Autumn in Catalonia Read Online Free PDF

Papa heard about the student marches she’d been on? She’d never played a committee role, not like Luc, but she’d played a bit part in the various student actions this autumn, partly in support of the workers’ strikes, but mainly demanding changes to bring the university into the twentieth century.
    But how could Papa know about that? She hadn’t been among any names reported to the authorities, or photographed in the papers. She was sure of that. With growing unease she went inside to collect some overnight things, and left a message in case Luc should ask for her. She was going to miss their evening out tonight, but there was no help for it. Papa paid for her studies, and she would have to go with Toni and appease him.
    They occupied the two-hour drive talking about familiar things, catching up with family – his mother’s health problems, his sister’s problems with her husband, and from Carla’s side, all the latest news from Josep’s family. But as they neared Girona they fell silent, and Carla found her breathing going funny, as it so often did when she had to face Sergi Olivera in his angry moments. It was made worse by not knowing exactly what she was going to face, or how much he knew about her life. And the big question was how he knew about it at all.
    It didn’t take long to find out. She was let into the big, four-square, old-fashioned house by the maid Mireia, who ushered her straight into the main sitting room, and there she found her parents waiting for her. They had glasses in front of them, and looked as though they’d been there some time, and from the look on her father’s face he’d been gnawing at what he wanted to say to her over more than one cocktail. Mama was usually the drinker, but tonight she had a glass of water in front of her, and a coffee cup in her hand. Was it in honour of her coming home, Carla wondered, with irony, or was Joana just taking care to avoid inflaming Sergi’s anger still further?
    She greeted her parents, careful to show no sign of anxiety. ‘Toni said you wanted to see me?’ she said, with just the right tone of query in her voice.
    Her father rose. ‘Oh yes, Carla, I wanted to see you. And, no, you needn’t bother to sit down. I’ll have you right there, thanks, where I can see into that deceitful little face.’
     
    It was friends of her parents who’d spotted her, back in August, during a small demonstration outside the university chancellor’s building. Such a petty demonstration, that one, and ironic that it should be the one which set Sergi onto her. Since then he’d been having her watched. She shivered at the thought that he’d been tracking her movements – not every day, thankfully, but whenever he got wind of a march being planned, or any student action, of which there had been many this autumn. He’d had her followed, and even knew she’d been visiting Uncle Josep. ‘Your mother’s scumbagfamily,’ he called him, and as his insults flowed he grew more and more angry.
    Carla stood silent in front of him and tried to breathe normally, with her feet planted squarely on the silk rug, and arms held as if casually by her sides. Behind the folds of her skirt her right hand was clenched in a tight, nervous ball, but hopefully her father couldn’t see this. She knew her face was tight but she stopped her forehead from knotting, using the control reflexes she’d built up over years of confrontation, as her father’s anger engulfed her in torrents of outraged abuse.
    ‘I should never have let you go to that stupid university. You’re making a mockery of your family, and I won’t have it. Do you understand? I won’t have it.’
    The tirade went on. She was to leave university, right now, and come home, since she couldn’t be trusted to behave herself when given the freedom to study. Didn’t she realise how privileged she was? How generous her parents had been in even allowing a daughter to study away from home? And yet she had to mix