looked older, he decided. Older and stronger.
On his way downstairs he met his mother, coming up. She had a headache: he could tell by the way she pressed a handkerchief to her forehead. 'We must get a better piano,' she said, not stopping. 'I simply cannot go on playing that thing, it's intolerable.'
Luis watched her limp up the stairs, 'Where's father?' he called.
'Working late, I expect.' She went into her room.
They had not missed him.
Later, Luis realised that this was not so very surprising: his life and theirs had ceased to touch at many points. If they failed to see him at breakfast or at night, they assumed he was working strange new hours at some strange new job. He had not sought out their company when he was briefly at home, so why should he expect them to seek out his? In a way perhaps it was flattering, perhaps it showed that they trusted him. Nevertheless he felt unexpectedly saddened. Of course he wanted complete freedom, but did it have to come so fast? Why could he not have a choice? Or a fight, even? He felt like going to his parents and saying Look I know I took my independence but that doesn't mean you had to give it to me, does it? Anyway I'm sure I'm ready to be a damned adult. I'm not sure I even like the idea . . .
But it was too late now to begin that sort of discussion.
His experiences at the hotel had taught Luis that it was possible to get more out of a job than just money. He did three months as a van-boy for a delivery company: boring work, jumping in and out of a truck all day and getting nipped by dogs twice a week and being raped by lovely lonely housewives never. After hours he hung around and helped the mechanics service the vehicles. That was the extra reward. In six weeks he knew how a truck engine worked and what to check if it didn't. In two months he could drive. Around the parking area, slowly.
Then, in the summer of 1935, with their usual unsurprising suddenness, Spanish Railways transferred Senor Cabrillo to Granada. Valencia was glad of it and Luis was not sorry. There was little more for him to learn about the racketing guts of a delivery truck, and in Valencia the danger always existed that he might turn a corner and meet the demon redhead and her toy gorilla.
In Granada he talked a small garage into hiring him, and quickly mastered the basic secrets of Ford and Citroen and Fiat. On the strength of that he moved up to a bigger garage which specialised in Alfas and Mercedes. After six months there, he borrowed a sober hat and dark glasses, lied about his age, and go{ a driving licence. A week later he was a taxi-driver, specialising in English and American tourists.
Thus Luis Cabrillo: now seventeen and a half years old taller than average, not unattractive, with no visible scars but plenty of invisible ones, mis-educated, self-taught, physically fit, few family ties, restless for change, impatient with authority, hungry for excitement, and eager to achieve . . . well, something, God-knew-what, anything, as long as it won him admiration, popularity and fame. Also money. Driving a taxi was better than draining sump-oil into an inspection pit, but it did not exercise his imagination, enthusiasm and courage which (he felt) were limitless. Above all he wanted to test his courage. He was afraid that perhaps courage decayed, like muscle, unless it got used. Sadly he saw precious little prospect of excitement and adventure in Granada, or anywhere else in Spain. He was thinking moodily of becoming a racing driver, or a diamond prospector in South America, or a deck-hand on a whaler; when overnight the Civil War broke out and saved him.
Chapter 5
The car raced down the hill and slithered into the village square, its wheels carving out brown wings of water, and coasted to a halt. Luis Cabrillo played a cheerful tattoo on the horn. 'Home of the heroes of Jarama!' he announced. 'A great Government victory! For you, this is big news.'
In the back, three newspaper correspondents
On his way downstairs he met his mother, coming up. She had a headache: he could tell by the way she pressed a handkerchief to her forehead. 'We must get a better piano,' she said, not stopping. 'I simply cannot go on playing that thing, it's intolerable.'
Luis watched her limp up the stairs, 'Where's father?' he called.
'Working late, I expect.' She went into her room.
They had not missed him.
Later, Luis realised that this was not so very surprising: his life and theirs had ceased to touch at many points. If they failed to see him at breakfast or at night, they assumed he was working strange new hours at some strange new job. He had not sought out their company when he was briefly at home, so why should he expect them to seek out his? In a way perhaps it was flattering, perhaps it showed that they trusted him. Nevertheless he felt unexpectedly saddened. Of course he wanted complete freedom, but did it have to come so fast? Why could he not have a choice? Or a fight, even? He felt like going to his parents and saying Look I know I took my independence but that doesn't mean you had to give it to me, does it? Anyway I'm sure I'm ready to be a damned adult. I'm not sure I even like the idea . . .
But it was too late now to begin that sort of discussion.
His experiences at the hotel had taught Luis that it was possible to get more out of a job than just money. He did three months as a van-boy for a delivery company: boring work, jumping in and out of a truck all day and getting nipped by dogs twice a week and being raped by lovely lonely housewives never. After hours he hung around and helped the mechanics service the vehicles. That was the extra reward. In six weeks he knew how a truck engine worked and what to check if it didn't. In two months he could drive. Around the parking area, slowly.
Then, in the summer of 1935, with their usual unsurprising suddenness, Spanish Railways transferred Senor Cabrillo to Granada. Valencia was glad of it and Luis was not sorry. There was little more for him to learn about the racketing guts of a delivery truck, and in Valencia the danger always existed that he might turn a corner and meet the demon redhead and her toy gorilla.
In Granada he talked a small garage into hiring him, and quickly mastered the basic secrets of Ford and Citroen and Fiat. On the strength of that he moved up to a bigger garage which specialised in Alfas and Mercedes. After six months there, he borrowed a sober hat and dark glasses, lied about his age, and go{ a driving licence. A week later he was a taxi-driver, specialising in English and American tourists.
Thus Luis Cabrillo: now seventeen and a half years old taller than average, not unattractive, with no visible scars but plenty of invisible ones, mis-educated, self-taught, physically fit, few family ties, restless for change, impatient with authority, hungry for excitement, and eager to achieve . . . well, something, God-knew-what, anything, as long as it won him admiration, popularity and fame. Also money. Driving a taxi was better than draining sump-oil into an inspection pit, but it did not exercise his imagination, enthusiasm and courage which (he felt) were limitless. Above all he wanted to test his courage. He was afraid that perhaps courage decayed, like muscle, unless it got used. Sadly he saw precious little prospect of excitement and adventure in Granada, or anywhere else in Spain. He was thinking moodily of becoming a racing driver, or a diamond prospector in South America, or a deck-hand on a whaler; when overnight the Civil War broke out and saved him.
Chapter 5
The car raced down the hill and slithered into the village square, its wheels carving out brown wings of water, and coasted to a halt. Luis Cabrillo played a cheerful tattoo on the horn. 'Home of the heroes of Jarama!' he announced. 'A great Government victory! For you, this is big news.'
In the back, three newspaper correspondents
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