Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain) (17 page)

It was just light when Cayetano woke the next morning. He opened his eyes to see Luna getting out of the bed next to him. “Hey,” he whispered. “Where are you going?”

“I need to start my day.” She clutched the sheet to her chest and sat down next to him.

“What time is it?”

“Just after six.”

“Why so early? Come back to bed,” he said and tugged at her arm.

“I have kids. If I don’t get up and shower now, I won’t get another chance.”

“I will watch them for you.” Cayetano pulled her back down into the bed and kissed her. “Or am I the dirty secret that needs to sneak out?”

“Yes, you are. They don’t need to know you were here, even if they don’t understand what it means.”

Cayetano sat up on one elbow and looked at her. “I have snuck out plenty of times before, but never because of the children nearby.”

“Well, consider your horizons broadened then.”

“Have I broadened yours?”

“You have no idea.”

Cayetano’s face darkened with a serious expression. “Do you believe in fate?”

“No.”

“At all?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Fate can’t be real. It would mean that I was destined for all the bad things that
have happened to me. Fate is believed in by people that have happy endings.”

“Our families lived next to each other. Then, 70 years later, we bump into each other in the street and fall in love? You don’t think that’s fate?” The second he had said it, he realised what he had done. He had just thrown the L word at her.

“Is that fate or coincidence?”

Screw it. “Luna, I have fallen in love with you. Coincidence doesn’t do this to a man.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It is.”

“We barely know each other.”

“We can be fast learners.”

Luna studied him for a second. “Have you ever used the expression ‘need time to decide what we both want’ on someone?”

“I used it on María when I kicked her out. It was a polite way of saying ‘I have no feelings for you but can’t admit it’.”

“If you fall in love with someone, you don’t need time to figure what to do about it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I have to tell Darren that I can’t marry him. Not when I would rather be here with you.”

A greedy grin spread over Cayetano’s face. “I thought you were about to tell me that you needed time.”

“Time won’t change what I think.”

“Come away with me, to Madrid.”

“I can’t. I have a whole life in Valencia.”

“Next weekend, come to my country place outside Madrid … you and the kids. We can stay in the city on Friday and then head out. I have a plan. We
can relax and continue to search for your grandfather at the same time.”

“How?”

“I have a plan, preciosa. Trust me.”

“Trust you? You are the most wicked man I have ever come across.”

“I’ll take that as compliment,” he whispered, and kissed her. His large hand took the sheet that she still held to her chest and pulled it from her fingers. She let his hands roam on to her body, and forgot that she was supposed to get rid of him.

“M
ummy!”

Cayetano and Luna sat bolt
upright in bed when they heard the little voice. Only a moment later the door flew open and there stood both Giacomo and Enzo, still in their lime green pajamas. “Mummy, I’m hungry,” Enzo said.

“Why is Cayetano in your bed?” Giacomo asked.

Luna and Cayetano shared a panicked look. Even with the covers pulled partly up it was pretty obvious they weren’t wearing much. “Um… Cayetano came to visit last night to ask me a question…. and then he was too scared to go back to his own room because he is afraid of the dark. So he had to stay here.”

“Hey!” Cayetano objected.

Giacomo and Enzo both giggled at him. “Maybe the angel was hiding out in the hallway?” Giacomo suggested.

“Yes, you’re right. You never know when the angel’s spell will get you.”

“Was it the angel who put your pants out by the couch?”

“Yeah, I don’t think they will fit her, but she cast a spell and stole my pants. She is very good at stealing pants.”

Luna snorted next to him, desperate to crawl under the covers and laugh. “Why don’t you boys get dressed, and we can all go out to breakfast?”

“Can Cayetano come?” Enzo asked.

“Sure,” he said. “I just hope that the angel behaves herself.”

15

Madrid, España
~ septiembre de 2009

Inés Morales Pena
was a remarkable woman. She had the beauty and attitude of a woman much younger than her 55 years. When she and her husband celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary a few months ago, she had dressed up in the same outfit she had worn when she first met him. The simple white dress fitted as well now as it did back then. The world they lived in may have greatly changed in that time, but their love hadn’t.

Paco Beltrán and Inés
Morales were one of those love stories you read about in poems. The lonely bullfighter who was loved all over Spain, and the young daughter of the fight promoter who happened to meet him quite by accident while out with her father. Within weeks they were in love and only two months later she was pregnant. Any other deeply Catholic family would have been shamed, but the Morales family decided to see it as an opportunity. Their daughter was married off to Paco ‘El Potente’ Beltrán Caño, a man with a sketchy religious and political background, but someone loved by the simple man on the street all the way up to dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco himself. The Morales family were already wealthy and prominent in Madrid, with a reputation for arranging the greatest bullfights and breeding the best bulls in the business. Because Franco had supported and promoted bullfighting as something quintessentially Spanish, the rings were fuller than ever, and he even went to watch ‘El Potente’ Beltrán perform. To be aligned with this torero, who fought in front of the leader of the country, was good business for the Morales family.

Inés was no fool – she could see what her family were doing when they married her off to Paco. She was head-over-heels in love, so it didn’t matter. She was fully willing to be the woman who started the Beltrán
Morales dynasty. Her son was born six months after her marriage, and her new husband begged her to call the child Cayetano, after his uncle, the brother of his dear mother, Luna. Five years later when their daughter was born, he had begged her to name the baby Sofía after his aunt, another relative he had never met, but his mother had spoken about so affectionately. Paco had no family now, and rarely spoke of them. Naming her children after members of the Beltrán family was the least Inés could do for her beloved. She had her whole family, and he had nothing but memories. Memories that he hadn’t shared in 40 years of marriage.

The door to the Beltrán home was always open. They lived in the luxurious and affluent suburb of La Moraleja, north east from the centre of Madrid. The perfect location for an ex-
torero like Paco. These days only Inés and Paco lived there with her parents, José and Consuela. Inés’ three brothers all lived nearby with their own children and grandchildren. It pained Inés that she had no grandchildren of her own, but with her daughter unable to have children and her son’s marriage in tatters, it wasn’t going to be. All the relatives that would drop by the Beltrán home would ring the doorbell, so when she heard the front door open without warning, she knew it would only be one person.

“Mamá, su bebé, Caya, está en casa.”

Inés smiled and looked up from her book. Your baby, Caya, is home. Cayetano used to say it when he got home from school, and now he was still doing it to tease her. “I’m in the conservatorio,” she called out.

Cayetano appeared in the doorway a moment later, with a wide smile on his face.
“Hola, Mamá. Is Papá home?”

“No, your father has gone out with your uncles and grandfather. Much work to be discussed
, he said.”

Cayetano leaned over and kissed his mother’s cheek and sat down in the armchair across from her. The sun was warm through the glass of the conservatory. It was always nice to be home. “Papá needs to remember that he’s retired.”

“They all need to remember that,” Inés said. “But you know your Papá, and your uncles. They love what they do, and they took over the business from my father. They care very much.”

“I know, Mamá, I know. But I can take over… if Papá ever trusts me.”

“I thought all you ever wanted to do was fight in the ring?”

“A day comes when a man wants more.”

Inés raised her eyebrows so high they disappeared under her golden brown hair that fell gently across her forehead. Her son had never been interested in the legacy that her father had wanted for baby Cayetano. “How is your leg, Caya?”

“My leg is good. I have a special cream to rub on it which helps.”
The woman that rubs the cream has the magic touch.

“Then don’t you worry about all those retirement rumours, or what your father needs from you.”

Cayetano absentmindedly began to wring his hands. “Mamá, did Papá tell you about an argument that we had in the park?”

“He told me that you had decided that you were in love with a married woman.”

Cayetano rolled his eyes. “Gracias, Papá. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I told him that there must be more to it than that, but he wouldn’t tell me what went on. Only that he was disappointed. He  said that she was the cause of your accident.”

“Now that is an outright lie!”

“You have never talked to your father about women, so I didn’t believe him. Whatever you said, you upset him. You hurt his pride.”

“More than when I got injured and shamed the family name?”

“Don’t be sarcastic to me, Cayetano.”

Cayetano sighed and took a moment. “I told him that I had spoken with that woman I helped with the bag-snatcher. She wanted to find her grandfather who was killed in the civil war. So I asked about our family.”

“Ah…” Inés said and took off her reading glasses. She folded them and placed them on her lap. “Now I understand the argument.”

“All I asked him was a little about his parents. Then he told me that his mother’s name was Luna. It’s taken me 40 years to know that. He told me that she was married to a guy named Ignacio Reyes Paz, but he died when Papá was young. So why does Papá not have his father’s name? He has the full name of his mother.”

“That is a long story, Cayetano. One you shouldn’t pry into.”

“And then he told me that his mother’s family all loved bullfighting. All this time I didn’t know that either. It’s like Papá is keeping this huge secret.”

“He isn’t.”

“Then why does it feel like it? Family is everything to us, yet a whole side of the family is hidden away like a dirty secret. So… I went to Cuenca on the weekend, with Luna.”

“The bag-snatcher girl?”

“Yes, though I would like another name for her.”

“Luna is the girl you are in love with?”

“Yes, but she’s not a girl. She is very much a woman. Papá told me that he fell in love with you in a heartbeat, just like his mother fell in love with her great love. I fell in love with Luna like that. After one day and night with her, I was in love. Papá told me that’s mad.”

“It is mad. Love tends to be.”

“So you don’t think I’m being ridiculous?”

“When did all this happen?”

“The day before my fall in the ring, but it wasn’t Luna’s fault. She didn’t even know who I was. I lied to her.”

“She can’t have been happy about that.”

“She wasn’t, but I’ve been forgiven.”

“So how did Cuenca come into it?”

“Luna is a New Zealander. Her grandmother, Scarlett, was a nurse in Cuenca during the war, and got pregnant to some guy named Cayetano. He abandoned her and she returned home.”

“And kept the baby?”

“She kept the boy, Alexander, and raised him on her own.”

“Tough in that day and age.”

“Very. Luna wants to live here and needs to prove her grandfather was Spanish, but Cayetano Ortega dropped off the earth. We went to find his birth record. But there is nothing, no registration, no baptism, just an address of him living with Scarlett in Cuenca. Since I was there, I looked up the Beltrán family. They lived right across the narrow street from Cayetano and Scarlett. Our families would have known each other.”

“That’s amazing. Did you tell your father that you looked up the family home?”

“No, I didn’t. I thought he would just get mad again. But you told me that I was named after my uncle Cayetano… but Luna’s brother was named Alejandro. We found his birth records.”

“That can’t be right,” Inés said with a deep frown. “Your father told me that Cayetano was Luna’s brother and the most important person in her life.”

“Wouldn’t that be her great love, Ignacio, the man who she wouldn’t name her son after?”

“Oh, Caya, what have you done?”

“What?”

Inés closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Cayetano… I can’t.”

“You have to! Why is there no birth record or baptism for Papá? Or a marriage record in the church for Luna and Ignacio?”

“They were married in Madrid, that’s why. There is a marriage record. Your father will have it.”

“Can I see it? When did they get married?”

“
May 1939. Why the urgent desire to dig into your father’s life?”

“I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“Stop it. No wonder your father is furious at you.”

“I know you aren’t supposed to talk about the war, but like it or not, our family was on the favourable side during the dictatorship.”

“We never talk about that,” Inés said. “You should not ever bring that up.”

“What about that picture Papá posed for with Franco? It’s obvious the family has always been right-wing.”

“You really want to know? Do you really need to shame your father? Your great-grandfather, Juan Pablo Beltrán, was a Republican, who married off his daughter, Luna, to a businessman’s son, Ignacio, in order to make a big profit when he got a foot into the Reyes’ business. Only Juan Pablo was murdered at the end of the war, and his daughter became a Nationalist. She was a religious conservative, unlike her Godless anarchist family. Ignacio was not Paco’s father. He just agreed to take on the baby Luna was already pregnant with before she moved to Madrid. Your father is a bastard child. He is humiliated by it. His stepfather, Ignacio, died of pneumonia, and Luna inherited all his money, and she was able to raise Paco on her own. Happy now?”

Cayetano sat silently and looked at his hands. He felt like a scolded 10-year-old who had spilled nail polish on his mother’s bedcovers while
he kicked his football around. “There is no shame in it.”

“Maybe now there is no shame in having a child while unmarried. But back then there was. Values still counted for something.”

“So who is my real grandfather?”

“I don’t know. Your father never said. I don’t think he knows.
That only adds to his shame. Let’s hope it’s not this Cayetano Ortega you speak of that lived across the street. Wouldn’t want your new girlfriend to be your cousin.”

Cayetano scoffed. “No, that is the least of my worries.”

“Which brings me to the point of why I asked you to come over. I saw a photo of you in a magazine today.”

Cayetano frowned and watched his mother pull a glossy magazine from the drawer under the coffee table that sat between them. He had just learned a huge piece of information about his father. What could be more important? “Mamá, does it matter?”

“I think it does.” She flipped the magazine open and handed it to him. “Thank you for telling me that you went to Cuenca, it all makes sense now.”

Celebrity bullfighter Cayetano Beltrán Morales was spotted out and about in Cuenca on Friday with a mystery woman. Rumours have circulated for months regarding his tempestuous marriage to Tele 5 star María Medina Cruz. This sensual photo with a beautiful younger woman, taken at the famous parador Convento de San Pablo, does nothing to quell the suggestions of a divorce for the high profile couple…

¿Qué coño? What the fuck? They had been so restrained with their behaviour in Cuenca. Luna didn’t want to give the children a confused idea. There it was; that one moment when they sat in the playground, their lips just touched when they joked around. Sensual photo? Oh please. That couldn’t have been any more ridiculous if… if María herself had written the article. “Mamá… this is nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing. The way that woman looks at you says she is head-over-heels in love.”

Cayetano brought the photo almost to his face to study it and Inés laughed. “Caya, I’m sure this girl is very nice, but you are married…”

“Separated. I’m separated. You know that. I asked María for a divorce a few weeks ago.”

“But you two are good together!”

“Yes, we are… except for all those times when we aren’t.”

“Don’t smart-mouth me.”

“She cheated on me!”

“People make mistakes!”

“Have you or Papá ever slept with someone else?”

“No!”

“Well, there you have it. Love doesn’t compel people to cheat. María isn’t right for me. I know you think she comes from a good family, and maybe she does, but I think we have all learned that family isn’t everything.”

“I just want you to be sure.”