“I realize that now.”
“You know, Clemmie was three when her parents divorced. She doesn’t remember what life was like when they were together, but she has an idealized image of what she thinks it was like. The truth is very different.” She poured Rafa’s chopped onions into the olive oil. They sizzled noisily. “I don’t think that’s the problem, Rafa. But it’s easier to blame other people than to take responsibility for her own troubles.”
“Memories in themselves are not problems—we can all learn from the past. They only become a problem when we allow them to take us over completely and make us unhappy. Then our past becomes our prison.”
Marina turned around. “How do we get out of our prison?”
“By focusing on the present.”
She turned back to stir the tomatoes into the onions. “By focusing on the present,” she repeated broodingly. “By focusing on my home.”
Just as she was straining the spaghetti, Grey strode into the hall. “Something smells good,” he exclaimed, putting his book on the hall table.
“Spag,” Marina replied from the kitchen. “I’ve invited Rafa to give him a break from the ladies.”
“Splendid.” He walked into the kitchen and gave Rafa a pat on the shoulder. “I’m glad to see that Marina has given you a glass of wine. It’s looking a little depleted, though.” He filled the young man’s glass before pouring one for himself. “Has Rafa told you about our crabbing expedition?”
“Pat and Veronica got there first.”
“I think they had a good time.”
“They did.”
“Where’s Clemmie?”
“Gone to have dinner with Joe.”
“She proved quite an accomplished crabber,” he said, sitting down and stretching his long legs under the table. “I was pleasantly surprised.”
“Oh, I think Clemmie can do anything she puts her mind to,” said Marina, placing the bowl of steaming spaghetti in the middle of the table. “She just doesn’t know it.”
“You were very sweet to her, Rafa,” said Grey. “You made it fun.”
Rafa helped himself to some spaghetti. “But you are wrong, Grey,” he replied with a shrug. “She made it fun for me.”
17.
Clementine lay in Joe’s arms, dismayed to discover that her fury had accompanied her there. She recalled the conversation with Rafa word for word, and smarted with indignation. While Joe had been making love to her she had been distracted, content to give in to her longing, confusing the momentary high of orgasm for love. But now, as she lay against him, his arms wrapped around her body to anchor her to the present, she was pulled back into the familiar dark.
She considered his words: that her bitterness was her problem but that it didn’t have to be. All she had to do was look at the divorce from Marina’s point of view. Her anger mounted at the suggestion that Marina’s love for her father justified the hell she had put them all through. As if love exempted her from any responsibility. The trouble was, Rafa didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know what sort of woman Marina had been before she set her sights on Grey and raised herself a few rungs higher on the social ladder. It was all very well standing on his pedestal, playing the philosopher, but down on the ground things weren’t so neat and tidy.
“I should go,” she said to Joe, climbing out of bed.
He looked at his watch. “Midnight. But you’re not a pumpkin.”
“I will be if I don’t get my sleep. I’ll be a grumpy, inanimate vegetable.” She pulled on her clothes. “The last thing I need at eight in the morning is Submarine marching in and opening my curtains.”
“That’s the trouble with living at home. You should move in with me.”
She stopped dressing. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course. It’s not much, but it’s home.”
“That’s a great idea. I won’t have to face Submarine every day, nor that arrogant Argentine.”
“Who’s the Argentine?”
“He’s Submarine’s artist-in-residence, come to teach old biddies how to paint for the summer.”
“You don’t like him?”
“He’s full of himself. Typical Latin man, thinks he can seduce anything in a skirt.”
Joe sat up. “Has he tried to seduce you?”
“He wouldn’t dare. He knows I don’t like him.”
“Good.”
She laughed at his jealousy and rolled back onto the bed. “Are you my knight in shining armor?”
He pulled her into his arms. “Yes. I don’t like the idea of anyone trying to seduce you but me.”