The Liverpool Basque (4 page)

He turned abruptly and went out through the hallway to say farewell to his father and to join the embarking throng.

It was over nine years before I saw Uncle Leo again.

Mother stood silent for a moment or two; then she seemed to gather herself together and become aware of my own trembling. Through her tears, she smiled at me. She said brightly, ‘Pudding’s got a great surprise for you. Come and see.’

I missed Uncle Leo for his own sake. But, as I grew up, I learned that the loss of a man from a family weakens that family immeasurably. No one knew it better than Basque mountain farmers and their descendants, who dwelt in the rocky, inhospitable Pyrenees, between the French and the Spanish. For century upon century, they had to watch their younger sons leave their stony fortress, because the land could not feed them; they became famous mercenaries in foreign armies, or fishermen in the Bay of Biscay or iron workers in the foundries of Bilbao. When the New World opened up, they took their skills as shepherds and as seamen to it, and Uncle Leo, full of hope, went with them.

Mother slowly slid me to the floor. As she tried to control her grief, I saw her fine, round breasts rise and fall quickly under her black blouse, and I knew that Uncle Leo’s departure must be something very disturbing to her.

My childhood fears soon gave way to curiosity, as she led me to a small cupboard beside the big kitchen range on which she and Grandma cooked. The door was open, and she squatted down beside me. ‘Have a look,’ she urged me.

I approached the small, dark cavern of the cupboard with caution. Pudding was a very large, black cat with expressionless pale-green eyes; she was quite capable of giving a small boy a sharp clawing, if she felt her dignity was at stake.

She was curled up on a piece of grubby blanket in the darkest corner. Her green eyes flashed as she looked up quickly at her visitors, while round her crawled four tiny black bundles. Surprised, I put out my hand to touch one of them. Pudding peremptorily nuzzled my hand away.

In some astonishment, I turned to Mother. ‘Kittens! Where did she find them?’

‘She had them inside her. They came out in the night.’

The reply was so unexpected that I knew my mother
was teasing me. I looked at her knowingly, and laughed. ‘They couldn’t. How would they get out?’

Mother hesitated, before she replied. Then she said, ‘Pudding won’t let me touch her at the moment; she’s tired. Tomorrow, I’ll lift her up and show you.’

Though she had been born in Bilbao, my mother had close relations who lived in the countryside, where, as a matter of course, children saw animals born and die. It had apparently not struck her that her little son was ignorant of birth – and, possibly, also of death.

Laden with greyish sheets to be washed, Grandma Micaela came slowly and heavily down the stairs, and, as she entered the kitchen, I looked up from watching the kittens. A shaft of sunlight from the tall, narrow kitchen window lit up her paper-pale cheeks, wet with tears.

I was shocked. Grandma never cried. The worst she ever did was scold; and she was my rock, my safe refuge, when both Mother and Father were cross with me. Now, as Mother scrambled hastily to her feet, Grandma looked imploringly at her and quavered, ‘I can’t make myself go out to see him leave. I can’t bear it. I’ll never see him again!’ She dropped the sheets on to the stone floor; her hands, heavily veined, and scarlet from too much immersion in hot soda water, dangled helplessly at her sides.

Mother ran to her and took her in her arms. She patted her back and rocked her, just as she did me when I had hurt myself. ‘I know, Mam. I know,’ she crooned. ‘I can’t go out, either.’

‘He’s my baby,’ cried Grandma, with a further explosion of tears.

I stopped stroking Pudding, and interjected, with some derision, ‘Uncle Leo isn’t a baby – he’s a big man.’

Obviously startled, both women turned to look down at me, as I knelt by the open cupboard.

Grandma was the first to recover. She swallowed a sob, and then laughed through her tears. She slowly nodded her white head, and responded tenderly, ‘You’re right, my precious dumpling.’ She let out a long sigh, and lifted a
finger to touch Mother’s round, pink cheek, a tiny, loving gesture of affection. She said, ‘He’s right. I mustn’t forget it. He
is
a real man – and I have to let him go.’ Then her tired voice rose, as she added, ‘But it hurts, Rosita. It hurts.’ Tears again trickled down her cheeks.

Mother hugged her, and said determinedly, ‘We’ll pretend he’s simply gone to sea again – on a long voyage. It’ll help. And he’ll write to you.’

Did grown-ups have to pretend things? I wondered uneasily. Like small boys do?

‘And, next month, Agustin should put into Liverpool. That’ll be nice for you – for all of us.’ She was referring to my elder uncle, who was an able seaman in a freighter which docked periodically in Liverpool with cargoes of iron ore. Between voyages he lived with Grandpa Barinèta’s brother and his two motherless daughters in Bilbao, because he himself was still a bachelor.

‘Yes,’ agreed Grandma heavily. Uncle Agustin was a dark, silent man, not nearly so exuberant or lovable as his younger brother, Leo. But Grandma smiled, and I felt better when I saw it.

My mother began to pick up the sheets that Grandma had dropped on the floor. ‘Let’s put these to soak – we can boil them later on this afternoon. Let’s do the bedrooms now. Would you like a glass of wine or a cup of camomile tea to carry round with you?’

Grandma sniffed. ‘No, thanks,’ she replied with a sigh. ‘I’ll have something at teatime.’

Uncle Leo was the first person to pass out of my childhood. For months, Grandma watched for his letters, but he wrote only two from Nevada, to which she replied immediately. Since she had no other address except the one he had given her in Nevada, she continued to write to him there, and she was always the first to reach the front door when a letter slid through the letter box and across the cracked
tiled floor. But no more letters arrived, and she mentioned her son less and less and ceased to hope.

Unaware of the despondency the lack of news from Uncle Leo caused her, I regarded her as my own special property, always there to dispense comfort, wipe my nose and wash painfully grazed knees when I had fallen down.

Unlike Uncle Agustin, Uncle Leo and I had been born in Liverpool, and we spoke the thick catarrhal English, with a strong tinge of mixed Irish accents in it, that was current in the streets around the docks. Uncle Agustin spoke only Basque and Spanish.

It had been Uncle Leo’s custom during times of unemployment to go to Spain, to his maternal grandfather’s small farm in the Pyrenees, to work there in return for his food. It was there that he learned to care for sheep; and it was this skill that he hoped to build on in the United States. I had heard him discuss this with his father on a number of occasions, and I knew that he hoped eventually to have his own sheep farm.

Though he did not say much in the two letters Grandma received, I learned later that he had set his expectations of Nevada too high. Ashamed to tell his parents that he had not done too well, he put off writing to them, and moved to Arizona and, later on, wandered through Utah and Colorado. Grandma’s replies to his letters never reached him. He always told himself that he would write when he was settled, but as the years went by and memories of Liverpool dimmed, he had nothing very hopeful to tell his parents so he did not write.

I forgot him.

With a steady, though small family income from Grandpa’s activities amongst the emigrants and from my father, we were able to visit Spain occasionally. Carrying our own food in a big market basket, we sailed for Bilbao in Basque-owned fishing boats or small freighters. In part-return for
our passage, Grandpa worked as a member of the crew. In Bilbao we stayed with Grandpa’s brother and his daughters, and, occasionally, our visit coincided with the homecoming of Uncle Agustin. A more rapid form of transport was sometimes used by both families, if they felt the need to see each other on some urgent matter; they went by rail. They caught the train from Liverpool and went to Dover, crossed on the Channel ferry to Calais, and took the train from there to Bilbao. This, however, was considered very extravagant because eight pounds had to be expended on the fare – and why part with hard cash, when you could go all the way by sea for almost nothing? Grandma’s sense of economy was almost as well developed as that of Mr and Mrs Wing, who owned the Chinese laundry and were the parents of one of my best-loved playmates, Brian Wing.

My childhood memories of Spain are faint, evoked mainly by the smell of baking bread and of farm animals, or the heavy odour of newly harvested hay, and a sense of having been particularly happy there, blissfully unaware of the hardship and oppression endured by the grown-ups. I took for granted callused hands and bent backs, chilblained fingers and toes, rooms where one moved like a small snake amid people, because homes were so crowded. In fact, the closeness in which everybody I knew lived was very comforting to a small boy.

As I grew bigger, I would, after a few weeks in Bilbao or up in the mountains with my father’s family, the Echanizes, and another bumper crop of Barinèta second cousins, suddenly feel homesick for Liverpool. Healthy from the mountain air and the coarse fresh food stuffed into me by endless loving relations, I longed to return to the lively world centred on the Wapping Dock. I wanted to play with a shoal of small friends, Malayans, Chinese, Irish, Filipinos, and black people both from Africa and the Caribbean, as well as one or two Basque boys who were a little older than me and sometimes condescended to let me join in
their games. We darted like minnows in and out of dark, familiar narrow lanes and alleys, Brian Wing and I at the end of the line because we were the smallest. The black and bleak city, rich with the smell of horse manure, vanilla pods, fish and raw hides, was to us a wonderful playground. We barely took note of the racket of horses’ hooves and steel-bound wheels on the streets’ stone setts or the constant roar of machinery in the workshops round us; it was simply part of everyday life.

Despite our diversity of race and religion, all my small friends had two things in common: as the children of dockers, shipyard workers or seamen, our lives were inextricably bound to the sea; and we all shared a true Liverpool sense of humour – life was intrinsically so hard that one learned early to make a joke of it. How we laughed, Lorilyn! Deep belly laughs that I rarely hear nowadays.

After seeing off the emigrants on the day of Uncle Leo’s departure for Nevada, Grandpa Juan Barinèta came slowly into the kitchen and dropped his papers and house ledger on to the well-scrubbed deal table. His wooden chair, which he had made himself, scraped on the stone floor as he pulled it away from the table and wearily flopped into it. He said heavily, to nobody in particular, ‘Well, that’s that lot.’

Mother and Grandma Micaela had just come up from the cellar, after putting the sheets to soak in the copper before scrubbing and boiling them.

Seeing his wife’s red-rimmed eyes, Grandpa said kindly to her in Basque, ‘The boy’s going to be all right, never fear, my dear.’ He turned to my mother, and asked her, ‘Rosita, get out a bottle of wine – if there’s anything left after last night’s party. Let’s all sit down and have a drink.’

The reference to the previous night’s send-off party for Leo made even Grandma smile, though rather wanly.

Already packed with emigrants, the house had been
further jammed as Basque neighbours dropped in to say farewell.

Uncle Leo and Jean Baptiste Saitua, who lived up the road, both had excellent singing voices, and they had sung all the old Basque songs they could remember, vying with each other in a good-humoured way.

Sitting on Mother’s lap, leaning on her swollen stomach and clinging to her so that I did not accidentally slip off, I had watched the oil lamp light up her bright red curls. Then, as I had listened, I had turned slightly to watch the spell-bound faces crowding round us; loving faces, cunning faces, fair faces, mahogany faces, bearded, sad old faces, young bright faces; not a dull or stupid face amongst them.

In this magic circle of friends, I must have fallen asleep, because I have no memory of being put to bed, only of being surrounded by warmth and lovely sounds of singing.

Manuel put down his pen and took off his spectacles, to rub his eyes. He stretched and yawned. He had better make some supper. Mechanically, he felt in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, took one out and put it between his lips. He was just feeling in his trouser pocket for his matches when he heard the front door bell ring. Patting his empty pockets, he rose stiffly from his chair and looked up at his chronometer. ‘Five o’clock,’ he muttered irritably. ‘Must be Veronica.’ Veronica Harris was a creature of habit.

Outside, on his doorstep, Veronica, with a plate poised on one hand, turned to Sharon and said cheerfully, ‘He never answers on the first ring – I don’t think he hears all that well.’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t disturb him now.’ Sharon felt a little embarrassed at being coerced into calling on someone without first telephoning.

‘Oh, he’s used to me running in and out. He won’t mind.’ She pressed the bell again.

Manuel stood in the middle of his den and wondered if she would go away, if he stayed perfectly still. Veronica was kind, but he had never liked her very much; he was uneasily suspicious that she would have enjoyed taking Kathleen’s place, an idea which made him shudder. Since Kathleen’s death, he had been distantly polite to her, and reluctantly accepted her baked offerings because she insistently pressed them upon him to the point of rudeness.

He never went to her home; in fact, since Kathleen’s death he had rarely visited any of their friends. Their abounding energy made him feel tired. In nursing Kathleen
for months, his strength had been sapped, and all he wanted was to be left alone with his grief.

He stood perfectly still in the back of the hall, but the bell was rung for the third time.

‘Why not leave the plate on the doorstep?’ suggested Sharon, who had already done an eight-hour shift in the Palliative Care Unit and found her feet to be aching abominably.

‘The dogs might get it,’ Veronica replied shortly.

Resigned, Manuel put down his unlit cigarette on the hall table and answered the door. As he opened it, he did his best to show pleasant surprise. He wondered who the other woman was – not a bad-looking judy.

Without hesitation, Veronica stepped into his hall, and he backed hastily. ‘Ah!’ she cooed. ‘I thought you’d never hear me. How are you doing?’ She half-turned towards Sharon, who was still teetering on the step. ‘I want to introduce you to Elaine’s daughter – you remember Elaine? She’s staying with me until she finds an apartment. Come in, Sharon.’

Old Manuel gave up.

He retreated further into the little hallway, while Sharon, loath to intrude, stepped into the doorway.

Who, in the name of God, was Elaine? Old Manuel could not remember.

Blithely oblivious to the lack of welcome, Veronica moved firmly through the archway that led to the sitting-room. ‘I’ve brought you some cold roast beef,’ she announced. ‘I got a roast when I knew Sharon was coming – and it’s too much for us, isn’t it, Sharon?’

Sharon smiled, and fidgeted uncertainly. What was she supposed to say?

Veronica was asking Manuel if she should put the meat in the refrigerator for him. He hastily took the plate from her. He had no desire to have her poking through the entrails of his refrigerator.

‘No. That’s OK. I’ll take it. I’ll put it on the table here.’ He darted through the opposite arch, which led into the dining-room, with an alacrity surprising for a man in his eighties. If he were quick enough, he thought, he could shoo her out of the door again quite rapidly.

He was too late. Veronica was already seated on the flower-covered settee in the sitting-room, and was patting the cushion beside her to indicate to Sharon that she, too, should sit down.

From the archway, Manuel viewed them both with trepidation, while Veronica chirruped on about Sharon coming to nurse in the Palliative Care Unit, and wasn’t it great that they would have such a unit in their closest hospital? Such a shame that there had not been one when Kathleen was so ill.

Manuel stiffened. He was not too clear what exactly a Palliative Care Unit was meant for; but he certainly did not feel like discussing Kathleen in front of a stranger.

The lack of welcome was all too obvious to Sharon, and her colour rose as her embarrassment increased. She glanced directly up at him, wondering how to retreat with grace. What she saw in his face was the closed-off look of suffering, all too familiar to her in her work.

She got up immediately and filled the gap in the conversation which Manuel’s silence had caused. ‘It’s suppertime, Veronica,’ she said firmly. ‘We should leave Mr Echaniz to enjoy the beef, and perhaps we could meet again another day.’ She held out her hand to Manuel, and, since Veronica had not introduced her properly, she added, ‘I’m Sharon Herman. It’s nice to meet you.’

The relief which flooded Manuel’s face was so blatant that she wanted to laugh. Her eyes must have twinkled, because there was the hint of an answering grin suddenly flickering round his wide, thin mouth.

She let go of his hand, and bent to help a disconcerted Veronica up from the low settee.

God’s blessings on the girl, the old man thought, as he assured her that he was pleased to meet her.

With her hand under Veronica’s elbow, she steered her towards the front door, which was still open, and guided Veronica down the steps. Not too sure what was happening to her, Veronica did her best, and said to Manuel, ‘I hope you’ll like the meat. You can bring the plate back another time.’

In her heart, she knew that he would never bring the plate back – the next time she called it would be sitting on the hall table, in a paperbag, waiting for her to pick it up.

He nodded agreeably to both of them. Then he shut the front door after them. He stood leaning against it for a moment, as if to make sure that they would not come back in. Veronica had been Kathleen’s devoted friend, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. ‘And for her sake, I must be pleasant to her – even if she’s a real cross!’

As he retrieved his unlit cigarette and started back to his den to find some matches, he looked down at the plate of meat. He had a great urge to empty it straight into the rubbish bin – but she did mean kindly, and the young woman with her had understood well enough to take her away. Furthermore, it would save him cooking for himself.

He laughed at himself as he put the plate in the refrigerator, and then went to get his long-delayed smoke.

Nice young woman, he considered, as he thankfully drew on his cigarette. Just what does she do in palliative care?

Outside, as the women went down the steps to the pavement, to walk round to Veronica’s house, Sharon said soothingly, ‘He looked so exhausted and so upset when you mentioned Kathleen, I thought we’d better not stay.’

‘Oh? I didn’t notice.’ Veronica’s expression was puzzled. Then, accepting Sharon’s explanation, she said, ‘Well, I suppose at his age …’ And left it at that.

As he smoked, Manuel stood staring out of the window, rocking slightly on his heels, as if he were in a boat and must keep his balance. He did not notice the two ladies pass beyond his budding lilac tree. His mind had reverted to the memoirs he had been writing for Lorilyn, before the visit.

He smiled slowly at a sudden remembrance of a ship’s master saying to his Grandfather Barinèta that his crew were a lot of ‘hard cases’.

‘Oh, aye,’ he muttered to himself. ‘So were me granddad and me dad – tough as old boots. They could fight anybody if they had to – even other “hard cases” out on a spree of a Saturday night.’

Very thoughtfully, he stubbed out his cigarette in an overcrowded ash tray, and then stood absently rubbing his nicotine-stained thumb and forefinger together, as if to erase the yellow stain on them.

Was he remembering correctly? Had his life in Liverpool really been as golden as he had described? Had the other boys with whom he had played been as good mates as he remembered? While he played or went to school, safe in the shelter of his ferocious old grandfather, what was going on between the adult members of the family?