Daughter of Catalonia (5 page)

‘Can you tell us about Paris, about that summer here in your house?’ asked Robert. ‘It was the start of it all, wasn’t it?’

Solange looked across at Louise. ‘Yes, that much we can certainly tell you. So, who tells,
Maman
? You or me?’

‘You tell, my dear. I’ll listen, and maybe add something if I feel it. But first the cognac, Bernard. Let us be comfortable.’

Bernard, benign and leisurely, rose from the table and brought a tray with two heavy crystal decanters and glasses from a corner table, offered cognac and chartreuse, and waved his cigar box towards Robert, who declined. The cut glass reflected little glimmers of light from the chandelier,
and gave off small chinks of sound as decanter touched goblet. There was hardly a word spoken, just the simple words of service and acceptance. Then Bernard leant back in his chair, raised his glass to them all, and once more to Madeleine, then settled back unhurriedly to light his cigar. Louise waited, took a sip of her own little glass of green chartreuse, and then turned to Solange.

‘Now start, my daughter.’

Madeleine felt quite breathless, like an excited child at story time. She leant forward in her chair, and Solange caught her eye and flashed her a conspiratorial grin.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘
il était une fois
. There was a lovely young woman, half English, half French, who looked English but moved like a Frenchwoman. She came to Paris as part of her “coming out”, to widen her social circle, to learn a little sophistication. She was so funny, Elise, always laughing – laughing at the French and at the English, at any stuffiness, at French men and their flattery. We had a lot of fun, and I suppose we were as silly as most girls our age at that time. I was two years older than Elise and thought I was much more mature, and I used to tell her off for giggling so much.’

‘But she was intelligent too, and she knew she’d been brought up in a narrow British circle, and she wanted to learn. It was 1935, and Hitler had just become Führer and begun militarisation, we were still in depression and there was so much poverty, and nobody knew whether to be fascist or communist.
Maman
always had a lot of artists and writers among her friends, and mostly they were communists or liberals. But we also knew a lot
of diplomats and financiers living in this
quartier
, and some of them toyed quite openly with Fascist ideas. It was a revelation to Elise because her own parents – your grandparents – were simple, old-fashioned conservative thinkers, and she had never before taken part in much debate. She never stopped asking questions, and still knew how to laugh at some of the more fanciful ideas our friends came out with.’

‘Maryse was just the same, though, when she was young,’ Louise interjected.

Madeleine started. She’d been lost in thoughts about her mother. It had been a long time since she had heard her grandmother called Maryse. Everyone in Forsham called her Marie. Madeleine wondered what her grandmother really thought about her English adopted name. She looked up at
Tante
Louise, focusing on her eyes as if the answer would be there.

‘Oh yes,’ continued Louise, ‘Maryse was just like Elise. Always laughing, teasing, testing people a little. Never taking them too seriously. Nobody listened to young ladies then, but Maryse would say things which floored people, and then when they looked at her she would smile so sweetly and move on as if she hadn’t said anything at all. Nobody ever knew whether she was really an impudent young madam or just an innocent. You can imagine how I adored her. I was four years younger than her, still a child really, and there was this beautiful, fashionable cousin who seemed to hold the whole world in the palm of her hand. What fun she was. And she stood up for us children, too. She made us feel we could have a voice.’

‘What on earth did she see in Grandfather, then?’ Robert’s voice was bitter.

‘Oh, he was just wonderful! No, really! He came back with her to Paris after her London season, in 1906, I think, or was it 1907, and we children were completely captivated. He was older than her, of course, and quite serious, but he was so handsome, and tall, and held himself so upright, and we loved his funny way of speaking French. He didn’t mind when we giggled, and he gave us sweets and presents, and he treated me like a young lady, which was wonderful at the age of fourteen. Everyone was in love with his English manners and that tantalising reserve. Maryse’s
Maman
and Papa were not fully convinced about him at first, because he didn’t have family money, you know, but everyone knew how dazzling his career was, and they allowed themselves to be won over. And Maryse was head over heels in love with him. You see, he listened to her, unlike all the so gallant French men we knew, and he didn’t just pander to her like some wayward child. He was really proud of her intelligence and she loved it.’

Madeleine watched Robert’s face, his frown of concentration, and thought they must both be following the same thought process, trying to match the young couple being described with the elders they knew. But it made sense, she realised. She’d always known about the elders’ romance and some snippets of their times in Paris. She hadn’t realised why Grandmama had been attracted to him, but of course, he must have seemed so different from the complacent Gallic suitors who surrounded the
young Maryse. And that deferential seriousness could so easily turn over time into the crotchety, captious old man Grandfather had become. And as for Grandmama, she pandered to her husband but she mainly pleased herself in her life, and was not at all dominated by him. And she still charmed their neighbours. She was just a little lacking in heart. Madeleine voiced her thoughts.

‘Wasn’t she always a bit self-centred, though, the Maryse you knew? Was she warm or was she a bit cold at heart?’

Tante
Louise took time to reply, deep in thought, perhaps casting back for memories.

‘I suppose she may have been a bit cool. She was good to us children – fun, you know. There was joy in her. And when I came out into society she was wonderful about advice, fashions, shopping, how to handle my mother; all that kind of thing. And she adored her children when they came. The two boys were her idols. She didn’t spend a lot of time with them, but that was so normal in those days. I think they felt loved. Your mother came later, of course. She was born during the war, in 1916. I was already married by then and had Solange. When your mother was born it was Paul who was over the moon. He loved his little daughter, and when she was little he lavished attention on her. But Maryse preferred the boys. She loved their cheek and their decisiveness. She used to tell me she really pitied me for only having a daughter.’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘Losing her two sons dried her up, I think. All that joy was extinguished. But I wish you had known that side of her.’

Solange interjected, ‘But Elise was all warmth and heart.’

‘Oh yes,’ Louise’s face softened, ‘Elise was a very loving child. She was always my favourite niece. She gave and she gave and she gave. And she still had all of Maryse’s joy.’

‘Yes,’ she repeated, with a wistful smile, ‘Elise was wonderful.’

The evening was now growing late. The coffee on the table was cold, the decanter stoppered, but still nobody moved from the table. Bernard sat at the head, comfortably silent, the drift of smoke from his cigar almost stationary above their heads. Robert sat opposite, leaning back in his chair, and between them the three women had drawn in their chairs, and sat forward, arms on the table,
Tante
Louise’s hands fluttering as always when she spoke.

With curtains drawn and side lamps shaded, the dining room was softened from its usual sharp, classic elegance to a space of intimate secrets, where the corners of the room were unknown shadows, and only the rounded centre breathed warm and alive. They had all fallen silent now, each lost for a moment in their own private bubble of thought. Madeleine longed to ask more questions, but was afraid to disturb the stillness and break the spell. Finally Robert leant forward and took Louise’s hand softly in his.

‘How did Elise meet our father?’ he asked simply.

Louise looked across at Solange who took up the thread again, equally simply. ‘It was here. In this apartment. Everyone knew Luis that summer. It was 1935, remember. Everyone was talking about Spain, and Luis was the revolutionary, the one everyone wanted to listen to.’

‘Why was he in Paris?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘We know nothing. That’s what I was telling you. We’ve never been told anything.’ Robert’s voice was edged with frustration. ‘We know he fought against Fascism, but 1935 was before Franco, before the Civil War. Why wasn’t he in Spain, helping build the Republic? Why was he in a Paris drawing room?’

‘Not any Paris drawing room, Robert. My drawing room! But you are right – he didn’t want to be here. Oh, my good Lord, no, Luis was only here because he was driven.’

‘Why am in a Parisian drawing room?’ Luis asked himself for the twentieth time that month. It had all seemed so different before, Paris, so charming, so elegant. And this house, Louise’s house, was a haven of good taste and intellect. He’d always loved coming here, and a young, handsome Spanish journalist with a secret smile at his own charisma was guaranteed a place among these silks and knotted cravats. But that was when he was in Paris before. Before Spain had stood up and declared her freedom, before Alfonso had gone, and De Rivera, and the people’s pact had set them all on that mad path of hope and betrayal, and Luis had gone home to join the madness and the dream, that genuine, hard-earned dream. How had it all gone rotten so quickly? Only three years into the Republic, and the right wing were stripping his country, his Catalonia, of its new identity. Like teenagers,
they were all still trying their new muscles, striking poses, practising being independent, and then it was gone, and it all became deathly serious, fighting now with adult fear and resolve for what they had only just come to know, and the army turning on them, killing, beating, putting the constitution behind bars. And yet there was still a republic, still elections to come, still so much work to be done. But not by him – that was the bitterest pill. The newspaper was gone, Miquel and Felip were in prison, others had disappeared, and Luis was on the run, back in Paris, not by choice this time, but in exile. He would go back. By God he would go back! This band of right-wing butchers would get their comeuppance soon. But meanwhile, he was here, and the Catalan dream was somewhere on the road behind him, in the ditch, hiding and biding its time as it had done so often in the past.

A young Italian diplomat came towards Luis and then spotted him, and turned to one side, keeping a careful distance. Why did Louise invite these fascists into her house? It was all very well embracing different views of the world, but Mussolini’s lackeys?

‘Hail, fellow!’ a voice boomed in his ear from behind, and Johnny Denton was by his side, large and fat and untidy. He grasped Luis in an eager grip, and Luis grimaced ruefully as he pulled his hand away from the yellow-stained fingers. He grinned.

‘Unhand me, you oaf! I can’t be seen shaking hands with a raw-faced American who believes that Clark Gable and Mickey Rooney are the new leaders of world culture!’

‘Ah,’ replied Johnny Denton, ‘but some of us journalists
have to earn a humble crust writing about the modern day idols! Not all of us can get away with writing long political tracts and calling them newspaper articles. Which you do, and I’m glad that someone can, though I don’t suppose it pays as well as my drivel! I liked your piece today, Luis. You’re right about the polarisation of the left and right in Madrid. But the right is weakening, and if the left and centre can work together they’ll bring the Republic back on track.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Luis’s voice was grim. ‘It’s the “if” that worries me. We don’t only need all the factions to work together, but the geographical groups as well. The right isn’t really weakening, you know. It’s weaker in the polls, but that’s not necessarily going to stop them. They’ve got Hitler’s example to follow. When someone doesn’t agree with you, eliminate them, and damn democracy.’

‘But you’re not there yet, and there’s a spirit in Spain for freedom. It’s not Germany!’

‘But it’s not America either. The Church, tradition, intolerance, corruption – we’ve got them in spade-loads, and it makes democracy damned hard work.’

Denton smiled. ‘Ah yes! Democracy! In America we have democracy, but believe me, there’s a whole heap of intolerance hidden among the Hershey bars, and Mamma’s apple pie, and God and country!’

‘But it’s a country that openly embraces sex icons like Mae West and Marlene Dietrich!’

‘Mae West from afar, but you wouldn’t really introduce her to your mother, not if you were from homely Ohio!
Talking of which, have you seen Louise’s young niece, who’s just come over from London?’

‘More Shirley Temple than Mae West, surely?’

‘I don’t know, but she has something, a little something behind the eyes that spells passion to me. And believe me, Luis, I know these things!’

Passion? She had passion, Luis discovered. But first the eyes just looked a question at him, an open, conspiratorial question which invited him to answer. It was the openness of a child, through eyes that gazed unprotected as can only those who have never known fear, but there was delicacy there, and understanding, and the instinctive maturity of a woman, and a voice which caressed him unknowingly as she spoke. It seemed to wake his soul.

He’d been asleep for a long time, he realised, as he returned Elise’s smile.

‘Luis, this is my darling niece, Elise, who has come to visit us from London, to keep Solange company and have some fun this summer.’

She had a perfect smile – soft rose lips, nothing pouting, nothing painted, but the softness made you want to touch, to taste. And there was a sweetness which reached the eyes, deep blue eyes in an English face. She held out her hand and Luis took it and held it.

‘You are English, Mademoiselle? I didn’t know that Louise had family in England?’

‘My cousin,’ Louise nodded. ‘Dear Elise is her daughter – not a niece at all, I suppose, are you my love? And nor are you English. We have you back here now, and we will send you back home a Frenchwoman!’

Elise laughed. ‘Goodness knows what I am, Señor Garriga. A half-breed in both countries, but my mother wishes at least my manners to be French, and so has sent me to live for a few months in the most elegant home in Paris,
n’est-ce pas, Tante
Louise?’

She didn’t speak like a debutante, despite her age. Was it her English education which made her so at ease, or just her nature? And the voice resonated, soft and mellow, like the vibrations of a viola. Luis couldn’t resist laughing with her, but then she became serious.

‘I read your article today, Señor.
Tante
Louise tells me you have been a mainstay of the Republic. You make one feel it in your writing – the power of what is there to defend, and the work to be done. You must hate being here.’

No one in Paris ever referred so directly to his exile – the French were so tactful. But Elise’s words held a mixture of compassion and interest which held him.

‘Not tonight, Mademeoiselle. Tonight I am unexpectedly glad to be in Paris. But you are right about what I am trying to say when I write. If I can make one person feel my urgency, then I have been successful.’

He was still holding her hand, he realised, and she made no move to remove it.

‘Will you tell me?’ she appealed. ‘I believe there’s food in the other room. Will you take me through, and tell me?’

‘It was a lost cause between those two when they met,’ said Louise. ‘Within days your father was almost living in our house, and they played no games, made no pretence. We could be around the dinner table, and Luis would look
at her, and it was as though he was touching her. He told me she made him feel all things were still possible. “I’m a journalist,” he told me, “but with her I am a poet.” I didn’t really have any reply. But I did worry about what Paul and Maryse would think. They would hardly see him as an eligible husband for their daughter. And there was no doubt that was what Luis and Elise were thinking about, within just a few weeks. They were both essentially such serious people. There wasn’t much chance of either of them changing their mind.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Robert.

‘Maryse happened.’ Louise’s shrug was as eloquent as it was Gallic. ‘Maryse came out to Paris to visit, and there was no disguising the romance. Luis made no attempt to hide his feelings. He set out to charm Maryse, and did his best to present himself as a serious, important journalist! He might have succeeded, but she read some of his left-wing work, and then called Paul, and the next thing we knew she was arranging tickets to take Elise home. And then Luis and Elise disappeared.’

‘Eloped?’

‘Yes, in the best old-fashioned tradition. Paul arrived from England raging, and blowing all colours of hot air. I’ve never seen anyone so angry in my life. What a scene! I, of course, was completely to blame. They should never have left their daughter in my care, he said. She could ruin herself for all he cared. He would never agree to a marriage, and more and more of the same!’
Tante
Louise allowed herself a wry smile.

‘I can just hear him,’ Madeleine muttered.

‘Yes indeed. There was nothing anyone could do, of course. We had no idea where they’d gone, and gradually it dawned on Paul exactly how powerless he was. Then there came a letter from Elise. She wrote that she and Luis had travelled south to the French border with Spain – to French Catalonia, and that from there Luis was going to continue his writing. He still had contacts, and could write even better from there about the situation in Spain. And she finished the letter by saying that she wanted to marry Luis, but while she was too young to do so without permission she would simply live with him, and indeed was already doing so. I don’t think I ever saw Paul as speechless as when he read this. Elise had sent a poste restante address in Perpignan, and Paul went down there and caused all kinds of ructions, but he got nowhere and found no one, so eventually he came back here and gave me a letter to send giving his consent to a marriage. He couldn’t bear to contemplate the idea that his daughter was living in a state of sin, let alone that she might have a child out of wedlock. You can have no idea how outrageous your mother’s behaviour appeared in those days.’

‘Oh yes I can!’ breathed Madeleine.

‘Yes!’
Tante
Louise gave a small chuckle. ‘Well your grandfather couldn’t bring himself to send the letter himself, and he told me to send it, and then never to darken his door again, and to tell his daughter the same! Such wonderfully old-fashioned language. Anyway, at last they left, and we were able to contact Elise.’

‘My God!’ Robert’s voice was awed. ‘Imagine
Maman
being so bold.’

‘Not just bold, joyously so,’ Solange assured him. ‘
Maman
and I went down to Vermeilla to witness Luis and Elise’s wedding, and they were ridiculously happy. They’d found this tiny apartment in a little street in Vermeilla, one of those streets where the sun never gets between the buildings, and the apartment had just three rooms, and they cooked in the same room as they lived in. What a muddle everywhere, as well – Elise had never had to take care of herself, or cook, or clean, or wash clothes, and she was hopeless at it. But Luis didn’t care, and they had already made friends, and he was in contact with his people over the border, so he felt involved again, and was happy. Elise was simply glowing, wasn’t she,
Maman
?’

‘Yes.’ Louise was less enthusiastic. ‘I would have preferred to see them in better circumstances, I must admit. They were so impractical. And soon afterwards Elise became pregnant. I went down to see them again, without Solange, not long before you were born, Madeleine. I was worried, and I begged Elise not to have a baby in that mess.’

‘You’re surely not going to stay here once the baby is born?’

‘But
Tante
Louise, you surely don’t expect us to move now? What would we do with everything?’ Elise waved a hand vaguely around the apartment’s one main room, in which every corner was crammed with books and papers.

‘But if you had a bigger apartment you needn’t have the mess! There’d be room for all this!’

Elise laughed. ‘Yes, but how long do you think it would be before Luis filled the extra space, and it all looked the
same? If we can’t go to Spain, we may as well stay here!’

Then she laughed again at Louise’s expression. For Louise nothing could be worse than to think of them moving to Spain. Elise allowed her mind to drift back to that too short visit, just when everything had come right again, and the Popular Front had united and beaten the right wing in the elections, and Catalonia had been declared free again. Luis had been so hopeful for a while, and so happy not to be an exile. They had roamed the streets of Barcelona together hand in hand, Luis introducing her to friends, buildings, shopkeepers, landmarks, comrades, and Elise sometimes hardly knowing which was which, depending on who he was speaking to and in which language. It was exciting, Barcelona, always moving, edgily political. This was the spring of hope, and everyone wanted to believe.

‘Could you live here,
vida meva?
’ His eyes had coaxed.

‘If you help me, I could live anywhere. But you’d have to teach me Catalan,
cariňo
! And I haven’t exactly been gifted so far.’

He smiled, and his hand just touched her belly. There was no sign of the pregnancy yet, but the baby was there, a bud of hope, he called it. Their love child, Elise called it.

They walked along the beach by the port, and the early winds of spring pulled at her hair and made her want to run, and pull Luis down onto the sand. But there were morning walkers, and the city moved behind them, so she leant back into him, reaching her hands up and behind her to cradle his head, and he nuzzled her neck, touching his lips just where her hair met the back of her ears.

‘Temptress!’

Elise chuckled. ‘Wait a few months and I may tempt you less!’ She drew his hands around her stomach, and he trailed them from her breasts to the line of her thighs.

‘What would your mother say?’

‘That the siren had corrupted her son.’

‘I’ve always wanted to be a siren!’

‘Well you failed, my temptress, for you are Hera, and you bring nothing but love.’

They visited his mother, in the mountain village of Sant Galdric, where their car was the only transport except for the baker’s van. One long, steep street bordered by faded stone houses, and brown, blistered paintwork which Luis swore had never changed since his childhood. Children played in front of open doorways, but otherwise the place seemed lifeless to Elise. Where was everyone, she wondered? In France, in Vermeilla, everyone moved, and met outside, and gossiped, and intrigued.