an argument?’
Silence. The driver swings the taxi around the fountain at Cibeles and it’s obvious he has one ear on our conversation. I switch to English.
‘If you want to end it, then end it. Don’t make me do it, don’t make me into the scapegoat.’
‘The what?’
‘The fall guy. El cabeza de turco. It’s an expression.’
‘I do not want this to end. Who said that it was ending?’
‘Then let’s not fight. Let’s go to Vermeer. Let’s enjoy the afternoon together.’
‘I’m just tired of all your stories, Alec,’ she says. ‘I don’t believe them. I don’t believe you went to England. I don’t know who you are.’
It is like being with Kate again, a hideous recollection of the last time we saw one another at her house. Stupidly I say, ‘I can be whatever you want me to be,’ and Sofia looks at me with utter contempt. ‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean this is supposed to be fun, otherwise why are we doing it?’
‘Fun?’ she says, and it appears as though she might laugh. ‘You think that’s all this is for me? Fun?’
‘Well, what more can I ask for? I am faithful to you. I went to London for a wedding. I didn’t sleep with Anne. You’re married. I don’t know what else to say.’
The cab stops at a set of traffic lights beside the Museo Thyssen, about 500 metres short of the Prado. We’ll be there in under a minute, but time might as well have stood still. Very quietly, in English, Sofia says, ‘I love you, Alec,’ the first time she has spoken these words. The mixture of dread and exhilaration they engender, the flattery and the panic, leaves me speechless. I take her hand gently in mine as she turns away and looks out of the window. I touch her neck, her hair, and wonder what to say.
‘How much is it?’ The driver pulls over to the side of the road. We’ll get out here.’
I hand him a fistful of change and we emerge in silence. Gallery tourists are taking up most of the pavement, with their money belts and their litre bottles of water. Sofia follows me, her face flushed red, eyes brimming with sadness. I want to hug her but cannot do so for fear of being seen.
‘Just forget it,’ she says. ‘Forget what I have said.’
‘How can I forget it? I don’t want to. You just surprised me, that’s all.’
‘I surprise myself.’
To reach the Prado we have to cross the road at a zebra crossing. Years and years ago, Kate and I took this exact route on a long romantic weekend in Madrid, holding hands and laughing. I spent an hour inside looking at exquisite portraits by Titian and Coello; she went for late Goya and Hieronymous Bosch and I thought at the time that this said something worrying about our relationship. Sofia walks about five feet ahead of me, passing a line of stalls selling trinkets and bullfight posters, and folds her arms across her body.
‘Look, why don’t we go back to the apartment?’ I suggest, quickening my pace to catch her. ‘Let’s just go back and talk.’
‘No. It’s OK.’ She sneezes. ‘I want to see the exhibition. I want to see Vermeer. We won’t get another chance.’ Recovering some of her earlier composure, she adds, ‘It’s best if we go in separately. If anybody sees us inside we can tell them we meet in the queue.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Why not?’
‘Not about that. About us. Are you sure you don’t want to go home? Are you sure you don’t want to go for a coffee or something?’
‘I am certain.’
So we have to wait in line for fifteen excruciating minutes. Sofia stands several places in front of me and only rarely catches my eye. At one point she is chatted up by an Italian man carrying a brown leather handbag. Inside, she goes to the bathroom and rents a headset at the information desk, almost certainly as a conscious means of avoiding me during the exhibition. The paintings are extraordinary, but the temporary rooms are crowded and smaller than is usual in the Prado and I feel claustrophobic.
Afterwards, outside in the main hall on the first floor, Sofia turns to me. ‘This exhibition is all about living with moderation.’
An Englishman in a pin-striped suit passes us, calling out, ‘Lead on, Macduff.’
‘That’s what your guide said?’
‘No. It’s what I feel.’ A brief pause. ‘I think Julian would like it.’
It isn’t clear if this is a joke at her husband’s expense or a veiled threat. I merely nod and say, ‘So you found it interesting?’
‘Of course. And you?’
‘Very much. Twenty-five paintings about moral instruction and suppressed sexual desire. What more could a man want on a Saturday afternoon?’
And this, at last, brings a little grin to Sofia’s face and her mood begins to lighten. As if our earlier argument had never taken place, she proceeds to talk at length about the exhibition, about her job, about plans she has for buying a clothes shop in Barrio Salamanca and striking out on her own. We walk back through Chueca side streets in the general direction of my apartment, arriving home just as the mass peace march against the war is beginning on the other side of the city. Sofia wanted to take part, but I changed her mind with an expensive bottle of cava and a brief speech about the pointlessness of political rallies.
‘If you think Bush and Blair and Aznar give a monkey fuck what the public thinks about Iraq, you’ve got another think coming.’
After that, she became a little drunk and we finally went to bed. Perhaps I should have told her that I love her, but her eyes would not have believed me. Best to wait on that; best not to complicate things.
21. Ricken Redux
‘Fuck me this flat stinks of perfume. You been dressing up as a woman again, Alec?’
Saul comes back from Cadiz at ten wearing a three-week beard and a brand-new pair of Campers. From his bag he pulls out a half-finished carton of cigarettes and hands me a bottle of whisky.
‘Sorry it took so long to get back. Tube was packed at Atocha. Peace march. A present,’ he says. ‘You drink this stuff?’
‘All the time,’ I tell him. ‘How was your trip?’
‘Good. Really good. You look knackered, mate.’
‘I haven’t been sleeping much.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Still fucking the boss’s wife?’
I look up at the ceiling. ‘Ha ha. No. There’s this baby upstairs. Wakes me at five every morning.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know. Building a dam. Tearing down support walls. I think he wears clogs.’ Saul takes a piece of chewing gum out of his mouth and throws it in the bin. ‘There’s something different about you.’
Yeah? Maybe it’s the beard. Makes me look like the Unabomber.’
‘No. You look happier, more relaxed.’
‘Well, that’s good to know. I did a lot of thinking down there.’
We carry his bags back into the spare room and keep on talking. He has decided to fly back to London tomorrow morning and to ask Heloise for a divorce. I don’t feel it’s my place to say that he has made the right decision, but it’s good to be free of lies for once, just chatting with my mate about things that are important to him. It’s also significant that he is leaving Madrid so soon. If there were any connection with Julian or Arenaza, he would surely be sticking around. Nevertheless I check out the Julian coincidence, just to be sure.
‘So you know who was down in Cadiz while you were there?’
Saul is in the spare bathroom washing his hands. I can watch his face in the mirror as he says, ‘Who?’
‘My boss, Julian. The guy you met at the bar. The one with the wife.’
