Lilia's Secret (24 page)

‘Dad, I've brought you something to eat.' Angela walked into Bill's bedroom with a plate piled high with rice and chicken and beans. He opened one eye; none of it looked good.

‘Thanks, just set it on the table.'

‘You've got to eat,' Angela said. ‘Teresa says you haven't gotten out of bed since Padre Miguel was here.'

Bill closed his eyes. ‘I'm just tired.'

‘Two days is a long kind of tired.'

Two days did sound like a long time. He'd been fine until Padre Miguel had left, but then a terrible lethargy had descended.

‘Just leave the food and let me rest.'

Angela put down the plate and sat beside him.

‘Dad,' she paused. ‘You know the other day, when we argued?' Bill opened his eyes when she didn't go on and caught her frowning. ‘I didn't mean what I said. You're not small and horrible.'

‘You did mean it.'

She didn't reply for a few moments. ‘You're right. I did mean it, but I didn't as well.'

With a slight movement Bill turned towards the wall, his eyes still closed. ‘I'm too tired for this, Angela.'

‘I know, but I wanted you to know anyway. First we didn't talk about it because we were going to Señora Piña's, then because of what she had to say, now because of how depressed you are. There's always a good reason not to talk.'

‘I'm not depressed.'

‘You're catatonic with depression,' she said sharply. ‘You can't get out of bed.'

She was right – it hit him in his stomach. So this is what depression was. He must have been depressed before he left Boston too. There was a small ribbon of relief, almost gone before he recognised it – this was the name for what he had. It had a shape – other people got depressed and other people recovered.

Angela put her hand on Bill's shoulder. There she was again, one minute hard, the next honey.

‘I shouldn't have said what I said about you and Mom,' she went on.

Bill turned his head towards her. ‘I love your mother, Angela.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I am,' he said. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘Now will you leave me alone?'

‘You have to eat.'

Bill groaned and released himself back on to the bed, closing his eyes again.

‘I'm tired Angela. I'm tired of it all.'

Neither of them said anything.

‘Are you going to see Señora Piña again?'

‘My new sister.'

Angela waited. Finally Bill looked up. ‘I don't know. When
I was little I was so lonely. I always wanted a brother or a sister. But that old lady …' he trailed off.

‘She's had a hard life.'

And that was part of Bill's problem. Why did he get the easy life? OK, it hadn't been easy – he'd had to fight to get what he had, but he could see that no matter how much Paulina struggled, her life would never add up to much more than what she had now. It was an accident of birth, and why had he gotten the long straw?

He turned to Angela, who was leaning against the bedpost at the end of the bed.

‘I feel bad she's been so poor.'

Angela smiled. ‘She doesn't have to be poor all her life.'

‘I guess not,' said Bill. ‘But what about all the other Paulinas?'

‘You've got money and time now.' Angela shrugged. ‘Who knows?'

Bill felt a small spring inside him release. Maybe he wasn't condemned to only golf for the rest of his life. He looked at his daughter afresh. Her stringy hair falling down the sides of her face didn't annoy him today.

‘I met Maddy,' she said. ‘At the café. She's nice. She asked after you; seemed real concerned that she hadn't seen you around.'

‘Did you tell her about Paulina?'

‘I thought you should.'

The silence between them for the next few minutes felt OK.

‘Teresa says Ramiro called by to see you,' Angela broke the quiet.

‘What did he want?'

‘He left something for you.'

‘I don't want anything of his,' Bill said abruptly.

His daughter didn't reply.

‘What is it then?' he finally asked, taking pains to keep his voice gentle.

She ripped open the envelope. ‘It's a torn photograph of a man,' she said, passing it to Bill. She looked in the envelope again. ‘There's a note, too,' she added.

‘You read it,' Bill said, looking at the photograph. It was the other half of the photo he'd found in Lilia's barn. The man was standing, his hand extended to the shoulder of the person who'd been torn away. Underneath the stiff formality of photographs of that era, the man looked happy – just a normal man.

‘This photograph belongs to you. I found it in the Doña's house. Now you can leave us all in peace,' Angela translated. ‘He didn't sign it.'

‘It's your grandfather,' Bill told Angela, holding it up to her.

She took it and looked at it closely. ‘He's handsome, just like Grandma said.'

‘What else did she say?' Bill asked sharply.

‘Talking about him always made her sad,' Angela replied. ‘I think she felt that she couldn't have done more. I got the impression that he was a happy person, charming, but never settled in himself. Always looking for more.'

Bill nodded. ‘You know, I think it's taken me all this time to work that out. All I needed to do was talk to my mother.'

Angela sat beside him on the bed, pushing his legs over. ‘Talking with people might be the answer to a lot of problems.'

‘OK, OK,' Bill said, smiling.

‘I got the idea your mother felt almost sad for him,' Angela said, giving the photograph back to Bill. ‘Do you think Lilia was in the other half of the picture?'

Bill nodded. ‘Yeah, I've got the other half somewhere.' He waved his hand towards the desk. ‘Found it in the barn when I first arrived.' It seemed like such a long time ago now.

‘I'd like to see that sometime, Dad, when you are up to it.' She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Teresa won't like it if you let that food go too cold,' she said on her way out.

Bill turned over in the bed and swung his legs on to the ground. The food didn't look so bad now. He sat down at the table, put some beans on a fork and within a heartbeat he was wolfing down the meal to the last scraping sounds of his fork on the plate. He sat back. Time for a shower and a shave; maybe even a walk.

Out on the street he headed in the direction of the graveyard and stopped by the municipal office. The same man was there, with the boy who smiled in the same serene way that had enraged him previously. Now Bill was even feeling nostalgic; it was good to know that some things never changed.

‘No news from Mexico City, Señor.' The boy's beatific smile widened.

‘I need a form to withdraw my application to have my father dug up,' Bill said.

‘No need for forms, Señor.' The man answered him this time. ‘Consider it done.'

‘Finally, efficiency,' Bill muttered, turning on his heels and leaving the office.

‘Thank you, Señor. We are here to serve.'

At the cemetery, Bill knelt down beside William Bixton's grave. He was tempted to count the pebbles on top of it, but he resisted.

His father was just a man who'd abandoned his family. All his life he'd done everything to win his father's approval. It turned out that his approval was not worth having.

Bill kicked at a few stones and turned away. He wandered around the cemetery, calm underneath the churning. When he found himself beside Lilia's grave he thought he should say goodbye to her too. He sat on her tombstone and the weight of the few months since his retirement bore down on him. Before Aguasecas he'd played his life like a game of chess; three steps ahead. Here he'd been three steps behind. He couldn't take another breath without a rest.

He lay down under the shadow of Lilia's angel, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. He could see the red the sun made through his closed eyelids. It took him all the way back to the time when he was a child. It made him feel safe now, just as it had before his father disappeared.

In the dense heat he might have fallen asleep there with Lilia deep below him. Her skin was soft and warm; her hair was lying in folds around her shoulders instead of wound about her head as it was in the photos. She was in white and flowers surrounded her. She really did have one green and one brown
eye. She was like a Madonna. She was talking to him. He leant closer, he couldn't quite hear. Closer. There were tears in her eyes; they were like jewels in the ocean, but she was smiling as they spilt over and down her cheeks. She was there – if he could just reach out more. Her lips were closed now, her eyes doing all the talking. He was soaring – above the cemetery, above the birds, above the clouds.

And then she was gone. As if she'd never been there. Gone.

Bill was light-headed as he slowly sat up. He gulped in air and put his hand to his cheeks. They were wet.

In the dream she'd been nothing like he'd expected. Beautiful, yes, and … something else. She was normal. A normal woman without special powers to harm or heal.

He sat there letting time pass, not worrying at the revelation, just letting it sink into his skin.

Bill knew he could go home now. There was nothing more for him here. His father had betrayed his mother and him, had fallen in love with Lilia, had betrayed her as well. Perhaps Lilia
had
killed him. He narrowed his eyes. Shouldn't he feel anger? Was this why nobody concerned themselves with the deaths of Lilia's husbands – because of the lethargy brought on by the heat of Aguasecas?

Later that afternoon, in the car-rental office in Santa Maria the air conditioning still wasn't working and Bill sweated as he waited for a car. He hadn't told Angela he was leaving yet.

He looked up, surprised at the sound of a familiar voice this far out of Aguasecas.

‘Teresa tells me you're going,' Maddy said, standing before him, her daypack weighing her down.

‘Word sure gets around fast.'

Maddy laughed. ‘I saw you from the street – I was just up the road, trying to ring Andrés again.'

‘Any luck?'

She shook her head. ‘Are you really going?'

He nodded.

‘Why now, when we still have so many questions to answer?'

‘I pretty much know what I need to know. My father abandoned us for her, then he betrayed her.'

She scrunched her eyes at her.

‘He had an affair with a maid. I have a Mexican half-sister.'

‘Padre Miguel told me. You met her?'

He nodded.

‘So?'

‘She lives on the other side of Monterrey. She's got a couple of daughters. We met one, Maria.'

Maddy narrowed her eyes again.

‘Yes,' Bill affirmed. ‘Named for Lilia.'

When he'd finished telling Maddy Paulina's story, she looked thoughtful. ‘So what now?'

Bill shrugged. ‘I need to talk it over with Carole. She'll help me work out what to do.'