Winter in Madrid (11 page)

He studied the picture, the breathless celebration of the New Order. He remembered telling Bernie once that he stood for Rookwood values. He had probably sounded pompous. Bernie had laughed impatiently and said Rookwood was a training ground for the capitalist elite. Maybe it was, Harry thought, but it was a better elite than Hitler’s. Despite everything, that was still true. He remembered the newsreels he had seen of the things that happened in Germany, elderly Jews cleaning the streets with toothbrushes amidst laughing crowds.

He looked up. The barman was talking quietly to a couple of the old men. They kept glancing at him. Harry forced himself to drain his glass and got up. He called
‘Adiós,’
but there was no reply.

There were more people about now: well-dressed, middle-class office workers making their way home. He passed under an archway and stood in the Plaza Mayor, the centre of old Madrid, of festivals and
pronunciamientos
. The two big fountains were dry but there were still cafes round the broad square, little tables outside where a scattering of office workers sat with coffees or brandies. Even here, though, the shop windows were half empty, paint flaking from the ancient buildings. Beggars huddled in some of the ornate doorways. A pair of
civiles
circled.

Harry stood irresolutely, wondering whether to have a coffee. The street lights were starting to come on, weak and white. Harry remembered how easy it was to get lost in the narrow streets, or trip in a pothole. A couple of the beggars had risen and were walking towards him. He turned away.

As he left the square he noticed that a woman walking ahead of him had stopped dead, her back to him: a woman in an expensive-looking white dress, red hair covered with a little hat. He stopped too, astonished. Surely it was Barbara. That was her hair, her walk. The woman began walking again, turning rapidly down a side street, moving quickly, her figure fading to a white blur in the dusk.

Harry ran after her, then stood irresolute at the corner, unsure whether to follow. It couldn’t be Barbara, she couldn’t still be here. And Barbara would never have worn clothes like that.

T
HAT MORNING
B
ARBARA
had woken as usual when the church clock across the road struck seven. She rose from sleep to the heat of Sandy’s body beside her, her face resting on his shoulder. She stirred and he made a gentle grunting noise, like a child. Then she remembered and guilt stabbed through her. Today she was meeting Markby’s contact; the culmination of all the lies she had told him.

He turned and smiled, eyes heavy with sleep. ‘Morning, sweetie-pie.’

‘Hello, Sandy.’ She brushed a hand gently across his cheek, spiny with stubble.

He sighed. ‘Better get up. I’ve got a meeting at nine.’

‘Have a proper breakfast, Sandy. Get Pilar to make you something.’

He rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s OK, I’ll get a coffee on the way.’ He leaned over, smiling mischievously. ‘I’ll leave you to your English breakfast. You can eat all the cornflakes.’ He kissed her, his moustache tickling her upper lip, then got up and opened the wardrobe next to his bed. As he stood selecting clothes, Barbara watched the play of muscles in his broad chest and flat, ridged stomach. Sandy did no exercise and ate carelessly; it was a mystery how he kept his figure, but he did. He saw her studying him and smiled, that Clark Gable curl of the mouth to one side.

‘Want me to come back to bed?’

‘You’ve got to get off. What is it this morning, the Jews’ committee?’

‘Yes. There’s five new families arrived. With nothing but what they could carry from France.’

‘Be careful, Sandy. Don’t upset the régime.’

‘Franco doesn’t mean the anti-Jewish propaganda. He has to keep in with Hitler.’

‘I wish you’d let me help. I’ve so much experience dealing with refugees.’

‘It’s diplomatic stuff. Not a job for a woman; you know what the Spaniards are like about that.’

She looked at him seriously; felt guilt again. ‘It’s good work, Sandy. What you’re doing.’

He smiled. ‘Making up for all my sins. I’ll be back late, I’ve a meeting at the Ministry of Mines all afternoon.’ He moved away to his dressing table. At that distance, without her glasses, Sandy’s face began to blur. He laid the suit he had chosen over the back of a chair and padded off to the bathroom. She reached for a cigarette and lay smoking, as he splashed about. Sandy returned, shaved and dressed. He came back to the bed and bent to kiss her, his cheeks smooth now.

‘All right for some,’ he said.

‘It’s you that taught me to be lazy, Sandy.’ Barbara gave a sad half-smile.

‘What are you doing today?’

‘Nothing much. Thought I might go to the Prado later.’ She wondered whether Sandy might notice the slight tremor that came to her voice with the lie, but he only brushed her cheek with his hand before going to the door, his form turning to a blur again.

S
HE HAD MET
Markby at a dinner they had given three weeks before. Most of the guests were government officials and their wives; when the women left the tables there would be deal-making among the men, perhaps a Falangist song. But there was a journalist as well, Terry Markby, a
Daily Express
reporter Sandy had met in one of the bars the Falange people frequented. He was a mousy, middle-aged man, his dinner jacket too large for him. He looked ill at ease and Barbara felt sorry for him. She asked what he was working on and he leaned close to her, lowering his voice. He had a heavy Bristol accent.

‘Trying to find out about these concentration camps for Republican prisoners. Beaverbrook wouldn’t have taken stories like that during the Civil War, but it’s different now.’

‘I’ve heard rumours,’ she replied guardedly. ‘But if anything like
that was going on I’m sure the Red Cross would have sniffed it out. I used to work for them, you see. In the Civil War.’

‘Did you?’ Markby looked at her with surprise. Barbara knew she had been even more gauche and clumsy than usual that evening, had heard the mistakes in her Spanish. When she went to the kitchen to check on Pilar her glasses had misted up and on coming out she had unthinkingly wiped them on her hem, catching a cross look from Sandy.

‘Yes, I did,’ she replied a little sharply. ‘And if a lot of people were missing they’d know.’

‘Which side of the lines were you on?’

‘Both, at different times.’

‘It was a bloody business.’

‘It was a civil war, Spaniard against Spaniard. You have to understand that to understand the things that happened here.’

The journalist spoke quietly. On his other side Inés Vilar Cuesta was leading a loud demand from the ladies for nylon stockings.

‘A lot of people have been arrested
since
Franco won. Their families assumed they’d been shot, but a lot were taken to the camps. And there were a lot of prisoners taken in the war, people posted missing believed killed. Franco’s using them as forced labour.’

Barbara frowned. She had tried for so long to tell herself that now Franco had won he should be supported in the task of rebuilding Spain. But she found it increasingly hard to shut her eyes to the things that went on; she knew that what the journalist said could have some truth in it.

‘Have you evidence?’ she asked. ‘Who told you?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t say. Can’t reveal my sources.’ He cast a weary eye round the company. ‘Especially not here.’

She hesitated, then lowered her voice to a whisper.

‘I knew someone who was listed missing believed killed. Nineteen thirty-seven, at the Jarama. A British International Brigader.’

‘Republican side?’ Markby raised thin pale eyebrows.

‘I never shared his politics. I’m not political. But he’s dead,’ she added flatly. ‘They just never found his body. The Jarama was terrible, thousands dead. Thousands.’ Even now, after three years, she felt a sinking in her stomach at the thought of it.

Markby put his head on one side, considering. ‘Most foreign prisoners were sent home, I know. But I hear some slipped through the net. If you could give me his name and rank I might be able to find something out. The prisoners of war are kept in a separate camp, out near Cuenca.’

Barbara looked over her guests. The women had rounded on a senior official in the Supply Ministry, insisting he get them nylons. Tonight she was seeing the New Spain at its worst, greedy and corrupt. Sandy, at the head of the table, was smiling at them all, indulgently and sarcastically. That was the confidence public school gave you. It struck her that though he was only thirty-one, in his wing-collared shirt, with his oiled swept-back hair and his moustache, Sandy could have been ten years older. It was a look he cultivated. She turned back to Markby, taking a deep breath.

‘There’s no point. Bernie’s dead.’

‘Yes, if he was at the Jarama it’s very unlikely he’d have survived. Still, you never know. Do no harm to try.’ He smiled at her. He was right, Barbara thought, even the faintest chance.

‘His name was Bernard Piper,’ she said quickly. ‘He was a private. But don’t—’

‘What?’

‘Raise false hopes.’

He studied her, a journalist’s searching look. ‘I wouldn’t want to do that, Mrs Forsyth. It’s only the slimmest chance. But worth a look.’

She nodded. Markby surveyed the company, the dinner jackets and couturier dresses interspersed with military uniforms, then turned that keen evaluating gaze back to Barbara. ‘You’re moving in different circles now.’

‘I was sent to work in the Nationalist zone after Bernie – after he disappeared. I met Sandy there.’

Markby nodded at the company. ‘Your husband’s friends might not like you sniffing after a prisoner of war.’

She hesitated. ‘No.’

Markby smiled reassuringly. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see if I can find anything out.
Entre nous
.’

She held his eyes. ‘I doubt you’ll get a story out of this.’

He shrugged. ‘Any chance to help a fellow Englishman.’ He
smiled, a sweet, strangely innocent smile, although of course he wasn’t innocent at all. If he did find Bernie, Barbara thought, and the story came out, it would be the end of everything here for her. She was shocked to realize that if only Bernie was alive, she wouldn’t care about the rest.

S
HE GOT UP
and put on the silk dressing gown Sandy had got her last Christmas. She opened the window; it was another hot day, the garden bright with flowers. Strange to think that in six weeks winter would be here with its mist and frosts.

She stumbled against a chair, swore and took her glasses from the dressing-table drawer. She looked in the mirror. Sandy urged her to do without them whenever she could, memorize the layout of the house properly so she didn’t bump into things. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun, darling,’ he had said. ‘Walking around confidently greeting people and no one knowing you’re a bit short-sighted.’ He had developed a thing about those glasses, he hated her wearing them, but although she had always hated them too she still wore them when she was on her own. She needed them. ‘Bloody idiotic nonsense,’ she muttered as she took out her curlers and ran the comb through her thick auburn hair. It flowed in waves. That stylist was good, her hair never looked unkempt now. She applied her make-up carefully, eyeshadow that highlighted her clear green eyes, powder to emphasize her cheekbones. Sandy had taught her all this. ‘You can decide how you look, you know,’ he had said. ‘Make people see you as you want to be seen. If you want to.’ She had been reluctant to believe him but he had persisted and he was right: for the first time in her life she had begun, very nervously, to question her belief that she was an ugly woman. Even with Bernie she had found it hard to think what he could see in her, despite his endless loving reassurance. Tears came to her eyes. She blinked them quickly away. She needed to be strong today, clear-headed.

She wasn’t meeting Markby’s contact till late afternoon. She would go to the Prado first; she couldn’t bear being cooped up all day in the house, waiting. She put on her best outdoor dress, the white one with the rose pattern. There was a knock at the door and Pilar appeared. The girl had a round surly face and curly black hair
struggling to escape from beneath her maid’s cap. Barbara addressed her in Spanish.

‘Pilar, please prepare breakfast. A good one today, toast and orange juice and eggs, please.’

‘There is no juice,
señora
, there was none in the shops yesterday.’

‘Never mind. Ask the daily to go out later and try to find some, would you?’

The girl left. Barbara wished she would smile occasionally. But perhaps she had lost people in the Civil War; nearly everyone had. Barbara thought she caught a faint note of contempt sometimes when Pilar called her ‘
señora
’, as though she knew she and Sandy weren’t really married. She told herself it was imagination. She had no experience of servants and when she first came to the house had been uneasy around Pilar, nervous and eager to please. Sandy had told her she must be clear and precise in her orders, keep a distance. ‘It’s what they prefer, lovey.’ She remembered Maria Herreira telling her never to trust servants, they were all peasants and half of them had been Reds. Yet Maria was a kind woman who did voluntary work with old people for the church. She lit another cigarette and made her way downstairs to breakfast, to the cornflakes that Sandy was able to get in rationed, half-starved Madrid as though by magic.

W
HEN THE
Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Barbara had been working at the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva for three years. She worked in the Displaced Persons section, tracing missing members of families in Eastern Europe torn apart by the Great War and still missing. She matched names and records, wrote letters to Interior Ministries from Riga to Budapest. She managed to put enough people in touch with their families to make it worthwhile. Even where their relatives were all dead, at least the families knew for certain.

She had been excited by the job at first, it was a change from nursing in Birmingham. She had got it partly because of her years of work for the British Red Cross. After four years, though, she was bored. She was twenty-six; soon she would be thirty and she began to fear she was fossilizing among the order of her files, the stolid dullness of the Swiss. She went for an interview with a Swiss official in a neat office overlooking the still blue lake.