The airletter flutters to the floor, a pale-blue leaf on the wind. Jonny leans down, fumbling to retrieve it. Moving one-eyed is something he’ll never get used, but that’s OK. He won’t have to. It’s barely been a week and the doctors say he won’t need the eye patch for much longer. The damage was done by a blow, not a bullet. And compared to the rest of the body, the eye heals quickly. Because it’s open directly to the oxygen in the air, Lukas explained to him, from his sumptuous armchair in some private medical consulting rooms near the Trib’s operation in the heart of central London.
A shaft of watery English winter sunlight filters through the window, illuminating the blank page on the floor. There Jonny pauses, considering the words he’ll write. There’s a sheaf of newspaper cuttings readied on the desk to tuck inside when he’s done, each one a front-page splash, all with his name still ink-fresh and gleaming below the banner.
‘Argentina Silenced in Exchange for Debt Relief’
‘United States Implicated in Dirty War Atrocities’
‘Finding Argentina’s Disappeared; Fifteen Years On’
The truth of what really happened to some of the thousands of victims that disappeared during the Dirty War is finally starting to come out. And Jonny Murphy is quoted and acknowledged by every major news operation in the world. Especially by the Trib, whose executive board summarily marched Allen from her office 240and out into the street about ten minutes after the competition began airing the first of Jonny’s television interviews. Their managing editor had gone rogue, the chairman assured investors. The Trib’s editorial integrity remained intact, demurred the CEO. And political matters on the ground moved equally fast. A week later the story is still developing and being updated in every hourly broadcast. Rival news organisations are still clamouring to sign Jonny up. The Trib is still racing to claim him back as one of their own fast-rising stars.
But if only the headlines were enough.
Jonny still doesn’t have the answer his grandparents are desperately hoping for. He still hasn’t found the twin sister his mother willingly gave up to his father, the most twisted of secrets she took with her to her grave. And even though his career is finally taking off, he still has to find his feet again in London, a place he’s never truly been able to call home. It was either there or America, Lukas said. Fast-rising stars get access to the Trib’s biggest and best production centres. But Jonny had been determined to give someone else the casting vote. Somewhere overhead, beyond the window, the clouds part, pooling sunlight on the blue page, turning it stark white.
‘Hey,’ Paloma says softly. The floorboards creak as she steps back into the light room. ‘Do you need help with that?’
Jonny shakes his head, still bent as he grasps at the edge of the paper. ‘Not unless you’ve finished writing your own.’
Paloma pauses on the threshold. ‘I know I need to write to them. I’m just not sure where to start, let alone what I’m going to say. That I forgive them? That I understand? Because I don’t, is the truth. I’m not sure I can ever go back to America. And I don’t know how long it will take for me to come to terms with why.’
‘Just tell them you still love them,’ Jonny replies, straightening up, blank sheet finally in hand. ‘That’s all any parent ever really needs to hear. Once they know you’re safe, that is. And they know 241you’re safe here. You can go over how comprehensively the Trib has us set up in London if you can’t think of anything else.’
Paloma lets out a soft sigh. ‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’ Jonny answers rhetorically. ‘I’m sending my latest news to a set of grandparents I barely knew I had. And I still can’t tell them I’ve found what they’re really looking for.’
He hesitates, placing the blank sheet carefully on the desk in front of him, tapping it with a tentative finger. ‘I know … I know I owe you more of an explanation on all of that too. I’m just … I’m just still not quite ready to go there yet. There’s a lot … there’s just so much that I still don’t understand.’
But when he looks up, Paloma is smiling. The sight feels warm as a sunbeam. She steps towards him.
‘We all have lies in our past, remember. Someone wise beyond his years said that to me very recently, too. Meantime, why don’t you just tell them you’ve finally found something else that was missing? Someone else, I mean.’
There, Jonny’s finger stills. And there, a tender hand closes over his. Beyond the window, the breeze whispers through the English countryside, the first promises of a brand-new spring.
And with the conviction of a flower that only blossoms once a year, Jonny finally lets the hope bloom, a spray of violet jacaranda flooding the void in his chest.242