The Liverpool Basque

by Helen Forrester

  He confided this observation to Jimmy, one day, when he was helping to strip bunks and sort washing. ‘One day, I’m going to be an officer,’ he told him.

  Jimmy managed a faint smile. ‘That don’t come to folks like us,’ he said.

  ‘My dad had his Master’s,’ responded Manuel, as he watched Jimmy deftly tuck in the corners of clean sheets.

  ‘Humph. You got to have schooling for that – and be white.’

  Manuel was startled. Schooling, yes – but white? All his life he had played with boys of every race, and he knew that below decks crews were often coloured. He had assumed that there were no officers amongst them because they lacked education. ‘But why?’ he asked, his arms full of sheets that Jimmy had thrown over to him.

  ‘Don’t ask me. I’ve sailed in this old tub for years. When we dock, to make sure I keep this berth, I always sign on again right away for the next trip. And I don’t even go ashore that often. I might never get another “sight”. And why, Sir? Because I’m as black as the coal in the hold. Pass me them pillowcases.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘First thing you learn at sea, lad, is to keep your place and be a good mate to the other fellas. And keep your head down – and don’t say too much.’

  Once having broken the barriers of his self-imposed silence, Jimmy had many friendly conversations with Manuel. He taught the boy how to fish – fish was a welcome addition to a crew’s austere diet. The man was a walking book on fish, Old Manuel once ruminated, and had given him a life-long interest in them.

  He was not allowed ashore at Havana. The chief steward demanded a special clean-up of the galley. As he scrubbed and scraped caked-on grease, Manuel seethed with frustration. He had found the confinement hard to bear and had been looking forward to going ashore for a walk and to post letters to Arnador and his mother.

  He formed the idea of jumping ship at the next port, which was Houston, Texas; but the chief steward, wise in the ways of youngsters, put him in the charge of the ship’s carpenter who was going ashore to stretch his legs. Fuming, the boy trudged along to Woolworth’s with the easy, amiable carpenter, to buy a pair of socks. Rousing himself, Manuel purchased three bead necklaces at five cents each and a small brooch, the latter for Grandma Micaela who did not wear necklaces.

  Since Houston was a Prohibition area and the carpenter was no great drinker, he took Manuel to a soda fountain, where he was introduced to the glories of an American sundae.

  He had never seen such a wondrous concoction, a halfpenny ice cream being the limit of his experience. He waded through layers of cream and nuts, ice cream, chocolate sauce – and a cherry on top; and wondered what other delights the United States could offer – once he got away from the carpenter, of course.

  The soda fountain, however, was well known, and two other members of the crew wandered in to drink coffee and eat ice cream. Flanked by three adults, Manuel knew he would not be able to slip away. Hooked for ever on American ice cream, he went regretfully back to the ship.

  A letter from his mother awaited him, full of love and instructions to remember that he was a good Catholic boy – and a Basque – Basques were always honourable and upright. Brian Wing had dropped by to inquire about him, and Arnador had written to him.

  He received Arnador’s letter when he docked again at Liverpool.

  Chapter Forty

  Afraid that Manuel might spend his wages, or be robbed of them before he arrived home, Mr Figgin insisted on accompanying the boy to his own doorstep and handing him over to Rosita, who answered his knock.

  He told her that the boy had done well, and that he would see that he was taken on again in a few days’ time. He refused a cup of tea, and went off to catch the overhead railway train to Dingle, where he lived.

  Delighted to see that Manuel had gained weight, his mother hugged him; and Francesca and Little Maria came running down the stairs to bounce around him, as he slung his kitbag on to the floor – exactly as his father used to do, Rosita thought with a pang.

  He hugged them all – and wondered why they seemed to be blocking the entrance to the kitchen-living-room.

  As he unbuttoned his jacket, Rosita looked up at him, and said in faltering tones, ‘I’ve bad news for you, dear. And some good news, too.’

  At her words, the girls suddenly stood still, and looked as if they might cry.

  Manuel stared apprehensively at the three of them, and then asked, ‘Grandma?’

  ‘Yes, dear. The funeral was last Friday. It was a heart attack, the doctor said. She went quite suddenly.’

  ‘Oh, Mam!’ He took her into his arms again and she clung to him for a moment, and then she said firmly, ‘We’re not going to cry too much, are we, girls? Granny was very, very old – and she wished to go to God.’

  Manuel hastily picked up his cue. He squatted down in front of the girls and put an arm round each, as he said, ‘You’re right. We’ll remember Granny when she was all cheery and energetic – and we’ll be thankful that she won’t be blind any more.’ He grinned at their solemn white faces and pulled them close to him. ‘She’ll be able to see the angels now!’

  Bless his heart, thought Rosita thankfully.

  The idea that Grandma could now see was a new one to the girls, and Francesca said in wonderment, ‘Of course, she will,’ and their faces lightened.

  Their mother said, with false brightness, ‘And now we’ve got a tremendous surprise for him, haven’t we?’

  Their solemnity gave way immediately to excitement. ‘Yeth,’ breathed Little Maria, whose front teeth were not yet quite full-grown and gave her a lisp. She pulled Manuel towards the kitchen-living-room. ‘Come and thee!’

  Laughing, he allowed himself to be tugged down the passage, rather expecting to find that Pudding now had half a dozen new great-great-great-grandchildren by the current cat.

  Then he was in the tiny old room, and was stunned by what he saw in the light of the oil lamp on the table.

  In Grandma’s old rocking chair sprawled a thin, long-legged man with close-cropped greying hair. The poor light of the lamp made his face look darker than it was and showed the deep lines which only a hard life could carve.

  For a second, he thought his mother had taken a lover, and he was stung by jealousy. Then his eyes widened in disbelief as the man rose shyly from his chair.

  ‘Uncle Leo!’ he shouted, and flung himself into the stranger’s arms. ‘Jesus! I’m glad to see you.’

  While they hugged again, Manuel was aware of a faded check shirt covering an iron-hard body, of tired but dancing brown eyes, and hair prematurely grey. This was not a man who had made a fortune in America. But, God, how good it was to see him.

  ‘Where’ve you been? What happened?’ Manuel asked as they laughingly surveyed each other. ‘It’s amazing – you’re here! I can hardly believe it.’

  ‘Well – it’s a long story. I’ve told your mam all about it.’ He let go of Manuel, and sat down again, to pick up his smouldering cigarette which had been poised on the edge of Aunt Maria’s little table. Francesca came to lean against him; she had been badly shaken by the loss of her grandmother, and it felt comforting to have this big, slow uncle here, a man whom Rosita and Manuel obviously loved. Little Maria must have been of the same opinion, because she shoved past Francesca so that she could clamber on to Leo’s knee.

  ‘When did you arrive?’ Manuel’s voice was muffled by his navy-blue sweater which he was hauling off. A good fire was making the room too warm.

  ‘Last week.’ He was quiet for a moment, and then said, ‘I missed Mother by a day. We always leave things too late!’

  Manuel said a little accusingly, ‘She always hoped you’d come home.’

  ‘I should’ve written – I know that now. With Agustin in Bilbao, it wasn’t right not to.’ He cleared his throat, as if it were hard to get the words out. ‘I always assumed Pedro and Father were here, though.’ His thoughts reverted to Agustin, and he added, ‘Rosita’s written to te
ll him about Mother.’

  Manuel stood near him, his back to the fire, while Rosita filled the kettle at the kitchen tap. ‘Why didn’t you write?’ But when there was no reply and he glanced at his uncle’s face he was surprised to see his eyes closed and his jaw clenched. Rosita made a small negative signal to him with one hand, so he remained quiet. She said, ‘Come to the table, luv, and you, too, Leo. The meal’s all ready – I read in the paper when the ship would dock – so I was able to cook for you.’

  He whistled when he looked at the spread table. Only money from Leo could have provided this. ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said, and grinned at her.

  As Manuel sat down in his father’s old chair at the table, he felt that he was re-enacting his father’s return from a voyage. After three and a half months’ absence, he felt a strangeness, a sense of being distanced from his family. It seemed as if he had been away from them for half his life – like Uncle Leo had. In his head were jumbled a myriad of impressions, about which he longed to talk; and yet, beside the absence of Grandma and the arrival of Uncle Leo, it all seemed too petty to talk about.

  Rosita was saying, ‘I got your letter from Houston – and Arnador dropped in to say he had had one from you. He thought that, if I hadn’t heard, I would like to share his letter. Kind of him, wasn’t it? He stayed quite a while.’ She filled the teapot and came to sit at the table with them. ‘Tell us how you got on?’ she asked, and turned to scold Little Maria for taking two slices of bread at a time.

  He muttered that, yes, Mr Figgin, the chief steward, had looked after him – too well. He was very bossy, he added, with memories of being escorted ashore by the carpenter.

  He caught a twinkle in his quiet uncle’s eye, and knew that he understood – he must have come home from sea when he was a boy feeling much the same. But where had he been more recently? Doing what? With whom?

  Rosita refilled his tea mug and said, ‘Arnie’ll be down tomorrow night to see you – he had to go across the water this evening – to his cousin’s.’

  ‘Good.’ For once, he would have something of interest to tell Arnie; usually, it was his infinitely curious, infinitely observant friend who introduced the subjects of their discussions. He said to Leo, ‘I think I’ll have about a week home. I’ve got to see Mr Figgin tomorrow.’

  Uncle Leo said unexpectedly, ‘We’ll talk about that tonight.’

  Manuel was a little surprised by the remark. He’d got a ship, hadn’t he? The chief steward had been positively benign on the last day, and had said that he could hope to be taken on again. He had four pounds twelve shillings and sixpence in his pocket for his mother, and would be going back to earn some more for her. It was peculiar that he had been home only an hour; and yet he was ready to return to his much-hated shipboard life, to tell Jimmy, in their tiny mess, about Old Figgin seeing him all the way home, and have a good laugh over it.

  Buoyed up by this sudden sense of independence, he pushed back his chair and went into the hall to open up his kitbag.

  He took out a small Woolworth’s bag, and said to Francesca, who had followed him down the hall, ‘Blue’s for you, and red for Little Maria.’

  She snatched the bag from him and danced joyfully back to the kitchen-living-room to explore the contents with Maria.

  He took out two more little bags, and stood in the dark hall for a moment, wondering what to do with Grandma’s present. Then he went slowly back to the family, and handed one of the paper bags to Rosita. ‘I hope you like it,’ he said shyly.

  Rosita took out a long, pale-blue necklace of china beads. Her eyes brimmed at the memory it evoked of her husband. She got up and came round the table to give the boy a kiss. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, as she wound it round her neck. Manuel recollected that that was exactly what she had always said to his father, and he grinned with pride.

  ‘What’s in the other bag?’ asked Little Maria, and the grin was wiped off his face. He slid a pretty little brooch with a silver finish into his hand. ‘It was for Granny,’ he told his small sister. He leaned forward to show it to his mother. ‘Would you like it, Mam?’

  Rosita’s lips quivered, and she hesitated before answering. Then she said, ‘You know who I think would love to have it? Auntie Bridget. She was so good with your gran, and she laid her out. I think she’d love to have it in memory of Grandma.’

  Bridget thought it was wonderful.

  Chapter Forty-one

  He would never forget the walk with Uncle Leo that he took that night through the deserted streets of Liverpool, ruminated Old Manuel, as he fried bacon to go with a tin of beans for his supper.

  He had remembered dimly the young man who had kissed him on the back of his head, before going out to climb into the horsebus waiting to take him down to the dock, to a ship and to a new life. He remembered him as particularly tall and thin, even at a time in his young life when adults appeared to be all legs. As he walked, that momentous night, he was surprised to discover that he was nearly as tall as Leo.

  They had sat for a while in the old churchyard of St Nick’s – the seamen’s church – and had then wandered down St Nicholas Place to take a look at a Cunarder at the Princes Landing Stage; and all that time, Leo talked.

  He talked as if he had had no one to confide in for a very long time – and he probably had not, considered Old Manuel, chewing on a bacon rasher as he waited for his beans to heat. Uncle Leo had spoken in Basque, sometimes pausing to hunt for a half-forgotten word, sometimes pouring out an idea in a quick, rumbling flow.

  At first, they had walked in silence, until Manuel asked shyly, ‘Did you get any of Granny’s letters – or the one I wrote to the postmaster in Nevada?’

  ‘Other than two when I first went out, and I answered those – no, I didn’t get any – that is, not exactly.’ He grinned at the youth beside him. ‘But I heard about your letter – so I came home.’ He relapsed into silence while he stopped, hands in pockets, to watch a Furness Withy boat being moved downstream, its lights winking at them like distant stars.

  ‘I’m thankful you’ve come, anyway,’ Manuel ventured. ‘Will you be able to stay with us?’

  Leo rocked gently on his heels. ‘I want to.’ He spoke absently, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Provided I can get a berth.’ The December wind was chilly, and he pulled up the collar of his jacket.

  Manuel nodded, and then asked, ‘What did you mean when you said you had heard about my letter?’

  ‘Well, it was strange. I heard through a Basque AB we took on at Corpus Christi – I was working in Argie boats. He’d come down from Colorado, in hope of shipping out on a British boat – he was a Liverpool man like us – though I didn’t remember him at all. While he was hunting for a ship in Corpus Christi, he met two other Basque lads from Nevada, who’d got just as fed up with the place as I had. They’d tried all kinds of jobs and finally quit; and, like me, had decided to go back to sea.’ He paused to light another cigarette, and then went on, ‘One night in a bar they were talking about how Basques were scattered all over the world; and they told him about going into a post office in some goddamn awful place in Nevada, where they had spent a night, and reading a letter pinned up on a notice board. It was from a kid in Liverpool telling the postmaster about his uncle, Leo Barinèta – how things were bad in Liverpool, and he was trying to trace him. They remembered it, because they had sailed out of Liverpool, en route from Bilbao to Nevada; and they remembered that the Basque agent there was called Barinèta.

  ‘When this lad shipped with us and heard my name, he came and told me. Simple as that.’

  ‘Jesus Mary! Had they stayed in our house?’

  ‘I don’t know. Heaps of youngsters went through our house.’

  ‘So you came home?’

  Leo stopped to ponder, while he watched a laundry van inch through the gate to the Princes Landing Stage. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t come right off. Reckoned I’d sign off next time I got to Corpus Christi – which was a
regular port for us. I was fed up with Argies anyway. I knew that if I then went to Galveston or Houston, there was a good chance I’d find a British ship short of crew – if anybody’s going to desert a British ship, they’ll do it there – or in New York.’

  Manuel’s conscience gave a small jolt, as he remembered his own intentions at Houston.

  ‘But why didn’t you look for a British ship when you gave up in Nevada? Then you could’ve come straight home.’

  ‘Well, you know how it is. I didn’t want to come home and tell the Old Man that I’d made a wrong decision; he thought Nevada was paradise on earth – but he’d never been there! I only stuck it for six weeks – there was almost a war going on between cattle ranchers and sheep-herders – and we were being harassed by gangs of cowhands. I couldn’t stand the bloody sheep either – stupid buggers.’

  ‘Mam wrote to you when Grandpa was killed.’

  ‘So she said. I never got it, though – I’d moved over to try Colorado by then, I think.’

  ‘Grandma was never the same after he died.’

  ‘I can well believe it.’

  ‘You know, you could’ve written to us,’ Manuel upbraided him, his expression resentful below the black beret he was wearing.

  Leo made a wry mouth. ‘I’m hopeless at writing. I kept thinking I’d do it when I was settled. It took years, though. Kept trying different jobs – but an immigrant is dirt – even if he can speak three languages – and all you get is labouring jobs. I was out of work, so I came down to the coast, and shipped on the first freighter that looked anything like – and it wasn’t a bad ship; I’ve been sailing out of Bahia Blanca for over six years now. And I suppose I was settled. To be honest, it was as if I’d never lived in England. Like a lot of emigrants, I was looking forward all the time – not back.’