The Songs of Manolo Escobar

by Carlos Alba

  Occasionally I caught a word or two that I thought I understood, or at least recognised. España, I knew, was Spain – that came up a lot. So did politico, which had something to do with politics, and militar, which was to do with the army and fighting. Papa said Republicano a lot.

  But these were minor snatches of meaning in what to me was a blank. I asked Pablito what they were talking about, but he just brushed me aside, saying I wouldn’t be interested. No doubt he was right. Nothing held my attention for long.

  And I had more pressing concerns. Max Miller had caught wind of Abuela’s knickers and led a delegation to our house to witness them. They all stood at the gate, peering through until they caught sight of the garments on the line, and then they collapsed on the pavement, laughing uproariously, slapping their thighs. Whatever derogatory nickname I had borne in the past was nothing compared to my new one, Spanish Granny Pants.

  But Max Miller’s vendetta didn’t end there. He arrived at school clutching a pocket encyclopaedia with a page dog-eared at the appropriate section, and proudly read aloud to everyone:

  Although Spain was formally neutral throughout the Second World War, it remained ideologically aligned with the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Spain, pressured by the Germans, offered manpower to help in civilian war work and military volunteers to fight against the Bolsheviks. This was accepted by Hitler and, within two weeks, there were more than enough volunteers to form a division – the Blue Division or División Azul under Agustin Muñoz Grandes – including an air force squadron – the Blue Squadron . . .

  I’d heard enough. The words burned deep into my head, fuelling a raging, pulsating hatred towards Spain and all things Spanish. I wished I’d never heard of the blasted place. I grabbed the book from Max Miller and threw it to the ground, grinding its pages beneath the sole of my muddy shoe.

  Our eyes met and a smile of satisfaction danced around his mouth – I’d just ruined his encyclopedia but, clearly, this was the reaction he was seeking. I punched him squarely on the face, unleashing a torrent of blood from his nose. A stunned expression registered in his eyes, and he began to cry. I punched him again, bursting his upper lip, and felt a sharp prick from one of his teeth piercing the skin over my knuckle. There were gasps of astonishment from the crowd as they waited for Max Miller to react.

  I willed him to respond. I was pumped full of hateful aggression, and I needed an excuse to punch him again. Max Miller’s face was puffy and bloody, but he was only a proxy for the real object of my anger – Papa. This is what I would be doing to him if only I was big enough and brave enough. I detested his weak, horrible lies – I’d rather he’d been honest about Spain and the war. I hated the country and everything it stood for, but I’d rather know the truth than have to face this humiliation.

  Max Miller wailed through trails of blood-streaked tears and snot. ‘You’re fucking mental, Antonio Noguera. D’you know that?’

  I tried to punch him again, but he was expecting it, and he pulled away. My fist missed his head and swung through the air, flailing aimlessly.

  ‘Ha ha, missed, Spanish Granny Pants,’ he hissed as he turned and ran in the direction of the school nurse’s room. Later the headmaster put the squeeze on him to divulge who had messed up his face, but he refused to rat on me. That only made me feel angrier and more stupid.

  4

  Papa leant on Mama as if she was a crutch. He’d always depended on her because she spoke better English than him, but now it seemed he’d surrendered all responsibility for his life to her. As we queued at the airport check-in I tried to recall the last time I’d been out of the house with them together. It must have been years, and it was shocking to see how reluctant he was to engage with the world when she was there to do it for him.

  His sole concession to independence was occasionally picking up or dropping off someone in his car, but only if he knew the route in advance and there was no deviation from it. Otherwise his every move was guided and facilitated by his wife: she told him when to walk and when to stop, she opened doors for him and answered questions on his behalf. Though he’d never properly integrated into his adopted homeland, he used to at least make an effort to understand, but now he appeared to have stopped trying.

  ‘The lady wants to know if anyone could have interfered with your suitcase,’ Mama said with exaggerated patience, as though she was talking to a child.

  ‘Wha you talk, interfere?’

  She sighed.

  ‘It’s a standard question.’

  ‘You nae ask question, you nae tell me interfere,’ he said to the woman harshly.

  ‘They ask the same question to everyone who’s going to fly,’ Mama explained.

  ‘I work here thirty year, you nae ask me interfere.’

  ‘No one has interfered with his bag,’ I said curtly.

  The woman behind the desk smiled.

  I was exhausted from several days of travelling, juggling diary dates and dealing with Kevin’s baffled irritation at my insistence that I needed, suddenly, to take a fortnight’s annual leave a few days before the start of the party conference season. Attending the conferences was one of the few concessions to my post that he tolerated, largely because he acknowledged the possibility that someone senior might get pissed or be caught shagging.

  I’d been riding a taxi through central London, on my way to the daily lobby briefing at Westminster, when Mama had called in a state of panic. Pablito, she related breathlessly, had booked a last-minute package holiday for the three of them in what I knew to be a tits, chips and beer tourist resort on the Costa Brava.

  ‘It is only a couple of hours drive from Lerida,’ she said, panicked.

  She wouldn’t elaborate, but the implication was clear; she was worried about the responsibility of chaperoning abroad her fatally ill husband, who was apparently intent on some kind of misadventure involving the local council, with no one but her dysfunctional elder son for support. The result was that the next day, I was standing with them in the departures terminal of Glasgow Airport, preparing to depart on a two-week holiday.

  This was a momentous day for Papa. He had spent most of his life packing and unpacking aircraft, but he’d never flown. His arrival in Scotland from Tangier fifty years earlier had followed a protracted and complicated journey by sea and rail involving changes at Lisbon, Southampton and London. Air travel had clearly undergone a paradigm shift since he’d last worked here. Back then, the airport had been a place of smiling, liberating possibilities. Now it was characterised by grim-faced paranoia, little more than a functional space for airlines whose sole purpose was to get their clients to a destination without allowing them to be killed.

  Papa looked nervy and self-conscious, obviously seeking a toehold of recognition on a wall of unfamiliar sights – X-ray machines, metal detectors and armed policemen talking into two-way radios.

  He’d dressed for summer, in a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of loose-fitting trousers. It only occurred to me after his suitcase had been checked in that he wasn’t wearing a jacket. I warned him the temperature in a pressurised cabin could be cold, but he waved me aside.

  ‘What about when you get off the plane? It’s not going to be tropical in northern Spain at this time of year,’ I said.

  ‘Wha you tell me about Spain?’ he demanded testily. ‘I know better than you about Spain.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Pablito ordered. ‘If he says he won’t be cold, he won’t be cold.’

  I’d long ago developed a sense that alerted me to impending problems involving my father or brother, problems that I knew I’d end up having to deal with. While they queued for passport control, I stopped by one of the chintzy tourist boutiques and bought Papa an overpriced sweatshirt emblazoned with a picture of Highland cattle. When I caught up with them Papa snorted dismissively, refusing to take it.

  As we passed through the various checks, he complained about the length of the queues, at having t
o remove his shoes and at being frisked by a security guard. But as we entered the duty-free area, his eyes lit up at the sight of all the cigarettes. He shuffled from aisle to aisle, picking up boxes of increasing size, giddy with excitement. As he and Pablito discussed the best deals, Mama and I moved to the café area. She sank into a chair, exhausted, while I ordered coffees.

  ‘I’m worried about him,’ she said the moment I returned. ‘He’s on a fairly high dose of morphine, and his mood is unpredictable.’

  Over in duty-free Papa was holding a carton of three hundred Benson & Hedges, engaged in a loud argument with Pablito, who evidently wanted to buy a large packet of rolling tobacco instead.

  ‘I think he sees the trip as a pilgrimage. He realises this will be his last chance to visit Spain.’

  ‘That’s understandable. It’s his homeland, no matter how long he’s been away,’ I said.

  She stared intently at Papa and Pablito quarrelling. ‘I hope he doesn’t do anything silly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She sighed. ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘You mean regarding this argument he’s been having with the local council?’

  She nodded silently.

  ‘Come on Mama, tell me. What’s the argument about? You can’t continue to keep everything to yourself. It’s not fair.’

  She sighed again, continuing to stare at Papa.

  ‘Mama, tell me.’

  ‘It’s just that he had some bad news that has made him very angry.’

  ‘From the Ajuntamente? What kind of bad news?’

  Papa and Pablito had decided against buying anything and were walking towards us. Mama went silent, and I knew I’d have to wait until I was alone with her again before I could pursue the matter further.

  ‘We get cheaper in Spain,’ Papa announced confidently.

  As we boarded the aircraft he had clearly started to flag, and any semblance of tolerance had evaporated. He complained about the steepness of the steps, the air stewardess’s failure to smile, and the lack of leg-room. Once airborne, he complained about the speed of the take-off, the effect of the air pressure on his ears, the no-smoking policy, the queue for the toilet, the excessive price of refreshments and the failure of the other stewardess to smile. Forty minutes into the flight he was complaining exclusively about the cold. I remained silent.

  ‘Hey, you give me jumper with cow,’ he demanded without a hint of contrition.

  Despite the time of year the temperature in Girona was high, and we were met with a blast of hot air as we emerged from the aircraft. By the time we’d cleared Customs and reclaimed our bags, Papa’s legs were threatening to buckle. There was a long queue for the charter bus that was to drop us at our resort. Papa sat on his upended suitcase and stared into the distance. I offered to hire a car.

  ‘I was going to suggest that,’ Pablito said, hastily rising to his feet. ‘I’ll go and book it. You stay here.’

  After a short conversation with a clerk at the car rental desk, he returned, red-faced. ‘Antonio, did you remember to bring your driving licence?’

  As we drove along the dual carriageway towards the coast, the piercing afternoon sun illuminated a constellation of white, flat-roofed villas dotted randomly across the rugged, pine-covered hills. We entered a small village and Papa’s head moved from side to side, his eyes alighting on every item of interest – a bread shop, a charcuterie, a small café with a table outside at which several old men sat smoking, a group of bronzed youngsters gathered around a fountain, holding upended skateboards.

  Occasionally he turned around to Mama, who was sitting in the back with Pablito, to pass comment on this or that. It occurred to me that, when he’d left Spain, this area would have been virtually unchanged since medieval times. While I guessed it had retained some of its character, it was now well-equipped and evidently affluent. For Papa it must have been like watching an old friend he hadn’t seen since childhood grown up and made good.

  As we drove further along the road the natural terrain gave way, abruptly, to a chaotic collage of bars, restaurants and skyline-breaking apartment blocks. Despite it being off-season, the streets crawled with pink-fleshed tourists clad in replica football shirts and nightclub touts clutching bundles of fliers.

  I’d been to a resort similar to this with Cheryl when we were first married and remembered enough of it to know the form. From early evening the streets thrummed with the noise of riotous single-mindedness; strobe lights flashed, music pumped and drinks arrived by the jug. Revellers whooped, clacked, staggered and fell. Beer spilled and, intermittently, fights erupted. By midnight, I knew, the party would be in full swing with inhibitions freely surrendered, and by morning the streets would resemble the aftermath of a battle, a casualty-strewn stretch littered with broken glass, half-eaten hamburgers and spatterings of vomit. The revellers would emerge blinkingly and contritely around lunchtime before the first mid-day drink squared the whole debauched, self-gratifying circle again

  As we pulled away from the traffic lights, Papa laughed dismissively. A few blocks further on, the satellite navigation system instructed me to turn left, further into the town, and his head swung instantly to face me.

  ‘We stay here?’ he asked, his voice infused with mild panic.

  ‘So it would seem,’ I said calmly.

  We parked, and I helped Papa out of the car. Pablito bustled forward and took responsibility for ushering him inside, despatching me to retrieve the suitcases from the boot. Our hotel looked cheap and seedy, located in what appeared to be the centre of a bar and nightclub complex, at least a mile from the beach, I guessed.

  We were checked in by a kindly old lady who directed us to the seventh floor. We emerged on to a landing and Mama put her hand to her mouth, too late to stifle an intake of breath. Vast and echoing, it was like a prison hall, with walls and floor of bare stone, coated with dirty salmon-coloured paint. The roof was made of transparent corrugated plastic and was comprehensively spattered with seagull droppings. We inched along the landing, which was punctuated with large plant-pots full of discarded cigarette butts.

  If Papa and Pablito held any immediate opinions about their surroundings, they didn’t make them known. We arrived at our rooms and entered the double that had been booked for Mama and Papa. It was small and serviceable, equipped with a bed, a sofa, a small dining table, a cooker hob and a fridge. Pablito and I were in an adjoining twin room.

  After we’d unpacked, we decided to go for a drive to explore some of the small fishing villages and resorts crammed into the craggy turns of the coastline. We stopped at a beach bar and Papa ordered a horchata de chufa, a sweet milky drink made from tiger nuts, which he hadn’t drunk since his childhood. With his first sip, a warm smile of recognition washed over his face.

  The wind was low and the sun’s malevolence was waning, agreeably temperate conditions in which to watch the crisp, azure waves lap against the rugged shoreline. The combined scents of spicy acorns and black, toasted tobacco appeared to have a calming effect on Papa, who smiled indulgently, apparently reassured that there were some things about his country that never changed.

  When we returned to the resort, Pablito suggested we change and meet in the restaurant for dinner.

  ‘There is no restaurant,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Of course there’s a restaurant, it’s a hotel, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s an apartment hotel, which means it’s self-catering. The clue’s in the title.’

  His expression hardened and his eyes shifted unsteadily. It was obvious he hadn’t properly understood what he had signed up for. ‘Well, they didn’t make that clear to me. They gave me the impression meals would be included.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry, there are plenty of restaurants here in the resort. My treat,’ I said smiling.

  Immediately Papa intervened.

  ‘We nae eat in restaurant, we have kitchen here. Your Mama she cook.’

  Her face fell.

  ‘We’re on
holiday, Papa. Mama’s not cooking, she’s here to enjoy herself.’

  Papa waved a hand in my direction and began to unzip his suitcase.

  ‘That’s what people do when they come to places like this,’ I continued. ‘They eat out in restaurants. The kitchenettes are there to make breakfast. No one ever uses them to cook dinner.’

  ‘Wha you know wha people dae? We eat here.’

  My chest tightened. As a child I’d felt belittled and powerless at his ready discard of reason, but at least then I had the consolation of knowing I’d grow up and he’d grow old. Now I was an adult, stronger and smarter than him, more affluent, more successful and more articulate, and yet still his will prevailed.

  Mama and I went to the local supermarket, which, as I’d anticipated, turned out to be little more than a convenience store for tourists to purchase breakfast staples and other essentials they’d forgotten to bring with them from home. We came back with some bread and a few tins of sardines and olives. Mama turned them out on to the cheap white crockery that was stashed in the cupboards under the hob.

  It was barely eight o’clock when we’d finished eating, but Mama insisted Papa should have an early night because he was tired from the journey. He didn’t complain. She’d brought a book with her, and she offered to sit with him, suggesting Pablito and I should go out for a drink. He seemed keen to get out of the hotel, so I agreed, though I felt sure it must have been twenty years since Pablito and I had done anything together. He was ten years older than me, and there had been no stage when we were growing up at which our interests had converged. The gap in our ages seemed to justify our lack of closeness.

  We ambled along some empty side streets until we came to a boulevard with a few bars and restaurants. It had just turned dark, but the air was still warm enough to sit outside, and there was a pleasing mix of cooking smells in the sea air. A handful of tourists had started early at some of the gaudier bars, but we managed to find a small pavement café that was empty apart from a couple of young local women sitting on bar stools, drinking coffee and smoking. I ordered two beers and we sat at a table.