dress was selling a handful in a twist of paper to a little boy, who was carefully counting out the centimes as he handed them over.
Amy stopped to watch and Luis asked, ‘You would like?’
‘I would love.’
He spoke rapidly in Spanish and the old woman twisted a paper cone for Amy too, scooping one or two of each variety into it. Luis paid her and they walked on, sharing the sweets between them. They were almondy, delicious.
‘If you would like,’ Luis said with sudden gravity, ‘we could visit my family.’
‘Yes, please,’ Amy said.
One street further on they came to a row of houses so steeply perched that they looked as if they were about to topple over. A little girl was sitting on the step of the end house, playing with a stick and four stones. When she saw Luis she jumped up and ran down to him, calling out in Spanish.
‘This is my smallest sister, Isabella.’
Isabella had tight black ringlets and the same eyes as Luis.
‘You have the very same name as my sister,’ Amy told her. Isabella took her hand and pulled her towards the house.
‘Come in.’
Amy followed Luis up the steps and in through the door. The small room was square and windowless. It was cool beyond the shaft of light that fell in through the doorway. When her eyes got used to the dimness, Amy saw that the room seemed full of people. There was an old man with an immense, drooping white moustache, and an equally old woman with a black headdress pulled tight over her head. There was a square-built, strong woman who must be Luis’s mother, and children of all sizes. Luis drew Amy forward. My friend, she heard him saying proudly, over and over again.
Do they all live here? Amy wondered. Where do they sleep? Through the opposite door she could just make out the 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,
