FLAMENCO BABY

by Radford, Cherry

  ‘Lo siento,’ he said again, shielding his eyes as he followed me into the kitchen.

  ‘Just as well, you’re probably not meant to take these with alcohol.’

  He swallowed the pill with a glass of water, then slumped back onto the chair, his elbow on the table, head in hand. I turned off one of the lights.

  I wondered what to do with him next. It was a miracle I’d got him up the steps; I imagined trying to get him down them again and both of us falling down the lot, cracking our heads open and being found dead together in the morning. Besides, I’d given him a prescription medicine; for all I knew he might be on other drugs and have a reaction.

  ‘Lie on my bed, I’m fine on the sofa,’ I said, taking his arm and steering him through to the bedroom. He mumbled some resistance, but once he saw the bed he got onto it and closed his eyes. I took off his shoes. It looked like he’d left his hideous coat somewhere but maybe that was for the best, I thought with a grin. I put a couple of blankets over him and hoped he wouldn’t throw up on the bed.

  But when I went back to sort out the bathroom that didn’t seem very likely; there couldn’t possibly be any more to come. I got to work, mouth-breathing like Charlotte had taught me to do when changing nappies. Then crept back into the bedroom to check on my sleeping patient and extract the tracksuit that I’d been using for pyjamas.

  The sofa was impossible: whichever way I lay on it gave me a stiff back or neck - not an ideal preparation for three hours’ dancing the next day. I opened the door to the little bedroom; on Javi’s advice I’d shut it off to conserve heat. It was like walking into a fridge, and some droppings suggested that the room had already been taken.

  So then I thought, for goodness sake, what could happen? He’s flat out and will be until morning. He couldn’t try anything, and probably wouldn’t want to anyway. So I got in next to him, bedding between us. Listened to him softly breathing.

  I was nearly asleep when his warm arm came round me. I moved onto my side, fitting my body into the contour of his. Sending the blue shawl sliding to the floor.

  Chapter 10

  compás m (Mús) time, rhythm

  He’d gone. That was okay, he was probably embarrassed and had left a note in loopy Spanish writing. But no: a drawer closing, the tinkle of cutlery.

  He knocked on the door. ‘Yoli?’

  ‘Buenos días.’

  ‘A ti también. Come, have breakfast now, or you have pain in the stomach when you dance.’

  He’d been out: eggs, toast and some tomato paste stuff. Peach juice and coffee. And sugary sticks of churros with a polystyrene cup of thick chocolate.

  ‘Wow! Thanks. How are you feeling?’ I made a start on the churros.

  ‘Better than I deserve.’ He had a sip of juice then turned to me. ‘I’m very sorry Yoli. I know alcohol can give me migraña, I was idiot… and then… You are on holiday, it was bad to make you care for me—’

  ‘Well you’ve been looking after me, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, no… I want to do something. Maybe… I can make dinner for you tonight? If you have no plans…’

  ‘Oh… Yes, that would be lovely.’ A date, with this sweet oso of a man. Just as a friend of course, because he probably didn’t know he’d put his arm round me and that I’d snuggled into him. Maybe he’d been dreaming of a past girlfriend. Or a present one. He was saying something about beans.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Green beans.’

  ‘Yes… I love all vegetables.’ I wasn’t going to put him off the idea by admitting to being ninety per cent vegetarian.

  ‘I have some friends who will come to my home to collect some things, but I am sure they will go before eight - you can come then.’

  He tore off a piece of paper from my pad and drew a map - complete with a tree and his neighbour’s bird-cage in the window - and wrote down his mobile number in case I got lost. Even though he was just off the alley round the corner.

  ‘Come on, eat.’ He pointed to my box of Shreddies. ‘It’s okay, you can have guiri breakfast if you prefer.’

  ‘No way. Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong - I need a Spanish breakfast for my Spanish dancing.’

  He smiled and patted my arm. ‘Eso es.’

  Incredible: my feet just did it. Double time and a compás. The trick was to not think about it, just let it happen.

  In Spanish, Juana said I must have had extra coffee that morning, and it suited me.

  The cobbles didn’t hurt anymore, I talked to the dogs and cats, smiled at the Alhambra, reached my gate and admired its ancient dark wood. Looked up and saw turquoise breaking up the heavy sky.

  Bread and honey lunch. Juice and yet more coffee. Then I pressed Jeremy’s number on my phone; I could remind him about his memory stick and the other things he always forgot to pack for festivals, thank him properly for this wonderful experience.

  A woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh… who’s this?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s Ginny. Is that you, Yol?’

  ‘Yes.’ But only Jeremy calls me that. Sometimes Emma.

  ‘He’s at his dance class. I can’t believe he’s gone back to the same one he used to do when we were… you know…’ What? ‘When we were at uni.’

  ‘You were at uni together. I didn’t… I’d forgotten that. So you must be off soon then?’

  ‘Well, before the rush hour, yes. So how’s it going? It sounds fascinating - I’d love to do something like that.’

  So they’re driving down together, in Jeremy’s Noddy car.

  ‘Yol?’

  Yolande. ‘Yes it’s great. But a week’s just not long enough.’

  ‘I’ll get him to call you, he’ll be back any minute.’

  ‘Well I’m going out, I’ll be…’

  ‘He’ll text you then.’ I heard the bing of Jeremy’s oven. ‘Oh. Gotta go.’

  ‘Yes me too, bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  I put down the phone and stared at it. Okay, I thought they’d met at the Winchester festival but they’d met at uni; perhaps I’d misheard and Jeremy had said they’d re-met at the festival. She’d known him about twice as long as I had, but then she really only saw him a few times a year, so… so what. But there was something else, a little clutch of words that were tripping a switch, clamping my hands to the table: when we were you know.

  No, I didn’t bloody know. He came out at eighteen. For the sake of his writing, he was glad he’d experienced heterosexuality as a youth; I’d imagined fifteen-year-old fumblings, first sex in an older girl’s car. But by the time he went to university he was gay - or so I’d been led to believe. I tried to remember what she looked like: thick brown hair with some grey strands, glasses, a slight squint that gave her gaze an intensity. Rather overweight but with an enviably colourful and bohemian dress sense. Twenty years ago she… But what the hell? He’s absolutely gay now, I practically live with him, I know, so it’s not as if…

  I grabbed my bag and opened the door. Javi was right, the sun had arrived. I took off my jacket and went down to a plastic chair on the roughly paved mound, turned my face up to the surprising heat. Told myself to stop this jealousy thing about Jeremy, especially when I was going to be having dinner with a sweet-natured tocaor. My legs started to feel strong and ready to dance again.

  As, amazingly, did my arms. At the same time. Even the dark tocaor’s sonorous strumming and unashamed leering at us wasn’t going to put me off.

  ‘Mejor,’ said Manuela, fixing me with her eyes for a moment. Better. She still didn’t remember my name, but I was thrilled.

  The girls were planning to meet at the club again, and asked me if I was coming.

  ‘No, I’m meeting up with a friend.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Amparo, looking up at me as she bent down to change her shoes. We made our way to the rincón room. ‘Meeting up…?’

  ‘He’s making me some friendly beans, that’s all.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I want to sit som
ewhere different, not opposite him all the time.’

  ‘Next to him?’

  ‘No! Here,’ I said, pulling her down next to me.

  She laughed. ‘Yoli, I think you have problem but you not know it.’

  The others came in. Followed by Javi, slightly late and making apologies. Floppy hair shiny as ever. A checked shirt over a white top - a bit lumberjack, but a vast improvement. I willed myself to concentrate on the different kinds of fandangos. In three hours’ time… no, listen. In five hours’ time… no, that’s ridiculous. Then he got out his guitar, cradled it in his arms and filled the room with its sensual resonance.

  Eight. Time to leave, to arrive slightly and hispanically late. I’d showered and dried my hair in front of the heater. Decided against the black floral skirt that had looked flamenco in Islington but now looked guiri - and somewhat overdoing things, considering my host’s wardrobe - and had put on the denim one. I’d done my homework, and shoved the stupid Ginny-Jeremy thoughts firmly to the back of my skull. I was ready.

  But he wasn’t. There was a heavily built man waiting arms-folded next to some old suitcases and a cardboard box; a scary woman with heavy earrings spitting out rapid, impassioned Spanish. To Javi, I then noticed, standing there in the doorway. Then a stone crunched under my foot and all the dark eyes fixed on me.

  The woman was saying something about me being the answer and added something under her breath; the man looked me up and down and smirked.

  Javi came forward and took my arm. ‘Don’t worry Yoli, they don’t mean it. I will explain.’

  He spoke to the woman in a fast impenetrable Spanish but then more gently, something about how could she ask this when she had seen… when she knew… The next moment they were hugging each other and the man patted Javi’s shoulder. Fingers dug into my arm as I followed Javi into the apartment, but I turned and saw the woman was half-smiling and whispering ‘sor-ry’.

  ‘Come in, I will have to tell you about it, but then we can have our nice evening.’

  The door led straight in to a living room with a kitchen rather like mine but a lot warmer. And more cluttered: guitar cases, a couple of cajóns, a music stand and stacked boxes. We sat down with a couple of brandies on a rug-covered sofa.

  He took a deep breath. ‘They are the brother and sister of my wife. It is finished between us, some years, but now I left the apartment that we had and came here, I am making new start, and I asked them take her things. They are unhappy because they say I am throwing her out, and this is big shame for the family. But really they know that it has to be the end.’

  ‘She… lives a long way—’

  ‘She is bailaora, always on tour. Or in Madrid.’

  A female version of Nando. ‘Oh. That must have been…’

  ‘She is proud, she would prefer that I keep our home. She was here in Granada but has not take her things…’

  ‘She’s gone?’ I didn’t want to be there if she hadn’t. I thought of those phone calls on Tuesday; they must have been with her.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  But I’d picked out a few words of the argument with his sister-in-law. There was something he wasn’t telling me. I took another sip of the sweet brandy.

  ‘But… she said something about children.’

  He winced. ‘Your Spanish is better than I knew! Yes, children we did not have… Is why she give everything to dancing.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘It was me, I have… low number. There, now you know everything.’ He finished his brandy. ‘But Yoli, I am okay you know. I have my new home, and it is a good time for me, maybe I will join with this excellent cantaor who is interested in my playing… And you are here to have dinner and fun, okay?’

  We smiled at each other.

  ‘The dancing was much better today?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Maravillosa. Manuela told me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After your class. She asked me what I have done.’

  I put a hand to my face.

  He chuckled. ‘How I help you in my class. Don’t worry, I have not told her of the breakfast.’

  He got up and took a large saucepan out of a cupboard. Some chopped onion, tomato paste. ‘Are you going to sit and become pink, or do you want to help?’

  ‘It’s just that it’s warm in here compared to what I’m used to.’ I stood up.

  ‘Well, take off something,’ he said, indicating my top with a down and up finger.

  A further rush of burning to my cheeks. I started pulling arms out of my cardigan.

  He put down a chopping board and came over to me, his warm hands on my shoulders. ‘Look Yoli, we are here as friends, okay? Please relax.’

  ‘Of course. I am.’

  ‘Vale.’

  He tore open a paper bag of long green beans and started cutting them into squares. ‘You cut like this, okay?’

  I nodded, pleased to be occupied.

  He started on some thin pieces of ham. Of course: jamón with everything here, even the vegetarian dishes. He must have seen my concern.

  ‘You don’t like the grasa? I cut it off.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So you will come back to the school?’ He was pouring boiling water into the pan, looking unconcerned one way or the other.

  ‘I’d like to, yes.’

  ‘Next year or…?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe earlier.’

  He looked at me for a moment then bent down to get out another pan.

  ‘Perhaps with warmer weather next time,’ I said. ‘Can I do anything else?’

  ‘The History and Style of Flamenco - this is a good course.’

  ‘I meant for dinner.’

  ‘Put these on the table,’ he said, handing me some cutlery. ‘Of course you would be in Compás Intermedio.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Maybe just take one class of dance each day, more time for Spanish.’

  ‘Yes. Well, that’s the timetable sorted out. Just a question of when.’

  He was frying the ham. I was surprised to find the salty smell rather appealing. I was surprised to find his t-shirted broad shoulders rather appealing. He’s an appealing friend, I told myself, but I’m used to that.

  ‘Yoli, you have to take out these from the beans, look.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ I started pulling off the strings.

  Perhaps I could come in the summer half-term, if I could afford it. I wondered whether it was more important to splash out on a last holiday for myself or to be saving for Ángel’s baby. I should have come here years ago, I thought sadly.

  ‘Qué pasa?’

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  He pushed the beans into the boiling water and winced as water splashed up.

  ‘Ay… every time I hurt myself.’

  ‘Me too.’

  He tidied up the work surface. ‘What about the weeks where your school is closed, after Semana Santa?’ he asked, without looking up. He wanted me to come back in just over a month’s time. ‘Then you remember what you have learned.’

  ‘Maybe.’ We grinned at each other. Friends. ‘What shall I do now?’

  ‘Put on some music.’ He pointed to a bulging box of CDs.

  I knelt down to have a look. Paco de Lucia. Tomatito. That famous cantaor who died early. Other flamenco artists I hadn’t heard of. One with Arabic on the front. Spanish equivalents of Easy Listening Classics. Ketama. And the entire collection of…

  ‘Chambao! I love them.’

  ‘They are popular in England?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t fill the Brighton theatre when we saw them, but God knows why, they were amazing.’

  I put it on, their flamenco-chill and the singer’s sweet voice sounding perfect in the cosy Granada apartment.

  He put the dish of steaming judias verdes on the table, with a plate of brown and white bread and a bottle of sparkling water.

  ‘So
rry, no wine.’

  ‘That reminds me.’ I pulled out the packet of Naramig from my bag. ‘Have these and get a doctor to prescribe them for you.’

  He thanked me, put his hand on my arm again. Tactile, the Spanish. But it doesn’t have to mean anything; Nando had been touchy and caressing, but left without so much as a note and had probably touched and caressed any number of women since.

  I took another mouthful. ‘Delicioso.’

  ‘After, we have arroz con leche. My neighbour has made it, we just make it warm.’

  ‘Sounds perfect.’

  And over the Spanish rice pudding I learnt that his father was a builder and his mother and sister taught Spanish in a language school. That he liked most but not all of the Almodóvar films. That he sometimes played football on Sundays and thought Spain would win the World Cup.

  Over coffee, he asked why I’d decided to take up flamenco dancing, and I told him about the break-up with David, and how the week was a consolation present from Jeremy.

  ‘Poor Yoli, and what a generous friend.’ He took another sip of coffee. ‘You know, if it is difficult, you could save money… I have another bedroom, you could stay here.’

  My heart thudded. ‘Oh… that would be—’

  ‘Come, have a look. It’s very small, but…’

  There was a single bed, with a pile of clothes and the hideous black coat that hadn’t been lost after all. More boxes.

  ‘I will have everything in a place by then.’ He opened the door to a tiny balcony overlooking roof terraces and lights the other side of the valley.

  ‘This is lovely.’

  ‘Look,’ he said coming out with me and pointing to a balcony further along. ‘We could talk from our balconies.’

  Like I do with Jeremy. ‘And from this side you can just see the—’

  ‘No! Not safe!’ he said, his arm quickly coming round my waist.

  I looked down. ‘It looks fine.’

  ‘There is a crack there, may be it is dangerous. I need to fix it, to be sure.’

  His grip around my waist was loosening. But I didn’t want it to. I put my forearm over his - just a friendly gesture for keeping me safe. Then he put his other arm round me and put his chin on my shoulder, his chest warm against my back. It was like being on my bed again; I wanted to push myself back into his body. I settled for putting my flushed cheek against his, but he turned me to face him, his hand lifting my face…