The Poet's Wife (25 page)

As for Henry, slowly, very slowly, my thoughts return to him as my fingers again begin to stroke the purple thread around my finger. At times, the physical need I feel for him overwhelms me and I find myself doubled over, clutching myself with my arms and tightly gathering folds of material within my fists. The first letter I receive from him I take to my room and sit on the bed and read it over and over, terrified but grateful that he has taken the risk of writing to me. I know he has left a great deal out for fear of it being intercepted. But just as with Mother’s letters whilst I was nursing, I have long since learnt to read the unwritten; those invisible words that dance amongst the blank spaces of the page.

L
ondon

15th October, 1939

M
y darling Isabel
,

I trust that this letter reaches you safe and well. I think of you each and every day and wait impatiently for the day we shall be reunited. How I long to return to you and to Spain. I assure you, Isabel, that I shall think of a way. How are your family? And life in Granada? I hope that you are all finding a way to press forwards through these dark days and are seeking comfort from one another.

It is autumn here and the shades of Regent’s Park, a large green space near my home, are beautiful. I have been walking there a great deal with my parents and also friends I’ve been reunited with. Sadly these reunions with many friends have been short-lived, however, as now that Germany has invaded Poland and war has been declared, a great number of them are being called up for service.

I can’t deny it hasn’t been easy since being back in England. Breaking the news of Stan to my parents was harder than I could ever have imagined. Somehow the loss I feel at his death is greatly enhanced when it comes to my parents as it goes, of course, against the natural order of things. Though I fear that a great many more shall lose their sons and daughters in the months to come.

I’m sure you’re wondering whether I too will be going off to war once again.
The doctors have told me my limp is too pronounced to serve effectively as a soldier
,
so at least there’s no chance of me being killed fighting. London’s not exactly safe either, as bombs are being dropped most days so maybe I shall be killed here instead. But still, I do think I have a better chance of survival this way!

I love you, darling Isabel, and think of little else than the day I can once more hold you in my arms.

Yours,

Henry

O
h
, how I cry when I read the last paragraph of Henry’s letter. I know he is just being dry in his British way and he probably means to make me laugh, but the thought of a bomb dropping out of the sky directly onto his house terrifies me. Meanwhile, we are being kept out of the war sweeping across Europe. It is clear that Franco supports Germany and Italy, and due to the weak infrastructure of our country after having taken such a terrible pounding, mobilisation for war is made virtually impossible.

Spanish products begin to be boycotted across democratic nations because our country is recognised as a fascist power. Hypocrisy, my soul screams. Just because the allies are winning the war and you didn’t care to help us retain democracy with all your high ideals of non-intervention. And now you let us starve! I don’t know how many thousands of Spaniards die of hunger in the years following our civil war, but just because someone has made it through the civil strife, this certainly doesn’t guarantee future survival – as we are now learning.

All I can do is pray to a God I have no idea if I believe in, dream of a day when I can nurse again, and wait for Henry. I never remove that length of purple thread from around my finger and it isn’t until a whole year after Father’s death that my family learn of my engagement. One morning at breakfast, I am particularly despondent, feeling the aching absence of both Father and Henry. I pick at my food, staring out of the window, unaware even that the fingers of my right hand have crept up to play with the thread on my ring finger.

‘Isabel,’ Mother says suddenly. Her tone in that single word takes me by surprise, for it is a voice I have not heard in a long time: clear and strong.

I look up at her, not saying a word.

‘Isabel,’ she says again, this time a little quieter. Everybody is staring at her expectantly. ‘What is that? That thing around your finger?’

I look down, realising I must have been fiddling with it. I feel tears filling my eyes and prod desperately at the breadcrumbs on my plate, willing them to stay away. But it’s all too much and I push my plate away, place my elbows on the table and let my head fall into my hands as the tears come.

I feel a hand on my left shoulder, gently resting there in such an expression of silent, tender support, that as soon as I realise it’s Fernando, I cry even more. All I can think is, it shouldn’t be Fernando. He should be joking and quipping and teasing, not doing this. When did he suddenly grow up?

Nobody says a word, they just wait for me to stop crying before I look up to find something to wipe my eyes with. Alejandro pushes a napkin across the table towards me and I smile at him gratefully. It is a couple of minutes more before I can bring myself to speak.

‘While I was away, nursing, something happened,’ I say quietly. I glance upwards and Mother encourages me with her eyes to continue. ‘You see, I met someone. His name is Enrique. Henry. He’s English. I…I got to know him quite well.’

I pause again, searching for the right words. All I need to do is say it. Tell them I fell in love. Tell them he asked me to marry him. Tell them that I am engaged. Yet somehow these words catch in my throat. They should be cause for such celebration, but all I feel at this moment is a deep, stretching sadness. Looking up at Mother, I search her eyes and realise with certainty that she understands; that she knows. As she stares at me, her dark eyes full of mirth and sorrow, she wills me to share the news with everyone and I have to use every last ounce of strength I possess not to cry again.

‘Tell us, Isabel.’ Mar, who is sitting to the right of me, places her hand over mine and smiles.

I take a deep breath. ‘He asked me to marry him.’

I hear someone gasp. I’m not sure who it was but I look back at Mother and wait, so glad that she noticed the thread around my finger, so glad that I didn’t have to search for the right time to tell them all.

‘
Enhorabuena, cariño
,’
Mother says quietly as she rises from her seat and comes over to hug me.
Enhorabuena, Isabel
, I hear all around me. Perhaps it is the relief at having finally told everyone which unlock more tears that spill down my face.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say as I sink into a chair. ‘I just don’t know when I’m going to see him again.’ Everybody fusses around me as Abuela Aurelia hands me a clean handkerchief and I am smothered in more embraces. When I have stopped crying, the inevitable barrage of questions begins:
Where did you meet him? When is he coming to Spain? What is he like?
I feel much calmer, but still heavy-hearted that Henry is not here with me to share our news.

Abuela Aurelia immediately sets about organising a celebration. It’s lovely – we eat spicy lentils and she even manages to find a few hunks of chorizo from heaven only knows where and Joaquín plays the guitar. Yet it is only a half-hearted celebration because we all feel Father’s absence. And of course none of us know when Henry and I will be reunited.

But he does return, just as I knew he would, almost two years after we last saw each other. It is a risky journey for him, not only because of the dangers he encounters on his way through France but also in Spain. If anyone knew he was a former member of an International Brigade who fought on the defeated Republican side, I’m sure he’d immediately be denounced as a ‘red’ and marched off to jail or worse. So he wisely primes himself in pro-Franco speak and, I don’t know how he manages it, but he passes himself off as a British archaeologist who believes that General Franco is the best thing that has ever happened to Spain.

It is early one morning when he returns to me. I am in the kitchen washing up after breakfast when Alejandro walks in and quietly says, ‘Isabel, I think you should go to the courtyard.’ I look at him questioningly but he simply smiles in return, that honest, unassuming smile I have always loved him for. Mar and Abuela Aurelia stare at me and I silently dry my hands and make my way along the corridor. When Henry and I see each other, we just stand, apart, for some time. I can’t find the right words; I have dreamt of this moment for so long. And whilst his lips don’t smile, his eyes dance as we scan one another’s faces and bodies, almost unable to believe that we are seeing one another in flesh and bone. He looks different, somehow both older and younger at the same time but achingly familiar. And when, eventually, he draws me into his arms and I sob quietly into his chest, I vow to myself that we shall never be separated again.

L
ittle by little
, Henry and I fill one another in on this missing section from one another’s lives. I tell him of the loss of Father, showing him Pablo’s pictures which come closer to revealing his character than any words are able; I introduce him to each of my extended family members, never letting go of his hand for fear I may lose him again, and we take long walks through Granada. And Henry tells me of the repatriation fee he was forced to pay upon his return to England for enlisting in a foreign army; of the depth of his parents’ despair upon learning of Stan’s death; and the resignation of his comrades whom he fought alongside in Spain at being called up to fight another war they had all tried to avert.

Abuela Aurelia behaves with Henry in a similar way she did with Solomon, María’s husband. She teases him and laughs at and with him, often turning to me mid-cackle and exclaiming ‘Where did you get this
chaboró
from?’ I am always happy to see Abuela Aurelia laugh, because I know how selfless she has been over the years; each and every action and movement is for the benefit of another. And she is barely recognisable as the person who came to Carmen de las Estrellas to ask for help; she is a thin, old woman now who could even fit into
my clothes. But she also seems to have shrunk in height, so that whatever she wears trails along the ground. Looking at her now, there is barely a physical trace of
gitana
about her whereas Mar’s gypsy roots are stamped indelibly upon her features, no matter what she wears.

Despite all this, Abuela Aurelia’s spirit remains unchanged. She is a rock – for me, for my mother, for Mar, for each and every one of us and we need her as much as we need the air to breathe. One day she asks Henry and I to take her for a walk up to Plaza de San Nicolas as she would like to see the mountains. I am about to say that there is a wonderful view from our own garden but Henry catches my eye and I think better of it. Besides, it is a beautiful day, clear and crisp, and Abuela Aurelia now rarely leaves the house.

We walk on either side of her and it occurs to me that I have no idea what age my formidable old friend is. She, like her daughter and grandchildren, has never celebrated a birthday but now, walking alongside her at painstakingly slow speed, I realise that she must be in her eighties at least.

There are just a handful of boys in the plaza playing marbles with skinny legs and too-short shorts, all of whom completely ignore our presence. Abuela Aurelia is breathing heavily and she clutches onto Henry’s arms as he leads her towards a seat.

‘You must sit down, Aurelia,’ Henry says. ‘There’s a good view of the mountains from here.’

‘Ay,
chaboró
,
I don’t know what has happened to my strength,’ she wheezes as she allows herself to be lowered onto the bench. We sit either side of her and she takes my hand in hers.

‘Look at that view,’ she pants, motioning with her chin across the valley. ‘Who could imagine that
Dios
would give us such a beautiful world, only for us to destroy it and each other.
Tssk.
’ She shakes her head and pats my hand. Henry and I stare at the view. I haven’t been up here for some time, and though we can see the sierras from our garden, the plaza is higher and gives us a wider vista of the brown-slated roofs, cloud-white houses and the Alhambra Palace beneath a wide arc of blue sky. It is breathtaking.

‘I wanted to come up here,’ Abuela Aurelia says, ‘because it is the last time I shall leave the house.’

I frown and tighten her hand in mine as I stare at her. ‘
Como
—’

She holds up a hand to silence me. ‘We don’t like talking about death, us humans, do we? After all this time and still, we have no idea how to talk about it. Even if it has surrounded us these past years.’

The small group of boys cheer from the other side of the plaza and we all look at them.

‘Are you feeling unwell, Abuela?’ I say, my heart pounding as I turn back to face her.

‘
No
.’ She shakes her head. ‘But there are some things I know. I don’t know why I know them, but I do. And I know that my time is soon up and…’ she pauses and turns to face Henry, grasping his chin between her thumb and forefinger and shaking it ‘…I’m glad I don’t have to look after you any more little one, because you have this
guapo
to care for you. Your mother on the other hand…’ She breaks off and sighs. ‘I know you will take care of her. Now, let us sit and enjoy the view a little longer and then I want to go home. I’m tired.’

I lean back into the bench, a myriad of emotions crowding at my chest. She can’t die, it isn’t possible. She’s always been here and Mother needs her.
I
need her. I have never doubted anything that Abuela Aurelia has said. Every word she speaks with such deliberate force and truth and as I’ve grown up she’s been like a compass for me, just a few words from her pointing me in the right direction.

My thoughts are interrupted by two of the young boys running up to us. One pushes the other forward, encouraging him to say something.