The Liverpool Basque by Helen Forrester

from day one.’
    He nodded understandingly. ‘So what brought you here?’
    ‘Well, I need to work – and I’m a qualified nurse. I saw the ad for this job at the hospital, and applied. When I was a very little girl, I lived here – and it’s such a truly beautiful place. I’m glad I came – but I’ve got to start again, makingfriends.’ She smiled suddenly, and said, ‘At least I’ve made one, haven’t I?’
    Manuel gave a little chuckle. ‘Of course,’ he assured her. Loneliness makes strange bedfellows, he thought with amusement; then decided hastily that ‘bedfellows’ was not quite the word – not at your age, old boy, he told himself.
    She caught the smile that flicked across his face. ‘Now, what are you laughing at?’ she demanded, smiling herself.
    ‘I don’t think I can explain it to you,’ he replied with a chuckle. Then he laughed.
    Laughter is infectious and soon they were giggling like a couple of children, about nothing.
    Nevertheless, when he got home, he was thankful to crawl on to his bed. But he was still smiling to himself.

Chapter Eleven
    In June 1914, Rosita announced that she wanted Pedro’s family to see Francesca, who was their first granddaughter; Pedro himself was at sea, but to Juan and Micaela it seemed a good opportunity to take a holiday, so a visit to Spain was arranged. Little Manuel was thrilled.
    Juan tried to persuade Maria to accompany them. ‘You could go up into the mountains with Rosita to visit the Echaniz family, while your grandmother and I are in Bilbao. It would do you good to breathe mountain air,’ he told her.
    Maria was feeling a little better and, at first, had been tempted to make the journey. Then, when she discovered that the family would be travelling by sea, she said she could not face being seasick.
    Though horribly disappointed, Micaela said she would remain at home to care of her.
    Rosita looked at her mother’s bent, tired figure and, at first, said nothing; instead, she went to see Bridget Connolly next door. Rosita often looked after Mary and Joey, when their mother was helping to nurse a sick neighbour or delivering a baby. Now, she asked a favour on Micaela’s behalf.
    Would Bridget keep an eye on Maria, if Micaela went to Spain for three weeks in July? If Bridget could watch her during the day and cook for her, she thought that Mrs Saitua’s daughter, Panchika, could be persuaded to sleep overnight in the Barinèta home and give Maria a bit of breakfast.
    ‘Panchika doesn’t have to be at work till eight o’clock,’she explained to Bridget. ‘She’s got a daily job as a cook-general in a fine house in Princes Road, with very nice people.
    ‘Maria can get herself to the can in the yard, now,’ she added. ‘And she can keep a fire going, if someone’ll bring in the coal for her and start it each morning. And she can wash her hands and face at the kitchen sink. But she’s not strong enough to stand and cook – or go to the shops, or anything like that.’
    Bridget was seated by her own fire, sipping a mug of vintage tea – it had been simmering on the hob for hours. At Rosita’s suggestion, she nodded her head; her black hair was done up in untidy, coiled plaits, from which the hairpins constantly threatened to fall out; before answering Rosita, she absently pushed one back into her hair.
    Plump, patient and very knowledgeable about the needs of the sick, she looked up at her neighbour, and said, ‘Oh, aye, I could do that, if you could manage to pay for the food I’d give her. It’d only be the price of a potato or two and what we’re havin’ ourselves – me housekeeping won’t stretch to feed another.’ At the latter statement, her voice was full of apology.
    ‘I’d get the coal up from the cellar for her, Mam,’ her daughter Mary volunteered; she had been listening avidly to what Rosita had had to say. ‘And I could chop some wood chips for her every day – and put it all in the hearth. It wouldn’t take a