Chapter 98

Alan McFry always enjoyed visiting the flea market. It sprawled all down the hill behind the Retiro Park, full of bustle and life and just a perfect microcosm of everything he liked about Spain, and about Madrid. The locals were dressed against the relative chill of an early February wind, so that the tourists were even more conspicuous.

Now, as he wandered slowly past the stalls with Danny Longhurst by his side, his thoughts were pre-occupied by Harry. He’d guessed he might have ended up at Ana’s – so much was predictable. But he’d been alarmed to learn that Danny had been unceremoniously jettisoned by his brother so early in the night.

“If I’d known what Harry was up to, I would have taken you out myself, Danny!” he exclaimed, as he paused at a bar to order up two short coffees. Danny, however, was clearly being philosophical about the evening that had passed – Alan could sense he wasn’t nearly as upset (offended even) by Harry’s behaviour as he should have been.

“It’s OK, Alan,” Danny said, “I had a good night on my own, anyway.” But a bit of him was thinking maybe he would have enjoyed the company, at times.

“So, what did you get up to – a young lad like you on the loose on a Saturday night? I didn’t hear you come in until after five…” Alan was wearing a ‘you old rogue, you’ smile, but Danny didn’t seem to want to rise to the bait.

“Just a few bars – a couple of clubs. I like it here,” was all he volunteered.

“Well, he was out of order doing that. And when I see him, I’ll tell him. What’s he got lined up for you later?” As he spoke, Danny noticed Alan’s eyes wandering, and followed them to a young girl sat in the corner of the bar. He wondered if Yolanda had to be as observant of her partner’s wayward gaze…

Danny wasn’t sure about the rest of the day. He remembered Harry’s pledge to make it up for him on Sunday, thought perhaps he was intending to spend some ‘quality time’ with him, but the truth was, he didn’t know. When he got back to Alan’s flat that morning, there was no sign of Harry, but he’d found Lillian’s bond on the bathroom floor, and penned his note to Harry in the hope that he’d get it before whatever business he was transacting got underway. He didn’t much feel like hanging around to wait for him, so Alan’s suggestion of a visit to the market was taken up with pleasure.

“Hey, Danny…” Alan said, when he’d finally turned his attention away from the girl, “did Harry ever mention much about Carrie – my ex-wife?” It was a lightly-enough phrased question, but Danny still felt a discomfort welling up. He was getting used to that, with the McFry’s.

“No. Not really. I got the impression they see each other regularly. Didn’t he pick your son up from the airport this week?”

“Yes – that’s Adam. He was over here visiting,” Alan explained, pausing to down his coffee in one gulp. “So … you don’t think there’s anything going on between them? Don’t feel embarrassed about saying, will you?”

‘Ye Gods!’ Danny thought. ‘This family just gets more complicated by the minute.’

“I couldn’t say. He never mentioned anything, if that’s what you mean…”

“Oh, well. I expect it will all come out in the wash. Come on – let’s move on. There’s a great bookstall just up the street,” Alan said, doing his best to make it sound as though he wasn’t interested, one way or the other. That just left Danny wondering how dirty the McFry linen really was.

Thank You

Many thanks to Theresa H Hall for nominating me for a Thinking Blogger Award - much appreciated. I understand I get the pleasure of nominating five other bloggers for the award, so I will do this via my companion blog, A Diary on the Writing of Harry McFry.

Chapter 97

By the time Harry had got back to Alan’s flat he was feeling choked - like when he was a young boy, and his mother sprayed hairspray just a little too wildly, so that for a moment or two he couldn’t breathe. He’d jogged the whole way, knowing he’d be unlikely to see a cab so early on a Sunday morning. The streets were quiet, and all along the route he checked the pavement – just for the chance that he’d maybe see a document lying there, worth rather a lot of money. But, of course, he didn’t.

He rang the bell for the flat, and caught his breath back. In a moment or two, Yolanda answered, and buzzed him in.

When he got up the stairs, the door to the flat was open. Yolanda was waiting in the hallway wearing, he saw, the identical dressing gown to her sister’s.
“You dirty stop-out, Harry McFry,” she said, teasingly. “I don’t suppose I need to ask where you’ve been?” She smiled at him, even as she noticed he looked anxious, agitated. Harry sensed the flat was empty apart from the two of them.

“Where’s Danny?” he asked, surprising Yolanda by pushing past her and going straight to his room.
“He’s out with Alan. They went to the market at El Rastro. You could have gone, too – if you’d been home, of course,” she called after him.
He looked quickly about the room, but there was no sign of Lillian’s bond. His mind was racing, now: where the hell could it be?

“Oh, Harry…” Yolanda said, at the door to the room now, “Danny said to give you this.” And she handed him an envelope. Pre-occupied with his continued search, which now extended to underneath the bed, Harry stuffed the envelope in his shirt pocket, folded over.

“When are they back?” he asked, now scattering the sheets from his made-up bed, in case what he was looking for might have (somehow, quite improbably) have hidden itself away there.
“Not until later. What’s the matter Harry – you look like you might have lost something.”
Yolanda’s voice was more clipped than Ana’s, less tainted with an American drawl. But it was harder, too – she was the cynical one of the pair, always ready with a barbed comment, and her thin smile told him she was enjoying the spectacle of Harry McFry looking flustered.

“I could do with a drink, Yolanda. Anything going?” Harry asked, hoping for something alcoholic to calm himself a little, and maybe just wishing she’d take her sarcasm elsewhere. Yolanda turned to go to the lounge to sort out something for him.

Briefly, Harry wondered if he might have done her a disservice. “Have you seen a piece of paper?” he shouted after her. “I had it here last night, and then took it out when I went to see Ana. I may have dropped it here when I came back before I took Danny out.”
“Try the envelope, Harry – Danny said it was important!” she shouted back.
Harry sat on the edge of the mess of a bed and pulled the envelope out of his pocket.

Inside it, he found the bond. Slowly, his heart beat started to slow again. Then, he saw a note Danny had written, and skimmed it to learn that he’d found the bond on the bathroom floor when he’d got back to the flat. He knew Harry would need it. He wouldn’t be around for the rest of the day – had a ‘few things to do’. He hoped Harry would understand. Harry’s sense of relief was so palpable that he called out to Yolanda, euphorically: “This is it – it’s what I was looking for!”

By now, she had returned with a scotch for them both. She sat on the bed beside him, and handed him his drink.
“I am so glad for you, Harry,” she said, wanly. “I hate to see you frustrated.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t wasted on Harry. He took a swig of the whisky and soon his brain was back on an even keel again. World of Harry was starting to return to something like normality.

He checked his watch. He had more than an hour to kill before he’d be meeting Yolanda’s sister, and the meeting at the Ministry. Maybe it would be a chance to make amends with Yolanda – he knew, already, that she seemed to hate him. If his brother and her were really going to be a long-term item, he owed it to them all too try to get along with her, at least.

His mood was lighter. “Fancy some breakfast?” he asked. Yolanda saw the olive branch in the question. She seemed to consider the idea for a moment, before replying: “Sure – let’s do it.”

Chapter 96

They were dressed now, and sat across the table from each other in Ana’s small kitchen.

“The meeting is at 11.30am,” she said, and scribbled down the address for him on a piece of paper torn from a calendar. “Don’t you dare be late. They are doing you a favour even seeing us today,” she warned him, as she handed the scrap to him.

It was just after 9.30am. Harry knew he’d have to go back to Alan’s flat to collect Danny and wondered (but only briefly) how he’d fared last night.

“Don’t worry, Ana … we’ll be there,” he said. Ana suddenly bristled.

“Who is ‘we’?” she asked, sharply.

Harry was alert now to every change in Ana’s tone, and caught the jealousy in her voice perfectly. Did it mean there was still a chance, with Ana? Reassurance was necessary, he knew.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Ana. I’m here with a colleague – you’ll like him.”

“You never mentioned him before,” she said, calmer now, he noticed, the green eyed monster having retreated back into whatever cave it lived in.

“No. Danny’s his name. He’s stopping over at Alan’s, too. He’s a bright kid – kind of like the son I never had.”

She looked him in the eye. “You never lost the knack, did you?” she said, and it was as if she was pulling a knife from her chest.

A casual observer of the two of them that morning might wonder that they could even speak at all, so beyond them was the idea of a ‘normal’ conversation. Harry felt almost like he’d been swimming, blindfolded, in a pool of bitter, sun-sharp lemon juice, so that whenever he opened his mouth he caught the backwash. Ana, though, had had enough.

“OK, Harry. If we’re going to do this, let’s keep it strictly business, shall we?” If they were ever going to get anywhere, this was probably the safest route, she knew.

“Now – let me see that bond again before we take it to the Ministry…”

Harry reached into his shirt pocket to dig it out. But it wasn’t there. He casually checked the floor beside him, only slowly becoming anxious when he couldn’t see it there. Ana saw his anxiety, realized he must have misplaced it.

“I’ll check the bedroom!” she said, dashing out of the kitchen. By the time they had checked the lounge, the hallway and the stairwell they both realized, reluctantly and finally, that the bond was missing.

“Think where you were last night. When was the last time you showed it to anyone?” Ana asked.

Harry knew it had been when he was with Ana, in the bar. The thought that it might be lying there, folded on the floor beneath a table near the window, haunted him. But equally, it could be on the street, on the back seat of a taxi, somewhere in a nightclub or all points in between.

“I hope to God I left it at Alan’s, Ana!” Harry said. It was his best hope, he knew. He’d taken his shirt off for a wash before he’d gone out again with Danny, and the chances were it had fallen out then. Even so, it did cross his mind that Ana’s behaviour had been (to put it mildly) odd this morning, and for the briefest of moments he wondered whether she might have taken it. The thought – uncharitable, at best, and downright cynical at worst – was dismissed as quickly as it came. It didn’t make sense for her to arrange the meeting with the Ministry official if she’d done that. And anyway, however odd she had been, that just wasn’t Ana.

Harry glanced at the address she’d given him earlier. It was not far from the old Post Office building in the centre of Madrid.

“I’m going back to Alan’s now. Can I meet you at the Post Office at 11.25am?”

“Sure. But you had better let me know if you find the bond, Harry. There’s not much point in wasting their time if you don’t have it,” she said. “Let me know, before I set off.”

With that, Harry grabbed his coat and fair ran out of the flat, his mind now focused on only one thing. Well, at least it got rid of all that mixed up stuff Ana had been going on about – so that was alright, then.