Autumn in Catalonia (14 page)

She stood up, facing Sergi, and as she did so he stepped back, conceding ground.

‘We’ll be leaving now, Papa. You seem to be dressing for dinner, and if you and Mama have an engagement you won’t want to be late. Don’t trouble to disturb Mama – her toilette will take her some time, from what I know of her, and we really have nothing to say to one another! Does she know about your deadly activities, by the way? Surely not! Even you wouldn’t wish your wife to know that you’re a murderer! Well, it isn’t my wish to upset her with such things either. Shall we say Monday evening as the deadline for Luc to be released? That should give you plenty of time! I’ll know when he is released, don’t worry, and I can repeat my promise to you that once he is free we will disappear, and never trouble your life again.’

She held out her hand to Sergi, in a final gesture of sangfroid. She was holding her breath with the pending sense of victory. Martin stood up beside her, close enough so their shoulders were touching, and after a moment Sergi took one more step back and waved them contemptuously towards the door.

‘Get out of here, both of you! You’ve taken enough of my time this evening with your fantasies. I’ll see what I can do about this Serra Torrès, since it seems he has knocked you up, you shameless little tramp! That any of your friends should end up in prison should not surprise me, you ungrateful, wayward little whore. You are a worse slut than your mother, and you are no daughter of mine, thank God!’

Carla looked at him in genuine shock – she hadn’t expected him to give this information away. But he’d gone beyond pretence now, and in his anger at being bested he just wanted to vilify her. It’s a good job you told me yesterday, Mama, she thought, otherwise this might have been a pretty shattering way to learn the truth.

‘No daughter of yours? Because you’re ashamed of me? Dear Papa, how sad I am to have shocked you so!’ Keep the fiction going, she told herself.

‘By God, yes, I’m ashamed of you, you little bitch, but nothing you could do would shock me! You’re just a dirty leftie’s bastard, and you’ve proved that you have the same loose morals as your mother. Well, I got rid of that father of yours, and if you don’t get out of here now I’ll do the same to you and this low life you have with you. Go on, both of you, get out of my house and out of my life, and never let me see your face ever again.’

He was so angry now that he was almost out of control, and Carla wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. Was he just seeking to inflict shock and damage, or was he seriously saying that he’d murdered her father? Her mind reeled, and she must have looked suitably thunderstruck, because a sneer of satisfaction crossed Sergi’s face.

‘A-and Luc?’ she managed to say.

‘Oh, I’ll get your lover boy back for you, don’t worry! I want you gone, and if he’ll take you away he’s welcome to you!’

It was clear that Sergi had recovered his
amour propre.
He was lashing at her, and had her stuttering again, and it was this power over others that fuelled him. But it was important that he didn’t forget the threat he was under. I mustn’t look like his victim, Carla thought, and she managed to pull her shattered thoughts into some focus.

‘You already disowned me last year, remember?’ she shot back at him, blinking back her tears. ‘This is the second time I’m walking out of this house, and I hope never to have to enter it again. Please don’t bother coming to the door with us. My friend and I will be happy to see ourselves out.’

She grabbed Martin and headed towards the door, and as they reached it she turned quickly. Sergi was watching her with a look in her eyes that she hoped never to have to see again.

‘One more thing, by Monday evening we expect to see Luc not only freed from prison but in Barcelona. I assume he is being held in Barcelona?’

Sergi said nothing. She held his gaze for a second without
flinching. ‘No answer? Well, I’ll just leave it in your hands, then. I’ll look forward to seeing Luc in person by Monday evening!’

She got herself and Martin out of the room as quickly as possible. They emerged from the house to find Felip and Sergi’s driver in conference by the gate, which was closed with the bolts across.

‘Come, Martin,’ Carla said loudly, and they marched towards the gate together. The driver, a big, muscular, military-looking guy whom Carla didn’t know from the past, moved forward to stand full-square in front of the gates, but just as they reached him a bell sounded behind Felip, and both men stopped. The bell was clearly a signal, because on hearing it Felip shuffled forward and laboriously pulled open the bolts and swung the nearest gate open. The driver looked up at the house, as if seeking confirmation, but when he saw nothing he stepped aside reluctantly and let Carla and Martin past.

‘Thank you,’ Carla said. ‘Now shut it behind us will you, and bolt it so we can hear the bolts go? We wouldn’t like to think you might wish to accompany us along our way!’

They waited outside until they heard the grate of the bolts. The two men moved away towards the house, muttering disconsolately at this thwarting of a capture. And as they did so Martin jerked his head at Carla and they sped off towards the park, not stopping until they were inside the park gates. They had got away! The point was made – no one was to follow them. They were free to leave, and the letters had carried the day. But Sergi had
had his own victory, and his words repeated in Carla’s head over and over so she thought she might faint. Martin held her hand, and drew her on, away through the park and away from the sphere of Sergi’s influence. And then, when they came near the far park gates he took her in cousinly arms and held her. Her face must have told its own story, because as she collapsed against him she could hear his voice repeating, again and again.

‘You’re going to get Luc back, Carla. You won. It’s the future, remember? The future is what matters! Carla, it’s all right, it’s all right … he just wanted to hurt you. You’ve won, Carla, and everything is going to be all right.’

They couldn’t just go straight back to Victor and Maria’s apartment. Of one accord they headed through the old streets, aiming for the old city wall. It was now growing quite dark, and Martin took a firm hold on Carla’s hand as they climbed up the steep alleyways of the old town, with their uneven cobbles, and an even firmer grip as they went across the ruined Jardí dels Alemanys and up the treacherous steps to the bit of ancient city wall, where they had first walked together just five days ago, although it felt so much longer.

Carla was still feeling shaky, and this night-time stumble around fallen stones and crumbling walls was probably not wise, but she held her stomach and followed Martin, accepting his help with rueful compliance, and stepped gingerly along the stonework in the gloom, holding hard to the stone parapet.

Once at the top they stopped, breathing heavily, and
looked out over the rooftops of the old town, down to the cathedral and beyond. Windows were lit up sporadically all over the town, and a few street lights had just been turned on. The effect of the lights was muted and strangely remote. Carla could almost imagine that the streets were lit by ancient torches, with cloaked medieval priests and townsfolk moving in the shadows to evensong through the alleyways and across the cathedral square.

She turned to Martin and caught the reflection of her own emotion in his eyes.

‘Do you feel it?’ she asked him.

‘The history? Yes, I feel it! What an amazing place this is!’

‘They can’t take that away from us,’ she exulted. ‘Whatever people like my father do in their brute ignorance, this view will outlive them, and anyone can come up here – it belongs to the people. It even survived their bombs!’

They walked along as far as they could, to where the wall fell away, and below them were the newer houses, built in the nineteenth century in the gap where the wall was destroyed in a siege.

‘You did that!’ Carla told Martin. ‘You French! It was yet another jumped-up dictator, your Napoleon! His army besieged Girona three times, and in 1809 ten thousand Spaniards starved to death trying to defend this city – the population was decimated and took decades to recover. But you know what? They also managed to kill fifteen thousand of the French besiegers, and Napoleon’s army was crippled for a long while.’

‘Formidable people, you Catalans! But surely the French didn’t demolish all of the wall? The whole side of the city
where Victor’s apartment is must have been surrounded by a wall once, surely?’

‘True! Napoleon only needed a relatively small breach – we did the rest ourselves! In the last hundred years they’ve pulled down most of the rest of the wall just to allow the expansion of the city, and other bits have just fallen into ruins because Gironese citizens pinched bits of stone here and there for their houses. We’re a pragmatic bunch, we Catalans, and try as I might I can’t blame everything on you French!’

Martin looked around him, down to the old town on one side, and then to the other side into the now deep blackness of the open hills beyond the new town. Carla wondered what he was thinking. What happened to any city was governed by a mix of politics and simple economics, and it was economics that had the most lasting effect. Franco would eventually die, and Sergi would be replaced, but Girona would keep growing, and people would keep moving here from the villages for work, and no doubt in fifty years time the view from this wall would encompass buildings reaching far towards the surrounding hills.

But the ancient old town would remain – it had withstood Napoleon and Franco, and had its own timelessness, just like those hills. Madrid had been practically razed to the ground by Franco’s bombs, and cities like Barcelona had lost major buildings, but hopefully Girona wasn’t important enough for anyone to destroy her now.

Carla leant her elbows on the parapet. ‘It’s horrible to think of all those people starving here 150 years ago. It’s not as though they were all soldiers – it was the people
of Girona who were stuck inside the walls, completely powerless as two armies fought over their city.’

‘The little people were always at the mercy of their overlords, though, weren’t they?’

‘In Spain they still are!’

‘You scored a point for the little people tonight, though.’

Unwanted tears pricked behind Carla’s eyes. The meeting with Sergi had been so brutal, so overwhelming, and as the adrenalin faded, she was left now feeling bruised and bewildered. God help them, had he really killed her father? She looked at Martin, longing for reassurance.

‘Did we win, Martin? Why doesn’t it feel like it? Tell me, did he really kill my father, do you think? You said he was just trying to hurt, but why invent that?’

Martin didn’t reply, but just put his arm around her shoulder.

‘Please, Martin,’ she begged him. ‘Tell me what you really think.’

He took a step back behind her so his hands were on her shoulders, and kneaded her tense muscles gently.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He didn’t say he killed him, did he? He said he got rid of him, but that’s not necessarily the same thing. He may just have set him up – given his name to some vigilante posse, or pointed him out to any group of drunk soldiers looking for game. Then he could just have quietly left them to it. Or he may just have been boasting – he may not have had anything to do with it at all.’

‘Well, I think he did.’ Carla was sure. ‘It just fits. This morning I asked Mama more about my real father, and she told me about his work in Girona, and their plans to make
a life as soon as he gained his qualifications. He wasn’t involved in the war, and his work was respectable and innocuous. He wasn’t someone the
Fascista
would have been interested in, so unless he put himself in the way of trouble, why should anything happen to him? And he wasn’t denounced and shot or anything official! Yes, it could have been someone else who actually stuck the knife in him, but Sergi was behind it, mark my words. All he’s ever wanted to do is dominate, and win, and have everything his own way, so he killed my father and ruined our lives!’

Her fingers were hurting, and as she looked down she saw that she was pressing them so hard into the parapet that they’d gone white. Martin had stopped massaging her and fallen silent, and they stood for a long time listening to the vague, rather restful sounds coming from the city below them. Gradually her fingers loosened, and the peace of the evening began to have its effect.

‘He hasn’t succeeded in ruining your life, Carla,’ Martin countered, after what seemed like an age. ‘You did win this evening, and he only threw all that at you because he couldn’t bear you having beaten him so thoroughly. If there’s one thing I really am sure of after that meeting, it’s that he’s going to get your Luc released, and soon, just as you demanded.’

Carla felt a tiny tremor of excitement, just thinking about it, but she’d used up all her brave faces for that night, and was struggling with some long-standing demons.

‘Yes,’ she sighed, ‘I’m sure you’re right. My head tells me you’re right, but there’s a part of me that just can’t believe it could be that easy, and that Luc could suddenly just reappear.’

She could hear her own voice and despised herself for sounding so negative, when they’d just achieved so much. Martin took her arm again and pointed her back towards the steps.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here. The ghosts of Girona are getting to you, my girl. You were magnificent back there, incredibly forceful, and now you’re suffering the inevitable reaction. I’m going to buy you a coffee, or something stronger perhaps, somewhere where there are people, and noise. You’re not going to start feeling like a victim again now!’

‘Can you afford it?’

‘I haven’t spent a cent, except on bus fares, since I got here, so yes, I think I can afford to buy us a drink! Then we’ll go back and reassure Maria and Victor, but not yet. We have just toppled a giant, like in the best fairy tales, and the little people have to feel pleased with themselves for once!’

They made their way down the hill through the ancient stone streets, and along to the Rambla, where Girona society would be meeting this Saturday evening, and Martin led Carla to a trendy-looking bar under the arches. She would only accept a fruit juice, but he insisted on ordering a fancy fruit cocktail for her, complete with straw and a half slice of orange hooked on to the rim. It made her laugh, and she raised her glass to him with a lift of the eyebrows.

‘Here’s to the little people, then,’ she said.

He chinked glasses with her and took a deep draught of beer, giving a little sigh of pleasure. Carla laughed at his expression of deep satisfaction, and sipped her cocktail with an almost playful feeling. Around them the bar buzzed with
Saturday night activity. The young and beautiful of Girona were enjoying the aperitif hour, and Carla felt really grateful for the new, fashionable look Joana had given her that morning, which made her look quite at home among them.

Martin seemed to catch the thought; ‘I have to say you don’t look like one of the little people,’ he commented. He gestured to the surrounding tables. ‘You grew up among this lot, didn’t you?’

Carla grimaced. ‘I did, but I never made it to the position of socialite. I bailed out long before! Sergi would have loved to see me here among them, though. See that table over there and those young girls? That’s exactly what my father would have wanted me to be like – there’s something very painstaking about their sophistication, don’t you think?’

Martin examined the table in question. The two young men were dressed in well-cut suits, and looked like junior executives on a well-prepared ladder to good industry jobs, and their girlfriends could have been twins, with long hair carefully curled to frame their faces, and off-the-shoulder dresses with full skirts, which owed more to the fifties than to the sixties. Their style was kittenish, and would have their fathers’ full approval, and their deep-red lipstick could not disguise their highly protected innocence. They listened with becoming deference to the raucous jokes of their companions, and smiled and giggled in all the right places.

Martin grinned at Carla. ‘I’d struggle to imagine you in their place, I have to admit. I think your father failed in your education!’

‘Maybe because he’s not really my father.’ Carla sipped her juice through the coloured straw, and studied it with
careful attention. ‘Tell me, Martin,’ she said after a while, ‘How come you knew all about my father? How come my mother told you the whole story when she’d kept it so well buttoned up all these years?’

Martin took time to answer, as though he was working out for himself what the answer was.

‘It was when I told her about you, about you being pregnant,’ he said eventually. ‘And about how Luc had disappeared leaving you in such a desperate situation. It was so close to her own experience, and it took her right back to when she was seventeen, and in the same situation. I can’t remember when I’ve seen anyone look so stricken. What was it she said? “It’s such a dreadful thing, that fear.” I don’t think she knew what she was saying, but it was clear she was talking about herself.’

‘And she went on to tell you everything?’

‘I asked her if it had happened to her, and she broke down.’

Carla looked at him pensively. ‘She seems to trust you, though, my mother. She’s lowered the barricades with you.’

‘I’m new in your lives, Carla – I’m family, but I don’t have any part in the history you’ve lived together. It’s easier for you all to trust me, and of course I’m Luis’s son as well, and he was everyone’s darling, it seems!’

‘Does she know that you’re like me – that you were Luis’s love child? That he didn’t even know you existed? That you were taken on by another man as his son? A man who hated you like my supposed father hated me?’

Why am I throwing this at him, Carla asked herself? Her words had come out like bullets – but she wanted to hear
him talk about it – he’d lived longer with the knowledge of illegitimacy than she had. Help me, was what she was actually saying.

A cloud seemed to settle on his face, though, as she spoke, and she worried that she’d pushed too far into sensitive territory. She waited, watching his face as it sat in the dark cloud, and after a moment she reached out and touched his hand. He looked up and she smiled at him, and he gave her a smile back.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘But I was young and vulnerable when I found out, and unlike you I’ve got legitimate siblings on both sides who stand on much more solid ground than I do – they don’t have to manoeuvre through the same minefield of identity. You know, the similarities between us two are less relevant than the similarity between you and your mother. Whatever happens to you, you know that Luc loves you and that he loves and wants your baby. And your real father truly loved Joana and would have loved and wanted you. The difference is that you’re now heading for a happy ending, and your baby will be raised by its real father.’

She looked at him with contrition. ‘Do you think Luis would not have wanted you? He loved your mother, surely?’

‘He cared about her, I’m sure, but his real love was his wife, and he already had a family he adored. His affair with my mother was a temporary blip in his life at a time when they were both lonely, and the arrival of a child would have caused him terrible complications. No, he wouldn’t have wanted me – he would just have felt obliged to be honourable.’

‘We want you, though,’ she said, reaching for his hand.

‘I know. I’ve felt that acceptance ever since I arrived here. It’s what I’ve been looking for, these last few years.’

‘You’ve succeeded, believe me.’

‘Thank you. I feel as though I’ve finally been entitled to my father since I came here. And, Carla, you could do the same thing if you wanted. If your mother will agree, you could go to Alex Figarola’s family and tell them who you are. They lost their son very cruelly back in 1939, and I bet they would be very happy to know they have a grandchild, and that Alex had left a part of himself behind.’