I hold up the scarf.
‘Ah. La bufanda. This was nothing, Alex. It was nothing.’
And we say goodbye. Two minutes later, when I have walked away from the bar and phoned Macduff to give him an update on the evening, a bus passes through the north end of Plaza de Espana. A banner is posted along one side advertising a new British film starring Rowan Atkinson. It looks like a Bond spoof – Johnny English. When I see the tagline beneath the predictably idiotic image of Atkinson wearing black tie, I have to smile:
‘ Preparate para la inteligencia britanica.’
Prepare yourself for British intelligence.
36. Blind Date
Carmen’s conversation with Maria the following evening makes flattering listening. Macduff has isolated the relevant sections of dialogue, revealing the target’s excitement at the prospect of meeting me again, married to an anxiety that I will fail to call. Maria counsels caution – it’s in her nature to do so – but she shares Carmen’s basic view that I am ‘ guapo ’. Their only reservation, predictably, concerns my marital status, or the possible existence of a girlfriend back in Glasgow.
‘You always have to be careful with men from the UK,’ Maria warns. ‘They’re emotionally repressed. My cousin had a boyfriend from London once. He was very odd. Didn’t wash properly, never spoke to his family, wore terrible clothes. They dress very scruffily, the English. And they drink. Joder. This boy was always in the pub, watching football, buying alcohol. Then he would eat kebabs on the way home. It was very strange.’
I translate most of this for Kitson and Macduff, and it’s no use pretending that I don’t derive a significant amount of pleasure from Carmen’s crush. It lifts my spirits after the farm, and I think Kitson understands this. He seems satisfied that our plan is on course and we discuss the next step.
The following morning – Monday – I call Carmen’s mobile and leave a message expressing the hope that she will ring me back. When she does so, three hours later, she plays it cool but agrees to meet for a drink in Plaza Santa Ana on Wednesday evening. Kitson is not happy about the delay, but I assure him that things will move quickly once the two of us have spent some time together.
We meet beside the statue of Lorca at 9 p.m. under the watchful eye of the Hotel Reina Victoria, the facade of which acts as a physical reminder that I have yet to break off relations with Sofia. Carmen has dressed up for the occasion, as we expected she would, although her taste in clothes has not improved from Saturday night. She’s also wearing a new perfume that I don’t like, floral remnants of which linger in my nose long after I have kissed her hello.
‘You look great,’ I tell her, and the compliment is returned as she suggests walking just a few metres to the Cerveceria Alemana, an old Hemingway haunt where I took Saul on his second night.
‘You have been here before?’ she asks.
‘Never.’
Carmen is easy to talk to, intelligent and eager to please, and at first I ask a lot of questions, to set her at ease and to establish that I’m a good listener. It’s what anyone would do on a first date, so the artifice feels natural and just. I hear about her work in Medellin, her friendship with Maria, and she speaks briefly about her job in the Interior Ministry. I deliberately let this slide and instead steer the conversation towards a discussion about the importance of the family in Spanish life, instigating a good ten minutes about Mitxelena’s skin cancer. Looking suitably sympathetic, I tell her that my own mother had a malignant melanoma on her leg which was successfully removed, with no further complications, in 1998. Then I talk about my PhD, my job at the Glasgow Herald editing copy written by drunken Scottish hacks and she laughs when I make up a story about a crime reporter called Jimmy who was caught screwing a work-experience girl on the editor’s sofa. She does not seem prudish or coy about sex, but has an astonishingly conservative view of society and politics, even for a servant of the Aznar government. When, in a second tapas bar, I venture a mildly critical opinion of the Bush administration, Carmen frowns and argues with some force that America’s mission in Iraq is not about oil or weapons of mass destruction, but a long- term crusade to create stable democracies right across the Middle East.
‘If we are strong,’ she says, ‘if we have the courage to see that young men will no longer wish to become terrorists because they live in these new democratic environments, then the world will be a safer place. We cannot continue to be isolated, Alex. Spain must move into the rest of the world, and this is where Aznar is taking us.’
Such an attitude is relevant to my operation inas-much as it reveals something about Carmen’s political affiliations. In due course, I will have to ask her for information which may help to bring down the government; her willingness to assist in that task will certainly be affected by her loyalty to the state. On this basis, it seems sensible to position myself in the same ideological neighbourhood.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not naive to suppose that once every family in the Arab world has a colour TV, a microwave and a vote, things will become a lot easier. I often think that Arab leaders prefer violence and poverty to democracy and freedom, don’t you? If they could only share the Western values Bush and Aznar are trying to promote.’
‘What values do you mean?’
I have to scramble for answers. ‘You know. Honesty, tolerance, the desire for peace. There’s nothing we want more than for these people to live civilized, peaceful lives as part of a civilized, peaceful global community. The idea that America would invade Iraq just to get its hands on some oil and a few construction contracts is cynical and counter-productive. It makes me really angry.’
I may have gone a bit far here, because even Carmen looks astonished to have encountered a man under the age of forty espousing such views. Yet her perplexed expression gradually melts into one of intense relief. She has met a fellow believer. Assured now of both our physical and intellectual compatibility, she flirts with greater emphasis, and I feed off the energy of her desire, even as my own lies dormant. We order tapas and I pretend that I have eaten jamon on only two occasions in my life, a confession which cements her impression of me as a card- carrying guiri. For the rest of the night she makes a point of introducing me to the delights of Spanish cuisine – boquerones en vinagre, pimientos de padron – and I play the role of the gobsmacked tourist to perfection, marvelling at the variety and sophistication of her nation’s food. I am even mindful of Maria’s warning about drunken Englishmen, and match Carmen drink for drink despite longing for the fuel of vodka.
‘You know what I like about Madrid?’ I say at one point.
‘No, Alex. Tell me.’
We are sitting in La Venencia drinking manzanilla with a bowl of olives and a plate of mojama. The bar is itself an appropriately artificial environment, an old-style, spit-and-sawdust bodega in the heart of Huertas where the bullfight and flamenco posters have hung on the walls for decades, stained by years of smoke.
‘I love it that the city is so relaxed and friendly. I love it that when I order a whisky, the barman asks me when to stop pouring. I love the fact that the sun is shining virtually every day and that you can see small children running around in the Plaza Mayor at midnight. I love children. In Glasgow everything is so grey. People are drunk all the time and miserable. Madrid really lifts the spirits.’
She falls for it.
‘I like you, Alex, very much.’ It is a statement without any specific carnal inflection, largely because Carmen would surely be incapable of even the simplest eroticism. Nevertheless, her inference is clear: if I play my cards right, our relationship will quickly become sexual. Leaning across to touch her hand, I say that I like her too – very much – and both of us savour the moment with a mouthful of cured tuna.
‘So, I have to ask now. Do you have a girlfriend back in Glasgow?’
I summon one of my consoling smiles. ‘Me? No. Used to, but we split up.’ She looks pleased. And you?’
Macduff has not been able to ascertain anything about her previous relationships, although I would suspect that Carmen has been on the losing end of one or two disappointing encounters. There is something desperate, almost pleading in her nature which a man might find initially sympathetic, but increasingly tiresome. Her political views would also find few sympathetic ears, except possibly amongst those who still mourn the passing of General Franco.
‘Not at the moment, no,’ she replies, a little fizz of spittle appearing at the side of her mouth. ‘For a while I was with somebody at work, but it did not go anywhere.’
