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there, not to always have to feel like a guest on best behaviour – that sense of having to earn one’s welcome.
    He put the letter and the other things away in the box. They slid together with a rattling, empty sound. Just two letters; his own father had sent him just two letters in the years of silence before he died. He switched off his light, but in the dark he felt his cheeks burning; a hot shame through his skin, informing him that he was somehow unworthy: his own father had gone away, only ever sent two letters.

    By the Easter of 1936, just after Ralph turned thirteen, Valencia was already so hot and dry that Mama’s geraniums in the window boxes were wilting and in danger of dying. From first thing in the morning the windows were left open to the tops of the lime trees, where hundreds of starlings and sparrows shrieked from first light till dusk with a sharp, tumultuous noise. People went about their business in the dusty streets, the farmers herding a few goats across the square,the old ladies standing in groups and gossiping about the latest news of fighting in the north, worried women hurrying past with baskets, armed soldiers strolling in twos or threes, ready to uphold the young republican government.
    In the dining room of the apartment Ralph was sitting at the oak table, his maths books spread out, waiting for the tutor to arrive. As one hand rested on his exercise book he was surprised to feel a vibration in the table that seemed to grow, rising up through the building, travelling in through the open windows, resolving into a gritty, rumbling sound until the whole room shook. He went out onto the balcony. Below, people were appearing on the earth-baked avenue, shielding their eyes, holding cloths or caps or whatever they had run out with. From between the flanks of trees he saw a huge, industrial-looking tank with a long gun barrel rumbling down the street.
    Consuelo appeared on the balcony behind him, squashing him against the railing with her soft weight. She leaned out and punched the air. He could feel her waving and screaming at the soldiers.
    â€˜ Viva la República! ’ she yelled. The soldiers in their pinched caps and blanket rolls for sashes looked up and waved back. Ralph gave a wave too. ‘Come on, shout,’ she said. ‘Shout no to Franco. When Franco comes he do this.’ She motioned someone slitting a throat.
    â€˜Please Consuelo!’ Mama was signalling for the girl to go back inside. In the wealthy, expatriate part where they lived most people were watching the tank go by in silence, remembering the nuns and priests burned in the monastery.
    â€˜But it is the new government in Valencia now,’ she said. ‘Now we are all republicans. You, me, him, all the same.’
    â€˜Please,’ implored Mama. ‘The lunch?’ Consuelo stood on the balcony, looking as though she did not think that she was the one who should go back in the kitchen and peel vegetables for soup. Sheleft behind her odour of soured citron and something that Ralph was beginning to recognise as Consuelo’s smell : a smell that grew almost unbearably strong and sweet at the end of a hot day.
    The tutor didn’t come. He sent a message to say he was returning to England. Ralph copied out sums from his primer and filled in the answers. Mama held them out in front of her as if by gazing at them she might uncover some truth. She handed them back with a ‘splendid, dear’, but no ticks or crosses.
    The next night the explosions and bangs from the bullring began early. But this time they did not stop; they thundered on mechanically and relentlessly for hours. The noise multiplied, churned itself out, stuttering on and on violently and spitefully. It echoed through the stone streets, assaulted the houses and vibrated the windows. No one could explain what was happening. There was no question of getting any sleep. Max stuffed Ralph’s window with a quilt. He brought