Free The South by Colm Tóibín

then I’ll go back to Barcelona.”
    “That’s a good excuse. When do you expect your welcome to run out?”
    “You’re very difficult to deal with. I don’t know if you understand that. Your husband is much simpler,” he said, and they both laughed as she immediately retorted: “He’s not my husband.”
    “What will you do in Barcelona?” she asked.
    “I’ve been promised work as a teacher. I used to be a teacher in Ireland.”
    “Why did you leave Ireland?”
    “I was sick,” he said. “I was sick of Ireland,” he laughed.
    “Seriously, Michael.”
    “Seriously, if you knew anything about the country you wouldn’t ask me why I left.”
    *   *   *
    A jeep came around the corner with a local man driving and Miguel in the front seat. The driver didn’t move while Miguel got out and opened the doors at the back so they could put their bags in. Between his thumb and forefinger he dangled a ring of keys, several of which were large and rusty. Michael and Katherine sat on facing seats in the back of the jeep. Miguel grinned at them as the jeep started.
    The road was narrow. There was a small river down a steep bank and there was a sense everywhere of luxuriant green growth, of the damp earth of the Pyrenees springing into life. Michael Graves knelt on the floor looking out of the window, his elbows resting on the seat. She knelt beside him.
    They began to climb again. The road became a dirt track cut into the rock. Down below was a valley of fields and forests. Once they had passed through the first village it seemed once more impossible that there could be any habitation higher up. The jeep was having real difficulty with the track and stalled several times.
    She had a real sense now of how high they were: not just because of the cold, but also because of the shape of the rock and the sheer drop into the valley beneath, even the mountains in the distance seemed to be lower down. Michael Graves constantly pointed things out to her: the brown rock of the mountain, the deep blue of the sky, the patches of snow on ridges in the distance, the light green of the pasture and the darker green of the trees that peppered the fields or stood in long rows.
    Suddenly Miguel pointed at something just above the jeep and Michael Graves roared: “Look, it’s an eagle,” and caught Katherine’s hand in excitement. The eagle hovered; huge, black and grey, holding itself maybe thirty feet out from the track as the jeep turned the corner. Michael Graves and Katherine looked back and saw the eagle hanging like a piece of paper in the high air.
    Michael Graves asked Miguel if he had been here before. Miguel answered that he had spent several months in Pallosa, ten years ago. After the civil war.
    “El pueblo está abandonado,” he said. Now there were only three or four families and about thirty houses, all of them in good repair. Their house had running water but no electricity. “Es grande la casa que hemos alquilado?” Katherine asked him. Yes, it was big. He would have to go back down with the driver to collect supplies such as candles, food, blankets and some furniture, and would be back up later. He told them he had paid a year’s rent for the house.
    He asked her if she was going to stay with him for a year. The driver and Michael Graves listened. She could not answer. She looked out of the window: they were passing through another, smaller village. He repeated the question. She was not sure if he was mocking.
    “Vas a quedarte conmigo un año?” She looked at him plainly. “Si,” she said.
    They were still climbing. The road twisted less and less. Instead of rock now, there was tufted grass to the left and the drop down into the valley on the other side was gentler. It was as though they had come to the end of the earth, the landscape had played itself out, and this was the quiet top of the world.
    “Está muy lejos?” she asked him and he said no, it was not far, they were almost there. They had now