by MARY HOCKING
‘But I would like to see the Spanish Village,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we could go there this morning?’
They left the hotel and walked for a time in silence past crumbling apartment houses, the yellow stone pitted and cracked; there were no trees here to offer shade and the wide road had a seared look as it stretched ahead into a dusty haze. James, who usually accomplished what he set out to do, strode along purposefully until Frangcon protested:
‘You’re not catching that train, you know.’
He laughed and slowed his pace.
‘I should have someone to say that to me more often.’
Frangcon had stopped to examine some fans in the window of a shop. One, a deep midnight blue, seemed to catch her eye, but although she sighed over it she said that it was too expensive. James made a mental note of the name of the shop—after all, he might want to buy a present or two before he left Barcelona. As they walked on Frangcon glanced at him from time to time; the long-limbed body moved easily; the face, in spite of the strong features and the clarity of the eyes, had a gentle quality which appealed to her; perhaps weariness had scored the lines on the brow and beneath the eyes, but there was no irritability and the same hint of patient acceptance was there in the wry twist of the mouth.
‘You don’t look the bustling type,’ she told him.
‘What type do I look?’
‘Rather slow and deliberate . . . a little James Stewartish, in fact.’
‘Really!’
He was amused; but the idea that he might be anything so glamorous was rather gratifying. He glanced slyly at himself in the window of a pharmacist’s shop and was disillusioned to see that his fair skin was already pink and beginning to peel a little on the forehead.
‘Why do you hustle yourself so?’ she persisted.
‘It’s a habit. Work has been hectic over the last few years. At least, perhaps hectic is not the right word . . .’ He frowned, searching for a word more appropriate to the grind of legal business.
‘Never mind about the right word. I know what you mean. You find it difficult to unwind.’
He was not at all sure that he had ever really ‘unwound’; at least, not since boyhood. She watched him in amusement, guessing that he was troubled by words again. She began to ask him questions because she wanted to see him against the background of his home and family. On this level her mind moved more quickly than his, and by the time that they reached the end of the road she knew that he lived in Appin but worked in the family business in Glasgow, that his father had died and that his mother was a novelist, that he had once been engaged to a girl named Elaine. She had also surmised that he admired his mother and had loved his father, and that he had been hurt by Elaine. At this point she broke off her investigation and unfolded a street map.
‘We go that way,’ James pointed.
‘I was wondering where the Paseo de Gracia was from here. It must be quite near, don’t you think?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It’s probably the nearest place to get a nice cup of coffee.’
‘But have we got time?’
‘This is Spain. Time is irrelevant now.’
When she was comfortably settled in a wicker chair outside a café in the Paseo de Gracia, she said:
‘Did it upset you very much?—losing your fiancée, I mean.’
‘I didn’t lose her in that sense. I broke off the engagement.’
She thought about this while she unwrapped the thin paper round a lump of sugar.
‘Didn’t you love her any more?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know.’
‘You must have felt something.’
But feeling was just what had been lacking. Elaine, like his mother, had been more concerned with the pleasures of the intellect and she had been surprised to discover that as far as he was concerned the marriage of true minds was not enough. He had been surprised himself. Frangcon lit a cigarette and studied a hat worn by a woman at a nearby table. James, who felt as bewildered and breathless as if he had just emerged from a whirlwind, sat staring blankly in front of him. Frangcon thought that perhaps he was grieving for the past, so she said comfortingly:
‘These things do pass. I know, because I’ve been through it myself.’
He supposed that she would now tell him about it and he hoped that it would not be too prolonged. She said nothing for a moment or two, perhaps collecting her thoughts, then she leant forward and whispered confidentially:
‘I wonder where that woman bought that hat? I think I shall need one—the sun is so strong.’
He was a little disappointed, having been mesmerized into confession, to find that she did not intend to reciprocate. He made a few non-committal remarks about the hat and drank his coffee, which was muddy and lukewarm. They sat without speaking for a while, watching the people come and go in the street. There was a Spanish travel agency not far away and one or two coaches were lined up outside it. Frangcon said:
‘One of those coaches is going to Montserrat. That man, Milo, told me I should go there. He gave me a pamphlet.’ She searched in her handbag and produced a creased folder.
‘Does it appeal to you? I’ve heard that it’s very commercialized.’
She began to tease him about being snobbish.
‘Everything is commercialized now—except the highlands of Scotland, of course. And if they were commercialized, you would probably be able to get work in Appin.’
He watched her face. In spite of the gaiety, there was a shy reserve in the eyes which could be a thing of youth, but which some women retain throughout their lives. When she is very old, he thought, the lines on her face will seem irrelevant; her husband will always be able to see, when he looks at her, the young woman whom he married. He listened to her talking about Montserrat and the black virgin, and he felt as he did so that he was storing memories.
‘Perhaps we can make one or two enquiries at that agency when we’ve finished our coffee?’
‘Perhaps we can.’
She seemed to have forgotten all about the Spanish Village. He looked at his watch. It was already twelve o’clock. It didn’t really worry him any more. He resolved to leave the watch behind when he got back to the hotel.
A party of people were getting into one of the coaches; a man followed them and stood on the steps of the coach, counting. It was Raoul. A woman came hurrying up and he stood down, listening to her apologies, smiling, courteous, but quite detached. The feeling that James had had the night before returned. Something was wrong, but he could not define what it was that had disturbed him; it was a disquiet born not so much of feeling as of sense, as though something alien had crept into a familiar piece of music. As he watched, the woman turned and began to mount the steps of the coach. She carried a big handbag and the clasp caught on the door so that the bag gaped open. Raoul bent forward and fixed the clasp without drawing her attention to it. It seemed to James that in doing this he took something out of the bag. He turned to Frangcon and saw that she, too, was looking at Raoul.
‘Did you see what I saw?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Her expression was rather disapproving and he realized to his surprise that it was himself, and not Raoul, at whom the disapproval was directed.
‘What do you mean—“no”?’ To his annoyance he found that he was defending himself. ‘You obviously did see.’
‘I didn’t see it in the way that you obviously saw it.’
‘You saw a man take something from a handbag.’ He was becoming angry and his usual cautiousness deserted him. ‘There are no two ways about that.’
‘He’s not that kind of person.’ She spoke quietly, but very definitely. ‘There must be another explanation.’
‘You don’t even know him.’
‘The same applies to you. So why do you assume the worst?’
‘There’s something phony about the man.’
‘Something unusual, perhaps,’ This time
she was the one who was careful about words. ‘That doesn’t make him phony.’
James, who would usually have been the first to agree that one should not make judgements until one had sufficient evidence, found that another person seemed to have taken control of him.
‘I should be careful if I were you,’ he said. ‘Holiday acquaintances need to be treated warily.’
The laughter came back to her eyes.
‘I’ll remember that,’ she promised.
He was too astonished by his own behaviour to see the humour of the situation. The rest of the morning passed in a rather constrained atmosphere.
Chapter Four
When Raoul had seen the coach off he went back to his office and worked until four o’clock in the afternoon. He did not spend the money that he had stolen on a good lunch, partly because he would need it for more important things, partly because he was too excited to eat. He had an appointment that evening with a man whom he had not seen for a long time. As the hour of his appointment drew nearer he became increasingly nervous. He had kept himself going for some time with the thought that this meeting would resolve his problems; now he could think only of the past and the more he thought about it, the more remote the man seemed. By the time that he got back to his room he knew that it was a stranger that he would be meeting. Circumstances had changed and theirs was not the kind of friendship that survives once the tensions that created it are lessened.
He felt weak and empty and a quick glance in the mirror showed that the faint scar down one cheek was livid, the flesh puckered around it. He dared not drink in case it fuddled his wits, so he made coffee, strong and bitter. He was drinking it when the man arrived.
Raoul’s hotel was in a poor quarter, half-way up a narrow street which ended in a twisting flight of steps leading to a higher part of the old town. Raoul had a downstairs room at the back with french windows opening on to a small patio where the chambermaid hung up the washing. She was out there now, pegging up some sheets on a line which dipped low so that the sheets trailed on the dusty flagstones. The two men waited until she had finished, although she was not interested in them.
‘The picadors are staying here,’ she said as she passed the window on her way to the kitchen.
‘What about the matador?’
‘He is staying at the Hispaña.’
‘That means he is quite good,’ Raoul informed his friend. ‘Most of the ones we have are broken. It’s like listening to a third-rate touring company to hear them talk.’
The remark, with its intimations of failure, reminded them that they were men who had fought and lost. They sat by the open window, smoking, not speaking for a time. Raoul noticed that his friend had coarsened since they last met; the long, aquiline face had filled out, the sensual quality of the mouth was accentuated, the jaw-line was thicker. The manner, too, had a gloss on it. He could waste time on preliminaries now.
‘How have you been occupying yourself?’
‘Taking tourists around.’
‘Enjoyable?’
‘No. But beggars can’t be choosers. I can’t stand much more of it, though.’
The other made no reply, merely raising his eyebrows, waiting. He had always been the better strategist of the two.
‘I can’t stay here,’ Raoul said.
‘Not indefinitely, no.’
‘Not much longer. For one thing, I’ve no money.’
‘I see.’
‘Then?’
‘I understand your impatience. But you mustn’t imagine that it is any easier for me than for you.’
But Raoul had only to look at him to know that it was easier for him. Life is always easier for those who learn to compromise.
‘I have my problems,’ his friend assured him. ‘I live precariously, too, in my way.’
There was a trace of resentment in the voice. He resented criticism, particularly as he had risked something to come here. Yet he was on the defensive, which probably meant that he had not risked too much. He looked as though he might have travelled comfortably. Raoul, with his gift for antagonizing those whose help he needed, said:
‘I hope this trip wasn’t too much of a risk?’
‘It’s a business trip. I’m with an engineering firm now.’
‘I see.’
The other smiled, the corners of his mouth dragging down a little bitterly.
‘One has to live.’
It hadn’t seemed important when they, last met. There was silence while they digested their memories. Then the other said:
‘As a result of my business interests I have made a few useful connections. It has taken time, because I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. But I think I can arrange to get you out of here early next month.’
‘Yes?’ Raoul was guarded because the other was watching him warily.
‘It will have to be the Argentine.’
‘I can’t go all that way. What would I do?’
The other turned away. The patio was hemmed in by hotels on either side and the blank wall of a church at the back; above one could see the higher part of the town. The sky seemed a tiny square, very far away. It was hot and airless, like sitting in an oven. They had both known greater heat than this; but it had been fiercer, more positive, an enemy to be fought and conquered. There was no exhilaration here, this was the fag end of the day smouldering to ash.
‘What use would I be?’ Raoul asked. ‘What use would I be all that way away?’
The other man’s voice was tired.
‘All that is finished, haven’t you grasped that yet?’
‘No.’
They began to argue. Raoul’s voice was sharp and staccato, the other’s dry and flat.
‘You must make a fresh start out there. You will in time, you know. You have to learn another way of life. At your age, that shouldn’t be too difficult.’
‘There is no other way of life. We took that decision a long time ag°.’
‘Decisions have to be reviewed in the light of changed circumstances.’
‘The circumstances of that decision can’t be changed. We sacrificed too much.’
‘You will achieve nothing by persisting now, except a few more sacrifices.’
‘One, at least.’
‘Don’t be so heroic! You will endanger other lives besides your own.’
‘I shan’t betray anyone, if that is what you mean.’
‘There are ways of making men talk. No one has better reason to know that than you.’
‘Not all our prisoners talked.’
‘But they were better men than you.’
It was drawn out hypnotically in the rhythm of statement and response, this dislike that had been waiting the unguarded moment to declare itself. It came as a great shock to both men. Pity and regret clouded the older man’s eyes and he said gently:
‘You must learn to wait. Perhaps our turn will come.’
But he was just trying to make his own position more tolerable. Raoul did not listen, and in the end the man who had once been his friend said:
‘Think it over. You have a month. If you say “no” . . . think what it means. You can’t stay here for ever. The climate is already changing.’
‘I’m not as responsive to changes in climate as some people.’ When the man had gone Raoul picked up the coffee jug and threw it against the wall. He shouted: ‘The Argentine!’ He committed one or two other aimless and destructive acts and raged about the suggestion that he should go to the Argentine. But it was not because he refused to accept this means of escape that he had dismissed the man so angrily. In the end, when he lay exhausted on his bed, the words that vibrated in the small room were ‘but they were better men than you’. Better men. He could remember them, and one in particular. A man like Milo Pacheco. He had hated Milo Pacheco from the moment that he met him. Milo, on the other hand, was not particularly interested in Raoul: it was his job to keep an eye on him, and that was that. He sometimes gave the impression that Raoul was not big enough fo
r him to hate. For a time, Raoul had imagined that it was this very indifference that angered him; but now he realized that something more than pride was involved. Milo Pacheco, ambling from bar to bar, smiling, drinking, preying on women, was almost a legend now, his past glamorized by the years. But what, in fact, had he been?—did no one remember? A man who thrived on lawlessness and violence, who would have fought on any side that offered him the way of life that satisfied his passionate lust for physical experience. A blood drinker. Whenever he saw Milo he thought of the things that Milo had done. And then the things that Milo had done merged with the things that he himself had done. He became confused. There was a difference between his kind of violence and Milo’s; but sometimes he forgot what that essential difference was, the mind’s defences gave and the torrent of blood obliterated reason. These moments were agony to him; he would bear the brand of them always. Yet Milo appeared to have come through unscathed— except that sometimes there was a glimpse of regret in the clouded blue eyes. One could only assume that he had enjoyed himself. He had lived through these agonizing experiences and he had enjoyed them. He was not a man at all, he was an animal. And it was of men like this that his friend had been thinking when he had said ‘they were better men than you’.
It was not true, of course; but it was terrifying that anyone should think such a thing. It demanded some kind of gesture. He felt that he wanted to go out and challenge Milo immediately. But to what? A combat on his own, Raoul’s ground? That would be too simple; intellectually he was so far superior to Milo that the contest would have no meaning. It would have to be fought on Milo’s ground; he would have to show that will and belief and intellectual vision could produce physical resilience more formidable than the animal vigour which alone motivated a man like Milo. He lay still for a while visualizing a number of tests of physical endurance at the end of which he would have demonstrated beyond all doubt his total superiority over Milo Pacheco and all that he stood for.
Unfortunately there was nothing practical that could be done about it. The days would drag on as they had over the past months, empty, meaningless, with only the opiate of Rose to make them bearable. Rose. He looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. In an hour he was supposed to meet her and her friends. He was not sure that he would go. The girl, Frangcon, would be there, dark, passionate, unreasonable: a much more dangerous person than Rose. But James Kerr would also be there. And this was a man with some respect for the things of the mind, a man who might conceivably understand. Perhaps he would tell Kerr one day; the need to confess had been growing stronger lately. He brushed the idea aside as soon as it had formed; but he decided to go, nevertheless.