Not Just a Soldier’s War

by Betty Burton

  Within the villa, there is still crystal glass, fine wines and fine china bearing the coat-of-arms of the King of Spain. Walls are adorned with priceless paintings and tapestries which, before this palace was taken over by the Republican socialists on behalf of the people, was in use by its owners for only two months of the year. This short stay amid wealth and luxury was sufficient to give the owner the necessary qualification for collecting taxes from the villagers, many of whom still occupy their same dirty, sunless, cold and damp dwellings.

  I hope that you who read this will be moved to do something to help halt what is happening to ordinary people who often work twelve or more hours a days, twelve months in the year, to produce crops and who, for the first time in hundreds of years, are doing so as a free people. Speak out before it is too late. Speak out before our democracy is taken from us.

  E. V. Anders, New Year’s Day, 1938

  * * *

  It was in Benicasim, near Valencia, once a millionaires’ coastal resort whose beautiful villas were now in use as convalescent centres for the wounded of the International Brigade, that Eve ran in to Ozz Lavender again. They greeted each other like old friends of many years’ standing. He still looked in good physical shape, and as handsome, but, like all chauffeurs and drivers these days, he was thinner and hollow-eyed, and his genial manner masked an underlying tension.

  ‘Andy, sweetheart, will you just look at ya. That hair! You had it cropped off like a fella back when.’

  ‘I let it grow again when I discovered a remedy for the nits.’

  ‘Hey, you should bottle it and make yourself a fortune.’

  ‘Old ladies in the villages make it from a weed – fleabane I think it’s called in England. It smells terrible, but it works and the smell washes out.’

  They sat in the cab of Ozz’s big supplies truck and smoked Spanish cigarettes, halved and re-rolled. ‘The last I heard of you, you had gone to Colmenar. I heard from Alex that you put your foot down. Good on you, sweetheart. How long turn-around have you got, Andy?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Do you fancy a trip out?’

  ‘In?’

  ‘In my truck.’

  ‘We could go to the beach area, I’d like that,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Like when we picked up the Mercedes?’

  ‘We went to Chincilla de Monte.’

  ‘And ended up on the bay of Jávea, swimming in the nudd.’

  ‘I have to go pick up some fresh fruit and stuff, but we could have a couple of hours to ourselves.’

  ‘OK. Maybe I could get some for an Englishman I was hoping to visit – he’s in the English convalescent centre.’

  They picked up fresh and dried fruits first, and then took the road along the beautiful coast of the Golfo de Valencia. On the drive they rediscovered the number of interests they had in common, and talked about books they had read, films they had seen and foods they would pounce upon when things got back to normal, but they did not talk about the war, or about what they had done and seen, each knowing that the other’s experiences would have been equally distressing.

  ‘We could just about fit in a bullfight, Andy, do you fancy that?’

  ‘That’s a terrible idea, Ozz.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there are more humane ways of slaughtering an animal.’

  ‘It’s not slaughter. Have you ever seen a fighting bull?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’re great black devils, bred for the purpose, and they kill ’m real quick.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse what goes on before.’

  ‘Do you know what goes on before?’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘That’s how unintelligent people inform their prejudices, and you aren’t unintelligent. If you won’t go at least to see whether you are right, then how can you have an opinion?’

  ‘I can have an opinion about the whole idea of killing for enjoyment. I’ve seen a fox-hunt…’

  ‘I’m not suggesting we go to a fox-hunt. C’mon, Andy, I never took you as having a mind that goes snap as a rat-trap on a new experience.’ The seats cost only a few pesetas and Ozz got them a place at the ringside. There, the light appeared so clear and concentrated that it was possible to see individual grains in the raked sand. Even though this was a fairly small bullring, the traditional pageantry was impressive. The excitement was almost palpable, the colours invoked sexuality, and the noise and smells were erotic. If that had been the whole show, then Eve would have felt satisfied that she had experienced something new. But even as the crowd acclaimed the spectacle that it must have seen many times before, even as the toreadors and matadors paraded, even as the jerky horses champed and trotted, Eve tensed with anticipation.

  Then the ring emptied of the opening pageantry, the spectators fell silent and suddenly, just below where they were sitting, a black bull bucked to a slithering, stiff-legged stance only feet away from a slim young matador standing in a pose of exaggerated machismo. The crowd applauded wildly, but his entrance proved to be the climax of the matador’s performance. From here on, all that Eve could see was useless bravado, as the young man moved inexpertly and without grace.

  When the matador eventually lunged, he missed and sliced the bull’s neck. The bull bellowed and lashed with his tail as blood poured down his shiny black coat and spotted the yellow sand. As the crowd jeered, the youth tried again with the sword, but he had lost his confidence. The weapon fell, and he picked it up to catcalls. It sounded to Eve as if the crowd was cheering for the bull. She looked down at her shoes, convinced that when the young man’s slim body became impaled on the curving horns, the audience would be satiated.

  There was an outbreak of clapping, and her attention was again drawn to the bloody arena. Several young men had leapt into the ring, one with a sword, but made no attempt to finish off the bleeding, maddened bull who was thrashing wildly and going for everyone in sight, its feet sliding as it changed direction.

  Suddenly Ozz was out of his seat and into the arena where he seized the bull’s tail. The madder the bull became, the wilder the amateur bullfighters became. With more bravado than skill, they dared the bull, with Ozz still clinging to its blood-soaked tail.

  Eve could stand no more. Nobody noticed her rush out; everyone was too intent upon the sordid and humiliating spectacle in the sand. As she reached the street she heard a great explosion of voices. Thank God, the humiliation of the bull and the poor little raw matador was over. She climbed into the passenger seat of Ozz’s truck and waited for him to return. It was a much longer wait than she had expected.

  At last, Ozz, filthy and smelling of sweat and animal, found her glowering and angry but not quiet.

  ‘Sorry about the bullshit, Andy, I couldn’t find a place to have a bit of a swill.’

  ‘How could you! I can’t believe you would do such a thing, such a… I…’

  ‘Simmer down, it wasn’t dangerous. The bull was probably not that well bred, it’s all part of the show. The next fight is a stunner, and the local hero will leave the ring with his reputation a mile high.’ Lighting a cigarette, he plumped himself carelessly into the driving seat. ‘You didn’t like it, I can see that, but at least you will be able to pontificate about bullfighting from your own experience instead of from someone else’s.’

  ‘Oh, you’re totally wrong, Ozz. I hated it! I was appalled by it, as appalled as I was when I saw hounds bring down a fox. How could you? Of all people.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean, Of all people?’

  What indeed? She really hardly knew him. Yet she had built up an image of Ozz as a gentle friend, based on the trust she had placed in him on that first outing together when they had taken off their clothes and gone swimming in the bay. ‘I don’t know. I thought you were different.’

  ‘From whom, from what?’

  ‘I don’t know. From the general run-of-the-mill men, from the competitors.’

  ‘But I am a competitor, yo
u’ve known that from the first day. I told you that I was going to compete in the Berlin Olympics, but went instead to the People’s Games in Barcelona. I am competitive, very competitive. If you don’t know that, you don’t know me at all.’

  ‘I probably don’t. It’s my own fault for relying on my intuition. I thought you were different, special, that you and I were friends, colleagues if you like.’

  ‘So did I, still do, and I can’t imagine that there is anything that you could do that would make me want to give you a rollicking. I guess there are things about you that I find surprising, but that’s my problem for imposing my expectations on you. If so, I won’t blame you for not coming up to the Eve Anders of my own invention.’

  She felt like a child receiving a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger talking-to by her elder brother or the school vicar. She felt too sullen to make excuses or even reply.

  Ozz leaned back in the driver’s seat and put his feet up on the dashboard. ‘You’re right about one thing, Andy. I am different. I’m homosexual.’

  Her ears pricked up like an animal listening for an almost imperceptible sound. Had he said homosexual?

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I’m one of your actual pansies. Just so’s you know. Just so you know how much of a friend I hope you are. How much I trust you, as much as you trusted me that day at Jávea bay.’

  She was flustered and blushed. He wasn’t really serious. He was! But you could tell them a mile off. She had grown up seeing them hanging around the docks. Ozz looked normal, a real he-man.

  After a long pause, she said, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.’

  He looked at her and raised his eyebrows in a kind of plea. ‘You aren’t supposed to say anything, Andy. It’s no big picnic. I don’t go for girls, that’s all. I happen to prefer fellas.’

  ‘Prefer?’

  ‘To go to bed with.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I just thought I’d like to tell you, to kind of put a seal on our friendship. Anybody who knows that kind of thing about a fella has got him by the balls.’

  She turned towards him slightly but did not look directly at him.

  ‘C’mon, look at me, Andy. It’s important to both of us. I never took to anybody straight away like I took to you. If I wasn’t like I am, I’d have been in love with you. But I am like this and I do love you, but not in that way.’

  She looked at him, her expressionless stare unblinking.

  ‘Listen, Eve, you’re intelligent, you’re a breath of fresh air and a drink of cold water. I was just hoping we could be good mates. Something happened between us and we clicked, but you didn’t fancy me as a bloke, which was good. It seemed to me that our being together after those kids got blown up, and things were pretty bad, pushed us together. It wasn’t a sexual thing, and I was grateful for that. I felt as though we’d known one another years and years. I thought we could see a bit of each other and it’d be nice if we could talk, maybe go to the flicks. Mates.’

  ‘But I’ve seen pansies about, since I was little. They walk funny, they dye their hair, and wear pink or purple shirts and long silk scarves round their necks. I’ve seen them hanging around the docks and dance-halls wearing more make-up than the girls. And now look at you, your hair’s a mess, you wear a navvy’s shirt, and you’ve got this astounding body, a male athlete, how much more masculine can you get?’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Most of the original Olympian competitors would have been homo. It was quite the done thing in those days. I shouldn’t have tried to be flippant. Pansy isn’t a nice word. I’m a homosexual, I didn’t ask to be it, I didn’t try to be it, I just am it, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He grinned. ‘Well, nothing practical until I can find another one to settle down with, and if you was a fella, Andy, it’d be you.’

  The girls she used to work with would have had a good laugh. Ho, just listen to him, that’s a new line.

  ‘My dad believes all his sons are red-blooded. He’d have been proud to see me hanging on to a bull’s tail. I think I’ll send him the ear.’

  ‘What ear?’

  ‘The bull’s bloody ear. I think the officials intended it as a bit of a joke, seeing I was a foreigner, so they insisted I have it. I guessed you wouldn’t go a lot on that, so I chucked it in the back. It’s OK, don’t go getting your hackles up again, it’s all wrapped up in newspaper.’ How perverse of nature to make such a perfect man and then give him a flaw. Perfect body, unthreatening manner, and always treating women with the respect of equals. Yet, in spite of him saying that he wanted theirs to be a perfect kind of platonic friendship, it was bound to be very different from female friendships. These were based to a great extent upon things women had in common: the functioning of their complicated moods and bodies for one thing, their female instincts for another. No female friend would accept a freshly cut-off ear for any reason.

  She thought of herself and Bar Barney cuddling up in the same bed. That was sleeping with someone of the same sex, but that wasn’t what Ozz meant. She couldn’t imagine what two men could find to do that could give them anything like those wickedly sensuous explosions she and Duke had given each other and more recently she and Dimitri. ‘Say something, Andy, even if it’s only “So long”.’

  ‘You were wrong about me not fancying you that day.’

  ‘Andy, I can’t believe it! My antennae usually function better than that. I thought you were pining for some nice man, and I wasn’t him.’

  ‘No. I was probably still suffering from the shock of that awful day. I wasn’t sending out any messages.’ She gave him a tucked-lip little smile. ‘But I wasn’t sorry to see you without your clothes on.’

  ‘Where do we go from here, Andy? I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘You stand more chance of losing me by suddenly joining the bull-baiters.’

  ‘Look, Andy. I don’t know how other fellas feel about women, I assume they feel the same way I do about fellas, but as far as anything else goes I’m hardly different. OK, it’s a mile wide difference, but I’m as competitive as the next bloke, I can be as much a crazy exhibitionist. I’m just the same as all those other idiots who jumped down into the bullring, and for all anybody knows, there’s likely to be a percentage of them who wouldn’t mind jumping into bed with the other idiots there.’

  ‘Oh, Ozz. I wish I really understood what you are on about.’

  He leaned over and took her hand. ‘Andy, that young matador, I couldn’t sit there and see him being humiliated, a kid like that. So what else could I have done to stop it? Eh?’

  ‘Hanging on to the bull’s tail was going to stop it? The creature was already half-dead from that pathetic little bullfighter. How many times did he stick it with his sword?’

  ‘Too bloody many. All I did was to give it the kindest cut of all, so to speak. It wasn’t very elegant, but I’ve killed a good many pigs and steers back home. You go for the artery and stand back.’

  Her puzzled look was genuine. ‘Are you saying that you killed the bull?’

  ‘Finished him off, yeah. I thought that’s why you were sitting here being so huffy.’

  ‘No. I’m sitting here being huffy because you jumped into the ring and now, well, huffy’s not the word for it.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. But that’s me. All that’s Clive Lavender. I’ve made a right dog’s dinner of this, haven’t I?’

  Did his mother know? And what about his brothers? He was a competitive athlete, they could be proud of that. Maybe they didn’t think twice about him putting all his energy into becoming a hurdling champion. It must have been lonely knowing that he wasn’t like the others, not being naturally one of the crowd, always having to pretend. He must have been glad to get away.

  ‘No, somebody else made the dog’s dinner when they gave you this, this complication. Being different. I know what it means to be different. It’s damned lonely.’

  ‘How different?’

  ‘From the time I was twelve, I’ve be
en different from everyone I grew up with. I’m now trying to be somebody else. But it’s not working, I can’t be the girl I was, and I’m not the woman I thought I could become.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘I suppose you might say, Unclassified. A person accepted for what she is, not what people think she should be because there was a label on her when she was born.’ She went silent. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Ozz. You and I don’t want to wear the labels.’

  He reached out and put his hand over hers, squeezing it tightly. ‘You’re a good’n, Andy.’ He took a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it, drew on it then handed it to her. They were smoking cigarettes as though there was no shortage and a tobacconist’s around the comer.

  She turned to smile at him, but was arrested by his expression. She had seen the same look in her own eyes, only briefly, when she caught herself unawares. You’re on your own.

  She slipped one arm through his, drew on the cigarette and handed it over. ‘Corne on, we have to get back.’

  ‘Wait, I’ll dump that thing.’

  ‘Don’t, Ozz, send it to your dad.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘You said he’d be proud, so why not?’

  * * *

  In Benicasim each of the beautiful villas was given over to a particular nationality, so that when Richard Hatton was sent there it was inevitable that he would meet up again with Ken Wilmott. Not that Richard Hatton was in good enough shape to call it a meeting. The doctors hoped that by sending him to convalesce in such good surroundings he would recover. He was very sick, very troubled. Ken Wilmott, on the other hand, was ready to return to his unit. A man who can’t put his feet to the ground isn’t much good on the battle field, so he had gone along with the treatment. He wasn’t a good patient, fretting about being away from his men, but at least he was a step closer to getting back to his military career when he was sent to the training school at Tarazona.

  Packed and ready, he went into the ward to say goodbye to Richard Hatton. ‘I’m off then, Rich.’