Days of Your Fathers (15 page)

‘Any flame from its nostrils?'

‘Not yet. But don't light a match when it snorts at you!'

I had no experience of mules, only knowing that some of them can kick forwards, which a horse usually can't, and that the seat of one's pants is by no means safe even when holding the head. Still, it seemed a simple matter to accompany an unduly nervous friend and remove the beast. Other complications he would have to settle himself. The mule's proprietor might turn out to be an angrily obstinate carter who would refuse compensation and insist on an official complaint. The worst risk was what Mrs Fellowes would say in court if the police ran her in. No magistrate was going to take a lenient view after being lectured on his compatriot's supposed cruelty to animals.

Pepe's seventeenth-century house was in an unfashionable district off the Atocha, but within its courtyard he had the quiet and privacy of a village. He parked his flashy sports car in the street and we entered the court through a narrow archway. The mule was standing on the cobbles – a huge, black draught mule, a mediaeval gargoyle of a mule. Half a wooden post dangled from its halter. Its tail was bald except for an obscene tuft at the end. Its snarling teeth were bright yellow in the light over the front door and quite long enough for any reasonable hyaena.

‘It pulled that post down for the sake of carrots?' I asked.

‘Or to attack my mother-in-law. When they met, it was tied up in front of a tavern with the cart alongside.'

‘Well, we'd better start with some more carrots.'

Edging past the mule, Pepe disappeared into the house. He returned with only two carrots, saying that he couldn't find any more in the larder. I sent him back to forage for something else and to assure his women, if they came down, that I would handle the problem without unnecessary violence.
I certainly was not going to force that mule to do anything against its wishes.

I advanced upon it, preceded by the longest carrot. One ear was reassuringly forward; the other was half way down its neck, apparently investigating sounds from the broken pillar. It accepted the carrot with a snort and a start as if it had been dreaming of the things and suddenly found they were a real presence.

With head and neck aligned like a striking snake and baring its fearful yellow teeth it proceeded to examine me. I stood still only because I did not dare to turn my back. Its oddly prehensile nose was velvet and friendly. Its brown eyes, though mischievous, were showing no white. When I found that it enjoyed being patted and talked to, I realised that the fighting-stallion effect was artificial. That mule had been deliberately taught to smile – either to keep off thieves or, more probably, to earn free drinks for its owner. Quite obviously it had been treated with affection as one of the family. But the family was poor. Carrots had seldom come its way. Its intent in breaking loose and chasing Mrs Fellowes into a smart trot had been to get some more from her bag.

Pepe, returning from the house with a long parcel in greaseproof paper, was impressed. If he had been brought up among horses he would soon have seen, as I did, that this hideous monstrosity was as friendly as a child's pony. But I did not disturb his opinion of me and asked him what he had in the parcel.

‘Brazos de Gitana
,' he replied. ‘It was all I could find. Barbara is giving a party tomorrow. Do you think he'll like it?'

I said it would certainly be new to him. There were over a couple of feet of this delectable cake, somewhat resembling a Swiss Roll and stuffed with gently foaming cream. I tried a piece on the mule. I doubt if he found it as welcome as carrots, but it was an agreeable change from hay and the remains of the family's chick-peas. He faced it boldly and with growing interest like a man trying out a first-class French restaurant with a lunch voucher.

‘Do you think you can entice him back with that?' Pepe asked.

‘I think
we
can. Where to?'

‘She isn't quite sure. You know how she wanders about dreaming that she is St Francis. She believes the tavern was somewhere between the Atocha station and the Plaza de la Cebada.'

They were the best part of a mile from each other. We were bound to attract a following of idle and interested spectators while leading a draught mule on a random search through the back streets of Madrid. Pepe could not be anything but a young and monied
señorito
and I am always recognised as English.

‘Have you decided what we are going to say to the police?' I asked him, removing the length of worm-eaten post from the mule's halter. It was deeply carved and suggested the pillar of a verandah rather than a mere hitching post.

‘We just found it wandering. And you with British public spirit and responsibility …'

‘On the contrary. You, Pepe, with the splendid and generous impulse of a Spaniard …'

‘Suppose you ride it?' he suggested.

I pointed out that there was no reason to believe the mule had ever been ridden and that it was a long way to the ground. If we had a cart, we might drive it.

The mention of wheels brought Pepe back to the automobile age.

‘I'll run down to the Atocha goods yard and hire a cattle truck,' he said. ‘There's sure to be one about and we'll only need it for ten minutes.'

That was probable. The tavern and deserted cart could not be far away since the mule seemed to have vanished round corners and into Pepe's courtyard before anyone could spot what had happened and take off after it.

When he had left, the night wore on for me and my peaceable companion. In the street outside there was even an hour of silence. I supplied the mule with a bucket of water and another mouthful of cream and sponge cake. He then went to sleep on his feet; so did I on the front steps,
for I felt reluctant to ring the bell and wake up the house just to tell Barbara and Mrs Fellowes that their mule at present was contented and affectionate. While the future was uncertain, witnesses were better away.

About four in the morning Pepe silently free-wheeled into the courtyard, taking the corner with the skill of long practice.

‘Got one!' he exclaimed. ‘There was nothing at the station, so I had to go down to the slaughterhouse. I found a man who had just delivered some cattle and was glad to have the job.'

‘Did you tell him what it was?'

‘Only to move a beast to the Atocha station.'

A dilapidated van backed up to the archway which was too low for it to enter the court. The driver came round and let down the tailboard to form a ramp. He was a real sun-dried tough from Burgos. He said that if he had expected a mule, which he hadn't, it should not be one frothing at the mouth. God knows what he did expect! Livestock in the centre of Madrid must be rare.

I had no time to explain that the froth was whipped cream, for the mule panicked. Evidently it had never travelled in a van. It folded its ears back and flung up its gaunt, black head to have a better look, nearly lifting me off the ground. The man from Burgos circled cautiously round it and caught it a whack with his stick which would have earned him a lecture from Mrs Fellowes. The mule, too, was scandalised by this normal method of starting nervous cattle up a ramp. It bucked and let go with its off hind leg. Not viciously. It was only protesting against such treatment when out of harness. That hoof fairly whistled past the driver's stomach; the head then twisted right round at an unnatural angle to inspect him.

I entered the van with the sticky parcel of
Brazos de Gitana
. That was effective. The mule bared its yellow fangs in the usual smile and clattered up the ramp at me. I tied it up while it lovingly filled my ear with cream. The driver had taken refuge in his cab; so I closed up the tailboard and joined Pepe in the front seat.

The driver was crossing himself. I think it may have occurred to him that we had just exorcised the old house and that this grinning ‘weremule' was the result. He was in a nightmare anyway. Nothing made sense. When Pepe directed him to the station and then, as soon as we were safely away from home, turned him off to the Cebada through a labyrinth of one-way streets, he shrugged his shoulders and gave it up.

It did not take us long to discover the mule's starting point: a little square with a patch of paving in the middle on which were some empty carts. Outside a tavern was a narrow verandah with a sagging roof. One of its supporting columns was broken. An old-fashioned carter was being supported by the tavern keeper and his fellows while two policemen tried to take notes of his remarks. He was magnificently in liquor. So, I think, were the rest of them. If they had only recently noticed the absence of the mule, it stood to reason.

Fortunately we were loitering along the opposite side of the square, too far away for the driver to hear what all the excitement was about. Pepe snapped at him to turn right and so startled the man that he did. We bounced the wrong way up a one-way street, straightened ourselves out and were compelled to arrive at the Puerta del Sol.

‘And now?' the driver asked, pulling up right in the centre of Madrid.

‘Straight on,' said Pepe confidently.

There was really no straight on; but the man from Burgos took it that he should continue north – which he did, looking more and more suspicious, until there was little of Madrid left. We could not discuss in his presence what on earth we were to do. We did not dare to tip the mule out into the road in front of a witness who knew Pepe's address and was certain to talk.

‘To whom does this animal belong?' the driver asked sullenly.

‘Friend, it belongs to us both,' Pepe answered.

‘Then listen, both of you! I am not a man for jokes. The transport of cattle is my living. There are inspections. There
are licences. What we are going to do is to stop at the nearest police station.'

I foresaw no trouble in clearing myself of the charge of stealing a mule; but Spanish summary justice is slow, and it would be at least a month before my passport was returned and I was formally congratulated on my innocence. As for Pepe, he could only denounce his mother-in-law's habits and opinions – which would not lead to peace at home – or pay an immense fine as a gilded youth who had amused himself at the expense of the public.

The mention of licences worked on his despairing imagination. He said:

‘As you like. It's not our fault that the chap we expected never turned up. To us the police can do nothing.'

‘Nor to me.'

‘If God wills. I don't know the regulations of the Veterinary Service.'

‘What have the vets to do with it?'

‘Hombre
! You don't think I would get rid of a family pet for no reason?'

‘Family pet, my foot!'

‘You cannot imagine how fond of it my father was,' Pepe protested, looking hurt. ‘And now it has to be put down.'

‘What's the matter with it?'

‘Well you saw how it attacked with open mouth this gentleman whom it has known since it was a foal. In all fairness I must advise you to disinfect your van.'

‘Jesus! I have children at home!'

‘There's nothing to worry about. It hasn't bitten you. You have only to keep your trap shut.'

‘I'm not going another step,' said the driver, stopping abruptly in a melancholy nowhere intensified by the first grey of dawn.

‘But I could not know you had children. Then we have only to settle accounts. We have come six times the distance you expected, so I'll make it six times the price. Agreed?'

‘Since I am on my way home anyway, I won't say no. But for the sake of us all, not a word!' the driver added anxiously.
‘If this came out, they could order my van to be burned.'

‘Pepe gave him his solemn promise to keep quiet and we both had the effrontery to shake his hand.

There was no time to waste. The streets would soon be stirring. We stopped and unloaded in the first private spot we could see: a blind alley between a wall and the blank side of a narrow, isolated tenement house. I felt it a low trick to abandon this accomplished animal so far from home, but the police would soon identify it and meanwhile there was plenty of garbage for its entertainment. When the driver had reversed into the cover of the alley, the mule clattered down upon the concrete, ears forward and delighted to see me again. As soon as I had replaced the tailboard, the van gave one leap towards Burgos and disappeared.

Leaving the mule with one ear exploring the silence and the other twitching above a rubbish bin, Pepe and I tip-toed away. We had just turned the corner into the street when we heard it walking after us. I think it was not the first time the mule had been lost, and it had learned from experience – for all the horse species are nervous creatures and remember panic – that when on its own it became an outlaw hateful to human beings instead of a hard-working family friend. Pepe and I represented not only
Brazos de Gitana
but security.

The only escape route was through the front door of the tenement house and up the first flight of concrete steps. The mule stood outside extending its monstrous ears in our direction like the antennae of a visiting Martian. It would have heard nothing but the vague noises of early workers about to tumble out of bed if Pepe had not nervously started up another flight.

His footsteps were enough. The mule tripped quietly and confidently up the stairs and arrived on the landing with every sign of lasting affection and its nose in my pocket looking for crumbs. Finding no more sponge cake it started off after Pepe in the hope that he might have a bit left.

Pepe still did not understand those bared teeth. He dashed upstairs making far more noise than the careful mule
which must have been bred from a mountain pack donkey. When all three of us were at last reunited we found we were on the fifth and last landing. The flats below were stirring but without excitement. A door shut. Two men exchanged good mornings. The day's work had started.

The mule remained as still as we. If my theory is correct, he had caught the smell of our anxiety and assumed that we too were hiding from the public hostility which descended on him whenever his master, who should never have taught him to smile, spent long and forgetful hours in Madrid taverns.