The letter from Sam was encouraging: Consuela knows a doctor in Collioure who will help you, a refugee friend of her late father, called Pedro Ortega, look him up.
It didn’t take long to search out Dr Ortega, who was busy taking a makeshift clinic in a backstreet room, where queues of patients were sitting around the doorstep, dejected, smoking, nursing small children sleeping on their laps.
Kit walked around until the queue shortened and then made his own entrance to find a white-haired old man, bent almost double, smoking a cheroot.
‘Yes?’ he said, peering over half-moon spectacles.
Kit spoke French at first, but the man looked puzzled. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend of Sam O’Keeffe and his wife, Consuela.’ He broke into English. ‘They told me you could help me.’
‘Are you sick?’ Ortega replied, in broken English. ‘Republican soldier?’ He was suspicious.
‘Not at all, sir. Sam and I were in the Great War. I stayed with them, as I was sick there…’
The old man was still suspicious. ‘Why are you here, then?’
‘There are people starving outside, and all around the country. They need food and medicine. If there was a van that could go out to distribute food… But I see you are very busy.’
‘Yes, you have seen the queues outside my door. How can I leave my patients here? I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know anyone who might be willing to help in this way?’
Ortega shrugged his shoulders. ‘Go to the authorities, ask them to see the crisis for themselves, or get the priests to leave their altars.’
‘I got no help from that quarter.’ Kit described his visit to the church.
‘Not all priests are heartless, I know one who might listen with sympathy to you. Tell him I gave you his address, but be careful who you talk to. There are Nationalist spies looking for rebels to force back to certain death in Spain. Come, have a drink with me. How is my beautiful Consuela, any babies yet?’
‘Eleven and counting.’ Kit smiled, seeing the shock on Ortega’s face. ‘They host orphaned children in their farmhouse. We’ve just built an extension.’
They sat down and over a glass of fine Banyuls he described the house at Magret. Pedro wrote down an address.
‘Be discreet, go to confession. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Father Antoine will listen. As a refugee, I am not registered to practise here, but they turn a blind eye and I get some supplies.’ He paused, coughing loudly. ‘I am reduced, at times, to hedgerow medicines, tisanes, poultices. So many are malnourished and covered in sores and many have no money to pay me. Others give me what they can spare – watches, rings. It is hard to accept… Border guards search them for valuables, but some are lucky, hiding precious things in very strange places.’
‘Thank you, Dr Ortega.’
‘What’s a man like you doing here, so far from home? In fact, where was that?’
‘Just travelling, since the war.’ Kit did not want to reveal anything more. ‘I’m from Glasgow, but I’ve no ties to the city now. I prefer to travel and paint.’
‘An artist then?’
‘Sort of…’
‘Either you are or you’re not. What do you paint?’
‘Houses mostly, villas. I sell some to the owners and it gives me enough to move on. Now I will sell what I can to raise funds.’
‘You should ask your friends back home to support you.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why is that?’ Ortega moved forward.
‘They think I am dead.’ Kit waited for the shocked response but Ortega shook his head.
‘You committed a crime?’
‘No,’ Kit replied, ‘it… it was just…’ The third glass of Banyuls had made him relax and he found himself telling his history for only the second time.
‘So now you want to redeem yourself by helping refugees. What happened to this Flora?’
‘I don’t know and I will never know. How can I go back, after what I did to her?’
‘You could be honest and write to her,’ the doctor suggested.
‘And blow a hole in her life? No, never. I loved her too much to disrupt her life.’
‘I think confession will be good for you, so get yourself down to Father Antoine. That will be a good start. Your heart is full of charity. You will find a way forward and I will do what I can to aid you.’
‘I might as well tell you I was a Protestant priest, a chaplain in the army, but I lost my faith after the war. I was so sure of it before.’
‘Now you’re beginning to rethink everything and perhaps find another rock to lean on?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘I wish you good luck. I think you have found something important to do and love for others is never wasted.’
Kit walked back to his digs, slightly tipsy. His life had turned around after Sam rescued him. Now he had another ally in the old doctor. Was there a pattern to this? Was something guiding him ever forward?