“Felipe, the thing with Aimee and Warren—look, even the most unlikely people will stray. These things happen more often than you’d think.”Don’t I know…
He twists the wine glass between his fingers, studying it. “Yes, but to be quite honest, if you knew Aimee, knew what her marriage was like, I…I don’t know why she did it.”
“And I guess that’s adding to Venetia’s grief and shock? She’s lost her sister but feels like she didn’t know her as well as she thought she did?”
“Yes,” he says, but I get the distinct impression that’s not it at all.
Felipe stands and says he’ll get another bottle. I gesture for him to sitand say I’ll go, it’s my round. There’s no way I’m getting us another whole bottle though.
I return with two glasses and we talk about other things for a while: his childhood in Bolivia and his move to Ireland—more of a backpacking stop-off that became a permanent home than any long-held plan to live here.
“I stayed for the weather. I could not resist your very attractive gray skies,” he says, and I laugh.
“In defense of my country, we’re sitting outside at ten at night in short sleeves,” I point out. It’s true. It’s unnaturally warm for this time of evening and the beer garden is thronged with midweek drinkers making the most of it. The heatwave has a way of dissolving any thoughts of early mornings and alarm clocks. I wonder if Felipe has an early start and ask about his job. He’s a software engineer for HP, he says, doing contract work, though he’s taken leave this week to be there for Venetia. It was through work that he met her, he tells me, taking another swallow of wine. He’d gone to a wedding as a colleague’s plus one and gone home with Venetia. He never really left, it turns out. He moved in permanently to the cottage in Coal Place soon after. “As a paying tenant of Venetia and Aimee,” he adds with a grin, “in case you think I’m a kind of gold-digger.”
The sisters co-owned the cottage, he explained, having inherited it from their grandmother. They’d grown up there. Their grandmother had raised them since their mother walked out when they were eight and six.Jesus. Poor Venetia and Aimee.
“And when did you get married?” I ask.
A sheepish look crosses his face. “Soon after we moved in together.” He looks at me under hangdog lashes. “Don’t judge me, but Venetia suggested we marry so I could stay here. My holiday working visa had run out.” A shrug and a grin. “I am Gérard Depardieu in this story. You know, from the movieGreen Card?”
My eyes widen. “Wait, a sham marriage?”
“Oh, we were really dating. But we would not have married if not for the visa problem.”
Weredating.And now?
“Wow,” I say, instead of asking the questions that are in my head.
“Yes. She needed someone who could pay her good rent for the house—her wages bartending are not as much as she would like.” He clears his throat. “She doesn’t settle easily in jobs; she moves a lot. She’s had some problems…And I try to look out for her, to take care of her. I was grateful to her for the visa, but also, she reminds me of someone who used to—”
He stops. “Anyway, I wanted to stay here in your beautiful gray-sky country. So, it was convenient, a win-win for both of us. But also good,” he adds. “We did get on well.”
That seems a muted way to put it, but who am I to judge, all things considered?
“We still do, mostly,” he continues. “The version of Venetia you met on Saturday, she’s not always like that. Though it’s true she can be difficult, she is not so…soft.”
I think of the person I met at the bar, however briefly. Cool, terse, spiky in her body language, and I nod.
He takes a sip of wine then sets his glass carefully back on the table, using both hands to line it up perfectly in the center of his beer mat. It’s as though he’s using the glass to steady himself.
“But she can be kind too. Especially with Aimee.” His eyes brim. “It was Aimee’s wedding. That’s where we met.”
Instinctively, I reach for his hand.
“Oh, Felipe, I’m so sorry.”
He whispers something then, something I can’t hear.
“What was that?” I ask.
He looks up, eyes damp.
“It’s my fault. I can’t tell you why, but it’s my fault Aimee’s dead.”
52
Susan
