I Like It Here

worth, Bowen had waited for Oates to change his suit jacket for his pyjama jacket—a habit of his on hot evenings—because he could hate him more thus attired. Then he had given notice. After a lot of blinking and creaking and file-consulting and references to the by now legendary Seixas Peres (Olivia’s in-laws’ Lisbon pal), Oates had said he would need to be paid for two weeks instead of one if his accounts were to balance. Bowen had seen no reason why they should do that at his expense—but still, it had been worth it to say goodbye to that bleeding insect-vivarium Oates called a house. And so off they had gone, the senior Bowens again on speaking terms, the boys asking for a translation of the Lone Ranger in Portuguese, Sandra clutching the dolls which, in a rather pathetic pretence that cordiality was unimpaired, had been pressed upon her by Rosie and mother-in-law—no swooner or psychotic she, it had transpired, but the sturdiest and most amenable member of the household. It had all been a noteworthy foray into the horrendo-comic, but then, as before, you could probably run into something just as noteworthy, and just as remote from your ordinary life, at five minutes’ march from Bowen’s parents’ house in Llansamlet, nr. Swansea, Glam. It would be harder to write about, that was all.

Resigning himself, perforce, to never knowing what made Oates tick or how he got his shaving-water from the geyser to the washbasin, Bowen mounted the little hill at Afilhado’s side. He admitted to himself now that he had felt rather uneasy in the sailing-boat. Suppose he had been and gone and fallen into the water all of a sudden? A fine thing that would have been. He had thought in the past that a binary system of laziness and conceit accounted fully for all the motions of his life, but of late its orbit had shown perturbations from a third component. This additional body seemed to be fear, and abroad, of course, was what took him to perihelion. It had done it before, in 1944-5, without having to put him in a moment’s real danger. He hoped hard that nothing nasty was going to happen on this trip. Well, the recession of the Buckmaster imbroglio—they had come south without the chance of seeing him again —was some sort of reassurance there. Good stuff.

“I suppose you have learnt some words of the language since you are in Portugal, Mr. Bowen?”

“Oh yes. Not enough to hold a conversation, of course, but I can order drinks and things.”

Afilhado laughed. “That is important.” He looked like the nice boy who explains things to you at a new school. “Portuguese is a most interesting language. It is a very pure language. It is derived, you know, from Latin.’ ‘

“Like Spanish and French and so on.”

“Yes. But Portuguese is more pure than they are. It is very close to Latin.’ ‘

“Closer than Spanish, for instance?”

“Oh, assuredly, much closer.”

“In what way?”

“It is more pure, purer. Altogether a purer language.”

“I see.”

“I give you an example. Portuguese and Spanish are quite different, but they are closely related. It should be possible for a Portuguese person to understand a Spanish person when he speaks. But this is not possible because all Spaniards speak with a very very bad accent. It is altogether impossible to understand them. Now, on the contrary, it is completely possible for the Spaniards to understand the Portuguese, because their accent is very good and because their language is so much purer.”

“Yes, well that does show the difference, I agree.”

“But now I tell you something very stupid, Mr. Bowen. All the Spaniards pretend that it is impossible for them to understand the Portuguese. They say, ‘Ah no no no, we cannot understand you.’ But this is what they pretend. They say it is altogether impossible for them to understand the Portuguese because they do not wish to understand. In the reality they understand quite well.”

“How absurd of them.”

“Is it not absurd? But then I am afraid this is typical of the Spaniards. Of course, I have many good Spanish friends, you know. But on these questions they are sometimes very absurd. I think it is impossible for them to forget some events of history. On the last occasion when a battle was carried on between the two nations, the Portuguese were very greatly victorious, although their army was altogether smaller. This is since several centuries, but it is impossible for the Spaniards to forget it. But on the contrary, this is not a serious matter. At present I think the Spaniards and the Portuguese understand each other very well. This is a service of our Dr. Salazar. He has performed much work to assist the two nations to understand each other.”

They reached the terrace of the Bannions’ house, which overlooked the harbour. Here, under a capacious umbrella, drinks were drunk and olives stuffed with anchovies eaten. Lunch was all Bowen had foreseen, and more. There was soup, shellfish stew, roast pork, chicken, plum pudding, fruit, cheese, cakes, sweets, chocolates, coffee, red wine, white wine, port, brandy, madeira, cigars. About four o’clock Bowen, breathing shallowly, got himself into the Morris. He thanked everybody a lot and would have liked to go on doing so for much longer. This kind of thing, at any rate, was nowhere to be found in Llansamlet, nr. Swansea, Glam.

Barbara’s shopping trip had been a success. She had bought food for the family as a whole, clothing and footwear for herself and the children, drink (including Lisbon gin at I Is. the large bottle) for her husband. There was change from the money she had been given, too: not much, but some. Isabella Bannion had contrived to slip in presents for each of the five. On the drive back to the mountains Bowen relapsed into a torpor. It was some protection against noticing too continuously how the day’s satisfactions had imparted vivacity and fire to Barbara’s driving, against picturing too