A Spanish Girl and Her English Soldier – A Love Beyond Boundaries

CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR, A PARISIAN HOSPITAL AND MADRID

West Mersea, where my mother lived is a quiet little island in the winter.  It has a charm all of its own and if you like Paul Galico’s Snow Goose, which I do, you would recognise the marshes and little coves instantly.  It is however not Paris or Madrid.  Ana and I would walk along the lonely shore accompanied by the music of the wind whistling in the rigging of the boats laid up on the Hard and I would share stories of my sailing escapades while she told me of summers in the Basque Country by the sea. We ate fish and chips from the village shop and met a few old friends. It must have been hard for her with the language, but really the only thing that mattered was being together.  I do not recall ever being so certain of anything as I was then.  That certainty was that I wanted to be with her forever.

There were difficulties.  I was an only child and my mother had been on her own since I was about 7.  I am not sure if any girl would have really been acceptable, but an English Deb might have had an easier time.  It probably did not help that the only girl I had previously brought home had been married, albeit trying to get divorced in what became one of the most infamous political scandals of the 70s. She was 10 years older than me and had a baby.  Ana was Spanish and somehow that did not help. And of course as she spoke no English, neither did that.  Ana was sensitive to what was going on even if my mother was trying to disguise it.  It is perhaps sad, but even then I felt I was being forced to choose and that was horrible, but the choice was never in doubt – it could not be.  And so our love carried us through and straight after New Year, I drove Ana back to Paris knowing that I would finally have to put her on the Madrid sleeper. Her father had replied to my mother’s letter and been quite good about our elopement that he perhaps saw more as the kidnapping of his favourite daughter.

The drive was long and I suppose I must have been exhausted from the stress of the visit. Arriving at the Lycee felt rather like coming home. I went to have a shower and as I stepped out of it, my world spun and went black.  I came to, finding a concerned “pion” (a university student paid to work as a prefect at the school to look after the boarders) trying to sit me up.  Blood and bits of broken teeth were on the floor and in my mouth; my chin was split open and Ana looked very frightened.  She had heard the commotion and come running.  The pion rushed us to hospital in his car.  They decided to keep me in for tests and poor Ana was left alone, with no money (no cash machines in those days) or food.  So when she came to visit me in the hospital, we would share the hospital food, a little like the Lady and the Tramp. She would then return to a pretty empty Lycee alone where she wrote me a letter that was so heart rending, sad at how people seemed to want to spoil our romance that was so pure, so delicate and so right. After stitches, teeth repairs and various tests were completed I was let out and we rushed to the bank to get some money and then to go and eat at our favourite cafe run by a wonderful Pied Noir who had been a school teacher and whose mother made an exquisite Cous cous.

I bought Ana her train ticket and the goodbye on the platform at the Gare Lyon was long, tearful, desperately hard – and the separations never became easier throughout our lives. But Ana had to go back to see her family, to show them how much she loved them and inevitably to recount the story of her 4 months away.

Shortly after I put Ana on the train our letters started to crisscross to and from Madrid and Paris.  Those letters tell of an amazing love developing, of how much we missed each other and how we were longing to be together again.  When I read them now, her voice speaks to me, sometimes clearly and aloud, sometimes whispered conspirationally in my ear.

February came and with it half term. I set off from Paris in the evening driving through the night and a blinding fog to reach the border before dawn. Then it was onto Madrid and a welcome that is hard to describe, full of joy, delight, excitement and perhaps a touch of relief.  I can still remember holding her so tight and never wanting to let her go.  It had been her mother who opened the door and who showed a warmth and kindness that was overwhelming, especially considering the somewhat unusual circumstances. I also had to meet the father, who while not so warm, was nevertheless at least civilised.  The next few days were a whirl of meeting family and friends, an introduction to the vibrancy and liveliness of Madrid with its jostling crowds at 3 in the morning. I was to some extent an object of curiosity.  In England I was aware that being an officer in the Grenadiers carried a certain status; studying French and Philosophy was also pretty acceptable (arts degrees were certainly at the upper end of the spectrum). In Spain, under Franco, the army was not held in such high esteem; professional degrees were considered somehow superior and the English had a reputation that was hardly going to endear them to a still predominantly Catholic Spain.  Add in football hooliganism, drunken holiday makers on the Costas and I suppose it could hardly have been worse. Poor Ana! But they adopted me and this time the language issue was really fun. The youngest two sisters had Beatles English (She loves you yeah yeah), the next up could speak French as could the mother while the father spoke English quite well.  Grandparents, brother and cousins, all spoke Spanish….. But somehow it all worked and soon Ana and I could spend more time together, in the car driving around, exploring secluded hillsides just outside Madrid, eating simple food in restaurants or Tapas in the bars, drinking cafe con leche (still my favourite coffee) especially with churros.  We also spent a few evenings looking for the 24 hour chemist as her teeth were hurting and I remember sitting on the floor by her bed trying to soothe her through the pain.  Even then my desire to look after her and protect her was as much a part of me as my right hand.

THE TEARS OF SALAMANCA

We persuaded her parents that it would be a great idea for Ana and I to drive to Salamanca for a couple of days holiday. Looking back, it was perhaps surprising that they agreed but my confidence was pretty irrepressible. Thinking about it, it had to be, for the odds really were stacked against us in so many ways.  We drove off on that lovely journey through Avilla, Segovia and onto Salamanca where we arrived in the evening and found a man in the street touting hotel rooms. He seemed quite nice and he walked us around to the recommended hotel where we esconced ourselves to enjoy being together alone in the world.  Those two days and three nights were such a happy time where there was space for our love to envelop us so totally and where I began to realise that love has its own life: it grows minute by minute, day by day and week by week.  I thought within the first few days in Paris that I was totally in love, that I had no more to give. Wow was I wrong.  It never stopped growing and as I write this, the tears that trickle down my cheeks are fed from a spring of joy and sadness because I know that had she not had to leave a month ago today, our love would still be growing and I would still be telling her that I want to marry her again and again. And at her funeral I repeated my wedding vows in Spanish so that she would know QUE YO DIARMID TE QUIERO A TI ANA Y ME ENTREGO A TI COMO ESPOSO Y PROMETTO SIERTE FIEL………. And my love continues to grow albeit alone.