The Liverpool Basque Read online

  It was dark by the time he had to stop because of fatigue and he had forgotten, for the moment, his intention of writing to Ramon. He leaned back in his chair to stretch himself. His eyes were watering and his shoulders ached from the concentrated effort he had been making.

  When he looked again at what he had written, he wondered suddenly what lay behind his own boyhood memories. What was going on amongst the grown-ups, who surged in and out of his grandparents’ kitchen-living-room? Were they happy?

  It took a minute or two for him to bring himself back from Wapping Dock in Liverpool, and when his mind was clear of it, he was left with an aching longing to go home to it, to shake Arnador’s hand once more and see Cousin Ramon, and speak Basque with both of them.

  Although Faith will have a fit, if you suggest that you want to do such a long air journey, you could do it, he told himself. And perhaps you should, before it’s too late!

  He grinned wickedly. This summer, he promised himself. And don’t tell Faith until it’s too late to cancel the flight.

  Chapter Four

  Ports from which men go to sea are matriarchal societies; it is women who are in charge. They have to have their babies without any support from their husbands; and they have to teach their sons, as well as their daughters, to behave and mind their manners. Father is not at home frequently enough to take a strap to a delinquent lad.

  Manuel, aged eighty-four, was trying hard to explain to Lorilyn, aged nineteen, that, even before feminism was invented, some women ruled their families.

  In our house, he scribbled, it was Grandma Micaela Barinèta who was the undisputed boss. She was my mother’s mother, a shrunken ball of energy, always clothed in black, a piece of knitting, with a cork on the end of the needles, usually tucked into the pocket of her black apron. Even to me, when I was only three or four years old and all grown-ups seemed very tall, she appeared too little to possibly be the mother of my two uncles, one of whom, Leo Barinèta, lived with us. Whenever they had done something of which she did not approve, she lashed out at them with her tongue and scared them into line. She would not tolerate any nonsense from me, either, though I was only a toddler; and I soon learned to sit quietly, while the priest droned through the Mass, or to run away and play if she was gossiping with a neighbour.

  Of course, Grandpa Juan Barinèta, who no longer went to sea, believed that he ruled the three generations in the house. He certainly received first consideration from Grandma – and from my mother, Rosita Echaniz, who always seemed to be in league with Grandma. Nevertheless, it was the two women who collected the men’s earnings from them and the rents from the emigrant lodgers, and laid out the family income to the best of their joint abilities. They bargained in the market for food, decided when new clothes would be bought, purchased coal for the fires, and paid the rent each week; they put every penny they could into three old biscuit tins under Grandma’s bed, until a few shillings had been accumulated to put into Post Office savings accounts.

  If I had been good on the day that Grandma decided to go to the post office, she let me accompany her, and I had the honour of licking the savings stamps, which she purchased from the postmistress to put into her savings books; I must have licked pages and pages of sixpenny stamps, as Grandma laid away money, first for a rainy day, then for clothes, especially boots for all the menfolk, and finally for education.

  The Basque community, nestled by the dock road, was united in its belief in education for their children; and the whole family was determined that the second child, which Mother was expecting, and I, should both go to a good private day school, rather than to the local Catholic school. In this emphasis on their children’s future, they differed somewhat from their polyglot neighbours, who tended, simply, to be thankful if their children managed to grow to adulthood in noisy, polluted Liverpool, knowing enough reading and writing to get a job in the docks or as deckhands.

  I grew accustomed to hearing my future discussed, over many a glass of cheap, smuggled wine, by Grandpa, Uncle Leo, and my father, Pedro Echaniz, when he was home. Words like ‘university’…‘doctor’…‘solicitor’ whizzed over my head, strange words rarely used in our street.

  At the beginning of each voyage, Father arranged with his employers for Mother to receive part of his wages each week. This was called an allotment, and, together with Grandpa’s and Uncle Leo’s earnings, was used for living expenses.

  Grandma gave back to the men a little pocket money for wine and tobacco, both discreetly brought into the country by Basque seamen lucky enough to be sailing to and from their homeland, Vizcaya, in Spain.

  A meal isn’t complete without wine, my grandfather would often say. Smuggled wines were cheap, and, on the whole, the customs officers did not worry too much about collecting duty on a few bottles of our native wines, as long as its illicit importation was on a very small scale.

  Though ours was a very united household, it was not a placid one. Argument, debate were the salt of life, and, in addition, there were all kinds of small vendettas within the Basque community. The community became a solid block, however, whenever it felt it had, as a group, been insulted. The supreme calumny was to be referred to as Spaniards! Such a blunder was frequently made by our cheerful, easygoing fellow Liverpudlians, especially the Irish, who seemed sorely lacking in a knowledge of Iberian history, and by English clerks behind official counters, who didn’t really care what we were.

  Amongst the men gathered round our kitchen table for a smoke and a gossip, such an allegation produced a glowering animosity; they sputtered like half-lit sparklers, and muttered about the improbable origins of all the accursed Spaniards they had ever met. Many of them spoke Spanish as well as they did Basque, and they could be equally rude in both languages; even in English, the English of the back streets, they could be quite lurid. My knowledge of lively curses in all three languages began at an early age.

  So, from the time I was big enough to be carried around on Grandpa’s or Uncle Leo’s shoulder, I learned that I was a Basque and to be proud of it. I learned to speak Basque first; it was the language which flowed around my small world of kitchen-living-room and bricklined backyard; I learned good Castilian from the Spanish priests of St Peter’s Church – they were frequently in and out of our homes, to counsel or console, their lean, dark figures the epitome of God’s authority over little boys. And I learned English from my playmates in the street.

  Grandpa had a beard heavily streaked with grey. His head was bald, except for a thin ring of neatly clipped black hair. Most of his teeth were deep-stained by tobacco, but a missing one had been replaced by a gold tooth which flashed as he talked; I was fascinated by it and my first ambition was to have a flashing gold tooth for myself. He had gone to sea in the days of sailing ships, and was proud to say that he had several times breasted the storms of Cape Horn, a place of terror at the most southerly point of Chile, where many a ship was lost before the advent of the Panama Canal gave a safer entry to the Pacific Ocean. ‘They don’t know what seamanship is, nowadays,’ he would grumble testily to my father, when he told of his adventures in a steamer.

  For many years now, Grandpa Barinèta had held the agency for Basque emigrants passing through Liverpool on their way to Nevada, Arizona, California and Washington. An Agent was essential to protect such travellers from exploitation in a strange port, where their language was not spoken. He saw that they were housed and fed, while they waited for their ship; he kept their luggage safe, and delivered them to the correct ship at the right time. It was his pride that, to his knowledge, he had never lost even a piece of luggage, never mind an emigrant.

  Many of these people were lodged in our own house, which was a large eighteenth-century dwelling, and I was quite used to our home being suddenly filled with strangers, who equally suddenly vanished a few days later. Even as a little child, I sensed how touchingly thankful they were to be in the hands of a fellow Basque, who took care that they were not robbed or cheated by local rascals who made a
living by preying on confused travellers trying to get to the New World; and I will never forget Grandpa’s slow smile of satisfaction when he could close his ledger after a boat sailed, and sink into his carving chair at the kitchen table to enjoy a quiet glass of wine with Grandma and Mother.

  These transitory invasions made our house a very lively one, and a centre for resident Basques, who often drifted in to hear recent news of Vizcaya from the emigrants. The house was opposite the Wapping Dock, except that across a narrow street, the tall flat-iron building of the Baltic Fleet intervened. This public house was a popular meeting place, almost a club, to the Basque community, and emigrants often took their ease there, too. My mother told me that she sometimes went for a drink there with my father, and that she used to park me, sound asleep in my pram, by its ample walls, while she went inside. No wonder it was one of my favourite pubs when I grew up!

  As I grew a little bigger, my greatest ambition became to climb into the toast-rack horse-bus, with its little canopy over the rear seats, and have a ride with the emigrants down to the big ship which took them over the ocean to the New World. On the bus’s side was the name of a steamship company, and on a grubby white board at the front was the name of the ship on which the emigrants were booked. The bus was drawn by two patient, blinkered work horses, heads hanging and untidy short manes blowing in the sea wind, as they waited for the harassed, worried emigrants to be loaded.

  ‘Grandpa! Let me go down to the dock – please, Grandpa. I’m five now. I’m big enough,’ I pleaded, one sunny September day in 1913.

  He stood on the pavement, between our front door and the horse-bus, in his hand a piece of board with innumerable sheets of paper pinned to it, his peaked cap pushed to the back of his head, while he supervised the people climbing on to the bus. I clutched at his long, serge-covered legs, and peered up at him to catch his eye.

  He looked down at me impatiently. He was fond of me, I knew, but at that moment I was a nuisance, as round him swirled an anxious group of heavily laden men, women and children, all of them desperately dependent upon him.

  ‘Manuel Echaniz! The bus is too full,’ he responded with exasperation. ‘Go and see your mother in the kitchen.’ As I reluctantly let go of his leg, his voice rose to a shriek. ‘Mind out! You’re too close to the wheels. Get out of the way, boy.’

  My face fell. I wanted to cry. At five, I felt I was grown-up enough to be able to keep out of the way of wheels and horses’ feet. But when Grandpa spoke like that, everyone obeyed, even Mother and Father. Sullenly and with difficulty, I turned away and pushed myself between long, trousered legs and flowing black skirts issuing from the house, an incredible stream of people. A white-faced little girl, with whom I had played for the past week, said shyly, ‘Goodbye, Manuel,’ as I shoved by her. I did not reply, as I fought my way kitchenwards. Through my ill humour, I smelled the emigrants’ underlying fear, and it made me uneasy, as baskets, bundles tied in old shawls, and the bare feet of small children carried in their parents’ arms brushed or bumped my head.

  When I was a little older, I was able to visualize more accurately the discomforts of the long voyage in steerage still faced by our visitors, and could understand their dread. Meanwhile, infected by their fear, I almost ran down the deserted back part of the passageway leading to the kitchen and safety, while Grandpa, his pencil tucked behind his ear, continued to cope with the travellers.

  Grandpa had a habit of rubbing his short beard when hard-pressed by nervous questions from his charges. Already tired from the journey from Bilbao, and distressed at leaving home, however poverty-stricken, the emigrants seemed to find great comfort and reassurance from the self-confident old man. Now, at the time of parting from us, some of the women were invariably near to tears; not only did they have yet to face the long voyage to New York, but also a long train journey to the West, with children and husbands to keep fed and happy. In some cases, they had to sustain a pregnancy and, at the end, a confinement amid strangers.

  On the other hand, there was always a group of young, single men, excited, strung-up and sometimes drunk, for Grandpa to control; on each he pinned a numbered identity disc, while they laughed and joked, and talked of making a fortune in their new land. Not for ever would they tend other people’s sheep in Nevada, they assured each other.

  In the big, stone-floored kitchen-living-room, with its high ceiling covered with a century of soot, my comfortable, plump mother took no notice of my entry; she was holding her youngest brother, Uncle Leo Barinèta, tightly to her and was weeping bitterly.

  Frightened, and not a little jealous, I paused in the doorway.

  Uncle Leo was saying, ‘It’s not for ever, Rosita. I’ll come back.’ His voice rose with false cheerfulness. ‘Come on. At worst, a seaman can work his way home again – even from Nevada! Don’t cry, Rosita.’

  Mother leaned back in his arms, to look up at his face. ‘You’ve got a home with us,’ she wailed. ‘You can go on sailing out of Liverpool. Why move? Nevada sounds a godforsaken place.’

  ‘Tush, Rosita. I want to better myself. There’s land there, almost for the asking.’ He dropped his arms to his sides in a hopeless gesture, realizing that land meant nothing to her.

  She drew away from him, and wiped her tears on the corner of her white apron. ‘Mother’s broken-hearted,’ she reproached him.

  I watched wide-eyed. Uncle Leo was an essential part of my small world; it was frightening that he should be about to vanish like all the other emigrants. People poured in and out of our house, but the family members always came home; as seamen, Uncle Leo and Father, even Uncle Agustin, reappeared regularly, armed with presents for small boys. But Mother’s tears told me that this departure was very different.

  ‘Mam!’ I cried in a strangled, scared voice, and ran to her.

  Mechanically, she picked me up and held me against her shoulder. I felt her slump slightly, and turned my face towards hers. Her pretty, little mouth was drooping, her whole expression woebegone. She was gazing at Uncle Leo as if she could never take her eyes off him. ‘I’ll miss you so much,’ she whimpered. ‘And Mother’s nearly out of her mind, up there on the bed.’

  Uncle Leo swallowed, and I thought he was going to cry; it was a new and scary idea to me that a young man could cry. He controlled himself, however, and, instead, he put his arms round both of us together. He kissed my mother’s cheek and then I felt his lips on the back of my own head. He loosed his hold on us, and said, ‘I know. Mam’s been upset about it for weeks. Comfort her, Rosita – I feel bad about it. But I’ll be back, never fear.’

  He turned abruptly and went out through the hallway to say farewell to his father and to join the embarking throng.

  It was over nine years before I saw Uncle Leo again.

  Mother stood silent for a moment or two; then she seemed to gather herself together and become aware of my own trembling. Through her tears, she smiled at me. She said brightly, ‘Pudding’s got a great surprise for you. Come and see.’

  I missed Uncle Leo for his own sake. But, as I grew up, I learned that the loss of a man from a family weakens that family immeasurably. No one knew it better than Basque mountain farmers and their descendants, who dwelt in the rocky, inhospitable Pyrenees, between the French and the Spanish. For century upon century, they had to watch their younger sons leave their stony fortress, because the land could not feed them; they became famous mercenaries in foreign armies, or fishermen in the Bay of Biscay or iron workers in the foundries of Bilbao. When the New World opened up, they took their skills as shepherds and as seamen to it, and Uncle Leo, full of hope, went with them.

  Mother slowly slid me to the floor. As she tried to control her grief, I saw her fine, round breasts rise and fall quickly under her black blouse, and I knew that Uncle Leo’s departure must be something very disturbing to her.

  My childhood fears soon gave way to curiosity, as she led me to a small cupboard beside the big kitchen range on which she and Grandma cooked. The door was
open, and she squatted down beside me. ‘Have a look,’ she urged me.

  I approached the small, dark cavern of the cupboard with caution. Pudding was a very large, black cat with expressionless pale-green eyes; she was quite capable of giving a small boy a sharp clawing, if she felt her dignity was at stake.

  She was curled up on a piece of grubby blanket in the darkest corner. Her green eyes flashed as she looked up quickly at her visitors, while round her crawled four tiny black bundles. Surprised, I put out my hand to touch one of them. Pudding peremptorily nuzzled my hand away.

  In some astonishment, I turned to Mother. ‘Kittens! Where did she find them?’

  ‘She had them inside her. They came out in the night.’

  The reply was so unexpected that I knew my mother was teasing me. I looked at her knowingly, and laughed. ‘They couldn’t. How would they get out?’

  Mother hesitated, before she replied. Then she said, ‘Pudding won’t let me touch her at the moment; she’s tired. Tomorrow, I’ll lift her up and show you.’

  Though she had been born in Bilbao, my mother had close relations who lived in the countryside, where, as a matter of course, children saw animals born and die. It had apparently not struck her that her little son was ignorant of birth – and, possibly, also of death.

  Chapter Five

  Laden with greyish sheets to be washed, Grandma Micaela came slowly and heavily down the stairs, and, as she entered the kitchen, I looked up from watching the kittens. A shaft of sunlight from the tall, narrow kitchen window lit up her paper-pale cheeks, wet with tears.

  I was shocked. Grandma never cried. The worst she ever did was scold; and she was my rock, my safe refuge, when both Mother and Father were cross with me. Now, as Mother scrambled hastily to her feet, Grandma looked imploringly at her and quavered, ‘I can’t make myself go out to see him leave. I can’t bear it. I’ll never see him again!’ She dropped the sheets on to the stone floor; her hands, heavily veined, and scarlet from too much immersion in hot soda water, dangled helplessly at her sides.