by Les Cowan
So he’d taken up the invitation from an old Madrid amigo now running his own restaurant in Edinburgh to come back home. “You can help with the church for a bit,” Juan had said. “You’ll feel at home. And you can eat with us for free. Just till you get back on your feet. The church can probably pay you a little. Maybe some Spanish teaching for the rest. We need a pastor. You need a break. Think it over.” So he did, and for lack of a better offer packed what he could, sold or gave away the rest, politely declined any public send-off, handed back his library books, chopped up his Caja Madrid cards and caught an EasyJet to Edinburgh. Juan met him at the airport and took him home. The next day they met Mrs MacInnes at the church building on South Clerk Street, dealt with what she called “the practicals”, then went for coffee. She was well briefed and avoided any reference to “unfortunate events” though she did find it difficult not to want to take him home and feed him up on some wholesome Scottish home cooking, Morningside’s answer to all difficulties moral, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Next day they went looking for flats and found 112A Bruntsfield Place, a nice flat in a nice area full of nice shops and nice open spaces. Very nice if you’re feeling nice. It didn’t take much effort to carry a couple of cases in and arrange for the transport company to ship the rest. So that was that. He met the leadership of Southside Christian Fellowship, such as it was, then spoke the next Sunday morning and stayed for a cup of tea to meet the congregation. “Say something Spanish,” Trevor, the precocious eight-year-old, asked him. So he did. Not all the questions were as easy to field but Mrs MacInnes had it covered. Nobody asked why he’d left Madrid. Nobody referred to his previous church. Nobody asked about young people and drugs. Nobody mentioned inner city violence. And particularly, nobody mentioned the girl in the raspberry beret. It was as good as he could have hoped and not so bad as he had expected. If that’s not a tautology. Now after two weeks with Juan and his wife Alicia he was ready for his own space even if it was filled with ghosts. If he could just get that confounded heating turned on.
Chapter 2
La Movida Madrileña
It had happened at last: the day everyone knew in theory must come but, like Christmas for five-years-olds, just never seemed to arrive. Now, finally, Francisco Franco Bahamonde, victor of the Civil War and dictator for thirty-six years, had made his final exit. Wonderful wasn’t the word; unbelievable more like. There should have been dancing in the streets but everyone was still too uncertain of what might come next. When Juan Carlos, son of the passed-over monarch, arrived he did what few had expected and oversaw the new constitution, new elections, new civic freedoms and resisted the attempted coup. So maybe a little dancing in the streets might be in order after all.
David Hidalgo, aged twenty-two, stepped out of the Iberian Airways DC10 into blazing sunshine and contemplated Spain in 1980 – a country he had never lived in, that his father had had to flee from, that he had experienced only from holidays with his grandparents in Galicia – and knew he had come home. First on the agenda was renewing some old family connections in the posh Salamanca district of Madrid to get him settled into society then a well-furnished piso that wasn’t too expensive, in up and coming Santa Eugenia. Next a pretty reasonable job thanks to honours in International Business from Edinburgh University, not to mention fluent English and the all-important enchufe, literally connections like a plug in a socket, but in practical terms that inextricable tangle of interrelatedness that Spanish society runs on. So with a place of his own, enough traction to make ends meet, and a couple of supportive relatives, the next-level priorities weren’t too hard to work out: a cool car – anything other than a SEAT please; a sharp suit from El Corte Ingles, and lots and lots of sex. Nineteen-eighties Spain was good to go on all three.
La Movida Madrileña. A movement but also literally meaning movement. Suddenly all the sweets in the shop were out on the street. Like children starved of fun for thirty-five years – which is more or less what they were – Spaniards were determined to cram as much in their mouths as they could and worry about the stomach ache later. New music, new movies, new morals. Contraception was in and Catholicism out. David got himself into a band doing covers of the Pistols and the Damned, translated Leonard Cohen for his friends, and drove to Segovia or Avila at the weekends to chill out with some amigos and amigas on Rioja and reefers. Perfect.
As a Scottish Spaniard with fluent English and cool credentials (his journalist Papa had fled Spain to avoid the likelihood of bullets in the back), David Hidalgo was an interesting animal in the Movida world. Riding on his credentials and a naturally sociable personality, he gained entry to artistic circles, rubbing shoulders with the young Almodevar and Moltalbán. More importantly that introduced him to Alicia (very nice), Sara (friendly but a bit possessive), Bea (small but perfectly formed), Mayte (argumentative but eventually worth the effort), and even Kurt from Hamburg (turned out to be not his thing at all). But for some reason he never seemed to make the headway he hoped for, indeed almost felt entitled to, with Rocío.
Rocío. The dew. Fresh, funny, sparky, creative, completely unpredictable, full of crazy ideas. Tango in the Plaza Mayor at 3.00 a.m. Let’s sleep overnight in the Prado. It’s easy. You can sneak in, hide in the toilets, then sit staring at Zurbaran’s St Peter being crucified upside down without the crowds. Why not? Come on! Diminutive but seemed to fill the room. She certainly filled his imagination. Even when honestly trying to concentrate on Alicia, Sara, Bea or some other beautiful body he would open his eyes and be disappointed for an instant that the face below him did not have Rocío’s short chestnut hair, dark eyes, pale skin, and a look that always seemed to say, if you hold still long enough I’m going to burst that bubble. Despite the Spanish genes he was Scottish enough to know this was extremely bad manners. But she managed to twist and turn out of every attempt to box her in. He knew – or thought he knew – that she liked him well enough. And God knew she wasn’t a virgin. So, c’mon then. Why not? What’s so precious? It’s only sex. But Rocío didn’t do casual. She’d been with Roberto for two years before concluding he wasn’t playing for keeps so pushed him out firmly and politely. Roberto cried on David’s shoulder while David said comforting words and tried to keep a note of celebration out of his voice. That would also have been bad manners. But it made no difference. With Roberto or without him Rocío wasn’t interested. No, actually not that. She was interested. They went to the movies, cruised Recoletos for the best tapas, wandered up the hills of Casa del Campo, but that was definitively, pointedly, as far as it went.
“What is wrong with me?” he finally asked her in exasperation after she’d turned him down yet again.
“What do you think’s wrong with you?” she fired back, twinkling with amusement.
“Well – nothing I can think of.”
“There you are then.”
He pondered this for the rest of that night and three days following till they met again.
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“David,” she said, addressing a nice but not terribly bright adolescente. “I’m waiting for you. I really am. You’re just not ready yet.”
He took umbrage at that. He absolutely was ready. He was so ready he couldn’t sleep at night. What was she on about? It was infuriating. He wanted her, though better to say, wanted to be with her, not have her. To be together, not take possession. To move into her orbit, not capture her into his. But all to no avail. She said she was waiting. Well, waiting for what? For when? How could he know? Madre mia! Tela marinera!
Three years later he found out. Alicia, Bea, Carmen, and the others had all come and gone. He’d left the band. Somehow he’d come to prefer cooking to carnality – how did that happen? – and went to Toledo to stare at the cathedral ceiling instead of lying stoned on the opposite hill watching the skyline transform into what El Greco saw. Rocío was still friends with everyone but belonged to no one. She was funnier
, sharper, less forgiving of hypocrisy, but also quicker to forgive and comfort than anyone. Then, when he wasn’t looking, had almost forgotten their enigmatic conversation and was focused on just being friends, she bought him a beer one night.
“Now you’re ready,” she said.
“Sorry?” He thought she was for moving on to another bar.
“You heard. You’re ready. It’s time.”
“What?”
“Get your coat. I’ll show you.” So they left early, went to her place, and made love till the night owls could be heard coming home and the early birds were just getting up.
David left Sta. Eugenia like a young offender on early release and moved into Rocío’s place in Chamartin. It was like El Dorado, the place of gold, where they lived, loved, laughed, cooked, cuddled up, dreamed, confessed all, and forgave all. Each one with the otra mitad de la naranga – the other half of their orange.
But there was a serpent in paradise.
“Hey David,” she said one night in the afterglow while they were listening to Stan Getz and sitting up in bed with a glass of Ribera del Duero. “Do you think you might like to try a change of name?”
“What? You think I look more like an Alfonso or Pablo? What’s wrong with David anyway?”
“Nothing. But you’re partly there. It does begin with a P.”
“Eh? So, Paco, Pedro, Patricio, Paulo, what?”
“Actually, I was thinking of Papa…”
In a moment of extreme surprise he reverted to the Midlothian patois, “Stone the crows! Magic!”
So there were baby clothes, decoration schemes, lists of names, visits to the family to share the good news – hers in Jaen, his now in Malaga after years of freezing Edinburgh. So normal, so natural – almost inevitable but wonderful too. Papa. He definitely liked the sound of that. That would complete his growing up and give him a reason to go back to the beach.
Then one day a bump in the road that wasn’t meant to be.
“David. I think we need to get to the Centro de Salud. Now.”
Apparently a bit of bleeding at twelve weeks isn’t too uncommon. But a bit is different from a lot. Then there were the stomach cramps and sickness. The next visit to the Centro de Salud became a blue light run to the hospital at Ramon y Cajal. Medication and comforting words, then a surgeon in scrubs who told them the worst before shooting off for lunch.
“No reason not to try again, though,” he added on the way out the door. “It’s not that uncommon.”
So they did.
How many times can a young woman miscarry before losing hope entirely? In her case it was six. She would sit for hours staring at nothing – ignoring questions, not eating, not sleeping. The twinkle was dying.
He never did find out what made him leave work early that day. There was plenty of paperwork to do, customers who could do with a call. For no reason at all he just decided he’d had enough, flipped his filofax shut, told Monica to take messages instead of calling him, and wandered out into the car park. On the Chamartin doorstep he spent almost a full minute fiddling with the lock. Got to get that changed; one of these days it won’t work at all. A bag of groceries was threatening to tumble out of his other hand. Maybe something tasty could tempt her. On the other side of the door something clattered. Then whimpering like a puppy and some kind of scratching and banging. At last the key connected. Phew. A surprise lunch then maybe off for Cuenca to see the Casas Calgadas. A night in the Parador was always special. Something. Anything.
There, in the middle of the hall, suspended from the ceiling, she hung, slowly turning like a Christmas decoration.
“You’re a very lucky man,” the doctor in Urgencias told him. It didn’t feel that way. Rocío was in a hospital gown with drips in, oxygen attached, and dressings round her neck. She wouldn’t look at him. No point in asking why. The next day he took her home, saw her into bed, then went out and bought a bottle of vodka. They passed the next couple of weeks in a fog like strangers too frightened to talk, as if that would set off the bomb under the bedroom floor. There was nothing to say that wasn’t a meaningless pleasantry, the spark between them as dead as the Reyes Catolicos Isabel and Fernando but no Columbus coming to bring them to a new-found land.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked one Saturday afternoon without enthusiasm. “Shopping? Drive somewhere? Your brother’s?”
She shook her head.
“Well, I’m not sitting here waiting for something to change,” he said. “I’ll see you some time.” He picked up his car keys and jacket.
“David…” she stopped him as he was heading for the door. “It’s not fair.”
“I know.” He sighed. “We’ve been through all that. Life’s not fair. You can move on or not. You have to choose. I can’t do it for you.”
“That’s not what I mean... It’s not fair you should come home every day and not know what you’ll find. I’m going back to Jaen. I’ll stay with Mum for a bit. Look for work. You can have the house. Bring Bea here if you like. I don’t care. I’m sorry.” Her eyes were bright but she was cold and totally calm.
Well, if she thought he was going to beg her to change her mind she was wrong. He’d done everything he could. Comforted, consoled, cajoled, flattered, pampered, jollied her along, joked when he didn’t feel like it, persuaded, raged, waited, hoped. Now there wasn’t anything left in the tank. So go to Jaen. What do I care?
They tell you not to let the sun go down on your wrath, David thought on the way down to the plaza de garaje, but they don’t tell you what happens if you do. Now he knew. It’s actually no different to the sun going down on your barbecue. It gets cold. The pain inside turns to anger then grows cold and bitter. He flicked the central locking on the new BMW the company had just bought him, which he thought he’d enjoy but wasn’t nearly as much fun as he’d expected.
“Hasta cuando – see you whenever,” he said to nobody and got in.
The Sierra de Guadarama circles the north of Madrid like a grandstand overlooking the drama of the city. Sierra means “saw” and that’s what it is: jagged and uncompromising. He drove up into the falling dusk as, one by one, the pueblos below lit up, mirroring the stars. The smell of the pines filtered into the quiet and comfortable cabin. Cries of the midnight birds could just be heard along with the cicadas, backing track to the night. It was a steep drive with lots of turns. He had to concentrate. A load of timber coming the other way round one of the hairpins could mess things up quite a lot. Well, maybe not. How much more messed up could it get? Like the good atheist he was, he was seething with an infinite rage against no one in particular. God was still a living and useful part of the Spanish language. Dios mio. Gracias a Dios. Si Dios quiere. But anything more than that seemed to be expiring from the culture like the last breath of a corpse. Now who was there left to scream at?
Higher and higher he drove, the night a field of dark velvet with stars like diamonds on a jeweller’s cloth. He reached the summit. Somehow it seemed too final to continue driving, plunging down the road on the other side as if he really wasn’t coming back, so he simply pulled onto the viewpoint, switched off the engine, got out, and looked out over the valley to the city beyond.
Madrid – an idea as much as a city. In the past an idea of monarchy, then ruthless repression under Franco. Now almost overnight it had become a city of excess, with heroin and herpes running rampant. Somehow David had always managed to keep one step ahead, maybe because he knew he was waiting for something better. Rocío had said she was waiting for him but maybe he was waiting for her as well. Now they both seemed equally damned.
He picked up a stone, weighed it, and hefted it into the night, not caring where it landed. He stood up and shouted into the black, then sat back down and wept. No one either shouted or whispered back. Why should they? There was nothing out there. Finally, the storm blew itself out and he started talking into t
he darkness.
“So just to be clear, I don’t believe in you. Whoever you are. Wherever. Whatever. I don’t believe in you and I don’t expect anything… But just in case. Can’t you see we’re dying? You’re supposed to be the lender of last resort. Is there anything left for us? If not for me, then for her? She’s the good one. You know that. She does not deserve this. No way. So if there is anything there. Just for her. A miracle would be nice.”
Suddenly, breaking into the silence there was a screeching of brakes and tyres and a bang that shook the trees. He turned round to see a Fiat 500 half on its side, wheels still spinning, half on top of the boot of his beloved BMW.
Fantastic, he thought, absolutely perfect. That’s what you get for trying to converse with the universe. He covered the 50 metres to the tangled mess in a few seconds and jumped up onto the side of the Fiat. The interior light was on. That meant electricity. He could smell the gasoline already. It looked like an elderly man with neat grey hair and a suit was slumped on the side of the compartment. The door came open easily enough but unless he was careful the car would tumble onto its roof, pinning him underneath as well. The old man groaned.
“Oh. I’m so sorry. So sorry. Can you help me? Can you… oh…”
“Of course. You’ll be fine. It’s ok. How do you feel?”
“Ay, ay, ay… not so good…”
“Can you move? Can you move your legs?”
“Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Ok. So long as you can move we’ll get you out.” David pinned the door back and stepped down with one foot on the steering column. He caught the old man by the lapels. He was surprisingly light. Together they did a half turn that would have looked good on the dance floor till the old man got his legs under him against the driver’s door. He slowly stood up, head level with the sill.