London was cold and wet. Lloyd walked along Nutley Street in the rain, heading for his mother’s house. He still wore his zipped Spanish army blouson and corduroy breeches, and boots with no socks. He carried a small backpack containing his spare underwear, a shirt, and a tin cup. Around his neck he had the red scarf Dave had turned into an improvised sling for his wounded arm. The arm still hurt, but he no longer needed the sling.
It was late on an October afternoon.
As expected, he had been put on a supply train returning to Barcelona crammed with rebel prisoners. The journey was not much more than a hundred miles, but it had taken three days. In Barcelona he had been separated from Lenny and lost contact with him. He had got a lift in a lorry going north. After the trucker dropped him off he had walked, hitch-hiked, and ridden in railway wagons full of coal or gravel or – on one lucky occasion – cases of wine. He had slipped across the border into France at night. He had slept rough, begged food, done odd jobs for a few coins and, for two glorious weeks, earned his cross-Channel boat fare picking grapes in a Bordeaux vineyard. Now he was home.
He inhaled the damp, soot-smelling Aldgate air as if it were perfume. He stopped at the garden gate and looked up at the terraced house in which he had been born more than twenty-two years ago. Lights glowed behind the rain-streaked windows: someone was at home. He walked up to the front door. He still had his key: he had kept it with his passport. He let himself in.
He dropped his backpack on the floor in the hall, by the hatstand.
From the kitchen he heard: ‘Who’s that?’ It was the voice of his stepfather, Bernie.
Lloyd found he could not speak.
Bernie came into the hall. ‘Who . . . ?’ Then he recognized Lloyd. ‘My life!’ he said. ‘It’s you.’
Lloyd said: ‘Hello, Dad.’
‘My boy,’ said Bernie. He put his arms around Lloyd. ‘Alive,’ Bernie said. Lloyd could feel him shaking with sobs.
After a minute Bernie rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his cardigan then went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Eth!’ he called.
‘What?’
‘Someone to see you.’
‘Just a minute.’
She came down the stairs a few seconds later, pretty as ever in a blue dress. Halfway down she saw his face and turned pale. ‘Oh,
‘I wrote to you from Barcelona—’
‘We never got that letter.’
‘Then you don’t know . . .’
‘What?’
‘Dave Williams died.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Killed at the Battle of Belchite.’ Lloyd had decided not to tell the truth about how Dave had died.
‘What about Lenny Griffiths?’
‘I don’t know. I lost touch with him. I was hoping he might have got home before me.’
‘No, there’s no word.’
Bernie said: ‘What was it like over there?’
‘The Fascists are winning. And it’s mainly the fault of the Communists, who are more interested in attacking the other left parties.’
Bernie was shocked. ‘Surely not.’
‘It’s true. If I’ve learned one thing in Spain, it’s that we have to fight the Communists just as hard as the Fascists. They’re both evil.’
His mother smiled wryly. ‘Well, just fancy that.’ She had figured out the same thing long ago, Lloyd realized.
‘Enough politics,’ he said. ‘How are you, Mam?’
‘Oh, I’m the same, but look at you – you’re so thin!’
‘Not much to eat in Spain.’
‘I’d better make you something.’
‘No rush. I’ve been hungry for twelve months – I can keep going a few more minutes. I tell you what would be nice, though.’
‘What? Anything!’
‘I’d love a nice cup of tea.’
