‘You really want to help me?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Right. Get on the Internet, find the next flight from Barcelona to Los Angeles and book me on it.’
It’s astonishing what you can do these days. By the time Prim came downstairs in her towelling robe, her hair still wet from the shower, I had booked her on a flight from Barcelona to Charles de Gaulle, then on to LAX, first class on the transcontinental leg.
‘Well,’ she demanded. ‘Haven’t you even logged on yet?’
‘And off. You pick up your tickets from the Air France desk at Barcelona, then check in straightaway.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘Your flight leaves in just under seven hours. That gives you two hours to get ready, and me two hours to waken up so I can drive you there.’
‘Where?’ asked Jonathan from the staircase. He was bright-eyed; looking at him, I made a mental note to drink Pepsi at our next party.
I told him where we were going. ‘Can I come?’ he asked.
‘No. You and Colin have to stay here and help your Granddad.’
‘Help him do what?’
‘I haven’t a bloody clue, but from the last I saw of him, whatever he plans to do today, he’s going to need help.’
19
Prim’s sudden departure for California knocked me completely off balance for a while. The family was the main reason why I’d stayed behind in Spain, and yet with her gone, I felt odd with them around; not uncomfortable exactly, but ill at ease. I had run out of interesting things to do with two pre-teen nephews, my dad and I had played all the golf that Mary and Ellie would allow, and so I was quietly relieved as I stood at the end of the driveway on the fourth of January, waving them off as the hired people-mover turned out of Carrer Caterina, bound for their flight home.
By that time, the Elanore situation had resolved itself: not for the better, but at least we all knew what she faced. The bad news was that the lesions removed from her stomach by the LA surgeon were indeed cancerous. The better news was that a full body MRI scan, carried out as soon as she was cleared to leave intensive care, had revealed no secondary growths, or metastases as Prim had called them in medic-speak.
In a rare show of his power and influence, Miles had flown in one of the top oncologists from the Mayo Clinic to supervise the diagnostic procedures. She had pronounced that, with a precautionary course of chemotherapy, our mother-in-law stood an excellent chance. . not of a cure, for a cancer specialist will rarely use that word. . of long-term survival.
Prim’s relief had flowed out of the telephone when we had spoken at seven that morning. ‘Do you want me out there now?’ I’d asked her.
‘No; it’s not necessary. Anyway, Miles says that he’d rather you used the peace and quiet to get on with mastering the script. I’m going to stay on here for a while, though, until the treatment is well under way, to help Dawn understand what’s happening to Mum.’
‘How’s she handling it?’
‘You know my sister; she was terrified at first. But she’s not so bad now; once we had the diagnosis and prognosis she got a hold of herself. Christ, Miles is worse than she is; it’s his first child too, and the way he’s acting you’d think he was going to have it himself.’
So that was it. I had my orders from the boss. . from both my bosses in fact, Prim and Miles.
The trouble was, I am still a high-handicapper at the acting game and, like all high-handicappers, there’s a limit to the amount of time I can usefully spend on the practice range without a pro around to take my game forward. However, we were talking big money, and a lot of responsibility, so I was responsible about it. From the day the script arrived, I had committed myself to starting work on it at nine thirty every morning. Apart from a day or two over the holiday period, I had managed it too; yet, invariably, I was wasted by midday.
It was the same on the day the family went home; only it wasn’t.
There have been times in my life when being alone has been my natural state. A flatmate does not count as a companion, especially not when he’s a green iguana named Wallace.
I’m not talking about being lonely; loneliness is something completely different. It’s possible to be lonely in a room full of people you love. There have even been times, intimate times, when I’ve been with Prim and yet I’ve been swept by a feeling of loneliness. Mind you, it doesn’t do to let it show.
This was different, though; it was the first time that Prim and I had been apart since the night before our wedding, when she had followed established bride protocol by sleeping at her parents’ place, and I. . Ah, now that is, most definitely, another story, and one which she’ll never know.
It was different also in that I was on my own in Villa Bernabeu.
Until that point, the moment when my brain cried, ‘Enough!’ and I put my script away for the day, I had never felt the slightest unease about our new home. You may have thought that, at the time, I was a shade blase about the stiff in the swimming pool, but my life leading up to that point had been so bizarre that when it happened, I dealt with it as just another occurrence. Since I met Primavera Phillips, I’ve seen a few dead people; my first wife among them. I’ve even seen one or two of them being killed, close up.
Since I met Prim. . Only now she was gone and, as I stood on the terrace and peered into the pool, I felt a slight shiver and imagined for a second that I saw something on the bottom. I turned and looked up at the villa, and had the distinctly deranged impression that it was looking back at me.
I can say honestly that I don’t remember ever having panicked in my life. I did faint once, but I had an excuse. No, I’ve had a few scrapes and a few scares, but I’ve never bottled out of anything. I came pretty close to it then, though, under the gaze of that bloody house.
Then I thought, This is silly, and pulled myself together. ‘You can take that look off your face right now,’ I barked up at it. And, I’ll swear, it did. I guess that houses are not used to people speaking sharply to them.
I pressed home my advantage. ‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen to you, pal. Your fucking name’s being changed for a start. Villa Bernabeu, indeed! I’m not even a bloody Real supporter. You’re going to be Casa Nou Camp from now on.’
I knew, as I said it, that I meant it; my friend the iron forger was in for a visit as soon as his holiday was over. I knew also that if being afraid of a house is silly, giving one a loud-voiced bollocking in broad daylight crosses the frontier into the land where the happy whistlers live.
So I went indoors, made myself a coffee, and brought it back out to the terrace. As usual, the sun was shining, and the temperature was in the low teens Celsius, or fifties in old money, as my dad says, so I settled down on a lounger to drink it. As I sipped it, I closed my eyes, feeling the gentle warmth on my face, and, without willing it, began to think about Primavera.
I recalled every detail of the moment that I met her. How she looked as she walked into the hall of her flat, at the end of a two-day journey; tired but not weary, crumpled but not unkempt, without make-up but still beautiful, and with a light in her eye which told me, ‘This woman is different. This is someone to whom things happen.’
Despite an unfortunate incident with a traffic warden, it was indeed lust at first sight, for both of us; I know that now. Before either of us knew it then, we were in over our heads, I more so than she.
Had it not been for the malign influence of S. T. Antichrist, and a couple of his agents, it might have been over almost as soon as it started. I might have been living with Jan and our two point four kids in a nice suburban house in Glasgow, doing my boring job and earning decent if unspectacular money.
If it had worked out that way, I’d have seen Prim as an interlude in my life, that’s all, and I’d have ended up as the happiest man in the world. But there is no such creature; STA won’t allow it. I’m in tune with the German philosopher who believes that some people are temporarily less unfortunate than others, that’s all.