The third race was of no interest either, up until then, we hadn’t won anything, our tickets torn up in anger and thrown scornfully to the ground, and Ruibérriz never leaves any game emptyhanded. While we were watching the horses for the next race parading round the paddock – again in a circle, like horses on a merry-go-round – he was busy regaling me with curious and obscene anecdotes about the latest poor sap of a woman to succumb to his Don Juanesque charms and who was currently satisfying his needs, when he turned round at the sound of someone calling out his full name preceded by the word “Señor” (until then, of our acquaintanceship, we had seen only Admiral Admira with his preordained name and his lovely wife, we hadn’t even seen the bearded, bespectacled philosopher who never misses a race, he must have got held up in the fog or perhaps he would only get there for the fifth). He turned round, we turned round, he looked blankly at the woman who had uttered the cry and who was heading straight for me with her hand held out, calling me by his name in that absurd manner, “Señor Ruibérriz de Torres” sounds much too long. It was Señorita Anita, so devoted to the Only One, accompanied by a friend of the same stature and demeanour. The two of them had donned hats as if they were at Ascot, it’s rare nowadays to see someone in a hat, they looked rather common, I could see that Ruibérriz did not approve; but he likes all women on principle, as do I more or less, we’re no different in that respect, although we do differ in approach and method. I lose interest more quickly.
“May I introduce Víctor Francés,” I said, referring to Ruibérriz. “Señorita Anita.”
“Anita Pérez-Antón,” she said. “This is Lali, a friend of mine.” She did not honour her friend with a surname, just as Solitaire had neglected to do with her, in fact he hadn’t introduced her at all, not only did he address everyone informally as “tú”, he didn’t mind his manners generally.
“I hope you don’t have any problems with your tights today,” I said as a joke, to see how she would take it, she seemed jollier than when she was at work. She took it extraordinarily well, and said: “Oh, that was so embarrassing!” And she raised her hand to her mouth when she laughed, and added, explaining more for her friend’s benefit than for the real Ruibérriz: “Can you believe it, I got this huge ladder in my tights and I didn’t have time to change before meeting this gentleman who had an appointment with the boss. The gentleman was going to write a speech for him. Anyway, it just got worse and worse during the meeting, they were almost hanging off me by the end of it.” And she made a gesture with her hands indicating the hem of her skirt, which again was very short and tight. Ruibérriz couldn’t fail to notice this gesture, doubtless imagining something smutty. “I was absolutely mortified, there I was with my tights in shreds and no one saying a word, talk about sang-froid.”
“Sang-froid” was rather an old-fashioned term, but then she worked in a place that was, by definition, old-fashioned. More and more words are falling into disuse, they get discarded more and more rapidly. I drew her aside a little and said: “By the way, I’ve finished the speech, Señor Téllez will take it to him tomorrow.” Ruibérriz heard and understood, I imagine that this only increased his interest in the young women, not that he needs much incentive, the older he gets the more readily he runs after any woman with a bit of charm. But if the four of us were to stay together, one thing was certain, he would have to pair off with Lali (possibly an orphan with no surname). Besides, it was unlikely that we would find their company amusing for more than one or two races, until the fifth. The same went for them. It would be better to arrange to meet one night, the four of us together, two or four.
“What do you mean tomorrow?” said Señorita Anita, recovering her professional air for a moment. She looked awful in that red hat. “Didn’t anyone tell you that the Strasbourg thing’s been cancelled? I gave orders for them to phone Señor Téllez and warn him. Don’t tell me they didn’t do it.”
“We were working on it until yesterday, he didn’t say anything to me,” I replied, after a few seconds’ pause. “Perhaps Señor Téllez forgot to tell me, he is getting on a bit, after all.” I felt sorry for Téllez, at first, for his wasted Monday at the Palace, then it occurred to me that perhaps he had known and hadn’t said anything to me in order to detain me there for a few more days, keeping him company at home. That speech would end up in a drawer and stay there for good, they’re written for specific occasions. I didn’t like the idea, even if I was only a ghostwriter. I thought: “Poor old man, he certainly knows how to look after himself, how to get by from day to day.”
The four of us headed for the tote, I cupped Señorita Anita’s elbow lightly in my hand, a protective gesture, Ruibérriz was a little behind me, obliged now to talk to Lali, whose hat had even less to recommend it.
“I’m sorry you did all that work for nothing,” said Anita. “But you’ll get paid, you’ll get paid anyway, make sure you send us your bill.” “It’s just like the scripts I write that never come to anything,” I thought, “more wastage. At least people give me work, though, at least I’m not unemployed like so many others.” Señorita Anita dropped her programme, I crouched down to pick it up and she crouched down too, more slowly, and, as I stood up, I deliberately brushed against her bent head (again she was slower than me, her skirt rather too short for such endeavours) and managed to knock her hat off. I crouched down again to pick it up, furtively wiping it on the ground in order to be able to regret it having got so dirty. “Oh, shit,” she said. I don’t know if she would dare say such a thing at the Palace.
“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s absolutely filthy now, the ground here’s disgusting. Don’t worry, I’ll hold on to it until we can get something to clean it with, the race is just about to start. Anyway you look prettier without your hat.” It was true, she did, she had a pleasantly rounded face and nice dark hair, but, basically, I just couldn’t bear that hat, there are some things I get quite obsessive about.
The four of us placed our bets, they bet small, amateurish sums, we bet higher, they must have thought we were rich, in today’s terms we are in a way, I’m richer than Ruibérriz, I work harder and I don’t live off someone else. He gave advice to poor, disinherited Lali while I passed a hot tip on to Anita the courtier. We returned to the grandstand with our tickets, they kept theirs clutched in their hands as if they were objects of great value which they were afraid to lose. We put ours in the breast pocket of our jackets, the one intended for a handkerchief, worn, of course, with just a corner showing, I never have a handkerchief in mine, Ruibérriz always does, brightly coloured ones, he had unbuttoned his raincoat to show off his pectorals. He was reverting to his polo-shirted self, we had removed our gloves. They hadn’t brought any binoculars with them and, out of gallantry, we had to lend them ours, we would certainly have to divest ourselves of their company by the fifth and most important race, we didn’t want to have to guess at the result of that one. What with the mist and now deprived of our binoculars, we couldn’t see a thing, we had no idea what was going on, Lali got confused and declared that a horse had won when, in fact, it hadn’t, she wanted her horse to win at all costs, the horse on which she had pinned her penury. We all lost, we immediately tore up our tickets with the appropriate mixture of scorn and rage, they held out a little longer, hoping for a late and unlikely disqualification that would benefit them. Now it was time to go to the bar by the paddock, the same steps repeated again and again after each of the six races, that’s the charm of it, the half-hour wait between each race, and then they’re over in a moment, but occasionally they’re memorable.
“How come Strasbourg was cancelled?” I asked Anita who now had a Coca-Cola in her hand. I was still hanging on to her hat, it was a real nuisance. “I thought it was supposed to be important, and I imagine your boss’s diary is arranged a long time in advance and must be pretty well immutable.”
“Yes, it is in principle, but he’s so exhausted, the poor thing, that sometimes we have no option but to cancel something at one fell stroke, just lik
e that.” (I imagine she was confusing “at a stroke” and “at one fell swoop”.) “Better that than just postpone it and mess everything up or try to come up with some compromise, that really would be a muddle.”
“Surely the people affected protest,” I said. “They must feel they’ve been victimized, discriminated against. Aren’t there diplomatic incidents over such things?”
She looked at me impatiently, disapprovingly (she pursed her painted lips) and replied loftily: “Well, tough shit, he already does much more than he should. He’s in demand from all over, it’s just outrageous. What they don’t bloody well realize is that there’s only one of him.” She was distinctly foulmouthed, but then these days everyone is.
“Is that why they call him the Only One?” I asked. “Do you call him that, when you talk about him, I mean?”
She was touchy about that question, she obviously didn’t like the fact that other people knew the nicknames used by the inner circle.
“That, Señor Ruibérriz de Torres, would be telling,” she said. The real Ruibérriz, standing a little further along the bar, couldn’t help but crane his neck slightly when he heard his name. He wasn’t getting anywhere, friend Lali was positively verbose, a regular chatterbox.
“I do hope the cancellation of the speech doesn’t mean that your boss has had some mishap.”
Señorita Anita was more reserved regarding her own feelings than regarding the life and customs of the Lone Ranger. She replied to this question without hesitation: “No, nothing like that, touch wood.” And she lightly tapped the toothpicks in the little porcelain jar on the bar. “He’s just completely worn out, he doesn’t pace himself, and people won’t leave him alone, he wants to please everyone, and he’s not been sleeping well lately. He’s never had that problem before. And obviously it affects him badly, he’s feeling very low, he’s a bit of a wreck actually. He may get over it, this last week has been particularly bad. He says that he starts thinking just as he’s going to sleep and that the thoughts stop him drifting off. Or else he goes on having the thoughts while he’s asleep and then they wake him up.”
“That’s what insomnia’s like,” I said, knowing what she meant, “thoughts take precedence over tiredness or sleep, and if you do manage to get to sleep, you don’t so much dream as think.”
“Well, it’s never happened to me,” said Anita. She was a very healthy young woman, I wasn’t surprised that Only the Lonely liked having her by his side.
“But surely he takes something, there are sleeping pills he could take, he must have a battalion of doctors ready to prescribe them for him.”
“He tried Oasin, do you know it? Oasin Relax, I suppose the name comes from oasis.” I knew a tranquillizer called Oasil Relax, I imagined that was what she meant. “But it’s too weak and had no effect whatsoever. Now they’ve prescribed him some drops from Italy that work better, EN or NE they’re called, I don’t know what the name means, they help him get off to sleep quickly enough, but then he doesn’t sleep through. So no one knows how long this is going to go on for.” The expression “he doesn’t sleep through” was almost maternal.
“He mentioned something about it, I believe, on the day we were there,” I said. “And what does he think about? Has he made any comment? Not that he doesn’t have plenty to worry about, but then he always has had.”
“He says he thinks about himself, that he has doubts. We’re all a bit worried about that.”
“Doubts? What about?”
Señorita Anita grew impatient again, she had quite a temper: “Doubts, dammit, doubts, what does it matter what they’re about? Isn’t that enough?”
“It seems quite enough to me, especially for someone in his position. What does he do when he can’t sleep? Does he catch up on work? He should try not to worry about it, I say that because I’ve suffered from occasional bouts of insomnia for years now.”
“Oh sure, so you’d have him up working all hours too, would you?” She said this in the same tone that Only You had used when addressing the painter Segurola, Anita was a victim of mimetism, it was only natural that she should be. “No, he tries to rest even though he can’t sleep, he lies down and puts his feet up, he reads, watches television, although not all the channels broadcast after midnight; he throws dice to see if he can bore himself to sleep.”
“Dice?”
“Yes, dice.” And Señorita Anita made a gesture as if shaking a pair of dice, blowing on her fist as if she were in Las Vegas, she must have seen a lot of movies, Las Vegas, Ascot. “Come on, give me my hat back,” she said. “I’m going to dab it with a bit of water. Honestly, what a bummer.” If she allowed herself this expression, it was obviously because she had forgotten that I was responsible for that particular bummer.
I handed it back to her in order to get rid of it, but there was no way I was going to let her ask for some water: “You’ll spoil it if you get it wet,” I said.
“Hey, let’s go down to the paddock, the horses came out ages ago,” said Ruibérriz, momentarily interrupting the unstoppable torrent of talk from Lali.
We barely had time to see the horses parade round, we had to run to place our bets, there was a queue at all the windows, the race track was packed like everywhere in Madrid always is, it’s a city of crowds. The two women were staring stupefied and uncomprehending at the screens showing the prices.
“Hey, Ani,” her friend said to her, “wasn’t it in the fourth race that you were supposed to put that big bet on for him?”
“You’re right, it’s lucky you remembered, this is the fourth race, isn’t it?” replied Anita. She hurriedly opened her handbag (she had painted fingernails), took out a piece of paper with a few numbers written on it, along with a thick wad of notes. They looked like new notes, fresh from the Mint, they still had a band around them (before the Civil War, they were made in England: Bradbury and Wilkinson of London were the people commissioned to do it, I’ve seen notes dating from the time of the Republic and they were in perfect condition; before the Civil War, the race track was in the Castellana, not outside the city as it is nowadays and as it has been for decades, it’s an old and honoured place now, La Zarzuela). It was an enormous sum of money, it’s hard to judge how much when the notes have never even been folded. That was no amateur bet, it came from someone who has a tip from a very good source and wants to win a bit of money to set himself up for the year. I felt rather ridiculous holding the two miserable notes I had earmarked for my bet, now it was the turn of Ruibérriz and me to look like beginners. I let her go ahead of me, out of normal politeness and because it suited me to do so.
“All this on number 9, to win,” said Anita to the man at the window. “And I’d like to put this on number 9, the same thing.” And she gave him another large note, separately, doubtless her own bet.
I looked at the price of the horse or rather the mare: Condesa de Montoro, it wasn’t amongst the favourites and the odds were still high, but, at this rate, we would soon lower them. Anita, inexpert in these matters, should have made her own bet first. I took out a third note and bet the same amount on a horse that wasn’t number 9, so as not to be too obvious. But with the notes I had out already I unhesitatingly imitated Anita.
“I’m going to copy you,” I said.
Ruibérriz missed none of this, despite the continuing torrent of words in his ear. He simply let Lali talk and then followed our example, four notes, he bet double what I did, and the price was already reflecting our injections of confidence.
The two young women put their tickets away very carefully in their handbags, they looked at each other, laughing excitedly, covering their mouths with their hands. Anita said to me: “You trust me then, do you?”
“Of course, or rather I trust the friend you’re placing the bet for, you don’t risk sums of money like that willy nilly. Who is he, an expert on the horses?”
“Very much so,” she replied.
“And why doesn’t he come to the races himself?”
“
He can’t always manage it, but sometimes he does.”
Solitary games of dice, risky bets, I didn’t want to link the two things: if we won, it was definitely a hot tip, that is, a scam that not even Ruibérriz was in on. I preferred not to associate the Only One with fraudulent practices, but those crisp new notes …
As soon as we returned to the grandstand, we again lost our binoculars to the two young women. The mist hadn’t lifted but it hadn’t got any worse either. The mass of spectators was blurred and looked even more like a mass, there were no edges to anyone, there was still a few minutes before the start of the fourth race, the horses were entering the boxes, I noticed that Condesa’s rider was a deep red smudge, his hat too, that would help me follow his trail, doomed as I was by my own unending gallantry to watch with the naked eye. We would dump the women for the fifth race, we had had quite enough of seeing nothing.