The van appeared that afternoon. Monique was driving, with Udo in one of the back seats. We told her that we were fine and they should come and stay with us, that it was free and there was plenty of room for everyone, but she told us that Hans had talked to her uncle in the south of France on the phone and the best thing would be for us all to go there right away. We asked her where Hans was, and she said he had business in Barcelona to take care of.

We spent one more night at the campsite. The next morning Hans turned up and told us that everything was settled, we could stay at one of Monique's uncle's houses until the grape harvest started, doing nothing and getting a tan. Then he pulled Hugh, Steve, and me aside and said that he didn't want John in the group. He's a pervert, he said. To my surprise, Hugh and Steve agreed. I said I couldn't care less whether John stayed with us or not. But who was going to tell him? We'll do it all together, the proper way, said Hans. That was the last straw, as far as I was concerned, and I decided to have no part in it. Before they left I informed them that I was going to stay in Barcelona for a few days with the night watchman, and I would see them a week later, in the town.

Hans made no objection but before he left he told me to be careful. He's bad news, he said. The night watchman? In what way? In every way, he said. The next morning I went to Barcelona. The night watchman lived in an enormous apartment on the Gran Vía with his mother and his mother's friend, a man twenty years younger than her. They only used the rooms at either end of the apartment. His mother and her lover lived at the back, in a room overlooking the courtyard, and he lived at the front, in a room with a balcony on the Gran Vía. In between there were at least six empty rooms, where the presence of the former inhabitants could be felt amid the dust and spiderwebs. John spent two nights in one of those rooms. The night watchman had asked me why John hadn't left with the others, and when I told him he looked thoughtful and the next morning he had brought John home with him.

Then John took the train to England and the night watchman started to work only at weekends, which meant we had more time to spend together. Those were a nice few days. We got up late, had breakfast in a local bar, a cup of tea for me and coffee or coffee with a shot of brandy for him, and then we spent our time wandering around the city until we were tired and had to come home. Of course, there were difficulties, the main one being that I didn't like him to spend his money on me. One afternoon, when we were in a bookshop, I asked him what he wanted and bought it for him. It was the only present I gave him. He chose a collection by a Spanish poet named De Ory; that name I do remember.

Ten days later I left Barcelona. He came to see me off at the station. I gave him my address in London and the address of the town in the Roussillon where we would be working, in case he felt like coming. Still, when we said goodbye I was almost sure I'd never see him again.

Alone for the first time in a long while, I found the train journey extremely pleasant. I felt comfortable in my own skin. I had time to think about my life, my plans, what I wanted and didn't want. Almost instantly I realized that being alone was not something that would bother me anymore. From Perpignan I took a bus that dropped me off at a crossroads, and from there I walked to Planèzes, where my traveling companions were presumably waiting for me. I got there a little before sunset, and the sight of the rolling vineyards, an intense greenish brown, made me feel even more at peace, if possible. When I got to Planèzes, however, the looks on people's faces didn't bode well. That night Hugh brought me up to date on everything that had happened while I'd been away. For reasons unknown, Hans had fought with Erica and now they weren't speaking. For a few days Steve and Erica had talked about the possibility of leaving, but then Steve fought with Erica too, and their escape plans were shelved. To top it all off, little Udo had been ill again and Monique and Hans had almost come to blows over him. According to Hugh, she wanted to take him to a hospital in Perpignan, and he was against the idea, arguing that hospitals made more people ill than they cured. The next morning Monique's eyes were swollen from crying, or maybe from Hans hitting her. Little Udo, in any case, had recovered on his own or been cured by the herbal potions his father gave him to drink. As far as Hugh was concerned, he said that he was spending most of his time drunk, since there was lots of wine and it was free.

During dinner that night, I didn't notice any alarming signs of tension, and the next day, as if everyone had only been waiting for me, the grape harvest began. Most of us worked cutting grapes. Hans and Hugh worked as porters. Monique drove the car that carried the grapes to a nearby village cooperative's presses. In addition to Hans's group, there were three Spaniards and two French girls with whom I soon became friends.

The work was exhausting and possibly the only good thing about it was that after the working day no one felt like fighting. Still, there were plenty of sources of friction. One afternoon Hugh, Steve, and I told Hans that we needed at least two more workers. He agreed but said that it was impossible. When we asked why, he said it was because he had contracted with Monique's uncle to finish the harvest with eleven workers, and not a single person more.

In the evenings, after our jobs were done, we usually went to the river to wash. The water was cold, but the river was deep enough to swim in and that was how we warmed up. Then we would soap ourselves, wash our hair, and go home for dinner. The three Spaniards were staying in another house and they led a separate life, except when we invited them to eat with us. The two French girls lived in the next village (where the cooperative was) and every night they rode home on their motorcycles. One was called Marie-Josette and the other was called Marie-France.

One night, when we had all had too much to drink, Hans told us that he had lived in a Danish commune, the biggest and best organized commune in the world. I don't know how long he talked. Sometimes he got excited and banged the table, or stood up, and sitting there we watched him grow, stretching to exaggerated heights, like an ogre, an ogre to whom we were bound by his generosity and our lack of money. Another night, when everyone was asleep, I heard him talking to Monique. She and Hans had the room above mine and that night they must have left the window open. Whatever the case, I heard them. They were speaking in French, and Hans was saying that he couldn't help it, that was all, he couldn't help it, and Monique was saying yes, he could, he had to try. I couldn't hear the rest.

One afternoon, when we were about to finish work, the night watchman turned up in Planèzes, and I was so happy to see him I told him that I loved him, and that he should be careful. I don't know why I said that, but seeing him walk down the main street, I had the sense that certain danger was looming over all of us.

Surprisingly, he said that he loved me too and that he wanted to live with me. He seemed happy. Tired-he'd arrived after hitching around almost the whole département-but happy. That afternoon, I remember, everyone except Hans and Monique went for a swim in the river, and when we took our clothes off and jumped in the night watchman stayed on the bank, fully clothed, in fact with too much on, as if he were cold despite how hot it was. And then something happened that might seem unimportant but in which I sensed the hand of something: fate or God. While we were in the water three migrant workers appeared on the bridge and stopped for a long time to watch us, watch Erica and me. They were two older men and a teenager, maybe grandfather, father, and son, dressed in ragged work clothes, and finally one of them said something in Spanish and the night watchman answered them. I could see their faces looking down and his face looking up (the sky was very blue), and after the first few words, more were exchanged. They were all talking, the three migrant workers and the night watchman. At first it seemed like questions and answers and then just like small talk, three people on a bridge and a tramp underneath it having a simple conversation, and it all went on while we, Steve, Erica, Hugh, and I, were washing and swimming back and forth, like swans or ducks, theoretically removed from the conversation in Spanish but partly the object of it, Erica and me in particular being a source of visual pleasure and expectation. But soon the migrant workers left (without waiting for us to get out of the water), and they said adiós, a word I do understand in Spanish, of course, and the night watchman said goodbye to them too, and that was as far as it went.