Free Bones of the Buried by David Roberts Page A

ironically.
    ‘As much as we can but it’s difficult. There’s a saying, foreigners in Spain should give the men tobacco and leave the women alone, but seriously, the Spanish are so taken up
with their own affairs they don’t have much time for outsiders. They want us to know what is happening – they want the outside world to help but they are not very good at getting us the
information we need. You’ve no idea how complicated Spanish politics is. Take the new Popular Front government. It’s made up of five main groupings each with its own idea of how to
govern this ungovernable country. I mean, can you imagine the communists and the socialists agreeing on anything for long and as for the Catalan Separatists . . . I ask you!’
    ‘It’s a ragbag of everything from anarchists to communists and they all hate each other,’ Hester agreed.
    ‘If there are communists in the pudding, my guess is they will rise to the top,’ said Edward mischievously.
    Verity looked at him reproachfully. ‘We are good organisers and we know what we want. Is that bad?’
    Edward was spared from having to answer. ‘Yup, they sure do need help,’ Hester said thoughtfully.
    ‘Help? Who?’ Edward asked. It was bitterly cold and he pulled his coat more closely around him as he walked.
    ‘Economically. The Republic is flat broke,’ Hester explained. ‘The ordinary worker here in Madrid – the janitor in our apartment building, say – earns less than a
dollar a week.’
    ‘Not when you take into account the riches Hester pours over his head,’ Verity said. ‘She’s always giving the family clothes and food.’
    ‘Oh, not really, but when little Francisco looks at me with those liquid brown eyes . . .’
    ‘He’s the child,’ Verity explained.
    ‘He’s so cute. It almost makes me want to have one of my own.’
    ‘Really!’ said Verity. ‘After all you said against marriage and men.’
    ‘I know, but we can’t be consistent – not all the time,’ Hester said, confused by Verity’s vehemence.
    ‘But, I say, I still don’t understand. How can Spain be broke? Look at all this.’ They were walking down the Gran Vía and the buildings on either side were larger and
smarter than in London’s Park Lane. ‘This is all so modern and . . . and fashionable . . .’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Verity said squeezing his arm. ‘You wait till you see the shops in the Carrera de San Jerónimo. There are rich people here, very rich – the
ex-King’s cronies for example – but you have to go away from Madrid, into the countryside, to see the meaning of poverty. The hovels in which the peasants live are . . . well, they just
don’t bear looking at. And that’s the trouble; the dukes and marquises maybe own a castle, a palace, a house here in Madrid and another in Monte Carlo, two aeroplanes and six
Rolls-Royces. While they may have an income of 25,000 pesetas a day all the year round, the braceros – that’s the landless peasants – if they’re lucky earn two
pesetas a day for about five months of the year and nothing for the rest.’
    This was the old Verity, Edward was happy to see, indignant at social injustice and angry at the indifference most well-fed men, like him, exhibited.
    ‘What has the Republic done then to improve things?’ he inquired.
    ‘They are trying to modernise. They are trying to introduce real democracy and they have renounced war . . . but they can’t do much while the army and the Church oppose
them.’
    ‘Yes, but what are they doing about filling the stomachs of the starving?’ said Edward drily.
    ‘I think this new government will do something,’ said Hester. ‘They are pledged to redistribute wealth but of course it’s not going to be easy. They want to cut the size
of the army and they are taking over education from the Church and making it open to all, paid for by the state.’
    ‘I can see that being unpopular in some quarters,’ Edward said.
    ‘Yes,’ Verity agreed, ‘and