The Frozen Heart (93 page)

Julio Carrión was attracted to strong women, and in a confused way he felt that possessing La Peluca’s daughter somehow compensated for the loss of Paloma. Strictly speaking, however, being shamelessly selfish, he realised that Mari Carmen’s great strength was also her great weakness.

‘I don’t understand why you’re with me?’ she would say to him on a regular basis. ‘There’re plenty of girls in this city who’d be only too happy to spread their legs for next to nothing.’

He smiled, but said nothing, because he was not sure that his mistress would appreciate the truth, that what attracted him to her was her uncertainty, the violence she did herself every time she undressed in front of him, and yet, after a while, she would always end up treating him as an old friend, a traitor, certainly, and yet someone she felt sufficiently close to that she instinctively confided in him. Headstrong, insolent and foolish as she was, Mari Carmen was also a nice girl, too nice to feel comfortable with the emotionless pleasure of the professional whore. And so, against her better judgement, she slept with him, confided her problems to him, told him about her work, her meagre salary, her terrible relationship with her mother. Julio was grateful for this because he was still half in love with Mari Carmen Ortega.

She had warned him that she would kill him if she so much as saw him crossing the street, but he knew that she would never go through with it. At least as long as he kept his mouth shut, and he had nothing to gain by opening it. He did not want to lose her for ever, and he realised that Mari Carmen was right, that Madrid, Spain, the world was full of women who were prettier, younger, more generous, and less expensive, but this was something he remembered only on those afternoons when he strolled around the Plaza Mayor like a jaded tourist, hoping to see her in the warren of narrow streets. One day, he spotted her in the distance. Later, he met her by chance but did not dare speak to her because she was with two other women. She pretended not to see him, but still he would go out looking for her, until that Saturday when, just as he was about to take a table on a café terrace, he saw her sitting at the bar.

Well, well . .
. When he pushed open the door he saw that she was not alone. Sergeant Antonio was not as tall as her Russian aviator, but he was twice as broad, his hair was almost white and, although it was close cropped, it was noticeable, too much so for a man of thirty. Tonight Mari Carmen Ortega did see him, she was hugging her husband, hiding behind his shoulders, still powerful though slighter than they had once been. She was stunning. Her hair was washed and curled and tumbled like velvet ribbons on to her shoulders, on to the straps of a new, low-cut, figure-hugging yellow dress just like the dresses she used to wear to go out with him. Julio felt a spasm of anxiety at seeing this man again after so many years, though he could not see Antonio’s face, only his profile as Mari Carmen took her husband’s face in her hands and kissed him with a sudden, exaggerated passion; she stared into Julio’s eyes as she shared this feverish kiss with Antonio Rodríguez Méndez, a communist who had spent time in prison and had every chance of going back there, a failure, a loser.

‘Idiot!’

The waiter raised an eyebrow but realised that the insult was not directed at him - on the wall behind him was a mirror, but Julio was not looking at himself as he slipped double the price of a drink he would never drink on to the bar. Had he looked up from his shoes, he would have seen his face, crimson with rage mingled with the dark shadows of an old humiliation, unbearable for a man who could not tolerate pity, not even from himself. As he stepped out into the street, he felt as small, as hopeless, as powerless as the first time he had crossed the Plaza Mayor, weighed down with trunks, his father’s birdcage dangling from his little finger.

‘You little idiot! You’ll be back. You’ll come crawling back and beg me to forgive you. You think this is over? It’s not over, Mari Carmen, it will never be over . . .’

Seeing passers-by staring at him, Julio realised he had been talking out loud, which only made him even more angry. He turned on to the Calle Mayor, hailed a taxi and went home. He knocked back two glasses of whisky and felt calmer, able to think. Eugenio and Blanca had invited him to dinner ‘with a few friends’ that night, and he knew that meant another couple as perfect as they were and a few of Blanca’s dreary single girlfriends. When Blanca introduced him to them, he was as charming as ever, but losing Mari Carmen Ortega had made him think about the kind of woman he needed in his life. From that day, Julio Carrión González gave up on strong women in favour of simpler qualities. Since then, all he asked of the women he slept with was that they caused no trouble.

Rosi, the chorus girl he had started seeing shortly before Angélica reappeared, was not only plump, voluptuous and stunning, she also satisfied this condition admirably. So much so that her unexpected visit that morning was simply to consult her benefactor about whether she should go on tour. She had to decide by the afternoon whether to go on tour with her current theatre company or stay in Madrid and look for something else.

‘The thing is, Julio . . . I don’t really know what to do.’

He looked at her, thought for a moment and decided he was tired of her. Rosi was nice, she was obliging, she was generous, all this was true, but she had no real charm. He could easily find a dozen girls like her out there.

‘It’s complicated, Rosi,’ he said eventually, giving her his most charming smile, ‘I don’t want to get in the way of your career. I know how important it is to you, so I don’t think you should pass up the opportunity. Go on tour . . . Where is the opening night?’

‘Zaragoza, 20 December.’

‘That’s a good time to open, so close to Christmas, and Zaragoza isn’t far away . . . I’ll come and see you.’

By the time the surprised smile lit up her face, Julio had already put a note next to the date in his diary:
Rosi, flowers
. A nice little bouquet and everything will be fine . . . He walked her out, consciously more affectionate than usual just to annoy Angélica.

As soon as Rosi was gone, she rushed into his office with a clumsy pretence of panic. ‘I’m really sorry, Julio, I don’t mean to annoy you, it’s just that . . . That girl isn’t right for you, it’s not good for you to be seen with her. She’s so common, so ordinary. She can’t even speak properly!’

‘Angélica!’ His tone was enough to cut her dead. ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think. And if you want to go on working here, don’t even think about overstepping the mark with me again. I’m in charge here, and my private life is none of your business. Is that clear?’

She didn’t answer immediately, but when she did, there was no trace of the apologetic little girl who had stood in his doorway a moment before.

‘You’re going to fire me? I don’t think you’d dare,’ she said arrogantly.

‘Are you threatening me?’ He got to his feet and slammed his fists on the desk.

‘Me?’ She was twittering again like a frightened bird.

She left his office without a sound and for several days she did her best to be invisible. She was so successful that on 19 December, as he looked at his diary for the following day, Julio decided to ask her, rather than his secretary, for advice. On her first day, Angélica had asked him why there were no plants or flowers in the offices. Julio had shrugged his shoulders. ‘No reason, nobody thought of it.’ She had raised an eyebrow, because someone should have thought of it . . . In the months that followed, Julio noticed the stream of ideas his new employee came up with: aside from the fridge, the cold drinks, the linen napkins, ‘paper napkins are so tasteless’, she now bought fresh flowers once a week, and put them where the customers could see them. She was an expert, and the florist now gave her a discount, but what interested Julio was to see her face as he consulted her about today’s order.

‘Gladioli?’ she said simply, when he had finished. ‘I only say that because they take up a lot of space, they’re very showy, but I suppose they’re cheaper than roses.’

‘Maybe I should get roses, then . . .’ he said in a burst of generosity.

‘A dozen?’ She didn’t look up from her notepad. ‘Two dozen?’

‘Let’s make it two.’

‘Red?’ Her lips curled into something resembling a smile.

‘No,’ he smiled too, ‘not red ...’

‘Pink, then,’ she said, finally looking up at him. ‘Yellow roses are pretty, but I don’t think it looks good, a man sending yellow roses. And white roses are more appropriate for an older woman, or for a little girl, though obviously it’s your decision.’

‘That sounds fine. Two dozen pink roses . . .’

‘Good. I’ll order them straight away . . .’ She was turning to leave when she changed her mind. ‘I’m on your side, Julio, I’ve always been on your side. I’m amazed you’ve never realised that.’

She left the office without waiting for a reply and, a few hours later, when she came back to tell him about the Christmas party she was planning for the staff on the 23rd - ‘You mean you don’t have a Christmas party?’ ‘No, we’ve never had one.’ ‘Well, you should have thought about it, because it gives out the wrong signals’ - neither mentioned Rosi or the flowers.

The Christmas lunch - less tasteful than it was plentiful, which she forced him to attend - would not have been such a success had she not persuaded him to give his employees the afternoon off - ‘
Surely you can’t expect them to go back to work when they’re plastered?
’ - and so confirmed her popularity, this receptionist who had been working there for less than a year, but already had more influence with Julio than any employee had ever had.

‘And I’ll tell you something else, since I’m a bit tipsy.’ Angélica spoke to him only once at the party, by which time he was sick of listening to bad jokes and had retreated to a corner. ‘If you were clever, you’d give a Christmas present to the children of everyone in this room . . .’

‘Really?’ He gave her an anxious look. ‘Anything else?’

‘No. Just that . . . I don’t think you understand . . . Do you know how much this party cost?’ She gestured to the tables still groaning with sandwiches, unopened bottles of wine and beer and half-eaten plates of crisps. He shook his head. ‘Less than the price of a meal for two in a decent restaurant. The toys would be even cheaper, but people would think a lot more of you, and not just the ones with the children.’

‘Tell me something, Angélica,’ he said, smiling, ‘what do you think of me? You think I’m a bumpkin, don’t you?’

‘No, you’re not a bumpkin.’ She moved closer, brushing against him deliberately, he thought; her lips seemed uncomfortably close. ‘Not any more. But you still have a lot to learn.’

‘. . . before I’m a gentleman,’ he whispered.

‘Exactly. Before you’re a gentleman.’

‘Good.’ Julio turned to face her and, if they had been alone, he might have kissed her, but luckily they were not. ‘So who’s going to buy these toys?’

‘I will, if you want.’ Angélica took a step back. ‘On the twenty-seventh, when I get back from Galicia.
²
I’ve already thought about it: toy trucks for the boys and dolls for the girls.’

On 23 December 1954, Julio Carrión González finally saw where Angélica Otero Fernández was coming from, and he liked what he saw, though he did not attach great importance to it. Things did not turn out as he expected, however, as he discovered that same night when he thought he could take advantage of his receptionist’s inebriation.

‘Don’t get the wrong idea about me, Julio.’ She rebuffed him, still smiling, as she buttoned up her coat. ‘In your position, one false move could be fatal.’

This was what she said, but she left so quickly that he did not have time to get angry or consider what he had just heard, a warning that would make more sense on the first night of the New Year.

When he saw her appear in the living room, he was so stunned that he did not even look at the man who came in with her. Angélica was wearing a short black sleeveless dress so simple that on most women it would have looked unremarkable, but on her it was amazing. The same was true of the velvet ribbon that held her long hair off her face, the plain stiff tulle shawl she wore over her décolletage, and the ornate jewelled brooch she wore just below her left shoulder. Standing at the top of the steps leading down to the living room, she looked like an exquisite porcelain figurine. This was what Julio thought when he saw her, before he turned back to the neophyte actress standing next to him. She was in her late twenties, her hair was platinum blonde to highlight her resemblance to Lana Turner, and she did not even expect money in return for sleeping with him. She was stunningly beautiful and he had thought he found her very attractive until Angélica appeared. At that moment, Gustavo Aguirre, whom he had not noticed, gently led Angélica down the steps, and only then did Julio realise he was her partner, which explained why his receptionist was attending Romualdo Sánchez Delgado’s annual New Year’s party.

The man with Angélica was young, tall and slim, and until that evening had never seemed particularly handsome; he was a mediocre architect from a good family and it was his name rather than his talent which had prompted Carrión Construction to engage him two years earlier. As he watched the young man move around the room with unexpected poise, Julio thought to himself that Gustavo Aguirre was the reverse side of his coin, the antithesis of the clever boy with no family, no social status to speak of, who had nonetheless succeeded in becoming what he was today. Perhaps this was why this lanky, awkward boy had seen in Angélica what he had not seen until now. It was a feeling that he did not like.

‘Good evening, Don Julio,’ her tone so subtly mocking that it was lost on everyone but him, ‘are you enjoying yourself?’

‘How are you, Julio?’ Gustavo said, proffering his hand, though his eyes were on Angélica. ‘Nice to see you. Shall we get a drink?’ Gustavo took her arm. ‘I’m simply parched.’