Like One of the Family (49 page)

Claire had never felt so glad of anything as Ruthie's friendship with Adela for the little girl seemed more than content in her company. Once or twice, Claire had spoken to Ruthie on the telephone. Ignacio also confirmed that Ruthie was in good spirits and assured Claire that Ruthie was welcome to stay at the hotel until Jane arrived or Claire was free to return to the apartment, whenever that would be. Claire had shivered, not wanting to be free in the way he implied. Elena's death would be a merciful release, but Claire dreaded it with all her heart. While Elena lived, so too did hope. In her exhaustion and grief, Claire could not see beyond this.

She did a circuit of the streets and went into a church on the corner of the square. She sat near the altar and began to pray, her tired gaze fixed on the ornate figure of the Madonna and child, richly attired in satins and silks. As she sat there, surrounded by tier upon tier of red offertory lights, her senses drowning in the aura of red wax, Claire wondered if Elena had ever come to this church to pray. She wondered too if, before she died, Elena would be able to speak again to her through the
abecedario
, and found herself petitioning Our Lady that this might be so. When she hurried back to the hospital in the cool of the evening, Fernando was pacing the corridor and his face lit up at the sight of her.

‘Claire! I have made contact with my brother at last,' he told her. ‘He has returned to his military academy and, in the circumstances, the authorities have agreed to allow him return home. So I must go at once to Cadiz.'

Claire said sympathetically. ‘How dreadful that you have to leave now with your mother so ill...'

Fernando looked pained. ‘There is no help for it. I must go, Claire. She will want to see him and his place is at her side.' He shook his head dispiritedly. ‘Alejandro is wayward and thoughtless, but he is not a bad fellow.'

‘Yes, he has great charm,' Claire unconsciously agreed.

Fernando stared. ‘You know Alejandro?'

Claire was confused. ‘I'm not sure... maybe not,' she stammered in embarrassment. ‘Sheena and I met a Spaniard of that name and she has been going about with him ever since. Really we know very little about him, only that he has a friend called Miguel.'

‘Miguel Delgado?' Fernando enquired ominously,
‘Qué sinverguenza
!'

Claire was startled by the anger and contempt in Fernando's voice.

‘Delgado is not fit to associate with my family,' Fernando said haughtily. ‘I have warned Alex against this man many times but my brother is weak and easily led.'

He was only saying what Claire herself had suspected.

Fernando's expression softened. ‘Ah but I cannot tell you how happy and relieved it makes me to know you will be here with my mother while I am away. You will keep her alive until I return, of that I am certain.'

‘I only wish I could be as sure,' she admitted honestly, ‘but I'll gladly stay with her if that's what you and your father want.'

‘En absoluto
,' Fernando said with a sad smile. ‘In fact, I could not go if you did not assure me of your presence,' adding passionately.
‘Tu eres mi angel
.'

Claire blushed at the intensity of his emotion and felt a little light-headed again. She put her hand to her forehead.

‘Perhaps I ask too much,' Fernando looked concerned. ‘You have already spent so many hours with my mother. Please tell me frankly if you cannot stay.'

Claire said firmly. ‘Of course I'll stay. There's nothing I want more.'

Fernando gave her a glowing look of gratitude.
‘Muchísimas
gracias, mi Clara
,' he said fervently. And before she realised his intention, he had bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth.

It was late evening when Elena woke up. She opened her brown eyes and stared at Claire with some deep emotion struggling in their depths. Claire leaned nearer the bed, feeling frustrated and not a little, frightened. Oh, if only there was some way she could help her. She was just about to call for Nurse Lewis when she saw Elena deliberately blinking and, with a thrill of relief, understood she was saying, ‘Get our alphabet
.'

As she hurriedly fumbled with the pieces, Claire was all the time conscious of Elena's anxious gaze trained on her. At last she sat poised with the box on her lap and said quietly, ‘I'm ready, Elena.'

At the beginning of their relationship Señora Gonzalez had asked Claire to call her by her Christian name. She had no daughters of her own, Elena said, but if she had been so blessed she would have liked them to address her in this way. Claire had felt both honoured and embarrassed, but in time grew accustomed to it.

Now she asked, ‘Is it a vowel?'

Elena gave no sign. Claire ran quickly through the first few letters, and when she reached the letter
L
Elena blinked. This was followed by a vowel which was followed by V and Claire knew Elena meant ‘love'.

The next word began with
F.
‘Fernando'? Claire guessed.

‘You love Fernando?'

Elena blinked.

‘He has gone to fetch Alejandro,' Claire told he. ‘Love' again, then it was the third letter of the alphabet before Elena reacted again.

‘Is it me?' Claire asked.

It was, and then it was ‘Fernando' again.

‘You love Fernando and you love me?'

Elena gave no sign. Claire was puzzled. So what could she mean? Then it broke upon her and she flushed.

‘You mean that Fernando loves...' She couldn't go on.

Elena blinked and some of the anxiety eased in those painfully aware eyes. Claire spoke slowly and clearly.

‘You think that Fernando loves me and you wonder if I love Fernando?'

Elena blinked again.

Claire chose her words carefully. ‘I am very fond of him and I would be honoured if he loved me.' It was true. Any more than that she couldn't say, but there was no mistaking the relief and happiness in Elena's gaze. As they continued on with questions and answers, it became clear that Elena's main concern was that Claire should allow Fernando to take care of her. Claire stared, convinced she had somehow got it wrong.

‘But why should I need anyone to take care of me?' Claire asked puzzled. When Elena indicated that she believed this would be Fernando's wish, Claire attributed it to some loss of translation, or perhaps the strange fancies of a dying woman.

‘Is there anything else worrying you?' Claire gently asked her. But no. Elena was happy now and resigned to whatever would happen. Strangely she did not show fatigue but seemed powered by some tremendous inner resource. After almost an hour it was Claire who had begun to flag. She shifted in her chair and was aware of Elena watching her closely.

The next word was ‘tired' and then ‘Claire', followed by ‘concerned'. Elena was concerned that she was growing tired.

‘I am a bit,' Claire confessed. She took a turn about the room and came back to sit at her bedside again.

Elena wanted Antonio.

When he came, Claire handed the alphabet to Antonio and went out into the night to get some air herself. She felt exhausted but content. Her prayer to the Madonna had been answered.

Claire sat for some time in the garden under the stars, where Jane had sat so often during her convalescence, and felt her mind go blank. After so much concentration she felt all played out. She saw Nurse Lewis bustling towards her in the gloom.

‘My dear, you look poorly,' Sarah said in her direct fashion, ‘I've brought you a cup of tea.'

Touched as always by the woman's thoughtfulness, Claire sat sipping the warm liquid, feeling some of her weariness fall from her. Soon she went back inside, feeling ready now to cope with whatever the night might bring.

As she sat once more by Elena's bedside Claire hoped that Sheena would not be too worried when she was absent another night from the apartment. However, since her friend had stayed away herself all night so many times she didn't think there was any real likelihood of this. She had made several attempts that day to phone Sheena and got the engaged signal so often that she was beginning to think the telephone must be out of order. She yawned and resolved to try again in a little while.

As it grew late Claire began to feel hungry and slightly light-headed, but even when Nurse Lewis tiptoed into the room and laid a gentle hand on her arm, saying, ‘Won't you come away and have a wee rest, lass,' she shook her head.

‘I'm fine, Nurse. Honestly. I promised Fernando I'd stay with his mother until he returns.' Antonio was snatching a nap in another room and Claire feared that Elena would be distressed if left entirely alone.

‘Very well then.' Sarah came back often throughout the night and tried to get her to sip a cup of tea or eat a piece of toast, but Claire refused everything but the tea.

Claire could feel Elena's eyes on her face from time to time, but there was none of the earlier agitation mirrored in their dark depths. Elena was at peace now.

Towards morning Fernando and Alejandro arrived at the hospital and with grim expressions hurried down the corridor to their mother's room. Elena was still conscious but very weak. Hour after hour, by a tremendous effort of her will, she had kept herself from slipping away until her sons arrived.

She looked at her sons long and lovingly and her eyes, the only mobile part of her, were intelligent and bright, and then she slipped into a deep sleep from which she never awoke.

‘She is gone,' Fernando came out to tell Claire. She put her arms about him and held him close, and he buried his face in her hair and broke into muffled, childish sobbing. When he eventually regained control he gave her a last sorrowful look and went back into the room to join his father.

Claire felt every muscle aching and her mind was floating in a kind of limbo. Elena was dead but she could not really take it in, they were just words.

Sarah Lewis brought her into a nearby room, sat her gently on the bed and began undressing her with kindly, capable hands. ‘You can sleep here,' she said. ‘You're in no fit state to go anywhere.'

In her exhaustion Claire hardly heard her and was barely aware of Sarah removing the last of her clothing before she was deeply asleep.

Sarah stared, taken aback by the unmistakable curve of Claire's belly, her swollen, veined breasts. She had been too many years nursing not to recognise that the girl was pregnant.

Sarah could not repress feelings of shock and disappointment as she drew the night-dress over Claire's head. She reminded herself that young people today looked on pregnancy out of wedlock in a very different way to older folk like herself. She had different values, she supposed, but she would never get used to it. Such a lovely young girl too. Remembering the way the young Spaniard had held Claire so tenderly in his arms, Sarah assumed that he was the father.

Claire stirred and opened her eyes. Nurse Lewis was sitting on the bed holding out a cup of tea to her.

‘I thought you might like this before you get up,' Sarah said quietly.

Something in the older woman's restrained tone surprised Claire. She sat up and took the cup, cradling it in her hands. She had been asleep six hours and could have slept twice as long.

‘I'll bring you some toast when you've drunk that,' the nurse said. Again there was that cautious intonation, as though humouring a sick person.

‘Thank you but please don't go to any trouble,' Claire begged. She looked down at the unfamiliar night-dress, blushed and avoided Sarah's eyes.

Sarah saw the blush and was puzzled by Claire's modesty, having already unconsciously judged her to be other than the innocent she had at first assumed. When she returned with the toast she sat down again while Claire nibbled it, and was unsurprised when the girl suddenly hopped out of bed and ran to the hand basin.

‘I'm sorry,' Claire gasped. ‘For a moment I thought I was going to be sick.' She raised an apologetic face from the bowl and glanced at Sarah.

Sarah returned her gaze steadily. ‘Sit back into bed, child.' When Claire slipped back under the sheet she said, ‘How long have you been like this?'

Claire stared at her uncomprehendingly. What was she getting at?

‘How long have you been feeling sick?' Sarah asked.

‘I'm not sick,' Claire began, and then she remembered all the times she had felt dizzy and nauseous lately. But that was just migraine. She threw off the sheet, her head whirling. ‘I must go back to the apartment,' she cried. ‘Sheena and Ruthie will be wondering where I am.'

‘Sit still a moment,' Nurse Lewis said sternly. ‘Do you really not know what ails you?'

Claire looked at her desperately. She couldn't be what she read in the woman's face. How could she? Terry had always used a condom. Even when she had begged him not to he had always insisted. But what about the first time? Suddenly she saw herself and Terry lying on Jane's bed, both of them carried away by passion. She was filled with panic.

‘I really must go,' she mumbled. ‘I've been away too long as it is.' She got out of bed and the floor rushed up to meet her. Only for Sarah's supporting arm she would have fallen.

Claire lay on the bed after Nurse Lewis had left the room and gazed down at her belly, which had always been so flat, and then higher up to her swollen breasts. How was it she hadn't noticed these changes before? She had a sudden image of herself long ago, lying on a bed in the holiday cottage with Jane bending over her, gently examining her breasts. Claire had to bite her lips hard to keep from crying out as this image was replaced with another: Elena urging her to allow Fernando take care of her. Claire burned with new shame and insight. Did everyone know what she herself had failed to see? She broke out in a sweat and grew dizzy again.

Claire left the hospital without seeing anyone. It was very hot, even hotter than the previous day, and a headache throbbed into life as she covered the two miles to the apartment. There, the rooms were hot and airless and she automatically pulled over the heavy curtains to block the burning light.