Rose for Winter by Laurie Lee Page B

tails held high, cast puzzled eyes around the crowd, caught sight of some wavering challenge in the ring and charged or retreated according to their mettle. Then, with as much grace and style as the boy could muster, he would step forward and run the bull close to his body. Often, at this early stage, the bull’s innocence made him charge the cape every time, and if the boy was lucky the passes were straight and clean, the bull’s rushes shorter and tighter. This, like a successful dribble at football, was what the crowd had come to see, and its effect on them was like a shared orgasm, so that they shouted together ‘Olé!’ in one great voice, a loud excited noise to be heard all over the city.
    It was in the later stages of the combat that the boys showed their inexperience, when the bull grew more difficult to handle, when the barbs of the bandilleros had torn his shoulders and he had grown angry and dismayed. Then he would stand alone in the middle of the ring, bellowing and dripping blood, or would wander miserably into a corner trying to escape. Only the best of bull-fighters could make anything of that situation, could lead the bull back into the fight and finish him cleanly. A less assured torero – like most of those we saw that afternoon – would run after the retreating bull with a kind of bitter sickness on his face, hating the whole thing; would wave his arms, and shout and caper, and sooner or later, in his frantic misery, get well tossed for his pains.
    Everybody got tossed that afternoon, and some several times. There was one poor fellow named Angelito, a blond boy with large ears, who soon lost all control of his bull and was thrown round the ring like a shuttlecock. The crowd was much amused by this, especially our neighbour from the Alpujarra, who rolled in the aisles with delight.
    â€˜He is true to his name,’ he said, when all was over. ‘For he spends more time in the air than on the ground.’
    This remark, I’m afraid, went well with the crowd, and was rewarded with wine from all sides.
    But in spite of the occasional fiasco and the general hit, miss and run technique displayed by most of the boys, there was one young man who fought memorably. His name was Montenegro and he was sixteen years old, very thin, and had a face like a choirboy. He began badly, taking an early toss that split his trousers to the thigh. He rose from the dust green in the face and trembling, and one thought his nerve had gone. But after tying a scarf around his leg, and stilling his quivering lips, he thrust out his chin and went on to fight like a little master. He took every risk, and yet he got away with them all. He ran the bull so close to his body that his shirt was stained with blood. When the bull grew sullen, and refused to charge, the boy turned his back on him and knelt down to show his contempt. He was brash, and showed off, and indulged in tricks which might have been thought vulgar, had he not, with each of them, invited his death. And in the end he killed his bull with such classical certainty that the crowd buried him in an avalanche of hats.
    The afternoon ended with a diversion. The last bull had but freshly entered the ring, when an eleven-year-old boy leapt over the barrier brandishing a red-painted shirt. Attendants sprang upon him, but he dodged round their legs, fighting to get at the bull. A big man caught him and cuffed him and lifted him kicking from the ground.
    â€˜Bully!’ roared the crowd. ‘Put him down! Let him fight !’
    With a twist of his body the boy broke loose, fell on his face, picked himself up, and ran straight at the bull. The bull charged him, and the boy, standing fetlock high, made two or three perfect passes, had his shirt torn to ribbons and was then trampled underfoot. But he was not hurt. The bull was drawn away and the boy was captured by a policeman. Then weeping with triumph, and to the cheers of the crowd, he was