Letters to a Stranger Read online

  ‘How cynical you’ve become, darling.’

  ‘Yes, it’s taken me a long time, but as you can see . . . But you’ve stayed the same as ever, Teresa, always ready to forgive the unforgivable. I don’t know how you’ve managed to live among so many lies!’

  The food was spectacular, but overall it was a sad and uncomfortable meal. She’d much rather have chatted about light-hearted matters, like the times we’d shared when my mother was away, or my life in London, which she really did want to hear about. But that was impossible. It was all too fresh and, although she tried to hide it, I could see just how much recent events had hurt her.

  I didn’t much feel like spending the afternoon at Doña Alberta’s house, but the wine had affected me and I was dizzy. Aris was waiting for me just inside the house, a good distance from the door so he was safe. He watched me with a certain quiet dignity, as though seeking my approval. And, well, I did need a bit of company . . . He knew I was glad to see him and drew a little closer, until he was nuzzling against my ankles.

  ‘I like you, Aris. I never thought I’d say it, but you’re the best part of my trip home,’ I told him, stroking him carefully, since it was the first time I’d ever willingly touched an animal.

  Aris was like a snowy ball of fluff with streaks of bright reddish-brown. His ears and nose were like those of a mink, and his eyes were the clearest green. The best thing about him was his gaze: calm, forthright, incandescent . . . It made you want to float along, to go through life in peace and tranquillity, silent and mysterious.

  I answered a few emails, poked about online and made some calls to the restaurant, where they assured me that everything was running smoothly, then looked up some books on Amazon to download on to my Kindle, and finally lay down on my bed to read. I’d left all the windows in the house wide open because the lingering musk of her perfume was killing me. I’d thought about parking myself on the sofa in the sitting room to read, but couldn’t stay long enough even to sit down: the stench in there was overpowering.

  It was impossible to concentrate on what I was reading because right then my own life resembled the course of a thriller, far more intense than anything someone else might dream up. I wondered, in fact, how often reality does overshadow fiction?

  Aris lay at my side on the floor, and now and then I reached down with my arm to pet his fluffy, silken fur. He liked this and before long was lying on the bed alongside me.

  Finally I gave up, put the Kindle down on the bedside table, and surrendered to the thoughts occupying my mind until the memories floated away like the last clouds of a storm, and Aris and I slept.

  I awoke disorientated and it took a good few seconds before I knew where I was. Pouring myself a glass of tonic water, I decided it was high time to inspect every room of the house – my house. At last I could look through all the places that had been off limits when I had lived here before. I fed Aris, not sure how often a cat might expect its next meal, and then set off on my personal tour through the museum of horrors, though not before changing into more comfortable clothing as the underwire of my bra was digging into my flesh.

  I started at the beginning, in the hallway. I’d already walked through it several times since my arrival, although I hadn’t paid close attention to it. It looked the same as always with its walnut furniture and the matching mirror, umbrella stand, coat rack and chair. I went through the drawers of the sideboard, one on each side at the top, and found a set of keys, more keys, some receipts, a shoehorn, a letter opener, torch, small sewing kit, notebook and a few pens. Below the drawers was a cupboard with two doors concealing the shoe rack, which held three pairs of house shoes, some gardening boots and a pair of cream-coloured sandals. Everything was so goddamn neat and sterile . . .

  I passed by the kitchen on my left and the small cloakroom to the right, and then came to the sitting room. It was just as I remembered it, typical of any upper-middle-class family, nothing special, with an enormous mirrored cabinet holding the fine china reserved for special occasions that never came, six chairs around a sturdy table, a small table for the phone and two immaculate floral-patterned sofas in front of the TV. The smell of this room where she’d spent so much time was so intense that I could almost see it taking shape, outlining my mother’s silhouette on the sofa, watching the screen or flicking through her gossip magazines. Yes, I could see her so very clearly with her shirt buttoned just high enough to hint at her fulsome breasts; her nails perfectly painted in a pearly pink; the bracelet with a single lucky charm on it, a gold die; her make-up subtle yet deliberate. I never once saw her go without her glossy mauve lipstick and her spectacles with their golden frames, set off by her long, ash-blonde hair, not a strand out of place . . . A chill ran down my spine, but I forced myself to go on. I needed to finish my search. There was nothing unexpected in the cabinet: silver cutlery, crockery and glassware from Bohemia, custom-made hand-embroidered tablecloths . . . She always chose traditional things with established value and never took a risk. Everything of the highest quality, of course.

  I went down the main corridor. My room was on the left and five steps ahead was Yolanda’s. It was exactly like mine with a desk, bed, chair and wardrobe. She liked to show off what a fair-minded mother she was, making no distinctions between us, but everything was done to keep up appearances – all of it! I returned to my room and threw open my own wardrobe doors and . . . nothing! Two dozen wooden clothes hangers hung from the bar like naked skeletons, all identical. The cupboards, too, were empty and the drawers as barren as the rest of it. I hadn’t had time since I’d arrived to inspect the furniture in my room, and had assumed it would be full of things I hadn’t been able to take with me, or things I hadn’t wanted in the first place.

  Nothing – there was absolutely nothing in the room in which I’d cherished my most intimate secrets and desires for nineteen years. She had erased me from her life without hesitation, just as she did with everything else, without feeling or compassion, cold and ruthless. My room was no longer mine; it was empty like a room in a modern hotel chain, clean and practical. I wondered what she’d done with my journals, my poems, my box of keepsakes, my photo albums . . . my doll – the only one I’d managed to hang on to, thanks to Teresa.

  On my eleventh birthday my mother decided that I was too old to play with dolls and that there were children who needed my toys more than I did – as if she ever knew anything about what a child needs.

  I remember how I felt when I came home from school that day to find the garden full of cardboard boxes, one with the word ‘Dolls’ written on the top. I was sure that Neca was inside with the rest of them – my friend, who’d comforted me as I wept in the long nights when I lay awake, terrified of the dark, convinced that a horrible man was watching from outside the window. I sat down on the steps to the verandah without taking my eyes off that box, and with a deep, raw sorrow began to cry silently.

  ‘So much drama over a tatty old piece of cloth and rubber? Where did I go wrong with you, Berta? You’re such a spoiled and moody girl, and not on my account. I’m more and more convinced that I’ve placed far too much trust in Teresa. Now stop that ridiculous snivelling and lay the table!’

  I adored Neca with a passion, quite as though she were a real person. For years I had wanted to love and be loved so badly that I’d projected all my feelings on to her, so when I went indoors, wiping my tears away and leaving her out there, shut up in the dark in a cardboard box, I felt a mixture of hatred – for my mother as well as for myself; one a monster and the other a coward – and an emptiness that tore my insides apart.

  ‘Coming, Mama,’ I answered. That was all I said to her.

  And I swallowed my tears, which burned like fire in my throat. After clearing the table, I shut myself in my room where my silent tears fell freely. I knew I’d be punished if she heard me.

  A short while later, I heard a soft knock at the door and figured it would be Teresa telling me it was time to do my homework. It was indeed her, wit
h a bag in her hand.

  ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart,’ she said, drying my tears with her flowery handkerchief. ‘Look who I’ve got.’ She took Neca out of the bag. ‘It’s a secret, right?’ she whispered. ‘Hide her well or we’ll both be sent away.’

  It was like coming back to life, as though I’d been forgiven a huge sin and offered another chance to love and be loved.

  When I made the break from home, I’d needed to be realistic and take only things that were absolutely necessary. Everything else I packed carefully in neat boxes properly labelled, hoping that Teresa would see to their storage. Neca was in one of them, and I’d labelled that box with big clear red letters: ‘Property of Berta. Personal and important.’ I assumed that when Alberta realised I wasn’t coming back, she’d give away most of my clothes and belongings, all the handbags, jewellery and belts, but as for my personal items . . . As Yolanda and I got older she stopped poking about in our things; she believed that, just as she had her own private space, so her daughters too should enjoy the same right – provided, of course, that nothing went beyond the wardrobe or the table, everything was kept immaculate and there was no decoration on the furniture, bed or walls. And she was never one to snoop either – her respect for other people’s things lay beyond question. There had to be one good trait in her warped personality, although in her any quality was a double-edged sword.

  And now nothing was left. It was as if I’d imagined that whole world of my childhood.

  I ate dinner in the kitchen with my new friend, Aris – just an apple and some yoghurt because lunch had been so filling. Then I went to my room to read until I managed to fall asleep.

  Chapter 3

  Friday, 13 June 2014

  I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was past eleven o’clock when I woke up the next morning. I had thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep past eight, like the good adopted Englishwoman that I was. Wide awake now, I listened as Teresa bustled about the house and garden, wanting to luxuriate in bed for just a little longer.

  When eventually I got up to go to the loo, I smelled coffee. She was always a step ahead of what anyone thought of or needed. I wandered into the kitchen and she came in through the other door, the one leading out to the garden.

  ‘Good morning, love. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘You have no idea – I slept like the dead. Morning, Teresa.’

  ‘I’m so glad to hear it. Coffee is ready, and everything’s all laid out for you to make toast, if you fancy it. I’ll be done in a flash and then I have to rush out. I need to run a few errands.’

  ‘No problem – you do your thing. Aris will keep me company, won’t you?’ I said, looking at the cat, fluffy as a cuddly toy, who gazed right back at me as though in answer.

  ‘Oh, so he’s called Aris now, is he? I like that better than the longer name . . .’

  ‘Me too.’

  She finished watering the plants as I ate my leisurely breakfast; back in London it was already almost lunchtime. Between sips of aromatic coffee and bites of toast, I decided that later this afternoon, as soon as I was alone, I would finally venture into the most difficult room of all: my mother’s bedroom. It wasn’t long before Teresa left, saying she would see me tomorrow, and thanking me again for inviting her to lunch at such a wonderful restaurant the day before. She always had a grateful word on her lips.

  The door was partially open and I pushed it gently, afraid to look inside, and then . . . Suddenly I couldn’t take another step, as if there were an invisible wall blocking the entrance. It was that same powerful scent, making my throat constrict. I broke out in a sweat and my heart started racing. It felt as though I were at the top of a great height and about to jump to my death, an irrational fear – I knew that – but the sensation was so vivid that it terrified me. Looking down to pull myself together, I met Aris’s penetrating gaze, which appeared to say, Are we going in or not? Placing my hand over my thumping heart, I took the first step.

  Two folders lay on the bed, one labelled ‘House and Contents’ and the other ‘Insurance and Receipts’. Teresa had probably had to go through them to prepare for the funeral, or to give the solicitor something he needed. I opened the wardrobe cautiously, since that seemed to be the source of the unbearable stench and, holding my breath, quickly scanned its contents. Everything was displayed as neatly as in a shop window, so tidy it was shocking. I needed to breathe and the smell made me so dizzy I had to sit down. From the foot of the bed, the gaping wardrobe reminded me of a madwoman screaming out her confession.

  After a moment I felt a little better and approached the chest of drawers, opening its drawers one by one. The contents were just like everything else: knickers, tights, handkerchiefs, all folded as tidily as the miniatures in a doll’s house. One of the drawers was locked and I guessed that was where she kept her jewellery. I must remember to ask Teresa.

  Next, I peered into the en suite from the doorway. My mother only used it at night, because it didn’t have a bathtub. She loved hot baths so always preferred the main bathroom, which also had better lighting for applying her make-up. Next door to her en suite was her true sanctuary – a small sitting room for her personal use, which could only be accessed from her bedroom. It was the most sacrosanct space in the whole house, and until now I’d never been in it, at least not that I could remember. Once Yolanda had dared me to sneak in, demanding I go with her in a way that was not her usual style, as though she were afraid to enter alone. Knowing how daring and reckless she was, I’d been surprised. In the end, the little room was locked so we’d searched the wardrobe instead. I must have been really young because I have only the vaguest memories of this event. I don’t remember what I saw, only the unshakeable feeling that my sister was as much afraid of that room as she was strongly drawn to it, as though she had been there before and experienced something traumatic. Despite the haziness of that memory, it must have scarred me deeply and was doubtless the reason for the hideous fear I’d felt ever since. From then on and for years afterwards, I was convinced that all the ghoulies and ghosties lived there, kept locked up by my mother, and that when she went to bed at night she opened the door to give them full rein over the house and garden.

  The room wasn’t locked now. I had to turn on the light because there wasn’t even a window in there to see by. She must have done that intentionally when the house was built, or maybe later for some strange reason that I had always suspected my sister was in on. It didn’t make any sense, because one of the walls faced the garden and the room would have had a lovely view of the jasmine, not to mention its fragrant scent in summertime. Instead there was an air conditioner. I couldn’t help thinking how much the dark room resembled my mother – at first glance you wouldn’t know anything was amiss with its round table, the squishy brown-leather easy chair, stereo system, TV set and shelves full of old opera records and magazines. One of said magazines lay open on the table at the crossword, alongside a pen and a small laptop. It seemed extraordinary that she’d been up to date with the latest technologies, but I guess that explained why the house was connected to the internet.

  I didn’t touch a thing but felt deeply disappointed – I’d expected a whole lot more from the room where she’d spent so many hours locked away. I don’t know . . . I guess I’d thought I’d find slanderous letters, photo albums exposing a secret past – which surely she must have – pornographic films . . . All I knew was that there must be something in here important enough to be locked away, to arouse so much dread and curiosity in Yolanda. We knew that when our mother went to her room after dinner she didn’t go to bed right away but sat in that little room for hours, because we saw the light under her door, filtering out into the main bedroom, and heard the music echoing long into the night. She never slept well. Every morning she would greet us with the same words: ‘Morning, girls. What a dreadful night that was.’ Then we knew she’d be in a bad mood and have a headache later on that day – the same as every day.

  In my imaginatio
n, she had possessed some minute fragments of a heart at some point and kept them protected within those four walls. Sometimes I wondered if she was locking herself away to grieve for a lost love or to atone for her sins: her evident contempt for the world and for her daughters. Knowing that the self she kept hidden away was simply listening to old records and doing crossword puzzles was a huge disappointment and one more to add to the list. The more I saw of her life, the darker and emptier it looked. I walked all around the table, searching in every corner, but didn’t find a single bloody clue to shed light on the dark secret I’d imagined she’d had to lock up in that windowless chamber. A sharp stab of pain jabbed in my head – the lack of explanations was making me sick.

  I’d come back to Madrid thinking nothing I could find here would affect me, but now my memories were plaguing me more cruelly than ever. When I first got to London it was easy to bury my past with my extreme change in circumstances, the gruelling days at work, hope and the unfamiliar sensation of freedom – along with the distance. I’d thought the pain would just go away all by itself, but, no, it was still alive deep within me, and now I was once more bringing it to the surface. Aris had stopped just outside the door; he’d come into the bedroom but wouldn’t set foot in this room. Maybe he didn’t realise yet that he no longer had to obey the absurd orders of his mistress.

  Feeling faint, I cut short my tour. In any case, my phone was ringing insistently in my pocket. It was Emily, my business accountant and now my good friend; she just wanted to know how I was doing in Spain and to reassure me that everything was fine at the restaurant. ‘It’s getting better and better, Berta – fourteen tables booked for tonight. That’s not bad at all,’ she told me, before saying goodbye in her peculiar attempt at Spanish. I was relieved everything was going so well in my absence.