‘I am Justine Michels Fumado, the mayor,’ she said, slipping into Catalan. ‘I can tell you don’t react well to the word “no”. Not many people get past my guardian. Congratulations.’
As she showed me into a small wood-panelled office, with a door leading out to a balcony that looked down on to the square below and across to the church, I pondered her name. ‘Fumado,’ I repeated.
She knew what I was asking. ‘Yes.’ She confirmed my quickly formed suspicion. ‘That dragon outside is my mother. She’s one of the old-time L’Escala families; half a dozen of them still own much of the town. When I moved into this office six years ago, she insisted on moving in next door. I was only twenty-nine then, and she thought I’d need protection. As you’ve found out, she still thinks so.’ She smiled. ‘She’s useful, from time to time, against those less formidable than you. In the summer L’Escala fills up with people who turn up to discover that they have problems with their apartments or villas. They don’t know the local system, so all they can think to do is march into the town hall and complain to the mayor.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment to us both.’ I paused. ‘And your first surname? Michels: that’s not Catalan.’
She pointed to a photograph, in a silver frame on a small cabinet. I looked and saw her eyes gaze out at me, from the face of a tall, handsome, silver-haired man. ‘My father was Belgian; he came to Catalunya forty years ago, to sell furnishings; my mother met him in his store in Figueras and snapped him up. His brother, my uncle, used to joke that he went to lay her carpets, but she laid him. Papa died two years ago, but I probably have him to thank for still being in this office. He was the unofficial leader of the Belgian community; they’re probably the original foreign arrivals in this town, and they’re my solid supporters, regardless of their usual politics. So, Senora Blackstone, you might have trouble lining up all the expats against me . . . although I suspect that with your name, you could recruit the British, if you were determined to try.’
‘My name?’
‘I know who you are,’ she told me as she settled into the leather chair behind her desk, and as I sat opposite her. ‘I’ve known since you moved to St Martí, or back then, I should say, since you’ve spent time here before. Eyebrows were raised when an outsider was able to buy the house you did in the village, and there was talk; indeed there still is gossip about you. I’d be a pretty poor mayor if none of it had reached my ears. You are rumoured to be sleeping with the priest, Father Gerard, but I know him too, and I know, from someone very close to him, that isn’t true. You are the former wife of Oz Blackstone, the famous actor, who lived here with you once himself, but you are not his widow. Your son is his. Your sister is the actress Dawn Phillips, and your brother-in-law is the film director Miles Grayson.’ She smiled. ‘You can afford to send professional people to make your point. So why are you breaking my door down yourself?’
‘Because I don’t employ people like that. I’m a hands-on person, and I’ve been brought in by Ben Simmers to help organise his wine fair.’
‘Ahh!’ The mayor’s head fell back as she sighed; as she gazed at the ceiling I could see that her chin showed no sign of sagging. ‘That’s what it is.’
‘That’s what it is,’ I repeated. ‘Ben reckons we need your permission to hold it in Plaça Petita. Is he right about that?’
‘Oh, he’s correct. The people of St Martí like to think that they’re autonomous, but they’re not. That is and always has been public land, and the town council of L’Escala decides what happens there. As leader of the council, the executive power is in my hands.’
‘So? Can we do it, Madam Mayor?’
‘Justine, call me Justine. I don’t know; I still have to reach a decision.’
‘I’m Primavera. What’s difficult about a simple “yes”?’
‘Nothing, but this one isn’t simple.’
‘In what way?’
‘I have opposition to it within the town council. There is one member who’s determined that it won’t happen. And no ordinary member either; it’s my coalition partner, the man whose vote keeps my group in power.’
‘Your sister’s father-in-law?’
‘That’s him. José-Luis Planas Ros. He’s powerful within the council, because of his unique position, and also within the trading community in L’Escala. He owns the big furniture shop in the old town, a couple of bars, an estate agency, and a pizzeria on the seafront. When Ben approached the shopkeepers’ association, word got to him; he opposed it and the sheep fell into line.’
‘Even though Ben’s a member of that group?’
‘Even though.’
‘What’s this guy’s problem with Ben? Is it because he’s English? Because I warn you, if it is, I’ll follow through on the threat I made to your mother. I wouldn’t have to field my own slate either; if I deliver enough British votes to your main opposition . . .’
Justine Michels threw up her hands. ‘I know, I know. That could swing the election. But I promise you, Mr Simmers’ nationality has nothing to do with it . . . at least not directly. I think this problem would still exist, even if he was Catalan.’
‘Then what is it?’
The mayor opened her mouth as if to reply, then fell silent, for almost half a minute. ‘I think,’ she said, eventually, ‘that it would be better for you to ask your friend.’
‘I will, don’t you worry. And I’ll be asking Senor Planas as well.’
‘You’ll be wasting your time if you try to lean on him. Come what may, he gets re-elected to the council every four years as an independent. The expatriate vote doesn’t bother him.’
‘I’ll bother him, though.’
She smiled, sympathetically. ‘You going to make him an offer he can’t refuse?’
‘I’m going to reason with him.’
She laughed. ‘That’s a line from the same movie.’
‘I know; it’s my favourite.’ I had to chuckle myself, as I recalled
The Godfather
, and the man who woke up to find his thoroughbred’s head on his duvet. ‘Does he have a horse?’ I asked.
‘Not even that would shake José-Luis. He’s old school, and the problem you’d have with him is typical of his generation.’
‘As in me being a woman?’
She nodded.
‘How do you handle him?’
‘He tolerates me and gives me his grudging support because of my sister.’ She paused. ‘No, because of my brother-in-law, Angel. Most of the time, he doesn’t interfere with the administration. He has a portfolio, environmental services; he gets on with that and he’s good at it. But occasionally, if he gets agitated about something, he can be difficult. This is one of those times.’
‘And you won’t overrule him and give us permission.’
‘Primavera, I would do it in a second, but it’s very difficult for me. As you know, I have two years left in power, and to be honest next time I may struggle to stay in this chair. This town has a modern history of turnabout in its local politics, and I can sense the swing against my party. There are many things my colleagues and I want to do, or at least get under way, before the next election. If I cross Planas, he could make it very difficult for us to fulfil these ambitions. One small local event, set against an improved social housing programme, against new classrooms for the school, against traffic improvements . . . Christ, we still have dirt roads in some parts of this town . . .’
‘But is Planas so important? Wouldn’t some of the other councillors support your programme?’
‘Not all of it. Social housing, road improvements; they’d have to go. Planas, misogynistic old goat that he is, supports the whole platform. I haven’t said “no” to your fair, not yet, but the real decision is his, and he knows it.’
I threw up my hands in surrender. ‘OK, I understand.’
‘I’m sorry, truly.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Don’t you have an alternative to Plaça Petita?’
I smiled, wryly. ‘No, short of holding it in the church . . . and if we did that, then nobody would ever believe that I wasn’t screwing the priest. You are right, we need a Plan B, against rain, if nothing else. But I’m not giving up on Plan A without tackling this man myself.’
‘But you’ll talk to Benedict first, yes?’
‘Yes, I will. I can’t imagine what he’s done to get this man so firmly against him.’
‘You can’t?’
Five
E
verybody blushes. It’s a physical thing, the effect of increased blood flow through the facial capillaries caused most commonly by embarrassment. It has nothing to do with race, but you’d think that when someone is as heavily tanned as Benedict Simmers, it would be impossible to see it.
Not so. But I’ll get there.
The wine shop was open when I got back to St Martí; it was a lovely day and midweek or not, the village was starting to get busy. I headed through the square towards Plaça Petita, but slowed my approach when I saw a shape half in, half out of the doorway and realised that Ben had customers. One doesn’t get in the way of a potential sale, after all. It was only when I got closer that I realised who the people were.
Ben’s mum, Ingrid Simmers as was, is a part-time resident of L’Escala. She is also one of his best customers. She and his dad are divorced; she’s Ingrid Reid now, and the bulk I had seen filling the door frame was that of her second husband, Matthew, a retired PR guru. They split their time pretty much equally between their two homes, the other one being in East Lothian, in Scotland’s golfing country. Oz and I once went to the beach there; got up to mischief in the secluded and sheltered dunes (‘What’s in it for me?’ ‘Sand.’) up on a high point from which he claimed that he could see his old man’s house through his binoculars. (Scotland’s a village, really; the first time I met Matthew he told me that he knew Oz’s dad, Mac, having played against him once in a golf match.)
I’ve never asked, but I reckon that Ingrid must be about the same age as the formidable Dolores Fumado. Around the same height too, but that’s as far as it goes. I wouldn’t mind her figure and her blond hair is so natural that I wonder if she’s ever been to a stylist in her life.
‘Hello, Primavera,’ she said warmly, as I slipped into the shop. ‘I hear you’ve been dragooned into the wine fair.’
‘She volunteered, Mum,’ Ben protested.
She ignored him. ‘Have you been to see that awful mayor?’ she asked.
‘Justine’s not awful,’ I told her. ‘In fact, she isn’t the problem either. It seems that the blocker is a local dinosaur called Planas, who seems to have an effective right of veto on the council.’ I looked at Ben. ‘What the hell have you done to upset him?’ I asked him, in Spanish.
And that’s when he blushed. I don’t think Ingrid noticed, suddenly she was too busy studying the shop’s range of specialist olive oils, but Matthew did. I could tell by his raised eyebrow; it was very expressive, and I knew I’d stumbled on something.
‘You interested in one of those, Mum?’ Ben asked, as blatant a change of subject as I’ve ever seen. ‘Take one and try it if you like.’ He broke off as two more customers came into the shop, and started speaking to them in passable French.
I went outside and said hello to Cher and Mustard, who were tethered to one of the bollards that keep cars out of the plaça. After ten minutes or so, the French customers made their choice and left, closely followed by Ingrid and Matthew, who winked as he waved me goodbye. I realised that his Spanish was better than I’d supposed.
‘So what’s the story?’ I asked, as Ben emerged to take the dogs inside, out of the sun. ‘How did you cross swords with this old bastard?’
‘I’ve never met him,’ he said, as I followed him.
‘The mayor said I should ask you about him.’
‘Justine did?’ And then he grinned, reflectively. ‘No, that doesn’t really surprise me.’
‘You didn’t tell me that you knew Justine.’
‘I don’t, not really.’
‘Come on, Ben, either you do or you don’t.’
What’s beyond sheepish? Goatish? I don’t know, but if it’s there, Mr Simmers was it, at that moment. ‘I’ve only met her a couple of times,’ he confessed, ‘at parties: she doesn’t have much time for a social life. It’s Elena Michels I know better.’
‘Elena?’
‘Justine’s sister.’
‘Not the one who’s married to Planas’s son?’
‘That’s the only sister she has, and I can see where that might be where the problem lies.’
Scales fell from my eyes. Young, free and single: I should have guessed there would be a woman involved somewhere. ‘Oh Jesus,’ I heard myself exclaim, with an alarming hint of matronly disapproval, ‘tell me you didn’t . . .’
‘Well, yes, but hey, there was nothing wrong with it, in anyone’s eyes but old Planas’s. It was before she and Angel were married. Elena and I had a thing.’
‘A serious thing?’
‘We thought it was . . . at least I did. We lived together for a while, but it didn’t work out. I saw the writing on the wall, so I left.’
‘I see. But you’re history. Why’s the old man so set against you?’
‘He’s like that. From what Angel told me he blames me for splitting him and Elena up.’