by Lex Lander
‘It’s all right,’ she said in the next breath. ‘I know you really feel the same, and that you’ve no bloody choice.’ She exhaled with feeling through her nose. ‘I won’t bring it up again.’
‘Bring it up as often as you like. Better that than simmer in silence. That way you end up blaming everybody.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. I never have secrets from my friends.’ She shot me an anxious look. ‘We are friends, aren’t we?’
‘The best of,’ I assured her. ‘I hope we’ll always be.’
‘So do I. Then there must be no secrets between us. Agreed?’
It was a compact I was to be reminded of often in the weeks to come. At the time though it didn’t seem such a big undertaking to give.
‘Agreed.’
II
Lizzy
Sixteen
Alan Rees from the British Consulate had booked rooms for us at the Diplomatic, a luxurious modern box just off the Avenida Diagonal, the multi-lane speed track that bisects Barcelona from east to west. Our rooms were eight floors up and air-conditioned, naturally, with Sky TV and free Internet Wi-Fi connection. The outlook from my window was of endless rooftops, stretching into the fume-blurred distance. The sea was on the other side. It would be. The British Government was footing the bill.
I phoned Rees for an update on Uncle Alistair, but he was out and nobody else was in the picture.
‘Let’s just go round there,’ Lizzy suggested. ‘I’ve got his address.’
‘To your uncle’s? Best to phone beforehand.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know his number, so we can’t.’
No number appeared in the local white pages either, and we drew a further blank with the Telefonica information service.
We were still mulling it over when my room phone chirped. Señor Alan Rees from the Consulate, no less, was waiting downstairs. That settled the what-to-do-next debate.
He bounced out of an armchair the moment we walked through the automatic doors into the lobby. A dapper stick of a man, around my age, with crinkly black hair and a pronounced Adam’s apple. Spanish blood ran in his veins, for all the Anglo-Welshness of his name and his pure Oxford accent.
‘You must be Mr Melville,’ was his opening shot. ‘Too much of a coincidence, based on the descriptions we were given. Alan Rees, Vice-Consul.’
Hellos were said and at Rees’ suggestion we retired to a pair of long settees placed at right angles in a corner of the lobby.
‘Rooms all right?’ Rees enquired as we made ourselves comfortable, Lizzy next to me, Rees on the other couch.
‘No complaints. But we’re having trouble with a phone number for Elizabeth’s uncle. Nothing in the book.’
Rees nodded worriedly. ‘Yes, odd that. We’ve already made enquiries at the address Tangier emailed us. Sent one of the clerks round to flush him out, so to speak. Nobody home, I’m afraid, so not sure he’s still in residence.’
‘So you know this Baya da Figuera?’
A worried nod.
‘Off the Ramblas. Not the most salubrious part of town.’ He coughed into his fist. ‘To be truthful, it’s a bit of a slum.’
A man the size and shape of Miley Cyrus’s infamous wrecking ball wobbled through the hotel lobby towed by a dog small enough to fit in your pocket. People moved out of the man’s trajectory like the Red Sea parting for Moses. It was either that or be bowled over.
Rees was saying something about tracking Alistair Power down.
‘I wish you luck,’ I said.
‘Of course, he may have flown the coop altogether, so to speak.’
‘Will it take long?’ Lizzy asked worriedly.
‘I’m afraid I can’t say, my dear. If he has moved on it won’t be an easy task without, so to speak, spending money. And the Treasury doesn’t like parting with its shekels these days.’
‘So to speak,’ I said bitchily.
A passing glare, then, addressing Lizzy, he said, ‘But we’ll do our best, be assured of that.’
Nothing was left to say. He departed, in a state of mild pique, without shaking hands.
‘You pissed him off,’ Lizzy observed. I took it as a reprimand until I spotted the sparkle of mischief in her eyes as she added, ‘Pompous little prick.’
‘Remind me to talk to you sometime about how refined young ladies are supposed to speak,’ I said, only half-joking.
She snorted. ‘Who said I was refined?’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Come on, let’s go for a swim.’
‘Okay, boss man.’
We had the hotel pool to ourselves, but after a few frenetic lengths Lizzy got bored and went off to the bar. I joined her there presently and in the faint hope of shedding some light on her gloom put in a call to the Tangier Police HQ. Ramouz wasn’t around but a sergeant gave me an update: no progress, no news.
No hope, was what he didn’t say, but that’s what he meant.
For our first full day in Barcelona, as an alternative to trying to resolve Lizzy’s future, I planned to drive down to Sitges, an historic seaside town about forty km south of the city. It tends to be a bit touristy, with its “pubs” and fish-and-chip shops, but chunks of its original character and architecture remain essentially intact. More than you can say for many Spanish resorts. The local populace includes a notable gay contingent. So long as you keep away from their haunts, they don’t impose on you.
Sitges was also the current home berth of my boat, Seaspray, a partially customised forty-four foot sloop. I hadn’t mentioned the boat to Lizzy, intending to surprise her. As far as she was concerned this was an ordinary day trip. It wasn’t until we were descending the stone steps down to the pretty if overcrowded marina that she cottoned on.
‘We aren’t going on a boat trip, are we?’
‘It’s an idea.’
‘Oh, beauty! I love boats.’
It did me a ton of good to see her face light up, dissipating the cares of the last few days.
We came to the harbour wall. Seaspray was moored near the mouth, anonymous in a forest of masts. I picked out the gnome-like figure of Alfredo, huddled over the companion hatch. Always fiddling, always tinkering, that was Alfredo. Sixty years old at least, and dried by the sun and the hot winds that blew straight across from Africa to the consistency of a croûton.
As we drew alongside Seaspray I came to a stop. Lizzy carried on a couple of paces further, then, realizing she was on her own, about-wheeled and gave me a puzzled look.
‘This is as far as we go,’ I said.
The puzzlement cleared from her expression.
‘This one? Aaah, I get it. She’s yours, isn’t she?’
‘Yep. Come aboard but take your shoes off. High heels and wooden decks don’t mix.’
‘Oh, Alan, a yacht! It’s so cool, really grouse …’
Grouse? I took it as a favourable commentary, and led her, still enthusing, across the gangplank. As Seaspray’s stern dipped fractionally under our weight Alfredo glanced up, his monkey face cracking into a grin of welcome.
‘Good morning, Señor André,’ he piped, removing a cheroot that was a near-fixture from the corner of his lipless mouth. He was wearing his usual bent and battered fedora hat, a threadbare singlet, and patched knee-length shorts. Fortunately, since my Spanish was only a grade above phrase-book basic, he had a functional command of English. I employed him as maintenance man, watchdog, and occasional crew, for a retainer in untaxable black money.
To save complicated explanations, I introduced Lizzy as my niece. She didn’t seem to mind. Nor did she seem to have noticed Alfredo’s use of my real name.
‘Hello, Alfredo,’ she said and switched on that sunny smile, so seldom seen of late, that brought forth the full flower of her prettiness. From that moment on Alfredo was a captivated man. The cheroot was discarded. Clutching hat to scrawny chest, his baldness revealed for all to appreciate, he bowed and swore allegiance and everlasting devotion.
‘I’m not really dressed for
boats,’ Lizzy pointed out, plucking at her dress, as Alfredo scurried off below decks to organise refreshments. ‘I thought we were just going walkabout.’
‘Don’t fret. You won’t be expected to climb the mast, you’re strictly a passenger. Just sit down and enjoy the experience.’
‘Good day for sail,’ Alfredo chortled as he rejoined us, precariously laden with three cans of Mahou and three tumblers on a tray. Beer was the only kind of alcohol I kept on board.
It was, as Alfredo observed, a good day for sailing. The type of day yachtsmen go into raptures over: wind light and steady, veering between south and sou’-west. Strands of cirrus lazing above the high plain to the north posed no threat down here at sea level.
The beers disposed of, we all donned life jackets and got under way. With the aid of 90hp of Perkins diesel engine we nosed out from our cramped berth, and through the tight harbour mouth, encountering a seesawing swell as soon as we left its protection.
‘Fetch my sunglasses, will you, honey?’ I said to Lizzy, who was standing beside me at the helm. ‘You’ll find them in a cabinet above the chart table – first right after the kitchen.’
‘Okay.’
Up forward a halyard was flapping. I hailed Alfredo, drawing his attention to it and he left off untying the mainsail gaskets and went forward on all fours like a baboon.
As Lizzy came back out on deck a wave flicked us beam on, forcing her to grab at the coaming.
‘Oh! It’s rough.’
She was wearing a pair of blue-framed sunglasses, property of an old flame, burned out three months since. She handed me a second, less exotic pair.
‘I borrowed the sunnies.’ She tapped the blue frames. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
I assured her I didn’t.
‘Who do they belong to?’ she asked, after a short silence.
‘A friend,’ I said.
More silence, longer than before.
‘Have you ever been married, Alan?’
‘Uh-huh. Once upon a time.’
Alfredo signalled we were clear of the shoal and I turned back onto our original course. As we came round with the wind abaft I cut the throttle. This was Alfredo’s cue to crank the mainsail halyard. We lost momentum, the engine now idling, the sail beginning its ascent to the masthead in little jerks, the canvas crackling like far-off thunder as the wind caught it.
‘Can I help?’ Lizzy offered.
‘Not this trip. If you like, I’ll give you some basic tuition when we’re back in harbour. For now, just soak up the sensation of silent motion. It either grabs you or leaves you cold. There’s no in-between.’
The mainsail was up, and as I killed the engine Seaspray leapt forward as if catapulted. Her bows parted the sea, hurling a fantail of spray so high in the air that the sun caught it and turned it into a rainbow.
Alfredo came crabbing back over the cabin roof, unperturbed by the pitching motion. A near-half century fishing the Med in clapped-out, leaky hulks had endowed him with the sense of balance of a tightrope artist.
‘Going good, eh, señorita?’ he babbled at Lizzy, showing off his English. His wide grin exposed crumbling brown molars between two of which a fresh cheroot had been wedged.
‘It’s … it’s beaut!’ The animation in Lizzy’s face was not fake; she really was hooked. She came to stand by me at the wheel, steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder.
We were now running with the wind on our starboard quarter, bearing away slightly to port to follow the coastline. Seaspray was plunging like a dolphin, revelling in it.
‘More sail?’ Alfredo proposed, sucking on the cheroot. For him we could never crowd on enough canvas. Reefing wasn’t in his vocabulary.
‘Why not? Let’s see what she can do when she’s really trying.’
As I turned to windward, Seaspray heeled sharply, and Lizzy’s hip bumped mine. ‘I think I’m in love,’ she said, her mouth close to my ear.
My head snapped round. ‘What?’
‘In love. With Seaspray, with sailing.’ A slow smile reshaped her lips. ‘What did you think I meant?’
As if she didn’t know.
Seventeen
An envelope was waiting at the Diplomatic when we returned that evening. I drew from it a single flimsy sheet topped with Her Majesty’s coat of arms and Dieu et mon Droit slogan. The hand-written message read:
Mr Melville – have traced Alistair P. Address now 18 Espoz y Mina, Barcelona 4, off Avenida del Parallel. Apartment 3D, 3rd floor. Let me know if you need any help. Regards A.R.
‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ I said, showing it to Lizzy.
‘Okay.’ The lack of eagerness was marked. Maybe she wasn’t expecting overmuch from Uncle Alistair’s new habitat.
Dawn, overcast and unseasonably cool, did little to boost morale. Rain spotted the pavements as we breakfasted. Lizzy was moody and withdrawn.
‘Once more unto the breach,’ I quoted with spurious cheer as we piled into a Mercedes taxi, the latest sleekest model, with a non-speaking driver who carried us to our destination at the pace of an ambulance answering an emergency call.
We left the Avenida del Parallel in due course and first impressions of the district were not unfavourable. Tenements, yes – most of central Barcelona consists of multi-storied apartment blocks – but trees lined the street and the pavements were wide, and the parked cars looked cared for. Then we made a left turn and my hopes plummeted as the environment changed for the worse, then another left turn which put us in squalorsville: festoons of washing, grubby kids, grubby adults, overflowing garbage cans; an ambience of futility.
‘Oh, no.’ Lizzy’s cry was muffled by her hand. The driver glanced at her in the mirror and said something in Spanish that was outside my comprehension.
‘Wait,’ I told him as we got out opposite no. 18. ‘Espere aqui.’
His head jiggled an acknowledgement, and we almost ran past a trio of loiterers into the entrance hall. Ignoring the array of nameplates we went straight for the elevator. Its scarred and dented doors were hung with a lop-sided piece of card that read NO FUCIONA, the second word a misspelling. Wrongly spelled or not, it meant the elevator wasn’t working. So to the stairs, bare concrete, littered with all shapes and sizes of flotsam. On the flight between the first and second floors a lout of about eighteen was lounging against the wall. He lifted the hem of Lizzy’s dress as she passed. She turned, kicked his wrist hard enough, with luck, to dislocate it. He reeled away, howling and clutching the injured limb.
‘Come on.’ Impressed, I dragged Lizzy after me up the last few steps, inwardly cursing. Unless all the indicators were wildly out, Alistair Power was going to be no use to her.
No. 3D had a bell-push. I thumbed it and for good measure hammered on the door. A toddler wearing a torn dress and clutching a naked headless doll, eyed us solemnly from a doorway at the end of the passage.
Lizzy stood listlessly beside me, mute in her misery, her powder-blue dress incongruous in these fetid surroundings.
3D opened. Rock music thudded forth through the gap. A beanpole apparition with long, unkempt blond hair and beard was framed before us. Its only garment was a pair of sawn-off denim shorts, frayed at the bottoms.
‘Si?’ the beanpole grunted.
‘Alistair Power?’
‘You a pig?’ he demanded truculently in American-accented English.
‘No. Are you?’
He stuck out his beard, drew hard on a loosely-packed cigarette that had the stink of a joint.
‘A joker, huh?’
‘Does Alistair Power live here?’ I said, with controlled politeness.
The apparition did a practiced lip curl. ‘It’s Alis you want, is it? Stay here, I’ll fetch him – if he can stand up.’ He retreated into the poorly lit interior of the apartment.
‘I want to see inside this hole,’ I said to Lizzy, and set off after the beanpole who had gone through a door at the end of a short hallway.
Setting aside the usual niceties,
I barged through the door with Lizzy tagging along behind, and into a kitchen-living room. I barely got beyond the threshold. My shock tolerance is high, but in the context of a prospective home for Clair’s daughter I was momentarily paralyzed by the goings-on that confronted me. The room itself was in semi-darkness, the only window being screened by a roller shade. It contained about ten people, of whom three or four were girls, not much older than Lizzy at a guess. All present were in varying stages of undress. One of the girls hadn’t a stitch on, and another, in bra, stockings and garter belt, backside thrust ceilingwards, was giving oral sex to some creature, presumably male, on the floor.
The gasp from Lizzy summed it up. I was still adjusting to the concept of a sex party at 10.30 in the morning, when a gaunt individual, bearded, thin but with a flabby gut, rose from the room’s only armchair.
‘You looking for me, sunshine?’ he said, with a casual insolence that made me itch to sock him.
‘If you’re Alistair Power, I am.’
‘Alan!’ Lizzy clutched at me, her fingers digging into my forearm.
Power, who was supposedly in his late twenties but could have passed for forty, thrust his beard at me. ‘What do you want, man?’
I brought Lizzy around to my side.
‘This is your niece.’ If I’d said ‘This is your life’ and shoved a mike at his ugly mug he couldn’t have been more taken aback.
‘Hey, Alistair’s an uncle!’ someone hooted, setting off a gale of laughter.
‘Hi,’ Power said, eyes hooded, to Lizzy. To me, ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Her mother’s disappeared. You’re the only surviving relative.’
Lizzy tried to pull away. ‘Alan, I can’t …’
Power gaped, taking a step back. ‘You mean … you’ve brought her to stay? Here? With me?’
That made three of us appalled by the prospect. I looked around the room – a room thick with smoke, reeking of pot, incense, and cheap wine. The girl in bra and stockings had rolled onto her back and was sprawled, legs apart, as if posing for a sleazy magazine.
