36
The sun has clambered like an adventurer to the top edge of the sky while we’ve been walking, and the buildings of the Old Town glow bright white around us. Yesterday’s rain has scattered bougainvillea petals across the light grey cobbles and the sky is a freshly laundered blue. The dust is for once settled, and the air seems cleaner somehow, the tangy scent of lemons and wild herbs tickling at our nostrils as we make our slow way through the streets.
Now that I know Nancy is pregnant, I find myself aware of every uneven surface and steep path, the urge to keep my arms wrapped safely around her a difficult one to quell. Everywhere I look, an Indalo Man seems to gaze back at me, more relevant and poignant now than it has ever been. All this time I selfishly assumed that it existed to keep me safe and comforted, but of course what it really represents is the need within ourselves to look after others. Perhaps when you feel safe, you are more able to tend to the protection of others? Or maybe it’s a whole lot simpler than that, and you just naturally look after the people you care the most about. I don’t intend to ever forget that fundamental lesson.
The bells in the church begin to chime just as we reach our destination, stilling the pair of us into a reverent silence, and I wait until I cannot detect even the vibration of their sound before bringing up my hand and tapping my knuckles against the wood.
She’s at home, just as I knew she would be.
Elaine makes a pot of tea and listens while I explain why we’re there. As soon as she hears Nancy’s news, a smile spreads across her face and I know then that I did the right thing by introducing the two of them. Once I’m finished, Elaine recounts her own story once again, this time with fewer punctuations of pain, but it’s still enough to move Nancy to tears.
‘Did you ever see your daughter again?’ she asks, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue from the box that Elaine has just thrust in her direction.
Elaine shakes her head. ‘No. But I think about her every day.’
‘Do you regret having her in the first place?’ Nancy wants to know, which seems like an odd question to me, but Elaine doesn’t seem to mind.
‘Of course not,’ she smiles, her eyes flickering down to where Nancy is again resting her hand on the tiny swell of her stomach. ‘I love her just as much now as I did then – and I always will love her, just the same.’
I interrupt them to tell Nancy about the rainbows, and how Elaine had ended up here in Mojácar. My sister’s eyes are wide, and she starts to look properly at all the artwork on the surrounding walls.
‘When I found out I was pregnant, I felt sick,’ Nancy says. ‘I couldn’t help but feel angry at the baby, which is so unfair, I know. The thing is, I wanted to be a TV presenter. It sounds silly, but I even had an internship set up this summer at ITV – and now I have to give it all up.’
‘No, you don’t,’ I say, incredulous. ‘You can still do whatever you want with your life even if you do keep the baby. It’s a baby, not a ball and chain.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Nancy asks, and I assure her that I do.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ she says then. ‘Because I’ve always known deep down that I’m going to keep it. I’m so scared, though – what if I’m a terrible mother?’
I see a single tear slide down Elaine’s cheek.
‘You won’t be,’ she says, smiling at me for confirmation, and I nod.
‘She’s right, you won’t.’
‘I’m scared,’ Nancy says again, and I fear my heart might split open inside my chest.
‘I know you are,’ I tell her, my voice choked. ‘But you won’t have to do it alone. You have me, and you have your mum and dad – and my mum.’
‘Your mum?’ Nancy is surprised, but I laugh and wipe my eyes.
‘Oh yes – she’s going to be over the bloody moon, trust me.’
‘What about James?’ Nancy insists, and I wish I had an answer for her that would fix that broken smile she keeps bravely trying to wear.
‘I don’t know,’ I tell her truthfully. ‘But at least now you won’t have to face him on your own.’
‘My friend Amy is after him,’ she says then, her voice faraway as she presumably detaches herself from the misery of those words. ‘I called her the other day and he was there, I could just tell.’
‘Perhaps he was reaching out?’ I suggest, attempting to soothe. ‘Try not to worry about him just yet, okay? We can deal with him later.’
It’s easier said than put into action, though, and I’m relieved when Elaine takes over.
‘Can I paint you both?’ she asks, and we turn to her in surprise at the abrupt change of subject. ‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ Elaine chuckles, picking up her mug of tea. ‘I am an artist, you know.’
‘But you do landscapes,’ I say stupidly, and she grins.
‘Only because I’ve never found a human subject worth doing. Come on, it will be fun. We can go down to La Fuente before anyone else is up.’
‘You mean paint us now?’ Nancy is aghast. Even in her strange catatonic state, she’s realised that a grotty old T-shirt probably isn’t the best garment to be painted in, whereas I, in an even grittier twist of fate, am still wearing the shirt that I pinched from Theo’s wardrobe.
‘I can lend you a dress each?’ Elaine adds, taking in our anxious expressions, and to my surprise Nancy is the first to agree.
‘Go on, then,’ she says, reaching across to shake Elaine’s proffered hand. ‘It will be fun.’
My initial confusion over Elaine’s motivations for painting us slips away about ten minutes after she’s positioned us down at La Fuente, and I watch as the tension seems to evaporate from my sister just like the water from the marble basins around us. What Elaine realised that I didn’t was that Nancy needed some quiet time to simply sit and think. I know, because I needed it, too, and there’s something about being down here in this particular spot, with the sound of the water running and the innate sense of history trickling through the very stone upon which we’re now sitting, that makes it perfect for contemplation. The story about Elaine’s baby, the confrontation with Theo, finding Nancy at the apartment, the argument with Tom and even the news that I’m going to be an auntie all take a quiet back seat in my mind, each problem patiently waiting its turn to come up and be examined in more detail. Some are more troubling than others, of course, and for Nancy there is only really one to consider. I imagine I can see the cogs whirring behind her eyes now as she gazes up towards where Elaine has set up her easel, the sound of her pencil against the sketch pad indecipherable behind the constantly trickling water.
Rainbows dance in the air around us, and I see Nancy’s expression flicker as she notices them for the first time. How must it feel, I wonder, to know that you have another life inside you, one that you made? I’d always thought that it must seem alien and uncomfortable, but now it simply feels magical. Then again, Mojácar has a knack of doing that, of dusting those who discover it with its bewitching sense of mysticism and beauty. There has always been magic here, and now, finally, I have seen it in action.