I nodded. ‘Yes, we should. Let me change out of this bloody penguin suit, and I’ll come with you.’
Chapter 29
I expected him to be waiting for me at the performers’ door when I emerged in my civvies; slacks, my black suede bomber jacket and a Behemoth tee-shirt which I had scrounged from the merchandise people.
But he wasn’t. She was there instead: Primavera Phillips, with dark blood staining her jeans all the way up to the knees, and smeared on the long sleeves of her denim shirt. She looked tired, not far short of exhausted, but she was beautiful nonetheless, with her tangled, sun-bleached blonde hair flicking against her shoulders, something I had never seen before.
‘Hi.’ She spoke softly, almost tentatively, as I approached.
‘Hi, yourself. Come here.’ We closed the gap between us in a moment and hugged. As I pressed her to me, the tension within her exploded into tears.
Her face was buried in my tee-shirt, which bore the image of Jerry Gradi. For a moment the symbolism of it made me fearful. ‘Prim, he isn’t. . Is he?’
‘No,’ she mumbled into my chest. ‘I spoke to the doctor who admitted him, after he’d been X-rayed and sent up to surgery. He’s going to be okay, they reckon.’
Relief flooded me, finding its way out in laughter. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘since you saved his life earlier, don’t bloody drown him now.’
She looked at The Behemoth’s face on my shirt for the first time, and grinned.
‘You’re a heroine, my dear,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to make sure, damn sure, that the GWA recognises what you did tonight.’
‘What? Are you going to get me free admission for life to all your shows? Thanks, but I’ll settle for a steak from you, although I don’t doubt it’ll be on expenses.’
‘It’s a deal; Everett can afford it. But hold on, I’ve got to meet him here. We were going to see Jerry.’
‘Everett’s your large friend, yes? Looks a bit like a tree, goes by the name of Daze?’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve seen him already. I told him about Jerry, and also that there’s no point in anyone going to see him till tomorrow. Even after the surgery, they’ll keep him under for a few hours at least. He said to tell you he was going back to the hotel to catch up with Diane. Who’s she?’
‘His wife. You probably saw her; Catalan flag dress.’
‘Saw her?’ Prim exclaimed. ‘Everybody saw her; bloody near all of her! Some of the women around me in the crowd weren’t too keen on what she was doing to their flag, I should tell you.’
‘I’ll mention that, quietly, to the big man,’ I promised.
‘And who was the girl with the big tits? The one who gave me her silk shirt so quickly.’
‘That was Sally; the GWA Ladies’ Champ. She’s Jerry’s girlfriend.’
‘A lady wrestler! Really? I’ve never met one of those. I thought they were all bruiser types; big bull dykes and such.’
‘Nah, they’re athletes. Just like the girls on that television show back home.’
She stepped back, took her arms from round my waist, and looked up at me. ‘Oz, how the hell did you. .’ She stopped in mid-sentence. ‘No, save it for dinner. I don’t suppose you’ll want to use this in the restaurant, but you might want it back anyway.’ She reached into her hip pocket and handed me my Tesco loyalty card. ‘Trust you to give me that one.’
I took it from her. ‘Thanks. I’ll pass it on to my pal The Behemoth, as a souvenir.’
‘When you do, you can tell him he owes his girlfriend a new shirt. That one was a write-off.’
She pulled the tail of her own shirt from her jeans, used it to wipe the tear-streaks from her face, then shoved it back into her waistband. I took her by the hand and started towards the taxi rank at the front of the arena, where the last few spectators stood. ‘Come on, let’s grab a cab and go down-town.’
She pulled me back. ‘No; my coche’s down there, in the park.’
It took us less than three minutes to reach Prim’s car. It was a Seat Ibiza hatchback, in what looked, even under the car park lights, a sickly orange colour. She unlocked it with a remote device. I climbed into the passenger seat, but Prim slid into the back. I looked at her, waiting: not surprised, for I was beyond being surprised by anything she did.
So I didn’t bat an eyelid when she slid out of her jeans. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I can’t go into a restaurant looking like this. There’s a pair of scissors in the glove box. Pass them over, will you please.’
I did as she told me: they were big, heavy dress-making scissors. Knowing her as well as I did, I guessed that she kept them there for security. She took them from me and as I watched, never thinking to avert my eyes from the sight of Prim in her knickers, she cut off the bloodstained trouser legs just above the knees. Next she unbuttoned her shirt, and slipped it off. I breathed an inward sigh of relief; she was wearing a bra. Invariably the sight of her without one had a certain effect on me. She trimmed the sleeves off the garment just above the elbows, then dressed quickly and jumped out of the car.
‘There,’ she said, modelling her new-look outfit on the tarmac. ‘A bit skimpy for this time of year, I’ll grant you, but at least we won’t be arrested.’ She opened the driver’s door and slid into her seat, beside me.
‘Like it?’ she asked, grasping the steering wheel.
‘It looks fine from inside, but were you blindfolded when you bought it? I mean, the colour, Prim. .’
She laughed: not her normal, easy laugh, but high-pitched, not unlike Susie Gantry’s distinctive giggle; as if for the first time in our lives she was unsure of herself with me. ‘I got a deal on it, didn’t I. Anyway, most of the time it’s so dirty that you can’t tell what colour it is.’ She turned the ignition key, and the engine thrummed into life. It certainly sounded okay. ‘I know a place where we can eat,’ she said. ‘I’ve been exploring Barcelona.’
‘What else have you been doing?’ I asked. ‘Improving your Spanish for one thing. I was impressed, back there.’
‘My job has a lot to do with that. I’m nursing again, in the big hospital in Girona.You know, the one you see just as you drive into the town from the north.’
‘Yes, I know it. How did you get in there? I thought they’d have recruited Spanish only; you know what they’re like.’
‘I had help,’ she said. ‘Ramon put in a word for me.’
‘Ramon?’
‘Ramon Fortunato. Remember the Guardia Civil captain we met?’ I nodded in the dark. ‘He’s not Guardia any more, he transferred to the Mossos Esquadra, the new Catalan national police force, and he’s based in Girona. He heard about a supervisor job that was going in the A amp; E department and he asked me if I’d be interested. I hadn’t thought about going back to nursing, but equally, I didn’t intend to sit on my arse working my way through our capital. So I thought, what the hell.’
‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘For big Jerry’s sake, it’s as well you’re up to speed on emergencies.’
‘That stuff back there?’ she exclaimed. ‘Pure meatball surgery: I learned that trick on chest wounds when I worked in Africa. Out there I used my Mastercard so often, then steam-sterilised it, so that the signature was obscured. I had to report it lost and get a replacement. That procedure would make great television, but I’d be sacked from any hospital in Europe for doing anything as unhygienic.’
‘Don’t worry, kid,’ I said softly. ‘I won’t report you.’
I stared at her profile as she drove us down from Montjuic and into the city, thinking of the last time I had seen her: when we had split that morning in St Marti d’ Empuries; the village where we had lived together for a while until I had an encounter with Jan which made me realise where I really belonged. And until Prim. . but that was still too painful a memory for me to dwell on for long.
I had left her there, with a last kiss for luck. One way and another we had amassed a fair bit of money in our short time together, but we had agreed that we would do nothing about dividing it for a year, to give Prim a chance to decide how and where she wanted to live her life.