Charles Cumming - The Spanish Game

I can’t hear Sofia’s response. Her voice is naturally quieter than Saul’s and she is speaking out into the room, with Julian in full flow leaning into me for greater emphasis.

‘I mean, most people would now agree that Roy Keane is not the player he was. Injuries have taken their toll – hip surgery, knee ligaments – he simply can’t get up and down like he used to. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes to Celtic next season.’

‘Really? You think so?’ It’s a struggle to remember the name of Manchester United’s manager. ‘Alex Ferguson would be prepared to sell him?’

‘Well, that’s the million-dollar question. With Becks almost certainly off, would he want to lose Keano as well?’

Saul has started talking again and I try to pivot my body against the cigarette machine so that I can still hear his conversation. He’s saying that he’s known me since childhood, that he has no idea what I’m doing out here in Spain.

‘…one day he just upped and left and none of us have seen him since.’

Sofia sounds understandably inquisitive, although it’s still impossible to hear what she’s saying. Now Julian is asking me if I want a couple of spare tickets to the Bernabeu. Was that a question about London? Saul’s answer contains the phrase ‘oil business’ and now I really start to worry. Somehow I have to break away from Julian and intrude to stop their conversation.

‘Do you have a cigarette?’

I have turned and stepped up to them, my weight shifted awkwardly onto one leg, looking unguardedly at Saul as an instruction to make him shut up. He pauses mid-sentence, extracts a Camel Light and passes it to me saying, ‘Sure.’ Sofia looks startled – she has never seen me smoking – but Julian is too busy offering me a light to notice.

‘I thought you gave up?’ he asks.

‘I did. I just like having one every now and again. Late nights and weekends. What were you two talking about? My ears were burning.’

‘Your past,’ Sofia says, fanning smoke away from her face. ‘Saul says you’re a man of mystery, Alex. Did you know that, darling?’

Julian, checking messages on his mobile phone, says, ‘ Si, yup,’ and heads outside in search of better reception.

‘He also said you worked in the oil business?’

‘Briefly. Very briefly. Then I got a job at Reuters and they shipped me out to Russia. What do you do, Sofia?’

She grins and looks up at the ceiling.

‘I’m a clothes designer, Alex. For women. Didn’t you ask me that at the Christmas party?’

The tone of the question is unambiguously flirtatious. She needs to cool it or Saul will cotton on. In an attempt to change the subject, I say that I once saw Pedro Almodovar drinking in the bar, sitting at a table not too far from where we are standing. It’s a lie – a friend saw him – but enough to interest Saul.

‘Really? That’s like going to London and seeing the Queen.’

‘Que’ Sofia says, her English momentarily confused. ‘You saw the Queen here?’

And, thankfully, the misunderstanding engenders the conversation I had hoped for: Saul’s lifelong distaste for Almodovar’s movies perfectly at odds with Sofia’s loyal, madrilenian obsession.

‘My favourite I think is Todo Sobre Mi Madre,’ she says, summoning a wistful look more appropriate to a lovestruck teenager. ‘How would you translate in English? Everything About My Mother. It’s so generous, so…’ she looks at me and produces the word ‘inventive’.

‘Total bullshit,’ Saul says, and Sofia looks startled. He’s more drunk than I had realized and may have misjudged the wonders of the Ricken charm. ‘Worst movie I’ve seen in the last five years. Facile, adolescent, piss poor.’

Silence. Sofia slides me a look.

‘You get – what? – transvestites and pregnant nuns and benign hookers and what does it all add up to? Nothing. AIDS is just co-opted for cheap emotional impact. Or the new one, Talk to Her. I’m supposed to feel sympathetic towards a retarded necrophiliac? None of it makes any sense. There’s no recognizable human emotion in Almodovar’s movies, and I’ll tell you why – because he’s too juvenile to cope with real suffering. The whole thing’s a camp pantomime. But his films are shot so beautifully you’re tricked into thinking you’re in the presence of an artist.’

The outburst allows me to speak to Sofia in Spanish, as if to apologize for Saul getting out of hand.

‘I’m going to make an excuse and get us out of here,’ I tell her, speaking quickly and employing as much slang as I can. Then, looking at Saul as if to laugh him off, ‘Don’t believe everything my friend has told you. He’s drunk. And he’s in a difficult mood.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Alex was just telling me that you love the cinema,’ Sofia tells him quickly. ‘But I don’t think this can be true. How can you love cinema if you don’t love Pedro Almodovar?’

‘It’s a Madrid thing,’ I explain. Saul makes a sucking noise with his teeth. ‘Almodovar came onto the scene after Franco, made a lot of risque comedies; they associate him with freedom and excess. He’s a cultural icon.’

‘Exactly,’ Sofia nods. ‘It is very English of you not to embrace him. The films are crazy, of course they are, but you mustn’t be so literal about it.’

Saul looks contrite. ‘Well, we don’t have anyone comparable in England,’ he says, which may be his way of apologizing. ‘Maybe Hitchcock, maybe Chaplin, that’s about it.’

‘Judi Dench?’ I suggest, trying to make a joke of it, but neither of them laughs. Julian has come back in from the street and he seems flustered.

‘Look, I’m afraid we’ve got to bugger off.’ He pinches Sofia’s neck in a way that annoys me. ‘Just had a message from our friends. We were supposed to meet them in Santa Ana.’

Is this an excuse? When Julian arrived he said nothing about meeting anyone for a drink.

‘Santa Ana?’ Sofia drains her Diet Coke. ‘ Joder. Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’ Julian brandishes his mobile phone as if producing evidence in a court of law. ‘And we’re late. So we’d better hit the road.’

There are rapid apologies and farewells – Sofia and I very pointedly do not kiss – and then they are gone. Saul drains his cana and places the glass on a nearby table.

‘That was a bit sudden.’ He is as suspicious as I am. ‘You think they just wanted to be alone?’

‘Probably. Not much fun bumping into an employee on your night off.’

‘They seemed nice, though.’

‘Yeah, Julian’s OK. Comes on a bit strong. Gale force Sloane Ranger, but he pays my wages.’

‘How do you know he’s not SIS?’

I look around to ensure that nobody has overheard the question.

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘Because I just do.’

‘How?’

Saul is smiling. There’s no chance that he will drop the subject. I try to look irritated and say, ‘Let’s just chat about something else, OK?’ but he keeps going.

‘I mean, surely you must have had your doubts? Or was the job at Endiom too important to sacrifice for the sake of a paranoid hunch?’ My expression must give something away here because he looks at me, knowing that he has struck a nerve. ‘After all, you didn’t seek him out. He approached you. So, according to the Laws of Alec Milius, he’s a threat.’ A big grin with this. ‘You said he heard you speaking Russian in a restaurant and offered you a job.’

‘That’s right. And then I ran basic background checks on Endiom, on Julian and his wife, and everything came up clean. So it’s cool. He’s fine.’

Saul laughs, rapping his knuckles against the wall. In an attempt to move off the subject, I say that it’s his round and he goes to the bar, buys two more canas, coming back with his mood completely unchanged.