Bay of Secrets (47 page)

Ruby stared at the page, across at Sister Julia and then back at the page. The chickens in the pen alongside the courtyard continued to scratch at the dry earth and one of the goats flopped down on the ground to rest. And the water from the fountain trickled on. ‘You mean … ’ She flipped over to the next page and the next. The list went on.

‘Yes,’ said Sister Julia. ‘This, my child, is my book of names.’

Book of names. And it certainly was. Ruby continued to turn the pages – almost reverentially now that she knew their true meaning. The impact that this could have …

‘There was no record.’ Sister Julia regarded her calmly. ‘Documents were destroyed. Women were told that their babies had died. Incomplete birth certificates and irregular death certificates were written and approved.’ Her voice
tailed off. ‘I worried that no one would ever know the truth.’

‘So you made your own record,’ Ruby said. She could hardly believe it. How could she be punished when she had done such a brave thing? ‘You made your own record because you knew it was wrong.’

‘
Si
.’ Sister Julia nodded.

‘You knew it was wrong to keep this knowledge from the adopted children,’ Ruby whispered. She thought again of Vivien and Tom. Vivien too had understood that it was wrong. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Tom, but she had made sure she left a record – for Ruby. So that she too could find out the truth.

‘Indeed,’ said Sister Julia.

‘But why now?’ Ruby asked her. Sister Julia had remained silent for so long. What had made her speak out at last?

‘I read about the extent of the scandal in the newspaper,’ she said softly. ‘It was not just Dr Lopez’s clinic. It was not just Barcelona. It was everywhere in Spain.’ She looked around her. ‘Even here.’

Here? Ruby followed Sister Julia’s gaze. In Fuerteventura? It was hard to imagine – but then a lot of things were hard to imagine and that didn’t make them less true.

‘I spoke to someone. I realised that I should tell my part of the story.’ Sister Julia looked out into the distance, beyond the allotment of herbs and plants, towards the mountains – as if she had forgotten Ruby was there.

‘And then?’ Ruby prompted.

‘And then you came along,’ she said.

‘Me?’

‘You came along, not only an investigative journalist, my child, but more importantly looking for your own birth mother. You were a sign from God. You were the one who could tell my story. I knew then what I had to do.’

Ruby closed the book and handed it back to her. It was a very special document. It might get some people into trouble and it might cause pain. But it could also help bring knowledge and closure – not to mention family reunion and a sense of completion – to an awful lot of people. She’d never been called a sign from God before, but she could see how Sister Julia had come to that conclusion. And if she could help … ‘Leave it with me, Sister,’ she said. ‘I need to do some more research. And then perhaps … ’ She frowned. ‘I’ll have to go to Barcelona.’ Because that was where it had all happened. She needed to see the clinic for herself; needed to talk to other people who might have worked there. And she needed to find out more about Dr Lopez and the legacy he had left so many families.

‘It is the children,’ Sister Julia said. ‘Do you see? I trust that you can deal with this in the right way, the sensitive way, my child. Because you understand. You have been through this kind of experience yourself. I want to help the children. They, of everyone, they are the innocent ones.’

‘Of course.’ Ruby felt the tears spring to her eyes. She too
wanted to help the children. She might not be able to find her own birth mother but she’d try her best, with Sister Julia, to help these children find theirs.

Andrés felt the sun warm on his skin as he sat on the blue-tiled bench in the Old Harbour. It was the place everyone walked through. Would she walk through? He didn’t know what he would say to her – but he hoped so.

He had missed this warmth. He had sat here so many times before, painted the brightly coloured little fishing boats that used to be moored here, sketched the fishermen hauling their glittering catches on to the stone jetty.
And all those things he had not known.
It seemed a lifetime away.

He was still assimilating the facts in his head, trying to get to grips – as the English would say. He was an adopted child.

When they had told him, almost from the moment he had heard the words, he had wanted to talk to Ruby. But he held back. He hadn’t been around to help her when she’d needed it, had he? Why should he expect her to do the same? Ruby … Wasn’t it supposed to be Ruby who no longer knew who her natural parents were? Ruby searching for her identity? Not Andrés. He’d always known who he was, never had a moment’s doubt. He was the one with the angry father. The great painter with the monstrous ego who had no time for the mere mortals of his family –
especially the boy who was presumed to have inherited some of his own unique artistic talent. The man who had thrown his only son out of his home. The man who didn’t love him. Andrés had always wondered why. And now it was becoming clear.

When they had told him – after they had told him – it was Andrés’s mother who had broken down. Andrés had simply been numb – what did he feel? What could he feel? His childhood, his family, everything he believed in had been plucked away from him. And this … this was what Ruby too had felt. Two adopted people. Was that the bond that had somehow drawn them together? Or was it the years of not even knowing?

His mother had cried and cried and clung on to him. And Andrés had comforted her, assured her that it made no difference, that he still loved her, that he would always love her. And why wouldn’t he? She had brought him up, she cared for him. But he wondered. Was this what she’d had to live with since he had been gone? This threat that her husband would reveal all? Andrés stroked her hair and murmured his reassurances. And looked across at Enrique, who wouldn’t meet his eye. Why didn’t his father say something? Didn’t he realise that this was down to him?

‘Who were my birth parents?’ Andrés asked them at last. The question seemed odd, almost surreal. He was still stunned. And yet he had taken it in – it had almost not even been a surprise. In a way it made sense to him now – that odd feeling of dislocation he had sometimes had; of not fitting in,
of being misunderstood. He took a deep breath. ‘Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.’

And that was when they had dropped the next bombshell.

*

Andrés looked out over the glittering sea and the harbour. It had been a day of bombshells, for sure. He was still reeling.

‘We do not know who your birth parents were,’ his mother had said. ‘No one knows – not now.’ And she told him about the clinic, the fact that there were no records. And about the payment.

What the fuck … ?
‘You
paid
for me?’ Andrés looked from one to the other of them in disbelief.

‘It was all legal and above board,’ Enrique insisted.

Legal and above board? Who did he think he was kidding? It made Andrés feel as if he were nothing more than a flashy new car. Only not so flashy, perhaps. Still a disappointment – at least to his father.

Andrés watched the pigeons flying over the harbour. Every time they passed their loft a few stragglers left the main group and weakened the formation.

‘But why weren’t there any records? What about my birth certificate?’ he asked.

Only then did his father tell him the full story. How the adoption had been done on the quiet. How Spain had been in disarray ever since the Civil War – and before. How there were lots of women with unwanted pregnancies or with no man around to care for them, who wanted a good life, a decent life for their child, which they were unable to
provide. How Franco’s ruling that the adoptive parents’ names should be the ones on the birth certificates had been used to hide the truth.

‘Did the mothers always want to give up their children?’ Andrés had asked him softly.

‘No.’ Enrique looked him squarely in the eye. ‘I have reason to believe that the practice became corrupt. And that they did not always want to give up their children.’

The last of the pigeons returned to the loft. But actually, no. Andrés realised there was one last straggler who was still flying around alone, not knowing where he was going by the look of it. He knew how that pigeon felt.

‘And Izabella?’ Andrés had asked. Although he already knew the answer. Izabella had belonged in a way he never had. Enrique Marin had at least loved her.

‘That is the funny thing. Three years after we had you, she came along. The natural way.’ Enrique had shrugged. ‘It happens sometimes.’

Finally, the straggler got home and the sky was clear again.

*

Andrés had brought a towel with him, slung over his shoulder. Now, he got up from the bench – she wouldn’t come, why would she come? Besides, she didn’t even know he was here. And he walked away from the harbour towards the old jetty where the sea was deep and there was always a strong undertow.

Swimming was good. Swimming hard, fast, against the tide stopped him thinking and Andrés didn’t want to think.
Even so, as the water stung his eyes and his muscles throbbed with the effort, it kept coming back to him. He was adopted. He had been given away – or perhaps even taken. He had been stolen by a man who had never even loved him.

Who am I?
Andrés swam out into the open sea. He didn’t know how long he stayed out there. At one point the waves were so high and the current so strong he thought he’d gone too far, that the sea might whisk him out until he drowned. But of course he hadn’t and it didn’t and he was such a strong swimmer that he just went on and on, everything his parents had said to him churning around in his head.

‘You were all I wanted,’ his father had said to him.

They were words he had spent his entire childhood wanting to hear. But … ‘When did that change?’ Andrés asked.

His father could not answer that.

Maybe it was when Andrés started painting. Maybe to Enrique he had seemed like a usurper, an outsider. Maybe it was because Andrés dared to stand up to him. Maybe it was when Enrique realised he could never love Andrés – simply because he wasn’t his own.

‘Sometimes I wanted to shout at you,’ his father had admitted. ‘Shout at you, “You are not mine!”’

‘And now you have,’ Andrés said flatly.

‘It is different now.’ His father came over to him, put a thin and bony hand on his shoulder. ‘I am not shouting it in anger. I am telling you now because it is the right thing to do. I am different now too. I know now all the things I did
wrong.’ He coughed violently. ‘That is what dying does for you, my boy. That is about all it does.’

My boy
 … Andrés wanted to grasp that hand, to hold it, even to take his father in his arms. But he could not. Still, he could not. ‘Why did you not tell me before?’ he asked instead. He could remember Ruby asking herself the same thing. Why hadn’t they told her? Children got adopted all the time. Why had they decided to keep it such a secret?

‘Your mother stopped me. I think she always knew though … ’

That if he came back, Enrique would tell him the truth. Which was why she’d almost encouraged Andrés not to come. All these years.

Nothing has changed
 …

Oh, Mama.

She came to him then, to them both, and Andrés held them close, felt himself being held close by them both – for perhaps the first time. It was a strange feeling. Family …

*

By the time Andrés swam back to the water’s edge and dragged himself on to the sand, he was exhausted. There were a few couples and families on the beach nearby, but no one gave him a second glance. Funny, that.

He collapsed into a
corralito
and lay on his back, chest heaving, eyes closed to the sun, feeling its warmth gradually seep into his very core.
How well do you know your own family?
Not very well at all, apparently. He and Ruby shared that at least.

*

Later, he picked Izabella up in the car and they drove to the Centro de Arte. Andrés told her the story as they walked around the place which their father had helped create. He’d had to see it – and despite everything, he couldn’t help feeling proud.

Izabella listened in silence. When he’d finished, she flung herself into his arms, oblivious of the people around them and their curious stares.

‘It changes nothing, my brother,’ she said, when she finally drew away. Her eyes were dark and fierce.

Andrés had to smile. She reminded him of their father sometimes. ‘I love you, Izabelle,’ he said.

‘And I you.’ She held his arm as they walked on. ‘You will always be my brother – in every way.’

‘Of course I will.’ It was true that his feelings for his sister hadn’t changed. His mother too. But as for his father … Was it so simple?

Andrés was impressed by the centre. It had been created to celebrate the rich and exciting artistic talent of the island – sculptors, potters, painters. And it was quite an achievement. In the courtyard and landscaped gardens there were sculptures in wood, bronze, stone and steel around every corner – of shells and stairways, goats and whirlwinds, even one of volcanic lava entitled ‘inner bliss’. Andrés had to smile. Inner turmoil was nearer the mark as far as he was concerned. There was a workshop where professional artists ran classes, a studio which could be used by up-and-coming artists lacking their own work premises, and spacious white exhibition
galleries where ceramics and paintings hung – every contemporary style, content and colour you could imagine.

‘What do you think?’ Izabella asked him. ‘It is magnificent, is it not?’

It was. Andrés was overwhelmed by the boldness of brushstrokes, by the vivacity of the blues and the greens and the yellows, by the multitude of shades of ochre and brown to be found in just one mountain. He would have given anything when he was younger to be part of something like this.

‘He is not a bad man, our father,’ Izabella said as they left the centre an hour or so later. ‘He has achieved so much.’