Bay of Secrets (38 page)

There’s always a blind spot.

Or was it when she felt the bike spinning under them, out of his control? When Vivien was flung away and off the seat of the bike and on to the road? Was it when she heard the squeal of brakes or the cruel discordant sound of metal on metal; harsh, grating? Was it the moment of impact? Ruby shuddered.

Then blackness. Was that when? Was that when she knew she was going to die?

Ruby opened her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep any more tonight.

They said it had been instantaneous for both of them. They were dead in seconds. No time then even to think about what might have been.

She curled on to her side and felt for Andrés even though she knew he wasn’t there. There was no warm body in the bed beside her. Not even a cosy dent where he had been sleeping – as if he’d simply got up to make tea, perhaps.

No Andrés. No parents. Ruby was alone.

*

That afternoon, she went back to the house for the last time. Her parents’ house; the house of her childhood. The sale had gone through now and Ruby felt only relief. She wiggled the key to open the front door, went into each room one by one to say her final goodbye. The kitchen where her mother had cooked for them all; the bedrooms where they had slept; the living room where Vivien had painted her watercolours. The place seemed so different without their furniture, without them. It was empty, just a vacant shell where once there had been her family, her life; their laughter, their voices, their tears.

She went into the garden her mother had so loved. The grass needed cutting. The white roses and sweet peas were still blooming; their scents heady in the air. Ruby plucked the letter Vivien had written from her bag. It was time. She
didn’t want to be angry with her parents any longer. This was her chance to find out what her mother had really thought. She slid her thumbnail under the seal.

Tears filled Ruby’s eyes until she could barely read the final words. Yes, of course, she forgave her. Yes, of course she understood.
Always your loving mother
 … And it was true. Vivien had always been her mother in the true sense of the word. She had saved her, nurtured her, loved her. And her father had loved Ruby too. No two people could have done more. Vivien had been generous in her life and she was generous now in these words to her daughter. She had understood that Ruby needed to know the truth and so she had left that shoebox in the wardrobe for her to find. She knew her daughter. She’d known that Ruby wouldn’t rest until she found out the whole story. And she’d also understood that Ruby would need to find Laura. To fill in the final gaps.

She walked back into the house. She left the keys on the hall table for the new occupiers. She’d drop another set into the estate agents later.

Ruby opened the front door and she didn’t look back. That letter … It proved, didn’t it, that she was doing the right thing?

Dorset, 20 March 2012

‘Ready, love?’ Tom stood there in his black leather jacket looking just the part – at over sixty years old. Vivien had to smile.
Easy Rider
 …

‘Ready.’ She bent to pull on the laced ankle boots Tom had bought her last Christmas. ‘For my biker girl,’ he’d said. She wound her hair back in a loose chignon she could tuck under the helmet and shrugged on her own jacket. And she was no spring chicken. More like hell’s granny.

Tom was grinning.

‘What?’

‘You look just as beautiful as the day I first saw you at Charmouth Fair,’ he said.

‘Get on with you.’

‘Truly.’

And you, she thought.
If paradise is half as nice
 … Had he changed so much? He’d always wanted a bike – right from when he was sixteen. He’d even had one briefly when they were first married. Before money was tight. Before Ruby …

Vivien followed him out of the front door. The red speed-machine
(as Tom sometimes called it) was waiting, gleaming clean.

He handed her the crash helmet.

And again she found herself thinking. Should she – or shouldn’t she? She wanted to talk to her, she really did. She’d wanted to tell her for years. Ruby deserved to know. She ought to know. But there was Tom to consider.
I don’t reckon I could do it, love
 …

Tom swung himself on to the bike and revved the engine. ‘Let’s be having you,’ he said.

Caring for Ruby hadn’t altered her life with Tom, Vivien thought, not really. For her part, it had made life richer, and she reckoned that Tom felt the same; he adored that girl. They both did. No two people could have loved Ruby more.

She climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms around his back. Lovely. She leant in close. They were as much in love now as they had ever been. And so much to look forward to. Weren’t they always walking, talking, making plans – especially now that Ruby was grown up, happy, independent; everything that Vivien could have wanted for her.

Ruby. She felt the rush as they took off and the bike gathered speed, heading for Pride Bay. Vivien had always loved Ruby as if she was their own. Over the years she’d almost let herself forget she wasn’t their own. Only sometimes in the night she would wake in a panic and think: Laura.

Over the years she had often wondered. What if Laura suddenly turned up out of the blue and demanded back her child? How would they cope? How would Ruby cope? But
of course she never did. Laura had loved her daughter – what was in that shoebox she left had told Vivien that much, even if she hadn’t seen the expression in the poor girl’s eyes. But Laura had made a decision that night of the storm – for better or worse – and she had stuck to it. As for Ruby – what was in that shoebox would tell her how much she’d been loved, and that was all anyone really needed to know, wasn’t it? How much they’d been loved?

Vivien looked across the road to Colmer’s Hill – at the trees perched on the top, always a symbol of West Dorset to her. It hadn’t taken her long to fall for Dorset. They’d had to come back here. And Tom was right – it was a beautiful day, the sky a milky blue opal, the hills as fresh and green as springtime.

She had protected her daughter from the truth – all Vivien had ever wanted was to protect her; protect their lives together too. But Ruby had the right to the truth. Vivien tightened her hold. Didn’t everyone? Even if it hurt?

Whether she decided to do anything with the knowledge – well, that was up to Ruby. Vivien would tell her the whole story, she decided. Next weekend, when she came to visit. She had to. And then Ruby could decide. Her daughter was strong, resourceful and independent – hadn’t she brought her up that way? She’d be able to deal with it. And it was the right thing to do. Tom would see that, he had to.

Tom slowed at the roundabout. ‘Isn’t life exciting, my lovely?’ he yelled back at her.

‘Yes!’ She could hear the adrenalin in his voice. She
thought of the waltzer and her first sight of the tall boy with the dark hair and the brown eyes flecked with amber, and she held on even tighter as he swung the bike out to overtake a car.

If paradise
 … It was exciting, all right. With Tom, life always was.

Ruby was relieved to arrive at her hotel, have a shower and relax with a cup of coffee before she set out to explore the village.

She walked through the maze of shady backstreets of the old town, past rundown traditional buildings – whitewashed stone with slabs of volcanic lava rock creating pattern and contrast on the walls. The place was quirky rather than pretty – a boat parked in the road where you might expect a car to be, the Vaca restaurant in the harbour – with a statue of a blue cow on its roof. She had to smile. On the other side of the harbour, the grey rocks formed a high cliff, the words:
La Virgen de Buen Viaje
painted in white on the rock, a fisherman’s wife set in stone on the cobbles of Calle Muelle de Pescadores, looking out to sea. Wishing the fishermen a good journey perhaps? Or maybe just waiting for her man?

Ruby leant on the wooden rail, looked out at the ocean beyond and thought of Andrés. She’d have to wait a long time for him. She hadn’t heard a word from him since she’d left the studio three days ago now. No surprise there. Would he ever forgive her for coming here to the island of his birth? And would she ever forgive him for the way he’d reacted, for
letting her come alone? Well, she wouldn’t think about that now. She was here – that was all that mattered. She must focus on the search in hand. And she looked up to see a flock of pigeons flying in formation, their wings silver-white against the deep blue of the summer sky. Rundown, perhaps – but there was something special about this place.

‘Go for it,’ Mel had said when she called her to tell her she was coming out here.

‘I’ll only be there a week or so,’ Ruby told her. But she could hear that sadness again in Mel’s voice and she hoped she wasn’t deserting her in her hour of need. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked her.

‘I’m fine.’ And she could almost see her friend straightening her back, tossing back her auburn hair and applying another coat of lippie. She wasn’t about to let Ruby worry about her. Even so – she did.

Ruby pulled the photographs out of her bag. There was nothing here to indicate that this was the same location. The beach in the photos was pale gold, this one was stony and grey; the beach house was built of orange stone, while the houses here were mostly white and blue. Still …

The sun was low in the sky and Ruby realised how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten on the plane and had been too churned up this morning for breakfast. Because after all, there was a chance that Laura might live here. There was just a chance that in the next few days Ruby might even meet her. She might talk to her mother, find out the identity of her father. Anything. She felt herself almost
regressing into childhood at the thought. She must remember to breathe …

At the bottom of the road, looking out over the rocks of the Old Harbour and the inky blue sea, was another sculpture – of a boat, two bronze fishermen pushing it up the beach. And more importantly for Ruby, there was a harbour tapas bar serving beer, fresh prawns and paella. She made her way down there.

Andrés and Laura … It seemed incredible that two people so linked to her own life had both lived in this place, she thought to herself. That they might have both once sat here and eaten prawns like she was doing, looked out over the Old Harbour like the fisherman’s wife up there on the hill. Watched the sun going down beyond the sea at the horizon, just as she was right now. The sky was filled with pink and red and yellow, the sea was dense as night time. Behind her, the tables emptied and Ruby sat on, watching the sunset, feeling the rhythm of the slinky waves, lost in a dream.

When she finally came to pay the bill, the waiter – just a young boy really, probably the son or nephew of the proprietor, she guessed – took the money and spoke to her in almost perfect English.

Ruby took a chance. ‘Do you know where Enrique Marin lives?’ she asked. ‘The artist?’

‘
Si
, but of course.’ He sounded surprised that she should have to ask. ‘Go up this street, turn right. It is the blue house, Casa Azul. It has a water fountain in the front garden and a carob tree. You will not miss it.’

‘Thank you.’ Ruby smiled and gave him a generous tip. This seemed a friendly place; there was definitely a good vibe to it. And now she knew where Enrique Marin lived.

She would go there – first thing tomorrow.

*

The blue house was exactly where the boy had said it would be and Ruby stood there for a few moments, imagining it as the modest traditional building it had once been and which Andrés himself had described to her. Whitewashed stone, blue paintwork, tiny windows, a smallholding out the back. Now, the Casa Azul was rather grand. It was three storeys high – the top storey almost all glass, with outside terraces, blue tiles and what looked like a plunge pool. And in the front garden was the shady carob tree and the fountain the boy had mentioned – a water feature really, very dramatic and made of steel. Definitely the home of an artist – and a successful artist at that.

Ruby took a deep breath, pushed back her shoulders and opened the wrought iron gate – also painted blue. She walked up the path to the front door, knocked and waited.

After a moment, the door opened and a woman of about seventy stood there. Far from looking like the wife of a successful artist, she was small and plain and wore an apron over a simple navy dress. Her dark hair was greying and pinned back from a face that was brown and lined. She wore no jewellery or make-up and her eyes were warm but wary. Ruby scrutinised her carefully, but she could see no look of Andrés about her. But this must – mustn’t it – be his mother?