for that chicken?’
Rosita laughed. ‘We paid for the two we bought.’
‘The third one was dead when we found it,’ Micaela told him. She obviously expected Juan to shrug and say no more. But the old man stiffened up. He rubbed his beard, as he always did when thinking something over. ‘So you didn’t pay for it?’
‘Well, of course not. We just found it dead.’ She put down her fork.
‘But it was still good enough to eat?’
‘You’ve just eaten it! Rosita wouldn’t cook anything that had gone bad.’
Grandpa looked at her frigidly. ‘In that case, shouldn’t you have gone back and paid for it?’
Micaela was annoyed at this. She replied huffily. ‘It was lost – and we found it. Anybody else who’d found it would have taken it.’
‘But you asked for the cage to be opened. If you hadn’t, it would not have been lost.’
Manuel realized that a sharp family tiff was in the offing, and he wondered if he could get down from the table, without first asking Grandpa. His grandfather was looking extremely grim, however, and he decided he had better sit very quietly and not draw attention to himself.
Micaela tossed her head. ‘Tush!’ she exclaimed. ‘The poultry man must’ve believed it had got crushed underfoot in the crowd – or in the traffic. He’ll never know we found it.’
Juan’s long, dark face darkened further, his beard tilted up as if in pride. Pedro discreetly kept his mouth shut.
‘My dear, it should be paid for; it was our fault it was lost.’ Though the words were not unkind, it was an order.
‘Juan! You’re being unreasonable. You really are.’ Impatiently, Grandma made to rise from the table. ‘He’ll have forgotten about it by now.’
‘I want it paid for. He won’t’ve forgotten that the whole hassle was caused by a bunch of Basque women, and he’ll talk about it. We’ve got to live here; and we Basques have a good reputation – and it’s small things that keep that reputation up.’ He slapped his hand crossly on the tabletop. ‘And what will your grandchild think? That if he can get away with something, it’s automatically all right?’ His gold tooth flashed between his beard and his moustache. ‘Not on your sweet life! What a Basque takes, he pays for.’
‘Really, Juan!’ Grandma was trembling now, her face flushed, her fingertips on the table to steady herself. Rosita opened her mouth to join in, but was quelled by a look from Juan.
‘Listen to me. You and Manuel – I want him to go, too – go back to the market tomorrow and pay for that bird.’
‘But, Papa …’
‘Tomorrow!’
Grandma took a big breath, and then said, ‘Well, if you feel that strongly about it, Manuel and I can walk up and do it.’ Then she spat out, ‘But I think you’re being terribly fussy!’
Grandpa got up from the table. ‘I know what I’m about,’ he growled. ‘Come on, Pedro, let’s get down to the Baltic; Jean Baptiste’ll be waiting.’
Calmly clipping the hedge in the early-morning peace of his Victoria garden, Old Manuel smiled over this episode, which he had included in his notes for Lorilyn as an example of the stiff honesty of Basques; and wondered if he should also include what extraordinarily able smugglers they were.
‘What are you laughing at?’ asked a cheery voice from behind the hedge.
Surprised at his peace being intruded upon, he told Sharon Herman that it was a memory of his childhood; and continued clipping along the hedge, while he asked politely how she was.
Sharon had a plate of buttered toast in her hand, and as she followed him down the hedge, she continued to eat. ‘I’m just fine,’ she told him. ‘Got myself an apartment, but the possession date isn’t for a month. So Veronica says to stay with her till it’s ready.’
‘She’s very kind,’ Old Manuel replied dryly, and put his shears down, while he pulled at an old bird’s nest tangled in the hedge.
‘She is, isn’t she?’
I wish Veronica wasn’t so persistent, thought Old Manuel. High above his neighbour’s roof a gull soared effortlessly and he speculated idly that in another few seconds it would dive to snatch a piece of Sharon’s toast. But she turned suddenly towards him, and the gull flew swiftly seaward.
‘Tell me what you were laughing at,’ she demanded playfully.
He told her the story of the lost hen. ‘My grandfather knew that it isn’t enough to be honest – if you were foreign immigrants, like we were, you’ve got to be seen to be honest.’
As he slowly clipped his way down the length of the hedge, he told her of his Basque origins and the tiny community near the Wapping Dock. Then he paused, to hold his shears in his left hand, while he carefully stretched the fingers of his right hand. He saw her glance at his hand, and said, with a rueful smile, ‘It’s a touch of arthritis. Hurts sometimes.’
She nodded sympathetically, and he went on, ‘I never thought of being foreign – I were born in Liverpool and christened in St Peter’s. All the little kids I played with were born there – though their dads came from all over the world – as near as Ireland or as far as the Philippines.’
‘Like Canada.’ Sharon bit into another piece of toast with strong, even teeth.
He agreed. She looked much healthier than she had done when Veronica had brought her to his house, and he was glad. Her fair skin had acquired a slight tan, and her blonde hair was blowing in a wild tangle in the wind. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had a pleasant open look about her and her figure had a cuddly roundness which reminded him of his mother. She was very likeable, he decided. Easy to talk to.
‘I’ve got to get to work,’ she told him briskly, and his wise eyes nearly vanished amid the wrinkles, as he smiled goodbye to her.
The next time he saw her she was seated on a huge log on the beach, staring disconsolately out on to a placid pale-blue sea. She was obviously crying, her shoulders heaving under her sweater.
He hesitated in embarrassment. They were the only people on the shore that morning. She must have felt sure of her solitude to cry so openly, he debated uncertainly with himself. Should he go to her or not?
Aware of a sense of inadequacy at the idea of dealing with a young woman’s tears, he decided to avoid invading her privacy, so he curved up the beach to pass well behind her. He was sure that she had not noticed him, but the crunch of pebbles under his feet drew her attention, and she turned a woebegone face towards him. She lifted a hand in slow salute and, embarrassed, he waved back, continuing to plod slowly on his chosen route.
She quickly took a paper handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her face and blew her nose. He had only just passed her when she shouted, ‘Are you walking home?’
He stopped, and nodded his head a little guiltily.
‘Wait a minute, and I’ll walk with you.’
‘I’m rather slow,’ he called back. Though her distress troubled him, he hoped she would change her mind and allow him to go on walking alone. She ran lightly over the pebbles, however, until she reached him.
He looked her up and down in a bemused way. She had cried enough to make her face swollen and her eyes mournful; yet she did not seem to want to hide it. ‘I guess you didn’t hurt yourself, if you can run like that,’ he remarked tentatively, to give her an opening if she wished to explain her distress.
As