Duende

‘YOU LIKE THE cante, then?’

The man on the chair in front of me is the hairiest I have ever seen. Sitting here, his brightly coloured silk shirt clinging to his torso, a smell of sweat mixed with sweet, sickly aftershave, he conforms with all my previous ideas of how a Gypsy should be. Gold chains glint faintly through the thick, black mass sprouting at the top of his chest. A half-chewed cigar is twisted in the corner of his mouth as he rolls it with his tongue.

I had found him backstage at the Restaurante Alegrías, one of the more touristy flamenco venues in Madrid. The place was full of Japanese businessmen brought to this gaudy location to be entertained by Spanish hosts who knew almost as little about flamenco as their guests. ‘Typical espanish’, they called it in Spain, mimicking the Disneyfied image of the country Franco had liked to project in his struggle to attract foreign dollars. For twenty pounds a head you were given a bowl of gazpacho soup, some Serrano ham and bread, and a show. It was the kind of place you would find B- or more likely C-list performers. Which was why I was there.

‘Te gusta el cante?’ he asked again. ‘You like flamenco singing?’

‘Sí.’

The Gypsy had just come off stage with his band and I, a foreigner – a guiri – was pushing into a world where I didn’t belong.

‘Sí, sí,’ I shouted above the din next-door. ‘Me encanta! I love it!’

It was unintentional, but fortuitous. The man stared at me, puzzled that a foreigner could pun in Spanish. Then a smile crept into the corners of his mouth, opening his lips until he bellowed, his head rocking back with laughter.

‘Did you hear that?’ He turned to the other members of the band, cramped in this small, heavy room as they packed up and changed after the show. ‘I asked him if he liked the cante. Yes, he said, Me encanta! Ha ha. Me encanta! Did you hear?’

They were, to a man, unimpressed, but he laughed on.

‘Bueno. Tell me about the cante. Here, have some brandy. What do you like?’ He blew out a long, thick stream of smoke like a fluttering blue ribbon, and passed me the bottle he was drinking out of. From the corner of my eye I could see the other members of the band muttering, anxious to pack up, get paid and leave.

‘I like rough voices,’ I said. ‘La voz afillá. Like yours.’

In a shop on the Gran Vía the previous day I had read on the back of a record sleeve about the different types of male singing voice. The afillá style was named after the great nineteenth-century singer El Fillo. A wandering blacksmith, he was one of the first to have developed the coarse, typically Gypsy style of singing, later continued by Silverio Franconetti, and today favoured by performers such as El Indio Gitano, the Gypsy Indian. They said El Fillo had died in poverty, his voice ruined by so much hard drinking, still mourning the murder of his brother, the singer Juan Encueros, Naked John. An innovator with a vast knowledge of different palos, even now there were those who referred to him as the Johann Sebastian Bach of flamenco.

‘Yes. Afillá. But there are voices much better than mine. Listen to Terremoto – the Earthquake – or Manolo Caracol. Now those . . . oof!’ His lips pursed in a sign of respect.

‘But you’re just as good as they are,’ I enthused. ‘There’s real power in your voice. You’re fantastic!’

He sat back sharply and went silent, the smile gone, staring at me intensely. It seemed I’d gone too far. I had learned a little about Gypsy etiquette, and I had the feeling I’d just broken an important rule. This new, sneering expression he wore seemed to demand what on earth I, a guiri, was doing telling him what was good or bad.

‘So why did you come here? Why do you want to talk to me?’ His voice, still deep, had become hard. I saw that the other members of the band were trying to catch his eye. I had to move fast if I was to keep his attention. Time to dive straight in.

‘I play the guitar,’ I said. ‘I’ve been learning. I want to play with a group. I thought . . .’

His eyes grew darker, like a bull staring down its prey with a dull, earthy, disrespect. I was sure I’d blown it. He’ll laugh me out of here and that’ll be the end of it. Stupid even to try. Any minute now he will simply stand up and walk away.

Somewhere inside me, though, I knew I had to take up the challenge. If I backed down now, this opportunity would be lost for good. Tales my grandfather had told me about his life as a professional bare-knuckle fighter came to mind. Taking on five policemen at a time; putting his fist through solid wooden doors as training. It was time to use some inherited northern grit.

I straightened my back, drew my chin in, and looked back at the Gypsy as fiercely as I could.

‘How long have you been playing?’ he asked.

‘Two years.’

‘Here,’ he said, pulling out the guitar that was leaning against his chair, ‘play me a Fandango.’ I hesitated, then took the instrument from his hand. Some of the other band members were already walking out with their cases and bags. The door to the stage opened and the jarring echo of a hundred hysterical voices poured in.

‘. . . unspeakable, my friend. Unspeakable!’ A well-fed German was delivering his punch-line above the screaming laughter of his companions.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ something inside me was saying. ‘Just play. It doesn’t matter.’ I lifted myself, breathed deeply and played the first chords.

There was an interruption. A younger man with long, curly black hair tied back in a pony-tail – the other singer in the group – came over and spoke in a low tone, his back turned against me. I couldn’t hear what was being said – there was too much background noise and chat from the others standing at the side – but it was clear they wanted to leave.

The younger man left abruptly and the Gypsy got up.

‘I’m off,’ he said, taking the guitar back out of my hand. I stood up. He made to leave, then turned.

‘Come back tomorrow. We’ll talk about it then – if you’re as good as you say.’

The sharp, unforgiving stench of cat-piss filled my nostrils and woke me once again. I opened my eyes to the grey half-light filtering through the tall, grimy window. We were at the end of an alleyway, all direct sunlight blocked out by the buildings around us. The smell and the thick, ancient dust made breathing difficult and my chest tightened in revolt at the foul air. I looked up at the ceiling. A cockroach was negotiating the bubbles of yellow-brown mould that were forming under the plaster. As he fell, a piece of the ceiling fell away with him and he landed on my stomach, legs kicking frantically in the air.

I flicked him off and dragged myself out from under the sheet. Now it was summer again, this dark flat was pleasantly cool despite the piercing heat outside. Although God only knew how I had got through the winter. The snow had only just melted from the tips of the distant Guadarrama mountains and memories of sub-zero temperatures with little or no heating had left their imprint in my bones. Madrid air cannot blow out a candle, they said, but it can kill a man.

My flipflops dragged along the dusty floor of the corridor outside my room – sticky in places where urine had not been cleaned up – past towers of mouldering paperbacks lining both walls from floor to ceiling. A shadow moved quickly, low down ahead of me. A pause, flashing green eyes, then it vanished with a low groan of fear and frustration.

I trudged on. The bathroom was empty but the loo was blocked again and close to overflowing. The cheap, red plastic seat was already stained. Retching, I grabbed the plunger, and went to work. I was becoming an expert at this, my arms performing the necessary twisting, heaving motion mechanically. Two minutes and it was cleared.

The hot water of the shower blanketed me as I turned on the jet. A year on, and I still found Madrid to be a dry, heartless city. The change from Alicante couldn’t have been greater: people everywhere, squeezing, bumping and jarring their way up overcrowded streets full of beggars and pimps; an ever-present sense of aggression, anxiety and franticness. The area I lived in was particularly bad: a dark, labyrinthine quarter near the Calle Pez, with several whores for each street corner and hunched junkies scratching for pieces of bread in the gutter. One used to catch my eye as he’d prostrate himself half-naked on the pavement, forehead on the floor, knees pulled up, arse sticking in the air, a grubby Coke cup held in his hands above his head, pleading as loudly as he could to the passers-by for change. I had to fight a persistent desire to escape and flee back to Alicante, or even give up everything and leave for good. Even the weather was less friendly than on the coast, shifting from extreme heat to extreme cold, with no shades of autumn or spring. The people were proud and provincial, lacking the warmth I had grown used to. Looking at the angry, lost, concentrated faces, it seemed over 70 per cent of them were mad, unbalanced or teetering on the edge. I hated it, but saw it as city energy, something to plug in to if I could, and ride along with. After all, this was where the real flamenco scene was, as Eduardo had said. That thought alone kept me on track and held me down in the city – a reason for being there and staying in Spain when it felt as if I had lost everything.

One thing in Madrid’s favour, though, was the water – wonderfully soft rain piped straight from the mountains. I let the jet flow over my rapidly thinning body. My ribs and hip bones were quite visible now.

My landlady was sitting in the kitchen, a cigarette hanging precipitously from her mouth, a cup of weak tea in one hand, and a skinny, incontinent cat on her lap.

‘What the hell do you do in there?’ she screamed. ‘I’ve been waiting here for hours!’ She scuttled past, ash flying in all directions, burning holes in her nylon dressing-gown.

I went back to my room, dressed quickly, grabbed my guitar and walked out into the black, meaningless streets.

Carlos lived in the sprawling Madrid suburb of Vallecas: a grubby, concrete area south-east of the city centre that sat like a giant slug-like parasite on the belly of the capital. Ordinary Madrileños referred to it with awe or loathing. ‘Vallecas?’ they’d say. ‘That shit-hole?’ It was an area of cheap, redbrick tower blocks that absorbed waves of immigrants seeking work: Basques from the Sixties; North Africans wearing thin leather shoes; short Latin-Americans who spent most of their time calling home from wooden booths in grocers’ shops offering cheap international calls. And Gypsies, moved by the authorities from their shanty towns into modern flats.

‘They’re not like us. Water in buckets – when they wash – and they cook over fires on the kitchen floor,’ a balding bar-owner had told me. ‘I tell you, I haven’t got anything against them. A Gypsy comes in here and I serve him as I would anyone else. But he’s got to have respect.’

It was an echo of the past, only today the Egyptians, or New Castillians as the Gypsies were often called in the nineteenth century, were kept on the outside not by city walls, but by a ring-road dividing them from the main city.

Non-Gypsies, payos, said you were taking a risk just by walking into Vallecas. The change from the city centre was clear: another drab, modern suburb with lifeless architecture. But there were subtle differences, something more edgy and run-down about it. The kiosk where I bought cigarettes from a ghost-like woman and her daughter had sawdust on the floor and a red neon strip flickering around the door like a nervous twitch. Thin-trunked, blackened trees stood by the side of the road like starving refugees, unable to stand straight under their own weight. Graffiti was everywhere: ‘Pásate al la Resistencia’, or the Basque spelling of ‘Vallekas’ painted in bright colours like a standard proclaiming the ‘otherness’ of the place and its people. Most of the roadsweepers were women. You’d see them drinking in a bar and then see them again in the street a couple of hours later, transformed into dawn workers with tight green overalls and workmen’s gloves, throwing cigarette butts into the gutter they’d just brushed clean. Here there was a wearing away of strict divisions. Where normal people saw a world of lines, Vallecas was more of a blur.

Carlos’s flat was on the fifth floor. I didn’t trust the lift, and so took the stairs, past children with dirty faces and bright, animal-like eyes. They had been there the first time, when Carlos brought me back with the other group members, playing on the steps at four in the morning. They had looked at me strangely. I was the one out of place, as far as they were concerned.

Carlos’s threat to test my guitar-playing was never carried out: I returned the next night to Restaurante Alegrías but he wasn’t there. We met up again by pure chance after I got to know some aficionados who took me to a flamenco bar, or tablao, where Carlos was performing. It was a lucky break after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to fall in with flamencos, particularly Gypsies. Until then my search had produced nothing, thwarted mostly by the complete unwillingness of Gypsies to have anything to do with me. At best they might offer to give me lessons for exorbitant amounts of money. That night, though, things began to turn.

‘Eh, churumbel!’ Carlos said when he saw me, as though he had expected me to find him in this other venue. From then on, he always used the Gypsy word for ‘kid’ when addressing me.

We spent the night at his grubby flat, playing, singing and drinking heavily. I was drawn to a joyous spontaneity about him. When he sang, the veins on his neck stood out, his face reddened, spittle flew from his mouth and I feared he might collapse. But once it had been captured – the raw essence he was seeking – his expression reverted to calm self-assuredness and a deep relaxation, as though he had rid himself of something cathartically through the song.

Me asomé a la muralla

me respondió el viento:

‘Para qué dar esos suspiritos

si ya no hay remedio?’

I climbed up to the town walls

And the wind said:

‘Why so many sighs

if you can’t change anything?’

You could tell when the moment had come as the jaleo, the flamenco cries of encouragement, increased in a sharp crescendo of ‘Ole’, ‘Eso es’, and a surge would pass around the group, as though something had happened. And all the while, the incessant clapping rhythm of the palmas pulsated in the background. Then the other singer – the younger, darker man with the pony-tail – would take up the song.

Was this duende? There was enormous energy carrying us all along but it was different to my first experience in Alicante, when I heard the woman sing in the Plaza Mayor. There I had been captured, as though by an invisible, sentient being. Here there was an intense group emotion that vivified me. It was impossible to say. I simply sat on the sidelines, grateful that I had been allowed even this far into a closed and very hierarchical world.

Halfway through the night, Carlos told me to join in and accompany one of the dancers on the guitar. I had drunk heavily, but still had enough sense to know that turning this down was not an option. As they passed me the instrument, I realised to my relief that two other guitarists would be playing as well, and so I kept the rhythm as best I could, following the chord changes and trying to make as little sound as possible. With the racket surrounding us, it was all I could do. It even boosted my confidence and they had to prise the guitar away from me later as I tried to accompany a piece Carlos always sang on his own.

The faux pas was ignored, though. More brandy was poured into my glass and a line of cocaine placed in front of me. I hesitated. Since arriving in Madrid, I had heard constant condemnation of Gypsies for their drug-taking. I lifted my head. Although no-one was obviously watching me, I could tell my reaction was under scrutiny. It was a test. Not to take it would mean remaining on the outside.

I snorted.

‘I think the guiri’s shit-faced.’ The old Gypsy sitting next to me started prodding me.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ I said, shaking myself.

‘Hey blondy, where d’you learn to speak Christian so well?’ I was amazed that someone who appeared to have no teeth could articulate so clearly. His expression was a throw-back to the past when anything Spanish, or ‘Christian’, was acceptable, and anything foreign – typically deemed ‘Chinese’ – was dismissed.

‘Alicante,’ I said.

‘Alicante?’

‘Yeah. You know it?’

The old Gypsy snorted and turned his face to the side with a jerk. Grey hairs circled his ears in an otherwise black mass of curls. I took another drink.

‘Alicantinos taught you to play?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Gypsies?’

I thought for a moment. Eduardo had told me that to be accepted by one group of Gypsies meant to be at least taken seriously by others. It gave you a sort of badge, a letter of introduction into a closed society. But I didn’t know any Gypsies in Alicante, and there was a risk in pretending I did. What if I was found out?

‘Yeah,’ I said as confidently as I could, waiting for the next, inevitable question: Who?

But instead, he smiled and raised a rough, thick hand on the end of what looked like a partially withered arm.

‘Juanito,’ he said. ‘Your mother gave you a guiri name?’

‘Jason,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Jason.’ Still no sign of comprehension. ‘Khassón.’ I pronounced it the Spanish way.

‘Sounds Chinese,’ he said.

I reached the fifth floor, walked down to Carlos’s door and let myself in, stepping carefully over the ducks in the hallway, past the donkey standing mournfully in the corner. At first I had been surprised that it never seemed to move around, but it had claimed its own little stable and now refused to move, perhaps out of fear of losing this safe enclave.

The place was a mess. Animal droppings were everywhere, the walls were smeared in grime, and black scorch-marks dotted the lino floor where people had previously lit fires. The smell was overpowering.

Carlos was with Jesús, the other singer, on the tiny balcony that looked directly onto the blank, brick wall of the next-door block of flats. Thin blue and white metal chains hung over the door to prevent flies from entering, and were coated in a thick layer of city dust that rubbed off onto your clothes as you passed through.

‘Eh, churumbel! Qué tal?’ Carlos’s teeth flashed with a smile as he quickly ended the conversation. Jesús flicked his chin up casually in greeting, then turned away without a word. I watched him walk back into the flat, tall and proud, his long, curly hair shiny with brilliantine. I was still unwelcome. The others at least pretended I had my foot in the door – Juanito was even treating me like a friend after my line about the Alicantino Gypsies – but Jesús held out, never talking to me directly, hardly even looking at me or recognising I was there.

‘We were waiting for you.’ Carlos was dressed, as usual, in his brightly coloured shirt, open all the way down to his hirsute navel. Today the shirt was red, with blue and yellow anchors, the kind you could buy at the market in packs of five for 2,000 pesetas. He was a short, stout man, with thick, rock-like features. Greying black hair was swept off his forehead with grease. The powerful stench of his aftershave mingled with the animal smells to create a sickly pot pourri of perfumed shit.

‘Come on inside! Today I want to hear you play properly. You’ve managed to avoid it till now.’

Approaching him the first time at Alegrías and then finding him again the following night had gone down well. Assertiveness was appreciated among Gypsies. But it had only got me so far. Now came the real test. I’d only ever joined in when everyone else was there – the dancers and the two other guitarists – and my own playing was easily hidden in the great noise they all produced. Often I couldn’t even hear my own mistakes. But I had stayed and had returned now three or four times for more dance, music, cocaine; arriving with bottles of booze as the price of admittance.

‘How do you expect me to play without my backing group?’

He gestured for me to sit down on the black fake-leather sofa, unimpressed by my weak attempt at humour. Jesús had disappeared, I was glad to see. His cold, critical gaze would make it worse.

I sat for a moment with the guitar in my lap, trying to think of a piece that might impress without demanding too much technically. Nothing seemed right. Tangos had too many associations with Lola and a time I had painfully blocked out, if not actually recovered from. A Bulería was exciting, but complicated; I was more likely to make a mistake. Besides, I sensed that Gypsies viewed it as belonging to them. I was foreign; I still had to tread carefully. An Alegría? I didn’t know enough falsetas well enough, and, besides, the mood wasn’t right. There was something too light about them. Seguiriyas were my favourites, a slow cante jondo. They were seen as one of the ‘strong’ palos, understood only by serious flamencos. But again . . . I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. My fingers began to sweat. From the corner of my eye I could see Carlos fidgeting.

‘Come on, blondy. Play!’

The ducks in the corridor began quacking at each other and the direct sunlight on my exposed neck was burning my inappropriately white skin. A cough, and finally I began, my fingers falling into a Taranta, a sorrowful mining chant from the Murcia region. I felt relieved that somehow the decision had been taken. No rhythm to worry about, and ideal for self-expression. This’ll show him, I thought. It was a piece I prided myself on being able to play well.

I moved my fingers over the strings trying to extract every ounce of feeling I could. Perhaps, I thought, as the question unceasingly played itself out in some part of my mind, perhaps this is duende: the emotions, the sensation the player puts into his performance. If I tried hard enough, he should be able to feel it too. I crouched even tighter over the guitar.

‘Yes, yes. OK. Fine,’ Carlos interrupted. I looked up, startled. ‘Come on, give me something with more life. Rhythm, rhythm!’

I started a spluttering, haltering Bulería in my confusion, fingers slippy with sweat now and almost sliding off the strings. Something the other guitarists had played a few nights previously came to mind and I tried to copy it, but usually the singer dictated what piece he wanted, not the guitarist. I had no idea what was expected of me. The situation was absurd. Carlos clapped in time to urge me on. The chorus of ducks started again.

‘Venga. That’s it.’ Then he started singing:

Me lo encontré en el camino

y nos hicimos hermanos.

It was a song Camarón used to sing.

I had to count the rhythm to myself – un dos TRES cuatro cinco seis SIETE OCHO nueve DIEZ un DOS un dos TRES . . . After tapping it out in my head for a couple of years, I thought I owned it. But he was singing, I was nervous, and it was essential that I get it right.

My lips moved as the digits raced through my mind. Straight rhythm, just straight rhythm. Keep it mechanical, like a clock. Listen to his singing. I fought to keep in time.

Samara fue elegida por los moros reina de la morería . . .

He stopped singing and nodded to me to play a falseta. I started on the first one I could think of, one I had learned in Alicante – an old-fashioned, very traditional tune that was inappropriate here. Its melodiousness jarred with his more anarchic, modern style.

He took up the singing once more and we crashed into a finale.

I stared down at my feet. Not my best performance, and I hadn’t been able to play with anyone else since the fiesta with Lola almost a year before. In the meantime, I’d got by playing along with the cheap cassettes you could pick up at petrol stations for 500 pesetas. But playing with a singer, like playing for a dancer, was completely different. The singer often accentuated off-beats while the guitar was expected to hold the compás, yet at the same time following his pace and changing as required. When a singer and guitar-player were in harmony it created a complex syncopation. But I had little idea of where the song was going.

Someone was trying to hand me something. I looked up and saw a glass of beer thrust towards me by Jesús’s outstretched arm. I took it and tried to look at him, but I saw his disapproving face and close-set eyes and lost my nerve.

‘Rhythm,’ Carlos said. ‘If you want to play with us you need perfect rhythm. It’s the most important thing.’ The gas spitting up from the cold beer wet my face as I brought the glass to my lips. I thought my rhythm was pretty good.

‘So what’s my rhythm like?’

I realised as soon as I had spoken that it was the wrong thing to say. Carlos laughed. Jesús turned away again and stepped silently out onto the balcony, tying his hair into a bunch at the back of his head with an elastic band. Carlos went out to join him, while I strummed a quiet Soleá – the palo of solitude – to console myself. I could hear their voices but could make out little of what was being said. Jesús, I could sense, was reluctant to bring me on board. A payo, a guiri: it just made him suspicious. But I also knew, from my little experience with them, that Carlos was the boss, and what he said went. Age seemed to count for a lot in the rigid pecking order.

The tone of disagreement filtered back through into the main room. I shifted my hot, uncomfortable body away from the intense light pouring through the open window. It felt odd, knowing my future was being decided out there. I had flattered myself that I had made it in through the back door without anyone noticing, but this was feeling more and more like an audition. The donkey caught my eye. His sad, tearful face betrayed a broken, self-pitying spirit. The rope around his neck was superfluous: this animal wouldn’t make a break for it if you left him a trail of carrots and whipped him down the stairs. He seemed to be suffering from some sort of donkey institutionalisation. I could only feel pity for the pathetic creature. As I watched, he defecated on the floor where he stood, and a fresh wave of manure-smell passed through the flat like a cloud of mustard gas.

Carlos beckoned me to join him on the balcony. Jesús had walked off.

‘Well, churumbel.’ I could tell it wasn’t going to be straightforward. ‘Listen, we haven’t got anything lined up, so you can’t play with us for now. But you keep playing, and we’ll see. We might take you along with us. In the meantime, you listen, you watch and you learn. Vale?’ He passed a thick finger from his ear to his eye and then mimed the action of playing the guitar. It was his way of reassuring me.

I turned back to the window, disappointed, yet relieved I was still ‘in’. There was nothing I could say anyway. Not to Carlos. He didn’t discuss things.

Music started from somewhere inside the flat. I looked in, and passed back into the main room. My eyes adjusted. Jesús was standing with one leg on a chair, my guitar resting on his thigh, playing a Soleá por Bulerías. Pure, hard notes like crystal.

He finished with a long, smooth rasgueo, fingers striking the strings one after another like a machine-gun, then looked at me with defiance and pride. I didn’t care that he was using my guitar, but somehow it was important.

‘I haven’t played for five years,’ he said. Then he placed the guitar on the floor and left, with every air of a man with something important to do.

Carlota, my landlady, was in a foul mood again. The electricity bill had just arrived and was far higher than expected. We had useless old Franco-era wiring that only provided 125 volts, so the flat was littered with rusty transformers boosting the power to 220.

‘I shall have to put your rent up,’ she said. ‘It’s all that time you sit in your room with the light on. And you play cassettes all night. You think that doesn’t use it up?’

This was true, but I doubted it was the explanation for the big bill. There was only one transformer in my dusty room and I had to listen to music in the dark.

I snarled.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’

She couldn’t see how I was looking at her; thirty years as a virtual troglodyte had left her yellow-skinned and half-blind, eyes pale and dull from reading in the gloom. The ash fell from her cigarette onto the cat sitting in her lap. It leapt up, scratching her as it darted into the dark, dirty safety of the corridor.

‘Damn you! Me cago en la leche!’ she cried, and tottered off to get some antiseptic: a necessary household item in this place. I had only taken the room because it was probably the cheapest place in central Madrid. She could hardly charge any more for such a dump. All her income came from lodgers. There was absolutely nothing in the bank, no reserves, no relatives, nothing. Which was why the place had slowly deteriorated over the years to reach its present shoddy state. There was only ever enough money to eat badly and pay the odd bill. Nothing for repairs or redecorating. The house was slowly crumbling around her and the cats like a tomb.

There had been the odd lucky break. One room had been unrentable as it had no window and only a small wooden bed. But then a man arrived who wanted to use it occasionally for illicit rendezvous with his mistress. The rest of us were under strict orders not to talk to him and to disappear when he came round. There was the rumour that he was someone important and well known . . . I only ever came across him once, but the corridors were so dark I couldn’t get a good look at him.

Now there was the threat of higher rent. I had barely earned anything since arriving in Madrid. For months I had languished in depression, eating little, sleeping late, yearning for my easy Mediterranean life and the woman I saw then as the greatest passion of my life. Lost love. It had felt like a kind of death. I dreamed of her searching embraces, her breath on my skin. Just to see her once more. She wouldn’t even have to know I was there . . . But a sensible inner voice, the spoiler of so many ideas, would always hold me back, haunting me with visions of Vicente pressing a 12-bore up against his shoulder. I couldn’t take the risk. A complete break, Eduardo had said. Much as I hated it, I knew he was right.

Occasionally I did some stand-in teaching for a nearby English school if the money situation got too bad, but I stayed in the flat because it was Madrid – the promised centre of flamenco, still driving me on – and it was the only place I could afford. And in some ways, too, because the dark awfulness of it reflected my mood. Now, after so much time and so many wasted chances, there was an opportunity to fall in with a real flamenco group. I couldn’t afford to pay any more, so I had to think fast.

‘I can sort out the electricity for you,’ I said, ‘as long as you promise not to put the rent up.’

She looked suspicious. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘If I sort out the electricity meter for you, will you promise not to put my rent up?’

She sneered. ‘I never promise anything.’

‘Well, it’s up to you. I can guarantee a lifetime of low electricity bills,’ I said, trying to mimic the sound of an advert.

Her dull, grey eyes brightened. ‘Really! How?’

‘Promise?’

‘Well . . .’ It was the most I was going to get out of her.

‘Have you got some old 35mm camera film?’

She hurried off, slippers scraping in the grime, then returned with a film in her hand. ‘Will this do?’

I grabbed a chair and climbed up to the meter above the kitchen sink. As long as it was the right make . . . I was in luck. Slipping the film into the tiny slit on the side of the box I was able to catch the wheel and stop it dead. It was a trick I had learned from Carlos.

‘There you go,’ I said, looking down. ‘An earthquake won’t make that thing turn now.’

She looked hard. ‘What have you done?’

‘The meter won’t turn any more. I’ve blocked it. All you have to do is not answer the door to the electricity man, fill in a low number on the form when it comes round, and they’ll never suspect a thing. The cheapest electricity in all Spain.’

‘Oh, you are an angel,’ she said. ‘This is wonderful. We can switch on the fans, turn on the lights. And of course, you can play as many tapes as you want, my dear.’ And she tugged on my arm affectionately.

‘And the rent?’

‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. You can stay as long as you want.’

It was the only time I saw her genuinely happy.

Back at Carlos’s place. Despite not being officially taken on board, I continued visiting the flat almost every night. There was always someone there, and apart from Jesús’s reaction, I never felt totally unwelcome. If I was around for long enough, I reasoned, I would be regarded as part of the furniture.

I usually arrived with a litre bottle of wine or some brandy if I could afford it. And a few packets of cigarettes. Ducados black-tobacco cigarettes were essential for anyone who saw themselves as part of the counter-culture. They came in blue and white packets, had a tar content as high as a cigar, and tasted like floor-sweepings dipped in diesel. But, most importantly, they were cheap and enjoyed a symbolic status not unlike Gauloises for the French. To smoke Ducados was to make a statement rejecting the system, and as such, they were as good as the official cigarette of the flamenco world.

Most members of the band were as happy smoking them as they were breathing. There were exceptions: hard men, like Carlos, for whom even the venomous fumes of Ducados were not strong enough. He usually smoked cigars or, sometimes, Habanos filterless cigarettes. He said he needed them to keep his voice in shape. I tried one once and could barely speak for a whole day afterwards. But it left me with a greater fondness for a country respectful of its citizens’ right to poison themselves to death.

Spaniards didn’t care much about smoking in public places. No bar waiter, belly straining behind the obligatory vest and white shirt tucked into tight, black trousers, was complete without a cigarette – usually a Fortuna or Nobel – hanging out of the side of his mouth, as he took out the rubbish at the end of another sweaty shift. Middle-aged women preparing the food in workers’ bars nonchalantly lit up as they whisked the eggs for another tortilla de patatas. There were even – and this pleased me the most – men in their sixties shuffling in their slippers and puffing happily away on thick Montecristo No.3s in the Vallecas supermarkets. It took the edge off so much bright, white packaging somehow.

The other members of the group had gathered at the flat. Javier, a young payo dancer from Valencia, was standing on the balcony stretching his legs and seeing how high he could kick.

‘Look, I’m out of shape,’ he’d say as his toe touched the top of the door-frame. ‘And I’m getting fat.’ A tiny roll of skin round his waist would be pinched. ‘Look!’

He had a slight build, narrow shoulders, a turquoise bandana in his hair, and an unnerving way of looking at everyone as though he were in love with them: head tilted to one side, eyes wide open, and a demanding smile.

The other dancer was Carmen, a buxom woman in her late thirties with high blood pressure and dyed blond hair that came out a sort of thick, streaky orange. She was known as ‘La Andonda’, the knife-woman, for having attacked her husband with a kitchen-knife after she found him with another woman. The nickname came from a previous ‘Andonda’ from the nineteenth century – the explosive younger wife of the singer El Fillo – who was equally known for her knife-wielding exploits. Carmen’s situation had ended disastrously, Carlos later told me, and the husband had kicked her out – a catastrophe for a Gypsy woman. The community might well have ostracised her completely, but Carlos had taken her into his group because she was a distant cousin. ‘She doesn’t dance too badly, either, the fat old thing,’ he said.

The other two in the group were guitarists. Antonio, the first guitarist, was a thin, young payo with dark blond hair and long sideburns who performed finger-breaking feats on the fretboard. Always clean-shaven, he wore fresh white shirts every day that quickly wilted and lost their sheen in the smoke-filled air of Carlos’s flat. Someone – it must have been his mother – even ironed his jeans. The other members of the band needled him in an attempt to bring him down a notch or two, but he fought back, always failing to receive the respect from the others he felt he deserved.

Juanito, I was surprised to discover, was the second guitarist. At forty-seven years old, he was younger than I had thought, and his shortened right arm was the perfect length for playing. He told me it had been partially severed in a car accident and the surgeons had been forced to cut some of it away before sewing it back on. The result was that his hand fell exactly into the right playing position, and he was spared all the torturous straining and pins and needles that bedevilled the more ‘able-bodied’ guitarists. He could never play the complicated falsetas that Antonio liked to show off with, but he had the most perfect compás I’d ever heard.

‘Hombre,’ he said as I eased myself down next to him. We had gone beyond first-name terms, although, in contrast to payos, he never shook my hand or touched me in the way most Spaniards did. Gypsies seemed to have different ideas about physical space. He lit a cigarette, took a drag and then squeezed it into the gap between the strings and wood in the head of the guitar.

‘So it doesn’t get in the way when I’m playing,’ he said.

As with every group, I later discovered, the hierarchy was everything. Antonio had been one of the founders of the band, and had even sought Carlos out as a singer, but from the day he arrived, Carlos had been the leader, the jefe. As a singer and a member of the same extended family, Jesús was second-in-command. There was something distracted about him, as though his mind were elsewhere, on other, more important things, giving the impression that the band was not everything in his life.

The others filled various middle-ranking roles, with Antonio jockeying for a higher position and always failing. He used his guitar-playing as a weapon in a political game, not realising that no matter how well he played – faster than Paco de Lucía, with more feeling than Tomatito – he would always be near the bottom. In the end I decided it was partly a gitano–payo thing, but I couldn’t help thinking things would be easier if he just stopped trying so hard.

The flat was crammed with people. Apart from the group members, Carlos’s two teenage daughters and their friends were there, a handful of neighbours, and more friends from across the road. Every few minutes other faces would appear at the door, some staying, some just having a look and then moving on. At one stage an old man with a green hat and a purple face showed up and everyone stood up respectfully. How wonderful to see him.

‘Ostias, is that guy still alive? Look, he can still walk, how old is he? Did he make it all this way on his own? Oh, no, look, there’s his daughter, how terrible for her, having to look after him after all these years, she’s never been married, you know . . .’ She was nearly eighteen. Almost an old maid.

We all went quiet. The old man lifted his hand, muttered something totally incomprehensible through toothless gums, turned and left. Cries of joy; some people clapped. What a great old bloke. Then we sat down again. I never did find out who he was.

The noise was unbelievable. While other Spaniards would talk loudly and on top of one another at large family meals, here everyone was shouting, singing and screaming, usually with the TV on full volume in the background. One of Carlos’s daughters was even dancing to make her point to her neighbour. The result was a ceaseless cacophony which you either stepped inside or were overwhelmed by. As morning approached, I would often begin to doze off and find myself listening to the full crescendo of it all, like a wall of noise, rather than a particular voice or conversation. And I would throw myself back into the fray to avoid going mad.

Jesús’s black, narrow eyes were staring at me from across the room. I felt his gaze like a tingling sensation in my shoulders, then turned to see him quickly look away. Nobody seemed to have noticed his return. He came and left with no questions asked. There was sweat on his brow and I knew he had been running.

The women began clearing the table after another heavy broth – potaje. Carlos’s quiet, Indian-looking wife, María-José, made it by the bucketful, throwing whatever was to hand in a pot along with oil and water. Tomatoes and garlic were the only consistent ingredients I could detect, accompanied by anything from eggs, spinach and onions to broad beans, fish and chorizo sausage. On a good day you might even find some black pudding – morcilla – floating in it. Soaked up with bread, at least it filled you up.

I got up to help, but was pulled down forcefully by Carlos.

‘Woman’s work,’ he said, drawing on the cigar stuck fast in his thick, full lips. Traditional gender roles were strictly adhered to. Juanito told me it was common in some houses for women to wait for the men to eat first before taking what was left over for themselves.

‘Pero aquí somo medio apayao – but here we’re half-payo,’ he’d say, almost shamefully.

More cries and shouts as the table was cleared: ‘María, pass me the big dish, no the one by Juanito, fuck it’s hot, did you pick up the glasses, hey moza! I haven’t finished, you pig, you eat too much, and you need to fatten up, there’s no meat on you, what do you know, hurry up there . . .’

Antonio had already pulled out his guitar and was playing the elaborate opening of a Fandango, showing off with modern, jazzy chords that stretched your fingers to breaking point. I felt Juanito squirm. Pedro had told me the Fandango was one of the palos with the strongest Arab influence. It was haunting, rhythmic, very distinctive, interweaving itself amongst the clatter of plates, screams from the kitchen and snippets of conversations slowly fading away. And then Carlos began to sing.

Los arroyos cristalinos

tu nombre van repitiendo

las campanas repicando

en la torre de una iglesia,

el mío están murmurando.

The crystal streams

are repeating your name,

while the bells ringing

from a church tower

whisper mine.

The girls and many of the others had left. The music continued and cocaine was passed around. The drug made playing easier, increasing my self-confidence to the extent that I felt inspired on it. And the nervous energy it gave me meant the sound I produced on the guitar was more akin to the harsher, stronger style of the modern players I wished to emulate. Under the circumstances, I quickly lost any qualms about taking it. It was part of the lifestyle I was buying into, a necessary step, I told myself, in my search for flamenco knowledge.

Juanito had become my main contact in the group. Without being obvious about it, he would always make sure we sat together so that he could guide me through passages I was unsure about, or teach me palos I had yet to learn.

‘Hey, try this,’ he’d say in his high, boyish voice. He played old tunes, standards, the sort of thing everyone was expected to know, yet no-one heard any more, because guitarists were all too busy experimenting, trying to find the latest jazz or funk sound. To out-Paco Paco. They were the sort of pieces you heard at weddings, festivals, on old records from the 1950s and 60s – a bedrock for most of the ideas in flamenco, but in danger of being lost these days.

His thick fingers would move rapidly on the fretboard, producing an earthy sound that was almost non-existent now – most modern guitarists play ‘cleanly’, without the mistakes and buzz of tradition. He played a proper flamenco guitar too – spruce and cypress, no rosewood – with its harder, shallower sound.

We spent hours like this: informal tutorials on the side that allowed me to get a taste for a more ‘Gypsy’ style of playing – often appearing to change rhythms and stressing off-beats. It might be five minutes, half an hour, or even the whole night, but whenever we were all together, he would find time to show me something. A chord variation or a little lick to throw into the middle of the compás just to vary it, to give it more life and a certain magic. It was invaluable, a crash course in the sort of things I would need if I was ever to have a chance of playing professionally with the group. But I had to be careful about what I said. If I started trying to ask him questions about the piece – ‘What was that? A minor?’ – he would withdraw, or rebuke me. For him you either played at the top, por arriba, or in the middle, por medio. Anything else went over his head.

‘Don’t talk to me in Chinese. We only speak Christian round here,’ he’d say.

Carlos’s mother-in-law was a seer. Or, rather, she looked at the cards for people and came out with the phrases they expected to hear.

‘Blondy!’

It was my turn.

She leaned over me, gold teeth glinting dully in the low light. Her fat wheezing body was wrapped in a white scarf that she held tight at all times over her black and red blouse. One of her eyes was covered in an unnerving milk-like mist. I got up and joined her at the table as indicated.

‘Watch out for her,’ said Javier, flaring his nostrils as he stretched his leg up to his ear. ‘She might tell you things you don’t want to know.’ He spoke slowly, as if I couldn’t understand Spanish properly.

The old woman handed over the cards for me to shuffle, then took them back with thick, grubby fingers solid with fat, gold rings.

‘You will marry a fair-haired girl,’ she proclaimed. Not a good start: I’d never been attracted to blonde girls and began to laugh. She realised her mistake.

‘Although you prefer dark-haired girls,’ she said. That was more like it.

She stared at the images on the wooden table in front of her. ‘You are waiting for something.’ She pointed to the card of the Suspended Man. I thought of Carlos and his promise of gigs some time in the future. Surely she already knew that.

‘If you follow my advice and pay heed to the omens, you will fulfil your destiny.’

I sighed.

‘Soak a white handkerchief in your own sweat, wrap some jasmine flowers in it and leave it to dry on the windowsill for three days. On the third day, throw the flowers away, burn the cloth, and within the year you will be married and have witnessed the birth of the first of your three sons.’

I flattered myself that the reading was one step further in the group’s acceptance of me, even if the woman did manage to extract 1,000 pesetas out of me for her wisdom. She grasped the money greedily and stared at the note to make sure it was real. I wondered who was laughing at whom. I justified my folly by thinking of it as an act of charity. But 1,000 pesetas was a lot for me now and I couldn’t afford to lose money so easily.

‘Make sure you listen to her and do what she says.’ It was La Andonda. ‘I did, and everything turned out good.’

I looked at her. First, the woman’s husband had been unfaithful to her, and then she’d been thrown out of the house for trying to knife him. I decided to ignore the soothsayer’s advice.

‘You. Come with me.’

Jesús beckoned to me with a casual flick of the fingers. I stood up, confused. He hadn’t spoken directly to me for days. As the lowest in the hierarchy, I had to obey. I walked towards him and he turned and headed out the door.

We walked down the stairs and out into the dark street, orange and pink lights flickering over our heads. It was three in the morning, but the streets of Vallecas were full. A singing Gypsy woman was blocking the pavement, unconcerned by the wailing car alarm just thirty yards from where she stood. She had placed her home-made sound system – a 3-foot metal frame on wheels bearing enormous speakers, a keyboard and a microphone – in the middle of the path so that everyone had to cross the road to get past. It seemed an odd way to busk, but what with her flat, tuneless singing, cheap backing track, and the accompaniment of the high-pitched squeal of the Audi up the road, you had to wonder if her intention was to earn any money at all. People couldn’t get far enough away from her. I looked at her two sons crouching in the doorway behind her. They were dressed in grubby nylon tracksuits, with that proud, bored, menacing look of so many Gypsy kids.

Jesús walked over and handed them some money, which they accepted grudgingly, hardly looking him in the eye. We moved on.

A beaten-up old Renault was waiting for us. We stepped inside and drove off. There was no greeting or chat. I never saw the man behind the wheel again.

This was the bohemian, flamenco life I had been looking for – not the imitation I had experienced in Alicante. Even my time with Lola began to pale through the filter of cocaine and the excitement of hanging out with real flamencos. Eduardo would be proud of me, I thought, convinced I was finally on the inside. And as I identified myself more and more with this world – regardless of whether it had accepted me – I could sense myself absorbing a new code of honour which, above all, involved a loathing of those on the ‘outside’. Non-flamencos. It became a knee-jerk, anti-establishment sentiment that existed purely on the level of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Twenty minutes later, we were dropped off in an area of the city I didn’t know. Residential, by the look of it. Short trees were dotted along the pavement; a school with tall redbrick walls stood opposite. The Renault drove away. Jesús walked ahead and then cut into one of the side-roads. I hurried behind, careful not to lose him. The streets round here were empty. We kept on walking, cutting in and out between the cars: first on the pavement, then in the middle of the road, and back onto the pavement again. Jesús was silent and seemed to be looking for something. I started to wonder what we were doing there. He intimidated me, with his obvious mistrust, and my mind buzzed with possibilities.

We heard voices. I was thrown into a lightless doorway and pushed against the wall, his hand on my throat. For a moment, I thought he was going to kill me. But the people walked past – just a group of kids coming back home from the bars – and he relaxed his grip on my shirt.

Back on the street, he moved swiftly, like a shadow. I stayed behind, frightened now, watching him as he cruised past the cars like a hunter. Then he gave a low whistle. I walked over reluctantly.

‘Go to the top of that street and wait for me there,’ he said softly. ‘If you see anyone before I arrive, hold the cigarette in your left hand. Got it?’

I nodded.

‘Go on!’

I ran off, uncertain why I was hurrying, not knowing who or what I was supposed to be looking out for. I ignored my misgivings, driven by the desire to do well, to be accepted.

Standing at the corner, underneath the canopy of a shoe shop, I was faced by rows and rows of empty knee-length boots. There were trees on either side of the road – plenty of shelter from the streetlights. I had to think how to make myself less conspicuous. The most suspicious thing in the world would be just to stand there, at this time in the morning. I lit a cigarette, waiting to transfer it into my other hand for the signal. But if there was anyone to look out for, they would spot me instantly. And I wasn’t quite sure who ‘they’ were. The police?

There was little time to wonder. Jesús appeared from around the corner.

‘Get in!’

I jumped inside and we sped off. He was driving a black Mercedes.

* * *

Racing down deserted boulevards. Tower blocks, road signs, bus shelters, trees like semi-conscious flashes in the corner of my eye as we sped effortlessly and gracefully through a night-lit city.

‘Me cago en Dios! Me cago en Dios! I shit on God!’ Jesús screamed out of the open window as he drove at high speed through the pulsating rhythm of the streetlights crossing over us in a steady, constant beat. Un . . . dos . . . TRES . . .

‘Have you ever seen this city? La has visto? Seen it like this? I’m going to show you the city. This is going to be the best fucking tour of the city there has ever been. By the time we’ve finished – Oy! Almost, almost.’ He swerved to avoid a kerb that had loomed up from nowhere. I looked over at him: the quiet, moody Jesús was transformed; screeching in a high voice as though having five conversations at once, and shouting for the whole city to hear.

‘Me cago en Dios!’ For most people it was an expression of annoyance, but here it seemed more like a statement of faith.

‘Qué te parece este coche, eh? What do you think of this car? You want the car? You can’t have it. It’s mine. Of course, we could go for a long drive. You need some money? All the way to Córdoba, Seville, Jerez. Wherever you want. Ah, las tías, the girls in Andalusia. Not like the tarts here. Zorras, they’re all tarts. Carlos, he’s mad. You take my advice, steer clear of the girls in Madrid. They’re all tarts, tarts. Good Andalusian girl, that’s what you— Look how fast this fucker can go. I can beat them all, hijos de puta. Look at that. See that? That’s the old Post Office. See it? There on the left. He’s taking it too far. They’ve been cleaning that fucking place for years. Fucking pigeons shat on it so much the place began to fall down. Ha, ha. What a bunch of fuckers. Gilipollas. Guiris like you. They can’t even build a building that’s pigeon-shit-proof. Fuckers. That’s where Juan Antonio used to live – Andonda’s husband – before she cut his bollocks off. Poor bastard. No more bollocks for Juan Antonio. What a fucker. Of course, I told her “You should have used a blunt knife, not that razor-sharp thing, then the fucker’s prick would have fallen off by now as well”. Ha! Fuckers.’

The lights racing past my window were beginning to merge with one another, the speed pinning me back into the leather seat. Down the long, straight avenue of the Paseo de la Castellana, past the Torre Picasso which looked less like a symbol of modern Spain than a toaster placed on its side. Then on down the Paseo de Recoletos, past the classical columns of the National Library and the Torres de Jerez – black and grey twin towers from the Seventies that looked like firemen’s practice buildings – and on to the Plaza de Cibeles. I put my feet up on the dashboard and listened to the one-man rant sitting next to me.

‘Hey. Get your fucking feet off my dashboard.’

I lifted them off instinctively, but he grabbed them and placed them back.

‘Ha! Only joking. Do what you like. Only don’t make a mess.’

I stuck my head out of the window, eyes rolling back, watching the tops of the trees and the towers pass by, as though in an alternative, upside-down world that existed in the sky. We swerved sharply and I felt a shadow pass near my head.

‘Watch out kid. Don’t lose your head. Ha! Don’t lose your head. Fucker.’

I sat bolt upright and looked back: we had almost smashed into a road sign. Jesús grinned over at me.

‘Here. Your turn.’ We skidded to a halt in the middle of the Paseo del Prado. ‘Come on! Your turn to drive. You don’t think I’m going to do all the fucking driving, do you. Come on. Let’s see if a guiri can drive.’

The car was in the middle of a broad tree-lined avenue opposite one of the most famous museums in the world, but all I could think about was not getting run over and killed. I got out and jumped in the other side. Jesús leapt into the passenger seat.

‘OK. Let’s see what you’re made of. Or just another Juan Antonio. Eh? Come on, kid.’

I pressed on the accelerator and, with a start, we set off, our heads jerked back against the rests with the force of it. ‘Christ, this thing is powerful.’

‘Powerful? This is a pile of shit. I’ll show you something really powerful.’

We sped on. At the traffic lights I stopped.

‘What the fuck are you doing? Drive, drive. We haven’t got time to sit here for the fucking lights. Keep driving. Go! Vamos!’

We took off again. Even if it was dawn, this was Madrid, and there were still plenty of other cars around to make passing through red lights a hazardous hobby.

Down towards Atocha, up, and round the back of the Retiro. It was quieter here. Jesús leaned half of his body out of the window, waving his fist at the trees like a great hammer about to strike each one down.

‘Fuckers! Fuckers! Fuckers!’

But then came a flashing light – blue – and another car pulled out sharply behind us and headed our way.

‘Put your foot down. And listen to my directions carefully.’ His voice was suddenly calm. I glanced across: the manic, screaming fool was poised and self-possessed, watching the road ahead like a fighter pilot.

The police car was still some distance away. I felt a sharp surge passing through my brain, shortened breath. I had total confidence – not in myself, but in Jesús.

‘Kill the lights. There’s a turning on the right coming up. Get ready to turn, but don’t brake. Slow down, slow down. It’s coming up. There, whatever you do, don’t brake.’

‘What are you talking about? How can I not brake?’

We turned. I braked.

‘Ostias. I shit on your father. I told you not to brake! I told you—’

‘How the fuck! Why?’

‘Because they see your brake lights and they know where you’ve gone.’ He was gentle, reassuring. ‘Right, just keep going straight. Keep straight.’

‘But the streetlights. They’ll see us anyway.’

‘Keep straight.’

The street was narrower, cars parked on either side. We were doing sixty, with barely a foot between us and disaster. There was no space for panic. It was a question of not thinking about it. Letting go. The individual cars disappeared in my mind and we entered a smooth-sided tunnel, with only one possible path for us to follow, like a ready-laid track. I pressed the pedal even harder. Jesús looked round through the windscreen, just a brief check, and then back, staring out through the rear window.

‘Keep it going, kid. Keep it going.’

We were coming to the end of the street. The police had dropped behind.

‘Where do we go?’

‘Left, left.’ We swerved off. I didn’t use the brakes. Jesús lifted the handbrake gently. My God, I thought, we’re going to spin this thing right off the road. The car tilted to one side, we skidded, but somehow managed to stay on course.

‘Straight, straight. Then left at the bottom. Use the gears more.’ Smoother this time, but the engine sounded like it was about to explode. ‘That’s it. Go, go!’

Back onto the boulevard. No need to say which way. I knew the plan by now. But the police car was still there. Faster, we had to go faster, and find a better way to lose them.

We raced down the hill, away from the centre, moving inevitably towards the south, and Vallecas. It might be dangerous to lure them there, but it was probably our only chance. I saw Jesús feeling around for something.

‘A phone, a phone. This bastard must have— Watch it, this junction’s a tough one.’ We flew over the crossroads, narrowly avoiding a moped. The police car slowed up to avoid a collision. A few precious yards gained. But they were fast, probably faster than us. We couldn’t lose them on the straights. We had to shake them off some other way. My heart was beating overtime, blood pulsing violently in my hands as they gripped the steering wheel. I felt locked in this position, as though after the crash they would find me still clinging on, a wild, staring look of horror in my eyes.

Jesús was dialling. ‘Keep it going kid. Come on, come on, answer the bloody— Roberto!’

Blue lights still flashing in the mirror, like a fly that refused to die. Jesús was talking rapidly to the man on the other end. Short, fast instructions. I didn’t hear what was said, too busy watching the road – behind and in front.

He switched the phone off. ‘Just keep going. It’s sorted. Head towards Carlos’s place.’

There were more cars down here. People setting off early to put up their market stalls. We had to weave madly between three vans that were driving slowly in convoy, turning out onto the main road and taking up half the lanes. They were lucky not to be hit. But I realised I didn’t care. We were moving forward and nothing was going to stop us.

We crossed under the ring-road and headed up the hill into Vallecas, careering past early-morning buses and swerving to avoid old women walking out to buy bread. The grey, concrete football stadium sped past almost unnoticed.

‘Take the second right, towards Carlos’s place, then the first right again. We can do it, they’re falling back.’

I drove as instructed, trying not to brake, no lights, relying entirely on the streetlamps.

‘Here, on the left. That garage.’

I swerved in, braking for a final time, with a great screech of tyres on tarmac. The car entered a small opening in the wall, the door was closed, and we were in total darkness.

‘They might have heard us.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Come on, this way.’ We got out of the car, my knees trembling, and headed out of the garage, and into a shop at the back. Someone was locking the doors. I could barely take in what was happening. We could hear the sirens circling around the area. There seemed to be more than one of them now, but it was difficult to say. We stood, poised, ready to run if we had to, unsure how safe we were here. The police car came down the road and passed by the garage door without stopping. Then a second one. Then nothing.

We breathed a sigh of relief. Jesús put his arm around my shoulder.

‘Here,’ he said, placing some dope in my hand as I collapsed into a chair. ‘Take this. You need it.’