‘Yes, I have.’
‘Go and see them,’ she said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Go and visit your children, Ramon,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Because they need you.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes you can. If you left me and started a family with another woman I would like to think that you would still be a good father to Ramoncito.’
‘I’m not going to leave you, Estella,’ he said firmly.
E
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‘That’s not what I mean. Those children need you to be a f^ went wrong between you and Helena has nothing to do with th<
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go, they’ll blame themselves. They must miss you. I look at Ramoncito, he’s so vulnerable and so innocent. He needs us both.’
‘I’ll go sometime,’ he said casually.
Estella was the first woman he had ever been with who didn’t beg him to stay. He was surprised that she had suggested he go. Suddenly he worried that she was growing tired of him. She was twenty years younger than he. Perhaps she longed for a man of her own age. Then he reassured himself that she couldn’t possibly want anyone else. He was the father of her child. She had also promised him that she would never complain if he left as long as he came back from time to time. The irony was that now he didn’t want to go anywhere. He could write at their beach house, take long walks in the sunshine, swim in the sea, make love in the afternoon and enjoy watching his baby grow each day. He found that his poems came easily. He didn’t have to find the words in faraway places, they were right there in their beach house. Estella read them and when she understood them she wept. She never asked when he was leaving and she never again suggested he go. But her words had settled into his conscience and grown. He knew she was right. He knew he should go and see his
children. But he always put it off until tomorrow. Tomorrow was a long way away.
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Chapter 17
Polperro
Federica bicycled down to the post office with Hester to post the picture she had painted for her grandmother. It was of her new house and her new friends Molly and Hester. She had included Sam, painting him in bigger than everyone else, even bigger than her mother and grandparents. Hester had admired it. ‘You should be a painter like Mummy,’ she had said. ‘But Mummy can’t draw people, they all end up looking like birds.’
‘Oh, I think she’s rather good.’
‘Well, when you know Mummy better you won’t be too shy to say what you really think.’ She had laughed. Federica also had a letter to post to her father. She hadn’t told her mother and as she didn’t know her father’s new address she had popped the letter into the envelope addressed to her grandmother. She knew Abuelita would pass it on. She had told him that she missed him and that she thought of him every day when she woke up and every night before she went to bed, because those were the times she reserved for her butterfly box. She told him that he was right, the box was magical, because when she
opened it her mind automatically drifted off to faraway places where she rode on clouds, fished pink fish out of silver rivers and ate delicious fruit unlike any fruit she had ever seen before. Then she asked him to come and see them because she was growing up fast and if he didn’t come soon he wouldn’t recognize her. Satisfied that he would surely come, she had sealed the envelope with a wish.
Federica had spent almost the entire summer with the Applebys, leaving her mother to concentrate her attention on Hal. Polly cooked, cleaned and cared for Helena as if she were a child again. Nothing was too much for her to ask. Jake just rolled his eyes as he watched his wife run around after their daughter as if the last ten years had been but a blink. Polly insisted that she was only doing what any other mother would do for her child. Jake couldn’t disagree; he didn’t know what other mothers would do but he only had to look at Helena running around after Hal to know that there was at least a certain amount of truth in his wife’s excuses.
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Hal could do no wrong, if only in the eyes of his mother. He glossy black hair and dark, heavy eyes into which Helena
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disappear for hours. During those periods there was very little anyone could do to get her attention. She would laugh at all the quaint things he said, play whatever games he suggested and praise him even when he hadn’t done anything worth praising. At four years of age Helena felt he was the brightest, most charming child she had ever seen. Well beyond his years. She refused, however, to acknowledge his moods that swung from absolute affection to blind fury and loathing, for no apparent reason. When Hal swelled with rage not even Helena could reach him. Somehow she found excuses for these tantrums and if anyone mentioned them she turned on them with all her defences. Federica knew instinctively when to leave her mother and Hal alone together and play on her own. Her mother didn’t love her less, she understood that, Hal just needed her more than she did. After all Hal didn’t have any friends like Molly and Hester. Lucien and Joey included him at their tea parties, but Hal wasn't an honorary member of the Appleby family like she was. He was too little.