‘Probably just as well. The militia are pretty uninhibited.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘How d’you manage in your work, if you don’t speak the lingo?’

‘Oh, we have interpreters. And my Spanish is coming on. We’re a bit of a Tower of Babel in our office, I’m afraid. French and Swiss mostly. I can speak French.’

They turned into Calle Montero. A crippled beggar in a doorway stretched out a hand. ‘Por solidaridad,’ he called. Bernie gave him a ten-centimo coin.

‘For solidarity.’ He smiled grimly. ‘That’s replaced “for the love of God”. When we’ve won this war, there won’t be any more beggars. Or priests.’

As they crossed into Gran Vía there was a deep rumble overhead. People tensed and looked up. Some turned and ran. Barbara looked around nervously.

‘Shouldn’t we find an air-raid shelter?’

‘It’s all right. It’s only a reconnaissance plane. Come on.’

The Café Gijón, haunt of bohemian radicals before the war, was ostentatiously modern, with art deco fittings. The walls were mostly mirrors. The bar was full of officers.

‘No Hemingway,’ she said with a smile.

‘Never mind. What will you have?’

She asked for a white wine and sat at a table while Bernie went to the bar. She moved her seat around, looking for a position where there were no mirrors, but the wretched things were everywhere. She hated catching sight of herself. Bernie came back, holding two glasses on a tray with his good arm.

‘Take this, would you?’

‘Oh, yes, sorry.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ She fiddled with her glasses. ‘I just don’t like mirrors much.’

‘Why ever not?’

She looked away. ‘I just don’t, that’s all. Are you a Hemingway fan?’

‘Not really. Do you read much?’

‘Yes, I get a lot of time in the evenings. I don’t like Hemingway either. I think he enjoys war. I hate it.’ She looked up, wondering if she had been too vehement, but he smiled encouragingly and offered her a cigarette.

‘It’s been a bad couple of years if you work in the Red Cross,’ she went on. ‘First Abyssinia, now this.’

‘There won’t be an end to war until fascism’s defeated.’

‘Till Madrid’s become its grave?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’ll be a lot of other graves too.’

‘We cannot escape history,’ he quoted.

‘Are you a Communist?’ Barbara asked suddenly.

He smiled, raising his glass. ‘Central London branch.’ His eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Shocked?’

She laughed. ‘After two months here? I’m past being shocked.’

TWO DAYS LATER they went for a walk in the Retiro. A banner had been placed over the front gate: NO PASARAN. The fighting was growing fiercer, Franco’s troops had broken through to the university in the north of the city but were being held there. More Russian arms were arriving; she had seen a line of tanks driving down Gran Vía, tearing up cobbles, cheered by the people. At night the streets were unlit to hinder night bombers but there were constant white flashes of artillery from the Casa de Campo, endless rumbles and thumps; like thunder, an endless storm.

‘I always hated the idea of war, ever since I was a little girl,’ Barbara told Bernie. ‘I lost an uncle on the Somme.’

‘My father was there too. He’s never been the same since.’

‘When I was little I used to meet people who’d, you know, been through it. They carried on as normal, but you could see they were marked.’

Bernie put his head on one side. ‘That’s a lot of gloomy thinking for a little girl.’

‘Oh, I was always thinking.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I spent a lot of time on my own.’

‘Are you an only child like me?’

‘No, I’ve a sister four years older. She’s married, lives a quiet life in Birmingham.’

‘You’ve still got a trace of the accent.’

‘Oh God, don’t say that.’

‘It’s nice. Noice,’ he said, imitating her. ‘My parents are working-class Londoners. It’s hard being the only kid. I had a lot of expectations put on me, ’specially when I got the scholarship to Rookwood.’

‘Nobody ever had any expectations of me.’

He looked at her curiously, then winced suddenly, cradling his wounded arm in the other.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘A bit. D’you mind if we sit down?’

She helped him to a bench. Through the rough material of his greatcoat his body was hard and firm. It excited her.

They lit cigarettes. They were sitting in front of the lake; it had been drained, the water shining in the moonlight at night was a guide for bombers. A faint smell of rot came from the mud left at the bottom. A tree had been felled nearby and some men were cutting it up with axes; the weather was cold now and there was no fuel. Across the lake bed the statue of Alfonso XII still stood in its great marble arch; the snout of a big anti-aircraft gun nearby, thrusting up from the trees, made a weird contrast.

‘If you hate war,’ he said, coming back to their discussion, ‘you must be an anti-fascist.’

‘I hate all this nationalist master-race rubbish. But communism’s crazy too – people don’t want to hold everything in common, it’s not natural. My dad owns a shop. But he’s not rich, and he doesn’t exploit anybody.’

‘My dad runs a shop too, but he doesn’t own it. That makes the difference. The party isn’t against shopkeepers and other small businesses; we recognize there’ll be a long transition to communism. That’s why we stopped what the ultra-revolutionaries were doing here. It’s the big capitalists we oppose, the ones who support fascism. People like Juan March.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Franco’s biggest backer. A crooked businessman from Majorca who’s made millions out of other people’s sweat. Corrupt as hell.’

Barbara stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You can’t say all the bad’s on one side in this war. What about all the people who go missing, get picked up at night by the Seguridad and never get seen again? And don’t say it doesn’t happen. We get frantic women turning up at our offices all the time saying their husbands have disappeared. They can’t get any answer about where they are.’

Bernie’s gaze was even. ‘Innocent people get caught up in war.’

‘Exactly. Thousands and thousands of them.’ Barbara turned her head away. She didn’t want to quarrel with him, it was the last thing she wanted. She felt a warm hand laid on hers.

‘Don’t let’s fight,’ he said.

His touch was like an electric charge but she pulled her hand away and put it in her pocket. She hadn’t expected that; she believed he’d asked her out a second time because he was lonely and didn’t know any other English people. Now she thought, perhaps he wants a woman, an Englishwoman, otherwise why would he look at me? Her heart began to pound.

‘Barbara?’ He leaned across, trying to get her to meet his eyes. Unexpectedly he pulled a face, crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. She laughed and pushed him away.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No – it’s just – don’t take my hand. I’ll be your friend but don’t do that.’

‘All right. I’m sorry.’

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about politics. You think I’m stupid, don’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. This is the first proper talk with a girl I’ve had for ages.’

‘You won’t convert me, you know.’

He smiled again, challengingly. ‘Give me time.’

After a while they got up and walked on. He told her about the family he was staying with, the Meras.

‘Pedro, the father, he’s a foreman on a building site. Earns ten pesetas a day. They’ve got three kids and live in a two-bedroom flat. But the welcome they gave my friend Harry and I when we came here in ’31, we’d never seen anything like it. Inés, Señora Mera, she looked after me when I came out of hospital, wouldn’t hear of me going anywhere else. She’s indomitable, one of those tiny Spanish women made of fire.’ He looked at her with those huge eyes. ‘I could take you to meet them if you like.’ He smiled. ‘They’d be interested to meet you.’