Tango

by Alan Judd

  TANGO

  Also by Alan Judd

  Fiction

  A Breed of Heroes

  The Noonday Devil

  Short of Glory

  The Devil’s Own Work

  Legacy

  Non-fiction

  Ford Madox Ford

  The Quest for C

  First published in Great Britain by Century Hutchinson, 1989

  This eBook edition first published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  Copyright © Alan Judd 1989

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Alan Judd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-47113-434-0

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  To

  Nick Langman

  and with thanks to

  Anthony and Caroline Rowell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  In appearance, at least, she was so dramatically, so extravagantly concupiscent that for his first six months in the city William ignored her. He believed himself susceptible only to subtlety and indirection, and therefore impervious to such shameless blazing beauty.

  He only ever saw her from a distance. Once, in the old quarter of quiet squares and crumbling government buildings, the tall faded doors of the treasury opened for her, narrowly and inexplicably. Twice he saw her in the streets where the traders from the country had their stalls, once coming out of a bar near the cathedral. On a brisk afternoon in an avenue that led to the sea she was talking to some other girls when the wind flung her dark hair across her face and harried her skirt about her thighs. All the girls tottered and laughed, clutching at their clothes. She wore red gloves.

  By then it was winter, his first in South America. Many of the women huddled in needless furs, the men in sheepskin jackets and berets, but for William it was like a cool summer’s day in England. The sky was blue and white, the sun pleasantly warm and there were welcome sea breezes. During his evening walk home across the golf course he could view the sea on one side and the angled red roofs of the city on the other. It was a small city, tolerant of trees and green spaces, its wide unhurried avenues fed by winding cobbled streets and alleyways. Often in the early evening there would be black clouds over the sombre tranquil sea, their undersides reddened by the sun. He would linger by the stunted trees before taking the coast road home. He could easily have driven to and from work, but saving time wasn’t the point; he was in no hurry either way.

  That morning he left the office for lunch earlier than usual; there was little point in remaining. For the third day running there was no post; the telephone was still out of order; there had been no customers in the shop below and no response from any of the potential clients he had contacted. Ricardo, the young man he had been obliged to employ as his assistant, had not returned since taking some parcel orders to the post office two hours before. He would be at home drinking coffee with his mother, or with one of his married sisters, or drinking brandy with his father, or with some girl.

  There was an anticipatory bustle in the streets as the lunch interval approached. Cars pulled up and parked anywhere, people walked with a shade more purpose, waiters laid tables rather than taking trays of brandies and coffees to the civil servants in their offices. William ambled, clutching his latest week-old copy of the Telegraph. It was a good city in which to amble; in London you felt in the way, but here there were things that kept pace with you – horses and carts, street traders pushing their barrows, even some of the cars. These were mostly of 1930s and 40s vintage, the results of a few decades of prosperity and international competitiveness, but years of cannibalising meant that many were of an age and type indeterminate to any but the enthusiast. There was nothing like an MOT system and no one paid any road tax. It seemed a tolerant and sensible system. William strolled among the decrepit and dignified beasts, ignoring – as they appeared to – the intrusion of a few Mercedes and BMWs, and a rather larger number of Japanese cars.

  Beneath plane trees in a small square fruit traders spread oranges, apples, bananas and lemons. The traders were short, wizened, cheerful people who at this time of the year huddled beneath scarves and sheepskins. Most of them were drinking maté, a green tea which was sipped through tubes stuck in gourds. The gourds were topped up with hot water from flasks clutched in mittened hands. There was a universal and – judging by the nasal evidence – wholly unfounded belief that maté prevented colds. William had meant to try it but Sally, his wife, was very keen on hygiene.

  It was not with any thought of seeing the girl that he went to the covered market that day. He thought no more about her than he thought about the sun; when it was there he felt it, when it wasn’t he didn’t think about it. Buried deep in his mind, though, there was perhaps a connection between her and the market. It was the city’s great meeting place, particularly during the lunch interval which occupied the middle third of daylight hours. Ricardo said that everyone went there – lawyers, bankers, businessmen, prostitutes, even the new president and his generals. Being Ricardo, he had of course implied that there was an intimate connection between presidents and prostitutes, and William knew him well enough now to know that the other three categories were simply the next in his list of most important persons. Nevertheless, like many of Ricardo’s assertions and exaggerations, this had taken root.

  It did so because buried even deeper in William’s mind was the connection between beauty and prostitution. It was not that his experience suggested any correlation – indeed, casual observation in Shepherds Market and around Kings Cross station in London had suggested the reverse – but there was an unconscious assumption that beauty so startling could not be freely available. It was too marketable.

  The covered market was actually a British Victorian railway station minus trains, platforms and rails. It was a small Liverpool Street with the same massive girders and towering pillars and in the middle a clock tower that looked like an iron Big Ben and always said ten past four. It had been built near the docks in 1901, having been destined for Paraguay or somewhere – Ricardo was always vague about places – but a revolution in Paraguay or somewhere meant that it never got there. The building was now given over to the national obsession: eating. Steaks fit for giants were barbecued on great wooden charcoal fires tended by loud happy fat men. They poured red wine from old whisky bottles, splashed coffee into tiny cups, expertly slid huge sizzling steaks on to huge plates, threw salads, sheep intestines, tomatoes, thyroids, mushrooms, sausages and bull’s penises on top, shouted, smoked cigars, drank and knew ev
erybody. Each fire was surrounded by a wooden bar at which customers sat elbow to elbow on high stools. Between the barbecues were tobacconists’ kiosks and tiny places selling just drinks or coffee. Frequent power cuts cast the building into a cavernous gloom, lit only by the fires. Smoke coiled around the clock face and among the high girders. In London, William reflected, it would have been condemned as a fire risk.

  He eased himself on to a stool. The weight problem, already established in London, had increased alarmingly during the past six months. The abundance and cheapness of red meat and wine had caused a sudden shrinkage of clothes, chairs and even doors. The trouble was, he felt more comfortable like that; and Sally seemed to have given up complaining.

  He sat watching the sweating, busy men. They were fatter than he and with less excuse since most of them looked younger. William was 35 which meant – if the days of the week were to be accorded with the seven ages of man – that he was at Thursday lunch-time. The weekend was not far ahead. By Thursday lunch-time a man had a right to a little expansion. Anyway, the padrón was considerably fatter than he was and looked as if he might only be on Thursday afternoon, evening at most. The only irritant was the two men seated on either side of him. They ate and drank hugely while talking to their neighbours in prolonged bursts; they were almost unforgivably thin. But this was a place in which to eat and drink, to meet and talk. That was what it meant to be alive in this city, unlike London where being alive meant working and hurrying. William forgave them.

  His order was scribbled on a piece of paper which disappeared. Orders were always written, but later always paid for without any reference to paper. He had to shout above the noise. It had been good for his Spanish, all this competitive shouting in recent months, not because it increased his vocabulary but because shouting the language had given him confidence. He did not order wine this time, since red wine at lunch meant a heavy afternoon in which he could neither work nor sleep. Despite this, a glass was banged down before him and abruptly filled from an old Johnnie Walker bottle. Perhaps they remembered his earlier visits? A different hand pushed bread across the counter; he broke it resignedly and dipped it in the wine.

  It was in fact her friend he noticed first, a big girl with big white teeth and bushy red hair. She was laughing at him. Embarrassed, he looked up and down so quickly that he noticed nothing apart from that; he did not even see that she was not alone. A woman’s voice shouted something and he glanced up again, this time seeing her companion. The big girl was shouting at the padrón but she – her – was looking at him. She was dark, watchful, poised. They were seated across the other side of the fire and she had moved her stool back, perhaps to keep out of the smoke. She looked away from him, smiling slightly, and spoke to the other girl who laughed and looked directly across, shouting something he still couldn’t catch.

  The padrón was before him, bald and grinning.

  ‘They want to know, señor, are you a priest?’

  ‘No, I am English.’

  The padrón shouted the information and another question was shouted back.

  ‘They want to know, is it English custom to take mass in the market?’

  They all laughed and William smiled. He nearly essayed a reply on the some-men-live-by-bread-alone theme, but was not sure how it would translate.

  ‘You wait for your food?’ asked the padrón, his eyes glistening.

  ‘Yes, but I am in no hurry.’

  ‘It is ready.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘There.’ The padrón pointed to a place which had been cleared next to the two girls; a plate of steak filled it. Other steaks were put before the girls.

  William took his wine and sat next to the big girl. Her smile enveloped him.

  ‘You come from England to join us?’

  ‘Especially for this.’

  ‘You speak Spanish very well.’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘No, but for un Inglés.’ She turned her hand, heavily beringed. ‘I am Ines. This is Theresa.’

  William introduced himself and they shook hands. Theresa’s hand was firm but quickly withdrawn. He talked rapidly to Ines, who asked many questions. Yes, she knew the English Bookshop, now renamed Britbooks by the parent company in London. What did it mean, Britbooks, and why had they changed? If William did not like it, why had he agreed? Surely he could paint it out and put back the old name that everyone knew? And why did they not sell so many books now, why was there so much paper, so many envelopes? What did wholesale mean? Why did he leave London to come and be manager here when London was so much bigger a city? Was he married? Why had he no children?

  They ate as fast as they talked, like everyone else. All around them chunks of meat were being pushed into mouths, great slabs sizzled on the fire, even greater slabs and sides, inches thick and feet across, hung waiting to be cooked. The air was thick with smoke and voices. Sally had never been to the covered market, though he had once tried to tell her about it. She had gone vegetarian about a year before.

  William kept talking. Ines needed everything explained, which was useful at that moment but made him suspect that she was boring. He wanted to talk to Theresa, but she ate and said nothing. Perhaps she was boring, too, in a different way. Sometimes she looked round, but not as if for anyone in particular. Perhaps it was he that was boring. Once or twice, though, he felt her eyes upon him but when he looked up her eyelids were lowered and she too was pushing meat between her lips.

  More wine came. He asked Ines what she did but didn’t listen to the reply because he was thinking of how he had never been unfaithful to Sally. Maybe he was afraid or maybe he had never really wanted to. Whatever it was that Ines was explaining, it didn’t sound like very much. She kept repeating the words for ‘sometimes’ – ‘de vez en cuando’. He had never seriously considered having an affair. He wasn’t doing so now; he wasn’t even talking to her.

  The voices around them quietened. Ines whispered to Theresa and they both looked away. Others did the same. The source of the growing silence was something he couldn’t see. Heads and shoulders turned and he got off his stool and stood. Both women had their backs to him.

  It was a group of military men wearing olive greens and caps with long peaks. Three or four carried sub-machine guns with exaggerated nonchalance, the others puffed at fat cigars and wore beards like young Castros. They walked slowly, smiling and greeting people. At their head, young, handsome and hatless, was the new president, General Calvaros. He looked as if he had stepped out of his own newspaper photographs, slim and smiling, a sensitive, intelligent face marred by a loose undisciplined mouth. Educated in England and Sandhurst-trained, he and his junta of colonels had seized power about a year before from the corrupt but elected Liberal Democrats. The putsch was now called a revolution but it had never had popular support. Nor had it met with real opposition apart from certain sections of the press, at first.

  The party disappeared behind Ines’s bush of hair as she turned to William.

  ‘The general, our new president,’ she said, smiling hugely.

  The group continued to move slowly, stopping to talk to people. They had at first promised elections within months once certain economic measures had been taken, necessary because of the widely acknowledged corruption and inadequacy of the previous administration. There was less talk of that now, though; rather, the talk was of the new political party, the People’s Party, which had been formed by the junta. Elections would be held when arrangements were complete. The old Liberal Democrat leaders would be released when their financial positions had been fully investigated and accounted for.

  William waited for the group to reappear from behind Ines’s hair. Yes, there was no doubt. President Calvaros walked with his hands clasped behind his back and grinned with impersonal goodwill, like any British Army officer at any military open day. His cohorts kept reaching out to shake hands with and good-naturedly slap surprised onlookers. The guards were relaxed and pleased with themselves. Yet despite t
he good humour and jokes a silence surrounded the junta’s advance. Talk ceased at their approach, people were fearful in their presence, subdued when they had passed.

  Ines turned her head again and whispered: ‘The president is walking with his colonels to meet the people.’

  ‘I had heard that he does this.’

  She looked pleased. ‘He likes to meet people.’

  Behind the president was a tall calm man whose smile showed teeth as large as but more regular than Ines’s. Ines whispered to Theresa.

  The president stopped by Theresa and spoke. William watched the back of her head as she replied.

  ‘Also on Wednesdays?’ the president asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  The president’s smiling young eyes moved to Ines. ‘You, too. I have seen you at the same place.’

  ‘Yes, I am there also.’

  ‘I will come again.’

  His eyes moved to William. ‘William Wooding.’

  ‘Carlos.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  William explained. The whole party stopped and looked at him. He stumbled in his Spanish, partly because the sentences he tried to form were interspersed by memories of Carlos at school in Shropshire: Carlos pale and reluctant on the rugby field, crying in a maths lesson. He had long wondered if it could be the same man but the name was common and many of the officer class had been educated in Europe or America. There was no mistaking the vulnerable mobile mouth, though, nor the hazel eyes of his English mother. He remembered helping Carlos with his English prep in return for chocolate.

  ‘I am pleased you are bringing business to our country,’ Carlos said when William had finished.

  William inclined his head. ‘As you brought some to mine.’

  ‘But your company must not bleed us. You must give as well as take.’ Carlos spoke more loudly than before.

  ‘At present we take nothing. We put money in.’

  ‘Neither do we want your charity. Remember that.’ Carlos looked about him. ‘We ask no charity of anyone. Only honest dealing, non-interference and the chance to achieve social justice.’