As Fortuna had predicted, millions would feel his suffering in the words he would write in the future. But for the moment he was unable to comprehend his own grief or know how to express it.
Ramon arrived shrunken and grey with the body of his beloved Estella. He allowed himself to be comforted in the familiar bosom of his mother and then straightened himself up to be strong for his son. When Maria saw Ramon she blinked out of her trance and told them all of Fortuna’s prediction. Ramon shook his head. ‘She died instead of me,’ he said sadly.
‘She died because it was her time,’ said Maria. ‘That’s why Fortuna couldn’t see her face.’
When Ignacio Campione knocked on the door of Pablo Rega’s house the small party of mourners looked at each other in surprise. He walked in with the stride of a man no longer able to play ignorant.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ he said, pulling Ramon’s large frame into his arms. Ramon blinked at his mother in confusion over Ignacio’s shoulder. Mariana shrugged and wiped away her tears. ‘You don’t really believe I’m that stupid,’ he said, patting his son on his back. For once Ramon didn’t know what to say. He buried his face in his father’s neck and sobbed.
Estella was buried on the top of the hill overlooking the sea, in the shade of a tall green pine tree. Pablo Rega later apologized to Osvaldo Garcia Segundo because he would from that moment on speak only to his daughter. Unlike Osvaldo, Estella talked back. He could hear her voice in the rise and fall of the tides and feel her breath in the wind that always smelt of roses.
Ramon looked out over the horizon and reflected on his misguided acts of selfishness that had ruined so many lives. He thought about what he had loved and lost. Then he looked down at his eleven-year-old son. Ramoncito glanced up at him and smiled. In his smile Ramon saw the smile of Federica and the
tears of Hal, the frustration of Helena and the unconditional love of Estella and he swallowed his regret as if it were a ball of nails in his throat. He placed his hand on the brave shoulder of his son and vowed that he would make up for his negligence by loving Ramoncito, by being there for him, by changing his ways as Helena had once begged him to.
He threw a single red rose onto the coffin, then walked away a different man.
Chapter 32
Polperro
Helena, Jake and Polly sat helplessly watching the television for news of the crash. A number had been given out for worried relatives, but they were still pulling bodies out of the wreckage and had no news of Toby and Julian. Arthur sped over from the office and Hal was picked up from school. Polly’s kitchen vibrated with the resonance of their grief. All Jake’s model boats lay in scattered abandon, like matchsticks, over the floors and table as he had thrown them all to the ground in a sudden fit of anger and remorse. Polly tried to reach out to him, to give him her hand, as he spiralled into a dark pit where his stubbornness and prejudice laughed at him mockingly, but he didn’t take it. He was too ashamed. Too disgusted that he had allowed his intolerance to obscure the value of life.
Sure that Toby was dead and unable to face the rest of the family, Jake stalked out of the house to walk on the cliffs. He strode across the winter grass and allowed tears of self-loathing to sting his face. The bitter wind caused his eyes to burn but he hurried on blindly as if by walking fast he might leave his
despair behind him.
He recalled Toby as a little boy. The times he had taken him out on his boat, the times they had sat in silence watching the seagulls and the shoals of fish just beneath the surface. He remembered how he had laughed when Toby had begged him to return to the water a large trout they had just caught. He had teased him, holding the fish in his hands and waving it about in front of the child’s tormented face. He winced at the recollection, like so many other recollections. Toby had always known the value of life. He had known it better than anyone.
Then he remembered the times when father and son had been so close they had both believed that nothing could come between them. Toby had helped him glue together his model boats well into the night. They had told each other stories, they had laughed and they had worked together in the familiar silence of the very intimate. There had been a time when Toby had told him everything.
But Julian had arrived and it had all changed.
Jake sat on a cold rock and looked out onto the rough horizon where the waves collided with each other, drawing foam like blood. He searched his tormented soul to find the root of his prejudice. It wasn’t just Toby’s
homosexuality that had set father against son because feelings of resentment had grown up inside him long before he had known of it. There was something else. Something much more primitive. He recalled the first time Toby had introduced him to Julian. He had noticed their closeness immediately. The way they laughed together like old friends, anticipated the other’s thoughts like brothers and enjoyed the comfortable silence of father and son. His jealousy had choked him. When he scrutinized his feelings further he realized that he had never really had a problem with Toby’s homosexuality, but it had been easier to blame his resentment on that, rather than admit his jealousy, even to himself. He was suddenly consumed with shame.