Blood Red by Quintin Jardine

then he laughed, and said, “Go on, Jesus, turn the other cheek.” He stopped laughing when I hit him, when I knocked him across the room. Instead he roared like a bull, and launched himself at me. He was a big man, my father, a locksmith, with strong, heavy hands from his work. But I was full-grown, and I was more than a match for him. I threw him outside, into the small courtyard at the back of the house, and we had it out. I knocked him down half a dozen times, until finally he stayed there, cut above the eye and with blood and snot coming from his nose. I left him lying, went back inside and locked the door, locked him out of his own home, and tended to my mother. She told me that he’d been abusing her since the beginning of their marriage, Primavera, as he’d abused my brother and me, but she’d kept it from us. I told her that she’d be safe from now on. I packed some clothes for her, and took her to my aunt’s house, close to the Alhambra, above Granada. Then I went back home to confront my father again. I had cooled down, and I wanted to talk to him, to try to understand why he had this thing in him that made him behave that way. But he was gone. I waited for him at the house, for two days, but he didn’t come back. Before I left for the seminary I went to my local church, confessed what I had done, and received absolution. I also received my priest’s promise that he would look after my mother, and ensure that she could live in safety once he returned.’ He shook his head. ‘But he never did, Primavera. He never came back. That’s my last memory of him, seventeen years ago, lying where I left him in the yard, spitting out teeth. What a farewell between father and son, eh, my dear.’
    ‘Is he still alive?’
    ‘I have no idea. I’ve never tried to find out.’
    ‘Has your brother?’
    ‘Not that I know of. Santi doesn’t know what happened. Mama and I let him think that the old man ran off with another woman; maybe he did. If so, may God have kept her safe.’ He tried to smile, but didn’t get halfway there. ‘So, Primavera, my precious, what do you think of your perfect priest now?’
    I wanted to hug him. I wanted to take him somewhere quiet and make him feel better, in any way I could. But that wasn’t possible, so I turned his face towards me and I told him, ‘I think he’s only a man, and I’ve never met the perfect specimen yet. But I’m proud of him, for doing the right thing. After all, God’s smitten a few foes in his time, hasn’t he? And didn’t JC lay into the money-changers in the temple? What would he have done if he’d caught Joseph hitting Mary? I don’t think any the less of you; if anything, I admire you even more.’
    He squeezed my hand again, and this time held on to it; we were in a corner, and his back was to the rest of the diners. ‘Thanks. Your absolution means more to me than the other one. But I still don’t feel cleansed. Because I know that when I fought him, it wasn’t just for my mother. It was more than that, it was for Santi and me too, for all the thumpings he gave us when we were kids, for all the cruelty, and for the denial of all the love we should have had as his children.’
    ‘He had it coming. Tell me, if it had been Santi who’d beaten the crap out of him, rather than you, would you have absolved him?’
    ‘Totally.’
    I raised his hand to my lips and kissed it, then set it down on the table ‘Then do the same for yourself.’

Eleven

    I went to church that Sunday. As I’ve said, I’m not an adherent, but something drew me to put on a skirt and a black scarf that also worked as a shawl and a head cover, and go next door. I took a place right at the back on one of the long wooden pews. They were not designed for comfort. ‘They are all penitents’ benches,’ my father is fond of declaring. ‘Church-going is not a social occasion; you can’t win true believers with comfortable seats.’
    You might think it was social for me, but