The Liverpool Basque. Helen Forrester

I didn’t want to intrude. I thought I should let you be.’

      She sighed. ‘I’m OK. I was feeling a bit down, that’s all – a bit lonely in a new place, I guess.’

      Walking on pebbles was tiring him, and he wished he had taken the path at the top of the cliff. ‘You’re working in the new ward at the hospital, I think Veronica mentioned?’

      ‘The Palliative Care Unit? Yes.’

      ‘Patients who are going to die are put in there? Must be hard on you.’

      ‘Not really.’ She went on to tell him how worthwhile she thought her work was. Her enthusiasm surprised him.

      Though he was interested in what she was saying, he began to feel that he must sit down to rest; there was an unpleasant tightness in his chest. He stopped, and said, ‘At the top of the cliff staircase here, there’s a little park kiosk that sells coffee. Would you like a cup?’ He was panting slightly and his speech came slowly. ‘We have to get up the cliff, somewhere, to get home.’

      She looked at him with concern. ‘Could you climb the steps all right?’

      ‘If I do a few at a time.’

      She was immediately practical. ‘Let’s sit on the bottom steps for a few minutes – until you get your breath.’

      Manuel thankfully sat down suddenly on the steps, and they listened to the waves lapping on the beach for about ten minutes. Then she asked, ‘Have you seen your doctor lately?’

      Manuel’s mouth turned up in a quick grin; he was feeling better. ‘Saw him in the winter. He always says the same thing – you’re in great shape – for your age! He’s a nice kid.’

      She laughed. A wonderful old dear, gentle to the point of passivity.

      She judged him wrongly. Manuel was feeling a little exhausted – but he was cussing inwardly at his weakness. He got slowly to his feet, and looked down at her quite blankly. What was the girl’s name? For the life of him, he could not recall it.

      Unaware of his dilemma, she took his hand to help him up the wooden staircase.

      ‘I’m all right,’ he told her a trifle peevishly, and she quickly withdrew her hand. Old people could be quite tetchy about being helped, she knew.

      Over coffee and muffins, which he insisted on paying for, he sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking that Jack Audley would be highly amused when he told him that he had, that morning, taken a bright young thing out to coffee!

      ‘Why were you crying?’ he finally asked her baldly, and then felt that he was being inquisitive and should not have said anything. She answered him without hesitation, however, and told him, ‘We lost a patient last night, not unexpectedly. It was her widowed daughter’s reaction that got me. She had lived with her mother for years. She’s got no children; and she was beside herself.’ She paused, her expression desolate. ‘I guess I could relate to her feeling of being bereft.’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘The feeling that nobody is left to care what happens to you.’

      ‘Tush. A bright young woman like you must have lots of friends – and even parents still alive!’ He tried to sound cheering.

      Sharon bit her lower lip. ‘Well, you see I’m divorced, and I don’t have any kids – and Mum and Pop live in Florida; I’m their only child.’ She sighed. ‘When I was married, I went to live in Toronto. My husband wasn’t the social type, so we didn’t make any friends to speak of. I was a fool to marry him. We weren’t really suited to each other from day one.’

      He nodded understandingly. ‘So what brought you here?’

      ‘Well, I need to work – and I’m a qualified nurse. I saw the ad for this job at the hospital, and applied. When I was a very little girl, I lived here – and it’s such a truly beautiful place. I’m glad I came – but I’ve got to start again, making friends.’ She smiled suddenly, and said, ‘At least I’ve made one, haven’t I?’

      Manuel gave a little chuckle. ‘Of course,’ he assured her. Loneliness makes strange bedfellows, he thought with amusement; then decided hastily that ‘bedfellows’ was not quite the word – not at your age, old boy, he told himself.

      She caught the smile that flicked across his face. ‘Now, what are you laughing at?’ she demanded, smiling herself.

      ‘I don’t think I can explain it to you,’ he replied with a chuckle. Then he laughed.

      Laughter is infectious and soon they were giggling like a couple of children, about nothing.

      Nevertheless, when he got home, he was thankful to crawl on to his bed. But he was still smiling to himself.

       Chapter Eleven

      In June 1914, Rosita announced that she wanted Pedro’s family to see Francesca, who was their first granddaughter; Pedro himself was at sea, but to Juan and Micaela it seemed a good opportunity to take a holiday, so a visit to Spain was arranged. Little Manuel was thrilled.

      Juan tried to persuade Maria to accompany them. ‘You could go up into the mountains with Rosita to visit the Echaniz family, while your grandmother and I are in Bilbao. It would do you good to breathe mountain air,’ he told her.

      Maria was feeling a little better and, at first, had been tempted to make the journey. Then, when she discovered that the family would be travelling by sea, she said she could not face being seasick.

      Though horribly disappointed, Micaela said she would remain at home to care of her.

      Rosita looked at her mother’s bent, tired figure and, at first, said nothing; instead, she went to see Bridget Connolly next door. Rosita often looked after Mary and Joey, when their mother was helping to nurse a sick neighbour or delivering a baby. Now, she asked a favour on Micaela’s behalf.

      Would Bridget keep an eye on Maria, if Micaela went to Spain for three weeks in July? If Bridget could watch her during the day and cook for her, she thought that Mrs Saitua’s daughter, Panchika, could be persuaded to sleep overnight in the Barinèta home and give Maria a bit of breakfast.

      ‘Panchika doesn’t have to be at work till eight o’clock,’ she explained to Bridget. ‘She’s got a daily job as a cook-general in a fine house in Princes Road, with very nice people.

      ‘Maria can get herself to the can in the yard, now,’ she added. ‘And she can keep a fire going, if someone’ll bring in the coal for her and start it each morning. And she can wash her hands and face at the kitchen sink. But she’s not strong enough to stand and cook – or go to the shops, or anything like that.’

      Bridget was seated by her own fire, sipping a mug of vintage tea – it had been simmering on the hob for hours. At Rosita’s suggestion, she nodded her head; her black hair was done up in untidy, coiled plaits, from which the hairpins constantly threatened to fall out; before answering Rosita, she absently pushed one back into her hair.

      Plump, patient and very knowledgeable about the needs of the sick, she looked up at her neighbour, and said, ‘Oh, aye, I could do that, if you could manage to pay for the food I’d give her. It’d only be the price of a potato or two and what we’re havin’ ourselves – me housekeeping won’t stretch to feed another.’ At the latter statement, her voice was full of apology.

      ‘I’d get the coal up from the cellar for her, Mam,’ her daughter Mary volunteered; she had been listening avidly to what Rosita had had to say. ‘And I could chop some wood chips for her every day – and put it all in the hearth. It wouldn’t take a minute, then, for Panchika to make her fire for her.’

      Panchika Saitua, a grumbling, middle-aged spinster, was ordered by her mother to sleep in her neighbour’s bedroom and to get up half an hour