The Spanish Game

‘They know you here?’ he asks, lighting a cigarette. The manager wasn’t around when we came in, but one of the waiters recognized me and produced an acrobatic nod.

‘A little bit,’ I tell him.

‘Gets busy.’

‘It’s the weekend.’

Resting his cigarette in an ashtray, Saul unfolds the napkin on his plate and tears off a slice of bread from a basket on the table. Crumbs fall on the cloth as he dips it into a small metal bowl filled with factory mayonnaise. Every table in the place is filled to capacity and an elderly couple are sitting directly beside us, tackling a platter of crab. The husband, who has a lined face and precisely combed hair, occasionally cracks into a chunky claw and sucks noisily on the flesh and the shells. There’s a smell of garlic and fish and I think Saul likes it here. Using his menu Spanish he orders a bottle of house wine and shapes himself for a serious conversation.

‘Out on the street, when you said you missed not being allowed to go home, what did you mean by that?’

‘Just what I said. That it’s not possible for me to go back to England. It’s not safe.’

‘According to who?’

‘According to the British government.’

‘You mean you’ve been threatened with arrest?’

‘Not in so many words.’

‘But they’ve taken your passport away?’

‘I have several passports.’

The majority of madrileños do not speak English, so I am not too concerned about the couple sitting beside us who appear to be lost in an animated conversation about their grandchildren. But I am naturally averse to discussing my predicament, particularly in such a public place. Saul rips off another chunk of bread and inhales on his cigarette. ‘So what exactly’s the problem?’

He may be looking for a fight.

‘The problem?’

The waiter comes back. Slapping down a bottle of unlabelled white wine, he asks if we’re ready to order and then spins away when I ask for more time. It is suddenly hot at our table and I take off my sweater, watching Saul as he pours out two glasses.

‘The problem is straightforward.’ It is suddenly difficult to articulate, to defend, one of my deepest convictions. ‘I worked for the British government in a highly secret operation designed to embarrass and undermine the Yanks. I was caught and I was fired. I threatened to spill the beans to the press and told two of my closest friends about it. In the corridors of Thames House and Vauxhall Cross, I’m not exactly Man of the Year.’

‘You think they still care?’

The question is like a slap in the face. I pretend to ignore it but Saul looks pleased with himself, as if he knows he has landed a blow. Why the hostility? Why the cynicism? Short of something to say, I pick up the menu and decide, more or less at random, what both of us are going to eat. I don’t consult Saul about this and gesture at the waiter with a wave of my hand. He comes over immediately and flicks open a pad.

‘Sí. Queremos pedir pimientos de padrón, una ración de jamón ibérico, ensalada mixta para dos y el plato de gambas y cangrejos. Vale?’

‘Vale.’

‘And don’t forget the chips,’ Saul says, the sarcasm drifting away.

‘Look.’ Suddenly the absurdity of my situation in a stranger’s eyes has become worryingly clear. I need to get this right. ‘We’re America’s only friend in the world, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. They do what they like, we do what they tell us. It’s a one-way friendship which nevertheless needs to look rock solid or Europe will be singing the “Marseillaise”. So having somebody like me at large is potentially a huge embarrassment.’

Saul actually smirks. ‘You don’t think you’re slightly overestimating your importance?’

It’s pure goading, poking around for a reaction. Don’t rise to it. Don’t bite.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning things have moved on since 1997, mate. Men have flown large planes into very tall buildings. The CIA is looking for anthrax in downtown Baghdad. They’re not worrying about whether Alec Milius is getting cleared through customs at Gatwick airport. We’re days away from invading Iraq, for Christ’s sake. You think your average MI5 officer is concerned about a tiny operation that went wrong five years ago? You don’t think he’s got other things on his mind?’

I drain my glass and refill it without saying a word. Saul breathes a funnel of smoke at a fishing net tacked erratically to the wall and I am on the point of losing my temper.

‘So you think I’m delusional? You think the fact that five years ago my apartment in Milan was ransacked by the CIA is just a product of a fertile imagination?’

‘When were you living in Milan?’

‘For six months in ‘98.’

Saul looks stunned. ‘Jesus.’

‘I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone.’

He recovers almost immediately. ‘But that could have been just a burglary. How do you know it was the Yanks?’

I actually enjoy what comes next, wiping the smug look off his face. ‘I know because Katharine told me about it on the phone. She said that Fortner, the man who taught her everything, her mentor and father figure, had lost his job as a result of what I’d done and that he still hadn’t found work two years later. A veteran CIA officer hoodwinked by a 25-year-old rookie selling fake research data for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Both of them were made to look a laughing stock by what I did to them. She said that her own career was as good as over. Back to desk work in Washington, blown for all European operations. And all because of Alec Milius. Katharine spent two years after I disappeared trying to discover where I’d gone. I think she went a bit crazy. Eventually she tracked me to my apartment in Milan, got my phone number, address, everything. I’d been sloppy. The CIA broke in, took my computer, passport, even my fucking car that was parked outside. I had nine thousand dollars cash under a mattress. That went as well. Katharine said it was just payback for what I stole from her “organization”. Hence the need to get the hell out of Italy. Hence the reason why I’ve been just a little bit paranoid ever since I got to Madrid.’

‘They don’t know you’re here?’

‘Somebody knows I’m here.’

‘What do you mean, “Somebody knows I’m here”?’

I am aware that what I’m about to tell Saul may sound over-the-top, but it’s important to me that he should understand the seriousness of my predicament.

‘My letters have been tampered with, my car has been followed, one of my mobile phones was tapped–’

Saul interrupts. ‘When did this happen?’

‘It happens all the time. You haven’t seen me since I moved here. You don’t know what Spain is like. Just realize that they keep an eye on me, OK, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘Even now? Nearly six years on?’

‘Five years, two hundred and thirty-eight days. Look. I have five bank accounts. When I call one of them and they put me on hold, I think it’s because there’s a note against my name and they’re checking me out. I have to change my phone every three weeks. If someone is listening to a Walkman next to me on the metro, I make sure they’re not wearing a wire. The other day I was driving to Granada and the same car followed me from Jaén for an hour.’

‘So? Maybe they were connected to Endiom. Maybe they were lost. You know how someone very high on coke will ask you the same question over and over again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well that’s what you sound like. Somebody very high. Somebody very paranoid. Your emails, talking to you on the phone, listening to you now. OK, five years ago, as a one-off, Katharine tracked you down and gave you a scare. She was pissed off, she had a right to be. But she’s a big girl, she would have got over it by now. The rest of this is not happening, Alec. You’re living in cloud cuckoo land. For once in your life, try to see beyond your own ego. Christ, you wouldn’t even come to my wedding. Believe me, if the CIA or Five or Six had really wanted to make your life difficult, they would have done it by now. Somebody could have planted drugs on you, got you thrown in jail. Not just turned over your flat. You get people on the run like Tomlinson or Shayler and they make it impossible for them to move. No work, no residency, threats and broken promises. You’re a fucking footnote, Alec.’

Food suddenly arrives in waves: a flat pink plate of jamón wedged in near my elbow; a deep metal bowl of salad tossed with carrot and canned tuna; the house speciality of prawns piled eight inches high on a rock of boiled crab and razor fish; a platter of pimientos de padrón, charred and salted to perfection.

Saul asks quietly what we’re eating.

‘They’re grilled peppers. One in ten is supposed to be hot. As in spicy. You’ll like them.’ He bites at one and nods approvingly. ‘Look, there’s one thing you should understand.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I am not delusional. I am not paranoid.’ I’m not a fucking footnote, either.

‘Fine,’ he says.

‘I’m just trying to live my life…’

‘…with the handbrake on.’

Silence. It is as if the whole notion of my exile is a joke to him.

‘Why are you being like this? Why are you trying to goad me?’

Saul has been piling salad onto his plate but he stops and fixes my gaze.

‘Why? Because I no longer have any idea who you are, what you stand for. A person changes, of course they do, it’s a natural process. They find work, they find something that fulfils them, they meet the right girl, blah blah blah. At least that’s the idea. And as you get older you’re supposed to work out what’s important to you and dump what isn’t. It’s naive to think that at thirty a person is going to be the same animal that they were at twenty. Life has an impact.’

I mutter, ‘Of course it does,’ as if to dilute what’s coming, but Saul is shaking his head.

‘Something fundamental shifted in you five years ago, man. You were my closest, my oldest friend. We went to school together, to university. But I had literally no idea that you were capable of doing what you did. One day you were just reticent, ironic, mildly ambitious Alec Milius; the next you’re this creature of the state, a lying, manipulating, barely moral…thing, risking everything in your life for what exactly? To this day I can’t get my head round it. Personal fulfilment? Patriotism? And you used me in that, you used our friendship. Three straight years of lies. Every day it affected me, like the loss of someone, like mourning.’

All of the shame and despair and regret that I have experienced since Kate’s death is crystallized in this instant. Saul’s face is as hard and as unforgiving as I can ever remember seeing it. It is the end of our friendship. With just a few stark sentences he has engendered a violent and sudden cut-off.

‘So that’s it?’

‘That’s what?’

‘The end of things between us? That’s what you came out here to tell me? That it’s better if I don’t contact you any more?’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘You said it yourself. I’m a liar, a manipulator. I’m a footnote.’

‘That doesn’t mean it’s the end of our friendship.’ Saul looks at me in amazement, as if I have completely misjudged both him and the situation. ‘Jesus, we’re not at school any more, Alec. This isn’t a playground.’ I stare down at the table and cradle the back of my neck, bewildered and embarrassed. ‘Short of you developing an all-new fixation with Catalan schoolboys we’re still going to be mates. Things don’t end between people just because they betray them. In fact, that’s probably when they start to get interesting.’ There is a long burst of applause from the next-door room. ‘Let’s face it, we’re always more grateful to the people who have hurt us in life than to the ones who just let things drift by. I learned from you, and that’s what it’s all about. I’m just not going to sit here and let you think that no harm came from what happened…’

‘Believe me, I don’t think that for a second.’

‘Let me finish. It’s important for me to say this to you, face to face. I don’t get the chance on email. I don’t get the chance on the phone.’

‘OK.’

‘What you did was wrong. You didn’t kill Kate or Will, but your work and your lying led to their deaths. And I don’t see you doing anything out here to put that right. I don’t see you making amends.’

Ordinarily I might challenge Saul on this. Make amends? Who is he to speak to me this way? I make amends with my solitude. I pay penance with exile. But he has always believed in the myth of self-improvement; any reasoning I might employ would only burn out in the fire of his moral authority. We find ourselves eating in silence, as if there is nothing left to be said. I could try to defend myself but it would only feel like a tactic, a lie, and Saul would jump on it as quickly as he leaped on my earlier defence. At the next table the grandparents are standing up with considerable effort, having paid their bill and left just a few small coins as a tip. At the base of their receipt it says ‘No A La Guerra’ and the waiter has written ‘Gracias’ in felt-tip pen. The husband helps his wife into a garish fur coat and casts both of us an inscrutable smile. Perhaps he understood English after all. For once, I do not care.

‘Jesus!’

Saul has bitten into a hot padrón and downs an entire glass of wine to kill the heat.

‘You OK?’

‘Fine,’ he says, pursing his cheeks. ‘We need more booze.’

And this small incident seems to break the spell of his disquiet. A second bottle comes and we spend the rest of the meal talking about Chelsea and Saddam Hussein, about Saul’s grandfather–who has lung cancer–and even Heloise, whom he is inclined to forgive in spite of her blatant adultery. I note the double-standard in his attitude to the two of us and wonder if there is something saintly in Saul which actually encourages people to betray him. There has certainly always been an element of masochism in his personality.

With coffee, the waiter brings us two small shots of lemon liqueur–on the house–and we down them in a gulp. Saul is keen to pay (‘as a present, for putting me up’) and I feel mildly drunk as we make our way out past the kitchen and into the bustle of Chueca. It is past midnight and the nightlife is well under way.

‘You know a decent bar?’ he asks.

I know plenty.

SEVEN

Churches

Spaniards dedicate so much of their lives to enjoying themselves that a word actually exists to describe the span of time between midnight and 6 a.m., when ordinary European mortals are safely tucked up in bed. La madrugada. The hours before dawn.

‘It’s a good word,’ Saul says, though he thinks he’ll be too drunk to remember it.

We leave Chueca and walk west into Malasaña, one of the older barrios in Madrid, still a haunt of drug dealers and penniless students though, by reputation, neither as violent nor as rundown as it was twenty years ago. The narrow streets are teeming and dense with crowds that gradually thin out as we head south in the direction of Gran Vía.

‘Haven’t we just been here?’ Saul asks.

‘Same neighbourhood. Further south,’ I explain. ‘We’re going in a circle, looping back towards the flat.’

A steep hill leads down to Pez Gordo, a bar I love in the neighbourhood, favoured by a relaxed, unostentatious crowd. There’s standing room only and the windows are fogged up with posters and condensation, but inside the atmosphere is typically rousing and flamenco music rolls and strums on the air. I get two cañas within a minute of reaching the bar and walk back to Saul, who has found us a spot a few feet from the door.

‘Do you want to hear my other theory?’ he says, jostled by a customer with dreadlocked hair.

‘What’s that?’

‘I know the real reason you like living out here.’

‘You do?’

‘You thought that moving overseas would give you a chance to wipe the slate clean, but all you’ve done is transfer your problems to a different time zone. They’ve followed you.’

Here we go again.

‘Can’t we talk about something else? It’s getting a little tedious, all this constant self-analysis.’

‘Just hear me out. I think that some days you wake up and you want to believe that you’ve changed, that you’re not the person you were six years ago. And other times you miss the excitement of spying so much that it’s all you can do not to ring SIS direct and all but beg them to take you back. That’s your conflict. Is Alec Milius a good guy or a bad guy? All this paranoia you talk about is just window-dressing. You love the fact that you can’t go home. You love the fact that you’re living in exile. It makes you feel significant.’

It amazes me that he should know me so well, but I disguise my surprise with impatience.

‘Let’s just change the subject.’

‘No. Not yet. It makes perfect sense.’ He’s toying with me again. A girl with a French accent asks Saul for a light, and I see that his nails are bitten to the quick as she takes it. He’s grinning. ‘People have always been intrigued by you, right? And you’re playing on that in this new environment. You’re a mysterious person, no roots, no past. You’re a topic of conversation.’

‘And you’re pissed.’

‘It’s the classic expat trap. Can’t cope with life back home, make a splash overseas. El inglés misterioso. Alec Milius and his amazing mountain of money.’

Why is Saul thinking about the money?

‘What did you say?’

A momentary hesitation, then, ‘Forget it.’

‘No. I won’t forget it. Just keep your voice down and explain what you meant.’

Saul grins lopsidedly and takes off his coat. ‘All I’m saying is that you came here to get away from your troubles and now they’ve passed you by. It’s time for you to move on. Time for you to do something.’

For a wild moment, undoubtedly reinforced by alcohol, it crosses my mind that Saul has been sent here to recruit me, to lure me back into Five. Like Elliott sent to Philby in Lebanon, the best friend dispatched at the state’s request. His angle certainly sounds like a pitch, although the notion is ridiculous. More likely Saul is simply adhering to that part of his nature that has always annoyed me and which I had somehow allowed myself to forget; namely, the moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself.

‘So what do you suggest I do?’

‘Just come home. Just put an end to this phase of your life.’

The idea is certainly appealing. Saul is right that there are times when I look back on what happened in London with nostalgia, when I regret that it all came to an end. But for Kate’s death and the exhaustions of secrecy, I would probably do it all again. For the thrill of it, for the sense of being pivotal. But I can’t state that directly without appearing insensitive.

‘No. I like it here. The lifestyle. The climate.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

‘Well then, at least don’t change your mobile phone every three weeks. And just get one email address. Please. It pisses me off and annoys your mum. She says she still doesn’t know why you’re out here, why you don’t just come home.’

‘You’ve talked to Mum?’

‘Now and again.’

‘What about Lithiby?’

‘Who’s Lithiby?’

If Saul is working for them, they have certainly taught him how to lie. He runs his finger along the wall and inspects it for dust.

‘My case officer at Five,’ I explain. ‘The guy behind everything.’

‘Oh, him. No, of course not.’

‘He’s never been to see you?’

‘Never.’

Someone turns the music up beyond a level at which we can comfortably speak, and I have to shout at Saul to be heard.

‘So where did you put the disks?’

He smiles. ‘In a safe place.’

‘Where?’

Another grin. ‘Somewhere safe. Look, nobody’s ever been to see me. Nobody’s ever been to see your mum. It’s not as if…Alec?’

Julian Church has walked into the bar. Six inches taller than anyone else in the room and dressed like a Royal Fusilier on weekend leave. There are certain things that cannot be controlled, and this is one of them. He spots me immediately and does a little electric shock of surprise.

‘Alec!’

‘Hello, Julian.’

‘Fancy seeing you here.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Night on the tiles?’

‘Apparently. And you?’

‘The very same. My beloved wife fancied a drink, and who was I to argue?’

Julian, as ever, is delighted to see me, but I can feel Saul physically withdrawing, the cool of Shoreditch and Notting Hill reacting with violent distaste to Julian’s tasselled loafers and bottle-green cords. I should introduce them.

‘Saul, this is Julian Church, my boss at Endiom. Julian, this is Saul Ricken, a friend of mine from England.’

‘Ah, the old country,’ Julian says.

‘The old country,’ Saul repeats.

Think. How to deal with this? How do I get us away? A chill wind comes barrelling in through the open door, drawing irritated looks from nearby tables. Julian hops to it like a bellboy, muttering ‘Perdón, perdón,’ as he shuts out the cold. ‘That’s a bit better. Bloody chilly in here. Bloody noisy, too. Señora Church won’t be far behind me. She’s parking the car.’

‘Your wife?’ Saul asks.

‘My wife.’ Julian’s pale skin is flushed and pink, his widow’s peak down to a few fine strands. ‘Madness to drive into town on a Friday night, but she insisted, like most of her countrymen, and who was I to argue? You staying the weekend?’

‘A bit longer,’ Saul replies.

‘I see, I see.’

This is clearly going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. The four of us locked into two or three rounds of drinks, then awkward questions later. I try to keep my eyes away from the door as Julian takes off his coat and hangs it on top of Saul’s. Do I have an exit strategy? We could lie about meeting friends at a club, but I don’t want to arouse Julian’s suspicion or risk a contradiction from Saul. Best just to ride it out.

‘Did you get my email?’ Julian asks, and I am on the point of responding when Sofía walks in behind him. She does well to disguise her reaction; just a flat smile, a clever look of feigned recognition, then fixing her gaze on Julian.

‘Darling, you remember Alec Milius, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’ It doesn’t look like she does. ‘You work with my husband, yes?’

‘And this is his friend, Saul…Ricken, was it? They were here quite by chance. A coincidence.’

‘Ah, una casualidad.’ Sofía looks beautiful tonight, her perfume a lovely sense memory of our long night together at the hotel. She uncurls a black scarf, takes off her coat, kisses me lightly on the cheek and gently squeezes Julian at the elbow.

‘We’ve met before,’ I tell her.

‘Sí. At the office, yes?’

‘I think so.’

Once, when Julian was away on business, Sofía came down to the Endiom building in Retiro and we fucked on his desk.

‘I thought you two met at the Christmas party.’

‘I forget,’ Sofía replies.

She places her scarf on the surface of the cigarette machine and affords me the briefest of glances. Saul appears to be humming along to the music. He may even be bored.

‘So what’s everybody drinking?’

Julian has taken a confident stride forward to coincide with his question, breaking up the huddle around us by dint of his sheer size. Saul and I want cañas, Sofía a Diet Coke.

‘I’m driving,’ she explains, directing her attention at Saul. ‘Hablas español?’

‘Sí, un poco,’ he says, suddenly looking pleased with himself. That was clever of her. She wants to know how much she can get away with saying.

‘Y te gusta Madrid?’

‘Sí. Mucbo. Mucho.’ He gives up. ‘I just arrived tonight.’

And what follows is a pitch-perfect, five-minute exchange about nothing at all: Sofía conducting a conversation about the Prado, about tourists at the Thyssen museum, the week she spent recently in Gloucestershire with Julian’s ageing parents. Just enough chat to cover the span of time before her husband returns from the bar. When he does, all of his attention is focused on me.