Two days later we packed up and left for Valencia. When I said goodbye to the night watchman I thought it would be the last time I saw him. As we drove, when it was my turn to sit next to Hans and talk to him, I asked him what they had argued about. You didn't like him, I said. Why? Hans was silent for a while, which was rare for him, thinking how to answer me. Then he just said he didn't know.
We were in Valencia for a week, going back and forth from one place to another, sleeping in the van and looking for work on the orange plantations, but we couldn't find anything. Little Udo got ill and we took him to the hospital. He only had a cold with a slight fever, aggravated by our living conditions. As a result, Monique's mood soured and for the first time I saw her get angry with Hans. One night we talked about leaving the van so that Hans and his family could continue on alone in peace, but Hans told us he couldn't let us go off on our own, and we realized he was right. The problem, as always, was money.
When we got back to Castelldefels it was pouring with rain and the campsite was flooded. It was midnight. The night watchman recognized the van and came out to meet us. I was sitting in one of the back seats and I saw how he looked in, trying to find me, and then he asked Hans where Mary was. Next he said that if he let us put the tents up they would probably flood, so he led us to a kind of wood-and-brick cabin at the other end of the site, a cabin built in the most haphazard way, with at least eight rooms, and we spent the night there. To save money, Hans and Monique drove to the beach. The cabin had no electricity and the night watchman went looking for candles in a room that was used to store cleaning supplies. He couldn't find them and we had to use cigarette lighters to see. The next morning he turned up at the cabin with a man in his fifties with wavy white hair, who said hello and then started to talk to the night watchman. Afterward, he told us that he was the owner of the campsite and that he was going to let us stay free for a week.
The van appeared that afternoon. Monique was driving, with Udo in one of the back seats. We told her that we were fine and they should come and stay with us, that it was free and there was plenty of room for everyone, but she told us that Hans had talked to her uncle in the south of France on the phone and the best thing would be for us all to go there right away. We asked her where Hans was, and she said he had business in Barcelona to take care of.
We spent one more night at the campsite. The next morning Hans turned up and told us that everything was settled, we could stay at one of Monique's uncle's houses until the grape harvest started, doing nothing and getting a tan. Then he pulled Hugh, Steve, and me aside and said that he didn't want John in the group. He's a pervert, he said. To my surprise, Hugh and Steve agreed. I said I couldn't care less whether John stayed with us or not. But who was going to tell him? We'll do it all together, the proper way, said Hans. That was the last straw, as far as I was concerned, and I decided to have no part in it. Before they left I informed them that I was going to stay in Barcelona for a few days with the night watchman, and I would see them a week later, in the town.
Hans made no objection but before he left he told me to be careful. He's bad news, he said. The night watchman? In what way? In every way, he said. The next morning I went to Barcelona. The night watchman lived in an enormous apartment on the Gran Vía with his mother and his mother's friend, a man twenty years younger than her. They only used the rooms at either end of the apartment. His mother and her lover lived at the back, in a room overlooking the courtyard, and he lived at the front, in a room with a balcony on the Gran Vía. In between there were at least six empty rooms, where the presence of the former inhabitants could be felt amid the dust and spiderwebs. John spent two nights in one of those rooms. The night watchman had asked me why John hadn't left with the others, and when I told him he looked thoughtful and the next morning he had brought John home with him.
Then John took the train to England and the night watchman started to work only at weekends, which meant we had more time to spend together. Those were a nice few days. We got up late, had breakfast in a local bar, a cup of tea for me and coffee or coffee with a shot of brandy for him, and then we spent our time wandering around the city until we were tired and had to come home. Of course, there were difficulties, the main one being that I didn't like him to spend his money on me. One afternoon, when we were in a bookshop, I asked him what he wanted and bought it for him. It was the only present I gave him. He chose a collection by a Spanish poet named De Ory; that name I do remember.
Ten days later I left Barcelona. He came to see me off at the station. I gave him my address in London and the address of the town in the Roussillon where we would be working, in case he felt like coming. Still, when we said goodbye I was almost sure I'd never see him again.
Alone for the first time in a long while, I found the train journey extremely pleasant. I felt comfortable in my own skin. I had time to think about my life, my plans, what I wanted and didn't want. Almost instantly I realized that being alone was not something that would bother me anymore. From Perpignan I took a bus that dropped me off at a crossroads, and from there I walked to Planèzes, where my traveling companions were presumably waiting for me. I got there a little before sunset, and the sight of the rolling vineyards, an intense greenish brown, made me feel even more at peace, if possible. When I got to Planèzes, however, the looks on people's faces didn't bode well. That night Hugh brought me up to date on everything that had happened while I'd been away. For reasons unknown, Hans had fought with Erica and now they weren't speaking. For a few days Steve and Erica had talked about the possibility of leaving, but then Steve fought with Erica too, and their escape plans were shelved. To top it all off, little Udo had been ill again and Monique and Hans had almost come to blows over him. According to Hugh, she wanted to take him to a hospital in Perpignan, and he was against the idea, arguing that hospitals made more people ill than they cured. The next morning Monique's eyes were swollen from crying, or maybe from Hans hitting her. Little Udo, in any case, had recovered on his own or been cured by the herbal potions his father gave him to drink. As far as Hugh was concerned, he said that he was spending most of his time drunk, since there was lots of wine and it was free.
During dinner that night, I didn't notice any alarming signs of tension, and the next day, as if everyone had only been waiting for me, the grape harvest began. Most of us worked cutting grapes. Hans and Hugh worked as porters. Monique drove the car that carried the grapes to a nearby village cooperative's presses. In addition to Hans's group, there were three Spaniards and two French girls with whom I soon became friends.
The work was exhausting and possibly the only good thing about it was that after the working day no one felt like fighting. Still, there were plenty of sources of friction. One afternoon Hugh, Steve, and I told Hans that we needed at least two more workers. He agreed but said that it was impossible. When we asked why, he said it was because he had contracted with Monique's uncle to finish the harvest with eleven workers, and not a single person more.