Autumn in Catalonia (16 page)

Carla listened to him in appalled silence, letting him tell her in his own way, and at his own pace. He stayed in her room, away from the bustle of the house, and when Josep came home from work he came in to sit with him, shaking his hand with tears in his eyes. Neus brought him her famous bean soup, and he ate propped up on the pillows, with Carla by his side, just as they used to do in his old studio apartment.

Later, when the children had gone to bed, they brought him out of Carla’s room, turning off the radio and letting him sit passively while Josep and Neus placidly planned their next day, and Carla brought out the last of the darning. How could a small household have so much darning, she wondered? She accused Neus of neglecting her duties, and Neus grinned, and sent Josep to the kitchen with the remains of their late-evening coffee.

By the following morning Luc was a little better – quiet, horribly subdued, but able to talk. He wanted to go to see his parents, who they knew would have been worrying non-stop since they received Carla’s letter, three months ago, telling them their son had disappeared. Luc wanted Carla to go with him, but she had a problem.

‘Martin is in Girona,’ she told him. ‘He needs to go home soon – he has already far outstayed his original plans, and he’s worried about his mother, although to be fair she hasn’t had the worry or the wait that your own parents have had! But that aside, he won’t leave until I come back and he knows what has happened. And there’s Grandma, and Uncle Victor, and even my mother – they’re all on tenterhooks to know if everything has worked out all right.
I promised I would go straight back, once you were free.’

It was Josep who found the solution. ‘Your parents have a phone, don’t they? Well call them from the post office, Luc,’ he recommended. ‘Or if you can’t get through then write to them. They’ll have the letter within two days. Tell them that you’ve been freed and will be with them within a week at most, and that you’ll be bringing Carla with you, and that you’ll be needing to register to get married within no more than two weeks. That will get them excited enough, and they can register your documents, and speak to their local priest, and publish the banns. I assume that’s where you are still registered as resident? Good, and your parents will have your birth certificate. Where is your own birth certificate, Carla?’

‘It’s with Grandma. I took all my documents from my parents’ home some time ago – I kind of knew I might need them to be elsewhere.’

‘Then you’ll have to send it on to Luc’s parents from Girona. Terrassa is the easiest and quickest place for you to be married, but meantime there are others you need to see, and I don’t think you and Carla should be separated again right now, Luc – you need to stay together. It’ll be better, too, if the priest doesn’t see Carla’s belly until the wedding day, so he can’t take some moral stance beforehand and decide not to marry you.’

As he left for work he took Carla by the hand and led her outside with him. An overnight shower had left the air cool, but the clouds were moving away, and another sunny day was promising.

‘Take care of that young man, Carla,’ was what he
wanted to say. ‘Don’t let him try to do too much too soon. He shouldn’t go away on his own – he needs you to organise things for him just now. He’ll get over it, but he’s been incredibly isolated and under too much strain, and his whole strength has been invested in keeping himself sane. He’s had to use all his reserves, and now that his fight is over he could struggle, especially if he comes under any more pressure. And I don’t think you’ve finished yet with pressure – it will be a while before your lives are simple.’

At the look on Carla’s face he put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Chin up, little niece! You’ve got him back and he’ll be brand new before you know it. He’s far too buoyant a character not to bounce back soon. You just need patience, that’s all.’

Tears pricked the back of her eyes as she hugged him. ‘Thank you! And thank you for what you told me about Mama, as well. We’ll come by here on our way to Terrassa, darling Uncle Josep, if you’ll have us.’

‘We’ll have you,
carinyo
. Kiss your Grandma for me and tell her to come soon to visit us here. That fellow Victor can let her go for a while so she can see her own grandchildren. And Carla!’

‘Yes?’

‘Please tell my big sister Joana I miss her. Tell her Josep would like to see her, and that I have children growing up who have never even met her.’

Carla nodded. ‘I will.’ She stood back as he walked away through the communal garden, tall and fair and lean, much like his father must have been, the journalist father whose legacy he knew he hadn’t been able to match. But he was
happy, and serene like Grandma, and where his sister Joana was filled with fretful yearning, he was tranquil in his life, with the gift of making himself liked by everyone he met.

She walked slowly back into the house to join Luc, that other most lovable of men, and found him washing breakfast dishes at Neus’s sink.

‘Be careful, Aunt Neus, he’ll break every good dish you have!’ she warned, and he turned and shot her the grin which she knew so well, and which lit up his wayward face. She returned the smile, and thought, we’re going to be fine. It will all be all right!

‘I’m relatively safe washing up,’ he answered. ‘It’s when I dry that things get broken!’

‘Then throw me a tea towel, Aunt Neus, and we’ll see if we can get out of your house with our credit still intact. Uncle Josep invited us to stay again on our way to Terrassa, and as we have nowhere else to go and not a penny to our names, I’d hate to see the invitation withdrawn!’

‘Tell me how long we have to go now, Carla, before the baby is born. I’ve lost track. I don’t even know what day of the week it is.’

They sat on the bus, trundling between Barcelona and Girona. It felt odd to be taking Luc closer to Sergi and his band of thugs, but they had to pass this way. It was already mid afternoon – they’d had to shop for clothes for Luc before they could travel, and then spent a fruitless hour trying to call Terrassa from the overcrowded post office, and then compose a letter instead.

Carla had no real idea of how to progress from here. They had to get away as soon as possible, they had to get married before the baby was born, they had to say goodbye, and move, and her time with
Avia
Maria must be over, because she and Luc remained dangerous guests. They had no money, and she hoped her mother might lend
them enough to get away and start out somewhere where no one Sergi knew would ever see them. The road ahead was dauntingly steep, and it would be some time before Luc could carry a full load.

She had him back, though, with his huge hand enveloping hers as they squeezed together on the hard seat.

‘I don’t know how long exactly,’ was her answer. ‘I’ve never even seen a doctor, remember, and I’m working on estimates of dates. I think I’ve got about five weeks to go. God forbid if the baby decides to come early! We still have to get married, and that may take weeks! You heard what Uncle Josep said – the priest could even refuse to marry us, because I’m such a fallen woman!’

‘No, I know the priest by my parents’ place. He’s young, one of the new school, a campaigner for the Catalan language even – he’ll marry us, I’m sure. What do you need for the banns? Two weeks? I’m not an expert at these things.’

‘Nor me,’ she chuckled. ‘It may surprise you to know that I’ve never been married before! Well, if we don’t need to worry about the wedding, all to the good. We’ve got enough else to worry about!’

She regretted saying it, because Luc’s face clouded over. How tired he looked – there was a lassitude hanging over him, which he did everything to disguise.

‘Because we have to go into hiding?’ he was asking. ‘Is that necessary, now that your father has accepted defeat? You don’t think we could stay with my parents until after the baby is born, at least, so my father can be around for the birth? You’d find my mother a great help, Carla, and they’d want us to stay.’

‘Are you sure? My father will know where they live, you can be sure of that, and he could decide to visit at any time if he changes his mind. You know, if I were your parents I’d be pretty unhappy about my son’s choice of bride!’

‘Rubbish,’ Luc replied, sounding much more like his normal self. He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. ‘My parents have lived all their lives under threat from the authorities. Any visit from your father would be no worse than many we had when I was a child! They’re quite familiar with bullies, and knowing about him will just put them even more fiercely on your side!’

The idea of a period of peace with Luc in Terrassa to have the baby was very appealing – it was what Luc needed, and the thought of it made the next few weeks seem so much less daunting. Luc’s kindly father and mother, with their easy, unconventional view of the world, would offer a safe haven from which to give birth, with medical attention on tap!

She rubbed her belly, and shifted her back on the hard seat, easing herself into a more comfortable position against Luc’s shoulder. ‘All right then, big fellow, if things look calm in my father’s camp by the time we leave Girona, I think it would be wonderful to stay with your parents for a few weeks. If I live quietly I won’t meet any of my father’s cronies, and later we can move further afield. I’d like to build a life one day a bit further away from his influence.’

‘Me too!’ Luc was emphatic. ‘Believe me, I’ve no desire to fall into his hands again!’

He dozed then, as the bus rattled its slow way to Girona, and Carla eased his shorn head so that it rested against
her. She couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep herself, and resigned herself to stiff shoulders and the inevitable backache by the end of the day. The key thing was for Luc to arrive in Girona in fit condition to cope with her family.

Did it work? It was hard to say. They climbed the stairs to the apartment in silence, but Luc plodded gamely up the stone steps, and smiled at her as she cocked a quizzical head in his direction. She winked and led him inside, hugging her own frisson of excitement.

Familiar smells reached them from the kitchen, and at the table sat Uncle Victor, divesting himself of his work boots. He must have come home only a few moments before them. He looked up, and when he saw Carla with Luc behind her his face split into a slow, broad smile. He carefully placed his boots down by his chair, drew on his slippers, and then advanced towards them and took Carla silently into his arms. Her head was buried in his shoulder, but she was sure his grin was now fixed on Luc behind her, and she manoeuvred herself around enough to catch Luc’s widened eyes and diffident smile. Then Victor released her and reached out his hand to Luc.

It was just then that Maria came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth. For a moment the whole room seemed to Carla to freeze completely. Victor and Luc were standing completely still, their hands locked but not moving, and Maria had stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth half open. It was so comical that Carla had to comment.

‘
Avia
,’ she spluttered, ‘This is my friendly giant!’ and as she spoke she surrendered to a fit of the giggles so strong
she had to sit down, clinging to her bump as she held Grandma’s astonished gaze.

There was no need to worry about how Luc would get on with Maria and Victor. They sat long into the evening over Maria’s fish and aioli, and it was like being with Josep and Neus – uncomplicated and easy-going, and Luc had the gift of making people talk, so that Victor told him about his life as a shepherd and landsman, and more about his job in the factory than Carla had ever heard from him. Production targets were being raised each week as their employer squeezed costs to pay for the building of a second factory. The message they got daily as their rest breaks were cut and their pay rise was axed was that they were contributing to the growth of a greater Spain. Luc let him talk, with just the occasional comment, but it wouldn’t be long, Carla thought, before he would be talking about industrial action!

Martin wasn’t there. He’d gone up to the hill house two days ago, Maria said, on Sunday morning.

‘He was worried for Joana,’ she told them. ‘He wanted her to know what had happened between you and Sergi, Carla, and that you’d gone down to Barcelona.’

There was a note of concern in Maria’s voice. Carla knew that she was worried that Sergi might suspect Joana of having handed the blackmail letter to her. It wasn’t likely, she thought, thinking back to the meeting in his house. Joana had been far from his mind. But the merest risk was enough to nag at Maria, and she would be fretting that Sergi might visit the hill house, sore and vengeful after his raw encounter with Carla and Martin on Saturday night.

It was unlikely, Carla was sure. They’d done and said absolutely nothing to link Joana to the documents, and Sergi knew – had even contrived – the terrible relationship between mother and daughter. Why should Joana be involved? Sergi would take any opportunity to get his own back on Carla, but having arranged Luc’s release he had other things which must now be occupying his mind. Instinct told Carla that now he would be in his office, bolstering his position ahead of the forthcoming political elections.

Carla’s worry was that Martin might talk to her mother about Sergi’s revelations. They’d agreed that no one but Carla should reveal what he’d said, and even then Carla wondered what help it could be to Joana to know that Sergi might have killed the man she should have married. Martin wanted her told – he said Joana would have some difficult decisions to make now about her future, and it would help her to make them if she could let go all feeling that she had to be grateful to Sergi for taking her on. He wanted her told, but he wouldn’t tell her on his own – she trusted and believed it. But he would be right that Joana would be fretting, on her own at the hill house, and it was like Martin to care. He had an empathy for Joana, and it was curiously reassuring to know that Mama was not on her own at the hill house, waiting for them all.

It seemed Joana had reacted fast to Martin’s news. ‘She has already sent Toni down here this afternoon,’ Grandma told them, ‘To check whether you were here. And he told me he’ll be back again tomorrow. I hope Sergi doesn’t keep too tight a check on Joana’s expenditure or the kilometres
that car covers – I hate to think how much fuel Toni is using trekking back and forth between Girona and Sant Galdric the way he’s doing!’

Carla slept beside her grandmother that night, and wondered whether this would be the last time. Next door she could hear a regular snoring, and wondered how Luc would be sleeping in Victor’s bed. From the look of exhaustion on his face as they’d headed for bed she thought nothing would keep him awake, and before she finally dropped off herself she heard a second rumble of snoring join the first, and knew her man was asleep.

The next day Toni arrived just before lunchtime, and this time he was persuaded to stay for lunch. Luc looked better again today, and Carla heard him throwing all his charm at Maria to be allowed to help chop vegetables, before he was pushed forcefully out of the kitchen and sent off to walk off his new-found energy out of doors. Grandma seemed to have quickly got the measure of Luc – her kitchen was way too small for him to be allowed off the leash inside!

So Carla helped her instead until Toni arrived, when she sat with him at the table, cup of coffee in hand. Maria stood close to pour him a second cup.

‘Tell me, Toni, how is your mother?’ Maria asked. She sounded wistful, as she only did when talking about people from her village. She hadn’t been back up to Sant Galdric since she left and closed up the family home, and she must hanker after news of her old friends. Toni’s mother was an old protégée of Maria’s in the village, and she’d been Paula’s predecessor – housekeeper at the hill house until she became unwell and Sergi dismissed her.

Toni’s face clouded. ‘She gets more and more breathless, and there’s never enough money to buy her the medicines which help. I asked your mother, Carla, if
Senyor
Olivera could pay her some kind of a pension, but he’d said she hadn’t worked for long enough to get a pension.’ His lips tightened at the memory, and Carla thought it must have cost him dear just to ask, only to be shot down.

Toni was continuing, ‘She gets by mostly with what I can give her, but the medicines which help the most are expensive.’ He sighed. ‘She’ll be glad you asked after her, though.’

He shrugged off what must be a daily worry, and turned to Carla. ‘So you got your fiancé back then, Carla?’

She smiled. ‘I did Toni, and in large part thanks to you!’

‘And to your mother, it would seem.’

‘You’re feeling better about Mama now?’

‘Getting there,’ was the guarded response. ‘She has surprised me.’

How strange Toni’s life must be, Carla thought, stuck in the hill house with just Paula and Joana for company. It was an upstairs–downstairs relationship, but without enough people to make a life, and they must all just watch each other and revolve in a mesh of suspicion and resentment, in a web that confined and defined them all. Carla thought about Uncle Josep, who had gone from being a boy from the village school of Sant Galdric and had made himself a solid life in Barcelona. His background had undoubtedly set a limit to his ambitions, but Josep had a decent job now, and an independent life that made him happy.

Had it been his mother’s health problems that had kept Toni yoked to her parents all these years, and stopped him
from taking the risk of making a move? She thought back to when he’d been a boy, and had crept away to join Carla in teenage plotting in the hill house garden, both of them full of plans for the future. He’d been a gifted mathematician, she remembered, but he soon knew more than the local schoolteacher and could go no further, and when Carla had told her mother Joana had just shrugged her shoulders. No wonder Toni had had so little time for Joana. She’d shut her eyes to the people below her for all those years, undeviatingly following Sergi’s strict lead, and it would take a long time for her to rebuild all her bonds.

How would Toni react to Luc, she wondered? They were much of an age, but when viewed alongside Luc, Toni seemed unsatisfied and unfulfilled. He had a sweetheart in the village that he could never make up his mind to marry, and a hankering for a better life that he couldn’t make happen. How would big, broad, easy Luc strike someone who lived what struck her as life with an itch under the collar?

When Luc came back from his walk he burst into the apartment with his usual energy, wafting the autumn air in behind him. He advanced on Toni with his hand outstretched, and before he knew it Toni had put his own hand in it.

‘I’ve been waiting to meet you,’ Luc said. ‘You’re Carla’s friend from old, aren’t you? Tell me, was she always such a prickly pear? You knew her as an adolescent, didn’t you? Naturally her grandmother thinks she’s just wonderful, but I’m relying on you to tell me the truth so I know what I’m getting myself into!’

She might have known that she would be the butt that
he would use to get close to Toni, but how did he know it was necessary? Bingo, Luc, she thought, as Toni smiled and gave a joking answer. She grimaced at them both and got up from the table.

‘This bit isn’t for me I take it, guys,’ she teased, as she went through to help Maria bring plates in from the kitchen. She laid the table around them, and by the time she’d finished they were talking football, and the crucial forthcoming match between Barcelona and Madrid.

‘You’ll have to forgive me, Toni,’ Luc said, ‘I’m not really up on what’s happening in the team. I’ve been in gaol for a few months, and haven’t had much news. Did you say Barça have signed César Rodríguez as manager?’