Love, Let Me Not Hunger (32 page)

The remainder he had put in a shady place. In the morning Toby could take the bulk of it to their friend, the butcher, for storage in his cool room, but the dry fodder he had piled partly in the horse tent where the animals could see it and partly in view of Judy as an earnest that the next day would not herald a resumption of starvation.

As to what the future would bring and the meaning of the exchange he had made of himself as the price of unlimited food for the menagerie, he was too exhilarated over its immediate effects upon all the starving brutes to bother his head about it too much. And besides, there was the prospect of Janos returning with him for company. True, at the back of his mind lay the remark of the major-domo, “It would be better for him if he did not come,” but he could not make head nor tail of that.

This much seemed clear now: that the Marquesa, although she might turn out to have a very odd sense of humor, had mistaken him for one of the active clowns in the circus and had commandeered his services in return for providing continuing sustenance for the hungry animals. And looking back upon the curious thing that had befallen him in the ring at that final performance of the Marvel Circus, he thought that Janos was needed to complete the act in the mind of the Marquesa. Undoubtedly, he, Mr. Albert, would be called upon to repeat this form of humiliation and discomfort, but considered in the light of his concern for all the beasts committed to his care and what they, their trust in and affection for him had come to mean in his declining years, the price did not seem too high to pay. Anyway, it was no more than a continuation of that curious train of unreality upon which he had embarked and from which now there seemed to be no turning back.

Indeed, the symbol that there would be no reversal of the clock was there in the presence of the car within the enclosure and the uniformed driver who was waiting to transport him to the Finca Pozoblanco. The emptied lorry had already returned and the chauffeur strolled among the cages of the animals and amused himself watching them and Mr. Albert as he went about the business of cleaning and caring for them. Mr. Albert’s few belongings had already been rolled up into a bundle and reposed in the car.

At six o’clock the beast man had everything ship-shape and the animals watered and bedded down in fresh straw. The chauffeur nodded his head towards the car and said curtly,
“Vámonos!”

But Mr. Albert cried brightly, “No, no, no! Not yet,” and skipped away, pantomiming towards the living wagons. “The others haven’t come back yet. I must wait for them.” The man said nothing but climbed into the front seat of the car, pulled out a paper and began to read it. At half-past six, Toby and Janos came home. There was no sign of Rose, though this was not unusual for she often worked late at Las Flores, particularly if there was a dinner party.

Mr. Albert told his story as best he could against first the marvelling and then half-disbelieving headshakes of his two companions.

“You mean,” Toby cried after the narrative was finished, “that you sold yourself to get food for those bloody animals! And that when she tells you to, you’ll fall down on your arse and make her laugh?”

Mr. Albert was himself not sure, but he said, “Well, in a way, I suppose. I don’t know. That’s what she said.”

“And are you going?”

Mr. Albert motioned to the heaped up fodder. “Look,” he said, “I’ve promised.”

Toby was still shaking his head but he held out his hand to Mr. Albert and said, “Old man, you’re all right.”

Mr. Albert beamed. “Then you and Rose will be able to get along all right without me? You won’t have to work any more in town, any of you.”

“Me and Rose?” Toby asked. “What about Janos here?”

“She wants him to come too.”

The dwarf pricked up his ears and stared at Albert. “What’s that? She want me too? What she want me for?”

Mr. Albert looked sheepish. “To slosh water onto me, she said.”

Janos threw back his ugly head and roared with laughter. “Ho, ho, ho!” he shouted. “I do that for nothing seven time a week.” He ceased laughing as suddenly as he had begun and said, “She rich woman. What she going do for Janos, if Janos come and live with her?”

“You’re to bring your dogs,” Mr. Albert said. “They’ll be properly fed and looked after. She said you would eat at her own table with her. She said I was to tell you.”

“And sleep in a bed?”

“I—I suppose so.”

“Hokay,” Janos decided. “Janos go.”

Mr. Albert suddenly remembered the strange admonition of the major-domo and said, “Mebbe you’d better not. Mebbe you’d want to think about it.”

Janos laughed again. “Ho, ho! What for? Janos going eat plenty again. That bloody better than digging ditches, no?” Then he added, “So. And what about Rose and Toby?”

Mr. Albert looked disturbed. “Nothing was said about them,” he replied. “I didn’t have a chance—”

“Never mind us,” Toby said quickly. “We’ll get along.” He was almost relieved that they were to be left alone now that their dilemma had been solved. The job of feeding and cleaning the animals was one that he and Rose could look after very well in a morning, and after the back-breaking work in the fields and in the ditches it would be good to sit around in the sun and just do nothing some of the day. Perhaps if he felt like it he would teach Rose to ride. It sounded somehow like a schoolboy holiday to him. With the old man and the dwarf gone there would be nobody about to tell them what to do or give them advice or interfere. If it was true that food would come every day, he did not care then whether Sam Marvel or his own family ever came back. With such ample supplies of fresh milk, eggs, and vegetables as he saw on hand, and with more to come, there would be plenty for Rose and himself as well as the menagerie.

“Hokay,” Janos said once more. “I go and get doks.”

Mr. Albert went over to the chauffeur and shouted at him, “Janos! He’s coming! He’s getting his dogs!”

The man seemed to understand for he got out of the car and went and opened the rear of the station wagon.

Janos released his two great Danes and the fox terrier from the living wagon where he kept them shut up during his absence. Mr. Albert had fed them and restored some life to them. At a word from Janos, whom they obeyed implicitly and whose every gesture they seemed to understand, they got into the station wagon and at once lay down, panting, with their tongues lolling out.

Janos emerged from the wagon with two suitcases, a small cardboard one with some clothes and the other containing his clown’s suit and make-up. “I bring,” he said to Mr. Albert. “Maybe she want me be funny for her, too, heh?”

The cases were tossed into the back with the dogs, the chauffeur shut the doors and said again,
“Vámonos.”
Mr. Albert wondered suddenly whether the man had been sent not only as a means of transportation but to see that he returned—or else. He put the thought from his mind, however, and said, “O.K. then, we’ll be off. Toby, you’ll tell Rose and give her my love? Perhaps I’ll be allowed to come back for a visit. If you hear from Mr. Marvel or anything, send me a postcard.”

It was at this point that the cheap little saloon car drew up at the gate and disgorged two strangers who entered the
finca.
One was middle-aged with thin wisps of black hair straggling across the top of his skull, arranged to hide its baldness. He was stout with a prissy mouth and nervous eyes, and soberly clad with a thick gold watch chain across his front. His companion was younger and taller with a narrow, sallow face and an offensive moustache. His shoulders were extraordinarily high and pointed so that he seemed to be involved in a perpetual shrug. He, too, wore dark clothes but his hung loosely from his frame and flapped as he walked. He had half a cigar in his mouth and two large rings on his fingers. He likewise wore no hat and his crisp, bushy hair receded from his forehead in waves that must have been carefully cultivated.

With Janos already seated in the station wagon, Mr. Albert paused with his own foot upon the running board to see what it was they wanted. They had not had visitors for weeks, and the old adage that it never rained but it poured could be operating. These men might have some news of Mr. Marvel, or the insurance or something of interest.

Before they spoke a word the two men indulged in a most extraordinary series of gestures and pantomimes. The shorter, older one looked nervously from the Buick to Toby and Mr. Albert and then to his companion at whom he blinked with his lips pursed. The taller man likewise toured the situation with a pair of snapping black eyes, removed the cigar from his mouth, examined the end of it, restored it, and looked down upon the other. He then once more removed the half cigar, ran his fingers through the ripples of his hair, stopped to scratch on the way, and, having completed this manoeuvre, said,
“Señores—por favor!
We ’ave come to mak leetle, how you call her, arrangement.”

Mr. Albert took his foot from the step of the car and shut the door. The chauffeur glared. For no reason whatsoever that he could fathom, Mr. Albert was entertaining the most strangely queasy sensation at the pit of his stomach.

Toby said, “O.K. Arrangement about what? What’s it about? I’m in charge here.” He was not liking the two specimens at all. They looked like undertakers to him, and he noticed that their linen was none too clean.

The spokesman now spraddled his legs, twiddling his fingers across his breast. “It is ver’ difficult,” he began. He had a mellifluous and fruity voice. “My fren here, Señor Garcia, is Spaneesh. He spik no Ingleesh. I, Ignacio Manolo, am Spaneesh too but I spik leetle Ingleesh. I spik for my fren. So!” And he pointed to his companion, “Is Señor Andrea Garcia.” He patted his own chest. “Is Señor Ignacio Manolo.”

Nobody acknowledged the introduction. Janos leaned closer towards the open window of the car to hear better. Mr. Albert was wondering why his heart felt so compressed. Toby had his hands in the pockets of his denims and was disturbing the ground with the toe of one of his boots and looking over at the two men, his brows wrinkled with a distaste he could not explain, his eyes squinting slightly.

Señor Manolo rocked upon his heels, flapped his fingers and said again,
“Bueno.
My fren here wishes to make leetle arrangement.”

“Yes,” said Toby, “I got that before. Arrangement about what?”

The two men exchanged quick glances and Señor Garcia blinked nervously and pursed up his mouth like that of a baby. Manolo was now rocking so violently that his coat swayed about him like a garment hanging from a cabin door at sea.
“Con permiso”
he finally said, “about the girl Rosa.” He pronounced it “Rossa.”

Mr. Albert thought he was going to be sick. Toby’s eyes narrowed until they were no more than slits with a glitter behind them. “What about Rose?” he asked.

Señor Manolo said, “Ah-ha, good. So you are the one, then. I explain.” And then, haltingly but carefully and with infinite pains that there should be no mistake about the mission or the worth and good intention of his friend, he launched into the story.

It was, once the language embarrassments of Señor Manolo were overcome, a simple enough one. Señor Garcia was a wine merchant, a wholesale buyer from Toledo who conducted a great deal of business throughout the wine country of La Mancha. Señor Manolo was himself a local grower and shipper and hence was anxious to please his good customer Garcia, which was why he was acting for him now.

It seemed that in recent weeks Señor Garcia had observed the girl Rose in the bar of Las Flores and although the business in which she was engaged was fairly obvious, he was greatly taken with her looks and comportment and a manner which appeared to be most pleasing even though she appeared to speak no Spanish. It had struck Señor Garcia, who was a kind and good-hearted gentleman—indeed he and his family were held in the highest esteem in Toledo, that it was a great pity that one so gentle and attractive should, by whatever circumstances, be compelled to distribute her favours in this manner.

Manolo went on to explain that Gracia had not yet addressed himself to the young lady, but had found out that she had been a member of the circus company. Well off and able to provide for her he wished to arrive at a permanent arrangement with Rose, whereby he would set her up in a suitable apartment, say in Manzanares or Valdepenas rather than in Zalano where her connection with Las Flores was already a public matter. Thus during his periodic visits to the vineyards he would have a delightful little sweetheart to sustain and comfort him.

During the course of this recital, Señor Garcia accompanied it with a running commentary of facial expressions which, since he did not understand a word of English and thus did not know how far along in his narrative his friend might be, failed to match the various points that were being enumerated. Thus, all by himself, he ran the gamut of modest sheepishness, proud acquiescence, boyish mischievousness, paternal affection, shy embarrassment, sly eagerness, and a lover’s ardour, none of which were particularly becoming to him.

Señor Manolo then brought his remarks to a conclusion by revealing that not only was his friend a gentleman, but likewise a man of honour. Aware of the connection of the girl with the gentlemen of the circus he was prepared to discharge any financial obligation which might be deemed fair and adequate compensation.

The howl of pain and rage which then burst from Toby Walters was like nothing human, but animal and incoherent in its anguish and fury, but a moment later his tortured throat managed to form words—“Out! Get out!! Get out, you swine! Get out before I kill you!!”

He was only a step and a jump away from his living wagon. Crazed, he plunged into it to emerge an instant later with the spike-tipped steel elephant hook in his hand and madness in his eyes.

But the two men were already off and running hard, the taller and more active Manolo in the lead, the tubby little Garcia at his heels pursued by the screams issuing from Toby.

“I’ll kill you!! You bloody dirty swine—”

For an instant Garcia’s back presented a fair target and Toby drew back his arm and hurled the ankus with enough power to drive it through both of them had it landed. Fortunately, his blind rage spoiled his aim. It struck the ground just behind of Garcia’s heels with a loud metallic sound and then bounded past their heads to crash against the rear window of their car which it shattered before bouncing off into the road.