Families at War by Ken Scott & Dave Rowland

Author:Ken Scott & Dave Rowland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spanish Civil War, Ken Scott, Dave Rowland, Benidorm, Abdet, la Nucia, Altea, Historical Memoirs
ISBN: 9781783332663
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2013
Published: 2013-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty One

It was an argument he had heard a hundred times before. Vicente’s wife was protesting he was too old to attempt to walk to his brother’s house in Finestrat.

“You are too old Vincent and well you know it.” She said. “The last time you arrived back you complained about your knees and ankles for a week.”

“It was more like a day or two my sweet one. And anyway what do you want me to do, sit on the back step, smoking and sharing gossip with the other old men until I collapse and die. It’s good healthy exercise I tell you.”

Fatima knew Vicente was right. The exercise would never harm him but she worried that the stubborn old goat would carry on walking until the day he died just to prove a point. She pictured him stumbling into a ditch by the side of the road lying for many hours in agony until he breathed his last breath. That was not the way she wanted him to go. Death was nothing to worry about he kept reminding her.

“When the good lord wants you he will take you. Walk, run, work, and play it makes no difference.” When your time is up your time is up he would tell her.

Fatima sighed. She handed him a small bag containing a little bread and cheese and told him to take care of himself, she would see him in a day or two. She reminded him to be extra careful this time. It wasn’t every day they would share an audience with an Archbishop.

And so he set off looking forward to the adventure ahead of him but more than a little nervous at the news the Archbishop would hand over on his return. That’s what it was he told himself, it was an adventure and at the end of the road his brother would be waiting, his brother and his wife, his nephews and nieces...his family. They would greet him like a long lost child and welcome him in into the humble family home and spoil him with the finest foods and always, yes always a bottle of decent wine too. He would sleepover for a night or two, be treated like a king and then he would be on his way back home again.

It was almost like a ritual, something he had always done since his brother had decided to leave the village of Xirles in his early twenties.

Vicente sighed. Could it really be forty years ago, he mumbled to himself. As he set off he contemplated how life had changed. Politics he mumbled to himself. Damned bloody politics. Why couldn’t the politicians leave well alone and let the people get on with their lives?

He’d trekked the road a thousand times, knew every centimetre of the route. He passed the road end at Polop and headed south towards La Nucia. The church at Polop was almost overbearing, standing high on the hill to his left. He said a silent prayer to himself

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