CHAPTER 38
There was a train, to the border, and another, in that scruffy place Maman and I had visited, and that train rattled along from the mountains to the flatter areas, streams beneath the tracks that were sometimes dry, sometimes halted in green pools. Eventually we arrived at the edge of the great city, where the train dove under the streets like a dolphin in the waves.

“Sants!” was the announcement, and the five of us hauled our luggage from the train and up into the heat and the shade of the tall buildings. I was, stupidly, in a pair of sandals made of leather straps, and the heel was too high, so I looked hard at Papa hoping for a taxi.

“It is not far, my sweet”

It was indeed nearby, the Hotel Expo, and it was clean, and neat, and to Maggie’s delight it had a swimming pool on the roof. Three rooms, we had, and while they were not the most charming of chambers they were clean, and safe, and we had our place for each night. My sister wanted to experience the pool immediately, but my brother insisted that we had so much to see we must start now, so I changed my silly shoes for the comfortable ones and Papa led us to a Metro station as soon as he could separate Maman from the kitchen. At least he led us towards the station, but passed it, reading from a little book as he walked. We came to a little park, and with a flourish indicated a…thing. It was curved, it was tall, it was…

“Ladies, I give you the work of the Catalan artist Joan Mirá³!” said Papa with a flourish.

“This piece is called something in Catalan which means ‘Lady with a bird’, but round here…”

He became as a conspirator. “Round here, it is called ‘The three metre godemichet’ “

I felt the red to my face. It was tall, perhaps not three metres, and there were parts extra to it, but it was indeed a larger twin to those plastic utensils my doctors had insisted I use. Margot stared, and smiled, and then turned to my mother.

“Who are you, and where have you placed my real Papa?”

I understood, for she was speaking of this man who held humour and mirth in himself, who was joyous in his life, and not of the poor shadow who had lived on only through his work and his child. This was a man set free.

Of course, we took a great many silly photographs of the thing, before entering the metro station, with all the signs warning of fines for smoking, but with a tobacco shop on the platform underground. We were whisked out to emerge on a long and gently curving street filled with places to eat and drink, the Ramblas, and finally, just as my thirst was growing, the harbour, where a statue stood atop a high pillar. Papa had his book once more.

“That is the statue of Colon, Columbus, yes? Pointing to the Americas. Except it is towards Libya”

More pictures, and a delightful wooden walkway into the harbour, where there were shops, and an aquarium (we did not enter) and a bar that sold fresh fruit juice, which we did. Many more pictures, and a fresh breeze, and then a cable car to the top of the hill we could see from our hotel and finally, finally, after a long morning, we had a lunch, of a salad with palm hearts and paprika-rich saucisson, with beers for the men and a kir (with some explanation) for each of the women. Papa had his book open throughout, and as I ate a crá¨me brulée that the menu insisted was actually ‘catalan’, he gave us his plan.

“This is Montjuic, ladies, a famous place in the city. There are many things to see here, including the stadium from the Olympic games and the palace of Catalan culture, but what I wish to see is the sound and light. There are fountains, streams, that descend the hill by a flight of broad stairs, and if we indulge ourselves here, take our evening meal on the mountain, then we can descend those steps to watch the fireworks and listen to the music, as they make the waters dance. The book says it is a magical thing”

And so our afternoon and early evening were consumed with the joys of the stadium, and the museum, but it was the sitting in silence that was the day’s treasure. My parents, my siblings, they had moved beyond words, and their lives were lived together in a place that needed no speech, and they carried me with them. We held each other together in our own world, and I was content.

In the end, however, it was taking too long for the evening to fall, and so we descended those broad steps and found a restaurant, and ate more interesting things, until the waiter whispered to Papa. The bill was brought, and we exited to see crowds of people all facing in one direction, just as the lights came on, and the fountains rose, and there was indeed sound, and light, and magic.

And in the crowd, just as I stood and made my mouth open and close in wonder, somebody caressed my behind.

Three days we had, to absorb the strange things that seemed to be on every corner, such as a mammoth in a park, and dragons and lizards on walls, and an unfinished cathedral that resembled something found in an opium dream, or LSD, but it is all in books such as Papa carried. Suffice it to say that we led a family life in a lovely place, and ate well, and perhaps, with the drinking, occasionally too well, and as Papa emptied his book of wonders, Maman tried to fill hers.

All too soon, we needed to board another train for our return, and soon after Maggie must needs kiss her husband goodbye for his return North for the passports and the English tourists. She kissed him goodbye for a very long time before he could free himself, with reluctance, and drive away, and of course I lost my bed, for I was needed in hers to fill the emptiness his departure had forced upon her. I noticed one thing: the limitations Maman had placed upon me with the telephone card were not ones for Margot. She spoke to him every day, and each day there were tears. I held her to me one night, in the small hours before dawn but after midnight.

“Is this all you expected, my sister? All you hoped for when you made your choice, that first time your eyes fell upon him?”

She embraced me more tightly. “More than I dreamt, Sophie. Much more, for I have a sister, a true sister, and Papa…he is healed and whole once more. What woman could ever desire more of life, apart from the children to come?”

There was a small tremor there, and I smiled as I held her myself more tightly.

“My sweet, I have my own children, and I return them at the end of each day, so I do believe I have the advantage, no?”

She had no answer beyond a kiss, for there was none possible, not even to a Norman girl.

The leavetaking, and tears from Roser as well as Jaume, was awkward, for there was something unsaid between Thierry and Maman. It wasn’t the looks of the young boys for the girls in my school, but something else. We stopped for a night’s rest somewhere in the centre of France, and I took Maman to one side in the WCs.

“What is it that passes between you and Thierry, Maman? I only ask this because I know that for you it will not be THAT, for you, you and Papa…”

She looked into the mirror as she did unnecessary things to her face and hair.

“Sophie, it is something I have been unsure about for some time, but Thierry, he insists on asking. I had first thought…”

She stopped and placed her hands either side of the hand basin, and turned her eyes to mine.

“”My sweet, it was when you were lost, and I did not know how to find you. I wondered whether you would ever return from here, and though I knew…though I am now certain Roser held you safe, I could not be away from you, from my flesh, forever. Thierry and I discussed a business together, where I would help in the kitchen for him, and be near you”

A woman who had worked as a cleaner, as a drudge for me, she was ashamed of her love.

“Maman, this helping in the kitchen, it is not true, no?”

“Well…not quite”

“This would be chief in the kitchen, would it not?”

My mother can blush. I asked her very gently the obvious question. “And Papa? He would have done what, exactly?”

“He would have made his choice, my sweet”

She grinned, suddenly adolescent in her delight. “And he did, and he has an offer as a manager in Perpignan, of the big shop there, because he trusts our own boy, and Sophie, oh my darling, OH how he loves me!”