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well done.’

      Ros smiled and gave a mock curtsey.

      ‘And now what?’

      ‘I’m working at an aluminium factory, keeping the accounts. I manage the payroll and organise the weekly diary, arrange the meetings. Eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, and when I leave the office I forget all about it. It’s nothing to get too excited about, but it’s just what I need right now.’

      ‘And what about Freddy?’

      ‘It’s bad, really bad,’ she said, biting her lip and shaking her head.

      ‘Is that why you’re here, staying with Aunt Engrasi?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Why don’t you tell him to leave? When all’s said and done, it’s your house.’

      ‘I’ve already told him, but he refuses to even consider moving out. Since I left he spends all day going from the bed to the sofa and the sofa to the bed, drinking beer, playing on the PlayStation and smoking joints,’ said Ros with disgust.

      ‘That’s what Flora called him, “The PlayStation champion”. Where’s he getting the money from? Surely you’re not …?’

      ‘No, that’s all stopped, his mother gives him money and his friends keep him well supplied.’

      ‘I can pay him a visit if you want. You know what Aunt Engrasi says, a man with plenty to eat and drink can go a long time without working,’ said Amaia, laughing.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Ros with a smile, ‘she’s absolutely right, but no. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. Let me sort things out, I will sort them out, I promise.’

      ‘You’re not going to go back to him, are you?’ said Amaia, looking her in the eye.

      ‘No, I’m not going back.’

      For a moment Amaia wasn’t convinced. Then she realised her doubt must be showing on her face and was reminded of Flora and her lack of faith in other people. She made herself smile openly.

      ‘I’m glad for you, Ros,’ she said with all the conviction she could muster.

      ‘That part of my life is behind me now, and that’s something that neither Flora nor Freddy can understand. Me changing jobs at this point is incomprehensible to Flora, but at thirty-five years of age, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working under my older sister’s yoke. Putting up with the same reproaches every day, the same snide comments and malicious remarks, as she shares her poison with the whole world. And Freddy … I suppose it’s not his fault. For a long time I thought that he was the answer to all my questions, that he’d have the magic formula, a kind of revelation that would give me a new way of living. So opposite to everyone else, so rebellious, a non-conformist, and most of all, so different to Ama and Flora, and with that ability to really irritate her,’ she smiled mischievously.

      ‘That’s true. The guy does have the ability to get on Flora’s nerves, and I like him just for that,’ replied Amaia.

      ‘Until I realised that Freddy isn’t so different after all. That his rebellion and his refusal to accept the rules are nothing more than a cloak to hide a coward, a good-for-nothing capable of giving forth like Che against the evils of consumer society while spending the money that he wheedles out of his mother or me on getting stoned. I think it’s the only thing on which I agree with Flora: he is the PlayStation champion; if he was paid money for it, he’d be one of the richest men in the country.’

      Amaia looked at her with tenderness.

      ‘At a certain point, I found myself on a different path to the one we’d been on together. I knew I wanted a different way of life and that there had to be something more to life than spending every weekend drinking beer at Xanti’s bar. That, and having children. Perhaps that’s the real issue, because as soon as I decided to change my way of living, having a child suddenly became really important to me, an urgent need, my role in life. I’m not an idiot, Amaia, I didn’t want to have a child only to bring it up in a cloud of smoke from all the joints, but even so, I stopped taking the pills and hoped, as if everything would just happen according to a plan drawn up by destiny.’ Her face darkened, and her eyes seemed to lose their sparkle. ‘But it wasn’t to be, Amaia; it looks like I can’t have children either,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I got more and more desperate as the months passed without my falling pregnant. Freddy told me that perhaps it was for the best, that we were fine as we were. I didn’t answer him, but the rest of the night while he was asleep, snoring at my side, a voice was thundering inside me saying, “No, absolutely not, I am not fine like this.” And the voice kept thundering in my head while I got dressed to go to the workshop, while I dealt with the telephone orders, while I listened to Flora’s tireless litany of reproaches. And that day, when I hung my white overall in my locker, I already knew I wouldn’t go back. While Freddy was moving onto the next level of Resident Evil and I was warming the soup for supper, I also realised that my life with him was over. Just like that, without shouting or tears.’

      ‘You shouldn’t be embarrassed, tears are necessary sometimes.’

      ‘That’s true, but the time for tears had passed, my eyes had run dry from crying so much while he snored away beside me. From crying with shame and understanding that I was ashamed of him, that I could never be proud of the man at my side. Something broke inside me, and what had, until that point, been pure desperation to save our relationship became a war-cry from somewhere very deep inside me, and it condemned him. Most people are mistaken; they believe you can go from love to hate in a moment, that love suddenly breaks down, as if your heart had imploded. But, that’s not how it was for me. The love didn’t suddenly break down, but I had a sudden realisation that I had wasted myself in a relentless sanding-down process, scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch, day after day. And that was the day when I realised that there was nothing left. It was more like suddenly seeing something that has been there all along. Making those decisions made me feel free for the first time in a long time, and that’s made things straightforward for me, but neither your sister nor my husband were prepared to let me go that easily. You’d be surprised by how similar their arguments, their reproaches, their tricks were … because the two of them played tricks, you know, and they used the very same words.’ She smiled bitterly as she remembered them. ‘Where are you going to go? Do you think you’ll find something better? And, finally: who will love you? They’d never believe it, but although their tricks were designed to undermine my conviction, they had just the opposite effect: I saw how small and cowardly they were, so inept, and anything seemed possible, easier without them dragging me down. I wasn’t sure about everything, but at least I had an answer to the last question: I am; I’m going to love myself and take care of myself.’

      ‘I’m proud of you,’ said Amaia, hugging her. ‘Don’t forget you can count on me, I’ve always loved you.’

      ‘I know you have, and James, Aunt Engrasi, Aita and even Ama, in her own way. The only one who didn’t really value me was me.’

      ‘Then love yourself, Ros Salazar.’

      ‘There’s been a change there, too: I prefer people to call me Rosaura.’

      ‘Flora told me, but why? It took you years to get everyone to call you Ros.’

      ‘If I do have children one day, I don’t want them to know me as Ros, it’s a stoner’s name,’ she declared.

      ‘You could say that about any name,’ said Amaia. ‘And tell me something, when are you planning to make me an aunt?’

      ‘As soon as I find the perfect man.’

      ‘I should warn you that it’s rumoured he doesn’t exist.’

      ‘You can talk, you’ve already got one.’

      Amaia forced a smile.

      ‘We’ve tried, too. And we can’t, at the moment …’

      ‘But have you seen a doctor?’

      ‘Yes. At first I was

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