And he needed to slip across, for there were things to be resolved. Chantale was half Arab, half French. This had been awkward for her in Morocco because she had been neither fish nor fowl. The French had eyed her askance, conscious all the time of what some of them referred to as the touch of the tar-brush. The Arabs had mistrusted her because they had never known to which side she would fall when the chips were down. Chantale herself had not been sure, either; which was why she had been tempted by Seymour’s argument, at the end of a previous mission in Tangier, that the thing to do was put both sides behind her and become something else: British, for instance. With him.
Tempted, but there had been other things to consider. Her mother, for instance; definitely Arab and definitely Moroccan. Could she be abandoned? Her mother, strong-willed, had said yes. Chantale was not so sure. And then, what about all that emotional investment she had made in the Nationalist hopes she had had for a new, young country independent of foreign domination? Or was that all a waste of time, anyway, now that the French had taken over and should she make the safer investment with the people currently on top, the French occupying power? All this had been precipitated a year ago when Seymour had been sent to Morocco on an assignment; and she was still dangling.
Seymour was dangling, too. He wanted, more than anything in the world, he told himself, to be with her. But with her in London’s grimy East End? Where the sun she was used to never penetrated through the pea-soup fog? Where you never quite shook off the chill of the docks? Was it fair to ask her?
Never mind the fairness, he had come to the conclusion; just ask her. But, in a way, he had not been sorry at her uncertainty. It reflected his own.
So they had both jumped at the chance when he had been given the assignment in Spain. It was neutral ground and maybe that would help them to sort things out. For Seymour, who always thought the glass was half full, it was well on the way to England. For Chantale, in whose experience the glass was nearly always half empty, it was a tentative step from which she could easily retreat.
The looseness of the assignment favoured them. It would give Seymour a chance to compose his own programme; and surely that programme could be tweaked to enable him to slip across the Straits to see her?
At the last moment, though, it had been Chantale who had decided to slip; and she would be arriving the day after Seymour.
And what he was thinking now, as he waited at the bottom end, the docks end, of Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s great, humming, tree-lined boulevard, was that Chantale would feel at home here. This part of Barcelona, the part nearest the docks, was like an Arab town. There were Arabs in long galabeahs lounging at street corners, women in dark veils and burkas keeping to the walls as they walked down the street with their baskets. In the open doorways of the houses men were sitting smoking bubble pipes, the bowls bubbling on the ground beside them. Further along the street was a little market and at the stalls, loaded with giant tomatoes, bursting peppers and bulging aubergines, he could hear people speaking, and what they were speaking was not Spanish but Arabic.
In front of him was a small church, the church Hattersley had spoken about. It had white walls, dazzlingly white in the bright sunshine, but blackened doors. He went across to it and looked in.
And reeled back. The porch was full of arms and legs!
Arms and legs? He looked again and saw now that they were plaster, like the two statues standing beside the door.
And there were also plaster casts, used surgical ones, neatly cut off and obviously taken from people’s limbs when they had served their purpose. Some had come from children and had little pictures drawn on them.
He realized now what they were. They were votive offerings, thanksgivings for injuries received and now cured. He had seen some once in a Catholic church in the East End. They had seemed to him at first grotesque but then rather moving.
In among the casts were stained bandages. Bloodstained bandages. He was looking at them when a voice beside him said:
‘Semana Tragica. The Tragic Week.’
It was an elderly man.
‘Tragic Week?’ said Seymour. ‘But that was — well, two years ago.’
‘The memories are still here,’ the man said. ‘Although sometimes not the people.’
‘Not the people, no.’
‘You are, perhaps, remembering someone?’
‘No. At least — well, yes, I suppose. There was an Englishman. His name was Lockhart.’
The elderly man looked at him sharply.
‘I knew Lockhart,’ he said. ‘But he didn’t die here.’
‘No. He died in prison.’
‘You know this, then?’
‘Yes. But not much more. I would like to know more.’
The man was silent. He seemed to be thinking. Then he made up his mind.
‘A coffee, perhaps!’
There was a cafe nearby and they went in. The man ordered two coffees but then didn’t seem in any hurry to begin. He looked at Seymour once or twice as if considering.
‘You speak Spanish well,’ he said, ‘but you are not Spanish.’
‘I’m British.’
‘Ah, British. Like Lockhart.’
‘That’s right.’
The man nodded, as if satisfied.
‘It is as well to establish these things,’ he said, ‘before you talk. They are always sending round informers.’
He looked round the cafe.
‘We shall be all right here,’ he said. ‘This is a Catalan cafe.’
And now Seymour understood. He had been listening with half an ear to the conversation in the cafe and had been puzzled. More than puzzled: disconcerted. He had thought he understood Spanish pretty well, but he had found it oddly difficult to follow the conversation in the cafe. It seemed Spanish and it was easy to make out the sense of it. But it was not Spanish. There were different words and different inflexions.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I’ve got it. Catalan is new to me. But I can see now-’
The man put his hand on Seymour’s arm.
‘One moment, Senor. I will let them know you’re English.’
He went over to the counter and said something to the man at the till.
Then he came back.
‘It’s all right now,’ he said. ‘They can relax.’
He sipped his coffee and put the cup down.
‘You speak Spanish very well,’ he said, ‘but Spanish is not the thing to speak here.’
Seymour nodded.
‘Thank you for telling them,’ he said. ‘And for telling me.’
He sipped his coffee.
‘There are people here who knew Lockhart.’
‘Can I talk to them?’
‘You had better talk to Dolores.’
He signalled with his hand and a waitress came over.
‘Dolores, this is a friend of mine. He would like to talk to you.’
‘Senor?’
‘I am an Englishman and I would like to talk to you about an Englishman. His name is Lockhart.’
‘I knew Lockhart,’ she said.
‘Well?’
‘Too well. He was my husband.’
‘Dolores!’ said the elderly man reprovingly.
‘Well, almost. That’s what he used to say. As good as. He always used to stay with me when he came to Barcelona. And he used to say that one day he would take me back with him.’
‘To Gibraltar?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Dolores,’ protested the elderly man, ‘he had a wife already.’
‘I know, but there would have been room for another. I wouldn’t have made any fuss. We could have managed.’
‘Dolores, he was spinning you along.’
‘Don’t all men do that?’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I didn’t mind. It was nice to think of him in that way. That’s the way he thought of me, too. As his wife. Almost.’
‘He was staying with Dolores that night,’ said the elderly man.