Pilarín Bayés: "And laughing about one thing and then another, we were courting."

BarcelonaIt must have been the summer of '59 when Pilarín Bayés started partying with Joan. She says it was a fluke; they kept running into each other for any reason and acted like it was pure coincidence. They strolled without holding hands; no one was on the same page. He said he'd never party; he was an independent spirit, and it wasn't until late summer that the relationship was revealed and everything became known.

They had met around February. He was from Vic, but he didn't spend much time there. He studied in Terrassa and was a keen hiker. He went to one party That's where Juan appeared. At first, Pilarín was interested in meeting another guy, but Joan seemed very cocky. He always said things in Terrassa were done this way or that way, and she liked it. A few days later, he sent her a book by Paul Claudel, "who has now been revealed to have abused his wife, but back then he seemed like the most progressive man in the universe." Shortly after, when Joan left to do his university military service in Galicia, he suggested she write to him: "He cried even though he had a blast. Those of us in Vic weren't very used to seafood, he loved it." He told her he would be doing her a favor if she wrote to him, and she sent him a drawing where he was dressed as a soldier with an umbrella. He found it very funny; it turns out that soldiers were prohibited from carrying umbrellas: "And we were laughing for one reason or another, we were courting."

Looking back, she's convinced that it was one of the best summers she can remember: "A long, beautiful, and fun summer. It was extraordinary." They strolled up and down the square in Vic and occasionally had a horchata. She says they weren't up for spending a fortune, so she sensed he was interested, because he invited her. Her friends would ask her, "Is this one for you? Should we go out?" "I said no and that they didn't have to do anything. He also said no, but deep down, he thought he was."

Pilarín used to spend summers in Salou with her family, but that summer she made it work for herself not to go: "Grandma was diabetic, she had to be looked after, and considering I could barely be with her the rest of the year because she was studying fine arts in Barcelona, ​​I offered." She believes Grandma suspected something because one of Pilarín's sisters wanted to set her up with an uncle of her husband, a fairly famous painter in the United States, and Grandma told her: "I'd prefer the one from Can Mateu," referring to Joan. "Nothing was said, but everything was coming out," says the ninotaire, who after three or four years of dating, married the one from Can Mateu.