“Yes, sir.”
He stared at Beauchamp across the strip-lit room. Beauchamp’s gaze had gone back to the cannula stand, to a point above Vidal’s left shoulder, to anything in the room that was not Vidal’s face.
“Major. Would you give my mother and me the room, please.”
“Sir.”
“Thank you for arranging things. With the family. With Captain Wallis. I’m sure he will be very satisfactory.”
Beauchamp gave a nod and turned for the door.
Vidal turned his head on the pillow before Beauchamp had reached the handle. He pressed his good cheek into it and faced the wall so that he wouldn’t actually have to watch Beauchamp leave.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Adelinasmelled, Vidal had decided within ninety seconds of first holding her, of warm bread and clean cotton and something else he could not name but recognised at the cellular level as a Montcadan signature. He had not put her down for the better part of an hour, and Maria had stopped attempting to retrieve her by the third refusal.
“Pare. Pare,lookat her. Look at thisnose. Tell me she does not have Avi Joan’s nose.”
His father, on the sofa beside him in the cardigan he only ever wore in private, leaned over and pressed his lips against the top of Adelina’s head. He had done this for three sons, and now he was being permitted to do it for the next generation.
“She has your nose, Vidal.”
“Lies. Slander. I have a Roman nose, Pare, animperialnose. This child has the snub little Catalan nose of our forefathers, and I will not have her insulted.”
Across the drawing room, Fidel was lying on the rug with Mercè draped across his chest, scratching her behind the ear.Mercè had the glassy expression of a dog who had been passed between trusted hands all morning and was no longer sure which of them was her primary attachment. Jordi, Vidal’s eldest brother, was at the kitchen counter opening a pomegranate with a small sharp knife while his partner Aina supervised.
His mother appeared at his elbow with a cup of camomile tea he had not asked for and would not be permitted to refuse. “Drink, my darling. The doctor said hydration is important while you’re recovering.”
“Mama, I am holding the baby.”
“Then I shall hold the cup, and you shall drink.”
She held the cup to his mouth as though he were five, and he drank because there was nothing else to be done about it. Adelina, sensing a window of inattention, turned her face into the front of his shirt and made a wet noise that meant either she was about to fall asleep or be sick on the linen. He could not, even now, fully tell the two states apart.
He looked up.
Beauchamp was at the window with his back to the room, reading something off his mobile. Captain Wallis was beside him in a navy suit, taller than Beauchamp by an inch and broader through the shoulders, his hair cropped to regimental specification. They were going through what Vidal understood to be the Thursday rota: the routes to the Connaught, the timings of the airport run for their older cousins based in Italy who would be arriving on Saturday, the contingency arrangements should Pare wish to attend Mass at the Spanish chapel on Sunday morning.
Beauchamp had been doing exactly this since the family had arrived. He had positioned himself in the corner of every room they were in, a silent fixture against the wallpaper, and he had handed Wallis the keys to Vidal’s life in increments so neat thatVidal could not, if pressed, point to a single moment when the transfer had occurred.
“Vidal.” Pare’s hand had come to rest on his good shoulder. He turned his head. “You are squeezing my granddaughter. You are holding her with the firmness of a man who is thinking about something he does not wish to think about, and Adelina is becoming unhappy.”
Vidal eased his arm until Adelina let out a contented snuffle and went still against him.
“Where is your mind, my boy?”
“Nowhere, Pare. I am here. I am with all of you.”
His father didn’t say anything to that. He simply kept his hand on Vidal’s shoulder even as he turned his attention back to Adelina.
? ? ?
Connorcame up at half past six on Wednesday with a bottle of Spanish-origin wine under one arm. He had been told he was welcome three separate times that day and was clearly still not convinced, based on his rolled-in shoulders. Vidal met him at the door in stockinged feet and walked him into the drawing room by the elbow before he had finished taking off his coat.
“Pare. Mama. This is Connor Evans, who lives downstairs and who has been absurdly kind to me since I arrived in this country. Connor, my father, my mother, my brothers Jordi and Fidel, and Maria, who is the saint who married Fidel, and Aina, Jordi’s partner.”
Mama rose from the armchair, took both of Connor’s hands in hers, and looked him over before she leaned in and kissed him on each cheek.
