HARRY ARRIVED LATE at the theatre. He had spent hours pacing round the flat, thinking about his mistake, Hoare’s and Hillgarth’s anger, Tolhurst’s revelation that he had been, in a way, spying on Harry. I’m not cut out for this, Harry thought; I never wanted it. If they sent him home he wouldn’t be sorry, even if it was in disgrace. He’d be glad never to see Sandy again. But he couldn’t get rid of the thought of Gomez, the sudden terror in the old soldier’s eyes.

He told himself this wasn’t doing any good. He looked at his watch and was startled to realize how late it was. After thinking about Sofia for so long, he had hardly thought of her at all that day. He changed hurriedly, grabbed his coat and hat and hurried out.

Sofia was already waiting when he arrived at the theatre, a little figure in a beret and her old black coat, standing in the shadow of the doors as well-dressed couples went up the theatre steps. She wasn’t carrying a handbag; perhaps she couldn’t afford one. The sight of her, small and vulnerable, made his heart lurch. As he approached he saw that a beggar, an old man in a homemade wheelchair, was wheedling her.

‘I’ve given you all I can spare,’ she said.

‘Please, just a little more. To eat tomorrow.’

Harry ran up. ‘Sofia,’ he said breathlessly, ‘I’m so sorry I am late.’ She looked at him with relief. He passed fifty centimos to the beggar and he wheeled himself away.

‘There was a – a bit of a crisis at work. Have you been waiting long?’

‘No. But because I am here that man thought I had money.’

‘Oh dear, what can I say?’ He smiled. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘And you.’

‘How’s Enrique?’

She smiled again. ‘Almost healed.’

‘Right.’ He coughed. ‘Shall we go in?’ He offered her his arm diffidently. She took it. Her body against his warmed him.

Sofia had made a big effort: her long hair was curled fashionably at the ends and she wore powder and lipstick. She looked beautiful. The rest of the audience milling in the vestibule were well-dressed bourgeois, the women with pearl earrings and necklaces. Sofia surveyed them with a look of amused contempt.

Harry had got seats in the middle of the theatre. It was full. Someone at the embassy had said cultural life was flickering back into life, and those who could afford it were evidently hungry for a night out.

Sofia removed her coat. Underneath she wore a long, well-cut white dress that set off her dark skin, her neckline lower than was strictly proper now. Harry turned his eyes away hastily. She smiled at him.

‘Ah, it is so warm in here, how do they do it?’

‘Central heating.’

At the interval they went for a drink to the bar. Sofia seemed ill at ease in the crush and coughed at her first sip of wine.

‘Are you all right?’

She laughed, a nervous laugh, a change from her usual confidence.

‘I am sorry. Only I am not used to such a crowd. When I am not at home I am in the dairy.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I am more used to cows than people.’ A woman stared at her with raised eyebrows.

‘What’s it like there?’ Harry knew the back streets of Madrid were full of little dairies, cramped, unhygienic places.

‘Hard work. But at least I get milk for the family.’

‘You must get tired of it.’

‘It keeps us going. The men from the government agency come every day to take their hundred litres. By the time they have watered it down for the ration it is two hundred litres.’

‘Terrible.’ Harry shook his head.

‘You are a strange man,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Your interest in my life. A smelly dairy is far from what you are used to, I think.’ She leaned forward. ‘Listen to these people talking of the things they have bought on the black market and their troubles with servants: are those not the things your class usually discuss?’ The faint mocking smile was on her face again.

‘Yes. But I’m tired of it.’

A bell rang and they returned to the play.

During the second half Harry turned to look at her a couple of times, but Sofia was absorbed in the performance; she didn’t turn and smile as he hoped. They reached the point where Lady MacBeth sleepwalks, tortured with guilt for the murder she has urged her husband to commit. ‘What, will these hands never be clean.’ Harry felt a sudden wave of panic at the thought that he might have brought death to Gomez, might have blood on his hands. He gasped and gripped the arms of the chair; Sofia turned and looked at him. When the play ended, the national anthem sounded through loudspeakers. Harry and Sofia stood but did not join the many in the audience who raised their arms in the Fascist salute.

Outside in the cold, Harry felt strange again, stranger than he had in months. The buzzing in his ears was back, his heart was beating fast and his legs, he realized, were shaking. He supposed it was a delayed reaction to all that had happened that day. As they walked to the tram stop he tried to make conversation, aware there was a tremble in his voice. He did not take Sofia’s arm; he didn’t want her to feel his trembling.

‘Did you enjoy the play?’

‘Yes.’ Sofia smiled. ‘I had not realized Shakespeare could be so passionate. The murderers all got their just reward, did they not?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is not how it is in the real world.’

He hadn’t heard her properly. She had to repeat herself. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed.

They had reached the tram stop. Harry was trembling all over now, he longed desperately to get out of the cold damp air. There were no trams waiting at the stop. There was nobody else waiting, either, which probably meant one had just gone. He needed to sit down as well. He cursed his panic; if it had to come, why couldn’t it have been at the flat, when he was alone?

‘Are you all right?’ he heard Sofia ask.

There was no point in pretending, he could feel his face covered with a cold sweat now. ‘I don’t feel too good. I’m sorry, I get these little attacks sometimes, since I was in the fighting in France. I’ll be all right, I’m sorry, it’s stupid.’

‘It is not stupid.’ She looked at him with concern. ‘It happens to men in war, I saw it here. You should get a taxi, I will take you home. You should not wait here in the cold.’

‘I’ll be all right, honestly.’ He hated showing weakness like this, hated it.

‘No, I will get a taxi.’ Suddenly she was the one in charge, as she had been at the flat. ‘Will you be all right for a moment while I go to the junction, I saw some waiting there.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I will only be a minute.’ She touched his arm, smiled and was gone. Harry leaned against the cold tram stop, taking deep breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth as they had told him at the hospital. A few moments later a taxi drew up.

He felt better at once, sitting down in the warmth. He smiled sadly at Sofia. ‘What an end to the evening, eh? Drop me off and I’ll pay the taxi to get you home.’

‘No, I want to make sure you are all right. You are very pale.’ She studied him with a professional gaze.

The taxi dropped them off. Harry was afraid he would need her help to get up the stairs but he was much better now; he walked up unaided. He let them in and they went into the salón.

‘Sit down on the settee, there,’ she said. ‘Have you any spirits?’

‘There’s some whisky in that cupboard.’

She fetched a glass from the kitchen and made him drink. The whisky gave him a little jolt. She smiled. ‘There. The colour is coming back to your cheeks.’ She lit the brasero then sat on the other end of the settee, looking at him.

‘Have one yourself,’ he said.

‘No thank you. I do not like it much.’ She looked at his parents’ photograph.

‘That’s my mother and father.’

‘It is a nice photograph.’

‘Your mother showed me her wedding photograph, that day I brought Enrique back.’