Reluctantly I agreed, and he turned and walked away into the blackness.
I met Eduardo at a café for breakfast. We sat outside under striped umbrellas, sipping glasses of peach juice dripping with humidity, the harsh taste of black tobacco still on my tongue.
‘Well, how’s it going with the fire-woman?’
‘I spent last night in the barrio with her husband and his hunting mates.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ He glared at me through his sunglasses.
‘And I learned a couple of things too. She’s a quarter Moor, he goes with prostitutes, and despite the problems they’re having, they still enjoy the “physical side”, as her husband put it.’ I was surprised at my own jealousy.
‘Sounds like a pretty ordinary marriage to me – apart from the Moorish bit,’ he said. ‘But watch it, son. You’re playing with fire. He might not know anything now, but one slip and you won’t have any fingers left to play the guitar with. Once he knows where they’ve been. You understand me?’
‘Lola and I are playing at a fiesta in Vistacastell next weekend.’
‘I don’t know why I bother.’
‘Look, it’ll be fine. It’s miles away from anywhere. Nobody will see us.’
‘I hope not, son. I hope for your sake it fucking snows and no-one shows up.’
‘I’m going to accompany her.’
‘Ah, well! If it’s accompanying you’re interested in, you must listen to Tomatito – the Little Tomato.’
I knew the only way to get him off my back was to start talking shop.
‘He’s the man to listen to. The king of the Gypsy guitarists. Now, the way he played with Camarón was the last word in accompanying. I know it’s not dancing, but the principle is the same: drawing out the best performance from the other person with the minimum effort. The guitar is a vital component, but must never distract attention from . . .’
On and on he went. But I’d stopped listening. I was thinking about Lola – and Vicente.
Back at the Costa Gazette, Barry was in a good mood. He’d recently become fascinated with a young girl whose father wrote a column in the Sunday Telegraph – which reached us on Mondays.
‘She’s gorgeous. Look at the tits on that!’
He showed me a picture of a pouting Londoner with luxuriant dark hair. He’d written to her asking her to do a regular piece for the paper. Curious, she had written back, asking him to send some details of the paper’s rates.
‘Well, we can offer her the top amount – twenty pesetas a line. What do you reckon?’
‘I think she’ll laugh in your face.’
‘What the hell do you know anyway. Look,’ he said, turning to the impassive, grinning Jonathan, ‘tell you what. We’ll put all the money in an account for her here, so when she comes on holiday, she’ll have a tidy lump sum waiting for her. Spending money, like.’
He vanished into his grotto, triumphant.
‘Dickhead,’ Jonathan mouthed to me as the door slammed.
‘Oh, listen, Jason.’ Barry’s face was back again. ‘There’s some fiesta going on somewhere in the mountains this weekend. Some English geezer’s going to be playing flamenco, apparently. I want you to cover it. Jonathan will tell you where.’
Jonathan gave me the details. I kept a stunned silence.
I found Lola and Vicente’s flat in the suburbs of the city – a large soulless area full of tower blocks and condominiums with swimming pools and tennis courts for the residents; the fruits of the new, prosperous, post-Fascist Spain. I parked and passed through the metal gate at the entrance into what seemed like a fortified camp. The concrete communal area was deserted in the all-embracing midday heat. Even the pool was empty.
I reached the door, found the right bell and placed my finger over it. For a moment my hand refused to obey. As the days passed, I had grown reluctant to keep this particular appointment. Lola had frozen on me when she found out about the invitation and had threatened to disappear for the weekend and abandon the concert. I had pleaded and she agreed to stay. Besides, Vicente would be leaving that evening for a conference in Valencia. We would be able to meet for the fiesta, and perhaps another day beyond that. But a nagging feeling remained.
I rang the bell and a voice came over the intercom. It was Vicente.
‘Come on up, dear fellow. You’ll find us on the fifth floor.’
He was at the door to greet me, all smiles and a firm handshake. I went inside.
The flat was dark – heavy furniture, browns, greens, mahogany chairs like thrones. The walls were lined with smart, untouched, leather-bound books bought from a book club, or by the yard from a decorator.
‘Can I offer you a beer, old chap?’
I watched Lola coming and going from the kitchen, head erect, hair tied back with a clip, tight on her scalp. Yet as she passed backwards and forwards, never looking me in the eye, I realised there was something different about her. I was used to two personalities – the school administrator and the flamenca – yet here was a third, one I had no idea existed before this moment. I saw that here, in this house, with Vicente, she was a wife, playing an essential role in the fantasy life they had created. The hauteur was gone, the fire extinguished. The sulking pride I had expected her to display failed to show. Everything about the way she ate, sat listening to Vicente, removed the dishes, brought out more food, bore witness to her acquiescence and self-negation. A ghost. There was no love here. Wife, yes – even physically, as my jealousy reminded me – but not lover.
‘I’ve made some paella. Would you like some?’ I had never known her to be so polite.
‘Mmm. Payela,’ Vicente said, mimicking the English pronunciation. She tittered.
I scanned the room for signs of her presence, of the woman I thought I knew. Only books and old maps of English counties. This was Vicente’s world. Then something caught my attention. At the bottom of the bookcase stood a plastic doll in a bright red and black dress with turquoise sequins, black hair held tightly back on the head with a clip. It was a flamenco dancer – the tacky kind sold in souvenir shops. I turned away.
‘My daughter is just like me,’ Vicente said. ‘Loves English. She’s reading English Lit. at Barcelona University. Top of her class.’
I congratulated him, his pride quite filling the room.
‘While my son, ah, he’s more like his mother. Wants to join the army next year.’ He leaned towards me. ‘All that aggression,’ he said softly. Lola was in the kitchen.
‘I have a contact – an enchufe – in the Ministry of Defence in Madrid. We’ll make sure he gets a good posting.’
In the only country where, it was said, power was more important than sex, having enchufes was the only way to get things done in this so-called democratic age. The system of favours and local strongmen was the real face of Spanish political life.
Vicente continued to extol his children’s virtues, but he spoke of them like ornaments. Again I noticed their absence from our surroundings, not merely physically – the daughter, at least, was away from home, and doubtless the son had better things to do on a Saturday afternoon – but also as visible members of the household.
Lola returned with more plates, a fixed smile on her mouth, an apron tied comfortably around her waist. I barely recognised her. This was not the lithe, leopard-like woman I had fallen in love with. I thought of stretching my foot out under the table to touch her, but didn’t dare risk it. Besides, Vicente made great demands on his audience, and I was forced to listen to him like an unwilling passenger on a long-distance train journey.
The meal came to an end and Lola began clearing away. I wanted to get up and help her, maybe enjoy a second or two in the kitchen alone, to see if she was really there. But Vicente kept me nailed to the chair with his barrage of words. As a compromise, I started stacking the plates on the table, but was gestured to leave well alone. I obeyed and Lola carried on.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’ I lifted my lead
en body – swollen with heat and rice – out of the chair and followed him down the dark, unlit corridor. At the far end he opened a door and beckoned me inside.
It was dark and smelt of cologne and mothballs: the scent of elderly Spanish people. He turned on a small lamp on a chest of drawers by the door. A dull, grimy light was cast about the room, barely enough to show what was inside. My eyes blurred in the gloom and I had to strain to bring everything into focus. More dark, old furniture, an old Persian rug on the floor, a brown armchair – the covering almost worn off. But more impressively, hanging from every wall, in glass cupboards, on stands, in corners, filling the entire room, were stuffed, dead animals, staring back at me through black, lifeless eyes. Rabbits, falcons, stoats, a boar’s head, sparrows, a deer, all arranged around this morgue-like temple, silently paying homage to the violence of the man who had killed them. Their stillness was strangely disconcerting. I half-expected them to reanimate themselves at any moment, draw breath and launch themselves onto their slayer.
‘I have a man in Valencia who does them for me. Of course, you can’t stuff them all. Some of them are just in too bad a condition after they’ve been shot.’
In my mind’s eye, I could see him in a camouflage jacket, blasting these creatures out of the sky, from the trees, his rifle spitting death wherever he pointed it.
‘I’m running out of space. There’s only room for special ones now. Like this one.’ He pointed at a falcon with its talons outstretched, beak open wide as in the final seconds of homing in for a kill. How had it been when Vicente shot it, I wondered. Sitting quietly in a tree carrying out its morning ablutions, perhaps? Soaring peacefully on the coastal winds? The taxidermist was obviously good at flattering his clients.
‘Of course, you can’t lose much time once you’ve brought them down. Sometimes I drive straight up to Valencia with my animals in the back of the car. Don’t even stop to go home and change. He likes to get them as fresh as possible. It’s the heat, you see.’
We stood in the cool, dark room, his animals staring back at us. The icy layer of fear that had lined my stomach since the first night with the hunters in the barrio began to rise into my throat.
‘I have worked hard all my life to build what I have, Jason,’ he said. ‘It means everything to me. I would kill anyone who tried to take it away from me.’
* * *
I stopped at the flat to pick up my guitar before heading back to Vistacastell. Outside the front door, I bumped into Pedro hopping from shady patch to shady patch along Alfonso El Sabio. The road was deserted. No-one came outside in heat like this.
Seeing him brought back a sudden memory of my arrival in Alicante: the deep serenity of his jasmine-perfumed garden, the joy of the new, the hope, and calm. He seemed to carry it around with him.
I went over to say hello. He smiled – his wide, childlike grin – and embraced me. We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas, as if I’d almost forgotten he was there.
‘My dear Watson, you must take care in this heat. You’ll burn up.’
And he walked on, smiling, waving and blowing kisses into the air.
‘And . . . Don’t worry. Be khappy.’
My hands were trembling when I reached Vistacastell. The square had been decorated with lights, and a pavilion had been set up in a corner full of long, empty tables covered with white paper cloths. There was a bar further inside, and then the stage with a chair and a microphone. I looked at it with dread. Two men were setting up the PA system, tinny popular music echoing around the village to an absent audience. So great was the Spanish lust for noise that even this late siesta hour wasn’t sacrosanct. I walked down to Amparo’s house wondering if I could do some last-minute practice.
The Chinese dog was sitting by the door like a fluff-ball. He knew me now, and would be on his feet, wagging his tail unassumingly, as soon as he recognised my steps coming down the narrow street. He sniffed my ankles, I patted his head, and together we went inside.
I crept upstairs, anxious not to wake the sleepers below. I opened the case and picked up the guitar, gazing at the fading valley, and waited.
Lola was late. She said Vicente had caught a different train to the one she had expected. The fiesta was already under way.
‘Here, I brought you a present. Take it.’ Then to the side, ‘Not that you deserve it.’
I smiled. She was back to normal.
I opened the box and inside was a bright red fountain-pen. ‘One day you’ll write about all this. And when you do, I want you to use this pen.’ She kissed my eyes.
I had so many questions. Why had she been so different? How did she manage to do that? And what about her Moorish grandmother? The mystery of it excited me. I wanted her to tell me about it. Surely she knew about Vicente’s racism? But there was no time, we were due to perform. No time, even, for a last-minute run-through.
It was gone midnight when we arrived. Mosquitos and moths flew chaotically around the harsh lights hooked up at the sides of the pavilion. It was very hot, despite the mountain breeze, and there was a strong smell of sweat, tobacco and cheap red wine. Mounting the stage, I kept telling myself it was only a small audience of half-drunk farmers who probably knew as much about flamenco as my grandmother did. No need to worry, none at all. But my legs still shook, and I was relieved when I was able to sit down in the chair placed out for me.
Lola, meanwhile, rubbed her hands together and took centre-stage, her eyes fixed just above the audience. For her, it was about defiance.
‘Mierda. Shit,’ she said without turning round. It was the Spanish equivalent of ‘break a leg’.
A fat man with a shiny face introduced us as ‘Los Novios Flamencos’ – the Flamenco Fiancés. I cursed Amparo under my breath. Doubtless everyone knew about us. Lola rolled her eyes, and dipped her head.
‘For the love of God!’
I saw her mouth the words and her shoulders seized with tension. Not a good way to begin. She was quite capable of storming off and leaving me there to play on my own.
‘Ole,’ came a cry from the audience. They were waiting for us to start. But I could read Lola’s mind and could feel the anger and pride rising inside her. This was too much. Why should she, a real flamenco dancer, perform in front of this lot? Ole? They had no understanding of the word. How could they shout Ole?
The crowd was still waiting, and becoming edgy. Why hadn’t we started? Was something wrong?
‘Lola!’ I hissed. But she stood still, head down, jaw clenched. ‘Venga! Mora! Come on, you Moor!’
She whipped round and looked me straight in the eye, shocked for a second, then turned back to the audience and crashed her feet on the floor. The dance had begun.
The villagers went wild, thought it was all part of the show, and loved us for it. We began with Verdiales de Málaga. Good, popular, passionate stuff. Loud and rhythmic and a favourite amongst non-aficionados. Everyone was clapping, mostly out of time, but the pavilion was filled with noise and dance, men shouting, children chasing each other round the tables, glasses being filled, conversations continuing between mothers despite all that was going on around them. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. What better way to cover up my mistakes? No-one could even hear me with all this going on.
My eye briefly caught sight of Amparo at the front of the stage, clapping furiously with her neighbours. She saw me looking at her and waved. I smiled. I could hardly blame her for our billing as ‘Los Novios Flamencos’. It was just how things worked.
The piece came to an end and there was a roar of applause. But we hardly stopped before moving straight into another popular style: Alegrías. Lola pulled out some castanets from her bag. ‘I need them for the compás,’ she shouted above the din. ‘I can’t hear you.’
More shouts from the crowd. ‘Vivan Los Novios Flamencos!’ I groaned, but there was no reaction from Lola this time. Perhaps she hadn’t heard. The cold was rising in my throat once more, and my fingers began to catch on the strings. Vile, twangi
ng, discordant sounds. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘I’ve lost it.’ But the dance and the crowd demanded I continue, and I was forced to press on regardless, hands sweating with nerves. Once back in the rhythm, I realised no-one had noticed. And if they had, it really didn’t matter. This was a Spanish fiesta crowd. Nobody was going to pass judgement. Especially not on a foreigner. But just in case, I decided to hold the compás and do nothing else.
The Alegría came to an end. More cheers. ‘One more, and that’s it,’ Lola called. The sweat was beginning to stream down her forehead.
We started on a Tango, the first palo we had done together. Lola went at a fast pace; I could see her brought alive by the crowd again, the flowing rhythm rising through her body.
‘Venga, Morita!’ I cried again. This time she smiled and danced even harder, sweat flying from her face as she twisted and pounded the earth, her hair sticking in wet strands to her cheeks. I remembered Juan’s words about duende. Duende, he said, was love. My fingers flicked smoothly over the strings with perfect timing, in perfect unison.
She kissed me when she finished. The villagers cheered. ‘Vivan Los Novios!’ We didn’t care any more.
‘This feels like a wedding,’ I said.
We climbed down through the smoke and sweat, through congratulatory crowds of people. The next act was already beginning, but no-one seemed to have noticed: they all wanted to meet us. They had probably heard the man now on stage about a hundred times before. It seemed to take an age to get through. ‘Wonderful, wonderful!’ Amparo came over screaming her thanks, and kissed us both. ‘I’m sure you’ll be so happy together.’
Finally we got outside the pavilion. Plenty of people here too, but at least there was room to breathe.
‘Well, guiri?’ She draped her arms around my neck and stared up at my face, eyes dancing above her broad smile. ‘What do you think of your first concert?’
I breathed, more relieved that it was over than anything else, and let my head fall back to look at the starry sky.
‘Not bad for a first try. Quite beautiful towards the end. But he should have listened more to what I told him about playing with dancers.’
Duende Page 11