FLAMENCO BABY

by Radford, Cherry

  I got undressed and under the covers, shaky with sadness and arousal. Then I remembered his face: dark, mysterious but… concerned. I got out of bed and picked the slip out of the basket, folded it carefully and put it in my bedside table drawer.

  Chapter 4

  esposa f wife

  It seemed to grow overnight, this seed of an idea, this irresistible word: esposa. I woke up imagining myself learning to play flamenco flute and joining the group, making love in a series of hotel beds, and then, when the baby came, living in the house in Sevilla with his family until we found a home of our own, periodically popping down for some beach time with Jeremy in Cádiz…

  I padded into the other room and sat down at the computer. Fernando Morales: a Puerto Rican volleyball player, a Manchester City striker, a Chilean university professor. Eventually a Spanish article praising Nando’s teaching at a Flamenco workshop in Madrid, complete with blurred action picture. On his own, he didn’t seem to be cutting much of a profile. Antonio Molino and Fernando Morales. Aha. Pages and pages of notices of performances. Reviews by breathlessly infatuated critics, the odd carp from flamenco purists. Some interviews about their shows, in which ‘FM’ had fewer words but somehow more to say than ‘AM.’ YouTube clips: dizzying camerawork jumping from sweating, pained faces to the thundering feet and back to spinning arms and wet black hair. A couple of incomprehensible interviews on Spanish TV in which they sat on a sofa, initially serious but then making each other laugh like I’d seen at the reception. But apart from their flamenco heritage, Molino and Morales had managed to conceal every detail of their private lives. Even Antonio Molino + esposa failed to reveal his marriage to Pilar.

  Their website. Eerie strings behind a full-screen picture of them, sinuously expressive in black silk. A resonant, rhythmic vocalising: takata con-con, takata con-con, takata con… Ta… Ta… Unmistakably Nando’s voice and speaking directly to my limbic system as other images faded in - moodily sexy or smiling at applause. I clicked on Biografía: he was only thirty-three. His training, prizes, tours, solo guest appearances. Molino’s was an almost identical read. Calendario: Madrid, Seville, a frantic criss-crossing of Europe then South America in September; there was no time for private lives. Esposa: I was beginning to see the joke.

  I switched off the computer and switched on the day; I was going to have a good one if it killed me. Breakfast with Pavlova, some Spanish, more on a flute and piano piece I was trying to compose. Tidying the flat to salsa, a turquoise bath. Then out for lunch.

  A sunny Sunday lunchtime and Valentine’s Day: not the easiest of times for a determinedly not-sorry-for-herself single to be strolling by the canal. Even the mad-cap bikes had to defer to the crowds of stuck-together couples dawdling along with wan morning-of-sex faces. Perhaps I could have been one of them, if I’d just… It wasn’t that I didn’t like… Well, no, it was that… I had in the past, sort of… But not the first night, for God’s sake.

  Dark, wearing what could be the same jacket, leaning back on the bench with his arm around a girl… No: too bland a face. Asian. But a similar body, his girlfriend’s hand on his tummy. That was it: I’d given him the wrong idea. I’d reached the age of thirty-eight, a total of five lovers, and still didn’t really understand the language of sex. Like my Spanish, stuck at some lower intermediate level by some unidentified limiting factor.

  My phone trilled in my pocket.

  ‘How’s my valentine?’

  ‘Fine thanks, how’s mine?’

  ‘In need of some female company. This festival… mass gayness just isn’t my thing. So what’re you up to then?’

  ‘I’m on my way to the Narrow Boat with Mao’s Last Dancer. Bit sad, I know - it’ll be chocker with couples.’

  ‘Ha - you won’t even notice them with Li Cunxin for company. So tell me, how was the reception? Did you use your Spanish?’

  ‘I did!’ I told him about the cantaora.

  ‘Oh well done. Anyone else?’

  ‘Well… yes. Guess who I shared profiteroles with?’

  ‘Molino?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Morales?’

  I left a dramatic pause. ‘Yes! But his English was better than my Spanish so I sort of gave up.’

  ‘Yol! Nice guy? Did he flirt with you?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘Listen to you. You’re gorgeous, when are you going to start believing it?’ I heard a Spanish voice in the background. ‘Oh… Vicente agrees but says he’s starving. You’ll have to tell me more tomorrow - we could have a late lunch together, yes?’

  I’d arrived and made my way to a cramped table in the corner spurned by the couples.

  ‘No boyfriend today?’ asked our usual waitress.

  ‘No. Had to go to Spain for a few days.’

  ‘So you thought you’d celebrate anyway.’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’ Bloody hell. It was impossible for Jeremy and me to go anywhere without being thought of as a couple. There were even a few restaurants where we avoided taking partners, not wanting to spoil the illusion.

  I tried to re-immerse myself in the Chinese peasant boy’s life, periodically turning to the photos of him dancing and leaping later on, but it was difficult now: half two - only an hour and a half before the performance. Afterwards, maybe we’d go for a drink. Or a meal. And then?

  Back home, Emma was leaving a message. I picked up the phone.

  ‘Ah there you are! Look, Cassie isn’t coming, her ex turned up with an armful of apologetic roses… Wondered if you’d like to come and help me eat this lunch I’ve made, and then perhaps I could join you for the flamenco after all…’

  ‘Couldn’t he have done that earlier? I’ve just had a sad-single lunch at the pub. Oh, hang on, someone at the door…’ I looked out of the bay window and could just see the green arm of my neighbour Duncan’s hoodie. I went to let him in.

  ‘Sorry, forgot the key,’ he said as he went past.

  I came back to the living room, thinking hard. If Emma came with me I’d have to explain about Nando. Widowed when Cassie and Lawrie were small, she’d had a colourful romantic life since they’d left home; surely she’d understand? But then she was a bit like Jeremy: happy to throw herself into all sorts of trouble, but irritatingly concerned about me.

  ‘Sorry, daft neighbour with key-ring issues. Shame about the show - Jeremy returned the tickets. But if he can’t make any of the others I’ll let you know.’

  I sat down to a further tinkering with my composition, but it was a bit melancholy. I put on Alicia’s flamenco practice DVD, but I was fuera de compás. Out of time.

  I could only look at him: the way the tumultuous taconeo sent tremors through his thighs and the perfect curve of his buttocks; the strength of those defining arms; the glistening of his finely haired chest; the way his hair became wavier with sweat, forming a tender curl at the base of his neck… But when Pilar sang her song it was mine: all sadness, yearning and determination.

  I took deep breaths to try and stop my heart pounding. Pretended to study the giant boards advertising the flamenco festival, until sultrily stared out by a larger-than-life-size picture of Molino and Morales in which one could study the tiny scar on Nando’s stubbled chin in greater detail than in real life. I forced myself round the corner.

  Toni was on the pavement smoking with one of the guitarists and the cajón player, chatting with some animated young Spaniards. Pilar and the bata de cola dancer were smiling at awkward compliments from a middle-aged English couple. Then photo flashes and peals of laughter drew my eyes to inside the entrance; three leggy girls were being kissed by Nando and photographing each other under his arm, while two elegant señoritas waited their turn.

  I came out with a feeble ‘muchas gracias’ for the cajón player, who surprised me with a hug and an enthusiastic kiss on each cheek that I rather hoped Nando might have seen. But he was deep in tactile conversation with one of the Spanish ladies, the other having complicitly moved away. He
hadn’t noticed me. Or he had, and he’d decided to give me some useful perspective; I’d been a pleasant but unfulfilling companion, and second chances were dependent on the rare lack of other options.

  But I too had options, and humiliation was not one of them. Not anymore. So I walked on, quickening my pace as I turned the corner into my road. I slammed the door behind me, kicked off my boots and lay on the bed. Heaving with stupid, stupid tears. Then decided I’d tell Jeremy - albeit just up to the flute playing and then jumping to the scene at the stage door. Heavens, he’d fallen for enough dancers himself, he’d understand. There’d be a lecture about being alone at night with an unknown man. I’d counter by reminding him that if I hadn’t gone off with an unknown man one evening, after cutting my finger when losing patience with a faulty lock in the Sadler’s Wells self-service cloakroom, we wouldn’t be sitting together having the conversation. Then perhaps I’d tell him about Ángel.

  Ángel. I felt like I’d betrayed him. I’d email and tell him I really needed to meet him soon. I made a hot chocolate, grinning bitterly and saying look what you’re missing aloud to myself. Then went through to the computer and opened up the SD website.

  The doorbell rang and I could hear Duncan’s Scottish tones and chuckle outside. It sounded like he’d brought his new girlfriend back for Valentine’s night and forgotten his outdoor key yet again. I went to the hall and opened the door. ‘When are you going to put it on your key-ring you idiot, what if I’d…? Oh.’

  He and Nando were standing there with matching relieved smiles. My heart thudded.

  ‘Thanks, Yol. Have a nice evening, you two,’ Duncan said with a big wink as he walked past.

  Nando watched him bound up the stairs and then turned to me, his smile fading. ‘Why you not come? I not understand.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you go. Why? Do you want I go now?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then… we can enter…?’

  ‘Oh - yes.’ He followed me into the flat, took off his jacket. He was wearing a pale blue denim shirt with his jeans - a Red Indian in cowboy clothes. The same scent of shower gel, perhaps with a hint of musky aftershave.

  ‘So you were content not see me again?’

  He was obviously unaccustomed to being passed over. But just as I was enjoying his earnest expression he caught my arm and wiped his thumb under each of my eyes. ‘Not content…’

  I looked away, trying to come up with an alternative explanation for my smudged mascara.

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Yoli… Look, always there are girls. We know this. But I ask you to dinner and you not come.’

  ‘No, you didn’t say—’

  ‘Of course I say. Or if not, you know this, is evening, you think I ask you come say only hello and goodbye?’

  I smiled weakly, shrugged. I needed to sit down. Some chocolate.

  ‘But first, chocolate, no?’ He saw the cup I’d put on the table on my way to the door. ‘Ah - aquí está,’ he said, feeling the mug and then taking a sip. ‘Perfecto. Sorry. I give couple for it?’ he asked with a lopsided smile.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Couple. As you like. Abrazo.’

  ‘Ah… you mean cuddle,’ I said, laughing nervously.

  ‘That,’ he said, and I watched him drink, my chest aching with anticipation. ‘But come, to do milk for more.’

  I filled the pan, put the ring on. Then turned to him and had to stop myself from sighing as he pulled me into his arms, stroked and kissed my hair. I wanted it to go on forever, but a little pat reminded me about the pan.

  I poured the milk into my mug and stirred in the Green and Black, tried to relax; we had the whole evening together.

  ‘Hey, I forgot something last night.’ I opened a drawer and took out some mini marshmallows. ‘I can’t remember, d’you have these in—?’

  ‘Sí, malvaviscos,’ he said, grabbing the bag. ‘In America I have. But I prefer not with these - I am purista.’

  ‘In chocolate drinking if not in flamenco,’ I said, immediately regretting letting on that I’d read his reviews.

  He looked serious again. ‘This is what you think?’

  ‘No! Well, I wouldn’t know… but I suppose I do prefer the solos to the group dances… more like what I’ve seen in Cádiz.’

  ‘Ah! Purista. You have to come to Sevilla, see me dance at a peña.’

  I smiled and pushed down a resurgence of esposa hopes; it was just chat.

  He put the malvaviscos on top of my chocolate, tipped a few into his mouth. Then he touched my shoulder. ‘Oh I have for you…’ He pulled a bit of hotel writing paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘From Pilar. We ask Toni write song in English for you.’

  At night I go out onto the field, To cry for our love… Some of it hard to understand but basically a woman coming to terms with the impossibility of her relationship, willing nature to heal, time to pass… and leave her with a treasured memory. Perhaps the presence of the male dancer meant that he felt the same.

  ‘Oh… it’s beautiful. Thank you. Except now it’ll make me cry even more.’

  ‘You come again tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, with Jeremy.’

  ‘I meet him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  We went to sit down on the sofa and he put his arm round me.

  ‘I’m sorry for last night. But de verdad, Yoli, I not know what you want. It can be that you are not sure.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  He laughed, shook his head, took his arm away to pick up his drink and finish it. A wave of anxiety: perhaps he was fed up with my mixed messages and about to leave. But he picked up the Spanish book and flicked through. ‘So, Yoli, dime, what you do today?’

  ‘Yes, a bit of that, some music, reading… just a quiet day really.’

  I saw his black eyes look round the room, as if trying to verify what I’d said. And stare at the empty box for Alicia’s flamenco practice DVD. He got up to have a look at it, then picked up the remote control.

  ‘What are you—?’

  ‘I want to see what she teach you.’ Then he spotted my shoes on the shelf under the TV; why the hell had I left them there? ‘And what you learn,’ he added, picking them up.

  ‘Oh no, I’m absolutely not going to—’

  ‘Ven, put this.’

  ‘Anyway, if we’re eating out we need to go, it’ll be busy, being—’

  ‘We have place for nine. Spanish restaurante at top of street that Toni and Pilar find.’

  Of course. Where else? I’d let Nando sit me back on the sofa and found myself staring at the blue-black shine of his hair as he bent to put on my shoes, his hands warm on my feet.

  ‘Look, I’m really not…’

  He picked up the remote again, and with that inborn knowledge that every male except Jeremy had, instantly had it under his control. Alicia filled the screen.

  ‘Española?’

  ‘Yes, but born in London.’

  He watched, his face suddenly solemn; even these rudimentary steps for foreigners seemed to demand reverence. He fast forwarded to the marcaje and pulled me up to my feet.

  ‘Oh not that - I can’t follow it, her skirt’s too long!’

  ‘You not know, from class?’

  I felt like I was being tested; perhaps he was only interested in women with a certain level of flamenco sensitivity. On went the music and I gave it my best shot until I collided with the waste bin and got the giggles. He pressed stop.

  ‘Bravo! Qué compás para una principiante! How many classes?’

  ‘Er… four.’

  ‘Is very good. But you have to start to believe…’ He put a finger under my chin, pulled at my shoulders like Alicia did. ‘I like that you not know you are guapa, but is not good for flamenco. And…’ He demonstrated the step, his arms strong and precise. ‘Always you must say something. Again.’

  And I don’t know what my body said but I thought of the words to Pilar’s song a
nd it must have helped because he started saying ‘eso es!’ and doing the palmas, as if I was the real thing, and then put his arm round my shoulder and squeezed me. But when he reached for the remote I shook my head.

  ‘Your turn now.’ I pointed to the piano.

  ‘Ay Dios mio!’ he said, but sat down on the stool. I put myself next to him, thrown for a moment by his warm thigh against mine. I showed him the hand position, how to transfer weight from one finger to another. Carefully adjusted his elegant, dark-haired fingers. Then I played a warm chord sequence and explained that he could improvise a melody over it.

  It was something that even my least musical pupils felt happy to do, but he was hesitant, making me play my part twice before he would join in.

  ‘It’s okay, you can do anything—’

  ‘I know it. We start now?’ And then he played, faultlessly rhythmical and naturally coming home to the key note at the final cadence.

  ‘That’s lovely—’

  ‘Again!’ he demanded, sounding like Romilly, that dark, delightfully wilful child I thought of as Romilly-the-Romany. The sort of child we…

  His improvising was becoming more elaborate, more daring: a perfectly executed counter-rhythm, some harmonising left-hand notes, the melody extending into the higher octaves and then down among my fingers until we were going for the same notes and started laughing and nudging each other out of the way. He grabbed my hands and put them to his mouth, saying something in Spanish that I didn’t catch, then pulled me over and started kissing me.

  Suddenly the evening seemed to be about to develop rather faster than I’d thought; I’d imagined a late-night, wine-blurred submission. But I leant into him and wondered how it would feel to be wrapped together on my bed…