He snorted. ‘Be honest, Grace,’ he said. ‘This whole thing is just about you showing me and your precious Gabriel how clever and creative you are.’
‘I can’t believe you’re behaving like this.’
‘Fine,’ he said, flapping a dismissive hand. ‘Do whatever you want. Fly off to Parador. But don’t expect me to go running around after your kids if they want to come home from school for the weekend. Or go dashing off to your mother’s if the poor dear has a fall.’
She stared after him, wondering if she had ever really known this man at all.
‘Have you lost your mind?’ cried Gabriel, pacing up and down the lawns at El Esperanza. ‘You left Parador, left our marriage, because you were terrified about safety, and now you want to go running around some of the most dangerous barrios in the world to make a movie?’
Grace was furious. This was the first time she had been back to Parador since she had left Ibiza years before, and she hadn’t exactly expected to be welcomed with open arms. But she had expected a little more support, considering that the reason for her visit, if it came off, would help Gabriel’s precious cause.
‘Gabe, don’t you start. Julian didn’t speak to me for three days when I told him I wanted to do this.’
‘Well for once I agree with Julian,’ said Gabriel. ‘I told you on the phone I can’t be responsible for what happens to you, and if you choose to blantantly disregard what I say . . . It’s dangerous out there, Grace.’
At forty-five, Gabriel was still a handsome man. The flecks of grey in his hair gave him the elegance and dignity of a forties matinee idol. But the fire she had seen in his eyes when they had first come back to Parador had dimmed. His w
ords were laced with bitterness and anxiety. After three attempts at winning the presidency, he had resigned himself to life as a senator in the Parador assembly, and that all-consuming drive for change and justice had gone. He seemed smaller somehow, his shoulders less straight.
He still travelled in a bulletproof car, but the truth was the CARP party was toothless, far too weak to be a threat to anyone. Even so, Grace had hoped Gabriel of all people would understand her desire to bring the problems of his country to a wider audience.
‘You wanted to make a difference, Gabe. It’s the reason you ran for office, it’s the reason our marriage failed.’
‘Don’t blame the party for—’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘Our marriage failed because Parador was the most important thing to you. I just want to go out into the barrios and show the world what’s happening.’
Gabriel stopped and looked at her. ‘This is about Angel Cay, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘What? What, I . . .’ she stuttered, remembering the time she had told her husband about the island. He’d once asked her if she had ever done anything bad and after Caros’ death she’d admitted what had gone on that hot summer night.
‘Just because you once found a body and did nothing about it doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life being a saint, Grace. The charity work, the photographs, the documentaries. It’s all atonement for one stupid mistake.’
‘It’s not,’ she said vigorously.
‘Are you papering over the cracks, Grace, or is this really making you happy?’ he asked her, his blue eyes boring into her. ‘Because I want you to be happy, I really do.’
‘Gabe, I . . .’ she began, but just then Gabriel’s wife Martina appeared at the French windows of the house and came across the lawns with a tray bearing three cold drinks for them. She was in navy slacks and a cream silk shirt; elegant, decorous, the politician’s wife Grace had never been able to be. Grace watched Gabriel’s face as Martina approached and she didn’t miss the little smile, the softening of the eyes. He loved her, there was no doubt of that. She wished she could feel happier about it.
‘Will you be staying for lunch, Grace?’ Martina asked, hooking her arm through her husband’s.
‘No, no. My car should be here in twenty minutes to take me into Palumbo.’
‘But you’ll be back for dinner?’
‘Si dios quiere,’ said Gabriel, shaking his head.
If God wills it.
She spent eight hours in ‘El Tumba’, Parador’s worst slum, which clung forlornly to the hillside overlooking Palumbo. She interviewed orphans and farmers who had lost everything after the paramilitary sequested their land. She spoke to them of hunger and suffering, she spoke to them of disease and squalor, but most of all, she spoke to them of hope and their amazing, inspiring belief that God would provide, that one day they would come down off the hill and make a new life for themselves.
Back at El Esperanza, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower, tipping her head back as the hot water washed away the stench. Wrapping herself in a clean white terry robe, she sat at the desk by the window watching the sun set across the jungle, a sight at once so familiar and yet so alien to her now.
Gabe peeked around the door. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.
‘I’m decent,’ she said, thinking, Nothing you haven’t seen before.
‘How was it?’