Essential Stories by V.S. Pritchett

said.
    “Not all of them,” I said.
    She squeezed my hand and I had to keep her from jumping about like a child on the seat as we went through.
    “There they go.”
    “Boys always do,” I said.
    “And another.”
    “Let’s see what the policeman does.”
    She started to laugh but I shut her up. “Keep your sense of humour to yourself,” I said.
    Through all those towns that run into one another as you might say, we caught it. We went through, as she said, like royalty. So many years since I drove a hearse, I’d forgotten what it was like.
    I was proud of her, I was proud of Colin and I was proud of myself. And, after what had happened, I mean on the last two nights, it was like a wedding. And although we knew it was for Colin, it was for us too, because Colin was with both of us. It was like this all the way.
    “Look at that man there. Why doesn’t he raise his hat? People ought to show respect for the dead,” she said.

THE EVILS OF SPAIN
    We took our seats at the table. There were seven of us.
    It was at one of those taverns in Madrid. The moment we sat down Juliano, the little, hen-headed, red-lipped consumptive who was paying for the dinner and who laughed not with his mouth but by crinkling the skin round his eyes into scores of scratchy lines and showing his bony teeth—Juliano got up and said, “We are all badly placed.” Fernando and Felix said, “No, we are not badly placed.” And this started another argument shouting between the lot of us. We had been arguing all the way to the restaurant. The proprietor then offered a new table in a different way. Unanimously we said, “No,” to settle the row; and when he brought the table and put it into place and laid a red and white check tablecloth on it, we sat down, stretched our legs and said, “Yes. This table is much better.”
    Before this we had called for Angel at his hotel. We shook his hand or slapped him on the back or embraced him and two hung on his arm as we walked down the street. “Ah, Angel, the rogue!” we said, giving him a squeeze. Our smooth Mediterranean Angel! “The uncle!” we said. “The old scoundrel.” Angel smiled, lowering his black lashes in appreciation. Juliano gave him a prod in the ribs and asked him if he remembered, after all these years, that summer at Biarritz? When we had all been together? The only time we had all been together before? Juliano laughed by making his eyes wicked and expectant, like one Andalusian reminding another of the great joke they had had the day poor So-and-So fell down the stairs and broke his neck.
    “The day you were nearly drowned,” Juliano said.
    Angel’s complexion was the colour of white coffee; his hair, crinkled like a black fern, was parted in the middle, he was rich, soft-palmed and patient. He was the only well-dressed man among us, the suavest shouter. Now he sat next door but one to Juliano. Fernando was between them, Juan next to me and, at the end, Felix. They had put Caesar at the head of the table, because he was the oldest and the largest. Indeed at his age he found his weight tiring to the feet.
    Caesar did not speak much. He gave his silent weight to the dinner, letting his head drop like someone falling asleep, and listening. To the noise we made his silence was a balance and he nodded all the time slowly, making everything true. Sometimes someone told some story about him and he listened to that, nodding and not disputing it.
    But we were talking chiefly of that summer, the one when Angel (the old uncle!) had nearly been drowned. Then Juan, the stout, swarthy one, banged the table with his hairy hands and put on his horn-rimmed glasses. He was the smallest and most vehement of us, the one with the thickest neck and the deepest voice, his words like barrels rumbling in a cellar.
    “Come on! Come on! Let’s make up our minds! What are we going to eat? Eat! Eat!” he roared.
    “Yes,” we cried. “Drink! What are we going to drink?”
    The proprietor, who was