“Thank you,” Javier’s uncle said with heartfelt thanks. “ They would not listen to me.…”
“How many horses did they take?”
“Four, they.…”
“You surprise me. I wouldn’t have thought a farm this size had so many fit animals.” He tapped his foot on the stone floor. “ If I were you, I would take care of those horses outside. I know the Villada’s. I went to school with Jose, the eldest. He is in Argentina now, breeding horses. The other two were just as bad. Horse mad.”
Javier’s uncle sought for words and failed.
“Give them my regards. Tell them from me that Argentina is far more healthy for them than France.”
“Yes … no … I.…”
The door slammed and the officer and the men with him left. Minutes later the engine revved as the car backed over the rough ground and out between the farmyard gates.
The tension and fear and then the unspeakable relief had been to much. I leant my head back against the wall and began to laugh helplessly.
Chapter Fifteen
Minutes later Javier’s uncle was grinning up at us wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead.
“Mon Dieu, I wouldn’t want to go through all that again.”
“You were magnificent,” Javier said generously. “ I couldn’t have done better myself.”
His uncle cuffed him. “You couldn’t have done it at all.”
My legs, weak as a new-born kitten’s, I climbed down the ladder, Romero and Jose behind me.
Javier’s uncle stood, legs apart, hands on his hips, aglow with satisfaction.
“There is some good stew warming … and some beer. A bit early in the day perhaps, but we need it. I need it. All you had to do was keep quiet … if it wasn’t for my presence of mind and courage.…”
“You mean if it wasn’t for the French officer,” Javier said cheekily.
His uncle slammed the soup ladle in his hand down onto the table, and with a roar of anger chased him round the room, the dog barking and joining in, knocking chairs over. Javier’s yells of protest increasing the pandemonium. At last, after giving his nephew a vigorous box around the ears, his uncle returned to the stew.
“The Frenchman helped a little,” he said condescendingly. “But only out of respect for me.…”
Javier laughed derisively again, to be quelled by a brandished spoon and indignant glare.
“Who was he?” I asked Jose.
“Felix Sastre. His father and my father were business acquaintances. Felix is younger than me, he was just entering school as I left, so we never knew each other very well.”
“Then why.…”
“His mother lost her reason shortly after the birth of her last child. She was put in a mental hospital at Pau. Her husband could not afford a private nursing home. My father visited her there and what he saw upset him terribly. He insisted that she was taken away and cared for in better surroundings. He knew that pride would forbid the Sastre’s accepting money, and so he offered Felix’s father a job at a ridiculously high salary on the mutual but unspoken understanding that it would pay the fees for a private nursing home. And,” he said, his arm around me. “I’m very glad he did so. Otherwise you may have had to shoot your friend in the other foot as well!”
“Don’t remind me,” I said feelingly. “My only consolation is that at least I know he’s had medical attention and isn’t still tied to a chair in the cottage.”
“You worry too much,” said Javier, who blatantly never worried about anything. “ I wish he was still tied and in the cottage. Not searching the countryside for us. How are we to reach Beyonne with that buffoon and his men lying in wait for us?”
“With great difficulty,” Romero said, ladling the steaming hot stew onto his plate.
“But we are in France now.” I said.
“Not far enough, Alison. The Spanish police have operated this side of the border before now.” Romero looked glum. “And besides, as far as the officer is concerned, it’s now a personal thing. Twice he has been made to look a fool in front of his men.…”
“That wasn’t hard to do, was it?” Javier said gustily, ladling a second helping onto his plate. “The man is an idiot.”
“Idiot or not he could still have us behind bars before the day is out,” Romero said, determined to look on the black side.
“What do we do?” I asked Jose.
“I’m not sure. Leo.…” Javier’s uncle turned. “Who lives in the adjoining cottages?”
The big man shrugged. “An elderly couple, and Ricardo and his wife and daughters.”
“How old are the daughters?”
“Nineteen or twenty. They work in Bayonne and only come home in the holidays. I saw them yesterday, so I know they are here at the moment.”
“Anybody else?”
“A young couple moved into the old Anavaros property. They have three children, but very young. Not yet at school.”
“Good,” Jose said thoughtfully. “And how far is it before the road reaches other houses?”
“Not till the village, two miles further down. Then a further mile out of the village it connects with the main coast road.”
“I’m quite sure Felix will see to it that our friends don’t hang around the farm, waiting for us to leave. But it will be out of his hands if they try to apprehend us on the road, out of the village. And they will. They know the horses are too tired to ride again, and the only other way out of here is by road.”
“There is my car,” Leo said, “A little old but still she goes.”
“Thanks, Leo. But with only one road to worry about they will be able to watch the cars very carefully.”
“And they will,” Romero said with finality. “We won’t be the first people the Spanish police have taken unwillingly back into Spain.”
“They are not going to take us,” Jose said confidently. “ Come with me, Leo. The rest of you finish off the stew and have a rest.” The amber-gold eyes were alight with amusement. “And don’t worry Romero. When we leave, we will leave in style.”
The door slammed behind him and Javier, Romero and myself stared at each other.
“It’s been too much for him,” Javier said at last. “He’s mad.”
“I hate to say it about a blood relation,” Romero said. “But I think you’re right. You heard the way the officer spoke to Sastre. He has sworn to see Jose dead and he means it.”
“He said he’d see Villada dead. Perhaps one brother is as good as another.” Javier said teasingly.
Romero threw a piece of bread at him. “He would like to see us all dead. You included.”
The dog thumped its tail on the floor and then leapt up for the flying bread.
“You weren’t much help,” Javier said to it as he fended it off. “You never even snapped at them.” The dog sniffed at the bread disdainfully and then eyed Javier’s plate. Javier set it down on the floor and the dog finished the stew off, wagging his tail appreciatively.
“What sort of guard dog is that?” Javier asked in despair. “His master leaves him alone with three strangers in the house and all he does is eat.”
“He did growl.” I said.
“Nonsense. He’s too lazy to even growl. He’s like uncle Leo, all bluff and bluster.”
“All bluff and what!” his uncle roared from the doorway.
“I said he was as fierce as you, uncle.” Javier said, leaving the table hurriedly and standing behind Romero’s chair.
“You ignorant cub!” his uncle bellowed. “ What did my sister do to deserve a son like you. Bluff and bluster indeed. At least I don’t have to travel France like a woman.”
Javier stared at him. “A what?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard right.
Leo laughed, straddling a chair. “A woman! Mon Dieu, I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to see this day.”
“They are both mad,” Javier said to Romero, staring from his uncle to Jose and back again.
Jose threw some c
lothes onto the table. “Not mad. The neighbours have lent us these. Climb your way into them.”
With growing horror Javier lifted up petticoats and skirts. “You don’t mean it … it’s a joke.…”
“And the joke is on you,” his uncle crowed gleefully. “ Come on Javier, see what a pretty woman you make.”
“Never,” Javier said, his cheeks flushing. “ Romero, put that thing down.”
Romero struggled ungainly into a blouse. “If this is the only way to leave then I’m taking it.”
With a groan of pain Javier held up a skirt. “I can’t. I’ll never live it down.…”
“Get into it and stop complaining,” Jose said. “ You can’t possibly look as bad as me.”
He was right. He couldn’t. Leo wiped a tear away from his eye as he rocked with laughter.
“Saints preserve us,” he said. “If you could see your-selves.…”
Jose was barefoot with sandals on, an ankle length blue needlecord skirt and white blouse, his hair brushed into a fringe, with a polka dot scarf tied over his head, tying at the nape of his neck. Blue eyeshadow and mascara completed the picture and he was struggling to make Romero look less like a concert hall turn and more like a creditable woman. Javier was superb. A floral dress and strappy sandals were done justice to by a wig. He had been braver than Jose and his lips gleamed prettily beneath pink lipstick.
“You as well,” Jose said, turning to me. There is a headsquare and sunglasses. You and Romero go in Ricardo’s car. Javier and myself will go in Leo’s.”
“Dear heaven, will it work?”
“The car? Yes.”
“The clothes!”
“They had better,” Jose said, smoothing his skirt. “They will only see us from a distance, and they will be looking for three men and a girl. They shouldn’t give us a second glance.”
“A pity,” Leo said. “ Because you are worth it.” He collapsed in laughter again, while Javier prinked in the front of a mirror.
“If your mother could see you now.…”
“Never mind my mother,” Javier said, patting at his wig. “ Who else is going to see me? If you think I’m driving all the way to Bayonne like this, you’re wrong.”
“Your clothes are in the boot,” Jose said reassuringly. “Just be careful you don’t get picked up by any strange men.…”
Javier glared at him murderously. “Any more wisecracks like that.…”
Jose and Javier got into Leo’s car, Javier at the wheel. He really did look very feminine, the wig softening and changing his fine-boned face, the delicate mouth gleaming provocatively.
The same could not be said of Jose. My lover fluttered blue coated lashes at me, and said, “See you in Bayonne.”
“Bayonne,” I said like a prayer. “Bayonne.”
Chapter Sixteen
We waited ten minutes and then followed after them. Romero at the wheel. Out through the gates, onto the unmade road, past the cottages, and down towards the village.
It was a lovely morning. As we neared the village we passed pleasant farmhouses with low red roofs and white plastered walls, cascades of honeysuckle and clematis clinging around the doors. The surrounding fields and meadows rolled undulating away to merge into forested slopes of pines and here and there turbulent streams swept down, rushing beneath stone bridges only just wide enough for our car to go over. The cornfields reached right up to the edge of the village houses, shifting like a golden sea in the light breeze. The road curled down, exchanging beaten earth for bumpy cobbles as it wound through the centre of the village. Here, the road ran straighter, between bakers and butchers, wine bars and tanneries. A tiny church, the plaster saint outside it garlanded by flowers, had a slender golden spire soaring up against the sun-filled sky.
The street was filled with shopping women, wicker baskets over their arms as they queued for fresh vegetables or stood in groups laughing and talking, stepping out of our way as we crawled along the crowded street at a snail’s pace. There was no sign of the Spanish police, but then Jose had said that if they were waiting for us, it wouldn’t be in full view of the villagers, but further along on the country road, away from curious eyes. We had to pause again as a crowd of children thronged the street, their school books in their hands. The morning sun was growing hotter and I wound my window down, my eyes searching, yet dreading to see, Martinez and Amiano and their vengeful officer. The cluster of houses and shops thinned, we passed the school with its shingled roof, its large bell ringing as the children trouped towards it, and then the village was behind us, and in front was the mile of deserted road before it joined the main road leading to the coast.
If the Spanish police were still intending taking us forcibly back to Spain, it would be on this next mile that they would do it. The verges of the road were thick with marguerites and every now and then an oak tree cast waving shadows and my tension increased. Behind each tree I imagined the Spanish officer, seething with rage, foaming for revenge. Faintly, the school bell still rang, and the road ahead remained deserted. There was no sign of Jose and Javier.
“I think,” Romero said quietly. “I can see them.”
My stomach muscles tightened painfully. Ahead of us on the left hand side, oak and beech grew closely together, and emerging from the density of the tree trunks, was the black bullet nose of a car. I took a deep breath and turned to Romero chattily, averting my head. The shadow of the tree darkened our car momentarily and then we had passed them and there was no sign of them following, only the sweet smell of grass and wild flowers and a wasp zooming uncomfortably near.
Romero glanced into his driving mirror. “ It’s them all right,” he said, “And they’re not moving.”
Slowly my breathing returned to normal. I sank back against the leather of the car seat.
“Thank God,” I said, and meant it.
The rough road joined the smooth surface of the main one and Romero picked up speed. The sun glittered down on the fields that edged the road, and sleek brown cattle grazed peacefully, swinging their tails to disturb the flies that settled on their backs. A mile went by and then another. Slowly my eyes closed, and weary beyond belief I sank into sleep.
When I woke it was to find that we were on the outskirts of Bayonne. The streets were lined with tamarisk trees, formal gardens stretching out on either side, children were playing pelota and black bereted men sipped drinks around white and red chequered tables. We motored leisurely over a wide river, the grey water swirling forcefully seawards.
Sleep fled and I was filled with a glorious surge of elation. Within minutes I would be reunited with Jose, and at last we would have some precious time to ourselves. Time to talk. To brush away the dark shadow of fear I felt whenever I thought of Carmen.
We turned off the road lined with pavement cafes, twisting and turning into a maze of side streets, growing gradually poorer and meaner. We began to slow down and I could hardly suppress the joy I was feeling. Besides my reunion with Jose, there would be Miss Daventry and I would know once and for all, that she was safe.
The houses were crammed together, tall and thin, with no flowers or trailing vines to soften their harsh, poverty stricken appearance. There were a few shops selling fruit and vegetables, and the litter of discarded cabbage leaves and thrown out over-ripe fruit smelt sourly in the mid-day heat. The house outside which we had stopped looked as mean and even more uncared for, than the others in the street.
With Romero in front of me, I mounted the flight of dirty steps that led to a peeling, sun-blistered door. As we waited for admittance I noticed for the first time that there was no sign of Miss Daventry’s little car parked anywhere in the street. I felt a twinge of apprehension, but before I could bring it to Romero’s attention, the door was opened and I stepped into a darkened corridor. Immediately there were shouts of greeting and vigorous handclasps and arms flung around Romero’s shoulders, and I stood watching, unable to see Jose, feeling suddenly lonely. Enthusiastically the men appraised Romero i
n his skirt and blouse, protesting when he demanded his clothes and chance to change. Then Javier was pushing his way through the throng of men, still in his dress and make-up, but grotesque without his wig.
“Alison, Alison,” he shouted, pulling me towards him, kissing me gustily on both cheeks. His hand firmly holding mine he dragged me forwards.
“Alison,” he said, his arm warmly round my shoulders. “Here are our good friends, Antonio, Manuel and Eugenio.”
I was seized bodily, kissed with even greater enthusiasm and then enmeshed between them all, half carried up the steep flight of stairs and into a sparsely furnished room. There was a large table and several uncomfortable looking wood chairs and a grey metal filing cabinet and stack upon stack of pamphlets. There was no Jose.
“Let go of her,” Javier was saying to a large boned young man who had practically lifted me off my feet. “Alison has promised that I shall take her out tonight.” He raised his arms, stretching high above his head. “A bath, a sleep, and then.…” He whirled me round by the waist. “And then, whoopee!”
I said. “Where is Jose?”
“He has gone for some food. He will be back shortly.”
I fought my disappointment. “And Miss Daventry?” I asked, my first flickerings of doubt growing as I disentangled myself from Javier’s all too firm embrance. But I couldn’t be heard over the exclamations of admiration for the way we had defeated the police. Javier embellishing the story so that it sounded as if we had taken on the whole might of Spain single-handed.
Romero said. “ Where is Luis?”
Manuel, the six footer, said. “ He is next door, asleep.’
Romero’s face paled. “You mean he is worse? What happened?”
“I mean he is next door asleep,” Manuel repeated. “ See for yourself.”
Romero was already striding across the room, whilst Javier pulled up a chair, straddled it, arms leaning on the back, face suddenly tense. Romero flung the door open and from where I sat I could see a truckle bed and Luis’s head on a surprisingly clean pillow. Romero crossed the room to him, obliterating my view. He bent his head low to that of his brother, and then stood, gazing down at him, whilst Luis still slept, his cheeks flushed like those of a child. Gently Romero backed away, closing the door softly behind him.
Tapestry of Fear Page 9