The Liverpool Basque (11 page)

People swarmed through his bungalow, drinking coffee and wine and eating cocktail-type nibbles. But when the ladies, including Veronica, had washed up the last cup and saucer and put them back into the china cabinet, he saw them all to the door. Faith had protested that he should come back to her home in Vancouver. Her big kindly husband had assured him he would be most welcome.

But he wanted to be alone with Kathleen’s ghost, even if everybody else considered that a funeral finished everything. As far as he was concerned it did not.

He sat alone on the bed, which had been heaved back upstairs and into his bedroom by three male neighbours,
and stared out of the window, while he mentally beat himself for allowing her to suffer so much – and at the end be so tired that he had not protested at her hasty removal.

Bearing in mind his own pent-up wrath, perhaps it was as well that Lorilyn had been in Europe, at the time. She was doing a special, high-powered course in French. Faith told him that she had written to her daughter telling her that, since she could do nothing for Grandma, she should not return for the funeral, but, instead, should take her impending exam.

And yet?

Not do anything for Kathleen? Weren’t prayers and paying one’s respects something? At the time, he hated his phlegmatic daughter – and his granddaughter for not disobeying her mother. Furious, he had shut himself up for weeks, frequently refusing to answer the doorbell or the telephone. He had never gone back into the social circle to which Kathleen and he – well, mostly Kathleen, he admitted – had belonged; and it had taken the best part of a year before he could do more than simply endure his daughter’s and granddaughter’s visits, when they inspected the food cupboard and the freezer to make sure he had enough to eat.

Then, slowly, sanity returned. He realized, shamefacedly, that both women – and his son-in-law – had done their best for him according to the society in which they lived, and that it was grossly unfair of him to expect anything different.

The more he thought about that time, the more he realized that Faith had shown the same calm, stolid endurance of grief that his own mountain grandparents would have shown. She had, indeed, done her utmost.

As for himself, it slowly dawned upon him that he was far too like Grandpa Barinèta, who, when he was angry, had always had a real tantrum, stalking round the kitchen
like an enraged cockerel until he had extracted apologies from everybody in sight. However did Kathleen put up with me? he wondered.

Although Manuel had allowed himself to be taken by Bridget Connolly to her house, while Father Felipe dealt with his stricken family – when a priest gave an order, you obeyed – he was very scared at being removed from the scene of the action; he could not put his fears into words and he wished suddenly that his father was there; he longed for his quiet orderliness; he would be able to explain what was truly happening.

But his father was at sea on the other side of the Atlantic and had no inkling of the disaster in his home.

When, in addition to midday dinner, Bridget kept him for tea, he protested strongly, crying that he wanted his mam. He quarrelled with Mary and Joey, who were very possessive of their territory and few toys; he was not a big child for his age, and they tended to treat him with the condescension usually reserved for a much younger playmate; it confused him even more.

With a sigh, Bridget picked him up as if he were, indeed, still a toddler. With him straddled on her hip, she struggled to make ready her husband’s tea. Manuel found her closeness and warmth comforting, and his loud crying became soundless sobs, which made Bridget want to weep herself.

When Pat Connolly arrived home from work, his wife shouted into his ear the reason for Manuel being unexpectedly in their care.

‘Juan had a bad accident,’ she told him briefly, since she did not want to emphasize in front of her children exactly how deadly the accident had been.

Her loud voice frightened Manuel even more, though
he knew Mr Connolly could not hear properly. He cried helplessly, making no attempt to rub his eyes clear of tears.

She turned back to the child. ‘There, there, Mannie, luv. Your mam’ll come soon,’ she soothed, wondering at the same time how his bereaved family was getting on.

Pat Connolly made no response to Bridget’s explanation. He swept one of Pudding’s granddaughters off a battered easy chair, and sat down suddenly and closed his eyes. The dislodged cat eyed him malevolently from under the deal table. Mary brought him his slippers, but he made no attempt to take them from her. She set them down by his feet and crept away.

As he watched him from the safety of Bridget’s broad hip, Manuel’s tears tailed off. Mary and Joey’s dad looked so different from his own father. He smelled different, not only of old sweat. He had a curious metallic odour as well. He was practically bald, with a grey fringe round the sides of his head. A day’s beard glinted whitely on his chin. The lids of his closed eyes were bright red, as was his nose, and the rest of his skin was an unhealthy yellowish-white, whereas Manuel’s father had skin the colour of a ripe hazelnut and a thick thatch of fair hair –
and
, Manuel thought,
his
dad did not come home to sit silently in a chair; he first hugged and kissed his mother and himself.

Only when he was a little older, did Manuel understand from the conversation of adults the appalling conditions under which men like Pat worked and their absolute exhaustion by the end of the day. As Mr Saitua once remarked, ‘You have to be a bloody contortionist to do that job. Never mind the racket!’

Bridget swung the boy round towards the table, while she poured a mug of tea, which had been simmering on the hob for some time. She picked up a tin of condensed milk from the draining board by the sink, and let a generous amount trickle into the black brew. Then she spooned some sugar out of a small blue bag on the table. She stirred
everything up vigorously, then picked the mug up and said to her weary spouse,’ ‘Ere you are, luv. Lovely and hot, it is.’

The scaler opened his eyes and there was a hint of a smile in them, as he accepted the tea. As he drank it, he began to relax and become his usual amiable self.

‘How was your back today?’ she inquired.

He sighed, and then said, ‘It weren’t so bad as yesterday.’

‘I’ll rub it again tonight for yez. Nothing like a bit of Sloane’s liniment for backs.’ She noticed that Manuel had been diverted by the cat leaping quietly over the fender, to curl up close to the fire, so she slid him down by it. He knelt down and put his hand over the steel bar, to stroke its black satin back. The warmth of the blaze was comforting, and the cat stretched itself under his careful hand. He laid his cheek on the warm fender just above the animal. His stroking became slower and, despite the hardness of his pillow, he fell asleep.

Bridget paused in her bread-cutting to look down at him compassionately. ‘Poor little bugger,’ she mouthed at her husband, careful not to wake the child. ‘He were proper upset. Terrible for him to see his grandpa killed.’

Pat understood what his wife was trying to convey. ‘Oh, aye,’ he agreed softly, some of his exhaustion receding as he rested his legs. ‘It isn’t going to be easy for them, without the Ould Fella; he did well, he did, with his emigrants and all.’ There was no hint of shock in his voice; his fatigue was too great. Juan was an old man; his time had come.

‘This is where they could use Leo.’

‘The lad what went to America? Oh, aye. Young Pedro will have his hands full, feedin’ a houseful of women and kids.’

When Manuel woke up, he was startled to find himself in his own bed, Pat Connolly having kindly carried the sleeping child in for Rosita. Across the room, Auntie Maria was
seated on the edge of her narrow, iron bed, telling her beads by the light of the moon filtering between the window curtains. She wore a black shawl over her heavy, flannel nightgown, and her old carpet slippers on her feet. She was crying.

Manuel struggled to sit up; he was still in his jersey and shorts, but his boots and socks had been removed. ‘Where’s Mam?’ he asked immediately, and yawned.

Aunt Maria gave a big sob. ‘She’s downstairs with your granddad and grandma – and Peggy O’Brien is with them; she’ll watch all night with them.’

‘Why? It’s dark – it’s bedtime.’ He pushed off his blankets, as if to get out of bed.

Auntie Maria immediately put down her rosary, got up clumsily and shuffled over to him. ‘No, no, dear. You can see your mam in the morning.’

Manuel remembered suddenly his grandfather hurtling through the air, and the sickening crash as he hit his head on the tiled lavatory roof; and then Father Felipe and Mrs Connolly.

He shivered. ‘Is Grandpa very hurt?’ he asked, knowing in his heart that something much worse than being hurt had happened, though he could not put a name to it.

Aunt Maria loomed over him like a dark ghost, as, for once, she bent to kiss him on the forehead. Her face against his felt wet, as she quickly pulled herself back.

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘He’s gone to God.’ She pushed him gently back on to the bed and lifted his bedclothes over his shoulders.

‘Does that mean he’s dead?’ Manuel asked tentatively, afraid of the reply.

‘Yes.’ The single word came out slowly, like the beginning of a long lamentation.

‘So Mam and Granny have to stay with him?’

‘Yes. Tomorrow, Grandma and I’ll sit with him, so your mam can get a little sleep – and Peggy O’Brien will go
home. Maybe Mrs Saitua will come to sit for a little while to be company for Grandma and me.’

‘Doesn’t Granny want to go to bed?’

‘I don’t think so, luv. She’ll want to be with Grandpa.’

‘Is he lonely because he’s dead?’

The question was almost too much for Maria. She clapped the back of her hand to her mouth, to stop herself from crying out. She did not answer, while she sought to control herself, and then she said softly, ‘We don’t really know, dear. But we think he might be.’

‘While he’s waiting for his Guardian Angel?’

She smiled faintly through her grief. ‘Yes, dear.’

To his knowledge, Auntie Maria, like Bridget Connolly, rarely lied, so he was satisfied that Grandpa would soon be taken wonderful care of by his own private golden guardian, complete with wings, to bear him to Heaven. Still very weary, he turned over and was soon asleep again.

His aunt went back to her bed and her rosary. Her belief was almost as literal as the child’s, and she was comforted by the reminder of a heavenly being standing close to each one of us. She would miss her father dreadfully, but it was nice to feel that he would be looked after, and that, despite dying unshriven, he could hope for a seat in Heaven, because he had been such a good parent.

The day after Juan Barinèta’s unexpected death, Manuel was sent back to school. He wore his Wellington boots and a macintosh, because the rain was sheeting down; it was as if winter had suddenly set in. His mother had silently given him his porridge and milk and, equally subdued, he had eaten it. Grandma and Aunt Maria did not appear at all; he guessed that they were both in the parlour, the door of which was firmly closed.

Rosita sat by him at the table, a cup of tea in front of her, and suckled Francesca. Her magnificent red hair had not been combed and, in the light of the kitchen fire, it shone like a halo. Her expression was such that Manuel had a scared feeling that the last thing she was thinking about was a jittery small boy.

When he was ready to leave, however, she handed him two biscuits for his elevenses, wrapped in a piece of paper saved from a cereal box. Then she squatted down in front of him, kissed him and told him he was being a very good, helpful boy.

He felt better and grinned shyly at her. She patted his bottom, and sent him on his way. She did not want him at home when the undertaker, alerted by Vicente Saitua, came to measure her father’s body for a coffin later that morning.

On the previous day, the doctor had come immediately in response to Father Felipe’s request. The accident was explained to him and the broken ladder shown to him. He wrote an appropriate certificate, and told Rosita gently, ‘I
have to inform the Coroner’s Office, and they will probably send someone to look at your father. If the coffin arrives before they do, please do not put Mr Barinèta into it until they have made their examination; they will want to see the body – and the ladder.’

At this intimation of an invasion of their privacy, Rosita had looked so defeated that the doctor had to reassure her that the official would probably be both compassionate and brief. ‘And you should lie down for a little while,’ he advised. ‘Mrs Saitua said you were expecting – and you don’t want to lose the child.’

She merely shrugged; there would be other pregnancies.

‘Would you like to ask Mr Biggs to look after the body for you?’

‘You mean now? Give Father to the undertaker?’

‘Yes. You might feel a little better to be relieved of it.’

‘Good Heavens! No! Mother’s broken-hearted enough already.’

Watched by Maria, Micaela, Rosita and young Peggy O’Brien had tenderly washed and shaved Juan and laid him out as soon as the doctor and Father Felipe had departed. They had wrapped him in a clean sheet and bound his jaw closed with a strip torn from another one. Two copper pennies were laid over his closed eyelids to keep them shut.

To keep him flat and straight, before rigor mortis set in, Domingo and Vicente had opened up the folding flaps of the parlour table and had laid him flat on his back on it. The women did not attempt to straighten his neck, in case the Coroner demanded further medical examination.

‘When they hear about a man being suddenly dead, they always think he’s been in a fight – especially when it’s down in the docks,’ Peggy remarked sagely. ‘That’s why they want to take a look – ’cos then it would be murder. Lucky we are, nobody called the police, or we’d have had
them on our backs as well.’ She had been practical and calm, and, before she hurried home to her out-of-work husband and her babies to give them their tea, Rosita had hugged her and thanked her.

‘You’re so young to face all this,’ she told her. ‘But I couldn’t ask Bridget, because she’s minding Manuel.’

‘It’s not so bad for me. Me mam was like Bridget, and she taught me. As a young girl, I often helped her bring a kid or lay somebody out.’ She wrapped her shawl round herself, and added, ‘When I’ve got the kids to bed, I’ll come back and sit with you for a spell.’

After Peggy had departed, Rosita felt suddenly very alone. There was much to do. She must first persuade her mother and Maria to eat something – and she had better have a bite to eat herself – what with Francesca not yet weaned and the demands of the child inside her. The nappies hadn’t been washed, the fire needed remaking – it was nearly out; and she must do Juan’s job of bringing some buckets of coal up the cellar step, not something she
wanted
to do while pregnant. And Manuel would be back soon, she supposed. She hoped Bridget had given him some tea.

In the event, it was Peggy who carried up the coal. She returned more quickly than Rosita had hoped. And it was she who took Manuel’s boots and socks off before Pat slipped him into his bed still sound asleep. She stayed until early the next morning when she had to go to attend to her own children.

Not only Peggy and the other women had proved their worth on that awful day. Father Felipe remained for a while with Micaela. Though Spanish, he knew enough Basque to speak comfortingly to the distraught woman in her own language. Firmly, gently, he helped her to regain control of herself. He had remained with the family until after the doctor’s call and the removal of the body from the sofa to the table, where it was temporarily covered
with a sheet. Rosita brought them both wine, and the priest and the broken old woman sipped it together. It was he who suggested to Rosita that, to give themselves strength, they should eat before formally laying poor Juan out.

Micaela smiled dimly at this, but as soon as Father Felipe left, she insisted that the laying out be done right away. Wearily, Rosita agreed, but said she must feed a screaming Francesca first.

Working neatly and carefully, as she always did, Micaela had seemed better as she gave the last service she could to a well-loved husband of forty years. Within, she was beating herself because she had asked him to do a job, at his age, which involved climbing a ladder; it did not help her to remind herself that he had spent his youth climbing the rigging of sailing ships and had always had excellent balance.

Afterwards, she had eaten a little, as did a tear-sodden Maria. Then she had gone into the parlour, rosary in hand. Maria had determinedly blown her nose and had followed her in, to sit with her until Peggy returned to join them. Dry-eyed and drained, Rosita had settled Francesca for the night and washed a couple of nappies, ready for the morning. She was thankful when, later, Manuel was brought in sound asleep.

She was worried about the strain on Maria, already so weak and frail, and, as soon as she could, she had gone to take her place in the parlour. ‘Bed, Maria,’ she had ordered briefly, as she took out her rosary. ‘You must keep your strength up.’ So, protesting feebly, Maria had gone upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Manuel and had wept very quietly so that she did not wake the child.

Only a few minutes after Manuel had been sent to school the following morning, Ould Biggs, the undertaker, presented himself. He was brief, obsequious and politely
sympathetic. He delicately inquired if they had Burial Insurance.

As Rosita led him into the parlour, she assured him that they had and that it was paid up to date. He nodded his head in acknowledgement of this welcome news, as he approached Micaela and took her hand and silently held it for a moment.

Then he briskly whipped out his tape measure and measured Juan. He was respectful of a man who had given him a lot of work for his horse buses when dispatching Basque emigrants and he did not touch the body.

He then turned back to Micaela and, taking her hand again, he asked her very kindly if she would like to step round in the afternoon to choose the kind of coffin she wanted. ‘You and your daughters, like. And a memorial stone – I’ve got a nice line in them – and I’ve several beautiful coffins in stock.’

The candle on the table at the head of the corpse flickered from the weight of the sigh that Micaela let go, before she whispered her agreement to the visit. Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks to drop on her black apron. Maria, seated on the horsehair sofa, put her head down on her knees and wept, her silver and ebony rosary dripping from her fingers in the candlelight, as if its tiny glitter were tears and that it wept for her as well. The doctor had left a sedative for her to take, but she had not swallowed it. It lay forgotten on the mantelpiece.

Rosita had hardly ushered him out of the front door, when a grand gentleman caused a stir in the street by arriving in a motor car, a contraption rarely seen by the local inhabitants. He announced that he was from the Coroner’s Office, and Micaela, wearied from mourning and lack of sleep, managed to rouse herself sufficiently to give him a fairly coherent description of the accident. He inspected the offending ladder and the broken drainpipe, while rain poured down on his bald head; he had, of course, removed
his bowler hat on entering the house. He assured Micaela that she had nothing to worry about and that she could go ahead with arrangements for the funeral. The Coroner’s Office would see that Mr Biggs was informed that all was in order for him to proceed.

Just before Manuel was due back from school for his midday meal, Madeleine Saitua dropped by to deliver a piping hot rabbit pie, which she put into the kitchen oven to keep warm. Rosita seized the opportunity to ask her if her boys would help her to rearrange the parlour furniture, after Juan had been coffined, so that the coffin could be supported by a chair at either end, and the neighbours could move round it when they came to pay their respects.

Madeleine gazed compassionately at the white-faced younger woman, and said, ‘Of course, luv. Just send Mannie up with a message when you’re ready. And you try to get some rest, luv.’

Rosita agreed that she would and saw her out with an expression of thanks for the pie. She was still watching her plod up the street, when Peggy came by on her way to the corner grocery. She asked if Ould Biggs had been yet, and when Rosita said he had, Peggy remarked, ‘Manuel’ll be able to see his granddad when he’s all peaceful in his coffin – with flowers round him. Frannie’ll be too young to remember him, more’s the pity.’

Rosita had not yet had time to weep herself and, at this remark, she felt suddenly choked with grief. She managed, however, to answer her kindly, blundering neighbour, by saying cautiously, ‘If the boy would like to.’

After doing his best to describe the loss of his grandfather to Lorilyn, Old Manuel leaned back in his chair and gazed abstractedly out of his study window at the distant mountains of the United States on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He could only guess at the sorrow and
despair of his grandmother, his mother and his delicate aunt; they had done their best to swallow their own grief and reassure their frightened little boy.