So I had driven off into the autumn afternoon, knowing that I would have to see her again at some point, but never dreaming that it would be in such bizarre circumstances.
The place which she knew was a restaurant in a side street about half a kilometre from the Columbus Monument. She found a space in one of the city’s many underground car parks and led me to it. There were tables available, since it was still only around nine-forty-five, early on a Spanish Saturday night.
I let her order for us both: anchovies and escalivada, followed by two T-bone steaks, with two beers for starters and a bottle of Faustino III.
I watched her as she took her first mouthful of Estrella, and thought to myself that for all the tiredness which still showed on her face, and for all that she looked to have dropped a pound or two, I had never seen her looking lovelier.
‘What else has Ramon been doing for you, then?’ I asked her, casually.
She arched her eyebrows over the top of her glass. ‘Nothing in that respect, my dear,’ she said. ‘Not that it would be any of your bloody business. He’s a friend, that’s all. He and his wife live in Albons, and they eat in Meson del Conde every so often. I saw them there and we all sort of got to know each other.’
She looked down at the table-cloth. ‘There’s been no one else, Oz. Not so far. In the last year I’ve had the two most memorable relationships of my life, both of them all too brief, sadly. I’ve always been aware of the dangers of rebound flings, so I’ve made a point of declining all offers.’ She grinned. ‘There have been more than a few, by the way. Junior doctors the world over would shag themselves into oblivion, given half a chance.
‘So much for my non-sex-life, though. What about yours?’
I made a hole in my beer. ‘Did you get my letter?’ I asked her, as casually as I could.
‘The one where you told me that you and Jan were getting married?’ She nodded. ‘I got it. Thanks for not inviting me, by the way. That would have been pushing it.’ For the first time, I caught the faintest trace of bitterness in her voice.
‘We’re living in Glasgow,’ I went on, quickly. ‘Dad and Auntie Mary got hitched too, Ellie and the boys are fine, I’m back in business, Jan’s carrying on with hers, we’re both making plenty of money. . and Jan’s pregnant.’
She gasped slightly. ‘When you went back, Oz,’ she asked, after a moment, ‘she wasn’t, was she?’
‘No, no, no,’ I assured her. ‘I’d have told you that. We only just found out.’
‘The icing on the cake, eh.’ She tried to hide it, but I saw her chin tremble.
‘Prim, love, I’m sorry.’
She shook her head, and smiled, but her eyes were shining. ‘Don’t be, my dear. We talked it all out, remember. It wasn’t just you who made the decision. As for Jan, I was never convinced that you were over her, even if you believed it. Why d’you think I wouldn’t marry you when you asked me?’
‘You said you wanted more time to think about it.’
‘Yes, but what I meant was that I wanted you to have more time to think about it, so that both of us could be sure that it was me you really wanted. Brilliant tactician me, eh. Bloody backfired on me, didn’t it.’
‘But you didn’t want to marry me either! You told me.’
She finished her beer and signalled for two more. ‘Bollocks, my darling. Given the job that you do, I’m amazed that you always believe everything a woman says to you.’
She reached across the table and grabbed my hands. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say all this. I didn’t want to marry you if you were in love with someone else. That’s the truth. Let’s just be thankful it wasn’t me who got pregnant and leave it at that.
‘Quick, change the subject. Tell me, exactly how the pluperfect fuck did you get involved in this carry-on?’
‘I’m doing a bit of undercover work for Everett,’ I explained. ‘Someone’s been trying to sabotage his operation. What happened tonight is the culmination of a series of events. The big Daze fella hired me to help him find who was behind it.’
‘And have you?’ Prim asked.
‘We have now. The road foreman: an American called Sonny Leonard. We suspected him before tonight, and now he’s done a runner. The device that shot Jerry was hidden in the top pad in the corner of the ring. It was triggered by the impact of twenty-seven and a half stone of wrestler hitting it at high speed. It was Leonard’s job to fit those pads; we even watched him do it.’
‘I see. Are you sure he knew about the device?’
‘There was other evidence against him; also, like I said, he’s vanished.’
I finished my first beer, just as the second arrived. ‘But how about you? How the hell did you come to leap up into that ring tonight like Florence fuckin’ Nightingale?’
‘Simple. I was in the English lady’s bar in L’Escala last night, having a drink after work, the telly was on and all of a sudden, you were on it, speaking dodgy Catalan, and talking gibberish about this thing called the Global Wrestling Alliance. I have never fallen off a bar stool in my life before, but I was so surprised last night that I did just that.
‘At the close of the item, the presenter said that there were still tickets available, and gave a number to contact. So I called it. The rest, as one says in Auchterarder, is geography. ’ She paused.
‘I had quite a good seat too, overlooking the ring, When Jerry went down, I could tell from the way Everett reacted that it wasn’t right, even before he yelled for assistance. Then I saw the blood. I had to argue my way through security to get to the ring, but I made it in time.’
‘Thank heaven,’ I said, sincerely. We both sat silent for a while, contemplating the outcome that might have been.
‘Tell me,’ I asked her, eventually. ‘If there hadn’t been an emergency, would I ever have known you were there?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I hadn’t decided. You tell me. If I hadn’t seen you on Canal 33, would I ever have known you’d been here?’
‘I don’t know either. I’d been thinking of calling you.’ I took my mobile phone from my pocket, and in that instant it rang.
‘Probably Everett,’ I said. But it wasn’t.
‘Oz? Is that you?’ I didn’t recognise the voice on the other end; not even after he’d told me who it was.
‘Of course it is. Who’s that?’
‘It’s Mike here.’
I held the phone away from my ear for a second and stared at it, astonished. ‘Dylan? What the fuck are you calling me here for? Are you drunk or something?’
Prim stared at me across the table, as surprised as I was. The name, Dylan, meant plenty to her too.
‘No, Oz, I’m not drunk.’ The voice seemed to steady. ‘I have something to tell you. Where are you?’
‘In a restaurant.’
‘Are you in company?’
‘Yes. Now will you please tell me what this is about.’
‘Okay.’ His voice cracked again. ‘Oh Christ man, I’m sorry.’
To this day, I still don’t remember the moment he told me that Jan was dead; that my wife and my child were dead. What I do remember is the sensation of a blow within my head; the sudden overpowering dizziness, the phone slipping from my hand on to the table, Prim looking frightened as she reached to pick it up, and the cold beer splashing over me when my hand caught the glass and upset it, as I slipped from my chair to the floor.
Chapter 30
I wanted my dad, very badly. I sat there, on a chair in the wine cellar of the restaurant, where Prim and the owner had taken me as I began to recover from my faint.
I was aware, yet unaware. I knew that something very bad had happened, but my mind refused to tell me what it was. All I knew was that I wanted Mac the Dentist with me, just as I had wanted him when I was four, when I had fallen out of a tree and broken my wrist.