Miguel winks at me, a little too suggestively.
‘He’s been having fun, yes? Mowing lawns but doing other Ibiza things,’ Flo asks.
I laugh very loudly. ‘Are you hinting that I should have been spending my time here enjoying a bevy of women and getting off my tits on tequila and coke every night?’
Phoebe cackles at the very thought.
‘Girls, I’m not sure that staying is financially viable,’ I explain. ‘I’m already getting bills for this place. I was thinking of putting it on Airbnb and then maybe getting some returns? I don’t want to borrow any more money from you all.’
Norah wrinkles her brow. ‘That sounds a little boring.’
‘Or financially sensible?’
‘That’s not what Uncle Lorenzo would have wanted. I think he wanted you to be here, to use the place. You look so well. Or…’ Phoebe suddenly says excitedly. ‘What if you hosted something here so you could stay? The mountains, the sea, the sun – it’s the perfect place for a retreat or something like that.’
‘Turn into some shamanic yoga person? Yes, that is so me…I could buy a gong,’ I suggest sardonically.
‘No,’ Flo says, stopping in her tracks. ‘I know…like more of a creative bed and breakfast thing. Writers sometimes have them. People could come and stay, use the pool and enjoy meals cooked by you. Like a foodie retreat. We’d get in nice wine, put in a library corner. I reckon we could market that.’
Miguel nods, looking enthused by the idea too. It’s not a bad one, but I’m in two minds about this, thinking of life back home in London. That said, it’s been so easy to be here for the past two months; I don’t feel like any time has really elapsed.
‘I mean, you should stay for Gloria, at least…’ my sisters say, bunched together. They know there is more gossip to comeabout my love life, and they intend to find out as much as possible now that Miguel is here.
‘Really. You are attached to Gloria?’ Miguel asks, confused. ‘She shit in the pool.’
Norah jumps back. Phoebe erupts with giggles, her body folding with laughter.
‘Your girlfriend does what?’ Flo says in disbelief.
‘Girlfriend? Benjamin, life is not so bad that you have to date a goat,’ Miguel says. He points beyond the fences to a grove of citrus trees where a herd of wild goats looks back at us and bleats into the air.
My sisters all look at me strangely.
‘I’m not dating the goat. I was trying to be funny. They all have names. Guillermo, Gary. Gloria is the white one. They’re like my?—’
‘Friends?’ Phoebe says. They all laugh, a lot. Too much.
This will be the family joke that now comes up every Christmas and beyond. Well, that makes the decision for me. I can’t go home now, ever. Can I?
3
JULY
CHLOE
‘And then we put a line here and some eyebrows and hey presto, we have a dog,’ I say, gliding the felt tip across the paper and seeing Arlo’s face light up as my sketch takes shape. I don’t normally feel so proud of my pictures, but this might be the best trick in my aunty arsenal. Arlo gives me the biggest hug, like a gold star for my artistic efforts, and I squeeze his little body back.
‘Can you draw giraffes too?’ he asks.
‘I can give it a go,’ I say. ‘But only if you colour him in and call him George.’
This makes Arlo chuckle with laughter as his dad appears at the table with biscuits and a cup of tea in hand.
‘Are you two talking about me?’ George asks.
‘No,’ Arlo tells him, winking at me quite obviously before picking up the series of drawings I’ve already done and running away. ‘I’m putting these on my wall, Aunty Chloe!’
‘I’m honoured, Arlo,’ I call after him. I hear him scampering away as George comes to sit down next to me.
