‘You bastard,’ she hissed. ‘You’ve been interrogating my father. He and my mum are the only people you’ve ever met who know about him. Not even Dawn …’
‘No!’ I told her, trying to cut short her anger. ‘I promise you I haven’t spoken to Dave, or Elanore either. I can’t tell you how I knew, not over the phone at least. I just did, that’s all. But it’s okay, Prim; no more blame, no more recrimination, I promise. Come home tomorrow, okay?’
‘What?’ Her voice could have engraved the word in granite. ‘You’ve forgiven me for marrying you under false pretences, have you?’
‘Put it this way. If you did, so did I. Let’s just see what we can make of it, eh?’
‘I’ll see,’ she whispered.
‘Shit, check out of there right now and come home tonight.’
‘No, we agreed earlier I’d stay here. I’ll call you tomorrow, sometime or other. But now, just let me go back to sleep.’
She hung up and I stood up, my backside chilled by my stone wall seat. I remembered why I was still in L’Escala and headed for Bar JoJo.
It was open, of course; during my interlude everything else had shut down, but its light still burned like a campfire torch at the furthest oasis in the Sahara.
The Queen of the Night was at her station as always. Lionell was seated in a corner watching Sky News on the small television set. The only other customer, apart from a large black former tomcat, was perched on a stool at the bar, his broad shoulders hunched. I had recognised him even before he turned to eye me up and down and I saw the thick, grey-flecked beard.
‘Noches,’ Miguel grunted. I asked for a beer and, as JoJo was pouring it, sat on one of the available stools, near the heater.
‘And a good evening to you,’ I replied, in Castellano.
‘What brings you here on this fine night?’ Jo asked, as she topped off the head of my drink to a perfect depth. ‘And on your own too. I don’t ever remember seeing you without a lady.’
I gave her my best, gauche, John Hannah grin. ‘I’m fresh out,’ I said. ‘My wife’s in Barcelona.
‘Actually, I’m trying to find someone,’ I told her. ‘Remember when I was in last Thursday night, with Susie? There was a guy here, and when he was at the bar he dropped all the cards and money out of his wallet. She helped him pick them up, but after he had gone, she found a ten thousand peseta note sticking to her shoe. We reckoned that it must have been his.
‘D’you remember who he was?’
She shook her elegant head, slowly. ‘No. I remember who you mean, but I don’t know him. Never been in here before. . and I’d know if ’e had.’ She turned to Miguel. ‘You were playing pool with him. You musht know who he was.’
The gentleman of the sea looked at her. ‘Why should I?’ he growled in Spanish. ‘I was at the table alone and he came in and picked up a cue. He didn’t even ask if I wanted to play, he just joined in. Then, after a while, he went into the lavatory, came out again and went away.’
‘Yes,’ said Jo, ‘and he gave me a five thousand note for one beer and didn’t wait for his change, just took his stuff from your Susie and shot out the door!’
‘Do you know anything about him?’ I asked Miguel.
He looked at me, sideways. ‘Only that he was English, like you.’
‘I’m Scottish, mate, not English.’
He treated me to his full frontal glare. ‘Is all the same!’ he barked.
31
For at least an hour after I woke next morning, I regretted becoming involved in a discussion of sub-national identities. It took a litre of Evian and a session on the weights before I felt anything like normal, and I don’t think I’d even won the argument that Jocks are in just the same constitutional position as Catalans.
Still, I had been sober enough when I got home to remember to check my talcum powder burglar trap. It hadn’t been sprung and my note was still there, untouched.
It was quarter to ten before I settled down to my script, sitting close to the phone in the living room, to be handy for Prim’s call, whenever it came.
When I was at secondary school, I studied French and Spanish. For the first couple of years I found them difficult; but I stuck at it. (I didn’t have any choice: my mother and my sister saw to that in their different ways.) Then about halfway through my third year, when I was fourteen, it just clicked. I looked at a piece of Spanish text one day, the words meant something and it all just fitted together. I never looked back after that. I scored ‘A’s in my Grade Highers, and for a brief period I thought about becoming a modern languages teacher, until the thought of a lifetime in the classroom chilled me to the bone.
I had a similar experience that morning. I sat down with the screenplay, closed my eyes and went through it from memory, scene by scene. I was almost at the end when the realisation came to me. I could do this thing: it wasn’t beyond me. Indeed, even on my own in Spain I knew that I was making a passable job of delivering my lines. With coaching, and firm direction from Miles, I would be pretty good. For the very first time, I looked forward to getting back on to a sound stage, and to giving it my best shot. Apart from anything else, it would be a blessed relief from everything that had happened.
I had to tell someone. I realised that I hadn’t spoken to my dad for a while, so I called him. I had lost track of the days, and almost forgotten that he still filled teeth for a living. I was lucky, though; I caught him between patients.
‘Guess what,’ I began, ‘I think I’m an actor.’
‘I could have told you that when you were four and I caught you dressing up in your sister’s clothes and putting on your mother’s make-up.’
I felt myself blush through my tan at the memory. ‘Well, please, please don’t tell anyone else.’
‘That’ll depend on how much the tabloids offer me. How’s it going with you anyway? What’s the news on Elanore Phillips? I’ve been meaning to call to ask you.’
‘I’m in seclusion with my script, and that’s going pretty well. As for Elanore, everyone’s fingers are crossed, but the signs are still good. They think she might be all right.’
Mac the Dentist heaved a great sigh. ‘Thank the Lord for that. My blood went cold when I heard about her; it brought your mother back, all of that awful time.’ He paused. ‘Is that what’s been eating you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s still something up with you, I can tell that. Is Prim still in America, is that it?’
‘No, she came back on Sunday. Hitched a ride with a mate of Miles.’
‘Let me speak to her then.’
‘I can’t; she’s in Barcelona for a couple of days.’
I could almost see his eyes narrowing. ‘Have you two had a fight?’
For a moment, I almost blurted out the whole story, but I kept myself in check. I didn’t want him going back into the surgery and drilling a hole in some poor bastard’s gum. ‘Slightly,’ I admitted. ‘Let’s just say I found out some stuff about her and she found out some stuff about me that puts neither of us in a good light in the eyes of the other.
‘Dad,’ I asked him suddenly, ‘since I’m your son, and Mum’s, how can I be a cruel, ruthless, self-centred bastard?’
‘Who said that about you?’
‘I did.’
‘Hmphh. If it was anyone else, I’d batter the crap out of him. But since it’s you. . You’re not cruel, Oz, or not knowingly so, at any rate. And you’re not a bastard, I promise you. As for the rest, you can’t help it. In truth, I envy you in a way. In the last few years you’ve gone from a state of sloth into one of restlessness; you’ve always got to be moving forward, doing something new.
‘I think you’re running away, son.’
‘From what?’
‘From the hurt, and from the loss. From what happened to Jan, and to your baby. But I tell you this from experience; you can run as fast and as far as you like and it’ll keep pace with you. It’ll be with you until you die.’
‘That’s a coincidence,’ I said to him. ‘Jan told me exactly the same.’