The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten 2)

“A little,” I admitted. “And it’s not as easy as it seems.”

“If the novel you’re writing doesn’t sell, you can always become my chauffeur.”

“Let’s not bury poor Manuel yet, Don Pedro.”

“That comment was in bad taste,” Vidal admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“How’s your novel going, Don Pedro?”

“It’s going well. Cristina has taken the final manuscript with her to Puigcerdà so that she can type up a clean copy and get it all shipshape while she’s there with her father.”

“I’m glad to see you looking happy.”

Vidal gave me a triumphant smile.

“I think it’s going to be something big,” he said. “After all those months I thought I’d wasted, I reread the first fifty pages Cristina typed out for me and I was quite surprised at myself. I think it will surprise you too. I may still have some tricks to teach you.”

“I’ve never doubted that, Don Pedro.”

That afternoon Vidal was drinking more than usual. Over the years I’d got to know the full range of his anxieties and reservations, and I guessed that this visit was not a simple courtesy call. When he had polished off my supply of anisette, I served him a generous glass of brandy and waited.

“David, there are things about which you and I have never spoken …”

“About football, for example.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m listening, Don Pedro.”

He looked at me for a while, hesitating.

“I’ve always tried to be a good friend to you, David. You know that, don’t you?”

“You’ve been much more than that, Don Pedro. I know and you know.”

“Sometimes I ask myself whether I shouldn’t have been more honest with you.”

“About what?”

Vidal stared into his glass of brandy.

“There are some things I’ve never told you, David. Things that perhaps I should have told you years ago …”

I let a moment or two go by. It seemed an eternity. Whatever Vidal wanted to tell me, it was clear that all the brandy in the world wasn’t going to get it out of him.

“Don’t worry, Don Pedro. If these things have waited for years, I’m sure they can wait until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I may not have the courage to tell you.”

I had never seen him look so frightened. Something had got stuck in his heart and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“Here’s what we’ll do, Don Pedro. When your book and mine are published we’ll get together to celebrate and you can tell me whatever it is you need to tell me. Invite me to one of those expensive places I’m not allowed into unless I’m with you, and then you can confide in me as much as you like. Does that sound all right?”

When it started to get dark I went with him as far as Paseo del Borne, where Pep was waiting by the Hispano-Suiza, wearing Manuel’s uniform—which was far too big for him, as was the motorcar. The bodywork was peppered with unsightly new scratches and bumps.

“Keep at a relaxed trot, eh, Pep?” I advised him. “No galloping. Slowly but surely, as if it were a draft horse.”

“Yes, Señor Martín. Slowly but surely.”