She never spoke about Bernie to them, and she would not have dared to mention him to the Spaniards she met, officials and the middle-class matrons and retired colonels of the Spanish Red Cross. They were always civil, with an exaggerated politeness that made her nostalgic for the informality of the Republican zone, but at the meetings and receptions she had to go to they sometimes showed an anger and contempt for what she was doing. ‘I do not agree with exchanging captured soldiers,’ one old soldier from the Spanish Red Cross told her one day. ‘Children, yes, messages between separated families, yes, but to exchange a Spanish gentleman for Red dog – never!’ He concluded with such fierceness that a spray of spittle hit her chin. She turned away, went to the toilet, and vomited.

As the summer went on she found herself getting more depressed, more withdrawn from the people around her, as though surrounded by a thin grey fog. Summer changed to autumn and cold winds began blowing through the narrow, gloomy streets where people sat hunched in cafes and trucks of grim-looking soldiers passed through endlessly. She put everything into her work, into doing something, achieving something positive, creeping back exhausted to her little flat in the evenings.

For a few weeks in October she shared the flat with Cordelia, a volunteer nurse from England who had come to Burgos on leave. She was an aristocratic English girl who’d been a novice nun but found she didn’t have a vocation.

‘So I came out here to try and do some good,’ she said, a serious look on her kind ugly face.

‘I suppose I did too,’ Barbara replied.

‘For all the people who have been persecuted for their religious beliefs.’

Barbara remembered the church she and Bernie had visited the day the plane fell, that had been converted into a stable. The frightened sheep in the corner. ‘People are being persecuted for all types of belief. In both zones.’

‘You were in the Red zone, weren’t you? What was it like?’

‘Surprisingly like here in a lot of ways.’ She looked Cordelia in the eye. ‘I had a boyfriend there. An English International Brigader, he was killed at the Jarama.’

Barbara had been trying to shock Cordelia, but she only nodded, looking sad. ‘I’ll pray for him, light a candle.’

‘Don’t,’ Barbara said. ‘Bernie would have hated that.’ She paused. ‘I haven’t spoken his name aloud for months. Pray if you like, that can’t do any harm, but don’t light a candle.’

‘You were fond of him.’

Barbara didn’t reply.

‘You should try to get out a little,’ Cordelia said. ‘You spend too much time here.’

‘I’m too tired.’

‘There’s a fundraising dinner at the church I go to—’

Barbara shook her head. ‘I’m not going to turn to religion, Cordelia.’

‘I didn’t mean that. Just that you shouldn’t dwell on the past.’

‘I don’t dwell on it. I try not to think about him, though the feelings are always there, squashed down. The – ’ she looked into Cordelia’s face, then shouted – ‘the bloody anger! That he could go and leave me like that, go and get himself bloody killed, the bastard!’ She began crying, her body shaking with howls and sobs. ‘There, I’ve shocked you,’ she said through her tears. ‘I wanted to shock you.’ She laughed, it sounded hysterical. She felt a tentative hand on her shoulder.

‘Let it out,’ she heard Cordelia say. ‘You have to get it out somehow. I know. I’ve got a brother, he went to the bad, I loved him very much and I was angry with him, too, inside, furious. Don’t bury yourself in it, don’t.’

BARBARA LET Cordelia take her out sometimes, though she drew the line at church functions. Sometimes she felt awkward and clumsy and couldn’t be bothered to talk, but occasionally she met someone who was kind or interesting to talk to and the grey fog would lift a little. On the last day of October, just before Cordelia’s leave ended, they went to a party given by an official from Texas Oil, the company whose support kept Franco in fuel. She didn’t enjoy it; it was a glitzy reception in the best hotel in Burgos, loud Americans standing around, happy in the deference the Spanish guests showed them. She thought of what Bernie would have said, the international capitalist conspiracy in its peacock feathers or something like that. Cordelia was talking to a Spanish priest. Barbara stood on her own, smoking and sipping bad wine, and watched her. She would be going soon, her leave over. Barbara had grown fond of her despite the fact they had nothing in common apart from a sense that they were not cut out to be ordinary wives and mothers. Looking at her she knew she would miss her, miss her undemanding kindness. She felt suddenly dowdy among all the richly dressed women and decided to slip away. She turned to go, and saw a man was standing beside her. She hadn’t seen him approach. He smiled, showing large white teeth.

‘Was that English I heard you and your friend talking earlier?’

Barbara smiled uncertainly. ‘Yes.’ She introduced herself. She thought there was something a little flashy about the man, although he had a nice smile. He told her his name was Sandy Forsyth and he was a guide for English tourists looking at the battlefields. His upper-class drawl reminded her of Bernie.

‘It’s all very propagandist,’ he said. ‘I show them the battlefields and go into the military stuff, but slip in lots about Red atrocities. It’s usually old buffers with military interests. They’re amazingly ignorant. One asked if it was true the Basques all had six fingers.’

Barbara laughed. Encouraged, he told her about a busload of elderly English tourists stuck by the side of the road when the bus broke down, too inhibited to relieve their bursting bladders in the bushes and standing by the bus in agonies. She laughed again; it was months since anyone had made her laugh. He smiled.

‘I knew somehow that I could tell you that story and you wouldn’t be shocked, though it’s not really for mixed company.’

‘I’m a nurse. I’ve been in Spain over a year, on both sides of the lines. Nothing shocks me now.’

Sandy nodded, interested. He offered her a cigarette and they stood surveying the company for a moment.

‘Well,’ Sandy asked. ‘What do you think of the New Spain and its friends?’

‘I suppose it seems very orderly after Madrid. But it’s got a hard military feel. A hard place.’ She looked at Cordelia, still deep in conversation with the priest. ‘Maybe the Church will be a moderating influence.’

Sandy blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Don’t you believe it. The Church knows what side its bread’s buttered on; it’ll let the regime do what it likes. They’re going to win, you know, they’ve got the troops and the money. They know it, you can see it in their faces. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘You think so?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Are you a Catholic?’

He laughed. ‘Heavens, no.’

‘My friend over there is. Yes, you’re right, they’re going to win.’ She sighed.

‘Better than the alternative.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I might stay on when it’s over. I’m tired of England.’

‘No family ties?’

‘No. You?’

‘None to speak of.’

‘Fancy coming out for a drink one evening? I’m between jobs. I’m looking into getting some other work but it’s a bit lonesome here.’

She looked at him in surprise, she hadn’t expected that.

‘No strings,’ Sandy added. ‘Just for a drink. Bring your friend Cordelia if you like.’

‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘Why not?’ Though she knew, somehow, that Cordelia wouldn’t approve of Sandy.

WHEN THE EVENING came she didn’t want to go. Cordelia couldn’t come, she had another church function to attend, and Barbara felt tired and depressed after work. But she had agreed to go so she did.

They met in a dark, quiet little bar near the cathedral. Sandy asked what sort of a day she had had at work. The question irritated her slightly; he had asked it as though she worked in an office or a shop.