Chapter 93

Harry didn’t hang around in the club much longer. In fact, once he’d seen Danny exit, he made his own way out of the place. As he left the building, he saw Danny walking off in the distance – heading, he noticed, not back to the flat but down towards the Gran Via. It made him happier to know he wasn’t going home, and might be exploring the city. The kid was deeper than he thought.

Within a minute Harry had found a cab, and had given the driver directions to Ana’s flat. En route, they passed a late night store where Harry jumped out to buy flowers and a bottle of cava, while the taxi waited for him.

As he rung the bell outside Ana’s block, he thought of the first time he’d been there, how it had become, for a while at least, his second home. Nothing much seemed to have changed – at least on the outside. He saw the remnants of an old poster advertising a jazz concert, faded and peeling now, on the wall next to the door to the block. He’d been to that concert with Ana, he remembered now.

She buzzed him up without asking who it was. When he’d climbed the stairs, he found her door already open, a soft light coming from down the darkened hallway. He checked behind him to make sure he wasn’t being observed, and entered the hall, closing the door quietly. His heart was pounding as he made his way towards the lounge. Music was playing – something he couldn’t place. As he approached the doorway, Ana appeared, dressed casually in jeans and a white blouse - but looking ravishing, with it. She smiled when she saw the flowers:

“You big, old, romantic Harry McFry!” she exclaimed, collecting them from him and tossing them onto a chair as she dragged him into the room. Her arms reached up around his neck and drew him to her, while Harry still held onto the cava in one hand. With the other, he let his fingers explore her hair, as they kissed. It was a kiss that lasted five years.

When they finished, finally, Ana pulled away from him, looking slightly flustered, smoothing out the creases in her blouse.

“We had better get the ‘business’ out of the way, I suppose,” and she sighed, and beckoned Harry to sit next to her on a sofa pulled up against the wall.

“The good news is that my friend has already rung his friend at the Ministry. He’s just rung to say they will see you tomorrow!” She paused to let Harry take in the significance of what she was saying, but she saw he hadn’t.

“You are honoured, Harry! Don’t you realize how unusual that is? They must really want to see that paper of yours for them to agree to meet you on a Sunday!.”

It was a relief to Harry to know that this piece of the jigsaw might be in place before they returned to Liverpool.

“What about this?” he said, reaching into his coat for the plastic box containing the samples he wanted testing.

Ana smiled again, almost triumphantly: “My friend in the Technical Park says she will start the tests on Monday morning at 7am. But, she could lose her job over this, if she is discovered.” Ana paused, and her smile was swapped for a much graver look. “She’s asked for 2000 Euros…”

It was a lot of money. Harry McFry was a drinker. He was a smoker. He may even have thought of himself as a womanizer. But he didn’t much care for gambling. He calculated it would wipe out the advance he’d got from Laurel McFry, but he instinctively knew he should go ahead. Old Ma Shipman wouldn’t have cashed her rent cheque yet, he realized, so he’d have enough cash in the bank to cover that kind of fee. In the back of his mind was the idea that time was of the essence. Lillian McFry – Laurel’s grandmother – might, for all her apparent good health, not be long for this earth. He wasn’t an actuary, but he guessed that every passing day increased the odds of her demise quite dramatically.

Harry handed the sample box to Ana. “Go ahead, Ana. And tell your friend not to worry – she’ll get paid.”

With the ‘business’ out of the way, Harry could turn his mind to the ‘other’ business. He had decided, during the taxi ride there, that whatever else happened tonight, he’d consciously put Ana’s husband out of his mind. He would have to trust that, whatever ‘arrangements’ Ana had made, they’d be safe together – at least until the morning.

Ana sensed Harry had done with his casework.

“Here – let me open that bottle for us,” she said, rising from the sofa. “Why don’t you take your coat off and just make yourself comfortable? You remember where the bedroom is, I think?” There was a glint in her eye as she disappeared from the room. Harry dropped his coat on the sofa, and made his way out of the lounge, pausing only to pick up the flowers. He found Ana in the kitchen, reaching for a couple of glasses, her back to him. She still had her figure, had kept herself well, he thought. He loved the way her hair fell across her shoulders and the crisp white of her blouse. She turned as he entered: “Oh … yes … the flowers - give them here,” she said, and she found a vase from somewhere. “You can be quite sweet sometimes, can’t you?” Harry blushed a little. It was a while since he had heard a compliment from someone who meant something to him.

“Here you are,” she said, handing him a glass of the sparkling wine. As he took it from her, Ana looked him in the eye, serious now.

“You do want this, don’t you Harry?” she said. He knew she didn’t mean the cava.

“I want it more than I ever wanted anything else, Ana. I know I was stupid, I should have…” he said, trying to explain how sorry he was for the last five years. But she never gave him a chance to apologise.

“Shush!” she said. “Just stop analyzing it all, Harry. It’s too late for that. Just for once you’re going to have to live in the ‘now’. I know you can do it!” And she took his hand, and led him to her bedroom.

Chapter 92

Harry was alarmed to find that the place had changed. He was ten years older now, of course, but the music, the ambiance and the people there were more like twenty years younger than Harry. It had seemed like a good idea at the time: Harry remembered the Club Joy as a place he had ’found’ himself, when he first traveled to Madrid. He’d checked into an aparthotel, late on a Saturday night, in preparation for his first date with Ana since they’d met at the conference in Paris. He wasn’t due to meet her until the next day, so he’d quizzed the concierge about a place he could go to while away the night: Club Joy had been his recommendation, after seeming to check Harry up and down.
In the event, it hadn’t been a bad place at all for a man who was on his own with time to fill. He’d spent the early hours in easy contemplation of the dancers who, though younger than him at the time, weren’t so much younger. Somehow, he’d got into discussion with a group of students (tagged himself onto them might be a better description). When they’d emerged, blinking, into the morning sun at 7am on the Sunday, he’d treated them to chocolate con churros in a nearby churreria. One of the group produced a guitar from somewhere, and for a while they’d sat in the nearby plaza while he performed a repertoire of gentle classical guitar pieces: the perfect start to what would prove, for Harry, to be the perfect Sunday. Little wonder, then, that the memory was etched so deeply in Harry’s mind, and that it seemed like a good option to introduce Danny to the place.

*

After the four of them had eaten, Alan had driven them back to the flat. Harry wanted a wash and brush up, and needed to collect his coat. Their collective mood seemed to have lifted a little, Danny noticed – not without thanks. Whatever Alan had meant by raising the call from Carrie, Harry hadn’t taken the bait. He’d seemed to check himself, and Danny wondered if it was something he was storing up to discuss with Alan later, perhaps when he himself wasn’t around? Alan and Yolanda were staying at home, leaving Harry to take Danny out for the rest of the evening.
For Harry, what to do with Danny presented something of a dilemma. He didn’t dare ask Alan to take him out, and even though they had eaten relatively early, it was already after 10.30pm when they got back. He was acutely conscious that his date with Ana was not long off.
Club Joy was the obvious choice. He hoped that Danny might feel at home there, would have the confidence, as he had, to spend an evening there on his own. With luck, Harry would be able to slip away, and leave Danny to his own devices. In the taxi to the club, Harry explained how it wasn’t unusual to spend the whole night there, and recounted his own first experience of the place. So, when they finally made their way to the front of a small queue, Danny’s expectations were as high as Harry’s. “Just remember – don’t drink too much because you’ve got the whole night ahead of you,” Harry had said, as he reached into his pocket and handed Danny a 50 Euro note. Danny let the ‘you’ pass. He was getting, he guessed, pretty good at spotting when Harry had his own agenda: maybe a front-row seat at the McFry Brothers’ Circus had helped the process along the way, but never had the phrase ‘palmed off’ meant quite so much to him, he thought, as he folded the note and slipped it into his wallet.
“Thanks, Harry,” he said.
Rarely have expectation and reality been so mismatched. As they entered the club, the music was deafening, its beat insistent and raw. But the place was empty, apart from a few groups of tourists, battened to the side of the dance floor. Harry kicked himself for forgetting one of the unchanging rules of Madrid: don’t go in a club until at least 1 AM, or you’re likely to find yourself dancing alone. He saw the disappointment on Danny’s face. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring him along on the trip? He should have known he’d end up running after Ana, and that Danny would be an impediment in the race. Then he remembered that they did, indeed, have business in Madrid, and that all the rest was supposed to be a ‘filler’. He resolved that, whatever else happened, he’d make sure he spent Sunday with Danny – he owed him that, at least.
That didn’t lessen his current dilemma, though: how to ditch his companion without making him feel he had been ditched. Harry edged around the empty dance floor to the bar, and ordered a couple of beers, Danny following him like a lost sheep. With the drinks sorted out, Harry looked for somewhere in the club where it might be a little quieter, and they made their way to a booth that seemed the furthest from the sound system.
“Hey, Danny – I’m sorry about tonight,” Harry said.
Danny had expected an apology of some sort, and had marshaled his reply in advance.
“You never told me about Ana, or that you’d be disappearing and leaving me with Alan,” he said, with just the right edge (he thought) of bitterness.
Harry lit a cigarette. “I know. I should have told you that. There’s some history there that might have made things clearer for you.” He wondered how much of the history Alan had already told Danny...
“I’m not sure I want or need to know, Harry. But it would have helped if you’d just told me you had plans for tonight, that’s all,” Danny said, and Harry knew the kid had a point.
“Sometimes you can try to do too much, Danny. My fault, I know. I’ll make you fall in love with Madrid yet, though. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.” It sounded genuine enough to Danny.
Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. “Look, Harry – I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I think I want to go back to the flat. Have you got a key?”
Harry tried to pretend he was disappointed, made a stab at trying to persuade Danny that he should stay a while longer, but it was a lame attempt, a charade of politeness, and both of them knew it. “Here,” he said, finally, fishing into his coat pocket. “Here’s the key. I’m going to stay for another drink – just leave the door on the latch for me, will you?”
Danny didn’t hang about. He nodded as he grabbed the key, leaving his half-full bottle of beer on the table as he muttered “See you tomorrow, Harry.” With that, he walked straight across the empty dance floor and headed for the exit, leaving Harry to wonder whether Danny had reserves of sensitivity he had only, until now, guessed at.

Chapter 91

Well, I suppose a liberal might interpret 8.35pm as ‘around eight or so’. Just a shame, for Harry’s sake, that his brother wasn’t feeling particularly liberal right now.

By the time Harry wheeled up, the bar had emptied a little, and Danny, Alan and Yolanda were conspicuous in the corner. He’d felt the evening chill descending as he’d walked the short distance from Tribunale to their rendezvous, and had briefly regretted leaving his coat at Alan’s flat. The bar seemed welcoming, and warm.
He nodded a greeting towards them, noticed their drinks were almost empty, and made to the bar. Danny thought he looked pre-occupied with something. For his part, Alan was wondering how Harry and Ana’s first meeting in five years might have gone. He noticed that Yolanda gave a good impression of disinterest but guessed (correctly) that it was an act. He knew she felt a certain loyalty and protectiveness to her sister, and that she, too, would want to know what had gone on.

In fact, as she watched him out of the corner of her eye, Yolanda’s thoughts were genuinely ambivalent. He was still attractive, she thought, in a messed-up sort of way. Why wasn’t he wearing a coat, she wondered? Didn’t anyone tell him it was February? She knew that, if she didn’t exactly hate Harry McFry for what he had done to her sister, then she suspected his motives for abandoning her. He was one of life’s deserters, at heart, she thought. It gave her a secret pleasure – a sense of superiority over her sister, perhaps – to know that, however Alan and her might fight, he had never given even the slightest impression that he wouldn’t be with her for the duration. In time, they might even reach an armistice. Whereas Harry had left Ana as a casualty: for all he had known, or wanted to know, she might even have been dead.

When Harry finally brought the drinks over - a tray of anis, of course – he pulled a stool across to their table and sat with them.
“Yolanda,” he said, nodding as he handed her drink across. That was Harry succinctly saying ‘Well, I was surprised to learn you’d hooked up with Alan!’
“So,” said Alan – almost as if he had been elected spokesperson for the group. “How was Ana?” Harry had anticipated the question (from one of them, at least), and his response was curt and to the point:
“You might have told me.”

Danny saw the mock surprise on Alan’s face. “So, I’m my brother’s keeper, all of a sudden?” Alan asked. “What good would it have done if you knew, Harry?” He ignored Danny’s evident discomfort. Harry wondered how much Alan had told Danny, about Ana.
“Tell me – would you have dropped everything and jumped on the next plane over here, if I had done?”

Harry knew, of course, that Alan was right. He’d left Ana, finally, because he didn’t have the confidence to be with her after the failure of his marriage. He remembered how he’d turned over in his mind (again and again) the question of whether he should – could – be with her. She’d told him how it didn’t matter that he was in debt: “It’s only money, Harry. Money doesn’t matter.”

But it hadn’t seemed that way to Harry. He couldn’t walk away from the financial mess he was in, and imagined it haunting him if he moved to live in Spain. He’d have to learn the language, be dependent on Ana for so much, until he found his feet. She didn’t deserve that. He had thought, at the time, he was giving her more of a life if he walked out of hers. He had loved her – and realized, tonight – that he still did. Maybe, after all, she had been right? He could have been, should have been, stronger.

Now, though, the terrain had changed. Ana was married – even if, he realized, her attitude to her marriage vows might be a little (what was the word?) ‘cavalier’.
Danny watched the ‘discussion’ between Harry and his brother with something more than interest. He was starting to think that Alan McFry might have been right: as an only child, maybe he had got the best deal. He was also starting to worry his Saturday night out in Madrid might not be the exciting introduction to the city he had been expecting.

“You know I wouldn’t have done that, Alan. You know why I left in the first place, too.” Harry hoped that would be the end of it. He was anxious that they moved on, both in subject and, perhaps, in location. Although he’d just arrived, he sensed the group dynamics were against him. A change of venue – something to eat, for goodness sake: he hadn’t eaten anything since the croissant Carrie had given him that morning, and he was ravenous – might improve matters.

But Alan’s uncanny knack of seeming to be able to read peoples’ minds meant that he had another card to play. Sitting back on his chair, he checked first to see how Yolanda seemed: she was relaxed, now, he was pleased to see.

“Oh yes, Harry. I forgot to mention – Carrie rang just before we left…”
Danny wondered who this Carrie was, but realized Alan had been talking to her when Yolanda came home. He saw the blood drain from his partner’s face and wondered, briefly, whether Easyjet had a Sunday service from Madrid to Liverpool. Whatever the ticket cost, it had got to be better than watching this circus of bizarre fraternity.

Chapter 90

Danny wasn’t even sure he wanted to know about Ana and Harry. If Harry hadn’t told him, then that was his business. Yes, it would have been nice to know that his first few hours in a foreign city would be spent being dragged around the sights and (one or two, at least) of the bars that were on offer. But even if part of him didn’t want to know about Harry’s history, he sensed he wouldn’t have much choice. Alan clearly wanted to tell him. Danny hoped Harry would turn up soon – maybe that way he’d be spared the grisly details of his partner’s relationship with this ‘Ana’?

They were sitting in a corner of the bar. He took his first sip of the sherbet-sweetness of the anis. Harry had waxed lyrical about it on the plane over, and Danny had to admit it was a pleasant drink. He saw Alan take a long swig of his own. Yolanda’s attention, he noticed, seemed to have wandered to looking around the bar.

“So… you need to know that Yolanda and Ana are sisters,” Alan said, waiting for Danny’s reaction. What reaction was expected, Danny wondered? He decided on “Really?” with a sort of half-shocked expression. It was the right choice, he realized, since Alan responded with a grin.

“Yep! How bizarre is that? Two English brothers and two Spanish sisters. And I have Harry to thank that I met Yolanda!” Here, he raised his glass in a toast to his absent brother. Yolanda gave them both a weak smile, then turned back to her people-watching, seeming not at all interested in the discussion, with only half an ear to it.

“But Ana was different, Danny. Ana was special. Harry loved Ana very much. Much more than I love Yolanda.” Danny couldn’t understand the bitter undertone of Alan’s words, still yet process the idea of someone like Harry being in love. So? What was the big deal?

“He screwed it up, Danny. If you ever met her, you’d realize what a mistake he made. You just have to take one look at her…” (Alan glanced at Yolanda, and saw she had tuned out of the discussion – bored, no doubt, Danny thought) “… you’d see what he lost.”

Man meets woman, man falls in love. It doesn’t work out. It was hardly front page news, Danny was thinking. It wasn’t even so unusual that a couple of brothers might end up with a couple of sisters. He’d seen a dozen examples in researching people’s family history. It happened. Just while he was wondering what the big deal was, Alan jumped back:
“We’re not very close, Harry and me. Too similar. Too much rivalry from an early age. Have you got brothers or sisters, Danny?” he asked, genuinely enough. Danny shook his head.
“Well, in my opinion you got the best deal. Don’t get me wrong. I love Harry. He’s like a brother to me…”

The joke, lame as it was, rang an alarm bell in Danny’s mind. ‘This isn’t sibling rivalry,’ he thought, ‘this is a war!’ He wondered what might have happened, in the past, to lead the two brothers to this point. Yet, relations couldn’t be so strained as all that, or surely Alan wouldn’t be spending the evening hosting a friend of his brother’s who he’d never met before?

*

“Harry,” Ana said, finally. “I want to sleep with you tonight.”

The statement might have come as more of a shock to Harry if he hadn’t noticed Ana’s mood softening when he came back to their table. For once, Harry let himself loose, resisted the temptation to analyze what she’d said. Well, that’s to say he only analyzed it a little: this is Harry McFry we’re talking about, after all. He knew he wanted to be with Ana tonight more than anything he could remember wanting before. Just the way she smiled, the way – dammit – she said his name, was enough to make him feel a hunger for her that he thought he’d locked away. Yet, what was she thinking about, saying a thing like that? He wondered how bad her marriage could be that she could come out with an invitation quite so baldly as that. He needed a cigarette, and took one out the pack on the table.

“What about him, Ana?” he asked, as he lit it. Booking into a cheap hotel somewhere off the Gran Via was one thing, but going back to her flat was quite another. Where was this woman coming from?
Ana smiled: “There’s no need to worry, Harry. I’ve organised things for tonight. We’ll have the place to ourselves. Just say ‘yes’. Don’t you understand? That’s all you have to say!”

Harry said ‘yes’, of course. Even if he was wondering what kind of calculation and organization it had taken Ana to free herself for the night.

They arranged it that Harry would go to her flat around midnight. They could both be excused if their goodbye kiss was a little more passionate than the customers of the tiny bar were accustomed to seeing. It made Harry late for his rendezvous with Alan and Danny. And it made Ana realize what a mistake the last five years had been: for her, for Harry and for everyone else involved.

Chapter 89

Harry McFry. A washed-up, emotionally empty, forty-something guy with a string of failed relationships behind him. Quite a catch, then, for an attractive, articulate, academically-bright, woman like Ana. But yet...

When he walked in the bar and she saw him for the first time in five years, an emptiness inside her suddenly filled itself with a yearning she thought she’d conquered. Ana had solved the problem of Harry McFry by moving on with her life. Why should it be a shock to her to think that maybe Harry hadn’t?

Looking at him now, she tried to mask the unexpected passion she felt for him. How dare he think for a minute that he could just ‘arrive’ in her life like this, when there had been so many changes? And for him to seem so disinterested in those changes – that was the most galling thing of all for her.

Was he really just here on ‘business’? She couldn’t help but be intrigued by the fact that ‘her’ Harry was involved in helping solve a mystery that had perplexed some of her country’s finest minds – finding the owner of the mysterious, unredeemed bond.
But, Harry – how could you be so insensitive as to ignore (to seem so callous, so diffident about) something as important as him?

Despite his apparent disinterest in how her life had changed, she knew she still desired Harry, in a way she had never wanted another man. It was painful for her to acknowledge, but merely looking at him brought back the feelings she'd had for him those years ago, like the wash of a wave. None of this had seemed possible to her when she’d agreed to meet up with him again.

Then, when he mentioned DNA tests, her defensive instinct had taken over. Where did he imagine he was even coming from, with an idea like that? He still had a hold on her, she realized, when he had (magically?) re-assured her it was this ‘business’ of his, again. Finally - and she was almost grateful to see it - she had worked out he didn’t really know anything.

Alan hadn’t told him. It was impossible that Harry had known. Nobody – not even Harry, five years down the line – could have seen it as unimportant, if he knew. He hadn’t lost his sensitivity, after all. He was just ignorant.

She watched him order more drinks. The bar was getting busier, and he had to wait a while to collect them. She thought about when he had walked out on her. He’d said he couldn’t give her what she wanted, had worried about his debts, had no confidence that he could make a new life with her in a country which he said he loved, but in which he was a stranger. Why, Harry? She had wanted to ask him that question so many times since then. Your brother did it! Couldn’t you? She’d realized, eventually, that she was stronger than him, and each passing year had made her stronger. Looking at him now, she wondered whether he had regained any of his strength, or was he still lost in the past?

Harry McFry wasn’t nearly as smart as he liked to think he was. When he came back from the bar with the drinks, Ana already knew something he didn’t. Whatever else Harry might be doing beforehand, at the end of the night she’d be taking him home.