The elderly man was silent for a few moments as he gazed at the photographs and Sonia thought she saw his old eyes water. He coughed, as if to clear his throat. She could tell that he had something else to say.
‘She had
duende
.’
There was that word again. She remembered him using it the previous day and had not really understood it then, but today, in this context, she did. It was something otherworldly, as far as she could understand it, like the power that made hairs stand on end.
They both stood in front of the wall of photographs for a few minutes and Sonia looked at this woman. Yes, she could imagine that this woman had
duende
.
She said farewell and promised the café owner that she would come and see him if she ever returned to Granada. In their brief acquaintance, Sonia had grown fond of the old man and she kissed him on both cheeks as she left. How unlike Maggie she was. This was the closest she had come to a holiday romance. And she did not even know his name.
Chapter Eight
IT WAS THEIR final dance class that afternoon. As the week progressed, the late nights had begun to take their toll. The class was suffering from lack of sleep and it affected their ability to follow instructions.
Sonia and Maggie were no exception and their legs felt like lead as they tried to perform the moves they were being taught that day. Several times, Sonia found herself apologising to her partner and an audible cry of pain was heard from the usually patient taxi dancer who had been landed with Maggie. Corazón’s patience was wearing thin.
‘
Vamos, chicos!
Let’s go, everyone!’ she kept saying, to try to inject some energy into the class. Then she would issue cries of encouragement if they achieved anything that even remotely resembled the turn she had demonstrated. ‘
Eso es! Eso es!
That’s it! That’s it!’
Even the taxi dancers were jaded that day and it was clear that if they had not been getting paid they would have been anywhere but in this room.The energy and exhilaration of this joyful dance seemed to have evaporated for everyone and however hard they tried, Felipe and Corazón failed to lift the class. Eventually they gave up.
‘
Vale, vale
. OK,’ said Corazón.‘We will try something new. Have a break and then we will show you a new dance that even your grandmothers could do.’
A different rhythm now boomed from the sound system.
‘Merengue!’ cried Corazón, grabbing Felipe. ‘If you can count up to
two
then you can do this.’
She was right: it was the simplest of dances and the clockwork, ‘one-two, one-two’ beat demanded nothing but the willingness for two people to fasten themselves together like limpets and rock from side to side. It was banal in its simplicity, but it did revive their spirits. After ten minutes or so, some simple turns were added and a new atmosphere pervaded the class. Faces lit up into smiles.
‘That,’ gasped Maggie, ‘is about as intimate as you could get with your clothes on!’
‘It’s amazing that they even call it a dance,’ agreed Sonia, laughing.
The two friends were bound together again in laughter. The mood of merengue was as far from the unsettling effect of flamenco as it could possibly be.
This was a dance that gave instant results and could be learned in a lesson rather than a lifetime. It sanctioned almost unholy communion with a partner, whereas flamenco required the utmost introspection and self-absorption. It was the diametric opposite of the gypsy dance, and few people were immune to its instant charm and energy; while it had none of the darkness of flamenco, it also had none of the depth.
It was time for the members of the class to disperse, to kiss each other extravagantly several times on both cheeks as though they had become lifelong friends, to exchange mobile phone numbers, make promises of reunions in salsa clubs, and commitments to visit each other’s countries. Corazón told them all how wonderful they were and how she hoped they would all come back one day for more lessons. Felipe allowed his wife to speak for them both and stood there smiling in agreement. It was a weekly ritual for them both.
Once out in the street, their spirits heightened by the exhilaration of the lesson’s conclusion, Sonia and Maggie linked arms.
‘Let’s go and celebrate our new dance careers,’ trilled Maggie.
‘Good idea. Where shall we go?’
It was an idle question. There were at least a hundred and one possibilities not far from this sunny patch on the pavement where they now stood.
‘Let’s just stroll until somewhere takes our fancy.’
They walked for ten minutes. The shops were still closed and few people were about. One or two elderly couples, diminutive, silver-haired, smart, took a mid-afternoon constitutional to stretch arthritic legs, perhaps en route stopping to take coffee and a cognac. Sonia and Maggie turned into the main street.
They almost missed Casa Enrique. It filled a small space between two shops. No sign swung outside, but an old barrel now used as a table stood on the pavement, almost blocking the entrance. Two distinguished-looking men, one in an olive-toned jacket, the other in a dark suit, talked companionably in the late afternoon glow, glasses of Rioja in one hand, cigars as thick as cucumbers in the other. They epitomised Granadino respectability and affluence.
Maggie steered Sonia into the dark interior and smiled at the two men as she passed. The bar was little more than a corridor and the space for customers scarcely a metre wide. They ordered glasses of wine and chose tapas from the blackboard above the entrance.
‘Well,’ said Maggie, clinking her glass against Sonia’s, ‘have you had a good time?’
‘A wonderful time,’ replied Sonia honestly. ‘I’ve really enjoyed the dancing.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Maggie, hardly able to suppress her happiness. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time too.’
‘Not just because of the dancing,’ teased Sonia.
‘No, I suppose not . . .’
They finished their drinks and walked out into the street. Maggie caught the eye of one of the men as she passed and he touched her arm.
‘
Señora . . .
’
She hesitated.
‘Come on, Maggie. Let’s go . . .’ Sonia threw her arm around Maggie and guided her smartly away and up the street. For once, she felt that Maggie should be wary of the indiscriminate forwardness of the Spanish male.
Both women needed to sleep. Back at the hotel they undressed and climbed into their beds. Being in Spain was like being on a night shift, reflected Sonia as she set the alarm for eleven p.m. It was their last evening in Granada and they had no desire to miss it.
On the dance floor that night Sonia felt the air beneath her feet. It was as though they did not touch the ground. Everything she had learned that week fell into place. Some part of her had always struggled with the notion that the woman was meant to be in an entirely responsive role. But tonight the paradox made sense to her: being passive did not mean being subservient. Her power lay in how well she chose to respond. There was no subservience involved. It was subtle, and for a moment she thought of James and imagined how impossible he would find it to understand.
All night, she was whisked, whirled and wound like a spring. At four in the morning, she could finally dance no longer, but as she thanked her last partner her face beamed with pleasure. She had neither trodden on his feet, nor tripped him up, and she was dizzy with exhilaration.
It had not been such a satisfying evening for Maggie. Paco had not appeared and for the first time in a few days, she returned to the hotel with Sonia.
The streets were still full of life when they emerged from the nightclub, couples coiled together in doorways and youths engaged in furtive exchanges of drugs and money. Almost overpowered by cheap brandy, Maggie leaned heavily on her friend; as they staggered along the cobbled streets it took every ounce of Sonia’s strength to hold her friend upright. She was considerably smaller than Maggie and several times they both nearly lost their balance. Sonia was reminded, once again, of their teenage years and how little distance they seemed to have come.
She managed to get her friend into bed, tucked the sheets firmly around her and set a glass of water on her bedside table. Maggie would wake up with a raging thirst.
The following morning, a thick head was the least of Maggie’s troubles. She was inconsolable that Paco had turned out to be as unreliable as any other man she had ever met.
‘But you were going home today anyway,’ Sonia tried to reason with her.
‘That’s not really the point,’ said Maggie nasally. ‘He never said goodbye.’
On the journey to the airport, Maggie was silent, partly stupefied by the miniatures from the minibar that she had consumed in place of a more substantial breakfast. Sonia tried to lift her out of her despair.
‘You really haven’t changed since we were sixteen!’ she teased gently.
‘I know.’ Maggie wept quietly into a sodden tissue and continued to stare out of the car window. Occasionally she made a kind of drowning noise as she gulped down her sobs.
Sonia rested her hand on her friend’s arm as a gesture of comfort and she reflected on the irony of a supposedly cheerful birthday celebration that had begun with her own tears and ended with Maggie’s. Perhaps women were hard-wired to weep.
The taxi travelled at terrifying speed along the motorway, dodging in and out between cars and huge pantechnicons that transported the products of Spain’s now rich, poly-tunnelled farmland towards the markets of northern Europe. Both women were silent for the next half-hour, and eventually Maggie’s outburst of grief and self-pity began to subside. She had exhausted herself.
‘I should stop myself getting carried away,’ she said eventually, tears welling up again in her eyes, ‘but I’m not sure I can.’
‘It’s hard,’ said Sonia comfortingly. ‘It’s so very hard.’
Their charter flight to Stansted was delayed by four hours, and by the time they landed and crossed London, it had gone eight o’clock in the evening. They shared a taxi from Liverpool Street to Clapham and before it dropped Maggie off, the women gave each other the warmest embrace.
‘Take care, Maggie,’ called Sonia out of the window.
‘And you. I’ll ring you.’
As the cab moved off, Sonia glanced out of the rear window and saw Maggie fishing in her bag for a key. Litter and leaves swirled together in the gutters. Two figures in hooded jackets loitered close by. The dimly lit Clapham street seemed nothing but forlorn.
Though it was only a further five minutes in the cab, Sonia’s neat street, with its clipped hedging, perfect tessellated paths and polished door furniture was a world away from Maggie’s where every house had a row of bells and a front garden crowded with bins.
Despite Maggie’s misery, which she knew from experience would probably not last for ever, Sonia was determined to hold on to the sense of wellbeing that these past few days had given her. She rang the gleaming doorbell, but no one came, which struck her as odd since James’s car was parked outside.After waiting a few more seconds, still expecting to see his shadowy outline appear behind the stained-glass panes, she began to rummage for her key.
Once inside, she dumped her bags on the hall floor and pushed the door shut with her foot. Amplified by the harsh acoustics of the hallway’s high ceiling and polished tiles, the sound of it slamming shut was like the crack of pistol fire. She winced. It was a noise that James hated.
‘Hello,’ she called out. ‘I’m back.’
Sonia could see through a crack in the door that James was in an armchair in the sitting room. He waited until she entered before answering.
‘Hi,’ he grunted as though she had just returned from work, rather than almost a whole week away.
The coolness of his tone suggested that he was not really interested in an answer.The flat monosyllable conveyed no enthusiasm and nothing was going to be added. She echoed his tone with her own crotchet-beat response.
‘Hi.’ And then with some hesitation: ‘How have things been here?’