Sofia’s street, like all the others in the barrio, was silent and deserted. Dusk was starting to fall as he stopped in front of the tenement. Two children rolling an old cartwheel up and down like a hoop stopped and stared at him. Their bare feet were red with cold. Harry was conscious of his thick coat and wide-brimmed hat.

He went into the dank entrance, hesitated a moment, then mounted the damp stairs and knocked at their door. As he did so, the door of the neighbouring flat opened and an elderly woman came out. She had a round wrinkled face and cold sharp eyes. Harry raised his hat. ‘Buenas tardes.’

‘Buenas tardes,’ she replied suspiciously, just as Sofia opened her door. She looked at him in surprise, her large brown eyes widening.

‘Oh. Señor Brett.’

Harry tipped his hat again. ‘Buenas tardes. I’m sorry to trouble you, I just wondered how Enrique was.’

Sofia glanced across at her neighbour, who was still peering at him nosily. ‘Buenas tardes, Señora Avila,’ she said in a hard tone. ‘Buen’dia,’ the old woman muttered. She closed her door and scuttled away down the stairs. Sofia looked after her a moment, then turned to Harry.

‘Please come in, señor,’ she said gravely. She did not smile.

Harry followed her into the cold damp salón. The old woman in the bed was using her good hand to play draughts with the little boy. At the sight of Harry he shrank back, shoulders twitching. She put her good arm round him.

‘Buenas tardes,’ Harry said to her. ‘How are you?’

‘Well enough, señor, thank you.’

Enrique was sitting at the table, his leg up on a cushion, swathed in bandages. His long thin face had a feverish look. It brightened at the sight of Harry.

‘Señor. It is good to see you again.’ He leaned across and shook Harry’s hand.

‘How’s the leg?’

‘Still bad. Sofia cleans it but it doesn’t really get better.’

His sister looked embarrassed. ‘It needs time,’ she said.

There were some childish drawings on the table. Harry looked at them and then his eyes widened. Two Civil Guards, their green uniforms and yellow webbing coloured in exactly the right shade, were shooting a woman, little red jets coming out of her body. Alongside was a drawing of another civil being hanged from a lamppost, a little boy hauling him up on a rope. But the picture had been scored through with thick black lines.

‘Paco did those,’ Sofia said gently. ‘He makes those drawings then crosses them out and gets upset. Only Mama can calm him. The noise he made this morning, I thought it would bring Señora Avila over.’

Harry looked at the little boy. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Señor Brett,’ Sofia said hesitantly. ‘I wonder if I might talk to you in the kitchen.’

‘Of course.’

Harry followed her into a concrete-floored room lined with cheap cabinets. The light was fading; she switched on the light, the low-watt bulb casting a dim yellow glow over the room. It was clean, though the sink was overflowing with dishes. Sofia followed his glance.

‘I have to cook and wash up for them all now.’

‘No – I didn’t mean—’

‘Please, sit down.’ She motioned Harry to a chair by the kitchen table, then sat opposite, her small hands clasped in front of her. She looked at him thoughtfully.

‘I did not expect you to come back,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I never got that doctor’s bill.’

‘I hoped Enrique’s leg would improve on its own.’ She sighed. ‘But the infection will not clear. I think yes, he needs a doctor.’

‘My offer still stands.’

She frowned. ‘You will forgive me, señor, but why should you help us? After Enrique spied on you?’

‘I just felt I’d become involved. Please, it’s only a doctor’s bill; I can help you with that. I can afford it.’

‘That old one in the flat next door, if she hears I am getting money from foreign diplomats I know what she will think.’

Harry reddened. Was that what Sofia thought too? ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’ He half rose. ‘I only wanted to help.’

‘No, I see that. Please stay.’ Sofia’s tone became apologetic. She sat down and lit a cigarette. ‘But it is a surprise, a foreigner offering to help us, after what Enrique did.’ She bit her lip. ‘I think my brother needs some of the new penicillin.’

‘Then let me help. I can see things are – difficult.’

She smiled then, illuminating her face. ‘Very well. Thank you.’

‘Get the doctor, get any medicines your brother needs, then send me the bill. That’s all you need to do.’

She looked uncomfortable. ‘I am sorry, Señor Brett, you have saved my brother’s life and I have not even thanked you properly.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Everyone is suspicious of everyone else these days.’ She got up.

‘Will you take coffee? It’s not very good, it won’t be what you’re used to.’

‘Thank you, yes.’

She filled a big black kettle at the sink. ‘That old bitch you saw on the landing, now Enrique is ill she wants us to give Paquito to the church orphanage. But we won’t. They are not good places.’

‘No?’ He was about to say he knew someone who was volunteering at one of them, but decided not to. Sofia handed him a cup of coffee. He looked at her. Where did she get such self-possession, such energy? Her hair was jet-black but where it caught the light it had a brown tinge.

‘Have you worked at the embassy for long?’ she asked.

‘Only a few weeks, actually. I was invalided out of the army.’

‘So you have fought?’ There was a new respect in her voice.

‘Yes. In France.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘A bit of ear damage when a shell went off. It’s getting better.’ He was aware of the pressure in his head, though, still there.

‘You were lucky.’

‘Yes. I suppose I was.’ He hesitated. ‘I had a bit of shell shock, too. Over that now.’

She hesitated, then said, ‘So. You have fought the Fascists.’

‘Yes. Yes, I have.’ He looked at her. ‘I’d do it again.’

‘Yet many people admire the Generalísimo. I knew an English boy during the Civil War, a volunteer. He said many English people think Franco is a fine Spanish gentleman.’

‘I don’t, señorita.’

‘He was from Leeds, this boy. Do you know Leeds?’

‘No. It’s in the north.’

‘My father met him in the battles in the Casa de Campo. They both died there.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He wondered if the boy had been her lover.

‘We have to make the best of things now.’ She took out a cigarette and lit it.

‘No chance for you to go back to medical school?’

She shook her head. ‘With Mama and Paquito to look after? And Enrique now too?’

‘With treatment perhaps he could work again.’

‘Yes, and a different job this time.’ She flicked ash angrily into a saucer. ‘I told him he should not take that work.’ She looked at him acutely again. ‘How did you come to learn Spanish so well?’

‘I’m a teacher, a lecturer, in England; at least, I was before the war came. Our war,’ he added. ‘I visited Spain in 1931, I told you, I suppose that’s when my interest started.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Our time of hope.’

‘The friend I came here with in 1931, he came back to fight in the Civil War. He was killed at the Jarama.’

‘Did you support the Republic too?’

‘Bernie did. He was the idealist. I believed in neutrality.’

‘And now?’

Harry didn’t answer. Sofia smiled. ‘You remind me of the boy from Leeds in a way, he had the same puzzlement in the face of Spain.’ She rose. ‘And now I should arrange for the doctor.’

Harry followed her back to the salón. ‘Enrique,’ she said. ‘I have been talking to Señor Brett, I am going to get you a doctor. I will go now.’

Enrique gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness. My leg is not a pretty sight. Thank you, señor. My sister is obstinate.’