Five
Tom rejoined us at seven o’clock, his cut-off time for reporting back to Mum. (When he gets to be eight, it’ll be eight o’clock, when he’s nine it’ll be nine, when he’s ten. . we’ll see.) In fact he had never been out of my sight, since he had spent his time swimming with his friends on the guarded beach, playing a slightly over-ambitious game of volleyball, and tidying up empties around the cabin bar, a labour of love for which he and his mates are rewarded with the odd free soft drink. Tom never goes off on his own: he’s a gregarious boy, and when he’s not with me he’s with friends. He always tells me where he’s going, and if it’s too far for him to cycle, or involves the public roads, I take him there and pick him up. We may have a relaxed lifestyle, but I’m a responsible mother, and nowhere near the soft touch for him that some people may believe I am.
We let Adrienne decide where she wanted to eat, and what. From the options we laid out she chose a takeaway paella (I always leave those to the experts) from Mesón del Conde, to be eaten on the east-facing top-floor terrace that’s accessed from my bedroom. That suited me, since all the restaurants are jammed on Saturdays in the summer and also since there was stuff I wanted to ask her.
I didn’t get round to it, though, until after ten, when Tom had gone off to bed with Charlie, and his new friend Harry Potter (I plan to allow him only one a year: I reckon that the later books are a bit too dark for pre-teen kids), leaving us old folks in the candlelight, looking out across the bay and starting on our second bottle of Palacio de Bornos, from El Celler Petit, our local wine shop.
‘So,’ I began, settling down into my chair, ‘what’s this crap about semi-retirement? You don’t look ill. Are you?’
‘Of course not.’ Adrienne snorted. ‘Why shouldn’t I ease off? I’ve passed the age I will not mention, Primavera. Am I not entitled to enjoy my golden years?’
‘Yes, but last time we met you told me you were fit as a tick and that you’d die in harness. It’s not in your nature to ease off. You and my mother may have lived your lives in very different ways, but you’re cut from the same genetic cloth. She worked until she died. If she’d gone on till she was ninety it wouldn’t have been any different. She couldn’t do inactive. She wrote six days a week, then dragged my dad down to church every Sunday, but it was to fill her spare day, rather than to commune with her Maker. What do you do at the weekends, Auntie?’
‘I review my clients’ royalty statements, and I catch up on some other book-keeping. But I go out a lot, to the Tate Modern, for example. And I’m a regular at the NFT,’ she added, proudly but a little defiantly also.
‘Exactly. You aren’t capable of sitting on your arse and doing nothing, any more than Mum was, any more than I am, if I’m honest. So what’s behind this sudden and irrational decision?’
‘I have an assistant in the agency, Fanette. You remember her: you met her last time you came to see me in London. I felt it was time to give her more responsibility, with a view to her taking over from me completely.’
I laughed as I topped up her glass. ‘Adrienne, she must be pushing fifty-five by now. She’ll be ready to retire before you are. Come on, straight answer. I’m my mother’s daughter: you couldn’t bullshit her, and it won’t work with me either.’
She frowned as she looked across the wide bay, at the lights of Santa Margarita. ‘It seems that it won’t,’ she murmured. Her eyes snapped back towards me. ‘I had decided that I wasn’t going to broach the subject, you know; after this afternoon, after seeing what a nice life you have now, I realise I have no business interrupting it.’
‘With what?’
‘A mad idea I had. But forget it: it’s quite inappropriate. Your father would go berserk if he knew I had even thought about it.’
I chuckled again. ‘Dad doesn’t do berserk. Dad does “Primavera knows best”, meaning that if your idea is that crazy I’ll be the first to tell you. So out with it.’
‘If you insist. It’s Frank.’
Why hadn’t I guessed that? I should have known from the off that the only person in the world who could divert Auntie Ade’s attention from her agency and her clients was her precious wayward son.
‘What about him?’ I asked, trying to stay casual. ‘He’s not in trouble again, is he?’
‘I don’t know. The fact is, Primavera, I don’t even know where he is.’›
‘Is that unusual? I mean,’ I added hurriedly, as I saw her eyebrows start to knit, ‘does Frank always make a point of letting you know where he is?’
‘Yes, he does,’ she said, mollified. ‘He always keeps in touch.’
‘How?’
‘Mostly by emaiclass="underline" he says he has a lap-top and that he’s on-line virtually all the time. We live in a virtual world now, my dear.’
‘But when did you see him last?’
She thought about her answer. ‘Fifteen months ago, on the first anniversary of the day that I reached the age I never mention. I thought I’d got away without anyone twigging I was a year older, but Frank turned up out of the blue and took me to dinner at the Savoy.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since then?’
‘No.’
‘You said “out of the blue”. Does that mean he wasn’t living in London at the time?’
‘He hasn’t lived in London since they gave him his passport back, and that was going on for three years ago. When he got out of the pokey he had to report to a probation officer for a year and have a registered address, so he moved in with me. But as soon as he was free to travel, he was off. A pity: when he was with me he got involved with the agency. He did very welclass="underline" for a while I entertained hopes that he’d come in with me as a partner, but when I made the offer, he told me it wasn’t what he wanted to do.’
‘And what did he want to do?’
‘He was rather vague about that.’
‘Where did he go when he moved out?’
‘Switzerland. He got a job as a chalet maid in Davos, in an international ski facility called Cinq Pistes.’
‘As a what?’
‘Chalet maid. I’m not kidding. He filled out an application on the Internet, using his proper name, Frances. The company who owned the resort assumed he was female and took him on.’
‘What happened when he turned up?’
‘He showed them the name on his passport and pointed out that he had ticked the “M” gender box on the form, so any misunderstanding was theirs. They huffed and puffed, but in the end they agreed that he could give it a try.’ She smiled. ‘He lasted two weeks as a cleaner: that was how long it took them to work out he was rather over-qualified for the job. They moved him into the office, into the publicity department at first, but within six months he was head of sales and marketing.’
‘Is he still there?’
‘No. When he took me to the Savoy, he told me he was being moved to another company within the group. He was to become a director and sales manager of a new hotel and casino complex that’s being readied for construction just outside Seville. A few days later, he called me to say he was in post, and to give me his new business address. After that I heard from him, or I got in touch with him, every couple of weeks or so. He told me he was very busy, and kept apologising for never coming to see me. I understood, of course: business has always been my priority too. He sent me flowers at Christmas and on my last birthday. Everything seemed to be going fine, until suddenly. . it all stopped.’ Her voice faltered, and she did her best to bury her face in her wine glass for a few seconds.
I waited for a moment. ‘When did you hear from him last?’ I asked, when I judged she was ready.
‘In the middle of May,’ she replied. ‘Around six weeks ago. He sent me an email saying he’d be in London on business, and that he’d stay with me for a few days, but he never arrived. I had his room ready, and the fridge stocked with all his favourites, but he didn’t show up. I called him and asked where he was, but his phone was on voicemail. I sent him a text, but got no reply. So I sulked.’