The Frozen Heart (21 page)

‘Good idea. Maybe two.’ He put his arm round my shoulder as if he were trying to calm me, or at least to let me know he was on my side. Some part of the secret was clearly showing. ‘If you like, afterwards we can go and visit some whores and burn Madrid to the ground. We’re rich.’

‘No.’ I smiled. ‘I think it’s better if we leave Madrid as it is.’

‘OK.’ He smiled too. ‘But never let it be said that I’m chicken.’

In the end, we didn’t just have two drinks, we had quite a few.

‘Hey, Julio . . .’ I said as soon as the waiter had taken our order, skipping over the introduction I couldn’t think of, ‘do you think Papá had mistresses?’

‘What is this?’ And although it was obvious what I was about to say, he looked at me a little suspiciously. ‘Am I supposed to be the expert in the family?’

‘No, but you’re the only one I can talk to, it’s not the same thing.’

I hadn’t intended to say anything to anyone in the family, but as we had all sat with my mother in the solicitor’s office, I had realised that every one of them would have a different take on my father and might be able to shed some light on different aspects, things I would never have noticed.

‘I don’t know . . .’ He was silent for a moment, then continued, ‘I’ve often thought about it, believe me. I mean, on the one hand . . . well, it would be like him. What I mean is, rich men - men of his generation, especially - used to keep mistresses, lovers in the old sense, they bought apartments for them, that kind of thing. It was traditional, and anyway, it would fit with his personality, the way he behaved . . . He liked to flaunt his power, you know that, and he wasn’t religious, he wasn’t much bothered by scruples, but still . . . I don’t know. On the other hand, he was such a stickler . . .’

‘Yes, but he was a ladies’ man,’ I said. My brother nodded slowly as though it wasn’t easy for him to admit that I was right. ‘And he was happy to admit it whenever the subject came up. Remember on Saturday nights he’d joke around with us, giving the dancers on TV marks out of ten.’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s true. I’m not saying he didn’t like women, it’s just . . . on the other hand it wasn’t like him at all, he didn’t like to complicate his life. Though I suppose we knew him when he was older, by the time Clara was born he was nearly fifty. I suppose he must have done something at some stage? I mean, everyone has an affair at some point. In any case, we’ll never know now. Papá could always run rings around us. He was smarter than the whole lot of us put together. If he had mistresses, I’m sure he’d never have let himself be caught.’

‘Not alive, maybe . . .’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Papá was taking Viagra, Julio.’

His mouth dropped open, as though he couldn’t process what he had just heard. Then he leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye.

‘Papá?’ he said. ‘Viagra?’

‘Papá,’ I confirmed.

‘Fuck!’ He was staring at some fixed point behind me. ‘Stop, I don’t want to know. How did you find out?’

I told him the same story I’d told Adolfo, told him what Adolfo had said about the risks of taking the stuff, and that Papá had had a conversation with him about it over six years ago.

‘He didn’t think there was anything strange about it,’ I said.

‘Well, I do.’

‘Me too,’ I admitted, ‘but maybe Adolfo sees things more clearly than we do, because he’s not as close.’

‘Right . . .’ Julio looked at me and nodded slowly, ‘so that’s why you went off on one, because you thought . . .’

‘Exactly.’ I confirmed his suspicions, because neither of us wanted to go there.

‘You know what it’s like, Álvaro? It’s like Papá was a lot of different men, not just one man, because . . . I don’t know, every time I talk to Rafa about him - and obviously we’ve been talking a lot recently - we remember different things, sometimes contradictory things . . . Verónica says it’s normal, she says it always happens when someone dies, but I don’t agree with her. I’m sure that if Mamá died, for example, our memories of her wouldn’t be so different . . .’

‘But Rafa’s view of Papá was always distorted, wasn’t it?’ I ventured. ‘To Rafa, Papá was like Superman, his idol . . .’

‘That’s true. But it’s not just that . . .’ He stopped for a minute and thought. ‘Well, maybe it does have something to do with that. Rafa couldn’t stand the fact that after a lifetime of doing his best, you were still Papá’s favourite, not him.’

‘Me? What are you talking about? I didn’t study what he wanted me to study, I left when he wanted me to stay, I got married in a register office . . .’

‘So what?’ Julio interrupted. ‘I’ve spent my whole life listening to him talking about you - Álvaro is like me, Alvaro is the brightest, Álvaro is the only one I don’t have to worry about . . . You were his favourite . . . You and the girls, especially Angélica, though it seems strange given what a cold fish she is, but he liked her more than Clara, don’t ask me why . . . He couldn’t stand me because we were too much alike, we were always fighting, but it was mutual, believe me, and anyway, I was always Mamá’s little boy so I didn’t care, I don’t think Clara did either, at the end of the day. But Rafa didn’t take it well, seriously.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I protested as much to myself as to him, ‘really, I don’t, and if you want to know the truth, it never even crossed my mind . . .’

‘You see? That’s what I mean when I say this whole thing with Papá is weird ?’

‘But . . . Rafa was his right-hand man, wasn’t he? The one who knew everything, the one who was closest to him?’

Just then, my uncertainty began to crumble, to give way under the pressure of something which a moment ago had seemed incredible and now seemed within the realms of possibility.

My father liked to dance with my sister Angélica. They danced so well together that they looked like a couple of professional dancers, but I had only ever seen him dance with Clara once, at her wedding reception. ‘Your brother Julio thinks with his prick, I’m sick to death of your brother Rafa . . .’ He’d never said anything like this to me. ‘You’re the brightest of the lot, Álvaro.’ But he’d never given me any sign that he had favourites, he’d never taken me aside to talk to me. We didn’t argue, we didn’t fight, and of course, we loved each other. I loved him, he was my father; he loved me, I was his son. We got that far and not one step farther, but I never thought that it was different for the others, or for his eldest son at least.

‘Anyway . . .’ I started again, ‘Rafa did business with Papá, didn’t he? You heard what Mamá said earlier.’

‘Business?’ Julio raised his eyebrows and laughed. ‘The only business Rafa had with Papá was debts. Debts, Álvaro, he was always asking Papá for money. Papá didn’t given him a quarter of what he asked for, which is just as well, because Rafa was always going too far, but in the end . . . well, you know what happened, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Earlier, when Mamá said “if the others have no objection”, I wanted to say something. Because he’ll go on doing it, you know that. He’ll do it all the more, because Mamá is easier to convince, she’s much more indulgent than Papá ever was, and no matter how much Rafa has inherited, he’ll try to get his hands on more, I was about to say it . . . But then I thought, what good will it do me, fucking things up for Rafa, I’m not going to be any happier just because I have more in the bank . . . Did you ever ask Papá for money, Álvaro?’

‘No. I thought about it when we were buying the house, but the mortgage was tax deductible, and I didn’t have much in the way of outgoings, so in the end I didn’t need to.’

He looked at me, finished his drink, and signalled to the waiter for another. He seemed to be meditating on something, as if he was about to make a decision.

‘What about you?’

‘I asked him for money once,’ he held up his right index finger so there could be no doubt, ‘just once. And he wouldn’t give it to me.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘I still don’t know. Or, to be more precise, I’d prefer not to know.’ The waiter set down another glass in front of him, and he knocked back half of it in a single swig before continuing. ‘But I’ll tell you something. Papá was a great man, a self-made man who started out with nothing and got to be where he was without any help. OK I’ll give you that. And he was charming and likeable and interesting and intelligent, I’ll give you that too. But Papá could be a hard-faced bastard too. Listen to what I’m saying, because I’m not like you, Álvaro, I don’t think like you. I’m not just saying Papá was conservative or old fashioned, I’m saying he was a bastard, an out-and-out bastard.’

‘Verónica,’ I said aloud, because it was something I had never forgotten either.

‘No,’ my brother shook his head, ‘or not just that. That was the first time, and anyway, he could be forgiven for that, he was an old man and the world he grew up in was very different . . . When I told him I was leaving Asun, he was really angry. “Don’t you get on?” he asked me, and I said yes, because it was true, it’s still true, I’ve always got on well with Asun, but it’s nothing like what I had with Verónica, what can I say?’ He smiled and looked at me with a candour I envied, then said something astonishing. ‘But then Vero is the love of my life and Asun isn’t, and that’s nobody’s fault. “It’s not that, Papá,” I told him, “I’ve fallen in love with someone else . . .” “What?” he said, and gave me a little smile that felt like a kick in the balls. “I’m in love with someone else,” I said again, and then he laughed. “In love, in love,” he said, mimicking me, “and what has that to do with anything?” ’

‘But . . .’ I interrupted, not really knowing what I was going to say next.

‘No buts, Álvaro. Make no mistake, Papá had no problem with me having an affair with Verónica. What he found stupid was that I would leave Asun for her. But, well, that seemed normal to me, that’s why I forgave him . . . The other time came later, and it’s something I’ve never forgiven him for.’

There was a long pause, and I realised he felt awkward.

‘I may be a bad husband, Álvaro, but I’m a good father. I’m a fucking good father. And I’m not saying that because I think I deserve a medal, because it’s easy, that’s the truth . . . I love my kids. I love being with them, I have fun when I’m with them, and if I don’t spend more time with them it’s because their mother doesn’t want me to . . . That’s why I never go anywhere on Saturdays, I never go away for the weekend unless it’s with them. Vero knew that from the start, before we even got together, back when our relationship was just three-star adultery in five-star hotels. Me and the kids, we come as a package, and if we’re going to live together, then I can only take you for dinner in Paris on Tuesdays.’

‘And she agreed,’ I said, smiling.

‘Yes, she agreed,’ he nodded, ‘but she also accepted everything that went with it, and she really loves the twins, that was what worried me most. I couldn’t have lived with her if she didn’t love my kids. Anyway, on Saturdays - especially now that Asun has a boyfriend and she lets me have them for the whole weekend - on Saturdays, at nine o’clock, after they’ve had their bath and they’re in their pyjamas, the five of us sit on the sofa, me in the middle, the boys on my left, the girls on my right, with a couple of pizzas, and we watch a movie on the Disney Channel - you can’t imagine the garbage I’ve sat through . . .’

‘Of course I can . . .’

‘Well, anyway . . . Lucía always falls asleep in my arms when she’s having her bottle and then Julia, who’s the oldest twin by a couple of minutes, likes to pretend she’s in love with me and leans her head on my shoulder and puts her hand in mine. The next one to nod off is Pablo, who falls asleep on top of Enrique, his older brother, who then slowly edges over to me, and I put my arm around him. By the time the movie is over, I have one twin’s head on each shoulder, Lucía asleep across my left leg, Enrique sprawled almost upside down across the other, and Verónica on the armchair. She always says the same thing, “It sounds strange, Julio, but if anyone else saw you like this, they wouldn’t believe it.” And she’s right, but at that moment, I’m the happiest man alive, I swear . . .’

‘I believe it, Julio.’

I believed him. Because I had often seen him with his children. I’d seen my brother - the most feckless, sex-obsessed man I’d ever met and a hard-nosed businessman almost as ruthless and unscrupulous as Rafa - feeding his kids, helping them with their homework, playing with them patiently, never losing his nerve, his energy, his willingness to take another penalty. ‘Just one more, Papá.’ It was amazing to watch, but it was real and it was moving.

‘Well then, you’ll understand the rest . . . When Asun and I separated, I made it clear that I wanted us still to get on. She was devastated, of course, and it was my fault, but there was nothing I could do about that, so when the lawyer said we had to take her pain and suffering into account I said fine, whatever she wants, anything except the kids. I’d fucked her over and now she wanted to fuck me over, that seemed fair, but I said let’s keep the children out of this . . . I didn’t want to go to court, I wanted us to sort things out amicably, go before the judge with a settlement he couldn’t find fault with, and I managed it. It was hard work, believe me, I spent more than a month negotiating because I wanted us to agree on joint custody and split the weekends in half, rather than having Julia and Enrique every other weekend. “That won’t be possible,” the lawyer told me. “Oh. Really?” I said. “How much?” I gave her my best grin. “How much what?” she said. “How much will it cost me to make it possible?” . . . She stared at me as if she was offended. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said. I said, “I’m a lawyer too, so let’s cut the bullshit . . . ” ’

‘I didn’t know any of this, Julio,’ I interrupted him, ‘you never said.’

‘No,’ he smiled, ‘I didn’t tell anyone. Why? Because in the end I got what I wanted, even if it bankrupted me . . . Asun, who conducted herself brilliantly at the time, much better than her lawyer ever did, told me that she didn’t want monthly alimony payments, just a reasonable settlement up front. I was thinking of selling a business at the time and this struck me as a great idea, completely sensible. I ended up giving her half of what she had asked for, but that was double what I had originally offered, and even that was generous. She knew I couldn’t give her any more, she knew how much money we had, but I didn’t care. After all, what is money?’