If I didn’t exist, I thought, Jaime and Esther would surely fall in love. But I was a shadow too ominous for them to ignore, and I was not prepared to allow them to be happy.
Bernard Schmidt didn’t call me again, but Roy Parker did.
“Are you dead?” he asked in irritation.
“I’m still alive, what about you?”
“Stop dicking around. I was with the lawyers yesterday. Brian Jones and Edward Brown are both furious with you. Schmidt has convinced them that you’re a fool and untrustworthy. They want to sack you, Thomas.”
“Good for them.”
“Are you joking? I went through a lot of trouble to persuade them to take you on at the damn PR agency, so you have to come back to London. Talk to them, tell them you’ve had to be at your dying father’s bedside and swear that you’re able to do the job, whatever it is.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, I won’t do it. Look, Roy, I’m not going to work for anyone ever again. I’m going to do things my way. I’m sick of London; I’m going to set myself up in New York. I’ll come to Europe when I need to, but I’m going to live here.”
“You owe me,” he said.
“No, I don’t owe you anything. You contracted me, paid me, and I did your job. We don’t owe each other anything. Also, I didn’t say that I don’t want to work for you, only that I’ll do it on a case-by-case basis, if you’re okay with that, but I won’t be your lapdog. I won’t be anybody’s lapdog. I don’t like your lawyer friends, and I don’t like Schmidt. And I don’t really like you all that much.”
“Son of a bitch.” Roy’s voice blazed with anger.
“Fair enough.”
“I’ll ruin you, Thomas,” Roy threatened.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m the one who can ruin you. Of course, with the friends you’ve got, I’ll look twice before I step into the road. But I warn you that if you decide to come after me…I have papers and films that could get into the wrong hands. Or do I mean the right ones? There are lots of decent journalists out there, Roy, far more than you could imagine.”
“Finish the job in Spain, Thomas. Then come back to London and we’ll talk.”
“Maybe, Roy.”
I hung up. There was a bitter taste in the back of my throat. It came up right from my gut.
I had made things quite clear, but I knew that Roy was right, that I had to close the contract and do the Spain job. I don’t know why, but I didn’t like what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t logical that Schmidt should trust me with something when it was clear that I didn’t have the necessary resources.
I spoke to Jaime. I told him that I had to go to Madrid, that I didn’t know when I would be back. My brother didn’t blame me for leaving. John seemed to be out of any immediate danger and Dr. Patterson seemed more or less optimistic about his recovery. He still had to spend a few weeks in the hospital. Fifteen, twenty days, he couldn’t say exactly.
Jaime, with the help of the Spencers and Aunt Emma, would probably be support enough.
It wouldn’t be right to say that Jaime surprised me. Jaime was looking after John, taking control of everything, but he still managed to do his schoolwork. He was finishing up his studies at Harvard. His academic record was extraordinary.
He spent his time next to John’s bed, and when John slept he studied. He spent the nights at the hospital studying as well. Grandpa James encouraged him. John would not be able to work for a long while, maybe ever again, so it was a matter of urgency for Jaime to take control of the firm as soon as he got his degree. The firm that my great-grandfather Spencer had started. It was still prestigious, and now had a couple of partners, but there had always been a Spencer in charge.
I said goodbye to John, taking advantage of the schedule that Jaime had organized to pick a time when he was alone.
“I have to go to Madrid. I left some work half done.”
“Of course, I understand. You’ve done a lot for me. I don’t want your work to suffer on my behalf.” John spoke very low, without much strength.
“When I’m done, I’ll be back.”
“Aren’t things going well in London?” he asked worriedly.
“Well enough, but I prefer to work for myself and not for others.”
“You know I can help you…You can rely on me if you need to.”
“I’m not a lawyer, I can’t work at your firm,” I replied bitterly, thinking of Jaime.
“But if you want to set up your own advertising agency I…I could help you.”
“I can sort things out for myself.”
I didn’t kiss him goodbye. I still wanted to punish him. I couldn’t help feeling a little satisfaction, knowing that he was suffering.
I know he didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I should have taken him by the hand and told him how grateful I was that I was always in his thoughts:
“Thank you, Dad, I know that I can count on you. But I have to try to make it on my own. Although if things go badly, I will of course come to you.”
John would have smiled at me. My words would have made him happy.
“You know that your grandfather and I know a lot of people. Don’t hold back in asking for help, at least not at the start. You’ll need clients and maybe we could convince some of our friends to give you a chance, commission a campaign from you. Do you remember Robert Hardy? Your mother took care of him in the hospital when he had his heart operation. I’m sure he’d commission a campaign for one of his food lines. I don’t know, canned tomatoes, mayonnaise, something.”
“I’m sure he would, Dad, but don’t worry about that now. I’ll be back soon and if I need help I’ll ask you and Grandpa to lend me a hand. But I’ll feel a lot better about leaving if I know you’ll take care of yourself. Don’t push yourself to go back to work. Do you promise?”
“Of course, of course.”
Then I would have leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and he would have been overjoyed.
—
But I didn’t say any of those words or make any of those gestures. I left the hospital room without even looking at him.
—
Evelyn was waiting for me at Barajas Airport. In Madrid that morning the sun lit up the city even though the cold made its way through the seams of my coat. The light—I was reminded that the magical thing about the city was its light.
Jim Cooper was with Neil Collins and a couple of newspapermen he’d met on his trips through Spain. But they weren’t going to bring me up to date on the situation until later that afternoon, so I went to the hotel to relax.
I slept until the telephone rang. Evelyn said that they were waiting for me at reception to go and have lunch.
“It’s three o’clock,” I replied. “It’s no time to have lunch.”
“Remember we’re in Spain. Now is when they eat. There’s a restaurant nearby, and the food is amazing. Hurry up.”
Yes, we were in Spain. For a moment I had forgotten that Spanish time is very different from American or English time. I was surprised by these people, so able to live and to work at all hours. The light, I said to myself again, it’s the light that makes them like this.
Cooper gave me a rundown of the situation. It was not easy for them to design the campaign. The environmental organizations and the political parties and the newspapers were far too powerful as opponents. Even though unemployment in the south of Spain was high, and oil could help to counteract the economic downturn, none of this affected those who viewed oil companies as the enemy.
Spanish society was more ideologically rigid than in the U.K. and especially the U.S., where the only form of militancy was a fundamental belief in the free market.
“Where do we start?” I asked.
“We’ve already set up cooperative links with another agency. It’s owned by a man named Pedro López. We need someone who understands the terrain, who knows who’s who and how to deal with them. The owner of the agency is an odd guy. I’d say that he was
an out-and-out bastard, but he’s clever enough to move between the Left and the Right without being caught. He gets good write-ups in the press. He’s never been involved in politics; all his agency does is market studies for various brands,” Cooper said.
“Why are you making such a fuss about left- and right-wing politics?” I asked.
“Because this is a country that is divided down the middle; you’re either on one side or the other, and it’s enough for you to say A to make your opponent say B. It’s surprising, but no one listens to anyone here. People’s positions are based on being opposed to what their opponents say, not on thinking for themselves and reaching their own conclusions,” Evelyn said.
“All right, let’s get a detective to look into the private lives of the people against this project, all of these environmentalists and journalists and influencers,” I suggested.
“Dangerous. There are no secrets in this country. We’d end up being denounced in the papers ourselves. We’d have to do the work with tremendous patience, gathering information from all over the place, but without letting anyone know what we’re looking for. Although I suppose that Bernard Schmidt might already have a dossier about these people, or at least information that could give us something to go on.” Neil looked at me expectantly.
“If that were the case he’d have sent it to us already. I think that if he’s hired us to do the job, then it’s because he doesn’t have anyone better to do it.”
“Perhaps…It is odd that he hired you for this job. You don’t know Spain, your experience is limited to Roy and those kinds of dirty tricks, and now we’re trying to make room for an oil company to make a multimillion-dollar investment. There’s something here I don’t like.” Neil looked me straight in the eye.
“And what is that?” I asked uncomfortably.
“I’ll tell you. An old friend of mine, when I raised the subject of oil with him, said that a few months ago this company was spending loads of money inviting journalists out to visit oil rigs. A few of them had already been to the North Sea and to Texas…Here things are complicated and simple at the same time. The journalists who support the government defend the government’s interests shamelessly. The journalists who support the opposition are against the proposals. And there are people in the area itself who are mistrustful of the project and fearful, with good reason, that a nature reserve as special as Doñana might get contaminated,” Neil continued.
“Right, but all the same, it’s nothing more than a question of shifting the rhetoric a little one way or another. That’s the battle we have to win,” I said.
“It’s your battle, not mine. All I’m doing is telling you a few things.”
“There must be journalists we can influence.”
“I don’t buy journalists,” Neil said bluntly.
“I didn’t tell you to buy anyone,” I replied.
“I don’t cheat them either. I don’t try to change their minds. You know what, Thomas? Although it might be hard for you to believe, I have a great deal of respect for what used to be my profession and for the people in it who are not like me, and who, as they say here, tilt against windmills without giving up. You know how I work: I carry out investigations and I tell you what I’ve found out, nothing more. What happens next is up to you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything else.”
Neil shrugged and Cooper cleared his throat uncomfortably, while Evelyn looked at us with wide eyes, wondering if she should say anything.
“I also don’t feel quite right. I don’t trust Schmidt either,” I admitted.
“So what are we going to do?” Cooper asked.
“What do you suggest?” I said, no longer pretending that I was completely calm.
“We need to carry on, but carefully,” Evelyn suggested, and didn’t blink when we all looked at her in exasperation for saying something so obvious.
“I’ll carry on doing what I’ve been doing up until now,” Neil said. “Having breakfast and lunch and dinner and getting drunk with anyone who might be able to tell me anything. In this country, everything is sorted out over a table, a plate of food, and a drink.”
“It’s true, he’s doing most of the hard work,” Cooper said.
“And what about this guy you mentioned to me, the one with the agency?”
“López Consultants. We told them that we had been given the task of finding out how receptive the public might be toward drilling. Just that. Nothing at all about how to twist people’s arms and get them in line. But the information he’s giving us is useful enough. Although I think he knows more than he lets on,” Cooper said.
“Does he think that we work for an oil company?” I asked.
“More or less. It’s what we suggested, saying that our client is a little worried and is not willing to take any risks in a country where he won’t be accepted, even though that means perhaps losing some clear financial opportunities,” Evelyn said.
“And he really thought that an oil company would stop drilling on land or out at sea because of the complaints of a few activists? Don’t insult his intelligence!” I said angrily.
“We’re not doing that, but this way we stay within acceptable limits for him. He doesn’t want to know more and he doesn’t need to,” Evelyn insisted, annoyed at my tone of voice.
“All right, then it’s clear that you can carry on without me. I’ll go to London tomorrow. I need to see Roy and the lawyers.”
“What’s your plan?” Cooper asked.
“I’d be lying if I said I had a plan. All I know is that I want to move back to New York and set up shop there. I’ve been thinking about setting up an agency with a branch in London as well; I hope I’d be able to rely on you. But I still haven’t decided yet. I have to do research on the investment required, to think about who might be our clients. What I really want to do is concentrate on election campaigns. They pay well and are easy. I don’t like jobs like this. They cause all kinds of complications. This is too dirty, even for me.”
“Is this your conscience speaking?” Evelyn asked, a tone of concern in her voice.
“No, it’s nothing like that. I may be bad, but I’m not stupid. I don’t want problems, or at least ones I can’t control. Brian Jones and Edward Brown have a business. Dirty work for people who want to keep their hands clean. They pay well, it’s true, but if you work in the sewers your whole life then you end up smelling like shit. And that’s a smell that lingers. Doing the dirty work for an oil company is not the same as doing the dirty work for Roy. I still don’t understand why Schmidt gave us this job. We don’t have the experience to deal with something this big.”
“Do you really think something’s up?” Cooper asked in alarm.
“I think so. The sooner we get out of this, the better. We’ll do the job, but without getting in too deep. I don’t know this country and I don’t know its rules, so we have to be aware that we’re likely to misstep. Don’t do anything that could compromise us, and don’t do anything that’s not strictly reasonable. If Schmidt isn’t happy with the work, that’s his problem. But we’re not going to dirty our hands any more than is absolutely necessary. Got it?”
“You’re a true lawyer,” Cooper said with admiration.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that. What I don’t want to do is fall into a cesspool, and if you fall then I fall.”
“After London, are you going to New York, or will you come back to Madrid?” Neil asked.
“I’ll come back here. I’m not going to leave you hanging, but I want this tied up in the next two weeks.”
“Impossible,” Neil said.
“We’ll see. We’ll do what’s necessary. Maybe we don’t need to do anything more than write a clever report for Schmidt. We’ll show him the way, but we don’t have to guide him by the hand.”
I think they all felt relieved. Evelyn and Cooper were both ambitious, but they needed someone to lead the way. As for Neil, he was a clever enough survivor to know when to abandon a sinking shi
p. He had lived too long to put his neck on the line for anyone. And although it was hard for me to admit it, Neil still had a code of ethics that went beyond being willing to do anything to make money for booze.
“Ah, and Neil will be in charge while I’m gone.”
“No,” Neil replied, to Cooper and Evelyn’s bewilderment.
“You know the lay of the land better than any of us,” I said, trying to persuade him.
“Look, Thomas, I’m not on your payroll. You hire me to do a job, and if I can do it, then I do it. But I’m free; I’m not going to accept responsibilities or get involved any further than I need to. I’ll give Cooper and Evelyn all the information I come across, but you need to decide what you do with it. I don’t care. Plus, there’s something fishy about this job.”
That’s the kind of person Neil was. He refused to commit to anything, let alone go to bat for causes that weren’t his own. He didn’t give a shit about me. He had made it clear from the start that he wasn’t going to risk anything for me. And so, though I wanted him to become more involved in these projects, he always kept his distance.
“All right. But I need a report with all the information you have about this other company that’s already working for the oilmen. Write it down for me. And you do the same,” I said, turning to Cooper and Evelyn. “I need, in writing, everything that you’ve done and that you think there is left to do. Leave it in an envelope at reception at the hotel. I want to take the first flight to London tomorrow morning.”
—
I had no intention of spending the rest of the day with them. They bored me. And I was due to meet Blanca. I had called her from the airport and she had invited me to have dinner with her. “Alone,” she had said.
I liked Blanca; I wasn’t going to lose my head over her, but I had fun when I was with her. I don’t think she expected more from me than the time we might spend together.
I got to her place at nine o’clock, just as she had said. She opened the door and I was surprised because she gave me a hug as if she were exceptionally pleased to see me. That kind of greeting made me uncomfortable. I have never liked effusive people.