.’
‘You think it unbalanced him?’
‘I think it made him worse,’ she said quietly. ‘I think having a child would have helped him. Stabilised him.’
‘You think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ Ben conceded. ‘We’ll never know now.’
Her eyes filled and she looked away quickly. ‘I suppose you want me to leave? It’s your home, after all.’
‘Leon’s dead, Gina. There’s no reason for you to stay.’
‘Isn’t there?’ she asked. ‘I could cook for you – while you’re here, anyway. You are going to stay in Spain for a while, aren’t you?’
He shook his head.
‘No, not long—’
‘But—’
‘I’ve told you. I just want to sort out Leon’s things and then go back to London. I think you should go home too, Gina. Go back to your family.’ He turned to her and held her gaze. ‘It would be better – and safer – for all of us.’
Without answering she walked off, the door closing softly behind her. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or upset, but he waited until he heard her move back into the bedroom she had shared with Leon. For nearly twenty minutes he sat in the semi-dark, wondering if she would come downstairs again. Finally, believing she was asleep, he moved into Leon’s study.
The smell of dust and books was overpowering and he was initially tempted to open a window, but resisted. Instead he flicked on the desk lamp and riffled through his dead brother’s papers. There were many volumes on Goya, many reproductions, but finally Ben found what he had been looking for – Leon’s notebooks. Tucking them under his arm, he picked up his brother’s laptop and walked to the door. The house was completely silent. It could have been empty, without any imprint of Gina. Without any imprint of the adult Leon.
Instead the place was full of boys’ murmured voices, Detita’s footsteps making their solemn way down the main stairs … Spooked, Ben glanced up, but the staircase was empty. Without making a sound, he hurried to the bedroom he had been using and packed the few belongings he had brought with him. Pushing Leon’s computer and notebooks in with his clothes, he added the papers he had found at the Hotel Melise and walked out to the car.
Day had yet to dawn, a little morbid light smearing the horizon, water sounds coming, muffled, from the river. The breeze had dropped and the weathervane was silent, but as Ben turned back to the house he caught sight of a figure watching him from an upstairs window. The outline was vague, the only distinct portion of the figure being the hand pressed against the glass, the palm white as the flesh of a lily.
34
New York
The baby shower had been a success and attended by assorted society mothers and matrons, Bobbie Feldenchrist had introduced her adopted son, Joseph, to New York. As was befitting a woman who had everything she needed, Bobbie and her child were indulged with gifts, each more inventive than the last. Invitations to beach houses and foreign homes were extended to the new family, people remarking in whispers that old man Feldenchrist would never have expected his fortune to be passed on to a black upstart from Africa.
To her face, people complimented Bobbie on her liberal choice. True to his threatening word, Emile Dwappa had delivered the baby that previous Saturday, taking the cash from Bobbie and dropping his voice to remind her of their agreement. He chucked the baby under the chin, declared him a fine child, and then spent several minutes admiring Bobbie’s art collection again. She was too preoccupied to take offence. Soon he would be gone, she told herself – and she had what she wanted from him. With no real conditions except one – silence. She had merely to stay quiet.
And why, in God’s name, would she do otherwise? What benefit could possibly be had from telling anyone the real circumstances of the child’s adoption? As for Ellen and Marty Armstrong, they weren’t going to break her confidence. They relied too much on the Feldenchrist handouts to betray her.
So Bobbie had let Dwappa look at her paintings and had waited patiently for him to leave.
‘What would be the greatest addition to your collection, Ms Feldenchrist?’ he had asked finally.
‘I don’t know.’
‘An unknown Velasquez?’
‘There are no unknown Velasquez works.’
‘What about an unknown Goya?’
Her smile had warmed, almost amused. ‘I doubt it.’