FLAMENCO BABY

by Radford, Cherry

  But it wasn’t doing either; partly because I’d ignored Javi’s advice and put the kitchen heater on ten, causing it to shut off altogether just like he’d said it would. The floor of the freezing bathroom was still flooded, the broken shower attachment lying like a dead snake on the floor. I kicked it to one side and flung a couple of towels into the puddle.

  The heater forgave me and started working again. I took off my boots, put pink bed socks over my black tights and arranged myself on the tiny sofa, feet up in the air, a blanket over me. Bliss. I opened my Spanish book. We had to continue the story into the future. Liz had begged to be able to use the subjunctive and conditional tenses, but we hadn’t gone over them yet so Juana had told us to forget contingencies, play God and get on with it.

  Playing God, I thought, I’d have Nando come swooping back and marrying me, a baby arriving nine months later. But then I’d have to live in Seville - and share this fantasy with my bewildered classmates. Anyway, would occasional visits from Jeremy be enough? It was easier if I had him marrying me and giving me a kid. So let’s see…

  A knock on the door? No, just that shutter banging in the wind again. Tendré un niño… no, una niña… may as well have a girl while I’m at it.

  A loud buzz. Must be the plumber. I put the top on my pen, took the books off my tummy and heaved one stiff leg off the sofa.

  The door opened: Javi, carrying a plastic bag and a toolbox, guitar on his back.

  ‘Ay, perdón Yoli. But why you don’t open the door?’

  I struggled to get my other leg down, hoping that somehow he hadn’t seen up my skirt; I seemed destined to look forever graceless and stupid in front of this man.

  ‘Sorry, couldn’t get up…’

  ‘I have to mend the shower. The man who does these things has problems. I can help, but after a time I think we all have problems, maybe sometimes he remember this…’

  Oh no. He was here to sort out my shower when perhaps he should be visiting his mother in hospital. ‘I’m really sorry. If you’re… Look, it can wait, I…’

  ‘No, no. I’m sorry. Is not your fault.’ He went through to the bathroom.

  ‘Coffee?’ I called after him.

  ‘No thank you. You do your homework.’

  So perhaps he was a bit miffed about not being offered coffee last time. But I couldn’t just treat him like an odd job man, even if that was what the school was doing. I pulled on my boots and trailed after him.

  He tutted at the puddle and mess of towels and I wished I’d cleared them up. Then he looked over his shoulder. ‘You have to use…? I can wait.’

  ‘No, no… I wanted to help.’

  He opened the plastic bag with a knife from the toolbox, stepped into the bath. I folded my arms to try and keep warm, waiting to see if there was anything I could do.

  He seemed to be ignoring me, but then he looked over and smiled. ‘And your head, I need to fix it too?’

  ‘It nearly fell on my head.’

  ‘Ah. Lucky.’

  Then he pointed to something in the toolbox. ‘Pass me… oh…’ I put my finger on one tool after another. ‘Sí, eso es.’

  I handed it to him and watched him working. He’d taken off the hideous coat and rolled up his sleeves. He shook back his baby hair, his lips parted in concentration. I found myself wondering how many times a week he made love to his esposa and whether they had any pale, slightly chubby niños for their efforts. Because even though he wasn’t wearing a ring he would definitely be married; he seemed about my age and they get hitched younger over here.

  He looked over at me again. ‘Don’t worry, I can do this.’

  ‘No. I mean yes, I’m sure you can.’

  I started picking up the sodden towels and using a third to mop up the puddle. Then a writhing hose-snake appeared in the corner of my vision.

  ‘Ugh!’ I jumped back from it and heard him laugh.

  ‘He wants to know you,’ he said, wiggling the hose around in a way that made me laugh but I still somehow wasn’t happy about. ‘Needs to make friends. He sees what you did to the other.’

  ‘He was wicked and half dead already, I promise,’ I said, putting the broken hose in the bin.

  ‘Nearly finished. It is very cold in here. Maybe I will have coffee now, if it’s okay. Oh… unless you have to prepare to go out…’

  ‘No, I’m staying in.’

  I went through to the kitchen and filled the saucepan, glad that I might learn a little more about this unassuming flamenco.

  He came through, pulling down his sleeves. ‘Finished. But be gentle with it.’

  ‘Thank you so much. They shouldn’t ask you—’

  ‘So you are not going with your friends to Le Chien Andalou tonight?’

  ‘No, I’m feeling all flamenco’d out.’ He looked puzzled; it probably didn’t translate, and was a pretty daft thing to say to someone whose whole life was flamenco. ‘I’m tired, my legs are killing me… I’ll go tomorrow night.’

  ‘Good. Tomorrow I have a friend playing there, and you will like the dancer. So how goes your dancing?’

  ‘It’s difficult. Nobody else is really a beginner, so I look an idiot. I have to keep choosing between arms and feet.’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘Ah… it was like this for me too, for some time.’

  ‘You dance as well?’

  ‘No, no… Well, sometimes at the end of the night.’

  ‘You just picked it up or…?’

  ‘A little. But I have done classes - in another school, in the evening, or everybody laughs.’ He looked serious for a moment. ‘But no time, at the moment.’

  Of course. I got on with the coffees, put some biscuits on a plate. He sat down at the table.

  ‘You will have a baby?’

  ‘No! It’s just something I have to write for Spanish.’ I blushed, took my time getting the milk out of the fridge.

  ‘It says here you are going to have a girl, with Khe-re-mi.’

  ‘We had to make something up in the future tense - crazy really.’

  ‘But what thinks your boyfriend if he read this?’

  ‘He won’t. And anyway, he’s not a boyfriend. He’s gay.’

  I took the biscuits over and sat down. I dunked one in my coffee and we chuckled as half of it plopped in.

  ‘Is wrong type of biscuit for that. Like Je-re-mi is wrong type for this,’ he said, pointing to the word niña. ‘If you want a baby, you need to find the right type, and soon.’

  That was a bit much; I was there for healing, distraction, to make spring come sooner - and I didn’t like the emphasis on soon. ‘It’s just an exercise… How about you, have you got children?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  An awkward silence. ‘So where are you from? Are you a granadino or…?’

  ‘Yoli… you were dreaming in my lesson again. I have said this, when I talked about the Taranta. It comes from Almería, like me.’

  ‘Oh. So the flamenco here dragged you away from all that warmth and sunshine?’

  ‘I wanted to learn with the best teachers.’

  ‘In the conservatorio?’ I’d read that there was a music college in Granada.

  ‘No. My parents wanted me to go there but I was always tocaor, not guitarrista.’

  ‘I missed your concert - it was so stupid, I fell asleep doing my homework.’

  ‘Good, it was not the best. Come on Saturday, I will play for the first time with Emilio Heredia, excellent singer.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll ask Amparo.’ He looked at his watch. ‘D’you need to go?’

  ‘No, I have time for another. The rehearsal is at eight.’

  I got up and refilled the saucepan. So he wasn’t visiting his mother tonight. Perhaps she still lived in Almería, or somebody else was ill.

  ‘So tell me about you. No, I want to guess. You are…’ He pointed to my doodles on the Spanish handout. ‘An artist.’

  ‘No. That’s one, I’ll give you ten.’

  ‘Vale. Actre
ss.’

  ‘Good God no.’

  ‘I know, escritora… writer?’

  ‘No. That’s what Jeremy is though. Why are you so sure I’m in the arts?’

  ‘Always dreaming. Am I wrong?’

  ‘Er… no.’

  ‘Maybe something with books, it is how you have met Jeremy…’

  ‘Four. No.’

  ‘You don’t work in an office, administración of arts.’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Mm. Is it possible to guess?’

  ‘Very possible. Actually, rather worrying that you haven’t been able to already.’

  His eyes opened even wider than usual.

  ‘No… musician! Yoli! Why you have not told me this in class?’

  ‘Why would I? I’m the worst in the group.’

  ‘Only when you not concentrate,’ he said, touching my arm. ‘So what do you play?’

  I told him about my teaching, the flute trio. He was beaming, nodding. ‘You have it here, your flute?’

  ‘No.’ I was glad I hadn’t; it would have reminded me of playing for Nando.

  ‘Qué lástima. I could show you a little flamenco flute.’

  Then I wished I had. ‘You play?’

  ‘No, but I could give you the idea of what they do. You should come to the Teatro Municipal next week, there is very good—’

  ‘I fly back on Sunday.’

  ‘Oh. Only one week? It is not enough time.’

  ‘I’m beginning to realise that.’

  He looked at his watch again. ‘I should go. It will be a long evening.’

  ‘Well… would you like something to eat before your rehearsal?’

  ‘No, my home is only two minutes, is okay.’

  ‘Sure? I’ve got eggs, cheese, tomatoes, tinned peas, pasta… and pan integral, of course.’

  He looked uncertain. I remembered the sweet chubby esposa.

  ‘Sorry, you’ve probably got to—’

  ‘I’m very hungry, any of these things please. I will help.’

  ‘Okay, you can hand me the tools.’

  He did, anticipating each with hilarious timing.

  Except for when I reached for the wooden spoon without looking - and put my hand on his.

  ‘Oh… sorry.’

  He let go of the spoon. But he’d gone rather still, and I found I had to stare into the bubbling pasta.

  ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to become pink, Yoli.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are. Come on, let’s eat.’

  He squeezed my hand, his fingers briefly in between mine. Those fingers that rapped out those impossible rhythms, plucked and caressed the guitar. And fixed things.

  Chapter 9

  mano f hand

  Those hands. Tickling the cajón into life, dancing in the air when he was explaining the difference between a soleá and bulerías, pushing back his curtain of silk hair, scratching his jeaned thigh…

  I’d told Amparo about him mending my shower and our coffee together, for some reason deciding to end the story there. He squeezed my hand: how silly would that have sounded? But she’d asked me if I wanted him, which probably meant fancied him, and I’d said he was sweet, but no. She was surprised; hadn’t I noticed that he was an oso? Eventually translated as bear. As in teddy bear. Or bear hug. I looked at those arms and wondered…

  A nudge from Amparo. Everyone was waiting, the Czech girl sniggered.

  ‘Is all okay?’ Amparo whispered.

  ‘Are you okay with everything, Yoli, can I go on?’ asked Javi.

  My cheeks burned. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Amparo?’

  ‘Can you go over the soleá rhythms one more time?’ she asked in Spanish, and then, when he was answering somebody else, muttered behind her hand, ‘and show me your hose?’

  I coughed to cover up a guffaw and saw Amparo’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

  ‘What is the problem with these two?’ Javi asked the others.

  ‘Make them stay back after class,’ said the guitarist.

  ‘Yes maybe, because I don’t think they are in correct mood for soleá.’

  I pretended to study my handout; the puzzled look on his face was going to set me off again. I concentrated for the rest of the lesson, but the more I tried to show him how musical I was, the more mistakes I made. Amparo and I stayed behind to go over the soleá rhythms.

  When we came out the others were still around, waiting to catch a glimpse of a guest dance teacher for the Advanced class.

  ‘Will we see you at Le Chien?’ Amparo asked Javi.

  ‘Yes, but I have students, I will come at about nine. You can save a place for me, no?’

  A striking figure came out of one of the studios - tall for a Spaniard, and plenty of machismo and curly black hair - followed by his sweating but graceful students.

  ‘Muy guapo, sí?’ Javi said with a grin. ‘Very handsome,and good dancer. But every time he comes he… plays with the girls and there is trouble in the office. Is not that I am jealous, of course.’

  Amparo laughed and asked him something I didn’t catch.

  ‘Yes. Carlota tells him this every time, but he is big star for the school, he does what he likes. Ay, look at him now…’ The Czech girl was edging her way forward through the crowd. ‘Poor Zuzana, I think she will be víctima, but what can we do.’

  A cave much the same width as our studio, with a bar at the end that took ages to serve you - probably because each drink had to be served with a plate of tapas. It looked like nearly the whole school was there, and students from other flamenco schools too, but there were also locals and some exotic creatures in hippy clothes.

  Javi took his seat, drink in hand, minutes before the young blonde cantaora’s voice silenced the room. There was a balding but longhaired tocaor and a buxom, mature bailaora. An odd grouping, I thought, until I saw the wordless connection between the three of them.

  In the break the other girls were chatting with Javi about the palmas, and then he was explaining something to the guitar boys, who’d both bought him a drink. He wanted to help everyone get the most out of their flamenco course, not just the dippy blonde flute woman with the broken shower. I went off to have another go at getting drinks but there now seemed to be a policy of serving the locals first so I queued for the tiny toilet instead.

  I got back just in time for the next set. The cantaora sang a song that so sounded like she was making it up from her own life that I could feel the start of ridiculous tears; and there was a powerful performance by the bailaora, her hammering feet and spinning flounces so near to us that Amparo and I exchanged wide eyes and moved our stools back.

  Then another break, and another round of drinks that Amparo and I didn’t get involved in. Javi had gone off to chat with the tocaor. I started to feel weary, probably dehydrated. I decided to walk home, said goodbye to Amparo and left.

  The restaurant terraces were busy, and couples were sitting on the wall looking at the Darro or the lit-up Alhambra above them. There would still be plenty of people about on the way home; it was a good idea not to have stayed any later, I’d already had a great night.

  Or had I? That blue mantle was descending. Most people call it a black dog, but mine’s a shawl. I can know it’s coming, I don’t have to wear it, so why can’t I just shove the damn thing off my shoulders? The trick was to put something else on before it could get there. Quickly. Amparo and I having a giggle and a relaxing soak in the Baños Árabes on Saturday, followed by Javi’s concert in the evening. Liz saying she wanted to keep in touch, how I’d be welcome to their sofa for a long weekend.

  I turned the corner and started up the hill. Maybe I could somehow coincide the long weekend with another of Javi’s concerts…

  And there he was. How could he possibly be ten yards in front of me when I’d left before him? If he’d overtaken me - quite possible really, with my blue-shawled pace - wouldn’t he have said something? Perhaps there was a short-cut. But now I was
going to catch up, because he was leaning against the wall, his hand to his neck. There was a group of laughing youths further up the hill; I was afraid he’d been attacked.

  ‘Javi?’

  He turned to look at me. ‘Ah, Yoli… you no’ enjoy…?’ Eyes glazed. It took me a moment to realise he was basically just borracho.

  ‘Yes, but I’m tired.’ I wanted to ask him if he was alright, but thought perhaps he hoped I couldn’t see that he wasn’t.

  ‘Yo también. Pero… dolor de cabeza… migraña… sabes?’

  I knew all about migraine. ‘Yes, d’you have something for it?’

  He mumbled about getting home.

  We carried on up the hill side by side. He didn’t seem to want to talk. I started to wonder if the headache was just a cover-up for his drunkenness, but then he winced and leant against another wall, pressed his fingers in to his temple just like I always do.

  ‘Big breaths,’ I said, and took his jumpered arm. We were in the little alleys now, stumbling over the cobbled steps, finally reaching my gate.

  ‘Where’s your house?’

  Slurred Spanish.

  ‘Look, I’ve got some special pills for migraña, half an hour and there’ll be no pain. Would you like one?’

  He clutched his head. ‘Por favor.’

  ‘Come on then,’ I said, guiding him through the gate and up the perilous steps, surprised to hear him managing a muy bien as I managed each lock.

  I sat him down on a kitchen chair while I went off to the bedroom to find the Naramig. Then I heard rapid heavy footsteps and the unmistakable bark of vomiting. I went through to the bathroom, covering my nose at the stench. He washed his face and gave a muffled ‘lo siento’ into a towel.

  ‘It’s okay. Come with me.’