Tell the Moon to Come Out Read online

  The outline of the village wavered in the heat. He wished he had binoculars. He might then be able to see Isabel walking down the street, her head held high. He had noticed that she walked with a straight back. A hawk passed overhead, flying low. He watched as it suddenly plummeted earthwards and with deadly precision scooped up an animal – a small rabbit, by the looks of it. There had been a brief squawk when its neck had been seized by the vice-like talons. Then up into the bright air went the bird again, its soft prey dangling from its sharp beak.

  Nick did not stay long on his perch, aware that he himself would be visible to anyone looking in his direction. He felt as vulnerable as the rabbit in the grass had been.

  Back inside the cave he took out the box of dressings given to him by Marina. Every action took an effort and made him sweat and when he began to unwrap the old dressing on his hand he found it had stuck to the wound. He tried to ease it off gently, bit by bit. The pain was searing and seemed to be travelling right up his arm. He gasped, bit his lip hard, tasted blood. Another little tug, and his head swam, and after that he gave up.

  He reached out for his water-bottle and drank the last remaining drops. He must refill it. Not now, though. Definitely not now. He would not be capable of getting up. He turned his eyes away from the sight of his festering right hand. Blood-poisoning, he thought. Gangrene. Some of the veterans had lost legs through gangrene.

  He wished Isabel would come. She would try to, she had said, but she had not promised. It could be difficult for her to escape, especially on a Sunday when all the family might be at home. Even her father, the sergeant, might have hung up his tricorn hat for the day.

  The hours passed slowly. Nick dozed. Waking each time he reached for the water-bottle, forgetting it was empty, eventually throwing it across the cave in disgust. His mouth was too dry for him to eat the stale bread and he had finished the tomatoes.

  He dragged himself over to the entrance of the cave and looked out. The sun had moved round to the west. She would not come now. But just as he was abandoning hope, he saw the dark outline of someone approaching. Could it be Isabel? What if it were not? He would be neither strong enough nor quick enough to duck back inside his shelter.

  Isabel came into focus.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier –’ she started to say, before breaking off to cry out, ‘What have you been doing?’ She was staring at his hand.

  ‘I tried to dress it but I didn’t feel so good.’

  ‘You can’t expect to. You will still have the poison in your system. You can expect to have fevers for a while. I’m sorry I haven’t got any brandy to give you.’ She took over. She helped him back into the cave, then she went out to wash her hands in the spring, using a small piece of precious soap she had brought with her for the purpose.

  She worked gently on his hand, removing the remaining pieces of the foul-smelling dressing, cleaning the wound, dabbing it with the antiseptic cream, which made him bite his lip, and, finally, rebinding it. Nick fell into a half-swoon much of the time but Isabel carried on, concentrating on the task. When she had finished she went back out to wash her hands again and to fill up his water-bottle. She held it to his mouth while he drank.

  ‘You’re a marvellous nurse,’ he said.

  ‘I got plenty of experience during the war. I helped Dr Fuentes when the wounded were brought in. They’re still coming, on their way back from the battle fronts. Spain’s a big country. It takes a long time to walk from one place to another, especially when you’re wounded. You know that yourself.’

  Isabel had brought him food. Green grapes, slightly tart, ripe tomatoes, and a piece of flat bread baked by herself that morning.

  ‘Eat,’ she said.

  Nick ate. It was a relief to have someone to tell him what to do. All day he had felt that his head would not allow him to decide anything. The bread was soft and the fruit moist. He had never tasted a meal as delicious as this one. When he told her so, Isabel smiled.

  She settled back against the wall near the entrance. A ray of sun was touching her face, highlighting a blotch high up on her right cheek-bone. He frowned.

  ‘Is that a bruise?’

  She touched it. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? You didn’t have it yesterday.’ He thought of the sergeant and his harsh voice. ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘Truly, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But it does! Was it your father?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Was it because you came home late?’ Nick knew that Spanish parents were stricter with their daughters than Scottish ones. His cousin Flora, who lived in Glasgow and was about his age, was allowed to go to the pictures with her boyfriend, as long as she came home by ten. No girl from a decent Spanish family would be permitted to do that.

  ‘It’s not troubling me, really it’s not.’

  ‘He’s done it before?’

  ‘Maybe. But don’t fuss. It’ll fade.’

  ‘Where did he think you were?’

  ‘He thought I’d been seeing a boy. But I didn’t tell him that I had! If he sees me speaking to a boy in the street he goes mad. He’s hot-tempered, that’s all.’

  That’s all! To Nick, it sounded far too much. He said, ‘You mustn’t stay late tonight!’

  ‘I won’t. But you must tell me something about yourself now! You know quite a lot about me but I know nothing about you.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked apprehensively.

  ‘You’re not Spanish, Nicolás, are you? I mean, you speak very well, but not –’

  ‘Perfectly?’

  ‘It’s only now and then, when I listen carefully, that I can detect an accent. Most people wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell my father, I think you know that now?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Are you Italian?’

  It might be logical for her to think so since the Italians in their support of Franco had sent troops as well as arms and aeroplanes. Italy, under the leadership of Mussolini, was a Fascist state at present, like Germany.

  ‘No, I’m Scottish. Half, at least. The other half’s Spanish.’

  ‘You’ve come from Scotland? It’s a long way.’

  ‘Quite long.’ How much could he tell her? He could hear Jean-Luc’s voice inside his head again:

  Caution, always exercise caution, even when you think you can trust someone. The less people know about you the less they can reveal, and sometimes people are made to reveal things they do not wish to. There are ways in which they can be made to talk.

  ‘Which half is Spanish?’ asked Isabel. ‘Your mother or your father?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘You’ve come looking for something, haven’t you? It’s all right, I won’t ask you any more.’ She was astute, she had possibly guessed, but she was not going to ask him to confirm her suspicion.

  She left, saying she would try to come again and this time he felt confident that she would, as long as her father did not prevent her.

  Eleven

  Isabel came next day, in the morning, bringing food and a can of milk. They had a cow, one of their most valuable possessions, she said.

  She seated herself on a fallen log. She was wearing her long black cotton dress, as usual, with the crucifix at her throat, and leather-thonged sandals on her bare brown feet. Normally Nick would not register very much what a girl was wearing, not every detail, but he was noticing everything about Isabel. He saw how she flicked her hair back over her shoulder when she talked and how white her teeth were when she smiled. Everything about her was neat, and strong. Even to have her near him made him feel stronger.

  ‘Why do you always wear black?’ he asked.

  ‘For my brother. My father insists. He says we must never forget Juan. As if I would! I don’t have to wear black to remember him. Juan would not have wanted me to.’

  ‘You must miss him?’

  ‘He was m
y best friend. We were very close. Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘I’m an only child.’

  ‘And your mother? What is she like?’

  ‘She’s got a great sense of humour. She looks on the bright side, on the whole.’ Though recently she had not been doing that so much. ‘She teaches French and Spanish. That’s how she met my father, when she came to Málaga to study.’

  ‘What age was she then?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  Isabel was interested in the story of his parents. Nick told her that his father had been working on a farm near Málaga. ‘His parents were poor. He’d had to leave school early and find work.’

  ‘That’s common. So how exactly did they meet, your mother and father?’

  ‘During Semana Santa.’ Holy Week. In those days the Easter celebrations had been spectacular in Málaga, with colourful processions thronging the streets every day. Nick supposed they would have stopped during the war but perhaps they would start up again.

  Isabel was still bent on her questioning. ‘Your mother’s parents? Did they approve?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘They thought he wasn’t good enough for her?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘But they went ahead and married?’

  ‘Not until she had finished her degree and was twenty-one. Her parents wouldn’t give their permission before.’

  ‘Did they come round?’

  ‘In the end. My father charmed them.’

  ‘He is a man with much charm?’

  ‘I would say so.’

  ‘It’s been a happy marriage for your mother and father?’

  Nick had never thought about it before, but he answered ‘Yes’ now without hesitating. His parents were devoted to each other. He did not mind Isabel’s curiosity but he hoped she would not ask any more questions. He changed the subject abruptly, asking if she had managed to get away without being seen.

  ‘I told my mother I was going to the allotment, which I was. Father was called out early, he said he’d be away all day. And Pedro is at school. He doesn’t care for it much and often doesn’t go, but today he did. He’s thirteen, and restless. He talks about the war, says he wished he had been old enough to fight. He can be stupid!’

  Now that Nick had finished eating, Isabel changed his dressing and this time he managed to stay conscious.

  ‘It’s better than last night.’ She nodded with approval. ‘I was worried about it. But I think we might be winning.’

  The ‘we’ cheered him. She was not going to abandon him, she would come again, and she did, for a short while in the late afternoon, just to check on him, she said.

  The following day, she came again, twice, and the next. He awaited her visits eagerly, watched for her coming. She tended to come around the same time. She brought food and changed his dressings. His hand was beginning to heal and his strength to build, though he could still not walk far and at night the sweats came back. She also brought him something to read. A copy of The Adventures of Don Quixote, in Spanish. ‘You can read Spanish?’

  ‘Yes. More slowly though than English.’

  ‘This is a shortened version for children. I had it at school. We can talk about it when you’ve read it.’

  They talked a great deal when they were together, about their schools and their different ways of living. Isabel’s education was over as far as her parents were concerned but Nick, when he returned to Scotland, would go back to school and then, he hoped, to university. He wanted to study marine biology. He felt fortunate compared to Isabel. He had choices ahead of him. She had few. She had told him that her father had already picked out the man he wanted her to marry. The son of the mayor. She hated him, the mayor’s son. She said he was brutish, but his family had a position in the village and her father liked that.

  ‘You can’t marry him!’ protested Nick.

  ‘My father will make me.’

  There are ways of making people talk, ways of making them do what they do not want to do.

  Nick said no more.

  The days slipped past and he felt in no hurry to leave, though he knew he would have to go soon. It could be dangerous to stay too long on the sergeant’s territory.

  He was sitting outside reading Don Quixote one afternoon when Isabel arrived.

  ‘You’re enjoying it?’ He admitted that he was and she said, ‘You are a bit like a knight-errant yourself.’

  That amused him. ‘I’m not a knight.’

  ‘Neither was Don Quixote. He just thought he was.’

  ‘I’d need a horse, though. But now the “errant” part, maybe I could qualify for that.’

  They were laughing when they became aware that they were being watched. Isabel turned her head sharply.

  ‘Pedro!’ she cried, jumping up.

  Pedro was a gangly youth, as tall as his sister. He stood beside the thorn tree which had been partially concealing him and stared openly at Nick.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Come with me, Pedro,’ said Isabel. ‘I want to talk to you.’ She took his arm.

  He went reluctantly, giving Nick a backwards look over his shoulder. They moved out of sight and earshot. Nick was perturbed. Would he have to make a run for it now that his cover was blown? Leave Isabel to the mercy of her father? They had been careless. A moment’s carelessness can cost you your life.

  He waited at the entrance of the cave. His hand was much better and the pain almost gone. He was fit enough to move on; he’d known that for a while. But he did not want to go, not just yet! He was aware that he did not want to have to say goodbye to Isabel.

  After a few minutes she came back. Her expression was serious, though she said, ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Will he tell?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d get me into trouble. I’ve always helped him when he was in trouble, helped to shield him from Father.’

  ‘But you can’t be sure? Isabel, I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘I’ve also bribed him,’ she said ruefully. ‘It may not be a very admirable thing to do but with Pedro it works.’

  ‘What have you offered him?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘My savings.’

  ‘Your savings? I can’t let you do that. I won’t let you!’

  ‘It’s only money. Pedro likes money.’

  ‘But what were you going to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  He did not believe her. Perhaps she’d been saving up so that she could escape from the village and not have to marry the mayor’s brutish son. Perhaps she’d planned to use it to try to go to college. She would love to be a doctor but that would be too difficult, she’d said. She was a girl and her family would not pay for her to study even if they could. She’d be happy if she could find a way to train as a nurse.

  He couldn’t let her make that sacrifice for him. ‘No!’ he cried.

  ‘Truly, Nick, I don’t mind. I’ve already made Pedro the offer. I can’t take it back. If I did he would go straight to Father. And then I would be in trouble too.’

  ‘We should have taken more care,’ Nick said sadly. He should have taken more care. He had been happy during these sunny days here with Isabel, but he had put her in danger. When they were talking together they had forgotten that the rest of the world existed.

  ‘I’ll have to go, Isabel.’

  ‘Not before morning, anyway. It will be dark in a little while and you would have no idea which direction you were going in. Pedro won’t do anything before he gets his money. So let me think about it tonight. I’ll try to think of somewhere you could be safe for a bit.’

  He was about to tell her that he had some addresses of ‘safe houses’ in his head but he thought, Better not. What she’d said was true: he needed another bolt-hole not far away, an
d then a plan, a route to follow.

  She was about to move away when he put a hand on her arm to stop her. ‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘I think I –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think I may have fallen in love with you.’ Nick felt himself blushing. He had never said such a thing to a girl before, like someone in a film.

  Isabel smiled. ‘Perhaps you only think so because you’ve been ill and lying here all alone.’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, and then he kissed her. She did not draw away but when he looked into her face afterwards he saw that she was troubled.

  ‘It’s difficult. Too difficult. You know that yourself.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘I’ll have to go now but I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You will come?’

  ‘Yes, I will come.’

  ‘You promise?’ Was he being selfish asking?

  ‘I promise.’

  And so she left him, once again and, as always, he felt the gap left by her absence. He watched her until she was out of sight.

  As he turned he thought he heard a movement. He wheeled round quickly but there was nothing to be seen, nothing that would worry him, that was. It must have been an animal. His nerves had been jangled by Pedro’s appearance on the scene. Their scene. Isabel’s brother had shattered their peace.

  He went into the cave.

  It must have been no more than an hour later when he did hear something definite, the sound of feet approaching. There was nothing he could do. In the next moment a burly form loomed in the entrance, blotting out the light, and the harsh voice of Isabel’s father demanded that he come out with his hands up.

  Twelve

  Nick came out to find a pistol pointing at his chest.

  ‘Keep them up!’ barked the sergeant.

  Nick tried to hold his hands steady. His knees were trembling and he didn’t know how to stop them. What if they were to give way under him? If he made the slightest movement he might be shot. They might intend to shoot him anyway. Summary executions had been common during the war, and still were. How many times had he been told that? His mind felt numb, so numb that he did not seem to be feeling any emotion at all, not even fear. He had imagined such a moment as this, but now that it had happened it seemed unreal.