Page 178 of The Moon Sister
Thecuadromoved into a large, comfortable set of apartments on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
‘I am pleased to be back here. It feels like home, doesn’t it?’ she asked Meñique, as she unpacked the contents of her many trunks into heaps on the floor.
‘No, it doesn’t. I hate New York. It is not my place.’
‘But they love you here!’
‘Lucía, I need to talk to you.’
‘Sí, of course. Have you composed something new for our show? I saw you scribbling on the train on the way back.’ Lucía posed in front of the mirror in a sumptuous white fur coat she had just unpacked. ‘What do you think of this?’
‘I think the cost of it could feed the whole of Andalusia for a month, but it looks very nice,mi amor. Please–’ Meñique knew he was about to burst – ‘come and sit down.’
Sensing his tension, Lucía took off the coat and went to sit beside him. ‘What is it?’
‘I have been offered a contract in a famous flamenco bar in Mexico. As a solo artist.’
‘How long will you be away for?’
‘Maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe forever . . .’
Meñique stood up and walked to the window, gazing down at the endless traffic shuttling along Fifth Avenue. He could hear the hooting of horns even up here on the thirtieth floor. ‘Lucía, I just . . . I can’t do this any more.’
‘What can’t you do?’
‘Trail along behind you. I too have talent, and ability. I must use them both before it’s too late.’
‘Of course! We will give you more solos in the show. I will speak to Papá and we will change everything, no problem,’ she said, lighting a cigarette.
‘No, Lucía. I don’t think that you understand.’
‘What don’t I understand? I am telling you that whatever you need I can give you.’
‘And I am telling you that what you can give me is no longer what I need. Or want. It isn’t just about my musical future, Lucía. It’s aboutourfuture.’
‘Sí, and it is the future I always look to. You know how long I have wanted to be your wife, and yet, after all these years, you have still not granted me that pleasure. Why will you not marry me?’
‘I have thought about this many times.’ Meñique turned back towards her. ‘And I think I finally have the answer.’
‘Which is what? You have another woman?’ Lucía’s eyes blazed.
‘No, but in some ways, I wish I did. Lucía’ – he went down on his knees in front of her and grasped her hands – ‘do you not see that I want to marryyou? But I do not want to marry your family, yourcuadro, or your career.’
‘I do not understand,’ she admitted. ‘You don’t like my family? Is that the problem?’
‘I think your family are all very good people, but I was and always will be an outsider, even as your husband. Your father runs the finances, he organises the tours . . . he runs your life, but even that wouldn’t matter if other things were right. I am thirty-five years of age, and what I want is for you and me to marry, take a small house together in South America, and perhaps one day, go back to our beloved Spain. I wish for us to be able to close the door and know that no one else will walk through it unless we want them to. I want us to have children, bring them up not on the road, but in the proper way, where they are part of a community, as I – and even you for the first ten years – was brought up. I want us to performtogether, find a venue somewhere where we can walk out of our home in the late afternoon and come back again to sleep in our own bed at night. Lucía, I want you to be my wife properly. I want us to grow our own family. I want us to . . . slow down, enjoy the success we have made before we take off again on another journey of uncertainty. Do you see,mi amor?’
Lucía, whose dark eyes had been boring into him as he spoke, turned away. She stood up, then crossed her arms.
‘No, I don’t see. I think that what you are asking me to do is to leave my family behind, and come with you alone to be your wife.’
‘That is part of what I’m asking, yes.’
‘How can I ever do that? What would thecuadrobe without me?’
‘There is Martina and Antonio, Juana, Lola, your father, your brother . . .’
‘You are telling me that I am not needed?! That they will do well without me?’
