Autumn in Catalonia (22 page)

But it seemed Sergi’s letter was sufficient authorisation for the money to be released, which was what really mattered. The manager left her alone, and soon afterwards a thick package was brought to her, which she signed for, and then the clerk escorted her to her car. As she passed through the lobby of the bank, Francesco Montilla came towards her and took her hand briefly in his.

‘You’ll go straight home with this, Joana?’ he asked, and she noted that he was back to using her first name. His initial shock had diminished and he was now anxious not to alienate a still wealthy client. She smiled and eased her way out, sending best wishes to Inez, and smirking inside at the thought of what he would really be telling his wife that evening. The world of the Montillas was irrelevant to Joana these days.

Those relevant to her were in her mother’s apartment, and she was in a hurry to go there now and tell them about what was happening, but first she directed Toni to drive back to the house. She went in through the back door into
the kitchen, and found Josefa and Mireia sitting at the table over a late-morning coffee. A smell of baking pastry suggested they were preparing lunch, which she didn’t plan to eat here, but one look at their unsettled faces persuaded her that she should at least take coffee with them. The two women had welcomed her like a long-lost hero yesterday, in the upset of the house after Sergi’s arrest. She’d deliberately shown herself relaxed and unworried, and they’d seemed to take their tune from her since her arrival. These two had always come to her for orders, and her presence made them comfortable. The men who worked for Sergi outside would be less comfortable. Well that was just tough, she thought! For as long as Sergi remained in gaol and couldn’t see his henchmen, she would be mistress here, and they would have to obey her orders. It might prove very useful indeed.

She sat down at the kitchen table, ignoring their surprise at this unprecedented act, and asked Mireia if she too could have a coffee. The girl nodded, almost blushing, and scurried over to the stove where a pot was sitting, not quite on the boil. Josefa stayed put, her arms placidly on the table. She had been with Joana for many years now, and had quietly run this house, producing dinner parties during the better years, and continuing to produce lunch and dinner stoically through innumerable domestic disputes, while Sergi raged and Joana hid. She had occasionally come to work herself with a bruise or two, and Joana suspected that she too had a difficult domestic life, but it was never mentioned between them. The closest Josefa ever came to comment was to recommend Joana to go to bed early. ‘Perhaps before the master comes home,’ she had suggested more than once,
before returning to her own numerous family and her own problems.

Joana guessed that whatever Josefa actually thought of what was happening now, the most important thing for her would be her job and her security, so she spent time reassuring her and Mireia that the master was well and in the process of organising his release.

Coffee over, she went up to her bedroom, and there she counted the money from the bank – more than she’d ever handled. It must be three or four times what Uncle Victor would earn in a year. She wrapped the first 100,000 pesetas back up in the package, put the rest in a large envelope, and took it all through to her bathroom. She wasn’t going to keep so much money in the car, but she had her own hiding place where she was sure it would be safe.

Back downstairs she opened up the safe and took out the envelope with the documents. She considered what to do with it. Was there any point in holding on to these documents, since they already had photostats? In this envelope the document with the hit-and-run driver’s written evidence was also a copy, but the letter from the blackmailer to Sergi was the original. Clearly Sergi didn’t want to risk anyone finding the documents in his house, since it would incriminate him even further, and Joana had to comply with that wish. Would they get a visit from the police, she wondered? If so, why hadn’t they been here already?

It was all very confusing, and Joana made the decision to take the envelope with her and consult the others. She quickly took some cash from the safe – enough for her own needs, some more to give to Sergi tomorrow, and as much
as she dared for Carla and Luc. There was always a good quantity of money in the safe, but she had to be careful, because Sergi would know how much had gone.

She closed the safe carefully, and took a quick look around the study. If Sergi was unworried about this space being searched, then obviously he didn’t have any very political documents kept here. Did his enemies know that? Was that why they hadn’t sent anyone to visit? Or were they just content that what they’d already thrown at Sergi was quite enough to finish his political career?

Poor Sergi! A small, but very small, part of her felt suddenly sorry for him as the work of a lifetime lay in ruins in front of him, not because he’d lost it, but because it had been all he ever valued. Was it worth it, then, Sergi, or would a quieter life have left you with fewer enemies and less far to fall? It was a stupid question – Sergi had always been driven, with everything to prove, and there really wasn’t any other life she could imagine him living. What a life, though, now she knew more about it! She shivered, and whisked herself quickly out of the study and through the front door to where Toni was waiting.

Toni had had his coffee too, she realised, so Josefa must have looked after him. He was sitting on the bonnet of the car in the late-morning sun with an empty cup beside him. He leapt up as she emerged from the house, and opened the passenger door for her before disappearing round the back of the house with the cup. Toni had been in a state of high excitement in the last two days, and seemed to be running everywhere.

The journey to the apartment took them through an area of Girona that she couldn’t remember ever visiting, narrow and mean and far from her other life. Was this really where her mother had been living for the last few years? It was a district that she knew wouldn’t even exist in perhaps ten years’ time – such areas would be pulled down to make way for the new Girona. And yet the lives lived here were the norm rather than the exception – people slept and ate
and went to work and school, and to all intents was it not the same as the villages, with their run-down houses and hard-working lives? People had gained proper wage packets by coming to the cities, and from all over Spain people were flocking to Catalonia in search of a better life, for here there were jobs, and Girona was going to flourish, everyone knew that. It couldn’t come too soon, she thought, as she looked out at the crumbling facades.

Nerves ate at her as they neared the apartment. They were all so united as a family, Victor, Maria, Carla, and now Martin and Luc, but her own place among them was too compromised and complex, and she felt like an outsider. And she would be seeing Victor for the first time in many years. How many she couldn’t remember, but she knew that for as long as she’d been married to Sergi, Victor had regarded his niece Joana as a person lost to the world.

She entered the apartment behind Toni, who was her guide. The men were seated around the table already, and she avoided Martin’s eyes as she looked around the small space, which reminded her strangely of the main room in the old house in Sant Galdric. She certainly knew that embroidered tablecloth.

Victor got up from the table and came towards them, and Joana watched his grave, gentle face. This was the man who had taught her to play
botifarra
, the card game in which he was the acknowledged champion of the village, and who had taken her triumphantly as his partner in a competition in the village bar – much to Maria’s disapproval! He’d mended her pens, and her dolls, and rebound her favourite book with all the care of a professional binder, and all with
a twinkle in his eyes, which she remembered with sorrow, for there was no twinkle in him today.

But it seemed there could be acceptance. ‘Welcome to our little apartment, Joana,’ he was saying to her. ‘It’s not quite your magnificent mansion, but you’ll find your mother’s cooking is as good as ever.’

There was something speculative about his voice, but there was a hint of warmth there too. He took her hand and drew her forward, and she wanted to kiss him, but it felt too soon for that. It was a very long time since she’d last kissed Victor.

Carla appeared at the kitchen door, and gave her a worried look. ‘So what is happening, Mama?’

Joana gave her a smile. ‘Don’t worry,
carinyo
, all is just as we expected.’

Carla began to speak again, but Victor interrupted her. ‘We are all hoping things are going to be all right, for our little Carla’s sake. You can tell us in a moment about what you’ve found out, Joana, but let’s wait until we are all seated at the table together. It seems your daughter and your mother have some treat they want to serve us.’

She ate lunch with them at the little table, tucked between Victor and Carla, and the dish of pork and beans took her way back to her childhood. She wondered if her mother had prepared it deliberately to awaken her memories. It certainly awoke her appetite, and she found herself eating far more than she’d expected, given the state of her stomach. Toni ate with them, which was another novelty for her – she’d never eaten with any of her servants before. He sat next to Martin, and as she looked up and away quickly, she
saw Martin put his arm around him briefly, and get a small smile in response.

Maria fussed over them all, serving the food in large bowls, and scolding Luc in particular to eat. He looked a little haggard today, as though he hadn’t slept. Where had they all slept, Joana wondered, in this tiny apartment?

Luc looked even more haggard after she told them what she’d been detailed to do for Sergi, and Carla gulped a little when Joana told them about the money.

‘So, by tomorrow Sergi will have money to start buying his way out of gaol? Oh help! He’ll get himself released, you wait and see, before we have time to get married and get away!’

‘No, no!’ Joana said. ‘Whatever happens, it’ll take time. However cleverly Sergi works, the wheels turn slowly in officialdom, and some delicate greasing of palms will be necessary before he can be free to do anything about his anger towards you. Stop worrying and go to Terrassa. If Sergi gets out of gaol I’ll phone you, and we can think again.’

‘You don’t think you should take this opportunity to get away and disappear yourself, since you have all that money at your disposal?’ Luc asked. ‘It would give you a new start, and it might mean that Sergi would be stuck where he is. He wouldn’t have the money to free himself.’

Joana shook her head. ‘I thought of that, but it wouldn’t work. There’s plenty of money left in the bank, and Sergi could find someone else to get it out and pay people off for him. And then what would happen? He’d get free eventually, and come looking for me – much more than he’ll ever come
looking for you, believe me! He’d be out for vengeance big time! And the money that’s there isn’t enough to buy me a complete new life – it would only keep me for a year or so, and what would I do after that? No, I have to see this through, and play the faithful wife, and do what I can to hold him in check until you can get away.’

‘Martin thinks we should all go to France,’ Carla threw in. ‘You, and me and Luc – all of us together.’

Joana looked up, startled, and caught Martin’s eye. She felt herself flushing, and stopped herself from blurting out a violent no.

She shifted her gaze to Carla. ‘Would you want to go to France? Do you think you’d have a better life there?’

It was Luc who answered. ‘I think for both of us it would be a last resort, but it does have the attraction that Sergi could never find us there. He could never find you, either,’ he added, cocking an eye at her.

But Carla objected. ‘No Luc, you know how it is with Spaniards who get out to France! They can’t use their qualifications, and because they don’t speak the language and don’t have proper papers they end up doing manual jobs! And we could never come back – not even to see Grandma, or your parents!’

The two of them had clearly allowed their worries to creep in again since Sergi’s arrest, and Joana spoke quickly to stop them.

‘Let’s not jump guns here,’ she said. ‘There’s no reason at all to think you have to flee the country. We all know Sergi would do you both damage if he could get hold of you, but right now he can’t, and even when he first comes out
he won’t be able to either – not if he has to reach beyond Catalan borders to find you. He’ll be struggling to reinstate himself, and trying to get his job back – or any job, come to that! I’ve seen him, remember, and I can tell you, he’s already a fallen man. Go off this afternoon, and see your family, and find out when the priest has scheduled your wedding for, and when you could therefore get away from Terrassa if you need to.’

She took another sip of Maria’s appalling coffee, and fished out of her bag the documents she’d taken from the safe. ‘And I’ll watch over Sergi, and if there is any sign that he’s going to get out of gaol too quickly, then we’ll use these. I’ve got the original letter from the blackmailer to Sergi here, which Sergi wanted me to burn, but I haven’t. Providing the original to the authorities might just add some weight to the evidence against Sergi and keep him inside for a bit longer if we really needed it.’

‘Wouldn’t that be dangerous for you? He’d know you must have provided the original to the police,’ objected Carla.

Joana chuckled. ‘Oh yes, if it comes to that point, then I’ll certainly have to run for it, like it or not! I’d have to run with whatever cash I can get hold of, and I’ll rely on you to keep me in my old age, Luc! But somehow I don’t think we’ll need to go that far. Let’s not panic, but keep these for me, will you Carla?’

She held out her hand and Carla took the envelope, holding it carefully as though weighing its value.

‘I guess it could help, for what it’s worth,’ she said, at last, though the tension didn’t leave her voice. ‘It’s a shame
we don’t have the original of the actual hit-and-run driver’s evidence! Do you think the police are looking for that?’

‘I would guess so. They’ll be searching his home and questioning his family. I’ve been wondering whether that’s why they haven’t yet bothered with our house, but I guess they must realise that any blackmailer would have kept the key documents well away from Sergi.’

‘All right, then,’ Carla agreed. ‘We go to Terrassa as planned, and we’ll work on the basis that Sergi is stuck for long enough for us to get married and get away, and we’ll get all our connections working on some kind of decent job for Luc, somewhere far from Catalonia, but still in Spain.’

‘I have some family in Asturias,’ Luc offered.

‘Well that should be far enough!’ Joana shot him a smile. ‘I can’t see Sergi looking for you there!’

‘And what happens to you then?’ It was Martin who spoke. His tone of deep concern took her aback, and her gaze flew to his troubled face. He was watching her with troubled eyes. How young he looked, and yet he seemed to have aged!

‘I’ll come out all right,’ she answered, trying not to look at him. ‘I promise you I’ll be all right. I’ve been thinking, and what I need to do is negotiate with Sergi. He’ll be a different man when this is all over – less powerful and perhaps a little bit grateful. We need to come to terms so that I can have a freer life.’

Maria had got up from the table, and came behind Martin to hold him by the shoulder. With her free hand she stroked his wavy hair. For Maria, Martin was another adopted son. My cousin, Joana reminded herself.

Maria was looking over Martin’s head towards Joana, with a quizzical expression which Joana couldn’t quite pin down.

‘We’ve put this young man through a lot, don’t you think, Joana? He’s done everything he can for us, surely, and we should let him go back to his mother.’

‘I’m fine,’ Martin cut in hurriedly. ‘Honestly, I’m really fine. You haven’t put me through anything at all.’

Joana studied him again, and saw a hint of tears in his eyes. Back to his mother? How old was his mother, she wondered? And then she felt full of remorse. Martin’s mother was old enough to have been Uncle Luis’s lover, and Martin was his son. It was enough, and whatever his age he was her dear cousin, troubled now and hurt by her rejection when he was worthy of so much more. Why should she feel so humiliated to have bared her soul to a nineteen-year-old, when that nineteen-year-old was Martin, dear ageless Martin, with Luis’s eyes.

‘Martin,
el meu cosí
, you know how grateful we all are for everything you’ve done, especially me,’ she said. ‘If you need to go, then of course we understand, but we’ll miss you terribly. I’ll miss you.’

He looked at her doubtfully, caught her smile, and returned it. ‘Don’t listen to my Aunt Maria,’ he answered her. ‘She worries about my studies, but a few more days won’t change things. I’ll stay until we know Carla and Luc will be all right, and don’t need to bolt for the border with me. Until Carla comes back from Terrassa, at least, and until you’ve seen Sergi again tomorrow. I’d hate to leave with things so much up in the air.’

‘Well, for Sergi things aren’t so much up in the air as down in the mud,’ Joana commented with a grin. ‘And for the rest of us, well things aren’t settled, but they will be, and they may not be perfect, but I’m sitting at my Uncle Victor’s table, with everyone I most care about around me, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.’

She looked around for Victor, who had gone across to his beloved radio, and was fiddling with it again, looking for music.

‘Uncle Victor?’ He looked up. ‘Before we send these young people off to see Luc’s parents, do you have a little after dinner drink to offer us? A
moscatell
, perhaps? Because when Luc walks out of that door this afternoon we may not see him again for a very long time. Carla will come back to us tomorrow, briefly, but these young people will have to leave Catalonia after their wedding, and Martin will have to go home, and this may be the last time we are all together for longer than I care to think about. I’m not going to get maudlin, because one day I know there will be a reunion, but could we raise a glass, do you think, to the future, and to happy outcomes?’

Victor gave an enthusiastic assent, and within minutes had produced little glasses and an unopened bottle of
moscatell
from the old sideboard. With a unanimous kind of gravity they all stood, and Victor pronounced the toast:

‘To all of us,’ he intoned, and they all sipped the sweet liquor.

Maria put her hand out to touch Carla’s stomach.

‘And to the baby, God bless him,’ she said.

Carla’s eyes filled up, and Luc drew her to him.

‘She’s a her!’ he corrected Maria. ‘Although, if I’m honest I don’t care, as long as it’s a baby! But above all, I’d like to raise a glass to you all, for all you’ve done for us, and for keeping my Carla safe. I’ll take care of her and our baby, I promise you.’

It was Victor who answered him. ‘You’d better, my lad! Off with you now to your parents and find out when you’re going to make our Carla a respectable married woman!’

Carla grinned through her tears, and Luc kissed the top of her head. ‘Respectable? Carla? Oh no, don’t wish that on me! What a disappointment that would be!’