Tango (3 page)

‘Everything in the market is public. That is why he goes there. He wishes his people to see him.’

William wanted to talk about Theresa and Ines, but asked instead about Manuel Herrera.

‘He’s from an old family, he has great influence with the president. The other colonels, they don’t like him so much, but for the president he is a good friend because he knows
the Cubans. The Cubans have strong military. Also he knows the Russians and they can give help for the economy. But no one knows what the president is really thinking.’

While he was speaking Ricardo threaded a biro between the fingers of his left hand, straightened his arm and abruptly clenched his fist, breaking the biro. He grinned.

‘Also you were with two women?’

‘I had lunch with them.’

‘Two women are better than one.’

‘I didn’t know them before.’ William paused. ‘What do they do?’

Ricardo shrugged and pursed his lips, affecting a connoisseur’s disinterest. ‘They live as all women would live if they could. They dance and they sing. They are
comfortable.’

‘Dance and sing?’

‘Of course, it’s part of it. Ines’s father makes clothes but he was put in prison by the old government. He killed a man with the scissors for the cloth. Ines was very bitter
against the old government and now she likes the president, but her father is still in prison.’

William didn’t like Ricardo knowing the girls. ‘What’s happened at the factory? Why are they on strike? It can’t simply be the cold.’

‘Nothing has happened. They are fed up. They want more money, less work – what all workers want.’

‘What does Miguel say?’ Miguel was the manager.

‘Nothing. He is not there. Those two men from the ports have made the workers angry.’

The two men were union officials. The new government had taken a great interest in the unions and had strengthened them, particularly in the foreign-owned companies. Union members could not be
sacked except by their unions.

Ricardo threw the broken pieces of his pen like darts into the wastepaper bin. ‘We must sack those two men.’

‘We can’t.’

‘Put things in their clothes and cars – stolen things or drugs.’

‘No.’

This method was now the only way to get rid of anyone and was increasingly used, judging by the talk in the Foreign Traders’ Association. William would not contemplate it, but he had no
idea what he would do if trouble-makers made the operation unworkable. He felt slightly guilty at not being more ruthless and consoled himself by saying that there was nothing he could do about it.
Because of the new laws he had no authority over the factory or the mill, although as far as headquarters in London was concerned he was still responsible. They refused to understand.

‘That’s where you’ve been, is it – the factory?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Ricardo stood, stretched and looked at his fingertips.

There was nothing to be gained by confronting him with his lie. He hardly ever went to the factory or the mill and had no doubt got his information from someone in the town; but demonstration of
a falsehood only increased the fervour with which Ricardo asserted it. It was easier to get him to contradict himself later, provided the contradiction was not pointed out.

Ricardo lingered by the door. He obviously wanted to go but was probably uncomfortable at having only just arrived, and so thought of something to say instead.

‘There have been no customers in the shop today?’

‘There were two this morning.’

‘Did they buy any books?’

‘One bought some paper.’

‘There were more customers when
Señor
Wicks was here.’

William was sensitive about this. He had no adequate explanation.

‘But then it was called the English Bookshop; everyone knew it. Britbooks is not the same.’ He had not forgiven the company for forcing that upon him, nor for the envelopes, the
coloured wrapping, the knick-knacks, the toys and ‘gifts’ that they called diversification.

‘It was because of the pornography.
Señor
Wicks was famous for that. It was a very big secret; everyone knew and they all came to the shop.’

‘Pornography? Here?’

‘Of course.’ Ricardo raised his slender eyebrows. ‘He kept it in boxes behind your desk. It was free to anyone who bought a novel. There were many customers.’

William was sure they didn’t know that in London. ‘We’re not selling pornography.’

Ricardo shrugged. He probably felt he could leave with honour now. ‘I will go the factory again tomorrow and report.’

‘You’ll be in late, then?’

Ricardo looked injured. ‘Not late.’

‘Later, I mean.’

Ricardo grinned. ‘Yes, later.
Chau
, William.’

William returned to the unfinished window-cleaning. The small figure with many oranges had not moved. William wondered if he was being prudish in ruling out pornography. Would London regard that
as lack of initiative? Would they think pornography an acceptable diversification? But surely one should be able to sell books – novels – without that? Novels were, after all . . .
well, they were important. If the time came when we needed pornography to help sell them, then the world had no place for novels any more. Oranges – even oranges – could still be sold
on their merits, or so it appeared. Perhaps it would be better to sell oranges. He’d never actually seen the little man make a sale.

A loud clatter and a cloud of blue smoke announced that the lopsided Dodge up the street was not after all abandoned. It jerked away from the kerb, gear-box crunching, loose headlight banging
against the mudguard. As it passed he saw a flash of eyes and a cloud of dark hair – not enough of her to recognise, strictly speaking, but he knew. No one else blazed like that. He felt a
surge of confidence. Of course he could make the shop work, the factory and the mill were not a hopeless drain on the whole operation, novels would be sold, he would not be defeated; he would see
her again. Things would happen.

A plate slipped in the kitchen and Sally swore. William asked if she wanted a hand. There was a muted negative.

He was out on the balcony with his binoculars and would have gone in but his presence in the kitchen annoyed her. The room’s narrowness did not well accommodate his width and she became
flustered if he hung around when it was her turn to cook. She had so often remarked that he was always in the way wherever he stood that now, metaphorically and literally, he tiptoed around her. It
did not help that he was the better cook.

The rest of the flat was spacious and light. It was on the corner of the building and every window had a view of the sea. There were balconies on either side and from one William could look down
into the trees bordering the golf course. Large green parrots lived in them. After six months he had still not tired of watching the birds. They were unnaturally vivid, almost surreal.

This evening he was using the binoculars to try to see a man he had christened
Señor
Finn, a tramp who lived a kind of Huckleberry Finn existence amidst clumps of very tall
pampas grass just off the beach. He had a shack made of driftwood, a chair, a table, pots and pans hanging on sticks and an old upturned rowing-boat. When William walked home from work, coming off
the golf course and along the coast, the elderly Huck would be sitting over his fire, bulky and red-faced, a grey kitten and a scruffy terrier at his feet. Their acquaintance had developed from
nodding to waving to bidding good day or good night to – very recently – the exchange of a word or two about the weather. Even the terrier now barked only once and with a kind of gruff
familiarity.

But this night
Señor
Finn had not been there. His fire was unlit and there was no sign of dog or cat. The boat was in its place. William was uneasy. He liked routine, drawing
from it a sustaining strength, and felt obscurely threatened by the old man’s disappearance. There was no need, he told himself, since the precariousness of
Señor
Finn’s
foothold on the beach was probably only apparent and his place in the world, being anywhere, was perhaps more secure than William’s own. Nevertheless, William was sufficiently concerned to
spend thirty minutes out on the balcony while Sally cooked. It was better to be out of the way, anyway.

The sea was brown that night, indicating rain inland. Mud brought down by the great river spread from the estuary for miles along either coast and as far out as could be seen. Corpses of cattle
and horses were sometimes washed up on the beach. In the days of civil war they had apparently been outnumbered by the friendless bodies of unburied men. According to Ricardo, it had started
happening again but only in ones and twos; and only according to Ricardo.

The sun slid down beneath the indigo clouds and its rim touched the horizon. The sea reddened as if heated by a furnace.
Señor
Finn’s hut was now in deep shadow, but as the
sun sank William saw something on the beach that might have been firelight. He watched for some minutes in case it was a maverick reflection; but, no, it was definitely firelight.

The banging of plates on the table indicated supper. Sally had said that morning that she’d do them both a salad, which was partly how he had justified lunching at the covered market, but
when she got home she declared for spaghetti bolognese. He said he liked ‘spag bog’, but it had irritated her to hear it called that and she had altered course for mince, potatoes and
brussels. Sally’s brussels sprouts were William’s least favourite food. Suspecting that she cooked them so often because they were easy and less likely to trouble her than something
equally easy but less familiar, he had maintained through four and a half years of marriage a self-sacrificing silence. Sally, being now a vegetarian, had salad for herself.

‘Lovely,’ he said. He could see that the mince was half-cooked but kept silent because it probably represented a generous intention. There was no wine, though. She thought he drank
too much, which he did because wine was good and cheap, but he had to have something with the food. He fetched a bottle and a couple of glasses.

‘Would you like some?’ She shook her head. The wine bubbled happily into his glass.

‘You really do drink too much,’ she said.

‘Less than I did.’

‘Still too much. You’ll end up with cirrhosis of the liver, like the French.’

‘How was work today?’

‘I resigned.’ She smiled at his surprise. ‘That is, I told them I’d leave if I didn’t get a move.’

‘Where to?’

‘One of the more advanced classes. It’s boring, what I’m doing, boring and repetitive, and when I started they said I’d be doing more advanced work within weeks.
It’s been six months now.’

She worked at an American-owned school of English which had flourished in the gap left by the closure of the British Council school. She was well qualified and felt she was wasted.

‘What did they say?’ he asked.

‘Nothing much. They’re going to ask the executive vice-president.’

‘Isn’t he the one you don’t like – the Hitler man?’

‘Hueffer, Max Hueffer. I never said I didn’t like him. I said I thought he didn’t like me.’

‘Will he now?’

‘I don’t know.’ She pushed back a strand of hair that had escaped from the elastic binding her pony-tail.

William returned to the subject when they were washing up. ‘Did you feel any better for having said it?’

She brightened. ‘I did, actually, the more so for not having planned it. I just came out with it when old Riley asked how I was getting on. It quite shook him, I think. About time
something did.’

‘What happens now?’

‘I’m going to see Max tomorrow.’

‘Sounds as if they might want to keep you.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t mind much either way. It’s up to them.’

Later, as William sat down with a book, she put on a medley of local dance tunes. He could not read and listen, so took out his stamps instead.

‘Why don’t you get a home computer?’ she asked.

‘What for?’

‘Something for you to do in the evenings.’

‘Is that what they’re for?’

‘It’s what people seem to do with them. It would make a change from reading and stamp-collecting.’

‘I suppose it would.’ So would dancing, he thought, listening to the tango. He used to do a lot but Sally was a stiff and awkward dancer, more so when with him. It was odd because
her movements were normally graceful. Perhaps knowing that he danced well spoiled her confidence or perhaps she felt awkward because of his bulk although, like many men of his size, he had rhythm
and poise on the dance floor. Anyway, they never danced now.

‘Oh, someone from the embassy was after you,’ she said.

‘Which embassy?’

‘Ours, of course. He was one of those two secretaries or whatever they are that everyone’s always on about. I never know which is which.’

‘Feather and Nightingale.’

‘Yes, one of them. He wanted you to go and see him. He was trying to get you after lunch and eventually rang me. Wouldn’t say why.’

‘I must have been out.’

‘Do you think they are?’ she asked after a pause.

‘Everyone says so.’

‘I didn’t think it was allowed in the diplomatic service.’

‘Used to be traditional.’

‘Really?’

William smiled. ‘No, not really.’ Her occasional literal-mindedness had always attracted him. It made him feel protective.

‘I’m going to have a bath.’ She turned up the music so that it would carry.

The British Embassy was an old white house built for bankers in more prosperous days. It stood out from similar houses in the street because it was festooned with cameras and
anti-terrorist devices. In the entrance hall was a magnificent chandelier that was lit day and night.

‘The inspectors tried to make us turn it off when they were out last year,’ said Nightingale, the youngest and, because of his flamboyant bow-ties, best-known of the embassy staff.
‘They also tried to make us move into some awful modern building with glass all over the place but Nigel made one of his great Feather fusses and they took fright, poor things.’ He
laughed. ‘Of course, the ambassador having been on the panel of inspectors in his last post helped a bit. We actually got an increase in allowances. Only one in the world this year. I wonder
where the beast is?’