The South Read Free

husband,” I suddenly said to her. She looked at me sharply.
    “Yes, I know. I understand that that is what we are talking about.”
    I was thinking. I did not notice the figure at the other side of the square that night. When I saw him I was startled for a moment and considered which way I should run if it should happen that I would need to run. I had thought I was on my own. When he moved from the doorway where he had beensitting and walked towards the fountain I knew who he was. I recognised him by the red pullover. He did not look over until I stood up to leave.
    It is late now and I must soon go to eat before the restaurants close. I spend all day doing nothing. I have taken the armchair from the corner of the room and moved it up to the window. I spend hours looking on to the house opposite, looking down on to the street. Nothing happens. After my dinner I drink a brandy with coffee and I am always slightly drunk when I wander back into the Barrio Gótico. And always I light a cigarette in Plaza San Felipe Neri and sit down on the same ledge as I sat on that first night, look around at the square and think about how I am going to manage this.
    I have tried to write to Tom. I have tried to say that I want to get away for a while and maybe I will see him soon. That is not what I want to say. I want to say that I am starting my life now. This is not my second chance; this is my first chance. I want to say that I did not choose what I did before, I am not responsible for what I did before. I want to tell him that I have left him. My son is withdrawn from me, my son will look after himself. There is nothing more I can do for him. No matter how guilty I feel I must look after myself.
    I am in Barcelona now. I sleep late in the mornings. If I want to sleep in the afternoon I will take some wine at lunch and I will descend into a heavy sleep with vivid dreams which mix up where I am with where I have come from, the stream at Newtownbarry with the fountain in Plaza San Felipe Neri with the Market Square in Enniscorthy. I wake after an hour, maybe two hours, and I feel numbed by the sleep. I sit and brood. I sit and imagine until the light starts to go and then I make my way down the corridor and I shower in cold water. I go and eat and I come back here. Through the walls I have the opera man and his operas in the next room.
    I wrote to my mother and gave the address of the pensión ; this was where money was to be sent. I need more money soon. I did not explain why I am here, what I am doing here, how long I am going to stay, I told my mother nothing. Her reply, when it came, was as brief as her original letter. The money would come through a local bank. Your husband is frantic, he has no idea what you are doing. All my love. There was no mention of Richard; she knew that I had put him out of my mind.
    A few weeks ago I tried to take a different route to the Hotel Colón where I was going to have my dinner. I was not in a hurry so when I saw a restaurant and heard a loud murmur of voices inside I stopped and looked. The place looked dingy, perhaps even dirty, but it was full of people drinking at the bar and waiters trying to get by them to the restaurant which was at the back. I ventured in. I suppose I was attracted by the people. I indicated to the waiter and he took it that I wanted a table for one. We both looked around and there seemed to be no free table so I was just going to leave and come back later, or maybe come back some other night, when a couple stood up having paid the bill and the waiter took me to their table. The menu was written in chalk on a blackboard and it was unclear. I had a phrase book which listed items on a menu. I was checking through the book to see if I could find any words on the blackboard when I spotted him.
    He was with a number of people at a long table opposite mine; most of them were men but there were also a few young women. He was wearing a light grey suit and an open-necked white shirt.