Winter in Madrid

He stood up and smiled. ‘Barbara, how nice to see you.’ He was dressed in a tweed jacket with patches at the elbows, like a caricature schoolmaster, and he had put on a lot of weight; he had a double chin now. There were flecks of grey in his black hair now; like her he was approaching forty.

She shook his hand. ‘Hello, Harry. Gosh, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?’

‘Nearly a year,’ he said. ‘Too long.’

She looked round the classroom: posters of the Eiffel Tower, tables of French irregular verbs, rows of scuffed desks. ‘So this is where you teach.’

‘Yes, this is where the French master lives. French masters have a reputation for being easy targets, you know.’

‘Do they?’

‘Yes.’ Harry gestured at the cane lying across his desk. ‘I have to use that sometimes to remind them who’s boss, unfortunately. Come on, let’s go and get some lunch. There’s a nice little pub not far from here.’

They left the building and walked back to the town centre. The trees were in blossom. As they passed a cherry tree the warm breeze shook off a cloud of white petals that drifted around them, making Barbara think of snow.

‘D’you teach any Spanish?’ she asked.

‘There’s no call for it. Just French. They learn just about enough for a few phrases to stick.’ He gestured at her briefcase with a smile. ‘You’re the Spanish expert these days. Who is it you’re meeting at Croydon airport?’

‘Oh, a crowd of businessmen from Argentina. They’ve come over with Eva Perón’s European tour and they’re flying here from Paris to look at trade opportunities. Ti

When they had returned to England in 1940 Barbara had taken work interpreting and translating in Spanish. The money had helped during the long period of nursing Bernie back to health. They had said he would never walk properly again but with endless determination he had proved them wrong. When they married at the end of 1941 he had been able to walk down the aisle unaided, without a limp despite the bullet lodged in his femur. That eased her guilt, for she knew that if she hadn’t called out to Bernie in the field, Maestre would never have had time to reach for his gun.

‘Still working with the refugees?’ Harry asked her.

‘Yes. It’s mostly academics now, the resistance is pretty well beaten. I’m teaching a writer from Madrid English at the moment.’ She glanced at him. ‘Any news of Enrique and Paco?’

Harry’s face softened into a smile. ‘I had a letter last month, I don’t hear so often now. Paco’s starting work labouring for a local farmer.’

‘How old is he now?’

‘Sixteen. I never thought he’d make it but he has. Enrique says he still doesn’t talk much, but he enjoys working.’

‘Enrique saved him.’

‘Yes.’

After the massacre Barbara and Bernie and Harry had been bundled out of Spain on the first plane. As soon as they were back in England Harry had written to Enrique; he did not even know if Sofia’s brother had been told what had happened to her. A few weeks later a reply came from Asturias, in the north of Spain: the guardias had come to tell Enrique Sofia was dead and that night Enrique had packed a couple of suitcases, taken Paco to the station and caught a train to the north. He had thrown himself on the mercy of distant relatives who kept a small farm near Palencia. They had taken them in and Enrique and Paco had been there ever since. Harry sent them money every so often. They barely scratched a living but Enrique said the countryside was peaceful and quiet and that was what Paco had needed. He was better, though Enrique thought he would never leave the village. He had escaped the orphanage, unlike Carmela Mera. Carmela would be in her late teens now, Barbara thought. If she had lived. It was one of the things she tried not to think about. She shook her head to clear it.

‘It’s a shame to let the language go,’ she told Harry. ‘You should get some practice.’

‘Oh, I’m happy enough just doing French.’ He gave her a sad tight smile. ‘I had to let a lot of things go when they wouldn’t take me back at Cambridge.’

‘That was so unfair.’

‘Hoare’s revenge,’ Harry said flatly. ‘They were crying out for Fellows back then.’

‘Yes. And they didn’t like Bernie trying to get the papers to publish the truth about the Spanish camps.’

‘He was naive. He should have known they’d put a D-notice on the story.’

‘Have you thought of trying again? I mean, it’s been nearly seven years.’ Barbara hesitated. ‘I don’t think they’re keeping tabs on me any more.’ For years after she returned she noticed her mail had been opened, the flaps stuck down crudely, and sometimes there were strange noises on her telephone. Harry had experienced the same things.

‘Will says once you’re on a blacklist you stay on it.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I’m happy enough at Haverstock.’

‘I sometimes wonder,’ she said, and then paused.

‘What?’

‘Seeing the new war memorial there reminded me. I wonder if Bernie’s name is on the memorial at Rookwood.’

Bernie had been called up in 1943, after he was certified fit. With all his injuries he could probably have got out of it but he didn’t try, he wanted to fight fascism again. He had died on D-Day, the sixth of June 1944, shot down as he struggled ashore on Juno beach. In the car on the way to Madrid he had told Barbara he would never leave her again, but he had. She saw now that a man like him, in the times they lived in, would always go to fight. But she still longed for him, and for the child they had never had.

‘Did you see Hoare’s published his memoirs?’ Harry asked.

‘Has he?’

‘Viscount Templewood now, of course.’ Harry laughed bitterly. ‘Ambassador on Special Mission. He says Franco stayed out of the war entirely because of his own firm diplomacy. No mention of Hillgarth, of course. Memoirs of the pink rat.’

They reached the pub, a large place that served lunches. It was full of salesmen. As he led Barbara to a table Harry nodded to a couple of people at the bar.

‘The food’s not bad. When do you have to be at the airport?’

‘Not until four. Oodles of time.’

They ordered steak and kidney pudding. It was overcooked and gristly but Harry didn’t seem to mind.

‘So work’s keeping you busy?’ he asked.

‘Yes, work and the refugees.’

She studied him; he had a nasty shaving cut on his chin. ‘What do you do these days, apart from teaching? What happened with that woman teacher you got friendly with?’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, that fizzled out. I don’t do much really, apart from teach.’

‘Work’s my life too, I suppose. And the refugees. I thought I might do a part-time degree in Spanish.’

Harry nodded. ‘Good idea. You’d probably find it easy.’

‘I’d have to cut back on the refugee work.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve ended up one of those do-gooding single women. I always thought I would.’

‘I suppose at least we’ve got memories,’ Harry said, but his eyes were bleak. He smiled tightly again. ‘I’m thinking of giving up my digs and living in at Haverstock. Will’s son’s at Haverstock now, you know. Ro

‘Are Will and Muriel still in Italy?’

‘Yes. I miss Will, especially since Uncle James died.’ That tight smile again. ‘Muriel hates it. Rome’s too hot and dusty for her, she wants a Paris posting.’

Barbara pushed the horrible food around her plate. ‘Wouldn’t moving in make you a bit – well – cut off from the world?’

‘What’s so marvellous about the world? Anyway, teaching’s what I do now. Might as well go the whole hog. It gets boring sometimes but I’m used to it. And you can help a boy now and again, that makes it worthwhile.’

‘Bernie used to say public school was a closed world. A privileged world.’

He looked up sharply. ‘I know. Sofia wouldn’t have approved either.’