‘You see, we’re just back from a wine-tasting event and it only takes a glass of Vichy water to put the poor man in a trance. Pay no attention to him, signorina, he doesn’t usually look so plastered.’
We found the urgent telegram sent by Aunt Laura, the girl’s mother, announcing her arrival. It had been slipped under the door while we were out.
Up in the flat, Fermín settled my father on the sofa and ordered me to prepare a pot of strong coffee. In the meantime, he engaged in conversation with the girl, asking her about her trip and bringing up all manner of banalities while my father slowly came back to life.
With her delightful accent and her vivacious air, Sofía told us she’d arrived at the Estación de Francia that night at half past ten. From the station she had taken a taxi to Plaza de Cataluña. When she discovered there was no one at home she’d sheltered in a nearby bar until they closed. Then she’d sat down to wait in the doorway, trusting that someone would turn up sooner or later. My father remembered the letter from her mother telling him that Sofía was coming to Barcelona, but he hadn’t imagined it was going to be so soon.
‘I’m very sorry you had to wait in the street,’ he said. ‘Normally, I never go out, but tonight was Fermín’s bachelor party and …’
Delighted with the piece of news, Sofía jumped up and congratulated Fermín with a peck on the cheek. And although he had now retired from active duty, Fermín couldn’t restrain himself and invited her to the wedding on the spot.
We’d been chatting away for about half an hour when Bea, who was returning from Bernarda’s own hen party, heard voices on her way up the stairs and rang the doorbell. When she stepped into the dining room and saw Sofía she went pale and glanced at me.
‘This is my cousin Sofía, from Naples,’ I announced. ‘She’s come to Barcelona to study and she’s going to stay here for a while …’
Bea tried to conceal her alarm and greeted her with absolute normality.
‘This is my wife, Beatriz.’
‘Bea, please. Nobody calls me Beatriz.’
Time and coffee slowly softened the impact of Sofía’s arrival and after a bit, Bea suggested that the poor soul must be exhausted and had better get some sleep. Tomorrow would be another day, she said, even if it was a wedding day. It was decided that Sofía would move into the room that had been my bedroom when I was a child and, after making sure my father wasn’t going to fall into a coma again, Fermín packed him off to bed too. Bea told Sofía she would lend her one of her dresses for the ceremony and when Fermín, whose breath smelled of champagne from two metres off, was on the point of making some inappropriate remark on the similarities and differences between their shapes and sizes, I gave him a jab in the ribs with my elbow to shut him up.
A photograph of my parents on their wedding day observed us from a shelf.
The three of us sat there, in the dining room, gaping at it in disbelief.
‘Like two peas in a pod,’ murmured Fermín.
Bea looked at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to read my thoughts. She took my hand with a cheerful expression, ready to change the subject.
‘So tell me, how was the celebration?’
‘Dignified and restrained. How was the ladies’ party?’
‘Ours was anything but that.’
Fermín threw me a serious look.
‘I told you that when it comes to such matters women are far more loutish than us.’
Bea gave us a quizzical smile.
‘Who are you calling loutish, Fermín?’
‘Forgive this unpardonable slip, Doña Beatriz. It’s the bubbly in my bloodstream that’s making me talk nonsense. I swear to God that you’re a model of virtue and decorum and this humble servant of yours would rather be struck dumb and spend the rest of his days in a Carthusian cell in silent penitence than insinuate that you possess the remotest hint of loutishness.’
‘No such luck,’ I remarked.
‘We’d better not discuss this any further,’ Bea cut in, looking at us as if we were both eleven years old. ‘And now I suppose you’re going to take your customary pre-wedding walk down to the breakwater,’ she said.
Fermín and I looked at one another.
‘Go on. Off you go. And you’d better make it to the church on time tomorrow …’
5
The only place we found open at that time of night was El Xampanyet, on Calle Montcada. They must have felt sorry for us because they let us stay for a bit, while they cleaned up, and when they closed, hear