shape of a big bed covered with a bright blanket.
The little house was scrupulously clean, but almost completely bare. The only ornament was a dim, oily picture of the Holy Family with a little light burning in front of it. Amy thought fleetingly of the suite at the Hotel du Palais with its soft cushions and pretty covers.
She shook hands gravely with each member of the family and felt them touching her gloves gingerly, looking at her pleated dress and her white shoes and stockings.
The señorita was asked if she would take a refreshing drink, and they gave her a coloured glass full of a very sweet, reddish liquid that she drank with difficulty while they watched her.
When it was gone, Luis stood up and said that now he must see his friend back to the safety of the hotel. At once they all stood up, shaking hands once more and smiling now. They ushered her the few feet to the door and watched as she walked down the hill with Luis. At the corner Amy turned back and waved.
When they were finally out of sight, Luis said, ‘Thank you. You did us a great honour.’
That made Amy angry. ‘Don’t say that. I didn’t do anything of the sort. They did me the honour, taking me in, didn’t they? Thank you for letting me meet them. I wish we could have talked to each other. Perhaps next time I will know some Spanish.’
Luis looked at her, drawing his eyebrows together.
‘I like you,’ he said.
‘I like you, too.’ She was silent for a moment and then she said, very tentatively, ‘Your family, are they … do they have what they need?’
He was still looking at her, and she saw that he was amused now. He knew exactly what she was trying to say.
‘If you mean much money, no, none. Not like the people you know. But my father has good job, and I have good job. We are lucky ones.’
Not like the people you know. If you are lucky, Luis, what am I? Amy felt her face going red, hot all the way up into her hair.
They had almost reached the sea front again. Luis took her arm and guided her into a little blind alleyway.
‘I will come no further,’ he said.
‘No. I just wanted to say goodbye, you know. Properly, not like yesterday at the table.’
‘Of course. I understand that.’
Luis came close to her. She looked up and saw his smile, and then he kissed her, a proper kiss. She was still thinking a proper kiss, and how soft his mouth was against hers, when it was over.
‘Perhaps you will come back.’
‘I hope so. I’ll come one day, somehow. Goodbye, Luis.’
‘Goodbye, Amy.’
She walked out of the alley, to the end of the street, and back to the white walk outside Fendi’s. She felt as if she was flying, with wings on her heels. Not only had she made a real friend, but he had kissed her. She wasn’t a little girl any more.
Biarritz, I love you.
It would be thirteen years before she saw it again.
That night, in the Paris sleeper, Amy whispered to Isabel in the bunk below, ‘Are you asleep, Bel?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know, I went up into the town this morning, while you were packing.’
‘I wondered where you’d slipped off to. What were you doing?’
‘I met Luis.’
There was a moment of startled silence. Amy smiled in the darkness.
‘What happened?’ Isabel was intrigued, and envious of the adventure.
‘Oh, he took me home to meet his family. He’s got about a dozen brothers and sisters. The smallest is a little girl called Isabella. Then he walked me back down to the sea front, and he kissed me.’
‘Where?’
‘On the lips, of course.’
Isabel choked with laughter. ‘Oh, of course. Actually I meant where was it, in front of Fendi’s with everyone looking on over their ices?’
‘No. In an alleyway.’
‘Amy, you are priceless. Kissing waiters in alleyways. I’m two whole years older than you, and no one’s ever kissed me.’
‘I expect your turn will come,’ Amy said airily.
When they stopped laughing Isabel said, ‘So, what was it like?’
‘Well, to tell you the truth it was so quick that I hardly realized it was happening.’
‘Mmm.’
They lay in silence for a while, listening to the clickety-clack of the train. Amy liked to think of all the towns and villages they were sweeping past, full of darkened houses and sleeping families.
‘Amy, do you think we’ll always tell each other things?’
‘I hope so. Sisters are closer than friends, aren’t they? I can’t imagine telling Violet Trent about it, for example.’
‘I suppose we should be grateful for that. Good night, little sister.’
‘Not so little, Isabel dear. Good night.’
Even to Isabel, Amy had not mentioned the smallness and bareness of Luis’s home, so full of so many people, or the way he had said We are lucky ones. That was something she wanted to think about for herself.
*
Back at the house in London, Bethan’s weekly letter from her mother was waiting for her. Once the trunks had been brought safely in, the clamour of arrival had died down, and Lady Lovell had gone to her room to rest, Bethan took the letter out of her apron pocket and went upstairs to her room at the top of the house to read it.
The letters were a lifeline, stretching between the valleys and her life in service, holding her to the tight, united community even though she could only spend her two weeks’ holiday a year as a real part of it.
They have had the Inquiry, such as it was. The Mines Inspector found negligence, and Peris and Cruickshank were prosecuted all right. The magistrates fined them the Great Sum of £5.10s. Half-a-crown a man’s life, they’re saying here. There’s terrible feeling about it, but the pit’s still closed and there’s talk that Peris won’t ever open it no more because it costs him less just to run seams in other pits. Those who are in work like your dad are all with them that aren’t but it’s hard to think of another strike coming. Nick Penry from Glasdir Terrace and them are all behind it. Your dad says they’re right, but I can’t see further than no money coming in for weeks on end, myself. Nick Penry’s marrying that Mari Powell that came up from Tonypandy, all in a hurry it seems to me. I don’t doubt I’ll be called up there at the end of six months or so.
Bethan
