‘I’m glad to see you looking happy.’

Vidal gave me a triumphant smile.

‘I think it’s going to be something big,’ he said. ‘After all those months I thought I’d wasted, I reread the first fifty pages Cristina typed out for me and I was quite surprised at myself. I think it will surprise you too. I may still have some tricks to teach you.’

‘I’ve never doubted that, Don Pedro.’

That afternoon Vidal was drinking more than usual. Over the years I’d got to know the full range of his anxieties and reservations, and I guessed that this visit was not a simple courtesy call. When he had polished off my supplies of anis, I served him a generous glass of brandy and waited.

‘David, there are things about which you and I have never spoken…’

‘About football, for example.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’m listening, Don Pedro.’

He looked at me for a while, hesitating.

‘I’ve always tried to be a good friend to you, David. You know that, don’t you?’

‘You’ve been much more than that, Don Pedro. I know and you know.’

‘Sometimes I ask myself whether I shouldn’t have been more honest with you.’

‘About what?’

Vidal stared into his glass of brandy.

‘There are some things I’ve never told you, David. Things that perhaps I should have told you years ago…’

I let a moment or two go by. It seemed an eternity. Whatever Vidal wanted to tell me, it was clear that all the brandy in the world wasn’t going to get it out of him.

‘Don’t worry, Don Pedro. If these things have waited for years, I’m sure they can wait until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow I may not have the courage to tell you.’

I realised that I had never seen him look so frightened. Something had got stuck in his heart and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

‘Here’s what we’ll do, Don Pedro. When your book and mine are published we’ll get together to celebrate and you can tell me whatever it is you need to tell me. Invite me to one of those expensive places I’m not allowed into unless I’m with you, and then you can confide in me as much as you like. Does that sound all right?’

When it started to get dark I went with him as far as Paseo del Borne, where Pep was waiting by the Hispano-Suiza, wearing Manuel’s uniform – which was far too big for him, as was the motor car. The bodywork was peppered with unsightly new scratches and bumps.

‘Keep at a relaxed trot, eh, Pep?’ I advised him. ‘No galloping. Slowly but surely, as if it were a draught horse.’

‘Yes, Señor Martín. Slowly but surely.’

When he left, Vidal hugged me tightly, and as he got into the car it seemed to me that he was carrying the whole world on his shoulders.

16

A few days after I had put the finishing touches to both novels, Vidal’s and my own, Pep turned up at my house unannounced. He was wearing the uniform inherited from Manuel that made him look like a boy dressed up as a field marshal. At first I thought he was bringing me some message from Vidal, or perhaps from Cristina, but his sombre expression spoke of an anxiety that made me rule out that possibility as soon as our eyes met.

‘Bad news, Señor Martín.’

‘What has happened?’

‘It’s Señor Manuel.’

While he was explaining what had happened his voice faltered, and when I asked him whether he wanted a glass of water he almost burst into tears. Manuel Sagnier had died three days earlier at the sanatorium in Puigcerdà after prolonged suffering. At his daughter’s request he had been buried the day before in a small cemetery at the foot of the Pyrenees.

‘Dear God,’ I murmured.

Instead of water I handed Pep a large glass of brandy and parked him in an armchair in the gallery. When he was calmer, Pep explained that Vidal had sent him to meet Cristina, who was returning that afternoon on a train due to arrive at five o’clock.

‘Imagine how Señorita Cristina must be feeling…’ he mumbled, distressed at the thought of having to be the one to meet her and comfort her on the journey back to the small apartment above the coach house of Villa Helius, the home she had shared with her father since she was a little girl.

‘Pep, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go and meet Señorita Sagnier.’

‘Orders from Don Pedro.’

‘Tell Don Pedro that I’ll do it.’

By dint of alcohol and persuasion I convinced him that he should go home and leave the matter in my hands. I would meet her and take her to Villa Helius in a taxi.

‘I’m very grateful, Señor Martín. You’re a man of letters so you’ll have a better idea of what to say to the poor thing.’

At a quarter to five I made my way towards the recently opened Estación de Francia railway station. That year’s International Exhibition had left the city strewn with wonders, but my favourite was that temple-like vault of glass and steel, even if only because it was so close and I could see it from the study in the tower house. That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightning echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven. By the time I walked down to the platform where the train was due to arrive the rain was already pounding the station’s vaulted roof. Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by flashes of light bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury.

The train came in almost an hour late, a serpent of steam slithering beneath the storm. I stood by the engine waiting for Cristina to appear among the passengers emerging from the carriages. Ten minutes later everybody had descended and there was still no trace of her. I was about to go back home, thinking that perhaps Cristina hadn’t taken that train after all, when I decided to have a last look and walked all the way down to the end of the platform, peering carefully through all the compartment windows. I found her in the carriage before last, sitting with her head against the window, staring into the distance. I climbed into the carriage and walked up to the door of her compartment. When she heard my steps, she turned and looked at me without surprise, smiling faintly. She stood up and hugged me silently.

‘Welcome back,’ I said.

Cristina’s only baggage was a small suitcase. I gave her my hand and we went down to the platform, which by now was deserted. We walked all the way to the main foyer without exchanging a word. When we reached the exit we stopped. It was raining hard and the line of taxis that had been there when I arrived had vanished.

‘I don’t want to return to Villa Helius tonight, David. Not yet.’

‘You can stay at my house if you like, or we can find you a room in a hotel.’

‘I don’t want to be alone.’

‘Let’s go home. If there’s one thing I have it’s too many bedrooms.’

I sighted a porter who had put his head out to look at the storm and was holding an impressive-looking umbrella. I went up to him and offered to buy it for five times its real value. He gave it to me wreathed in an obliging smile.

Protected by that umbrella we ventured out into the deluge and headed towards the tower house, at which we arrived completely drenched ten minutes later, thanks to the gusts of wind and the puddles. The storm had caused a power cut; the streets were buried in a liquid darkness speckled here and there with the light cast by oil lamps or candles from balconies and doors. I had no doubt that the marvellous electrical system in my house must have been one of the first to succumb. We had to fumble our way up the stairs and when we opened the front door of the apartment, a breath of lightning emphasised its gloomiest and most inhospitable aspect.

‘If you’ve changed your mind and you’d rather we looked for a hotel…’