Letters to a Stranger Read online

  ‘So he had another wife before marrying my mother? I didn’t know that. Well, I don’t really know anything. I guess he was widowed?’

  ‘No, they never married.’

  ‘Well, no need to say any more – I’m guessing Alberta came between them.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, dear.’

  ‘You’re telling me! Was anything in my mother’s life simple?’

  ‘These things just happen. They fell in love – Fabián was head over heels for your mother. You have no idea how beautiful she was . . .’ Her eyes lit up.

  ‘I saw a photograph of their wedding in the attic, and yes, she was pretty, unbelievably so. So what happened next?’ I was dying to hear the interesting part, and could see she was ready to spill the beans.

  ‘The marriage wasn’t easy for them. Loreto never accepted your mother, and since Manuel died shortly after his only son’s marriage, the two of them decided to move to Madrid. They didn’t like it in Valladolid any more. Then Fabián got sick and . . . well, you know the rest.’

  ‘How did Fabián die?’

  ‘A brain tumour – you know that already,’ she answered, and I could tell she was done with talking. She’d been quite relaxed until I asked the last question.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Teresa. I’m not a child any more. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘He lost his mind. One day he went out for a walk and he never came back, that’s all. Your mother preferred to tell everyone he’d died so no one would gossip. She said that people respect the dead more than they respect people who go missing . . . She also thought it would be easier for Yolanda.’

  ‘Of course, and, by the way, she also told people the tragedy had happened while she was pregnant. It was all so well done. Do you know that her mother-in-law never believed at all that her son had simply wandered off and disappeared?’

  ‘Well, that’s normal. What mother would want to believe it?’ Teresa answered, toying nervously with her flowery scarf.

  ‘No, Teresa, none of this is normal – nothing that happened in my mother’s life is normal. She was a dreadful woman and an unscrupulous predator. No, I don’t believe for one moment that he disappeared, just like I don’t believe anything she told me her whole life. It was all one big sham.’

  ‘Sweetheart . . . you’re really starting to upset me. It’s all water under the bridge now,’ she said a little more kindly, in another attempt to persuade me to drop it.

  ‘Well, apparently some of the water is flowing right on back again. Here we are fifteen years later trying to figure out if there’s any truth in this family at all.’

  ‘But that’s all there is. Why keep looking?’

  ‘That’s all there is? There’s something about your story that just doesn’t feel quite right, Teresa – there’s something missing. Let me guess. Let’s see if my version makes more sense than yours.’

  ‘Another time, darling, I have so much work to do . . .’

  ‘Wait, it’ll only take a second. You see, I think it happened like this—’

  ‘My dear, I don’t like you talking this way. We’ve only just buried your mother and I hate hearing you talk about her like this.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But please, don’t leave yet – listen to how I think the story goes . . .’

  Looking more closely now at her sad face, I thought twice about telling her my version. I didn’t want to hurt her, but on the other hand I needed her to know that my suspicions were more logical than her weak arguments. I needed her to stop sugar-coating the truth and hiding information from me.

  ‘OK then, this is how I reckon it really went. Fabián’s a well-to-do chap about to marry his long-term girlfriend, when he’s swept off his feet by Señorita Alberta, who’s expecting more than a comfortable life. Her mother-in-law twigs that her son’s new wife isn’t entirely pure in her motivation, so she tries to sabotage their life together. The beautiful Mrs de Castro consequently decides to put some distance between them, and convinces her husband to move to Madrid, where they’ll no longer be under his mother’s thumb. Inexplicably, for some strange reason, Fabián starts having mental problems, and his wife makes sure he’s incapacitated while handling his father’s inheritance. Then, once more inexplicably,’ I said, emphasising the last word as Teresa’s expression changed, ‘he disappears for good. And the best part is that she already has a younger and more handsome lover in place, just dumb enough not to think things through too carefully and with even more wads of cash than her husband had.’

  ‘That’s only your version,’ Teresa interjected, looking more and more uncomfortable. ‘It all depends on how you look at it, but you’re assuming too much, especially considering you weren’t even born yet. I never meddled in your mother’s business – you know how private she was with her personal affairs. All I know is that Fabián started ranting and raving and every day he was a little odder, and that wasn’t the first time he’d gone missing. Once a neighbour had to bring him home, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that one day he wouldn’t come home at all. He even got lost out in the garden . . . Anyway, I need to go.’

  ‘Teresa, you know that at first I planned to stay here only for a week and return to my life as soon as possible. I promise you, that sounds like a better scenario than all of this. But I’ve decided now that I can’t leave until I’ve tidied up every corner of my past. I know you can help me settle this as soon as possible. It’s your decision.’

  She didn’t say anything else; she didn’t even say goodbye. She took off her apron and, without going back to the garden to gather the tools she’d been using, simply left the house, slamming the door in a way that was not like her at all.

  I decided to get ready and eat in town before doing my shopping. There was a call on the landline just as I was about to leave. It was someone from the hospital where my mother had been brought, already dead, reminding the family to pick up the patient’s belongings, even though she hadn’t really been a patient since she’d arrived at the hospital and been taken straight to the mortuary. I only survived the stench in the corner where the phone was because it took a mere ten seconds for them to give me the message.

  The hospital was on my way into town, so I stopped by and played my role as the ‘good daughter’. They gave me a black bag, tied with a clumsy knot. If there’d been a rubbish bin on my way to the car, I would have thrown it out in a second.

  It felt good to walk through town and distract myself with all the shop windows and pedestrians. Watching them, I imagined their lives, each as distinct as they were normal. People with straightforward lives: a job, a family, a mortgage . . . I was sure that, however unspeakable their secrets, they could never compare with those that Alberta had taken with her to the grave. As I walked through the heart of old Madrid, I knew that I’d come back to fulfil a mission and couldn’t leave without victory.

  I felt the stares of everyone I passed on the street. I’d said as much to Teresa: something about me was different and London had marked me in some way that was obvious to the people of Madrid. I wore comfortable clothes, carefully chosen but nothing special (so no one in the city would recognise me). I’d learned to make the most of myself and take care of my body. Even my haircut enhanced and showed off my features. The overall effect might come across as informal, as though I’d just tossed my clothes on in the morning, but no. It was the result of years of effort to hide the dull, chubby girl I used to be. I was wearing jeans that fitted perfectly, the result of trying on dozens in my favourite store in London. My best friend Mary had excellent taste and the patience of a saint, and she always came along with me. To go with my jeans I wore a basic white cotton shirt, a subtle black print vest, blue trainers and a belt that accentuated my slender waist. The most important aspect was that I felt confident in the way I looked.

  I ate lunch at the Corte Inglés. While they served me, I took the opportunity to write emails to Harry, Mary and Emily, whom I missed a lot during these moments of leisure and window-shoppi
ng. Three trivial messages:

  Hi, how’s everything going? It’s all going fine over here . . .

  I didn’t want to share with them anything I was going through in Madrid; my mother was my dirty laundry, which I didn’t want anyone else to see. I’d never lied to them, but I hadn’t been totally honest either, partly because even I didn’t know the truth about her. To my friends, acquaintances and employees, I was just a young Spanish girl who’d settled in London after coming over to look for work, end of story. I thought about my relationship with Mary, who I knew absolutely everything about and who I still didn’t trust with anything important about my own past.

  I was lost in such thoughts when my phone rang. It was Señor Soler, informing me that the paperwork was going to be held up another few days for bureaucratic reasons; apparently the fact my sister lived so far away was complicating things. ‘I’m sorry to delay your return to London, Señorita Berta. We’re doing everything we can to hurry it along. I’ll keep you informed,’ he said in closing. I wasn’t too bothered – I’d already accepted that I would be spending more time in Madrid than I’d planned.

  After lunch I did some shopping and then headed home. I was surprised by just how excited I was at the thought that Aris would be waiting for me at the house. I happened to be passing through the pet food aisle at the market, so bought him some special tins to make him happy.

  I parked at the front of the house and took all my bags from the boot, including the one they’d given me at the hospital. Aris was indeed waiting for me, and as soon as he heard me pull up and saw I wasn’t coming straight to the front door, he came out through the cat flap to greet me. I stroked him affectionately and told him I’d brought him a surprise. He responded by closing his eyes, enjoying being spoiled.

  I put the black bag down in the corner of the kitchen and left the rest on the worktop. While I put away the shopping I tried to settle on a plan for the afternoon. There were several hours of daylight left – it was early summer and the days were especially long and mild. But the attic would have to wait today. I didn’t feel up to facing any more of its secrets.

  Once Aris had enthusiastically devoured my gift, we went to my bedroom and I read well into the evening. The thriller on my new Kindle was proving a good distraction, although it didn’t even come close to my own tragic family history. I reflected that any writer would struggle to put my experiences down on paper and make the story credible. My phone rang a couple of times – the restaurant suppliers were used to dealing with me direct on our orders.

  Before going to bed for the night, I made myself a salad and took a shower. The landline rang several times while I was in the shower. Whoever it was, they wanted to talk to me and hadn’t checked the time before calling: it was almost eleven o’clock at night. Now in bed, with Aris at my feet, Neca at my side and the thriller on my Kindle in my hands, the phone rang again. Resignedly, I lifted the sheets and went off to look for the phone, breathing through my mouth to avoid the overpowering smell in the sitting room.

  ‘Hello?’ I said grumpily.

  ‘Hello, Berta.’

  I recognised her voice instantly, although her tone, lacking the sarcastic enthusiasm I remembered so well, sounded strange to my ears. It was Yolanda. I was so stunned I couldn’t speak, and she asked: ‘Berta? Berta, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ I managed to say, recovering a bit from my shock. My voice wavered and I started to smell my mother’s perfume again.

  ‘How is it being back home?’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you . . . What do you want, Yolanda? Why are you calling?’ I answered, trying to hide how upset I was to hear from her.

  ‘I suppose the solicitor told you the terms I suggested regarding the inheritance—’

  ‘Yes, I heard about it,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Good. Berta . . .’ she said, and then there was an uncomfortable silence at the other end of the phone.

  ‘I’m waiting. I’d like to go back to bed. I don’t think you know what time it is here. Honestly, I’m not sure why you’re calling at all.’

  ‘Sell up and go back to London. I promise you, that’s the best advice I can give you. Leave as soon as you can.’

  ‘Leave . . . ? Funny, that sounds like a threat to me.’ Despite how distraught I was, I found the strength to answer her. ‘I have the strangest feeling that if you’re wanting me to sell up and leave as soon as possible, it would somehow be to your advantage. I’ll go when I bloody well feel like it. By the way, there’s still time for you to claim your share.’

  ‘Listen to me – get out of there! Goodbye, little sister.’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that I won’t be taking your advice. Goodbye.’

  The pleasant drowsiness that had almost kept me from answering the phone had vanished.

  Except for those times when the intense smell of my mother’s expensive perfume hit me and I briefly fell back into the agonising past, I’d pretty much managed to remember that fifteen years had gone by since I’d left. Even though I was living in the same setting as during the worst years of my life, I was constantly aware that my role in that macabre performance was more than over. But Yolanda’s voice had now erased the line that separated logic from imagination. And then . . . it’s not that I returned to the past per se, just that I had the horrifying feeling that I’d never left that goddamn house at all – as though the fifteen years I’d lived so far away were all an illusion. Knowing how vulnerable I was – that after all this time I was still a victim of Yolanda and my mother – was unbearable.

  I went back to bed with Aris and Neca, my heart pounding in my chest. ‘Sell up and go back to London’, my older sister had dared to order me. What did it matter to her what I did with my inheritance and my life, since she’d never even cared about my existence at all? Previously, I’d suspected that she was heavily involved in Bodo’s disappearance, but now I was sure of it. For some mysterious reason, my staying in our house in Madrid worried her enough that she had to make that absurd call. I’m sure she thought I was still the same foolish, naive person I used to be, the girl she could manipulate at will to get away with all her bad behaviour and lies, when just a few words from her would scare me into doing whatever she wanted. But she’d underestimated me: she didn’t seem to have changed at all, but I had. I’d gained something valuable when I moved far away from her and Alberta.

  I didn’t fall asleep until my pulse had settled, and even then I didn’t stay asleep for long.

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday, 17 June 2014

  I had terrible nightmares that night. I should have got up to make myself some soothing camomile tea, but was too terrified. Just beyond my bedroom door, Alberta’s spirit was wandering through her domain, waiting for me in every object, around every corner, in the very air contaminated with her ghastly scent. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and hugged Neca just like I did when I was a little girl, trying to tell myself I was in my flat in London, far away from this unhinged environment, or giving orders in my restaurant kitchen, but I was unable to calm myself until the first fingers of dawn had crept in through the bedroom curtains and cast out all the menacing shadows surrounding me.

  After tidying myself up a bit, I went down into the kitchen. Teresa was there, slicing vegetables.

  ‘Hi, Teresa.’

  ‘Hello there, love. Every day you’re getting up a little bit later! Did you sleep all right? You don’t look so good.’

  ‘No, I think it was one of the worst nights of my entire life, in fact.’

  ‘Oh my goodness! Why?’

  ‘Yolanda called last night.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ Teresa exclaimed, stopping what she was doing to stare at me in surprise. ‘Well, I’m glad she thought to call and talk to you. It’s about time you two saw reason and let bygones be bygones, now that you’re older.’ She fussed on, trying to minimise what had happened years before, but she must have known it would not have been a pleasant call. ‘Go on, sit
down, love, and I’ll make you some breakfast.’

  ‘It was a very short conversation,’ I told her, with no intention of sitting down yet.

  ‘Well, at least it’s a start.’

  ‘She seemed very eager for me to get rid of everything and go back to London. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?’

  ‘Sweetheart, your sister’s right – there’s nothing to keep you here now.’

  ‘Sure, but . . . what does it matter to her what I do with my life, especially since we haven’t seen each other in fifteen years?’

  ‘I’m sure she said it for your own good, because she knows how hard it is for you to be here after the way you left.’

  ‘Oh please, Teresa!’ I blurted out, raising my voice. Her words seemed more cynical than conciliatory, even though I knew that wasn’t like her. ‘She was trying to find something out. I’m not sure why, but I think for some reason she needed to know if I was planning on staying here, and she wasn’t thinking about me, she was thinking of herself. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I do know that my being in Madrid is making her nervous. I didn’t tell her much, as you might have guessed.’

  ‘Oh dear, don’t be so negative. It’s been a long time, and people do change. Just look at you – you’re like a different person.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re serious or if you’re making fun of me. This is Yolanda we’re talking about, remember? The Yolanda who married my father for money? No, Teresa, she hasn’t changed, and neither did my mother. I don’t know how you could have stood being around them year after year. I can’t tell if you just didn’t notice, or if you’re a saint,’ I said, knowing full well that she was the most perceptive person who’d ever set foot in this house.

  ‘Your mother was always good to me, and you two were like my own daughters.’

  Sitting down as Teresa served me breakfast, I noticed that the bag of my mother’s personal items was still in the same place where I’d left it the day before.