Southern Seas (26 page)

‘When, boss, when?’

‘I don’t know. But you’ll be the first to hear.’

‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you.’

The Marquess of Munt was wearing a tweed suit and a silk cravat tucked under his double chin. On a chair beside him, Planas was swirling what was certainly an alcohol-free beverage.

‘Isidro asked me to come.’

Planas looked at him with surprise.

‘A meal for two always turns into a dual monologue. It takes a third person to get a conversation going.’

‘I thought you were in Madrid seeing some minister.’

‘I was.’

‘Isidro’s like that. One day, I phone him at nine in the morning, and we arrange to see each other for supper. When he arrives, I discover that in the meantime he’s done a day trip to London.’

‘Señor Carvalho, I’ll come straight to the point.’

‘Isidro, Isidro. Such things should be discussed during the second course.’

‘Well, I want to raise them now.’

‘At least wait until we’ve finished the aperitif. Don’t you agree, Señor Carvalho? Of course you do. As Bertolt Brecht put it: first the belly, then morality.’

Carvalho agreed not only with the Marquess’s point of view, but also with his choice of white wine for the aperitif.

Two waiters congratulated Planas on his recent appointment, and he replied with a thank-you clouded by the frown with which he had greeted Carvalho.

‘Grilled fish and a green salad.’

‘He’s quite impossible. All he thinks of these days is how to keep his muscles and his gut looking youthful. Have you ever seen him with no clothes on? He’s like a Greek athlete. You can identify each muscle. And he keeps his insides in even better shape. His liver is like a little goat’s.’

‘You can laugh, but I’ll have the last laugh.’

‘That wasn’t a very clever or gracious thing to say. I’m well over seventy, and I don’t have to give things up to keep fit.’

Carvalho ordered a prawn mousse and bass with fennel. The marquess started with snails à la Bourgogne and then also ordered the bass.

‘Now that our stomachs have something in them, I think I can begin. I was not at all pleased to hear that you’ve been sniffing around San Magín. If you insist on turning things up, then turn them up somewhere else—anywhere but San Magín.’

‘No one ever set me any limits. Neither Viladecans nor the widow told me anything about staying away from San Magín.’

‘Well I’m telling you now. Viladecans doesn’t know what he’s doing, lately. Yesterday he even objected to the fact that I won’t allow San Magín to be turned upside down. I don’t know what’s the matter with him.’

‘I’ve barely had the pleasure of meeting him, so I wouldn’t know.’

‘But if things start to get complicated, it’ll affect you too. We’re at a delicate moment. We’ve managed to stop rebuilding work in San Magín, and we’ve stymied the journalists who are trying to sully my good name with talk of a “property scandal”. I’m in a difficult and very responsible position now, and I can’t allow myself to be exposed to a publicity campaign.’

‘I agree entirely with what Isidro is saying, Señor Carvalho. If I were a town planner, I would probably recommend the demolition of San Magín. But unfortunately, that is not a possibility. A scandal would serve only to harm Señor Planas and myself. I have used my influence with the head of the Metropolitan Council to obtain well-nigh impossible planning authorizations. A clear case of speculation, which I would not wish to conceal, and of which I am not in the least ashamed. After all, the whole economic miracle of the Franco regime was built on bluff. We all went in for speculating with the only asset we had: land. As there’s nothing beneath the land, there wasn’t much point in preserving it.
Ours is a very unfortunate country. A lot of land, but very little else. And now the sea is starting to get over-polluted. Have you noticed how this bass has a faint taste of oil? Bass is the dirtiest fish in the sea. It sticks close to ships and swallows everything that comes its way, and that includes oil.’

‘I’ll give you a piece of advice, Carvalho. And when I give advice, it’s rather more than advice.’

‘Isidro.’

‘Let me speak. I’m talking about the real world now, not
haute cuisine
. Finish your investigation as soon as possible, and give a plausible-sounding report to the widow. I’ll pay you the same as she pays … You’ll get double.’

‘Isidro. That kind of thing is discussed over coffee … and a couple of glasses of brandy.’

‘Would you have given me the same advice?’ Carvalho asked.

‘Basically, yes. In a different way, and, of course, after the liqueurs. But my general gist would have been much the same.’

‘Have you consulted the widow?’

‘No. We should reach an agreement among the three of us. All the widow wants is an explanation that will reassure her about the Stuart Pedrell legacy. Do you think it will be a reassuring explanation?’

‘Probably.’

‘Well, no more needs to be said. I’m sure that Señor Carvalho doesn’t want to complicate matters for us or for himself. It’s enough if Señor Carvalho can square it with his professional ethics. Am I wrong?’

‘No, you’re not wrong. I undertake to supply my client with the truth that I was hired to discover. The rest is no concern of mine.’

‘You see, Isidro?’

‘But this is an explosive business. What were you doing in San Magín? Who is Antonio Porqueres? Is he connected with Stuart Pedrell’s disappearance?’

‘Yes. I won’t say any more. When the time comes, I’ll deliver my findings to my client.’

‘Don’t forget that I’ve made you an offer. I could be your client too.’

‘A detective who plays a double game. An exciting idea, Señor Carvalho.’

‘No.’

‘I thought as much, Isidro. You’ll have to be content with Señor Carvalho’s assurance that everything will stay in the family.’

‘I don’t trust assurances that are given gratis.’

‘The same old Isidro Planas.’

‘Anything you get for nothing usually ends up costing a lot. And don’t you laugh. You weren’t laughing last night. You were as worried as I was.’

‘Today’s another day.’

‘The trouble is that you like to remain above everything and everybody. But you can’t fool me with your airs and graces, your aristocratic detachment …’

‘Isidro, Isidro …’

The Marquess was trying to pat him on the back. Planas jumped up and flung his napkin on the table, knocking over a crystal glass in the process. He bent over, so that his choking voice could not be heard by people sitting at other tables.

‘I’ve had all I can take from you, do you hear? All I can take.’

‘Don’t say anything you might regret later.’

‘I’m the one who’s always had to face the consequences, while you go around pretending to be beyond good and evil. When there was dirty work to be done, I was always the one to do it. Who’s worked himself like a donkey?’

‘You have, Isidro. But don’t forget that that’s what we agreed. You were a sharp-witted pauper who could have accomplished nothing without our money. Without us, you’d be selling dishwashers.’

‘It’s thanks to me that you got rich. Thanks to me! And now
I’m in a position to send you packing. I don’t need you! I don’t need you for anything!’

He made for the door so quickly that he failed to hear the Marquess call out: ‘At least don’t go off without paying for the meal. I’ve no cash with me.’

The Marquess chose a champagne sorbet for his dessert; Carvalho chose pears in wine.

‘He’s very agitated. It’s because he’s coming close to power. This morning, he was received not by a minister, but by a super-minister. The ambition to exercise power may be his undoing. It’s the Achilles heel of fighters. But don’t take what he said lightly. In the end, I would agree with it myself. I have a certain social vanity, and I would hate to see my face appearing in the papers under a headline: “Gang of Property Speculators”.’

Planas was back again, standing beside the table, his head bowed. He murmured, ‘Please forgive me.’

‘You’ve come back at the right moment, Isidro, as you always do. I haven’t any cash on me. You’ll have to pay, or charge it to your account.’

A general and a colonel had been shot dead, but nothing would stop the irreversible march towards democracy. Everybody said so. Even some generals and colonels said so. Young communists and socialists had worked through the night, leaving the Ramblas and their sidestreets plastered with electoral posters.
This Time You Can Win
promised some. About time too, thought Carvalho.
You Are The Heart of The City
proclaimed the government party. A few evenings previously, a drunken homosexual, or a homosexual drunkard, had walked down the Ramblas proclaiming: ‘Citizens,
don’t let yourselves be fooled. The heart of the city is the Plaza de Cataluña.’
The reconstruction of Catalonia must come through a democratization of the town councils
declared, or declaimed, a political leader with a thin beard, from the front of a magazine. Curiously, none of the election programmes said anything about tearing down what the Franco regime had built. This is the first political change that respects the ruins.

Each century builds its ruins, and the Franco regime built this century’s quota. You wouldn’t have muscles enough to knock them all down. There would have to be a nocturnal miracle. The city would wake up and discover that corruption had been happily carted away, and that the suburbs had been transformed into a felicitous site of levelled rubbish on which the citizenry could now build anew. Maybe Yes would no longer want to go round and round the world, like some lone satellite; maybe Charo would be content with her job, and Biscuter happy with his knowledge of Rioja cooking. Maybe he himself would again enjoy the routine of investigating, saving money, eating, walking the Ramblas two or three times a day, and by night pointlessly avenging himself on the culture that had isolated him from life. How could we love if we hadn’t learned how to love from books? How would we suffer? We would certainly suffer less. I’d like to go to a health resort, full of convalescents, and meet Yes there. Begin a romance amid mud baths and herbal potions. A mountain spa where it would rain every evening and the thunder would silence us all. And I would not leave the resort, but follow the cycle of the seasons, grow used to the faint light, get my bearings from tiny cardinal points, be thankful for the warmth of blankets, and be aware of my body, conscious of the minutes passing. The relationship with Yes would be bitter-sweet and everlasting. The herbs would provide sufficient youth to remain ever young beside Yes, so that she would never feel drawn from the spa to follow the trail to the East in search of the sun’s origins.

Once again he found Charo putting on her make-up. She
embraced him and smiled with satisfaction as he fell on the sofa and lay there with the air of a man with time on his hands. She would soon be finished, she said, and then they could make love.

‘Save your energy for the weekend.’

‘This weekend will be … I don’t even want to imagine it. We won’t leave the bedroom. We’ll throw the key out of the window, like they do in films.’

‘I’d like to eat in the restaurant I told you about.’

‘You can eat there five times a day, if you want. But in between, it’ll be bed.’

She lifted his hands to her face. Carvalho caressed her long enough for her not to feel rejected.

‘You’re sad. What’s the matter?’

‘Indigestion.’

‘That happens to me too. After eating. I feel cold and always get cross with myself that I’ve eaten too much. Sometimes I end up crying.’

He used her return to the bathroom as an opportunity to say goodbye.

‘Going so soon?’

‘I’ve nearly finished with this case. I’d like to solve it by tomorrow, so that I can leave with an easy mind.’

‘Is it dangerous?’

‘No.’

The phone message he was expecting was written on the notepad, together with a brief addendum from Biscuter to the effect that he had just heard his mother was in the Mundet Home and that he was going to see her.

Carvalho didn’t even know that Biscuter had a mother. The note read: ‘Señor Briongos says that his son will be outside the Navia Cinema in San Magín at nine o’clock. Señor Briongos’s daughter also phoned, to say that you shouldn’t go. You should get in touch with her.’ Carvalho took the knife from his pocket. He pressed the spring-loaded catch, and the blade shot out with
a click. The knife and Carvalho observed each other. It seemed to be awaiting the order to attack. He, on the other hand, seemed to fear the weapon and, having closed it, returned it to his pocket. He opened a drawer. His gun was sleeping like a cold lizard. Carvalho picked it up, examined it, and went through the motions of firing it at the wall. Then he took bullets from a cardboard box and carefully loaded them. When he had closed the drum, the lizard lay wide-awake and menacing. He frustrated its homicidal impulse by applying the safety catch and telling it to be quiet as he put it into his pocket. The gun drew warmth from his body. He took a knuckleduster from another drawer, and fitted it onto his hand. He flexed his fingers, and then struck out at an invisible adversary. Then he removed the knuckleduster and tucked it into his other jacket pocket. There it was: the Invincible Armoury. He took the bottle of white wine from the refrigerator, but changed his mind and looked for the orujo. He drank two glasses, and then dipped his fingers in the pot and ate some of the salted codfish with garlic that Biscuter had prepared for him. He bade farewell to his office. See you later. As he went down the stairs, he lingered slightly to listen to the sculptor’s chipping hammer, the sound of bustle from the hairdresser’s salon, and the muted trumpet of the boy in lilac. His path crossed that of two homosexuals dressed as boys going to their first communion—or perhaps they really were gay boys going to communion. They looked like Romeo and Juliet, with beard and moustache, fleeing the Montagues and Capulets.