When Hal woke up from a long and deep siesta it took him a while to orientate himself. He looked about the room, at the white walls and stark wooden furniture and slowly remembered where he was. His head ached from the heat and his body suffered withdrawals from the alcohol that had nearly destroyed him. He pulled himself up and stumbled into the shower. He let the cool water wash away his exhaustion and any traces of his unhappiness that might have followed him to Chile. When he appeared on the terrace Ramon was waiting to take him to his beach house.
‘Is Federica coming?’ he asked, when Ramon suggested they go.
‘No, just you and me,’ Ramon replied. ‘I’ve got something I want you to
read.’ So Hal followed his father to his car feeling a buoyancy in his step that shamed him, for he was pitifully happy that his father had finally singled him out on his own.
This was Estella’s house,’ Ramon explained as they approached. ‘I set her up here when she had just had Ramoncito. She loved it by the sea. I love it too.’
‘It’s charming!’ Hal exclaimed, finally finding his voice. ‘It’s completely charming.’ He noticed the abundance of plumbago that crawled up the walls and fell over the roof of the veranda and he noticed the magnificence of the mountains behind. Suddenly he was touched by something that he couldn’t understand. ‘Does everything here remind you of her?’ he asked.
Ramon nodded. ‘Everything,’ he replied. ‘Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her at some time or other.’
‘I’d like to love like that,’ Hal mused wistfully.
‘You will one day, I’m sure,’ said Ramon. ‘You’re very young.’
‘I know and I have my whole life ahead of me,’ he said. ‘I’ve cocked it up so far.’
‘There’s always time to start again.’
‘I want to start again, Papa. And I want to start again here,’ he said decisively. ‘I can’t explain it but I connect with this place.’
‘It’s in your blood,’ Ramon explained.
‘Maybe that’s what it is,’ he agreed. ‘In my blood.’
Ramon showed him around the house, grabbed the manuscript he’d written for Helena and a bottle of water and led Hal out onto the beach. They sat down in the waning sunshine and talked, just the two of them, about life and about love. Then Ramon showed him his book. ‘I wrote this for your mother and for you and Federica,’ he said. Hal took it and flicked through it briefly. ‘It’s not very long. I’d really like you to read it. No one else has read it yet. I wrote it in English.’
‘I’d be honoured,’ Hal replied truthfully. ‘You really mean that no one’s read this yet?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you write it?’
‘Because it was cathartic, because I want Helena to understand where we went wrong.’ He hesitated then grinned at Hal. ‘Where I went wrong.’
‘You’ve really tortured yourself with this guilt stuff, haven’t you?’ he said. Ramon looked at him and laughed. ‘Do you think I’ve overdone it?’
‘I don’t think you need to flagellate yourself,’ he replied and smirked back at him.
‘You think I’m flagellating myself, do you?’ he said, pushing him playfully on the back.
‘A bit. You don’t need to feel so ashamed of yourself. Lots of people divorce and leave their children. They survive, don’t they? We have, well, just.’
Ramon looked at him with affection and threw his arm around his shoulder. ‘You know, for someone who’s so unwell you’ve got quite a mouth on you.’
‘I’m glad, I thought I’d lost it.’ He chuckled.
‘What else did you think you’d lost? Your flippers?’
‘You want to swim?’ he asked enthusiastically.
‘If you’ll join me.’
In the magic light of sunset they ran into the golden waters of the icy Pacific. Hal yelped as the cold shot through his body, jolting his senses into focus. Ramon shouted at him to be a man and dive straight in. Following his father’s example he dived and felt the water numb his limbs until he was no longer
aware of the freezing temperature of the sea. He splashed about, laughing and joking with his father as the gentle waves washed away the turmoil of the last few years. When they finally lay on the sand, drying off in the dying hours of day, Hal knew where he belonged. ‘Papa, what if I never go back?’ he said, blinking at him with shiny eyes.
To England?’
‘Yes, what if I just don’t go back?’
‘You’ll be where you belong, Hal. Besides, you will have come home,’ he said and looked at his son seriously.