by Betty Burton
‘Madame,’ Nati sounded a bit scornful, ‘I have no need to write. It is all here in my mind, very clear. I could describe the English girl’s eyes, which I would say are very like your own. It is one thing that we cannot disguise, also the fingernails. You remember the day when I was putting cream into your hands? I commented that these parts were very large and white, and you told me that in English the word was “moons”.’
Money. She had plenty of cash. She held her fingers out, inspecting them and said smiling, ‘You are a good manicurist, Nati. Maybe you could set yourself up offering that service to guests.’
‘Until that time, I had not seen such clear moons except for the other English woman.’
‘The fish woman.’
‘Si, señorita. Also, the fish woman had a scar. My cousin had shown her how to use a filleting knife, it had slipped and taken a small piece from the woman’s finger bone of the left hand, the first-finger knuckle. Also on that same finger was a small bump, an old wound of some kind.’
Eve didn’t look down at her hands, but remembered the shock of realising that the needle of the industrial sewing machine had gone right through her left index finger.
‘So you see, madame, if I write this story, I can easily bring the English woman to mind. Eyes, teeth, hands. To remember these details it is not difficult to see the bones of the face – the profile. That is the word I have been looking for. If I one day should see this lady, madame, I would tell her that I feel bad why my uncle was giving her good fish and she pays only for leavings.’
‘Oh, Nati, stop feeling guilty about something that is in the past.’
‘But, señorita, the end of this story is not the past. I will help you pack everything.’
‘I may not want everything. I have arranged with Señor Quixote to store things until I return.’
Nati got up and stuffed the duster into her pocket. ‘I think you may not, señorita.’ She looked so serious and determined that Eve felt threatened. Nati began removing Eve’s collection of summer frocks off their hangers, folding them neatly and pressing them into one of the soft-top cases. Then she stopped and came face to face, holding Eve’s elbows firmly. ‘Please, Señorita Anders, your time in Madrid is over.’
‘Nati! Who are you, the Guardia?’
‘Señorita, it is possible. Listen, please. You know when I first come here with you, I told you how I was able to get work because of my father and his dealings with Falange? OK, I understand that you are worried that my stories may be tricks for you, so please let me continue. You need say nothing, but I should like it if you could trust me.’
‘OK, Nati, five minutes and then I have to leave.’
‘My father is so sure of his position now, that he no longer bothers to talk quietly and in private. I learn things without listening. Since the General’s return he has been renewed, people talk to him. He was fifth column – it was these people who kept silent until the General invaded, and then they helped him – small acts of sabotage, a few murders, harvests set to fire.’
Eve knew those small acts very well – dynamiting mountain passes so that lorries carrying supplies of ammunition to the front were blown to smithereens.
‘Last evening, my mother and I were sitting listening to the crickets and drinking juice. My boys were asleep. It was quiet. My father was in his room where he works talking by telephone – it is the thing he is proud of, his telephone. It was impossible not to hear. He mentioned the Ritz. Then I did listen. It was to do with the singer who came.’
Eve nodded.
‘He said, “Nati is maid to an English woman, perhaps she is the one.’ Then he was listening, then he said, ‘I have placed Nati in the Ritz,’ and he laughed. ‘Now it is time for her to do something for me.’ Then he listened again, then he said, ‘Ah, daughters – they are trouble. Did your mother think that she had a right to attend university? Girls were not meant for universities. All troubles start with students. Now she is down a peg or two, and I have the next generation under my roof. There will be no more Comunista, no FUE students in this family.”’
‘So what do you think your father wants you to do, Nati?’
‘I don’t know. I thought that maybe if I come early, before he is awake, he cannot tell me what I must do. I am sure it must be something bad. Because the person who was talking to him knew something about the singer, and then my father says that I work for you, I became so worried. I made a bad mistake about the English girl in Barcelona. I should not like to make another.’ Eve wanted to believe that this was not a trick, but everyone was capable of double-dealing. Maybe the story was bait to see if Eve could be flushed out.
Trust no one.
‘I’m sorry, Nati, I really can’t make head nor tail of the poor girl story. I would really like to know more about her, but, honestly, I really do need to start soon before it gets too hot.’
‘I am sorry to take your time, madame. But, please, go at once.’
‘That’s all right, Nati, you have had a bad time. I do hope things are better for you soon.’
Nati took Eve’s hand and looked at the two old scars. ‘Please go at once, señorita. Please.’
Eve nodded and kissed Nati on both cheeks. ‘Your uncle was a good man. Without him, children would have starved.’
‘I do not believe in God, señorita, but may He go with you.’
13
Having hastily picked up DB and Paul, Eve took her leave of Madrid.
DB eyed the motorcar. ‘I’m glad you found a nice little unnoticeable car if we are stopped at the border.’
‘We have to take it. It belongs to a friend of Mendoza. I don’t suppose his Bureau expenses runs to a new Buick.’
Paul said, ‘It’s just the thing, DB. Goes like a bullet out of a gun.’
‘Don’t talk about bullets, Paul.’
‘Stop being so wet, woman. You’ve been seeing too many gangster films. The Duke and Duchess are on their way – if Eve has been fingered by the maid’s father, nobody’s going to send a posse after her.’
It was very early in the day, the sun coming up, the wind blowing over the windscreen, fluttering the women’s scarves. Paul, who almost lost his linen cap, turned it back to front as racing drivers do.
DB made the sounds little boys make. ‘Brrrm-brrrm. Look, Eve, he wants next go at the car.’
In everyday circumstances it would have raised no more than a smile, but when Eve started to giggle, the other two caught it. There were dust goggles in the glove compartment, which Eve tossed to Paul, and when he put them on, another bout of shouting and giggling started. They might have been three carefree rich youngsters out for a lark.
Which for now is just how they felt.
About ten kilometres out of Madrid, Eve turned off the main road south.
‘I hope you know where you’re going, missie,’ DB said.
‘Just shut up, DB, and sing to us. This is my patch. I want you both to see it.’
DB started singing something about ‘bein’ in the belly of the whale’. The wind carried the words away but not the melody and the chanting rhythm. They climbed. The road was dusty and winding. From time to time, Eve would slow to a crawl and wave a hand at some magnificent vista.
Once DB said, ‘Hey, man, I’m sorry but I need to pee.’
‘It’s OK. I know all the best places.’
‘She’s right, man, not a burr or thistle in sight. Will you just look at this view – seems to me I’ve seen it before, back home. You never going to believe this, but when I was a kid I had a pet ostrich, and she’d let me ride her, and I’d take her out to some kopje a bit like this, and tell her all the things nobody else wanted to hear.’
Paul put an arm round DB’s shoulder. ‘That’s sad. Poor little kid.’
Eve blew out cigarette smoke and mimed exaggerated violin playing, grinning at DB.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘A goat, I might believe. An ostrich…? On rocks like these? Nah.’
/> ‘Ah, sweet, Paul. You’re such a softie, you’d be putty in the hands of a lady spy.’
‘She’s right, Paul. You’re one of the nice people.’
‘So are you two. I just love you both.’
‘I make up stories like the ostrich as a kind of gift to people – like Eve is giving us this gift of showing us a neck of her own woods.’
‘A gift? Wilhelmina de Beers, that was such an outrageous lie.’
‘No, sweetheart, not a lie – a story. If Eve hadn’t given me away, you’d have a good story to tell at a party, or get in good with a date… “I used to know a girl who talked to her pet ostrich…” Y’see, it could be a happy or a sad story: “There was this girl I used to know… she would ride it up mountains” or “She was so neglected that the only one who would listen was her pet ostrich.”’
Paul picked DB up and swung her round, laughing. ‘I’ll never understand women.’
‘Don’t try, Paul. We’re not here to be understood,’ Eve said, and put an arm round his waist, and for a few quiet moments the three of them stood, taking in the grandeur of Toledo.
She would lose these friends, Eve thought. It was a reason for not allowing people to become too important. It hurt when they went.
David Hatton. She had lost him twice over. The hurt had exploded in anger.
Ozz Lavender, killed on terrain like this. It still hurt.
Dimitri? Well, she had told him to get lost. He had been closest for the longest time.
And Duke. He was too ‘flimsy’, as he had said himself, to make any kind of commitment. They were two of a kind. Afraid to allow anyone too close in case they let you down or went away.
Back in the car, Paul studied a map. ‘After we’ve had the grand tour, where are we headed?’
‘Find Cadiz.’
‘Got it.’
‘Well, we’re not going there. And before we don’t go to Cadiz, I’m going to call on two lots of friends. At the first, you eat everything put before you and enjoy the wine – whatever you think of it. They will have made it themselves.’ The village hadn’t changed, of course. If it hadn’t changed in three hundred years, it wasn’t likely to have done since Eve was last here – even the tethered donkey outside the inn to draw up water from the artesian well deep in the rocks, and the goats munching the herby verges from which strong cheeses were made.
By the time the three arrived, word had gone out as it always had in Eve’s previous life, that strangers were coming. Nobody actually came out of their little houses, but stood in the open doorways. Those tending small vegetable patches leaned on their hoes, sharp as razors.
Eve eagerly went towards a house with her arms stretched wide in greeting. The elderly woman in the doorway, who had been watching suspiciously, suddenly sprang into life, ran out and clasped Eve to her, wiping her eyes with her apron, and doing the same for Eve. Others joined them, spreading their arms in wonder, walking round Eve and laughing delightedly. Paul and DB sat watching from the car. DB said, ‘I don’t understand a word of Spanish, but I know what they’re saying: “Look at her, look, she’s come back. Hasn’t she got thin. Ah, but just look at those slacks, just feel that scarf. And will you just look at her hair.” Am I right, or am I right?’
‘You may well be right. It’s not my kind of Spanish. This is a kind of bastardised Castilian, I think. They call her “American Girl”.’
‘What knocks me for six is that Eve can chat away with them like this.’
‘She’s full of surprises.’
‘She did say something about being out here in the war, but, hey, I don’t know what to think about this.’
‘What you think, DB, is that she’s their darling.’
* * *
Eve had been showered with kisses and discs of goats’ cheese, a stone jar of wine, and a fat chorizo which Eve had said was a favourite of the friend they were going to stay with. When she said that the favourite sausage was for a young man, the long wooden table at which the entire village seemed to be seated to dine was pounded with fists and the ragged awning above seemed to flutter from the raucous laughter and innuendo.
It was very late in the day when they got back to the lower, greener terrain of Cordoba and then Seville and then Jerez – by which time they had calmed down, and Eve had satisfied a bit of the others’ curiosity about how she used to take medicines and other supplies to small villages like that one.
Paul and DB were so enthusiastic about the visit that they said when things were different they would go back. ‘I wonder how many people can drop by for a visit and the entire village comes out? They absolutely loved their American Girl.’
‘Not half as much as I love them. They’re just as you see them. I like that.’
‘What did they think about you turning up in a gigantic motorcar?’ Paul asked.
Eve laughed. ‘Not much. It was just what I happen to be driving today. I didn’t always turn up in a truck. Sometimes it was a gigantic Mercedes. Nobody was impressed – it was just the transport I used for bringing in supplies.’
The other two guessed that this was about as much as they would get from Eve about her past life.
But they were wrong.
* * *
When they eventually arrived in Jerez they were met by Duke Barney.
Eve got out first. ‘Isn’t this Ladybird’s car?’ she asked, eyeing the sports car he was driving.
Duke nodded. ‘Keeping it run in while she’s in London having a time of it.’
Eve doubted that.
To the other two she said simply, ‘This is Señor Paulo Fuentes – an old friend. You can trust him absolutely. He knows what we are doing – but not from me.’ Duke gave a minimum of acknowledgement, but quite affably.
‘You sorted it, Eve?’
‘Yes. If it’s OK with you we’ll put up for a night or two until we get word from London.’ She turned to DB and Paul. ‘Señor Fuentes will drive us to Lisbon when it’s time for us to leave. Captain Faludi agrees with me that we should stay together.’ The authority in Eve’s tone left the other two in no doubt that they should go along with her. This was a very different face of Eve from the Scrubs Eve, the Madrid Eve or the Cordoba village Eve. This one was authoritative, and Paul and DB, knowing nothing of the larger picture since they arrived in Madrid, took what she said without question.
Duke, opening the doors of the sports car, said, ‘I’ve got a stablelad with a truck to take your bags. I got plenty of stuff at my place, soap and flannels and that. Anybody wants a nightdress, I’ll get one of Ladybird’s. Come on, then.’
DB asked what was going to happen to Mendoza’s car.
‘One a’ my blokes is going to give it a going over, then get it up to Lisbon whenever you like.’
‘We will be going on in Señor Fuentes’ car?’
‘Not so much of the señor, Eve,’ and, holding out a hand, he said, ‘People call me Duke, just Duke. Only time I’m señor is to my monkeys there.’ He jerked a thumb at the men loading luggage onto the truck.
DB ran over to them and took some things off the truck. Giving short, quick orders to his ‘monkeys’, Duke started the engine, idling it until DB came back.
‘Eve, wasn’t this chorizo supposed to be for… Duke?’ she asked.
‘When did I say that?’
DB, putting the package on the dashboard, said, ‘You didn’t, but the old ladies did.’ Eve and DB burst out laughing.
Duke, addressing Paul, said, ‘What’s all that about?’
Paul said, ‘Don’t ask me, chum. I never understand women.’
‘Nor me,’ Duke said.
He drove them down to his place, ‘the Jaws of Hell’, driving at a much more sedate speed than Eve.
* * *
Eve was quite touched at the trouble Duke had obviously gone to. Two women were waiting to serve at an outside table surrounded by torches giving off the scent of lemon-peel.
‘D’you want to wash or anything? There’s a bathroom and a
couple of WCs. Another one round in the yard, Paul. I make the monkeys keep it nice and clean. Rita, show them the way.’ Eve and DB followed the wide-hipped woman, who laughed and chattered, indicating to left and right the many beautiful things Señor Fuentes owned – not pictures or ornaments, but woven fabrics hung on poles, and large groups of stones that could have been from an artist or from nature. The bathroom was plaster over-painted with a pale terracotta, and furnished with a stone hand-basin, and ceramic water closet and bath that must have cost him a fortune to have plumbed in.
When they returned, Eve met his eyes at once. He wanted to know whether she approved.
‘What I’ve seen so far, Duke, you have a lovely place here.’
Offhandedly he said, ‘It’s nowhere near finished, but it will be OK.’
‘Where did all the ideas come from?’
‘I travelled around a bit, picked up bits and pieces from here and there. Come on, sit down. I got you a nice baked fish. We have a lot of vegetables and macaroni and sauce stuff, but I went out and caught this today.’ Rita, proud of the dish, placed a long fish, slit-sided and brown-skinned, before the señor. ‘Come on, I don’t stand on ceremony. Help yourselves.’
The four of them ate and talked for more than an hour. Eve was overwhelmed by his generosity and care. Nothing was too good for his guests. He got DB talking about the difference between singing blues and singing jazz.
He told Paul of his own plans for stables and asked about Paul’s future. ‘The immediate future? I think I should apply to join the code-breakers,’ and he explained what they did and how he was suited to the work.
Duke said, ‘I reckon that’s blooming clever. I never did learn to read and write much sense – not apologising or explaining – it was a fact, that’s all. I can figure pretty good, though – Eve knows that, don’t you, Eve?’ He placed his dark hand over her pale one.
It was then that she wanted him to herself. ‘It’s been a long day, Duke. Maybe you ought to show us to where we’ll be sleeping.’