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.
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