Chapter 88

Danny was starting to relax a little in Alan and Yolanda’s company, despite his initial feeling that he wasn’t exactly a wholly welcome guest at their home. After their tour of the city’s landmarks, they’d taken in a couple of bars, and he’d sampled choice pieces of Serrano ham, a sharp cheese that Yolanda told him was from the Manchego region, and more olives than he’d eaten in his life until that night. A beer or two had loosened them all up. Danny noticed how each of the bars was almost empty when they arrived, but soon filled up. He noticed, too, that some of the people in the first place seemed to follow them – like extras in a film – when they moved to the next. How did this work? Alan seemed to sense his query.

“Didn’t you ever hear of La Movida?” he asked, as the three of them stood at the bar.

Danny shook his head, and listened as Alan outlined how Spain had liberalized once Franco had gone, had everywhere ‘let its hair down’, in Madrid more so than the rest of the country . That awakening was La Movida. But ‘the movement’ had also come to mean the (quite magical) way in which, if you could catch the mood, a city like Madrid came alive. “Keep your eyes open, Danny. You’ll see how every bar, every café, every restaurant here, each has its own ‘time’. The knack is to sense when it is, and to follow your instincts.” Danny nodded – he thought he knew what Alan was saying.

Yolanda threw her head back, and laughed: “So, you are an expert on La Movida now, Mr McFry?” Her comment made Alan blush, just a little, and he looked uncomfortable with it. Danny wondered why she’d called him ‘Mr McFry’, and felt some of his discomfort. Alan was only trying to put him at ease, he realized. He didn’t come across as someone trying to pose as an expert on the city.

There were a few moments of silence while they all took a drink and Danny pretended to check out the other people in the bar. He looked at his watch: they’d be meeting up with Harry soon, he thought. Why hadn’t Harry mentioned this ‘Ana’ before? There was definitely some history there that, for whatever reason, Harry hadn’t wanted to reveal.

Alan’s quite unerring ability to seem to know what Danny was thinking came to the rescue.
“Did you ever drink anis, Danny?” he asked, his face recovering its natural colour as the change of subject dismissed Yolanda’s comments. Danny shook his head again, Alan’s cue to nod to the barman.

“Then, it’s about time you did! And it’s about time you knew all about Ana, too!”
Danny thought he saw Yolanda wince but, like so much with these people, he realized he couldn’t be entirely sure.

*

While he ordered the drinks, Alan McFry was wondering how much he should tell young Danny Longhurst about Ana. Back in the flat, when Harry had explained his plan to get Ana to translate the paper, he’d picked up that Harry’s plan was ‘news’ to Danny.

He’d wondered, at the time, whether his brother might have brought Danny along as some kind of cover. At first, he’d been a little put out that he was expected to shepherd this stranger around the city while Harry dealt with his ‘business’. But the kid had grown on him. He seemed smart, Alan thought. Just the kind of son he could have got along well with, if it had happened that way.

Now, as he waited for their drinks to be poured, his mind was on Yolanda’s sister and the conversation she might be having with his brother, right this moment. ‘Well, Harry boy,’ he thought, ‘if you don’t know Ana’s secret by now, you’re not going to hear it from me!’ It was intriguing to speculate, nonetheless, whether Harry and Ana had ever been in contact with each other over the last five years. If they had, then Yolanda didn’t know about it. Or, if she did, she had her own reasons for not saying. Fleetingly, he wondered what those reasons might be. One thing was for sure – if he told Danny all about Ana, the cat would have fought its way (well and truly) out of the bag. Sometimes, it was a mercy if you helped the cat out…

Thankfully, the barman delivered the anis just then. Alan turned to Danny and handed him a tall glass of the milky-grey drink, on ice.

“Here you are,” he said, “I think this will blow your mind…”

Chapter 87

Alan and Yolanda were good hosts, in the end. They seemed to leave whatever tensions they had back in the flat, Danny noticed, with relief. To fill the time before they’d agreed to meet up with Harry, they took a whistle-stop tour around the main sights of the capital, cruising down the Gran Via past the cinemas with their huge advertising hoardings, swinging round to see the huge Palacio Real, and stopping to wander for a short while in the Sabatini gardens next to it. Danny liked the hustle of Puerta del Sol best.
“I thought you would!” Alan exclaimed. “More your age group around here.” And it was true, this was a place were younger people seemed to gather in impressive numbers.
“Remember, Danny – it’s early yet. The place doesn’t really come alive until after ten. But I’m sure Harry will show you that!” he said.

Yolanda sat in the back seat on their tour. As he turned around to catch an extra glimpse of one sight or another, she would occasionally smile at him.
“So, Danny,” she said at one point. “You like Madrid?”
He liked what he’d seen so far.

“Well, maybe we can find you a nice Spanish girlfriend, then you could live here, like Alan!” She was joking, of course, but Danny caught what looked like a tiny wince on Alan’s face as she said it. He tried not to blush as he replied: “Well, it’s an idea, I suppose”.
He checked his watch. They would be meeting up with Harry in half an hour or so, he thought. He was starting to feel hungry – wondered what they had in mind for eating that night.
Alan might have been reading his mind. “We thought we’d go to a place near the station to eat, Danny. But that won’t be ‘til nearer ten. Let’s stop off for some tapas somewhere, shall we?”

Maybe Alan McFry wasn’t such a bad sort at all, Danny thought, as he nodded his agreement.

*

Ana thought a friend of hers from work might know someone who worked in the Department that was tracing the bond owners. She promised Harry she’d find a contact and, if it was at all possible, they would try to arrange a meeting before Harry flew back to England. “But it’s the weekend, Harry – you never make things easy, do you?” she smiled.
Harry had something else on his mind just now. Ana thought their ‘business’ was over. She took a sip of her drink and looked to try to find the Harry she once knew in his eyes.

“I think Alan has told you all about …” she said, hesitantly. Harry was roused from his thoughts, saw what he thought looked like unease on her face, wanted to save her the embarrassment of any messy ‘explanation’. She had been right – people change, they move on. He had no right to think he could just walk back into her life and think she mightn’t be with someone else.
“Yes, yes,” he responded, cutting her short. “Let’s not talk about that now. I just want to enjoy the magic of being with you, Ana.”
Sometimes Harry’s attempt at charm was just so way off the mark. And this was one of those times.

She seemed to be getting more, not less, huffy, he noticed.
“You didn’t come here to see me at all, did you Harry?” Her face had the sadness he remembered from the times they had argued before they split up – or, more accurately, from the time Harry had walked out on her. “You came to see me on ‘business’. You didn’t come to see me in five years!” Her voice was sharp, but low, and each word felt to Harry like a cup of iced water being poured down his back. He shuddered at the description of his having ignored Ana, even though he hadn’t seen it that way, had often thought of her in the years since they parted. But there was that word ‘business’ again, and it looked like a lifebelt to him just now.

“I needed that paper translating, Ana. I guessed it was valuable, and couldn’t trust it to just anyone. I knew you’d help me.”
“Like I said, Harry. You don’t keep up with the news. Or if you do, you choose to ignore it. You’re just stuck in the past. Even historians have to live, you know – and that means in the present, in the now.” Her words continued to sting him, and he squirmed as he lit another cigarette and sat back in his chair, trying to gauge whether she’d do one more favour for him.
“Well, there’s something else, Ana,” he said. ‘Pause, Harry – give her a chance to absorb it!’ the voice inside him was saying.

‘Something else?’ Ana thought. Maybe, after all, Harry had found a shop that sold sensitivity and had stocked up sometime?
“I want you to organize a DNA test for me,” he said. He watched – alarmed – as her jaw fell, and she started shaking her head, slowly, from side to side. Her eyes seemed to catch fire.
“No! Why should I do that for you, after what you put me through? I just don’t believe you at times, Harry McFry! Only you would think…”
Harry rushed to defend himself, to calm her down again. He hadn’t a clue what nerve he’d touched, but he was beginning to think Ana might be a bit unstable these days.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “It’s an emergency. I wouldn’t ask you, except I need the results by Monday. It’s all wrapped up with the bond.”

Whether it was his tone of voice, or what he said, Harry noticed that Ana seemed – at least for a moment – to calm herself. She wondered, though, if this was some kind of game Harry was playing with her.
“I told you – it’s the weekend. It’s almost halfway through the weekend. Who gets emergency DNA tests done, anyway?” Even Harry laughed a little at the idea, thought he could imagine a day when you might get ‘DNA results while you wait’ while you got your shoes re-heeled and had a couple of spare keys cut.
But Ana was thinking.

“I have a friend in the Technical Park at the university. Maybe if I ring her tonight? But you know Harry, this will be expensive for you, I think.”
Harry had folded the bond away and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. He smiled at Ana, grateful that she’d agreed to help him and that she’d seemed to relax again. He patted his chest: “I think this will handle it!”
And with that, he called the barman over and ordered another drink for them both. Things were starting to slot together nicely, he thought.