Bay of Secrets by Rosanna Ley Page A

him say, ‘what happens to them.’
    The following night there was almost nothing to eat. Mama cooked a little rice and a few beans – though Julia knew she had to be thrifty; she did not know where the nextmeal would be coming from. There were days when their family went to bed hungry – too many days.
    And Papa returned home in a terrible temper.
    ‘Tomás? What is wrong?’ Julia’s mother asked.
    He looked around him, twisting his head from side to side. Once again his dark eyes had a look, almost of madness, that made Julia shiver. ‘Almost half the tram workers have lost their jobs.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Just like that.’
    Julia’s mother laid a restraining hand on his arm.
    Instantly he quietened, staring morosely into the distance as if he was trying to make sense of it all.
    ‘I can scarcely believe it,’ Julia’s mother said. But she too had lost her job some time before. She had no choice. Like all women, she must now stay home, must obey her husband in all things because his word was law. And if he was afraid – or turned half mad from what was happening? If he could not get work and they had no money? What then?
    ‘But who will teach the children?’ Julia had asked. She had been hoping – once, in a different lifetime – to be a teacher herself. Clearly that would never happen now.
    ‘Someone who holds the correct beliefs and has the accepted record of behaviour,’ Mama had said without a hint of irony in her voice.
    ‘The church is now the power behind education,’ Papa muttered. ‘But at what price?’
    Julia still fought to understand. She knew that churches had been closed down – even gutted – during the Civil War. And she knew that many people had not wanted this to be.But what people thought now … Who could tell? People – truly – were not allowed to think. Their thoughts were dictated to them, it seemed.
    ‘Almost half the workers!’ Now Papa was shouting once more. ‘It is madness!’
    ‘Hush, Tomás.’ Again, she calmed him. Julia’s mother could always calm him.
    But Julia knew that both her parents were afraid. She was afraid too. Everyone was.
    ‘We cannot go on like this.’ He looked at their mother, hard, until she looked away. And then he peered out into the hazy glow of the streetlights glistening on the cobbles of Puerta del Angel. His anger, the wildness in his eyes had dissipated now. But what Julia saw there seemed worse.
    ‘I tell you,’ he said. ‘Something must change.’
    What could change? Julia shivered with a sense of foreboding as she lay in her bed and listened to their voices as they talked that night. They were arguing about something – but what? She did not get up to listen. She wanted to know, but she could not bear to know. It sounded bad. But could things get any worse?
    The following evening, her parents took her to one side.
    ‘Julia,’ said her father. ‘You understand how things are with us?’
    ‘Yes, Papa.’
    But Julia wanted to slink away and never be seen again. She wanted to disappear in a puff of smoke, or fly out of the window to somewhere safe and calm, where everyone wasallowed to be who they wanted to be. She did not want to hear this.
    ‘We have to think of your welfare,’ he said.
    Julia blinked up at him. What about the welfare of the rest of the family? She might not be her father’s favourite – Paloma was the one who took his arm and made him smile – but she had always known she was loved.
    ‘And so we have been talking – your mother and I.’
    Julia looked at her mother. Her eyes were red. She guessed that this – whatever it was – was what they had been arguing about at the dead of night. Perhaps she should have listened at the top of the stairs. Perhaps she could have changed their minds.
    ‘And I have been making enquiries.’ He cleared his throat.
    ‘About what, Papa?’ Julia dared to ask.
    ‘About your futures,’ he said.
    It was, then, as Julia had feared.