Tell the Moon to Come Out Read online

  Now he was through the village and the road before him was empty. In the east the sky was lightening rapidly.

  He must have been walking for an hour when he heard an engine, but before he could find shelter a van had come around the corner and was pulling up.

  ‘Want a lift, lad?’ asked the driver. ‘I could take you fifty kilometres or so down the road. I’ve a delivery to make.’

  Nick hesitated. It would be a good lift, the offer was tempting, and his feet ached from yesterday’s long walk.

  ‘You were at Vicente’s last night, weren’t you? I live across the street from him. Don’t worry. Any friend of Vicente’s is a friend of mine. We sing the same songs.’ The man leant across and opened the passenger door. ‘Come on, lad, get in!’

  ‘But the Civil Guard – I don’t have any papers. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘They’ll not be out on the side-roads I take. Not this early.’

  Nick went round to the passenger side. If the man was a friend of Vicente’s he must be safe. But was he a friend? He still hesitated.

  ‘I think I must smell a bit,’ he said.

  ‘Goat. I’m used to the pong. Relax. Toss your stuff in the back and get in.’

  Nick preferred to keep his knapsack and bedroll on his knee, in case he’d have to fling open the door and make a run for it. The man wanted to talk.

  ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘Where are you from, then? I guess you do know that!’

  Nick felt he couldn’t say Scotland for that would raise too many other questions. ‘Nerja,’ he said. It was his grandparents’ village and where his father might have gone if he’d managed to escape.

  ‘Nerja? Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s a small fishing village on the Mediterranean.’

  ‘You’re a long way from home, then.’

  The man chatted on, telling him about his own family, about his daughter who had married a man from Madrid who, in his opinion, was a good-for-nothing, and his son who was still at school and mad about football, like every other boy in his class.

  ‘You going to be a fisherman yourself?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘It’s a poor living for most of them, from what I hear.’

  It was why his parents, after they’d married, had left Spain and come to Scotland, where his father had got a job working on an estate in the Highlands as an under-keeper. By the time he’d left to go to the war he’d become head-keeper. He enjoyed being out of doors. He had loved his job but he had lost it now and might never get it back. Also, it was said that there might well be war with Germany and, if so, men of his father’s age would probably be conscripted. During the Civil War here in Spain, Germany and Italy had supported Franco; they had sent aeroplanes, weapons and ammunition and given the Nationalists a big advantage.

  They were travelling over bumpy, single-track roads, riddled with potholes. Nick began to think that the driver himself had a reason to avoid the Civil Guard. He could be operating on the black market. They rejoined the main road, which was only slightly less pitted, and shortly afterwards, on reaching the outskirts of a town, pulled up.

  ‘I’ll let you out here, lad. I’m going on in. I have a bit of business to see to.’

  Nick thanked the man, feeling guilty that he’d doubted him in the beginning. He waved and watched until the van disappeared from his sight. He felt lonely when it had gone but cheered up when he calculated that he must have only another ten kilometres or so to go to reach Julio. About six miles.

  He skirted the town and was on the open road again. As usual he kept close to the edge so that he could take cover if he heard a vehicle. Only one or two passed. He reached Julio’s farm in just over two hours. Normally he should have been able to walk that distance in less, but the sun was hot, his hand hurt, and he was feeling a little dizzy, though he had been doing his best to ignore it.

  He saw the house from some distance off, sitting in the middle of a plain, surrounded by a fan of oak trees. It was stone-built, two-storeyed, bigger than the average farmhouse, with three red-roofed outbuildings forming an L shape alongside it. The layout had been described to him in detail. In a large field to the side of the house wheat was growing and in the one at the back a few sheep and goats grazed. Julio looked a more prosperous farmer than most Nick had seen. Of course, he was called ‘The Fixer’, wasn’t he? Nick quickened his step.

  The man standing at the edge of the wheat field tallied with Vicente’s description. Medium height, balding, heavy eyebrows, broad in the chest, short in the legs. He looked up as Nick approached.

  ‘I’m looking for Julio,’ said Nick. He hated this moment of addressing people, having to ask favours.

  ‘Julio who?’

  No surnames had been given to Nick, only nicknames, or names used as codes. He could hardly say Julio the Fixer!

  ‘I don’t know. Just that he is a friend of Vicente’s and Francisco the pig man.’

  The man’s face changed then and he said brusquely, ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘Your name is not Julio?’ persisted Nick, feeling desperate. He had set a great deal of store on Julio the Fixer, recommended to him by three people in all. ‘Jean-Luc the Frenchman said he knew you too.’

  ‘I told you – I don’t know any of them.’ The man took a step closer to Nick. ‘So, what do they call you?’

  ‘Nicolás,’ he answered without giving it any thought, adding, ‘I’m the son of Sebastián Torres,’ hoping that might do the trick. He badly needed help. He needed papers and antiseptic cream and, if possible, a painkiller for his hand.

  ‘Look, boy, I’m busy. And you’re trespassing.’

  With that, the man turned and went striding off across the field towards the house.

  Five

  Dejected, Nick returned to the road and sat down on the verge. He suspected that the man was Julio, for he had not denied it, and he felt sure that all the names he had mentioned, including his father’s, had meant something to him. But the message the man had transmitted was loud and clear: he did not want to be involved, not any more.

  Nick forced himself up on to his feet. As he was passing the house he glanced across and saw a woman’s face at the window. She was watching him. And he thought he saw a shadow behind her. He looked away quickly. Perhaps they’d had enough trouble during the war and wanted to be left alone. He could understand that. Why should they put themselves in danger for someone they had never seen before? Or perhaps they’d moved sides to support the Nationalists instead of the defeated Republicans. That was an alarming thought and one that made him hurry along faster. Francisco had said that some people had shifted once they’d seen which way the wind was blowing. It was not uncommon in wars. They wanted to save their skins.

  Nick wondered if he were becoming overly suspicious, though the need to be sceptical had been dinned into him. Don’t trust anyone until it has been demonstrated to you that he – or she – is trustworthy. He realized that he had not been careful enough when talking to Julio. He had blurted out his own name, and his father’s name. His father might be on a blacklist, a known Republican. Feeling even more alarmed, he veered off to the right on a narrow track once he’d passed the farm, cut through a small wood and scrambled to the top of a hillock which would give him a good viewpoint.

  Julio was standing at his gate but he was not looking in his direction, he seemed to be watching the traffic. He might be waiting for an expected visitor to arrive. He might be doing anything, but until Nick found out what it was he would wait. Always wait if you’re not sure. Play safe. Hang back.

  A low-slung van with a smoking exhaust went past, followed by a horse and cart, and shortly afterwards came a man on a bicycle, going in the opposite direction. Then Julio stepped out into the road and held up his hand. He was flagging down a car. Nick saw that the driver and th
e front-seat passenger were wearing the distinctive tricorn hats of the Civil Guard.

  He wasted no time. He slid down the bank on the side facing away from the house and broke into a lumbering run, conscious of a lack of energy. His legs felt leaden. When he’d gone a short distance he flattened himself on the ground behind a thorn bush and listened. Hearing voices, he risked a quick look. The two guards were standing on top of the hillock he had just left and they were scanning the landscape. Nick pulled his head back down and for what seemed like a long time lay watching a line of ants moving in formation across his forearm, up one side and down the other. He felt hypnotized by the tiny insects.

  When he did blink and manage to look up, the coast seemed clear, but back on his feet he felt light-headed again. It must be the sun, he decided, though he was wearing the canvas hat that Jean-Luc had made him pack. He had warned him to be careful not to get heat-stroke: You may not be used to the fierceness of our sun, coming from a cold country in the north. He wished Jean-Luc was with him now. He might know what to do, which way to go. His injured hand, too, was throbbing. He forced himself yet again to move on.

  The terrain was open but hilly and covered with rock and scrub. The stunted trees looked as if they suffered much from the north-east wind. Today there was not even the suggestion of a breeze. The air was absolutely still. He tramped over ground that smelt of rosemary and thyme, reminding him of his mother’s garden. The thought of it made him feel homesick for the glen, for the familiarity of it, the security of it. Here, he was sure of nothing, neither the terrain nor what lay ahead. This was not land that could ever be cultivated; at most, it might provide grazing for goats and, indeed, after he had gone a little way, he saw a goatherd with his flock moving across one of the tracks. He lay low until the man and his long thin line of brown beasts had gone over the hill.

  Once he had lain down, Nick felt disinclined to move again. He needed a rest, and, more than anything else, liquid to ease his throat. His mouth, his gullet, felt parched. He drank deeply from his water-bottle and could have drunk more but dared not. A little way back he had passed a dried-up river, its bed covered with sludge. He remembered, from earlier visits to Spain in high summer, the dry river beds, in contrast to the fast-flowing spate rivers of his native Inverness-shire, the water amber-coloured from the peaty soil, bubbling over smooth grey stones. How wonderful it would be to plunge, head first, into such a river! At this moment there was nothing he wanted more in the whole wide world.

  For a while he lay on his back with his eyes closed against the light trying to hold the picture of such a river, the Spey, in his mind. But he could not do it. The pulsing of his right hand had built up to such a pitch that it was drowning out everything else. He struggled back up on to his feet and gazed around, wondering in which direction he should go. Vaguely south, following the sun, except that it would not be possible to move in a straight line. Spain was too mountainous for that.

  Whatever he did he must not allow himself to get lost in among the mountains, the sierras. He knew all about people getting lost in the Scottish Highlands. His father had been part of a mountain-rescue team and had often been called out on searches on wild, snow-filled winter nights. He had never hesitated to go: that was his nature. This was summer, and there would be no snow, and these hills were not as high as the lofty sierras of southern Spain which Nick would come to later, but they were part of a wilderness, covering hundreds, perhaps thousands of square miles. The further he travelled the more he was becoming aware of the immensity of this country. He had no map, no compass, no idea where he was. His head was in a whirl and he felt disorientated.

  But it was the torrid, unyielding heat that he was finding so difficult. The maimed trees offered little in the way of shade. He could have heat-stroke, for all he knew. He was conscious that he was walking in an uneven, zigzag way. The sun was climbing higher and higher in the sky. He longed for a breeze, the feel of something cool on his cheeks. He licked his lips. They were rough and bone dry, like the skin of a tortoise he had once had. He unscrewed the cap of his water-bottle, put the mouth of it against his mouth, letting it rest there. Should he drink or not? Just a little, he told himself, not too much. Need to save some for later. Water is scarce. Water is essential. Without water one cannot survive. Don’t need to be told that.

  He tipped the bottle, letting a little of the liquid trickle down his throat. How good that felt. He tilted the bottle again. Just a little more, not too much. What a relief it was to feel his thirst slaked even for a moment. Another drop would not matter, surely could not matter. He drank, until the bottle ran dry. And when it did he kept tipping it back, again and again, hoping against hope that there would be another drop to come sliding down into his hot, arid mouth.

  He staggered when he started to walk again. But he must keep going, he must reach a road and a village or a house and find water. Surely someone would give him a cup of water. He would give anything for a cup of water, anything at all.

  He did not see the goatherd until the man was almost upon him.

  ‘Are you all right, lad?’

  Nick blinked. The man looked as if he had a double outline. The image was fuzzy and would not stay still.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the goatherd asked again.

  ‘Water,’ gasped Nick.

  ‘Sit down. Here! Now drink!’

  Nick felt the liquid on his lips and opened his mouth to receive it. He gulped and drank and, like a plant after watering, began to revive a little. He opened his eyes and stared into the face of the bearded man.

  ‘Have I drunk all your water?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s a spring close by.’

  ‘A spring?’ It seemed like a miracle that there could be water at hand.

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  The goatherd helped him on to his feet and led him through a small copse to some rocks. Out of a crack between two rocks trickled pure clear water. Nick put his mouth underneath and held it there until he started to choke, then he filled his water-bottle until it was brimming over. He grasped the man’s hand and spluttered out his thanks.

  ‘You’ve saved my life.’

  ‘You don’t look too good, lad.’

  ‘I’ll be fine now, thank you.’

  Goat bells were tinkling somewhere. Their keeper had to go and round up his charges. Before he went he said, ‘If you want to get out of the sun for a bit, there’s a little cave in the rocks just up there.’

  It seemed like a second miracle: a hideaway out of the sun. Nick found it and crawled gratefully inside. He was, in fact, feeling absolutely rotten, worse than he could ever remember feeling at any other time in his life. His right hand was on fire and his head was swimming. Shortly afterwards, he lost consciousness.

  Six

  When Nick came round, he saw, as if through a swirl of mist, a face bending over him. He struggled to sit up, and a hand helped him.

  ‘You’re ill,’ said a voice.

  He blinked and the owner of the voice came into focus. A girl with dark, wide-spaced eyes and long black hair was frowning at him. She wore a black dress unbroken by any colour and he wondered in a vague sort of way if she could be in mourning. Round her neck she wore a small silver crucifix on a thin chain. He wondered, too, if she was real, or merely a mirage.

  ‘I hurt my hand,’ he said.

  ‘Let me see.’

  He let out a yell when she touched it.

  ‘Sorry! Your hand’s in a dreadful state.’ She sounded horrified. ‘And you look as if you have a fever.’

  ‘I do,’ he said weakly.

  ‘I think you’ve got blood-poisoning.’

  He thought so, too, had thought it at intervals, each time he had surfaced from his hallucinations.

  ‘We’ll have to get you to the doctor’s.’

  ‘Is there one?’

  ‘In the village.’

  Could there be a village somewhere in this wilderness? When he was hallucinating he had though
t at times that he was on an ice-capped mountain trying to catch his breath; at others, that he was wandering, bare-footed, over a red-hot scorching desert.

  ‘It’s about twenty minutes’ walk. Do you think you can make it?’

  Twenty minutes’ walk. So he had not been very far from civilization all day.

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  Nick took a drink first from his bottle, then braced himself to make the effort. His head swam. The girl put a hand under each of his armpits and more or less hauled him up on to his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘you can lean on me. I’m strong.’

  He needed to lean on her, he would have slipped to the ground otherwise. They were in a valley, a fairly flat one with open views and a poplar-fringed river that had virtually dried up. The first part of the going was over stony, untilled ground, where nothing but coarse grass grew, apart from brambles and the odd thorn tree. A small grove of almond trees flourished on a higher slope, and here and there a chestnut or a walnut tree. The girl drew his attention to them, in an effort perhaps to divert him from his pain.

  After they’d gone a short distance, she stopped to point out a spire in the distance. ‘See that church and those roofs? That’s our village. It’s not far.’

  It was only a blur before Nick’s eyes. He had to trust her to take him there.

  They dropped height a little and came to a large field where a few beasts grazed, half a dozen cows and sheep, a number of donkeys and one or two mules. After that the land was divided into numerous small allotments. Most villagers had one, she told him, for growing vegetables for the table, not for sale. They took a detour round their perimeter and saw an old man bent double in the middle of his plot.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said the girl encouragingly.

  The doctor lived at the northern end of the village, in a detached house with a large garden, set apart from the rest, which meant that they did not have to pass any other houses.