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is a virgin and the other who is God knows what …
    The one who grumbles and the other who sings.
    One woman, two women. Nothing else?
    (Their feet remember,
    so they let them walk.)
    When they reached the top of the mountain, Dolores sat on some craggy rocks. The grasslands were covered in wild strawberries, and the mountain awoke to the first trills of the birds. Along with the bottle of anise, she brought up Superstars of Cinema , a magazine that she bought in Coruña and that came out every month with the latest news and rumours, the movie premieres, and photos of actors and actresses from Hollywood: Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable. She talked about the latest releases, the weddings and divorces of the actors, and generally everything she read about in Superstars with the sheep and the cow. She’d ask them questions in one tone of voice, and answer them herself in another.
    The Winterlings had acquired their taste for cinema in England. One afternoon, in the park where they would meet up after work, a man heard them speaking in Spanish. When he found out they had arrived in England as refugees, he told them he was in charge of a production company, and offered them a role in a documentary about the Spanish Civil War. It was to be called Orphans of the Storm, and was about the settling of Galician and Basque children in Great Britain. All the lights, the cameras, the make-up … it was an experience they’d never forget. And they even got paid!
    After this, they became interested in seeing movies. In the town where they lived, there was a single dark cinema that smelt of stale popcorn and disinfectant, and on Sundays, after eating together, they went to the evening session to shake off the boredom and the damp. Even then, they showed films in their town that would take many years to arrive in Spain: Rebecca, Citizen Kane, Red Dust, Gone With The Wind …
    â€˜And you’ve just got to see,’ explained Dolores to the astonished sheep, ‘how Scarlett O’Hara pulled the curtains right off the windows to make a dress with them …’
    And she herself replied:
    â€˜Well of course, she had no other option!’
    On the mountain, the Winterlings were alone, but they felt good. ‘We should have been born as sheep,’ said one to the other. ‘Or as cows,’ her sister replied. They broke into laughter.
    In the evening, they came back down the mountain, happier and chattier, tipsy from the anise. Sometimes, they sang rhymes and little songs they had learnt in the camp at Eastleigh: Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
    And the other sister would sing: Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
    As well as their interest in movies, they had developed a unique proclivity for the lurid details of sicknesses, raped women, murders, burnt children, and all sorts of other grim fascinations. And they talked about these things while they came down the mountain, in the same slow and swinging trot as the cow.
    â€˜Do you remember,’ said one to the other, ‘when a pig bit the ear off that kid from that house up there?’
    â€˜I remember, I remember … I mean, here in Tierra de Chá, the pigs are bigger than the cows; they terrify the lot of us! And do you remember when that man from Sanclás smashed into the wall, and every single one of his teeth fell out?’
    â€˜You don’t have any teeth either …’
    The other one stayed silent.
    â€˜And you?’ said the other, breathing in sharply. ‘Do you really think you’re the prettiest rose in the bunch? Your bottom is quite large.’
    â€˜My arse, you mean?’
    â€˜I said bottom.’
    â€˜Scarecrow!’
    â€˜Don’t call me that, it’s so ugly!’
    They both lowered their heads.
    â€˜Shut up,’ murmured one of them.
    â€˜Yes, shut up,’ murmured the other. ‘Right now I think we should shut up.’
    â€˜Put up and shut