‘Thank you for taking us in,’ Yöst shouted after him.
Ramon glanced over his shoulder. ‘Madame Meijer offered my wife a bed and Monsieur Meijer money to buy a cow.’ Yöst sensed his discomfort, his voice terse as if gratitude was an alien emotion. ‘If they hadn’t, we would have starved that first winter.’ He gave a short bark of mirth that left his grim expression unchanged, anger at the callous nature of the population in general uppermost. ‘When I next had money, I bought goats.’ Ramon pointed towards the hilltop, where a half-dozen flocked towards the farm buildings to be milked. ‘They breed more quickly. However, before anything else, we eat. And I’m hungry. Remember, we work to put food on the table, although a man should also enjoy working. That is very important.’
Beckoning Yöst to follow, Ramon climbed back up the hill, his powerful thigh muscles making light work of the gradient. ‘After you have eaten, Rico can show you round.’
As they crossed the yard, a storm of noisy crying met them. ‘That has to be Clara,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘No one makes more noise. No doubt trouble has found her or she has found trouble.’ He pointed towards the pump. ‘Wash your feet before you come in. If you mess her clean floor, Pascual will take a broom to you.’
Clara was sitting on her bed sucking her thumb, her face red from crying. Zande was sat next to her, his arm hugging her shoulders as if his presence alone would bring comfort. Sighting Yöst, he ran up to him and tugged at his hand. ‘I thought you had left us,’ he rebuked.
‘Didn’t I promise never to do that?’ Yöst searched the room, once again light and airy with its shutters open. ‘Where’s TaTa?’
‘She’s eaten her breakfast and Pascual is washing her.’
‘What happened to Clara?’
‘She was trying to open the shutter and it pinched her finger.’ He leaned down whispering, ‘She’s not very brave; it only made a tiny mark.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘No. I was waiting for you.’
Yöst screwed up his mouth. ‘You’d have had a long wait if I had left.’
Zande shuffled his feet, blushing. ‘I didn’t really think you’d leave. Not really,’ he repeated, ‘promises to the Black are always kept.’
‘Shush! Tante Marie said not to tell anyone.’
‘Why?’
Yöst sighed wishing the word why had never been invented. ‘Because it has to be our secret until your father returns.’
‘Can we go back to Tante Marie’s house then?’
Before Yöst had time to reply, Rico appeared from the kitchen carrying a pot, steam erupting from it. ‘I thought you had run off.’
‘So did Zande.’ Yöst pulled a face and Rico grinned at him.
‘Come and eat. Katarina says we can finish the stew for breakfast.’
Drawing out a chair for Zande, Yöst sat down next to him. ‘Your father said you can show us round the farm.’
‘As Pa says, first we eat,’ Rico said, repeating his father’s words. ‘Did he also tell you the bit about enjoying your work?’
Yöst nodded.
‘Poor Clara, she gets given that lecture every time she moans. And she moans a lot. By the way, after eatin’ you carry your quilt out into the field and hang it out on the line to air.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Ma says sunlight kills any ticks and bedbugs. Only you’d better remember which is yours and bring it in before dark. Come on, young Zande, we’re goin’ on an adventure, so eat up.’
Hearing giggling, Yöst glanced up towards the stair well, and saw the twins running down the stairs, a large quilt suspended between them.
‘Hurry up or the stew will be all gone,’ Rico called after them as the two girls chased along the passageway towards the back door.
Neither of the twins had spoken much at the dinner table, adding little to the general conversation apart from a single question directed at Maestro, and talking quietly to each other. Unused to girls, Yöst had dismissed them as being identical. Now, in the morning light, he saw how very different they were, one taller than the other, and both sturdier than their mother, having only their black hair in common. Yet even that was not the same. Katarina’s hair was thick and heavy, with a natural wave, the twins’ straight and fine, and tied up in a ribbon to keep it tidy.
‘Pepe, Maestro, the children are eating all the breakfast and I am not making more, so get up now.’ Pascual came into the hall carrying a tray of earthenware mugs full of warm milk, which she placed in the centre of the table. Katarina followed, two large round loaves tucked under her arms, her hands full of butter and cheese. ‘If you want coffee, Yöst, bring your cup out into the kitchen. By the way, I have put some clothes on your bed. Only Rico’s cast-offs; you can’t wear those around the farm, they look new.’ She called out. ‘Maestro, give Pepe a kick for me.’
Pepe came out from under the eaves rubbing his eyes. He ambled across to where Pascual was standing, hands on hips, sheepishly mumbling what Yöst took to be an apology. Yöst noticed the twins had come back into the house and were standing by the hanging curtain. They appeared to be waiting for something. Puzzled, he glanced round at the sisters and Maestro. None of them had begun to eat; their heads tilted to one side in mimicry of a bird, their attention fastened on Pepe.
Backing away he ducked, pawing the ground with his feet in imitation of a bull. Yöst, sensing the expectation, immediately discounted the theory that the giant had gone mad. Then Pascual whipped off her sacking apron, and grasping it by its edges sidestepped the charging man, buffeting him with its stiff folds as he ran past.
Nudging Yöst with his elbow, Rico shouted out. ‘Jolé! ’
Swinging round, Pepe made a second charge. Stopping abruptly, he straightened up. Picking Pascual up under one arm, he carried her across the room, her legs kicking wildly. Pushing aside the walnut curtain, he dumped her down in the kitchen.
Ramon, who had entered the room from the wash house, was silently watching. Yöst eyed him nervously, wondering if he would challenge Pepe for making so free with his wife, and saw him laughing.
Confused, he leant over and tugged at Rico’s sleeve. ‘What?’ the boy mumbled, his mouth full of bread. ‘Doesn’t Ramon mind when Pepe …’ he paused not quite sure how to go on. ‘Pepe, what?’
‘You know … flirting with Pascual.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper, carefully avoiding the word, your mother.
‘Flirting? Pa?’ Rico bellowed.
Hastily, Yöst tried to shush him. ‘I didn’t mean you—’ He tugged helplessly at Rico’s arm. ‘Please don’t.’
Ramon glanced up from his seat. ‘Pa, Yöst thinks Pepe is after Ma.’
Pascual ran back into the room slapping Rico around the head with her apron. He ducked and rubbed his ear where the coarse fabric had caught it. ‘Take no notice of my stupid son, Yöst,’ she shouted furiously. ‘He has a very big mouth. Pepe is actually teasing Ramon.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Yöst muttered, embarrassed.
‘Of course, you don’t, and my idiot of a son ought to know better,’ she stormed. ‘A very long time ago,’ her tone quietened, ‘where we lived before, Ramon ran with the bulls. Needless to say, he was slighter then.’ Pascual paused her story to smile at her husband, who was busily ladling stew into his mouth.
‘For which you are to blame,’ Maestro called. ‘Your food is too good.’
‘Ran with the bulls?’ Yöst swallowed nervously.
‘You never heard people talk of bullfighting?’ Rico whispered.
‘Oh!’
‘He was a matador and Pepe was his mozo de espada.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Someone very good at running and ducking,’ Adelita chimed in, her tone full of mischief.
‘Ignore her.’ Pascual patted Yöst on the shoulder. ‘A sword servant. You’d never believe it, but Pepe was extremely good at ducking the bulls. You want some coffee?’
He nodded shyly. ‘I’d like to try it.’
‘Stay there, I’
ll bring you some.’
‘And me, Ma.’
Pascual flipped her apron at him, scowling. ‘Fetch it yourself and think yourself lucky, you cheeky blighter.’
Pepe, his lop-sided grin stretching from ear to ear, sat down next to Maestro. He made a noise and Ana pushed the stew pot across the table towards him.
The previous night, uncomfortable about being foisted on strangers, Yöst had felt almost grateful for their lack of interest. No one had commented, not even Rico, never once mentioning their unscripted appearance in the house. Nervous and ill at ease, he had eavesdropped on conversations, expecting to hear their names being mentioned, almost disappointed when he didn’t. Now he began to appreciate it had not been rudeness, nor a lack of curiosity, rather something more natural, a simple act of good manners that was inherent in them. Mme Meijer had mentioned that Ramon had fled his country. Had that happened to them all, Adelita and Maestro as well? In which case, they would understand how it felt to have words chase round and round, scarcely able to taste your food for nerves. That morning, that was how the entire family were behaving, continuing with their daily routine as if nothing untoward had taken place, he and the two children a part of it.
Everyone that is, except for Maestro, his gaze constantly seeking out Yöst as if assessing his worth.
By his side Rico chatted, asking questions of scant importance, the sort of trivial questions friends ask when they are teasing and not really expecting an answer. Nevertheless, Yöst sensed something held back, aware Rico was still withholding judgement, missing the light-hearted repartee of their first meeting.
Picking up his cup, he wandered out into the kitchen, aware with Pascual he felt more at ease than with anyone else. Nervous of Ramon, shy of Katarina, and timid of Maestro and Adelita with their sharp tongues, even Rico … Apart from that first meeting when he felt certain they could have said anything, even the most silly and trivial stuff, and it would be taken in the right way. Like so many things, he’d been wrong about that too. Asking the wrong question had ruined it, and despite Rico swearing it was okay, it wasn’t. Now he felt scared to comment on anything, in case Rico thought it dumb and took offence.
As the curtains swung back into place, Pascual glanced up from pouring coffee into hot milk, the opaque liquid creating whirls of dark amber on the surface. ‘I said I would bring it in.’
‘It wasn’t that.’ He shuffled uncomfortably and held out his cup. ‘Did Ramon tell you about us?’
‘That TaTa was an orphan and you needed a home, because the Meijers’ house was too small to accommodate all of you?’
‘Anything else?’
Pascual inspected him closely. ‘Was there anything else?’ Yöst bit his lip wishing he dare confide in her, convinced she would understand. ‘No, except, I don’t know how to live in a family,’ he blurted out. ‘I don’t even know Zande, not really. Nor Tatania, only enough to tell you she wants to be called TaTa.’ His face twisted nervously, his eyebrows darting up and down like the black notes on a piano. ‘I never—’ He stopped aware if he set out on that path and tried to fill in the gaps, it would all come pouring out, those first agonising days when the air had smelled of death, and his desperate search for food and wood to build a shelter.
‘When is your birthday?’
‘Birthday?’
‘You have heard of birthdays?’
Yöst rummaged up a half-hearted grin at her dry tone and sat down on a stool by the table. Picking up his cup, he took a sip. ‘We used goat’s milk where I lived before. It’s a bit strong on its own,’ he admitted, ‘but with coffee it tastes good.’
‘I can see you’ve not lived on a farm before,’ Pascual teased. ‘That’s cow’s milk; can’t you taste the difference? We use goats’ milk for making cheese and yoghurt. And your birthday?’
‘I don’t remember,’ he confessed. In the clan, birthdays were never celebrated, except for the one; their rebirth as a cob.
‘How do you know how old you are then? You look about the same age as Rico and he’s going to be thirteen next year.’
‘Before she died, Grandmother said I was almost eleven.’
‘Impossible.’ Pascual picked up a knife and began to chop onions.
‘That’s what I said.’ Yöst grinned at her. ‘We had an argument about it. I told Grandmother I could remember more years than eleven. She said she couldn’t, so eleven it had to be.’ He didn’t add that particular conversation had occurred the week before she died, when his grandmother was spending her final hours mulling over her life and reliving its many happy times.
The kitchen commanded a view across the yard with its pump and wash house. That had also proved a revelation. The previous evening, on seeing the bath with its hot-water boiler, a cast iron contraption suspended over one end, he had asked Rico if it was for washing clothes. And although Pascual had said there were no doors, there’d been one on both the latrine and the room housing the bath itself, with a hook and eye fastening.
‘Why is this room built of stone?’
‘It was here already. That’s how we started, Ramon and me, living in an animal shed.’ She picked up another of the large brown globes from a pile on the table and, stripping its skin away, chopped it in half. ‘After Katarina and her children arrived, followed by Pepe and then Maestro and Adelita, we needed more space in a hurry. Ramon and Pepe worked a month for a timber merchant to earn the wood for the new house. Ramon was going to use this as a wash house, until I told him if he wanted to eat more than bread and water, I needed a kitchen I couldn’t set fire to.’ She shifted her feet, sweeping the finely chopped pieces of onion into a waiting frying pan. ‘About your birthday; here we celebrate the shortest day of the year. You can be twelve then.’
‘How do you know?’ he burst out. He flushed, suddenly aware she was teasing. ‘You mean I’m like that tree you made into a table. You can read my age by the rings on my trunk.’
Yöst sensed Pascual was smiling, her knife thudding rhythmically against the wooden chopping board. ‘If you include that line of dirt on your neck, we will most likely decide you are thirteen. Unfortunately, then you’d be older than Rico and that wouldn’t do at all.’ Stopping her work, she reached up and took down another cup from the shelf. ‘Take Rico a cup and tell him he’s forgiven.’
13
The sun had already made its presence felt by the time breakfast was over. No one hurried, Ramon maintaining an amiable if somewhat one-sided conversation with Pepe, as if the mangled noises emerging from the giant’s mouth were the epitome of sophisticated conversation.
‘Pa calls it a day of rest, except we still have jobs to do.’ Rico directed their steps towards the backdrop of the rocky escarpment, Tatania trotting by Yöst’s side, her hand in his. The youth appeared to have accepted the new day as a fresh start, his tone as cheerful as the early sunshine. ‘The goats need milking. Adelita usually does that while Ma and Katarina go to church with the younger girls, only today Clara refused to go. She told Ma she wanted to stay with Zande.’ He swung round glowering at his sister. She stuck out her tongue, her face instantly transforming into a wide smile at something Zande was saying.
Yöst flinched at the word church. ‘You won’t tell, will you?’
Rico scowled. ‘I said I wouldn’t,’ he growled, ‘you don’t need to ask twice.’ Next moment, his frown had been replaced by something altogether more cheerful. ‘Pa and me, we have this agreement, only he doesn’t know about it. He don’t tell me nothin’ and I tell him even less.’ He tapped the side of his skull. ‘You can’t believe the secrets I got stacked up in here. As for church?’ Rico grinned at him, ‘I’m with you, mate. Never go, unless Ma or Adelita drag me. Still our church ain’t posh like that place in town; it’s in the next village … and it’s nice. A bit tumbledown, but nice. In summer, birds fly in through the open windows. You don’t get that if it’s a bad place.’ He patted the side of his nose. ‘We think birds stupid. They’re not, they’re wiser than us. Never g
o near a place if it’s evil.’ The gradient began to bite and he dragged in a hasty breath, his words continuing almost non-stop. ‘Ma said I was baptised there; don’t see it meself. If baptism’s meant to keep you from sinning, it’s failed with me. Anyhow, while Ma’s at church, the other girls take turns to clean the sleepin’ area, and the kitchen and outhouse.’
‘And you?’
‘I do the stables while Pepe does the pigs and the cow.’ Rico twirled on the spot, his arms akimbo, joyfully embracing the early morning sunshine. ‘Maestro told Pa to let me off today as I’d have my work cut out keepin’ an eye on you lot.’
The previous night, after Rico had gone to bed, Yöst had fallen instantly asleep only to wake almost immediately again, his mind dwelling on their conversation at the dinner table – what he’d said, and what Rico had replied – acknowledging it had been his disparaging remark about Maestro that had caused the rift between them. And although Rico seemed perfectly okay now, his words friendly enough, something between them had snapped. He listened to the silence in which words that should have been spoken were held back; the rapport that had sprung to life on first meeting, existing now only in his imagination. It made him feel awkward, jettisoning subjects one after another, words queuing up to be spoken as uncomfortable as chewing on pebbles.
‘Anyway, Pepe said he’d do them.’ Rico fished in his pocket, pulling out a handful of biscuits which he passed to the three children. He lowered his voice. ‘What’s with your brother? I mean Clara hates everyone … even Ma and Pa sometimes.’
Overhearing, Zande glanced up, his mouth readying itself to explain. Yöst frowned a reminder not to divulge their secret. ‘Zande likes everyone.’
Rico nudged him with his elbow. ‘Not like you then.’ Then, as if regretting the gesture, he lapsed into silence.
The path grew steeper, traversing a steep shoulder of rock pitted with weeds and broken and stunted stalks, their leaves stripped by grazing animals.
The Click of a Pebble Page 14