Quintin Jardine - A Coffin For Two

I followed Davidoff back to our booth as Mario reappeared with coffee and brandy. ‘La cuenta,’ said the lithe old man, and a few minutes later the bill was presented; nine hundred pesetas. Peanuts, we couldn’t buy the ham for that in our butcher in L’Escala.

I dropped a thousand peseta note, and another two hundred for luck, on to the table. ‘Good,’ said Davidoff. ‘Now come with me, and I will show you Dali. You are my friend, so I will introduce you.’

I was puzzled as I followed him out of Al Forn and back to the car park, but he said nothing more. He stayed silent, too, on the drive back up the autopista, his attention being focused on industrial developments along the way, all of which were clearly new to him, few of which met with his approval. ‘Ahhh,’ he muttered as we passed a factory on the Barcelona ring road, ‘they are raping Catalunya.’

We were north of Girona when he told me to leave the autopista. ‘Come off here, and head for Palafrugell.’

I did as I was told, picking up the C255 and following the signs for La Bisbal and beyond. Around fifteen minutes later, with the clock showing almost four-thirty, we had just past Flaca when Davidoff sat bolt upright in his seat. ‘Here! Look out, it’s coming. A turn to the right.’ I braked hard, and just in time, otherwise I would have driven past the tiny white arrow pointing to La Pera. The road was narrow, even by local standards, and twisty, a succession of blind corners leading up to a village which looked, as we approached, like an inland version of St Marti.

‘Go round it,’ barked Davidoff. ‘Take the road to Pubol.’ Again I did as I was told, circling La Pera and driving on for another kilometre, until the road petered out, ending in a circular, red ash car park. ‘Okay,’ he said, as we drew to a halt. ‘Now I will show you where you will find the heart of Dali.’

We stepped out of the big car, and once again I followed his lead, as we climbed up towards a collection of old buildings which barely qualified as a village. I could see a single street, and hear noise coming from what might have been a bar. There was a church tower, with a cross. Beyond them all there was another building; not huge, but imposing, and managing somehow to dominate the local skyline.

Davidoff stopped at the foot of the street. ‘You have been to the place in Figueras, yes?’

‘The museum? Sure. It’s sort of obligatory, isn’t it?’

He shrugged. ‘So they say. You will have seen Dali’s tomb there.’

I nodded.

‘A tourist attraction! Like the whole museum. His grave is part of a fucking funfair to bring visitors to the town. Deutschmarks, francs, dollars, pounds; that’s what it is about. But that is not where the spirit of Dali belongs. This is where it lives today. Come on.’

He bustled off, up the sloping street, with me on his heels as usual. We hadn’t gone far before he turned into an opening on the right and led me up a few wide stone steps. There was a turnstile at the top. Davidoff stopped and nodded towards it. I took the hint, and handed over a two thousand peseta note. The blonde girl in the booth gave me two tickets, my change and a smile. I would have returned it, but my guide pushed me through the gate, following behind.

It was a solid stone building, three storeys high, and seventeenth-century, according to a stone over the main entrance on which the numbers ‘168’ could be seen, the fourth having faded with time. It would have been wrong to describe it as a country house, yet it fitted into a category of sorts. Davidoff told me what that was. ‘This is the Castle of Pubol,’ he announced. ‘Legend has it that Dali gave this place to Gala, his wife. It is true that there she lived her later years.’ He led me around the corner of the building, into a garden. While it couldn’t have been called overgrown, it was filled with head-high shrubs, set around two parallel paths which led up to a shallow ornamental pool.The impression was one of controlled wilderness.

‘Gala’s real name was Elena,’ said Davidoff. ‘She was older than Salvador, but from the moment in 1929 when they met, he was enamoured of her … even though she was married to someone else at the time. They ran off, almost at once. They had to be together, for she was as crazy as Salvador was. Dali worshipped her, he painted her, he indulged her. She invades all his work, and pervaded all his life.

‘He promised her that one day he would give her a castle; then one day, by accident, he found this place. He bought it as a ruin, and he renovated it. He put his mark upon it.’ Davidoff nodded around him. I followed his glances. The pool was lined with countless images of some composer or other; I couldn’t put a name to him. Around the garden, amid the shrubbery, stood several huge statues of emaciated, distorted elephants.

‘When it was finished,’ he said, with feeling. ‘He gave it to her, as hers alone. And he promised her that he would come here only at her invitation.’ Davidoff chuckled sadly. ‘But she did not invite him often. She had other, younger tastes, and she was able to indulge them here, without him around.’

He led me into the castle’s courtyard and up an iron stairway, installed over the original stone steps, which I guess had been judged unsafe. It led into the first floor, a series of interconnecting rooms.

‘This is where Gala lived her strange indulgent life. She would surround herself with young men. Like him, look.’ We were in the music room. He pointed to a large photo set on top of the grand piano. It showed an ageless, painted lady, beaming with lecherous pride like a decadent Roman empress, as, beside her, a blond, cherubic young man played the same instrument.

We wandered through the fairly ordinary rooms, then up an internal stairway which led to the building’s highest level. It was darkened, and filled with a series of display cases, in which an array of clothing was on show. ‘There are some of her dresses,’ said Davidoff. ‘As you can see she was a small woman, like a bird, to the end.’

‘She is dead then?’ I asked, unsure of anything in this strange place.

‘Oh yes. More than ten years ago. Come, I will show you something else.’ He set off once more, at his loping half-trot. I followed down the stairs, out into the courtyard and back towards the garden. But not into it. He turned a sharp corner and as I stepped round behind him I found that we were in a garage; once a stable, I guessed, or even a kitchen. It was occupied.

The car was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen; but then I have a thing about classic American automobiles. This one was a Cadillac, a lovely, big powder blue creature, with leather upholstery. Its body work shone under the neon light above, and it was roped off, to keep away the greasy fingers of tourists.

‘What …’ I began.

‘Gala lived her last years here,’ said Davidoff. ‘But she did not die here. When she became ill she was taken, in this car, to Dali’s house in Port Lligat, near Cadaques. And when she passed away, she was simply put back into this same vehicle … there, in that back seat there, and taken home.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Now I will show you where the spirit of Dali lies.’ He walked slowly now, almost on tiptoe, as we went back into the castle. To the left a doorway led off the courtyard. He led me through it, and down another flight of stairs, of washed stone like its walls and ceiling, and like the great cellar into which it opened.

I looked at the crypt and I couldn’t speak. Maybe it wasn’t a lifetime first for Oz Blackstone, but it’s a pretty rare occurrence, nonetheless. The place was filled with a soft yellow glow from up-lighters, serving to emphasise the colour of the stone. All but a small section of the floor was roped off, but there was no need to move about in this chamber to know what it was.