except that across a narrow street, the tall flat-iron building of the Baltic Fleet intervened. This public house was a popular meeting place, almost a club, to the Basque community, and emigrants often took their ease there, too. My mother told me that she sometimes went for a drink there with my father, and that she used to park me, sound asleep in my pram, by its ample walls, while she went inside. No wonder it was one of my favourite pubs when I grew up!
As I grew a little bigger, my greatest ambition became to climb into the toast-rack horse-bus, with its little canopy over the rear seats, and have a ride with the emigrants down to the big ship which took them over the ocean to the New World. On the bus’s side was the name of a steamship company, and on a grubby white board at the front was the name of the ship on which the emigrants were booked. The bus was drawn by two patient, blinkered work horses, heads hanging and untidy short manes blowing in the sea wind, as they waited for the harassed, worried emigrants to be loaded.
‘Grandpa! Let me go down to the dock – please, Grandpa. I’m five now. I’m big enough,’ I pleaded, one sunny September day in 1913.
He stood on the pavement, between our front door and the horse-bus, in his hand a piece of board with innumerable sheets of paper pinned to it, his peaked cap pushed to the back of his head, while he supervised the people climbing on to the bus. I clutched at his long, serge-covered legs, and peered up at him to catch his eye.
He looked down at me impatiently. He was fond of me, I knew, but at that moment I was a nuisance, as round him swirled an anxious group of heavily laden men, women and children, all of them desperately dependent upon him.
‘Manuel Echaniz! The bus is too full,’ he responded with exasperation. ‘Go and see your mother in the kitchen.’ As I reluctantly let go of his leg, his voice rose to a shriek. ‘Mind out! You’re too close to the wheels. Get out of the way, boy.’
My face fell. I wanted to cry. At five, I felt I was grown-up enough to be able to keep out of the way of wheels and horses’ feet. But when Grandpa spoke like that, everyone obeyed, even Mother and Father. Sullenly and with difficulty, I turned away and pushed myself between long, trousered legs and flowing black skirts issuing from the house, an incredible stream of people. A white-faced little girl, with whom I had played for the past week, said shyly, ‘Goodbye, Manuel,’ as I shoved by her. I did not reply, as I fought my way kitchenwards. Through my ill humour, I smelled the emigrants’ underlying fear, and it made me uneasy, as baskets, bundles tied in old shawls, and the bare feet of small children carried in their parents’ arms brushed or bumped my head.
When I was a little older, I was able to visualize more accurately the discomforts of the long voyage in steerage still faced by our visitors, and could understand their dread. Meanwhile, infected by their fear, I almost ran down the deserted back part of the passageway leading to the kitchen and safety, while Grandpa, his pencil tucked behind his ear, continued to cope with the travellers.
Grandpa had a habit of rubbing his short beard when hard-pressed by nervous questions from his charges. Already tired from the journey from Bilbao, and distressed at leaving home, however poverty-stricken, the emigrants seemed to find great comfort and reassurance from the self-confident old man. Now, at the time of parting from us, some of the women were invariably near to tears; not only did they have yet to face the long voyage to New York, but also a long train journey to the West, with children and husbands to keep fed and happy. In some cases, they had to sustain a pregnancy and, at the end, a confinement amid strangers.
On the other hand, there was always a group of young, single men, excited, strung-up and sometimes drunk, for Grandpa to control; on each he pinned a numbered identity disc, while they laughed and joked, and talked of making a fortune in their new land. Not for ever would they tend other people’s sheep in Nevada, they assured each other.
In the big, stone-floored kitchen-living-room, with its high ceiling covered with a century of soot, my comfortable, plump mother took no notice of my entry; she was holding her youngest brother, Uncle Leo Barinèta, tightly to her and was weeping bitterly.
Frightened, and not a little jealous, I paused in the doorway.
Uncle Leo was saying, ‘It’s not for ever, Rosita. I’ll come back.’ His voice rose with false cheerfulness. ‘Come on. At worst, a seaman can work his way home again – even from Nevada! Don’t cry, Rosita.’
Mother leaned back in his arms, to look up at his face. ‘You’ve got a home with us,’ she wailed. ‘You can go on sailing out of Liverpool. Why move? Nevada sounds a godforsaken place.’
‘Tush, Rosita. I want to better myself. There’s land there, almost for the asking.’ He dropped his arms to his sides in a hopeless gesture, realizing that land meant nothing to her.
She drew away from him, and wiped her tears on the corner of her white apron. ‘Mother’s broken-hearted,’ she reproached him.
I watched wide-eyed. Uncle Leo was an essential part of my small world; it was frightening that he should be about to vanish like all the other emigrants. People poured in and out of our house, but the family members always came home; as seamen, Uncle Leo and Father, even Uncle Agustin, reappeared regularly, armed with presents for small boys. But Mother’s tears told me that this departure was very different.
‘Mam!’ I cried in a strangled, scared voice, and ran to her.
Mechanically, she picked me up and held me against her shoulder. I felt her slump slightly, and turned my face towards hers. Her pretty, little mouth was drooping, her whole expression woebegone. She was gazing at Uncle Leo as if she could never take her eyes off him. ‘I’ll miss you so much,’ she whimpered. ‘And Mother’s nearly out of her mind, up there on the bed.’
Uncle Leo swallowed, and I thought he was going to cry; it was a new and scary idea to me that a young man could cry. He controlled himself, however, and, instead, he put his arms round both of us together. He kissed my mother’s cheek and then I felt his lips on the back of my own head. He loosed his hold on us, and said, ‘I know. Mam’s been upset about it for weeks. Comfort her, Rosita – I feel bad about it. But I’ll be back, never fear.’
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
