by MARY HOCKING
To Frangcon, who had felt nothing so far, the impact was sudden as a blow in the breast. The grief that she had admired in ‘The Old Jew’ had been the grief of resignation, contained within the frame of the picture; but the woman with the shattered fragments of the child was torn by a grief that was beyond the mind’s endurance, a grief that clawed through the constraining bonds of bone and flesh. Frangcon waited, almost eagerly, for Raoul’s cool, analytical comments to bring order into chaos. But Raoul was silent, and it was Milo who spoke.
‘I never killed a child.’
The two girls and James turned to stare at him.
‘Never,’ he repeated. ‘Not once.’
They were reminded that he had killed often, probably with zest. They moved away from him.
‘Anyone would think it was something unusual, the way he said it,’ Rose whispered.
‘It probably is, in his kind of warfare,’ James answered.
Milo joined them as they stood once again studying the two portraits of Jacqueline Roque. Frangcon said:
‘I’m not at all sure that I don’t get more of the feeling of the woman from that queer thing.’
Raoul remained alone in front of the fragment from Guernica. He stood stiff and straight, his hands at his sides, his eyes vacant as those of a man facing a firing squad, already committed to death.
Later that night. Rose woke to find him trembling so violently that she thought that he had an attack of malaria. But when she leant over him, he turned suddenly to her, burying his head between her breasts with a violent appeal for comfort that he had never made before. She held him away, thrusting his shoulders back.
‘What is it? You frighten me.’
For a moment it was her mother’s face that she saw, the eyes blazing out of the darkness above the cot. She put her hands to her face and began to whimper:
‘No, no . . . leave me alone . . . go away.’
Raoul got out of the bed and went across to the window. It was stifling in the room; and beyond there was no breeze, no relief for the tightness in his chest. He looked back at her, sitting in the bed, holding the sheet up to her breasts as though his agony had outraged her. No relief there, either. No relief anywhere, ever . . . This was something he thought he had accepted long ago. He leant his head back against the frame of the window and wished that he could cry but knew that he never would cry again. Rose saw the outline of his jaw, white as ivory in the moonlight, rigid as the upthrust jaw of a skull.
‘Raoul,’ she said suddenly. ‘You haven’t done anything dreadful, have you?’
For a moment she thought he had not heard, then he turned slowly towards her; his face was in shadow now, she could not see his expression, was not even sure that he was looking at her.
‘You haven’t done anything dreadful, have you?’ she repeated.
Her fingers plucked at the sheet. She did not say ‘What have you done?’ because it was reassurance, not knowledge, that she wanted. He gave it to her.
‘No. Don’t worry, Rose.’
She turned away and pushed her face into the pillow. He sat looking out over the courtyard long after her fear had quieted and she had gone to sleep. The leaves of the tree in the centre of the courtyard were shining; they reminded him of olive leaves. There had been an olive grove outside the village; he remembered how still it had been afterwards in the heat of the sun.
Chapter Six
The next day Rose wrote to a friend in London:
‘It is very hot. They say it will be a record summer. My flat is like a furnace—the butter melts, the milk goes bad, the drains smell and the lavatory seat is too hot to sit on. It’s surprising how in time the little things begin to get you down. I’ve been here nearly two years now and for the first time I find Barcelona tedious. I am planning a trip to the mountains, however, and that should provide some amusement. We are being taken by a man called Milo Pacheco of whom I think Raoul may be a little jealous . . .’
She had expected to hear from Raoul that afternoon since they were both off duty; but she did not really mind being left to her own devices for once. He had been very tiresome last night; and then she had had one of those disturbing dreams in which she was doing quite ordinary things, talking to a customer at the office, seeing someone on to a plane, walking by a river, and all the time she was terrified as though at any moment everything might fall apart. For the first time she wondered how her affair with Raoul would end. She had not thought about this before. Now that it seemed that she might have to think about it, the affair lost a little of its charm.
When finally she went out to post the letter she experienced a feeling of freedom that was rather pleasant. Anything might happen. All that did happen was that she met Juan Urillo who worked at a Spanish travel agency. They went to a bull-fight together. It made a change.
Raoul also found the heat in the city particularly oppressive. He wanted a change of scene, but as usual he was short of money and he knew that Rose would not offer a loan. He rang Frangcon.
‘You wanted to see something of the coast,’ he said. ‘Why not take a trip out there this afternoon?’
When he met her he said he had forgotten his wallet, so she lent him money to hire a car.
‘Isn’t Rose coming?’ she asked.
‘It has to be the Costa Brava or nothing with Rose. And I get bored with the Costa Brava.’
Frangcon, who had hoped that she would be taken to the Costa Brava, said nothing.
He drove south along the Tarragona road where the coast flattened out and the towns and villages were few. After he had been driving for over an hour he stopped the car and they went down a gentle, shrub-tangled slope that led to a long, sandy beach which stretched for over a mile ending at a squat promontory on which there were a few pine trees. Raoul was not in a talkative mood and Frangcon, delighting in the brilliance of the sun, fell into one of her reveries. After a while she stooped to pluck a sprig from one of the shrubs and he watched the swaying movement of her skirt, the tightness of the blouse beneath the full breasts. She straightened slowly, the sprig cupped in her hands, her face close to it.
‘It smells of something . . . is it ginger or . . .?’
‘Just rosemary.’
‘I know it’s rosemary. But I’m trying to think what the smell reminds me of.’
She walked beside him, her head bent over the sprig of rosemary. He looked down at her, and saw the dark, tumbling hair shot with bronze in the sun. He meant to ask why it wasn’t enough that it smelt of rosemary, but instead he said:
‘Are you a virgin, Frangcon?’
She broke off one of the green needles and rubbed it between her fingers.
‘You don’t ask English girls that sort of thing.’
‘Why not? Aren’t they made the same way as other girls?’
‘Yes. But they don’t talk about it.’
‘I’m sure Rose wouldn’t mind.’
‘She would probably think it an odd question for you to ask her.’ She threw the sprig away and smelt her fingers. ‘Ginger . . . or possibly sage and . . .’
‘Why are you a virgin, Frangcon?’
‘Is it so obvious?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Something in your eyes, perhaps.’
She looked at him, smiling, not taking any of this very seriously, which he found irritating. Her face was flushed and little beads of sweat gathered on her forehead and above her lip; her blouse was clinging tightly. Her body is as ripe as a young peasant’s, he thought; but the face lacked the peasant’s coarseness, its vitality was of a different order.
‘Why?’ he insisted.
‘Oh . . . just because.’
‘Because of what? Don’t you want men, don’t you like them?’
The eyes lost their merriment. Unlike Rose, she did not protest or become evasive; but she seemed to withdraw from him although she continued to meet his gaze steadily. He was annoyed; it was an insult that she should become remote just as he
was becoming interested. There was a mystery about it, too, that intrigued him more than his appreciation of her body had done.
‘Are you waiting for some grand passion?’ he sneered. ‘If so, you had better be careful. You may find that you have nothing in the end.’
‘I don’t want a grand passion.’
‘You will become an old maid in no time.’
‘Dear me, how dreadful!’
‘Just what do you want?’
‘Love.’
She waited, regarding him steadily. Although he knew the kind of thing she expected him to say, he found himself saying it just the same.
‘Love! Cherie, you will have to take things more lightly. You mustn’t get solemn about love or you will become very boring. And it’s a great mistake. Love is too ephemeral to take seriously.’
‘You sound like a character out of Francoise Sagan.’
He turned away. The last thing he wanted was an analysis of his character. But now she felt that she had gained an advantage and she pursued it determinedly.
‘I don’t think you really know much about emotion. You stand back and criticize—just like you did at the Picasso exhibition; but you never get into the picture yourself.’
‘How clever!’
They had reached the beach now. He was looking out towards the sea. She noted the slim, straight body, the thin face with its fine features and delicate bone structure, the strands of dark hair falling across his forehead. It should have been a charming picture, but for some reason charm was completely lacking. There was no suppleness in the body in spite of his comparative youth, and the eyes were like glass. She felt inexplicably sad for him. She wanted to ask, ‘What is wrong?’ but while she hesitated the simple query lost its spontaneity. She was aware that she should not intrude and the knowledge bewildered her. Pain had hitherto been something which must be remedied immediately by a little kindness: the fact that there might be no remedy had not been admitted.
They began to walk across the beach. It was a long walk; no cliffs, no rocks, just the long, level expanse of sand and the flickering, snake-like curve of the sea, its tongue darting in and out over the sand. The sound of the waves was soft as an indrawn breath. He thought suddenly, ‘Now! I will tell it to her now.’ He said, leading up to it gently:
‘I walked across sands like this a long time ago. Do you know what we talked about? The Greek tragedies! I thought I would never be happy until I had been to Greece. The odd thing is, I was happy then, but I didn’t know it.’
Frangcon, who felt that a part of his trouble was that he lacked a sense of humour, said lightly:
‘You sound like an old man. You can still go to Greece.’
‘No.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘It’s a kind of forfeit. I did something else instead, so the promised land is not for me.’
He waited, his mouth dry, his heart pounding. Now, she would say, ‘What did you do?’ and then . . . She said:
‘I think it’s wicked to talk like that!’
Her vehemence jolted him out of his self-absorption.
‘Wicked?’
‘Yes, wicked to talk as though things were decided once and for always.’
‘You don’t believe that anything is irrevocable?’
‘No. And I’ll never believe it. Never!’
He shrugged his shoulders. The mood for confession had passed.
‘Hang on to your bright illusions as long as you can. They’ll tarnish soon enough when you grow up.’
She drifted away into the remote area to which she retreated when she was hurt or threatened. They went on for a long time and the promontory at the end of the beach rose to meet them, a low line of rock honeycombed with caves. As they came nearer some children erupted from the caves and scampered across the sand whining ‘peseta, peseta’.
‘Where do they come from?’ Frangcon asked.
‘The caves. They live in them.’
‘How dreadful!’
She opened her bag, but Raoul turned on the children and told them to go away. One of them spat at him and the rest jeered and muttered. They would not go away but continued to circle around Frangcon and Raoul as they walked, like mangy curs scavenging for refuse. At last one of them slunk up very close and Raoul, who had been waiting for this moment, swung round and caught him a blow on the side of the head. Immediately the others darted away leaving the injured member of the party to fend for himself. He began to crawl away, one hand held up to his face to ward off another blow.
‘How could you!’
Frangcon turned back towards the child. Raoul caught her arm. ‘Don’t be so stupid. They’re no better than lice.’
She struck him hard across the mouth. They stood close, the child forgotten. Raoul was very shaken and he put his hand to his face; he never cried but sometimes his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably and he was afraid that this might happen now.
‘I’m sorry. But I can’t bear them crawling around me like that.’
‘They can’t help being poor.’
‘They’re only poor because their parents won’t work. They prefer to live off other people. Doesn’t that disgust you?’
‘The children don’t disgust me.’
‘All right!’ he shouted. ‘All right, I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I? Let’s talk about something else.’
There was nothing else to talk about, so they returned to the car and drove back to Barcelona in silence. Afterwards, when she thought about it in bed that night, Frangcon found that she was more disturbed for Raoul than for the child. There was something wrong with Raoul, a flaw more deep than any she had encountered in another human being. She felt that she wanted to put things right, not just for his sake but because his unhappiness seemed to challenge her own bright conception of life.
Chapter Seven
During the next few days Rose occupied herself with planning the visit to the mountains. She had quite forgotten that it had been Raoul who had suggested that Milo should act as their guide. She looked upon the expedition as her idea. She made Milo tell her when he would be off duty so that she and Raoul could arrange their own duties accordingly. Raoul, who did not usually like to be organized, was surprisingly accommodating. She did not consult Frangcon and James, assuming that because they were on holiday they would be prepared to fit in with whatever plans she made. She looked forward to it more and more as the days went by. The heat was beginning to get her down and she felt that if she did not have a break from it soon she might become rather ill.
The visit to the mountains remained something in the realm of fantasy as far as James was concerned. It appealed to him rather in the way that, as a child, he had been attracted to the legend of the magic carpet which brought so many inaccessible places within reach without any effort being demanded of the traveller. Even when Rose telephoned early one morning to give him instructions in her clear, controlled voice, he did not come to grips with the situation. As the days passed he had been discovering in himself an unsuspected talent for idleness. Now he stood in the hall and gazed through the open door at a house on the near side of the square at which a woman was leaning from a balcony with a long palm leaf in her hand.
‘Yes, Tuesday morning, seven-thirty at the station. I’ve got that,’ he said, while he wondered idly what the woman was doing.
‘. . . and then by the little mountain line that . . .’
The woman drew back from the balcony and he saw that the palm leaf was fixed across the front of the rails. He had seen several palm leaves outside windows and balconies now that he came to think about it. As soon as he managed to get away from the telephone he found the proprietor and asked him the reason for it.
‘It is when a child goes to her first communion,’ the man explained. ‘It is a prayer that she will bring back a blessing on the house.’
James wandered into the square, looking up at the house with the palm leaf. His mind had not registered what Rose had said. He could not quit
e follow the theory of the palm leaf, either, although it seemed a pleasing gesture. Later he did not seem capable of thinking very clearly. The heat, no doubt; or perhaps it was just that the distractions had gradually become more important than the matter in hand. Later that evening he had difficulty in remembering one single thing that Rose had asked him to do. He decided to ask Frangcon what arrangements had been made. He had bought her a present which he had intended to keep until a suitable opportunity arose; having bought it, however, he became childishly eager to give it to her, and when he saw it lying in his top drawer beside his handkerchiefs he could not resist taking it with him. He had never bought a really feminine present before— Elaine had always preferred books or tickets for a concert. He had no idea how to make the presentation. Once more, the distraction became more important than the matter in hand and when he found Frangcon it was of the present that he was thinking rather than of the trip to the mountains.
She was sitting on a bench drinking cinzano in the scruffy little patio at the back of the hotel. It was dusk and there were mosquitoes about but it was peaceful in the uncared-for garden with its straggling bushes, the thin dribble of a fountain and the broken flag-stones over which a few chicken scrabbled. James wondered why this scene, which at home would have been drab, should seem so charming, and decided that it was because of the warmth and the magic of the darkening sky already pricked with stars. He sat beside her, drinking in companionable silence while the velvet darkness deepened. When it was quite dark she put her glass down and reached for her handbag and he realized that she was about to go for her evening meal. He said:
‘I noticed the other day when we were outside that shop near the Paseo de Gracia where they sell fans . . .’
‘That wasn’t near the Paseo de Gracia, James.’
‘Yes, I think it was. But . . .’
‘You mean the shop with the rather dark window and . . .’
‘No, not that one. Anyway, it doesn’t matter . . .’
‘Have you got a map with you?’
‘No, but I’ve got this,’ he said despairingly, and deposited the packet in her lap. ‘I hope you like it.’