Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries
Sometimes, Amelia hides behind the railings and stands there watching her classmates swarm out and launch themselves at the mothers waiting for them at home time with sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil, donuts for the lucky ones, and maybe even a Bollycao for the chosen few. Amelia likes to linger there, halfway between those two worlds, school and street, clutching her backpack with a picture of the Olympic mascot Cobi, his arms outstretched and wearing a suit and tie. ‘Friends for life’ reads the outside pocket. On tiptoes, peering through the jasmine that tangles around the bars, she fantasizes for a moment. She watches those mothers waiting for her classmates, her friends, and wonders what it would be like to have a mum like Susana, for example, who comes to fetch Matías in a huge white 4×4 that she parks on the corner. Or like Pati, her best friend Tito’s mum, who has no husband because he died but who does have a house with a swimming pool, where Amelia sometimes goes on a Friday. Or Antonia, always fun and friendly, whose son Alejo got a trip to Paris when one of his milk teeth came out: the Ratoncito Pérez left a card left under his pillow with a cut-out silhouette of the Eiffel Tower.
Some days, Amelia lets her mind wander to expensive gifts ensconced in velvet boxes, swimming pools in leafy gardens and mothers whose bags always seem to contain freshly-baked croissants, peanut butter sandwiches or chocolates with cherries in the middle, like in the TV series she watches. But she also knows there are other mothers like Leonor, whose daughter Ana is the smartest kid in class – Leonor is one of those mothers, the worst kind, who bring their child a snack of chopped fruit in a clip-lock tub, or dried fruit, and that, Amelia is certain, ‘really would be too much to bear.’ At least, she consoles herself, sometimes, when her dad isn’t there, her mum lets her eat toast smeared with two-colour Nocilla.
Her mother is waiting on her usual corner, chatting with a couple of other mums who are waiting for Matías and Ana. She greets Amelia with open arms and a sandwich in the pocket of her raincoat; she pulls it out as her daughter arrives and scolds her for being the last one out of class, as she always seems to be these days.
‘We’re off to view apartments,’ she says, waving goodbye to the other mums. ‘Hopefully we’ll find something so we can get out that neighbourhood we’re in just now.’
None of her school friends has ever been to her house, the tiny apartment with no lift in ‘that neighbourhood’ where she and her parents live. For that reason, Amelia tends to celebrate her birthday in cafes or parks; once they even held her party in Tito’s garden because their birthdays are the same month. Amelia complains that she wants to invite her friends home, but her mother won’t be persuaded: they live too far away, she says, just too far. A couple of months ago, though, she decided they’re going to move and so Amelia accompanies her every Friday afternoon after school, going from labyrinthine single-family homes with indoor pools and gardens to exclusive penthouses with balconies and views over the park. She’s learned not to ask questions and much less when there are people around. And under no circumstances to mention money, that small and mocking god, as her mother calls it, that forcibly keeps them apart from a full life, from the interference-free hum of genuine happiness.
At the age of nine, Amelia is used to her mother changing her mind and telling a different story depending on who she’s speaking to at the time. She says, for example, that they live in ‘that neighbourhood’ because grandma is getting old and they can’t leave her on her own. Or because her husband’s consulting room is nearby, so close he can come home for lunch, he’s such a homebody. But her father has no consulting room. He used to have one. She still remembers those days and sees flashes of early childhood, the apartment at the beach, that time they went to the States and hired a car: the automatic seatbelt that slid along a track above the door until it clicked itself into the slot. And the photo of her with Goofy in front of the Disney castle and the orange-coloured melon, cantaloupe it was called, that tasted so strange and came served on a plastic tray when they took a break at a rest stop.
But then again, her grandmother, who’s the one who pays for her school, isn’t really that old. Just last summer, when Barcelona got all spruced up to host the Olympic Games, they saw her come home from the football final, Spain against Poland, with the Spanish flag painted on her cheek, claiming that she and her friends, also widows, had climbed up on their seats to chant ‘Quico, Quico, Quico,’ when said player scored the goal that won Spain its gold.
Amelia never knows what to say when people ask about her house. She surprised herself, one afternoon in Tito’s pool, by claiming that she had a pool on the terrace too and that hers was even a bit bigger and had orange lifebelts that the lifeguard – because she invented a lifeguard as well – allowed her to play with.
When they have said goodbye to her classmates and the other mums, they head for the street with the weeping willows and Amelia listens closely to all kinds of details about the apartments they’re going to see.
‘I like one of them more than the other, Ame,’ her mum tells her as they walk down Calle Escoles Pies. ‘Because it has a little room with a pool table, we could turn it into a playroom for you. Like Tito has. What do you think?’
Her mother, tall and elegant in her patent leather shoes, which Amelia thinks are the most beautiful shoes in the world, brushes her fringe aside to read the particulars from the cutting she has taken from her bag: “Family special, great potential. Spectacular duplex penthouse with private swimming pool, located on one of the best streets around Turó Park. Complex with superintendent and security monitoring. Apartment surrounded by spacious balconies, main living area on one level, with service area and pool upstairs.’
Amelia nods, excited by the potential, and, when they reach the right address, the agent is already waiting for them and he leads them into an elegant lobby where they greet the doorman. He shows them the penthouse and, amid her mother’s sighs and exclamations, the agent tells them it’s one of the most beautiful apartments he has ever seen.
‘The price won’t be a problem for us,’ she hears her mother say. ‘I lived in an apartment very similar to this for a while. I was working in London and lived in a gorgeous part of the city, so green and leafy. I was assistant manager in a textile company.’
‘Interesting,’ replies the agent. ‘Barcelona must seem like a village compared to London.’
‘You can get used to anything. But we’d be better in a home like this, that’s for sure. You know, it’s only because of family that we’re currently living so far from here.’
When they leave, they walk as fast as her mother’s patent leather shoes will allow.
‘Oh Ame, it makes me so nostalgic. London… now there’s a real city. Can you imagine us living there? Near Regent’s Park? One of these days, when you’re a bit older, I’ll go back to the company and then you’ll see,’ she tells her. ‘We’ll go, just you and me.’
When her parents get mad at each other, it’s always in the evening and Amelia listens to their arguments camouflaged by the dialogue of whatever movie they’re watching. Her mum exclaims, with theatrical distress, that she’s had enough of this life and then Amelia curls into a ball under her quilt. ‘If you’re so clever, what are you doing here with a failure like me, huh?’ says her dad. And Amelia feels annoyed at him, although she doesn’t really know why. She assumes it all has something to do with that small and mocking god, vacations, wanting something you never have, but her mum’s string of complaints and woes is always drowned out by those same few words from her dad: ‘Not on your wages, eh sweetheart?’ The argument is cut short and Amelia hears crying and even doors slamming. But then the next morning, her mother is bright and cheerful again and walks her to the bus stop for school.
The second viewing is an ‘exclusive single-family home with garden in Pedralbes. Needs renovation, great potential.’ It has three floors and a vast, if rather unkempt garden containing a single palm tree – rather dry and dead-looking – and a shed.
“I’ll sleep there,’ Amelia cries happily.
The agent smiles:
‘That’s where the gardener keeps his tools.’
There’s no playroom in this house, which is light and airy despite the outdated tiles and stippled walls. The only thing that’s new are the automatic blinds that the agent is demonstrating, and to Amelia it seems like magic that, with just the touch of a button, he can plunge one room into darkness as they move on into the next.
‘What do you think, Ame? Shall we take it?’
‘I like the blinds,’ she replies.
‘Your daughter’s a cutie,’ says the agent with a knowing smile.
‘The money’s no problem,’ her mother says again. ‘But we would need to move now…and, also, the fact that the tennis court in the complex isn’t finished yet, when the advert in the paper implies that it is… I don’t know whether my husband will go for it, you know what I mean?’
The agent nods.
‘But yes, we’ll think about it. It’s certainly a desirable place, although of course it needs quite a bit of work. And since we’re here, I know this is silly but, that single palm tree in the garden… could we get rid of it? It looks very lonely, don’t you think? Like a metaphor or something.’
Her mother expects the agent to reply, but he raises an eyebrow waiting for her to continue. Amelia withdraws slightly. She notices that strange feeling again. A sense of anxiety, of unease. She is overwhelmed by that word burning inside her. Smarting on her lips.
‘A metaphor?’ asks the agent.
‘For loneliness, I mean…’
‘Well, either way, you can get rid of the palm tree. Of course you can.’
Once they’ve said goodbye to the agent, Amelia asks what a metaphor is.
‘Sweetie, don’t they teach you anything in school these days? It’s like if you have very soft skin and I say your skin is velvet. Or silk.’
‘But what about the palm tree?’
‘Look… it doesn’t matter, love. My god, what with you and your father, I’ve got quite the pair of exceptional minds to deal with.’
On the way to the bus stop, her mother continues citing more examples of metaphors and Amelia nods, captivated. Later, she goes back to reminiscing about her time living in London, when she was still working. For now, her mum has ‘temporarily,’ as she always makes a point of clarifying, decided not to work. Ever since what happened to her father with the consulting room, and that taboo word: bankruptcy.
‘Well, it’s not as though we loved those houses, did we Ame?’
‘Sure,’ says Amelia.
‘So it’s not like we need to tell your dad about them. When we find the place we like, we’ll tell him. Like a surprise.’
‘Will we be able to buy it?’
‘Of course we will! What kind of a question is that?’
Waiting under the shelter at the bus stop, Amelia thinks about confessing to the lie she told Tito. She’s scared of being found out, but in the end she decides not to and they step onto the bus. For a moment, it feels as though that strange sensation might come back again, that word burning in her throat. But she is soon distracted watching a baby sleeping peacefully inside its carrycot. It’s ten stops to Plaça Catalunya, where they get off to walk to the metro. Another five stops to home, to ‘that neighbourhood.’ Amelia knows the route by heart.
Her mother wants to leave the neighbourhood and her father always says they can’t afford to and that if she had wanted a rich man, she should have thought about that earlier.
‘I deserved something more than this,’ Amelia has heard her mother say to a friend on the phone.
Sometimes, Amelia, as she watches her from the school gate, wants to tell her mum not to worry about her, to go back to work, in London. To be assistant manager. Manager. But she also remembers what her father had called her – ‘liar’ – during another of their arguments. Amelia never knows what to think. In her mind, her mother is a capable woman who could do anything she put her mind to. Anything.
On the metro, the two of them clutching the central pole, doing a balancing act to stay on their feet, her mother asks what she wants for dinner and Amelia says fajitas.
‘When will we move house, mum?’
‘Soon. We have to find the right place for us, don’t we? The perfect home. In London, it was quite a challenge to find it, you wouldn’t believe. Of course, I worked long hours and finished late, when all the estate agents were closed, the English do everything very early… I had dinner at seven at the latest, can you imagine?’
‘Will you go back to work one day?’
‘Amelia, sweetheart, who would take care of you then?’
‘Tito has a childminder. I could have a childminder too. Or grandma.’
She watches the train doors close and notices her mother’s slightly chipped nails. They grab onto the central pole again, warm from other hands, and Amelia moves hers lower down, where she senses she’ll find cold metal. She thinks again about the palm tree, the metaphor of the palm tree.
Suddenly, she finds her eyes are welling up. There’s that word burning inside her. It’s been choking her for days, months. When her mother clears the table, when she meticulously folds the cotton handkerchiefs with her father’s initials. When she reminisces about London and Regent’s Park but never shows her photos from that time. Or that day when she helped Amelia with her composition for English class and confused chicken with kitchen and Amelia didn’t have the heart to point out her mistake. Or when she returns clothes she has worn but can’t pay for. Or the story of that old boyfriend she once had who lived in a mansion with marble basins and a chauffeur ‘with a hat and everything.’ Sometimes, the word seems to scald her lips and she feels like crying. Because lately she gets the sense that her mother is afraid. That she’s scared and alone, grabbing onto to the central pole on a metro train that she doesn’t dare get off.
She decides to say it, the word. But then she realizes there’s only one stop to go and some Romanians have joined the carriage, singing ‘cerco un centro di gravitá permanente’ to the sound of an accordion and her mother moves as if she’s about to start dancing, to make her laugh, and Amelia fixes her eyes uncomfortably on the unstuck plaster peeking out from the electric blue patent leather of her left shoe. Her eyes sting, and the word returns, but she hesitates, because she’s worried she’ll get it wrong, and the train is slowing as they reach their station and, just before they get off, she begins:
‘Mummy…’
But she stops short. Her heart feels like it’s burning and she falls silent. They step out of the carriage and her mother hasn’t even heard her.
She won’t say it.
Amelia grows, she matures as they walk along the platform and her mother tells her about that time in London when a man who owned a designer furniture company asked her to marry him, but she said no. ‘So, which of the houses we saw today would you take, huh, Amelia? You’re being very quiet. Oh, I can’t wait for us to make fajitas together.’ And as they climb the stairs that will finally lead them outside, to that neighbourhood a world away from the swimming pools and 4x4s waiting for schoolkids on the corner, Amelia clasps her mother’s hand tightly, and her mother laughs and says be gentle. That she’s squeezing so hard her fingers hurt and could she please let go. But Amelia doesn’t want to and, even though she’s upset, sick to her stomach even, she knows that her only duty is to keep hold of her so that she, her mother and the woman she thinks she is, will stay. Because if she lets go, she’ll disappear.
____
Laura Ferrero (Barcelona, 1984) is a writer, journalist and scriptwriter. She is the author of the short story collections Piscinas vacías (Alfaguara, 2016) and La gente no existe (Alfaguara, 2021), from which this story is taken, the novels Qué vas a hacer con el resto de tu vida (Alfaguara, 2017) and Los astronautas (Alfaguara, 2023), and the illustrated album El amor después del amor (2025), in collaboration with Marc Pallarès. She frequently contributes to El País and participates in the radio programme La Ventana, on Cadena SER. She writes film scripts and in 2023 co-wrote, with director Isabel Coixet, the script for the film Un amor.
Beth Fowler (Inverness, 1980) translates from Spanish and Portuguese to English. In 2010, she won the Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize, and since then has translated seven novels and several short stories. She also translates for art galleries and museums.