She was looking puzzled and Alej wondered if she guessed he was holding something back or whether he was crediting her with more astuteness than she actually possessed. But even though he was still questioning his sanity in having started all this, he knew he was going to complete the story. Because wasn’t it a relief to let it out at last—like a bitter and poisonous mix which had been living inside him for too long, before finally bubbling to the surface?
‘No. It isn’t an easy subject to bring up, when you stop to think about it. So I just buried it. Deep.’ His voice was rough as he pushed out the words from lungs which suddenly felt dry. ‘You see, after my mother was sacked by your stepfather, she never worked again. I’d bought her a little house in the country and she grew vegetables and for a while she seemed almost happy. But then she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had a full-time carer living with her, and I used to visit her regularly.’ He paused and then nodded. ‘And even though I’d told myself countless times it couldn’t possibly be true, I couldn’t shake off the look on that man’s face when he told me about her. I kept telling myself it was none of my business. That how she had lived her life was nothing to do with me. I planned to say nothing and then, the day before she died, she turned to me and said, “You know, don’t you?”’
He saw incomprehension and then shock on Emily’s face. ‘She guessed?’
He nodded.
‘What did you say?’ she breathed.
‘I asked her what she meant.’
You know what I mean, son. Her failing voice had come out as a reedy rasp. I’ve seen the empty expression in your eyes whenever you look at me that was never there before. Did you find out that I worked the streets when you were a little boy?
‘And?’
He’d almost forgotten Emily was there. Alej’s vision cleared as he met her sapphire gaze. ‘What could I say? What could I tell her, other than the truth, when the truth was the only thing I could hold onto? And then she told me everything.’ His lips hardened as he spoke and suddenly he got an acrid taste in his mouth. He walked from the bedroom into the dining room, aware of Emily following him, before going over to the antique cabinet which would shortly be sold at auction and pouring two fingers of whisky into a crystal tumbler. He swallowed a fiery mouthful before holding his glass aloft. ‘Want one?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I want you to carry on with your story.’
He gave a bitter smile as he put the glass down on the gleaming wood. ‘Hers was a not unusual tale and in many ways, I wasn’t making a moral judgement. You don’t have to stand on a street corner to sell sex for money—I know women who would promise pretty much anything if they thought they were going to get a diamond necklace out of it. But this was a very different version of reality from the one I’d been given when I was growing up.’
Her voice was tentative. ‘Surely you wouldn’t have expected her to tell you the truth when you were a little boy?’
‘Of course not. I could understand why she would keep her prostitution a secret. She wasn’t the first young woman who would use her body to pay the bills and she certainly won’t be the last,’ he bit out. ‘But not why she felt the need to lie about the circumstances of my conception and about my father. When we moved from the favela and she found a job as housekeeper to your stepfather, she told me we wouldn’t be there long. She explained that my father was a rich and powerful man and one day he would return and rescue us and take us away from a life of servitude and we would live together happily on the acres of the pampas he called home.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Of course I did! Children tend to believe what their mothers tell them. And we both know what good liars women can be, don’t we, Emily?’ There was a pause as he flicked her a cynical look. ‘But she saved the best for last. The dramatic deathbed declaration which can never be challenged once the final breath has been taken. There was no rich and powerful papa. No father at all, as it happened—just a former client of hers, an itinerant rogue who used to beat her up.’ He swallowed. ‘But still she let him keep coming back for more. He was nothing but a thief and a con man who spent most of his time in prison and was killed by wrapping his motorbike round a tree—but not before making her pregnant with another child.’
‘Oh, Alej. That’s terrible,’ said Emily dazedly, blinking her eyelids rapidly as if she was trying to hold back tears. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He gave another bitter smile. ‘Funny, isn’t it? I always regretted being an only child, except then I discovered I wasn’t. That I have a younger brother. A child she had no hope of supporting, so she did what any self-respecting mother would do and sold him.’
‘What was that you said?’ Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way away as she stared at him in disbelief. ‘Are you telling me your mother had another baby and she sold it?’
His jaw firmed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you.’
‘Oh, Alej—’
‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘Please spare me the kindness and compassion—the trembling lips and big, wet eyes. That’s not why I told you. And that’s it. That’s the story. There is no more.’
‘There must be.’ She walked over to the drinks cabinet and stood next to him, the delicate silk of her black dress making a soft, whispering sound and the faint scent of summer flowers drifting in the air as she reached him. ‘You have a brother, Alej. It may not be the ideal scenario—but that’s a wonderful thing, surely? You’ve got a sibling—which is more than I do. Someone whose gene pool you share. Someone you can have a unique relationship with. Have you managed to find him?’
‘No.’ Even Alej could hear how cold his voice sounded as he answered her question, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart. ‘I haven’t found him because I haven’t bothered looking for him. He was sold to a woman in America and that’s all I know.’
‘But surely you—’
‘There is no “surely” about it,’ he ground out. ‘I’m too old to believe in fairy stories, Emily. Do you really think I would track him down, so that we could have some great big family reunion? Do you honestly think he knows the background of the woman who gave birth to him? Even if he does, do you imagine that’s something he’s ever going to want to celebrate?’
Emily didn’t answer. Not straight away. Her head was too busy buzzing with the emotional repercussions of his shocking revelation. But one thing quickly became apparent—like the agitated and muddy water of a pond which finally grew still, so you were able to see the stones on the bottom. No wonder Alej was so cold and mistrusting. No wonder he thought all women lied. Because in his experience, they did. She’d told him lies herself, hadn’t she? Big, powerful lies. She’d told him she didn’t want him. That she’d wanted other men. She’d said that because she was scared—scared of her own feelings and her mother?
?s unpredictable behaviour. Scared of being hurt and scared of the future.
Even now, she’d only given him half the truth, hadn’t she? She had been too much of a coward to take that final step and to tell him what was deep in her heart. And didn’t he need to hear that, now, when he was at his most vulnerable? When he must be aching and hurting deep inside, despite the proud expression on his face.
‘I also need to tell you something, Alej.’
He withered her with a sardonic look. ‘Don’t tell me your mother was a hooker, too?’