During the pause that ensued, Stephen thought:
‘A delicious voice. It has the sun in it…It is warm like a summer night…’
Pilar thought:
‘I like his voice. It is big and strong. He is attractive—yes, he is attractive.’
Stephen said: ‘The train is very full.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed. The people go away from London, I suppose, because it is so black there.’
Pilar had not been brought up to believe that it was a crime to talk to strange men in trains. She could take care of herself as well as any girl, but she had no rigid taboos.
If Stephen had been brought up in England he might have felt ill at ease at entering into conversation with a young girl. But Stephen was a friendly soul who found it perfectly natural to talk to anyone if he felt like it.
He smiled without any self-consciousness and said:
‘London’s rather a terrible place, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes. I do not like it at all.’
‘No more do I.’
Pilar said: ‘You are not English, no?’
‘I’m British, but I come from South Africa.’
‘Oh, I see, that explains it.’
‘Have you just come from abroad?’
Pilar nodded. ‘I come from Spain.’
Stephen was interested.
‘From Spain, do you? You’re Spanish, then?’
‘I am half Spanish. My mother was English. That is why I talk English so well.’
‘What about this war business?’ asked Stephen.
‘It is very terrible, yes—very sad. There has been damage done, quite a lot—yes.’
‘Which side are you on?’
Pilar’s politics seemed to be rather vague. In the village where she came from, she explained, nobody had paid very much attention to the war. ‘It has not been near us, you understand. The Mayor, he is, of course, an officer of the Government, so he is for the Government, and the priest is for General Franco—but most of the people are busy with the vines and the land, they have not time to go into these questions.’
‘So there wasn’t any fighting round you?’
Pilar said that there had not been. ‘But then I drove in a car,’ she explained, ‘all across the country and there was much destruction. And I saw a bomb drop and it blew up a car—yes, and another destroyed a house. It was very exciting!’
Stephen Farr smiled a faintly twisted smile.
‘So that’s how it seemed to you?’
‘It was a nuisance, too,’ explained Pilar. ‘Because I wanted to get on, and the driver of my car, he was killed.’
Stephen said, watching her: