Chapter 25
December arrived. Puerto Pollensa had wound down for the winter. Many hotels and restaurants had closed their doors for the season and most of the sun-seeking holidaymakers had moved south to the year-round warmth of the Canary Islands. The golden beaches were now largely empty and Mimi was able to jog along the sand without having to worry about bumping into dawdling tourists.
Out-of-season Majorca was still pretty great, though. The warm sunny days might be less frequent than before, but she was settling in and enjoying herself. The British expats who’d made the place their home were friendly and sociable, and she’d got to know many of them. On Wednesdays, the weekly market was held in the town square, which was a central meeting point lined with bars and restaurants. She’d been greeted with enthusiasm, invited along to social events and urged to try cycling trips and windsurfing. For a few weeks she’d even been persuaded to join a local art group, which had only increased her admiration for Cal, having proven to herself that she really couldn’t paint at all.
She still had plenty of work to keep her busy, too. With fewer people around and less to distract him, CJ was actually sitting down and getting a lot more work done. When the writing was going well, his mood improved, and Mimi, picking her moments with care, was able to persuade him to agree to appear at various literary festivals and other events in the new year.
And then one evening, quite without warning, she found out more about CJ than she’d ever expected to know.
It started when she emerged from the shower in her apartment and heard loud music playing next door.
Except CJ had only left an hour earlier to go out to dinner with his latest girlfriend, so it was weird that he should be back this early.
On the other hand, if burglars had broken into the villa, it seemed unlikely that they’d be blasting out Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ at maximum volume.
Mimi finished drying herself, then pulled on cotton pyjamas and a towelling dressing gown. She called CJ’s mobile and got no reply. Opening her French windows, she stepped out onto the terrace and peered up at the villa just as a shoe sailed over the balcony outside CJ’s bedroom and landed with a splosh in the heated pool.
Seconds later, a second shoe came cartwheeling through the air, missing the pool by inches and landing on the tiled edge.
‘Fuck.’
It was CJ’s voice. Mimi called out, ‘What’s going on?’
‘I bloody missed, didn’t I?’ He gestured irritably. ‘Go and sort it out.’
She made her way over to the pool and picked up the still-dry shoe. The underwater lighting made it possible to read the label stitched inside.
‘It’s a Louboutin.’ Mimi held the classic black patent stiletto in her hands and admired the shiny red sole.
‘Chuck it in the water,’ CJ bellowed above the music as it reached a crescendo.
‘Oh, but they’re beautiful. And they cost a fortune.’
‘DO IT.’
He wasn’t in a mood to be bargained with; sometimes you could just tell. Mimi dropped the stiletto into the water and watched it sink to the bottom. Maybe she could secretly rescue them later.
‘Now get out of the way,’ CJ roared, moments before a handbag landed with a splash in the deep end.
She spread her hands. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well something’s upset you.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ CJ shook his head vehemently. ‘I’m not upset. I’ve just been proved right. Again.’
‘Would you like to talk about it?’
‘Not bothered. Can if you want.’
This meant he did. Mimi said, ‘OK, but you’re going to have to turn that music down. It’s making my ears hurt.’
Wagner was switched off. CJ made his way downstairs and Mimi joined him in the living room, where he poured her a small brandy and himself a larger one.
‘Go on then, tell me.’ She tucked her bare feet under her on the grey suede sofa. ‘It’s to do with Laura, yes?’
‘Top of the class.’ He took a slug of the brandy.
‘What happened?’
‘We were having dinner and talking about girls who are gold-diggers. And she was telling me how disgusting they are and why they should realise there’s more to life. So I said I’d met my share of gold-diggers over the years and Laura said she could never be like that, it was so shameful and undignified. Then I mentioned it was the small gestures that made the difference, like if I paid for a meal, it was nice if the other person took care of the tip. At that point, I left her at the table to visit the gents. And when I got back, Laura said she’d take care of the tip tonight, even though she couldn’t really afford it, but she wanted to do it to prove to me that she wasn’t like those other girls who’d taken advantage because I had money.’
‘Right.’ Mimi nodded cautiously.
‘Except what she didn’t know was that I’d deliberately left my wallet sticking out of my jacket pocket, and my jacket hanging over the back of the chair. I’d also double-checked how much money was in there.’ CJ paused. ‘When I opened the wallet to pay for the meal, there was two hundred euros missing.’
‘Oh God.’ No wonder he’d resorted to Wagner.
‘So I waited until Laura put a fifty-euro note down on the table as a tip, then picked it up and showed her where I’d scribbled my initials in the corner. You should have seen her face.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing. I’d caught her bang to rights. I also told her I knew she had three more fifty-euro notes in her bag, also signed by me. Then I said it was a real shame she wouldn’t be getting those fancy shoes she’d admired when we were in Palma the other day. And that was when she called me an ugly old bastard and told me I was crap in bed. Then she snatched the fifty-euro tip off the saucer and stalked out of the restaurant.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Well, I suppose she needed it for the taxi back to Alcudia. I don’t imagine Laura’s much of a bus person.’
CJ might be laughing, but it had to have hurt. Mimi said loyally, ‘You’re not ugly.’ Then she added, ‘You’re not old either.’ Well, not ancient.
‘And I’m not crap in bed,’ he said dismissively. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’
She put down her brandy glass. ‘If you counted your money and signed the notes, you must have had your suspicions.’
CJ nodded. ‘Oh yes. I think it might have happened a couple of times before. But you know what I’m like with cash.’
Mimi did. He was forever stocking up from the ATM and leaving his wallet lying around. She said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Better to find out now than six months down the line.’ He snorted. ‘Or six years.’
‘Still not very nice, though.’
‘What did you think of her?’
The last time someone had asked her that question, Mimi had given them her honest opinion, only to see the couple get back together again a week later. Which hadn’t been ideal. But hopefully this time Laura’s boat had well and truly sailed.
‘OK, you aren’t old old, but there was a fifteen-year age difference,’ she reminded CJ. ‘Laura’s very beautiful, she has an incredible body and she is quite keen on the finer things in life.’
‘She also thinks Margate is in south Wales,’ CJ interjected. ‘And is convinced that Keeping Up with the Kardashians is the greatest TV show ever made.’
‘I’m just saying, the way she looks is her side of the bargain. If you didn’t have a ton of money, she probably wouldn’t be interested in you. You do know that,’ Mimi told him. ‘It means girls like Laura aren’t necessarily the most . . . trustworthy. They aren’t the ones you end up with if what you really want is a happy-ever-after kind of relationship.’
‘You see, you think you’re right.’ CJ pointed his drink at her. ‘But in fact you’re only half right. Because you’re saying a plain girl who doesn’t have a banging body wouldn’t mess me around, and I don’t agree with that. In my experience, anyone can do it. So if it’s going to happen anyway, you may as well go for the best-looking ones. And as long as you don’t expect it to last, you won’t get your heart broken when it ends.’
Shocked, Mimi said, ‘Do you really believe that?’
‘Of course I do. If you don’t let yourself get involved, you won’t get hurt. It makes life a lot easier, trust me.’ CJ nodded to prove he was right. ‘Look what happened to you with that idiot you used to work for. Bet you wish you’d never bothered with him, don’t you? Just one more cheating bastard amongst all the rest of them.’
‘Not everyone is a cheating bastard,’ Mimi protested.
‘And if you believe that, you’re even more gullible than I thought. Cheating, lying, twisting the truth for their own ends . . . oh, mark my words, they all have their own agendas.’ He paused to take another gulp of brandy. ‘Look after number one, that’s all you can do. Because you can be damn sure everyone else is. And you can guarantee every last one of them will let you down in the end.’
Wow. It was the most he’d ever opened up to her. Even more extraordinarily, as CJ rose to his feet to refill his suddenly empty tumbler, Mimi was almost certain she glimpsed a tear in his eye.
If it had been there, he’d dashed it away by the time he sat back down. But, sensing that a mental barrier was showing signs of wavering, she said, ‘What if your soulmate’s out there waiting for you, except you’re too scared to let yourself believe she exists?’
‘I’m not scared. I’m being practical.’
‘But people can fall in love and be happy together for the rest of their lives.’ Mimi spread her hands. ‘How long did your longest relationship last?’
‘Three months. And when you were growing up, I bet you thought your parents were happy together. Until your dad upped sticks and found himself someone else.’
Which was fair enough, but how interesting that he’d mentioned her family. The brandy was warming her stomach, relaxing her enough to ask a question she might not otherwise have asked.
‘What about your family? Were your mum and dad happy?’
CJ blinked. For a second she thought he was going to ignore the question and change the subject. Then he said, ‘No, I wouldn’t call them happy. In fact, I’d say their marriage was a humiliating farce. Ooh.’ He widened his eyes, mimicking avid interest. ‘That’s exciting, isn’t it? What are you going to do now, channel Dr Freud?’
‘You never talk about them,’ said Mimi.
‘For good reason. It’s not something I particularly like to spend my time thinking about.’
‘OK. We can change the subject if you want.’ She shrugged. ‘I just thought, you know about all the rubbish things that have happened in my life . . .’
CJ sat back and stared at the ceiling for a couple of seconds. Then he said, ‘My father adored my mother. And in return she treated him like dirt. He always seemed to prefer my older brother to me, which made me all the more desperate for attention. We used to hear them arguing sometimes, but it didn’t happen too often because most of the time Mum did whatever she wanted and he let her get away with it. Then when I was eleven I found out he wasn’t my biological father. Mum had been having a fling with our next-door neighbour when she found out she was pregnant with me. But he wasn’t interested, so she stayed with my dad and they both pretended I was his.’
‘Oh CJ.’ Now Mimi realised why’d he’d been keeping his head tilted back. When he looked at her, his eyes were glassy.
‘Yeah, well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’d never liked our next-door neighbour anyway. He used to smirk at me and I couldn’t figure out why. Then one day I asked Mum if I could go on a school trip and she said no, so I said I’d ask my dad instead. And she laughed and said, “Good luck with that, but if you’re talking about the one who’s upstairs painting the bathroom, he isn’t your dad.” Which was one way of finding out.’ The pain was only too evident in his voice. ‘I don’t know why she did it, completely out of the blue like that. I didn’t know how to react. She was furious about something, presumably. Then she told me to go upstairs and ask him, so I did, and he looked pretty shocked too. But he said it was true.’
It was heartbreaking. Picturing CJ at eleven, stunned and confused, Mimi murmured, ‘You poor thing.’
‘So I went up to my room and lay on my bed and thought about it, and in a weird kind of way it made sense. Then I started to fantasise about who my real dad could be, and I thought maybe he was someone incredibly rich and successful, with tons of money, who would really love me when he found out I was his son. And after that, no one said anything for a while but the whole time I was busy building up the fantasy. It was great, I could imagine all these scenarios. I even made a list of possible fathers in my diary.’ As he said it, CJ mimed holding a pencil and writing down the names. ‘David Bowie was on there. And Steve McQueen, because my favourite film was The Great Escape. Then there was Kevin Keegan . . . Freddie Mercury . . . Rod Stewart . . . If I say so myself, it was a fantastic list. Anyway, I’d hidden the diary under my bed, but Mum found it. When I came home from school the next day, she threw the diary down in front of me and said, “Don’t get your hopes up, lad. Your real father’s Frank from next door. And he couldn’t give a toss about either of us.”’
‘Oh no.’
‘So that was it, dream shattered.’ CJ wiped his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. ‘Frank was a layabout who didn’t work but always had enough cash to buy himself a few drinks. It was obvious that my mother had told him I knew, because he started smirking more than ever every time our paths crossed. And that Christmas he jokingly told me not to expect anything from him because he didn’t believe in wasting money on presents. It was like a joke to him.’
‘What a pig,’ said Mimi. ‘That’s so cruel.’
CJ shuddered. ‘I hated everything about him. Smug, cocky bastard. Even worse, every time I looked in a mirror, I could see I was starting to look like him, which made me feel sick. Anyway, I left home at seventeen and moved down to London, lived in a squat and worked on a building site. Went back a year later when Mum was taken ill, and heard that Frank had dropped dead a month earlier; had a massive coronary in the bookies just as one of his horses came in at eight to one.’
Mimi said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m fine. He didn’t leave me anything, obviously, but I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. Mum died a few years after that, and Dad followed her six weeks later. Couldn’t live without her, despite everything she’d put him through. And that was when I vowed I was never going to be like that. My life would be different. No way was I going to take any shit from anyone ever again. And I’ve stuck to that. I have all of this.’ CJ gestured around the villa’s palatial living room. ‘Paid for with my own money. My life is better than theirs was, and no one’s going to hurt me because I won’t let it happen.’ He tossed back the last inch of brandy in the glass. ‘So there you go, now you know the whole story and you’re going to keep it to yourself. Plus,’ his tone grew even more steely, ‘you’ll end up sleeping with the fishes if you ever tell anyone you saw me cry.’