Winter in Madrid (20 page)

He stepped towards her, shouting back now. ‘You know it’s not like that! You know how I feel, you must, are you blind?’

‘Blind with my stupid glasses, is that it?’

‘Can’t you see I love you!’ he shouted.

‘Liar!’

She ran out of the church and down the path. As she went through the gate she skidded on a patch of wet snow and collapsed sobbing against the stone wall. She heard Bernie come up behind her. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

‘Why should I be a liar? Why? I do love you. You feel the same, I’ve seen it, why won’t you believe me?’

She turned to face him. ‘Because I’m ugly and clumsy and … No!’ She buried her face in her hands, sobbing wildly. A small boy walking by, barefoot and carrying a piglet, stopped and stared at them.

‘Why do you hate yourself so?’ Bernie asked gently.

She wanted to scream. She wiped her eyes, pushed him away, and began walking down the street. Then the little boy shouted, ‘Look! Look!’ Barbara turned; he had put the squealing piglet under one arm and was pointing excitedly upwards with the other. High in the sky one of the German fighters had been hit and was plunging to earth. There was a loud crump from some way off and the boy cheered. After a quick upward glance, Bernie hurried towards her.

‘Barbara, wait.’ He stepped in front of her. ‘Please, listen. Never mind sex, I don’t care about that, but I love you, I do love you.’

She shook her head.

‘Tell me you don’t feel the same and I’ll walk away now.’

Into Barbara’s head had come a picture of a dozen little girls, calling after her in the playground. ‘Speccy four-eyes, frizzy carrot hair!’

‘I’m sorry, it’s no use, I can’t – no.’

‘You don’t understand, you don’t see …’

Barbara turned to face him and her heart lurched at the pain and sadness in his face. Then she jumped, hearing a screaming noise from above. She looked up. The second German fighter had been hit and was falling towards them. Already it was terrifyingly close, flames pouring from its side in a long red-yellow trail. It fell like a stone; she saw the propellers, still turning, shiny as insects’ wings. Bernie was staring upward too. Barbara pushed him away and as he staggered back the air was filled with a giant roar and she saw the high wall of the house they were passing leap outwards at her. Something hit her head with a terrible smashing pain.

She was only unconscious for a moment. When she came round she was aware of the pain in her head, she tried frantically to remember what had happened, where she was. She opened her eyes and saw Bernie leaning over her, dimly because her glasses were gone. There were bricks and dust all around. He was leaning over her and he was crying, she had never seen a man cry. ‘Barbara, Barbara, are you all right, oh God, I thought you were dead. I love you, I love you!’

She let him lift her up. She buried her face in his chest and started weeping; they were both sitting crying in the street. She heard footsteps, people crowding round from the houses.

‘Are you safe?’ someone called. ‘My God, look!’

‘I’m all right,’ Barbara said. ‘My glasses, where are my glasses?’

‘They’re here,’ Bernie said softly. He handed them to her and she put them on. She saw the garden wall had fallen down, only just missing them, showering the road with bricks. One of them must have hit her. Flames and black smoke poured from every window of the villa, and the tail of the plane was sticking out of the collapsed roof. Barbara saw a black swastika; it had been painted over in yellow but it showed through. She lifted her hand to her head. It came away covered with blood. An old black-shawled woman put her arm round her. ‘It is only a cut,
señorita
. Ay, that was a miracle.’

Barbara reached a hand out to Bernie. He was nursing his injured arm, his face pale. Both their coats were white with dust.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked him.

‘The blast knocked me over. I hurt the arm a bit. But, oh God, I thought you were dead. I love you, please believe me, you have to believe me now!’ He began crying again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’

They hugged each other. The little crowd of Spaniards, refugees who perhaps three months ago had never left their pueblos, stood beside them, looking at the wreckage of the aeroplane sticking out of the burning villa.

S
ITTING ON THE BENCH
watching the sealions, Barbara remembered the warmth of Bernie’s grasp again. His injured arm, how it must have hurt him to hold her. She looked at her watch, the tiny Dior watch Sandy had given her. She had resolved nothing in her mind, just gone all emotional about the past. It was time to go home, Sandy would be waiting.

He was back by the time she returned, his car in the drive. She took off her coat. Pilar trotted up from the basement and stood quietly in the hall, hands folded in front of her as she always did when Barbara came in.

‘I don’t need anything, Pilar. Thanks.’

‘Muy
bien, señora.’
The girl curtsied and went back downstairs to the kitchen. Barbara kicked off her shoes; her feet were sore after walking all afternoon.

She went up to Sandy’s study. He often worked for hours up there, studying paperwork and making telephone calls. The room was at the back of the house, with a small window that caught little light. He had filled it with ornaments and works of art he had picked up. An Expressionist painting of a distorted figure leading a donkey through a fantastic desert landscape dominated the room, lit by a wall-lamp.

He was sitting at his desk now, surrounded by a mass of papers, running a pencil down the margin of a column of figures. He hadn’t heard her and his face wore the look it sometimes had when he
thought no one could see: intense, calculating, somehow predatory. In his free hand he held a cigarette, a long trail of ash threatening to fall from the end.

She studied him with a newly critical gaze. His hair was still slicked back with Brylcreem, so thickly you could see the lines of the comb running through. The Brylcreemed hair, like the little straight moustache, was the fashion in Falange circles. He saw her and smiled.

‘Hello, darling. Good day?’

‘All right. I went to the Retiro this afternoon. It’s starting to get cold.’

‘You’ve got your glasses on.’

‘Oh, Sandy, I can’t go out in the street without them. I’d get run over. I have to wear them, it’s just silly not to.’

He stared at her for a moment then smiled again. ‘Oh well. The wind’s got into your cheeks. Roses.’

‘What about you? Working hard?’

‘Just some more figures for my Min of Mines project.’ He moved the papers away, out of her line of vision, then took her hand. ‘I’ve got some good news. You know you were talking about voluntary work. I spoke to a man at the Jews’ Committee today, whose sister’s big in Auxilio Social. They’re looking for nurses. How d’you fancy working with children?’

‘I don’t know. It’d be – something to do.’ Something to take her mind off Bernie, the camp in Cuenca, Luis.

‘The woman we need to speak to’s a
marquesa
.’ Sandy raised his eyebrows. He pretended to despise the snobbish worship of the aristocracy upper-class Spaniards engaged in as much as the English, but she knew he enjoyed mixing with them. ‘Alicia, Marquesa de Segovia. She’s going to be at this concert at the Opera House on Saturday; I’ve got tickets for us.’ He smiled and pulled out a couple of gold-embossed cards.

Guilt filled her. ‘Oh, Sandy, you always think of me.’

‘I don’t know what this new guitar concerto thing will be like, but there’s some Beethoven too.’

‘Oh, thanks, Sandy.’ His generosity made her feel ashamed. She felt tears coming and got up hastily. ‘I’d better get Pilar started on dinner.’

‘All right, lovey. I need another hour on this.’

She went down to the kitchen, slipping on her shoes on the way. It wouldn’t do to let Pilar see her walking barefoot.

In the kitchen the paint was an ugly mustard colour, not white like the rest of the house. The maid sat at a table beside the immense old kitchen range. She was looking at a photograph. As she shoved it down the front of her dress and stood up, Barbara caught a glimpse of a young man in Republican uniform. It was dangerous to carry that photograph; if she was asked for her papers and a
civil
found it, questions would be asked. Barbara pretended she hadn’t seen it.

‘Pilar, could you start the dinner?
Pollo al ajillo
tonight, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Have you everything you need?’

‘Yes, madam, thank you.’ There was a coldness in the girl’s eyes. Barbara wanted to explain, tell her she knew what it was like, she had lost someone too. But that was impossible. She nodded and went upstairs to dress for dinner.

T
HE
C
AFÉ
R
OCINANTE
was in a narrow street off Calle Toledo. When Harry left the embassy he saw the pale-faced young Spaniard following him again. He cursed – he would have liked to turn round and shout at the man, hit him. He doubled round a couple of streets and managed to lose him. He walked on with a feeling of satisfaction, but when he saw the cafe and crossed over to it his heart began to pound. He took long, deep breaths as he opened the door. He went over the preparation they had done in Surrey for this first meeting. Expect him to be suspicious, they had said; be friendly, naive, a newcomer to Madrid. Be receptive, a listener.

The cafe was gloomy, the daylight coming through the small dusty window barely augmented by fifteen-watt bulbs round the walls. The patrons were mainly middle-class men, shopkeepers and small businessmen. They sat at the little round tables drinking coffee or chocolate, mostly talking business. A thin boy of ten circulated, selling cigarettes from a tray tied round his neck with string. Harry felt uncomfortable, looking round the place while trying not to attract attention. So this was what being a spy was like. There was a faint hissing and churning in his bad ear.

Apart from a couple of middle-aged matrons sitting talking about how expensive things were on the black market, there was only one other woman, smoking alone with an empty coffee cup in front of her. She was in her thirties, thin and anxious-looking, wearing a faded dress. She watched the other customers constantly, her eyes darting from table to table. Harry wondered whether she might be some sort of informer; she was a bit obvious, but then so was his ‘tail’.

He saw Sandy at once, sitting alone at a table reading a copy of ABC. There was a coffee on the table and a big cigar in the ashtray. If he hadn’t seen the photographs he wouldn’t have recognized him.
In his well-cut suit, with his moustache and slicked-back hair, there was hardly anything of the schoolboy Harry remembered. He was heavier, though with muscle not fat, and there were already lines on his face. He was only a few months older than Harry, but he looked forty. How had he come to look so old?

He approached the table. Sandy didn’t look up and Harry stood there a moment, feeling foolish. He coughed and Sandy lowered the newspaper and stared at him enquiringly.

‘Sandy Forsyth?’ Harry pretended surprise. ‘Is it? It’s me. Harry Brett.’

Sandy looked blank for a moment, then recognition dawned. His whole face lit up and he gave the wide smile Harry remembered, showing large square white teeth.

‘Harry Brett! It
is
you. I don’t believe it! After all these years! God, what are you doing here?’ He got up and grasped Harry’s hand firmly. Harry took a deep breath.

‘I’m working as an interpreter at the embassy.’

‘Good Lord! Yes, of course, you did languages at Cambridge, didn’t you? What a turn up!’ He leaned across and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Jesus, you haven’t changed much. Sit down, d’you want a coffee? What’re you doing in the Rocinante?’

‘I’m billeted near here, just round the corner. Thought I’d try it out.’ A momentary catch in his throat as he told his first actual lie, but looking at the simple happy surprise on Sandy’s face, Harry saw he had taken him in. He felt a stab of guilt, then relief that Sandy was so pleased to see him, though this would not make things easier.

Sandy clicked his fingers and an elderly waiter in a greasy white jacket came across. Harry ordered a hot chocolate. Cigar smoke wreathed from Sandy’s mouth as he studied Harry. ‘Well, damn me.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s been – what – fifteen years. I’m surprised you recognized me.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly changed. I wasn’t sure for a minute …’

‘I thought you’d have forgotten me years ago.’

‘Never forget those days.’

‘Rookwood, eh?’ Sandy shook his head. ‘You’ve put on a bit of weight.’

‘I guess so. You look fit.’

‘Work keeps me on my toes. Remember those afternoons hunting for fossils?’ Sandy smiled again, looked suddenly younger. ‘They were the best times for me at Rookwood. The best times.’

He sighed and his face seemed to close up as he leaned back in his chair. He was still smiling but something wary had come into his eyes.

‘How did you end up working for HMG?’

‘Got shot up at Dunkirk.’

‘God, yes, the war.’ He spoke as though it was something he had forgotten, nothing to do with him. ‘Nothing bad, I hope.’

‘No, I’m all right now. Little bit of a hearing problem. Anyway, I didn’t want to go back to Cambridge afterwards. The Foreign Office were looking for interpreters and they took me on.’

‘Cambridge, eh? So you didn’t go into the Colonial Office after all?’ He laughed. ‘Boys’ dreams, eh? Remember you were going to be a district officer in Bongoland, and I was going to be a dinosaur hunter?’ Sandy’s expression was open again, amused. He reached for his cigar and took a long draw.

‘Yes. Funny how things turn out.’ Harry tried to make his voice sound casual. ‘What are you doing out here? It gave me a shock when I saw you. I thought, I know him, who is he? Then I realized.’ The lies were flowing smoothly now.

Sandy took another puff of his cigar, blowing out more acrid smoke. ‘Fetched up here three years ago. Lot of business opportunities. Doing my bit to help get Spain back on its feet. Though I might move on in a while.’