Mad Dogs and an English Girl

by Caroline Waterman

  “Oh no, he won’t do that,” she replied in a low voice.“He has to choose someone else for the first dance and the one he chooses will have good luck. Everyone’s waiting to see who he fancies.”

  Manolo took a thoughtful swig from his porrón, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then, thrusting the porrón into someone’s hand, turned on his heel and walked purposefully in our direction. Anita patted her hair and waited smugly for the inevitable. Amazingly, however, Manolo ignored her and instead grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the centre of the square.The crowd cheered noisily, the band struck up and there was I, the Chosen One, dancing a pasodoble with him in front of the whole village. Dancing in stiletto heels was no easy matter in such thick mud. I fully expected to lose my shoes altogether and finish the dance barefoot, but by some miracle I just about managed to keep them on.

  “You’re not from round here, are you?” asked my partner as we danced. “You have a strange accent. Which part of Spain do you come from?”

  I laughed.“Well, I’m not Spanish. I’m from England.”

  Manolo looked puzzled. “England? England? I’ve never heard of that place.Which part of Spain is that?”

  I tried to explain to him that England was another country, far away, but I could see that I was getting nowhere. Fortunately, at that moment the dance ended saving us from further conversation.

  At two in the afternoon, all the wedding guests assembled in an enormous barn where a mighty spread had been set out on trestle tables. Course after course arrived: first soup, then fish followed by vegetables, tortillas, meat, fruit and cheese. There seemed no end to the food which was accompanied by liberal quantities of the local wine. Towards the end of the meal, I could feel myself becoming increasingly drowsy to the point where I was turning over in my befuddled mind the possibility of creeping under the table for a surreptitious siesta.

  By this time, most of the guests were seriously drunk and the bridal couple were being teased unmercifully with ribald suggestions and bawdy jokes. The bride blushed and Manolo spluttered with laughter, spilling wine down his best suit. The old men leaned across the table and joined in with reminiscences of their own wedding nights, eager to remind the younger ones that they too, their grandfathers, were once young and virile. Their wheezing laughter frequently exploded into fits of coughing and the oldest inhabitant nodded off halfway through his story, no doubt to dream himself back to those halcyon days.

  At last, the meal, which had taken up most of the afternoon, came to an end.The older women bustled to and fro clearing away the plates and glasses while their men folk smoked and played dominoes.The other guests, including Anita and myself, staggered out into the fresh air to clear our heads and continue dancing. It need hardly be said that the band’s playing was not improved by the intoxicated state of the players some of whom had difficulty in standing upright and had to be found chairs. However, despite all odds, the dancing did start up again and even merrier than before, for this time the wine had given some of the boys courage to seek out the girls of their choice. Several couples, having for a while escaped the constant scrutiny of their elders, managed to slip away into the dusk to seek blissful privacy in the cowsheds. Whispers, giggles and the odd little squeal could be heard behind the mud walls.

  The merry-making continued until midnight when, unbelievably, we were expected to do justice to yet another enormous feast. No one’s glass was allowed to remain empty, particular attention being given to the bridal couple. I was sitting opposite Manolo and I soon lost count of the number of glasses he was able to down, but I could see his eyes gradually glazing over while his bride threw him worried glances from time to time. It was easy to imagine what was passing through her mind and the misgivings she must have been feeling as she observed the increasingly paralytic state of her new husband.

  By the end of the meal he was slumped senseless across the table and there was no way he could be sufficiently roused to make the short walk from the table to the taxi waiting to take the couple to Burgos. Eventually, his prostrate body had to be carried to the car where he was propped up like a rag doll in the corner, snoring loudly.The bride climbed in beside him, bravely trying to smile her thanks at the well-wishers who poked their heads through the window. As we watched the car bump away, amid cheers, into the darkness, I reflected that sadly, Manolo’s wedding night would certainly not prove as memorable as those of his grandfathers.

  A bus had been hired to take guests back to Burgos but the numbers had been greatly miscalculated for there was barely room for half of them. However, the men gallantly gave up their places inside the bus for us females while they clambered onto the roof still singing and draining the last bottles of wine.Typically, the bus refused to start and it took the driver a good hour of poking around under the bonnet, hampered by the curiosity and unwanted advice of the male passengers, before the engine could eventually be coaxed back to life.

  “By the way,” I asked Anita, between yawns, as we trundled out of the village and into the pitch-black Castilian night,“how did we get invited to that wedding?”

  “Tell you tomorrow,” she replied sleepily.

  “Well, anyway, it was great fun…” I murmured and fell asleep. I never did discover the answer to my question.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MORE FRIENDS

  For anyone who did not know Eduardo well, it would be impossible to believe that he suffered from haemophilia, for a more energetic, lively and cheerful young man would be difficult to find. Unfortunately, he had inherited a blood-clotting deficiency so that even a minor injury could lead to persistent, life-threatening bleeding.You might think that anyone with this condition would treat their bodies with meticulous care but alas, this was not the case with Eduardo. On the contrary, he was terrifyingly indifferent to his own welfare and would throw himself into every kind of strenuous physical activity regardless of the consequences. Add to this that he was accident-prone and it was not surprising that his twenty-five years of life had been punctuated by numerous spells in hospital. His long suffering family had long-since abandoned their efforts to protect him and were resigned to placing his life in the hands of theVirgin to whom they lit a candle every day.

  I came to know Eduardo through my friend Julio, the one who had originally found me the job with Vázquez.There existed between these two, that special kind of love-hate relationship common to those who had known each other since infancy, shared the joys and frustrations of the school years, weathered together the traumas of adolescence and finally emerged, still friends, into adulthood. They were both extraordinary but very different characters: a truly bizarre pair. Julio was a fanatical anglophile and had persuaded his reluctant friend to spend several wet summers in the U.K. The last of these trips had been an absolute disaster as I was soon to learn.

  Eduardo’s job as a sales rep’ for his father’s small manuf- acturing firm in Logroño brought him regularly to Burgos, so I was not surprised when one day I found him on our doorstep. He had come to seek me out and discover what I had been up to, probably on the instructions of Julio who exercised a curious dominance over his friend, as he did with most of those around him.This was something Eduardo resented bitterly but seemed unable to remedy.

  We drove in his ancient little car to the Espolón where, over cups of coffee, he gave me his latest news.

  “Julio is very annoyed with you. He says you haven’t answered his letters.”

  To my dismay, I realised this was true for I had not thought much about Julio since leaving Vázquez’s house and had not written to let him know my new address.

  “Oh! I forgot to tell him I’d leftVázquez.Anyway, how did you know where to find me?”

  “I went to that house and the maid said you had gone; but I soon found out where you were. Everyone in Burgos seems to know about you. Julio’s coming back to Spain in a few days and I bet he’ll find some excuse to come to Burgos, so you can explain it all to him then. He’ll be livid of course that he’s not been
constantly in your thoughts.You know what he’s like!”

  “Yes,” I laughed, “thanks for the warning. Now, tell me about yourself. How was your holiday in England?”

  Eduardo exploded with laughter.“Holiday? That’s not what I’d call it. One hospital is much like another, you know.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Yes. On the journey out there I was running up some steps at Irún station carrying two suitcases and I tripped and twisted my ankle.You should have seen my leg! It was like this!” He spread out his hands, rocking with laughter.“It just wouldn’t stop swelling and Julio was in such a panic, thought I was going to pass out on him or something. I don’t know how we reached London. I couldn’t walk at all and Julio had to sort of carry me whenever we changed trains. It was murder crossing Paris and he was so angry! – said I’d ruined his holiday before it had begun. I suppose he was right because we had to call an ambulance as soon as we arrived at Victoria and I spent the rest of the time in hospital. Anyway, it didn’t really matter. It was pouring with rain the whole time and I saw all the sights last year.”

  “Eduardo, you’re incorrigible. Why can’t you be a bit more careful?”

  He shrugged.“Not my fault.These things happen; but let’s stop talking about me. How about tonight? I’m not leaving till tomorrow so we could do something together. How about the Sala de Fiestas? Why don’t we go dancing?”

  My heart sank.The thought of dancing with Eduardo filled me with dread.What if I were to tread on his toes?

  “Oh no,” I said hastily, “I don’t really like dancing. Let’s just take a stroll along the Espolón. We could have a drink at the Bar Gaona…”

  “How boring!” interrupted Eduardo.“I’m sure you don’t mean that. I know you really like dancing and that’s what we’ll do. The Sala de Fiestas it is. I’ve been there before and had a really good time.”

  “But your leg…”

  “It’s fine now. Meet you there at nine.”

  I was not a particularly good dancer and the dances I was used to at home were not the ones popular in Spain. It was all Latin-American stuff, a nightmare for someone like me, unfamiliar with the complicated steps of the samba, rumba, cha-cha-cha, and so on. However, Eduardo knew them all and threw himself into their interpretation with great abandon. Desperately I tried to follow him, keeping my feet as far away from his as I could. Glancing down I could see the menacing stiletto heels of the other dancers flying through the air like daggers and often landing within a hair’s breadth of my partner’s vulnerable feet. It seemed incredible, as each nerve-racking dance came to an end that he was still unharmed for I fully expected the evening to culminate in an urgent call to the local hospital.

  As we threaded our way back to our table after one such dance and I was feverishly trying to think up excuses for keeping him off the floor for the rest of the evening, I heard my name called and turning, managed to discern through the mass of bodies and haze of cigarette smoke, three familiar faces. Felipe was waving to us, his arm round Mari Carmen. Sergio was there too but seemingly without a partner and looking depressed.

  “Come and join us!” yelled Felipe.

  “Look Eduardo, there are some friends of mine. Let’s go and sit with them!”

  I grabbed his arm and dragged him over to their table, happy to have found the excuse I had been looking for.“I’d really like you to meet them.”

  “Haven’t seen you for ages,” said Sergio,“where have you been all this time?”

  “Someone told me you had a novio!” giggled Mari Carmen. “That boy from the Isla…”

  I quickly interrupted her. “The things people say! Now, you must meet my friend Eduardo from Logroño.”

  “Ah, Logroño,” said Felipe clicking his fingers at a passing waiter. “Saw a very good bullfight there the summer before last. Antonio Ordoñez at his best. Won the ears and tails of both his bulls – fantastic performance.What will you have to drink? Blanco for both of you? Yes, also saw him at San Fermín last year. What a fiesta! I was running through the streets in front of the bulls with the best of them.”

  “Ah, now that’s something I’d love to do!” exclaimed Eduardo enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up at the prospect.“Run with the bulls in Pamplona; perhaps next year…”

  It finally came home to me that he was totally bent on self-destruction so I gave up worrying about him and started to enjoy the evening.

  Eduardo, Felipe and Mari Carmen were talking bullfights but Sergio was bored and asked me to dance.

  “She wouldn’t come,” he muttered miserably, his eyes gazing unseeingly ahead as we shuffled around. “I asked her but she wouldn’t come.”

  I shook my head sympathetically knowing at once to whom he was referring.

  “She’s not interested in me at all,” he continued and now I noticed that his speech was slightly slurred.“I keep trying, keep on hoping but she’s just not interested. Do you know?” He turned his head to focus on me with some difficulty. “Do you know? She doesn’t even notice me.” His expression was that of a badly hurt child.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing how to respond but guessing it probably didn’t matter as he was really talking to himself, not me.

  “It’s terrible feeling like this about someone. It’s like an obsession and I can’t think about anything else.”

  “Yes, I do know what you mean.” Suddenly I felt I understood his problem.

  “And can you imagine what it feels like?” He stopped dancing and we stood there in the middle of the floor while couples danced around us.“Have you any idea what it’s like to care about someone as much as that and know the whole thing’s hopeless?”

  For some strange reason his words caused a cold fear to creep over me, the same inexplicable feeling of foreboding that I had felt several times recently. I tried to dismiss it but the uneasiness continued to haunt me for what remained of that night as I watched poor Sergio drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

  “After Christmas you must come and stay with my family for a long weekend. I want to show you Logroño. But for goodness sake don’t tell Julio or I’ll be in big trouble. I just want to see his face when you arrive.”

  Eduardo hooted with laughter as he climbed into his car and started the engine.

  “Are you trying to get back at him for that miserable summer holiday?”

  “Perhaps,” he grinned.“Goodbye, I enjoyed last night. I’ll look you up again next month when I’m back here. Watch out for Julio! I guess he’ll be seeking you out any day now. You’ve been warned!”

  I watched his car bumping its way down the hill into the dazzling sunshine, raising a great cloud of dust in its wake as it turned into the road to Santander and was gone. I turned and walked back to the house, thinking about Julio as I collected my books for the morning’s lessons. How well Eduardo knew his friend! Apart from his obsessions with England and of being an entrepreneur, the other outstanding feature of Julio’s character was his possessive jealousy which made him an easy target for teasing. In view of Eduardo’s warning I thought it wise to avoid seeing Luis for the next few days.

  The following Sunday morning, during a well-deserved lie-in, our dreams were rudely interrupted by someone shouting outside, under the bedroom window. Still half-asleep, Anita climbed out of the single bed we shared and staggered across the room, struggling into her dressing gown.

  “Oiga!” yelled the voice under the window and I recognised it at once. Oh no! How typical! I buried my head under the covers.

  Anita unlatched the heavy shutters and pushed them back to admit a stream of brilliant light. She opened the window and leaned out, the sun glinting on her tousled, black curls.

  “Que quiere usted?” she called down.“What do you want?”

  “The English girl,” shouted the voice, “they told me she was here. Do you have an English girl staying here?”

  “Yes, but we’re in bed.Who are you?”

  “I’m Julio Rivera. Her novio,” replied th
e voice.

  “That’s a lie!” I groaned, surfacing unwillingly from sleep.“He lives in a fantasy world like Don Quixote! Tell him to come back later!”

  But the voice under the window was now gabbling away non-stop, gathering speed and volume as it did so.

  “In bed? At this time of day? Disgraceful! I can see she’s already acquiring lazy Spanish habits. In London we don’t stay in bed till ten o’clock. I’ve just come back from England and things are very different there. People get up early. Meals at sensible times: morning tea at half past seven; breakfast at eight. No wonder this country’s going downhill. She should be ashamed of herself. In London she would have been up long ago–”

  “Hush! You’ll wake the neighbours,” said Anita. “Wait there! I’ll let you in.”

  She closed the shutters and groped for her slippers under the bed.

  “I’ll keep him quiet till you come down,” she assured me.“You certainly have some odd friends.”

  As I hurriedly pulled on some clothes I could hear them in the kitchen below, Anita busying herself with coffee-making, Julio pacing restlessly to and fro, his voice rising to an excited crescendo.

  “She is becoming lazy as we say in London.” He used the English word “lazy” for he liked to sprinkle his conversation with English words presumably to impress the listener.“I am surprised at her. Only three months in Spain and she’s becoming like the rest of us – I mean of you. I live like an Englishman now. Early to bed, early to rise. That’s what they say in London and you should see how efficient they are over there. They get things done; not like here where everything’s left till tomorrow. No. Appointments are kept on time. People don’t arrive late for work, trains and buses run on schedule; you should see the difference!”

  “Would you like some coffee?” I heard Anita saying.“She’ll be down in a minute. Sit down please! All that pacing around is making me dizzy.”