Winter in Madrid (53 page)

‘Harry, the embassy want to speak to you. They say it’s urgent.’ She looked at him with concern. ‘I hope it’s not bad news from home.’

‘You gave them our number?’ Sandy looked at him sharply.

‘I had to, I’m on call tonight. I have to go in if there’s something needs translating urgently. Excuse me.’

He stepped out into the hall. A little
brasero
set under the telephone table warmed his feet, casting a yellow glow over the floor. He picked up the phone.

‘Hello. Harry Brett.’

A cultured female voice answered. ‘Oh, Mr Brett, I’m so glad we were able to reach you. I’ve got a caller holding, a Miss Sofia Roque Casas.’ The woman hesitated. ‘She says it’s urgent.’

‘Sofia?’

‘She’s holding now. Do you want to take the call?’

‘Yes. Please, put her on.’

There was a click and for a moment Harry thought he had lost
the connection, then Sofia came on. It seemed strange, hearing her voice there in Sandy’s hall.

‘Harry, Harry is that you?’ There was panic in her voice, normally so composed.

‘Yes. Sofia, what is it?’

‘It’s Mama. I think she has had another stroke. Enrique’s gone out, I’m alone. Paco is in a terrible state, he saw it. Harry, can you come?’ He heard tears in her voice.

‘A stroke?’

‘I think so. She is unconscious.’

‘I’ll come at once. Where are you?’

‘I walked two blocks to find a telephone. I’m sorry, I couldn’t think what else to do. Oh, Harry, she is bad.’

He thought a moment. ‘OK. Go back to the flat, I’ll get there as soon as I can. When’s Enrique back?’

‘Not till late. He has gone out with some friends.’

‘Listen, I’m in Vigo district. I’ll try and find a cab and get there as soon as I can. Get back to your mother and Paco.’

‘Please hurry, please hurry.’ It was frightening to hear the panic in her voice. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she added quickly, then there was a click as she replaced the receiver.

The
salón
door opened and Barbara put her head out. ‘What is it? Did you say someone’s had a stroke? Is it your uncle?’

He took a deep breath. ‘No, it’s Sofia’s mother, my – my girlfriend.’ He followed Barbara back into the dining room. ‘She rang the embassy and they put the call through here. She’s alone with her mother and a little boy they look after. I have to go there now.’

Sandy looked at him curiously. ‘Can’t they get a doctor?’

‘They can’t afford one.’ He must have sounded snappy because Sandy raised his hand.

‘All right, old boy, all right.’

‘Can I call a cab from here?’ Harry had taken a tram to the house.

‘It’ll take ages at this time of night. Where do they live?’

He hesitated. ‘Carabanchel.’

‘Carabanchel?’ Sandy raised his eyebrows.

‘Yes.’

Barbara’s voice was suddenly decisive. ‘I’ll drive you. If this poor woman’s had a stroke, I might be able to help.’

‘Sofia was a medical student once. But you could help. Do you mind?’

‘It’s not safe taking the car down there,’ Sandy said. ‘We can call a cab.’

‘I’ll be all right.’ Barbara stepped to the door. ‘Come on, I’ll get the keys.’

Harry followed her. In the doorway he turned back. Sandy was still sitting at the table. His expression was angry, petulant. He had always hated being ignored.

T
HE NIGHT WAS
cold and clear. Barbara drove fast and well, through the city centre and into the dark narrow streets of the working-class districts. She seemed relieved to be out of the house. She looked at him curiously. ‘I didn’t realize Sofia was from Carabanchel.’

‘You were expecting someone middle class?’

‘I suppose I was, subconsciously.’ Barbara smiled sadly. ‘I should know it’s unpredictable who we fall in love with.’ She gave him another searching look. ‘Is she special?’

‘Yes.’ Harry hesitated. ‘I wondered for a while if it was – oh, I don’t know, guilt or something, wanting to experience how ordinary Spaniards live.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘Going native?’

‘Something like that. But it’s just – it’s just love. You know?’

‘I know.’ She hesitated. ‘What do the embassy think?’

‘I haven’t told them. I want some part of my life to myself. It’s here, the next street.’

They parked the car outside Sofia’s block and hurried inside, running up the dark staircase. Sofia had heard them coming and stood in her doorway, weak yellow light shining into the hall. The sound of a child’s hysterical crying came from inside. Sofia looked pale and her hair was lank and uncombed. She stared at Barbara. ‘Who is this?’

‘Barbara, she’s the wife of a friend of mine. We were all having dinner together. She’s a nurse, perhaps she can help.’

Sofia’s shoulders slumped. ‘It is too late. Mama has gone. She was dead when I got back from telephoning you.’

She led them in. The old woman lay on the bed. Her eyes had been closed and her white face looked still and peaceful. Paco lay on top of the body, clinging to it tightly, sobbing, a wild keening noise. He looked up as the three of them came into the room, eyeing Barbara with fear. Sofia went over and stroked his hair.

‘It’s all right, Paco, this lady is a friend of Harry’s. She’s come to help us. She is not from the Church. Please, come away now.’ She lifted him gently from the body and held him to her. They sat on the bed, both crying now. Harry sat beside them, putting his arm round Sofia.

Paco stood up. He looked at Barbara, still afraid. She went over and very gently took his small dirty hand in hers.

‘Hello, Paco,’ she said in Spanish. ‘May I call you Paco?’ He nodded dumbly. ‘Listen, Paco, Sofia is very upset. You must try to be a big boy if you can. I know it’s difficult. Here, come and sit by me.’ Paco let her lead him gently away from the bed. She sat him on one of the spindly chairs and pulled up another to sit next to him.

Sofia, still holding Harry tightly, looked at her mother’s body. ‘I thought this might happen and that it would be best for her but it is hard. I should call an ambulance, we cannot leave her here.’

‘Won’t Enrique want to see her?’ Harry asked.

‘I think maybe it is better he does not.’ She got up and went to get her coat from behind the door.

‘Let me go,’ Harry said.

Barbara stood up. ‘No, stay with Sofia. I saw a phone box nearby, on the way. I’ll go.’

‘You should not go alone,’ Sofia said.

‘I’ve been in tougher places than this. Please let me go.’ She sounded brisk, business-like, wanting to be of service. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ Before they could argue further she was gone, her footsteps clattering down the steps. Sofia took Paco’s hand and led him back to sit on the bed with them. She looked at Elena’s still face.

‘She had been very tired recently,’ Sofia whispered. ‘Then this evening after dinner she cried out, a horrible groaning noise. When I went over to her she was unconscious. Then after I came back from
telephoning you she had gone. I left poor Paco alone with her.’ She kissed the boy’s head. ‘I should not have; I should have been here.’

‘You did all you could.’

‘It is better this way,’ she said again, dully. ‘Sometimes she used to wet the bed. It upset her terribly, she would cry.’ She shook her head. ‘You should have known Mama before she was ill, she was so strong, she took care of us all. Papa did not want me to go to university but Mama always supported me.’ She looked over at the photograph, her mother in her wedding dress, standing between her husband and her brother the priest, all of them smiling into the camera.

Harry held her tightly. ‘Poor Sofia. I don’t know how you’ve endured it all.’ She held him tightly. At length there were footsteps on the stairs. ‘Here’s Barbara,’ Harry said. ‘She’ll have sorted something out.’

She looked at him. ‘You know her well?’

He kissed her forehead. ‘For a long time. But only as a friend.’

Barbara came in, her face red from the cold. ‘I got through to the hospital. They’re sending an ambulance, but it may be some time.’ She produced a paper bag from her coat. ‘I stopped at a
bodega
, got us some brandy. I thought we could all do with some.’

‘Oh, well done,’ Harry said.

Sofia fetched some tumblers and Barbara poured them each a stiff measure. Paco, curious, asked for some, and they gave him a little mixed with water. He screwed up his face. ‘Ugh,’ he said.
‘¡Es horroroso!’
It broke the tension and they all laughed, a little hysterically.

‘It is not respectful we should laugh,’ Sofia said guiltily.

‘Sometimes you just have to,’ Barbara said. She looked round the flat, taking in the damp-stained walls and the broken-down furniture, then lowering her eyes guiltily as she saw Sofia studying her.

‘You are a nurse,
señora
?’ Sofia added. ‘Do you work as a nurse here?’

‘No, not now. I’m – I’m married to a British businessman. He went to school with Harry.’

‘Barbara did some voluntary work at one of the church orphanages,’ Harry said. ‘She couldn’t stand it.’

‘No, it was an awful place.’ Barbara smiled at Sofia. ‘Harry said you trained as a medical student.’

‘Yes, until the Civil War came. Do you have women doctors in England?’

‘Some. Not many.’

‘There were three of us in my year at university. Sometimes the teachers did not know what to make of us. You could see they were embarrassed at the things they had to show us.’

Barbara smiled. ‘Not ladylike?’

‘Yes. Though in the war everyone saw such things.’

‘I know. I was in Madrid for a while, working for the Red Cross.’ She turned to Paco. ‘How old are you, niño?’

‘Ten.’

‘Do you go to school?’

He shook his head.

‘He couldn’t cope,’ Sofia said. ‘Besides, the new schools are useless, full of Nationalist veterans without teaching experience. I try to teach him at home.’

There were footsteps on the stairs, heavy male footsteps. Sofia drew her breath in sharply. ‘That will be Enrique.’ She got up. ‘Let me speak to him alone. Would you take Paco into the kitchen, please.’

‘Come on, young man.’ Barbara took the boy’s hand and Harry followed her. He lit the stove; Barbara pointed to a book on the table to distract Paco as a murmur of voices came from outside. The book had a green cover, a picture of a boy and girl walking together to school.

‘What is that book?’

Paco bit his lip, listening to the voices outside. Harry heard Enrique’s voice, a sudden anguished cry.

‘What is it?’ Barbara went on, trying to distract him.

‘My old schoolbook. From when I went to school before Mama and Papa were taken. I liked it.’

Barbara opened it and pushed it towards him. They could hear crying outside, a man crying. Paco looked at the door again. ‘Show me,’ Barbara said gently. ‘Just for a few minutes. It is good to leave Sofia and Enrique together for a little.’

‘I remember that book,’ she added. ‘The Meras showed it to me once. Carmel had a copy.’ Her eyes filled with tears. Harry realized that behind the forced brightness she was at the end of her tether. She turned to Paco. ‘Look at all the sections. History, geography, arithmetic.’

‘I used to like geography,’ Paco said. ‘Look at the pictures, all the countries in the world.’

It was quiet again outside. Harry got up. ‘I’ll see how they are. Stay with Paco.’ He squeezed Barbara’s shoulder and went back into the main room. Enrique was sitting on the bed with Sofia. He looked up at Harry, a bitter expression Harry had never seen before on his pale tear-stained face, making it ugly.

‘You see all our family dramas,
inglés
.’

‘I’m sorry, Enrique.’

‘It’s not Harry’s fault,’ Sofia said.

‘If only he could see us with some dignity. We had dignity once,
señor
, you know that?’

There was a knock at the door. Sofia sighed. ‘That must be the ambulance.’ But as she approached the door it opened and Señora Avila’s thin face peered in. She wore a black shawl round her head, the ends held tightly in her hand.

‘Pardon me, but I heard crying, is something wrong – oh.’ She saw the body on the bed and crossed herself. ‘Oh, poor Señora Roque. Poor lady. But she is at peace now, with God.’ She looked curiously at Harry.

Sofia stood up. ‘Señora Avila, we would rather be alone, please. We are waiting for them to take our mother away.’

The
beata
looked round the room. ‘Where is Paco? The
pobrecito
.’

‘In the kitchen. With another friend.’

‘You should have a priest at this time,’ the old woman said wheedlingly. ‘Let me fetch Padre Fernando.’

Something seemed to snap inside Sofia. Harry felt it almost physically, as though a crack had sounded in the room. She stood up and marched up to Señora Avila. The older woman was taller but she flinched back.

‘Listen to me, you old vulture, we do not want Padre Fernando here!’ Sofia’s voice rose to a shout. ‘However long you try to sneak
him into our house, however long you try to get hold of Paco, you will never succeed! You are not welcome here, do you understand? Now go!’

Señora Avila drew herself up to her full height, her pale face reddening.

‘This is how you greet a neighbour who comes to help you, this is how you greet Christian charity? Padre Fernando is right, you are enemies of the church—’

Enrique got up from the bed. He crossed to Señora Avila, his hands clenched into fists. The
beata
backed away.

‘Go and denounce us to the priest then, you dried-up old bitch! You who got a whole flat to yourself because your priest is friends with the block leader!’

‘My father was killed by the Communists,’ the
beata
replied shakily. ‘I had nowhere.’

‘I spit on your father! Get out!’ Enrique raised a fist. Señora Avila gave a cry and ran out of the flat, slamming the door. Enrique sat down on the foot of the bed, breathing in great gasps. Sofia sat wearily next to him. Barbara came out and stood in the kitchen doorway.

‘I’m sorry,’ Enrique said. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at her.’

‘It doesn’t matter. If she reports us we can say you were overcome with grief.’