Free Southern Seas by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Page B

that.” I asked to be shown the laws which banned people from coming into Britain in their work clothes. There was no such law, but they still wouldn’t let us through. Finally I rang Miguel Primo de Rivera, who was then ambassador in London, and explained what was happening. They sent us some embassy cars and escorted us into the country under the protection of the diplomatic corps.’
    ‘Have you been as imaginative in your business life?’
    ‘It hasn’t been necessary. While my father was alive, it was all plain sailing. He respected my personality. He knew that I was creative and that I needed to change my life and other people’s. When he died, I was nearly fifty years old, and came into an absolutely staggering inheritance. I put a lot of it into fixed-interest securities, so that I could live like a prince for the rest of my life. I used some more to compensate my wife for bearing me five children, and I made them my heirs. With the remainder, I set myself up in business, always using fellows like Planas or Stuart Pedrell. Fellows with drive, with a fierce ambition for power, but with the possibility of gaining only economic power. Planas is an impressive and dangerous operator: in four years he can triple any sum of money you care to give him. Eat and drink, Señor Carvalho, before the revolution comes.’

    He gave no opportunity for the conversation to take a different track. His observations were entirely self-centred, and he went on to talk of his travels.
    ‘Yes, Señor Carvalho, I stand guilty of having travelled three times around the world—by ship, by plane and by land. I know all the worlds there are to know on this earth. I don’t have time today—Caballé is singing
Norma
at the Liceo and I don’t want to miss it. But another day, I’ll take you round my private museum. It’s in my ancestral home at Munt de Montornés.
    ‘It alarms me that the possibility of enjoying life seems to be disappearing. It’s not just a question of money, although that’s not unimportant. When I was a child, I discovered what happiness was, what pleasure was—in a piece of pumpkin and a slice of salami. Have you read
Cuore
by D’Amicis? Nowadays, the educational experts rule it out of court, but it was part of the sentimental education of my generation, and probably yours too. I remember one scene where Enrico, the young hero, goes on a trip to the country with some of his school friends, including Procusa, the son of a bricklayer. In fact it’s Procusa’s father who organizes the trip, and at one point he gives them a slice of pumpkin with salami on top. How does that strike you? I find it truly marvellous. A simple joy in nature and in spontaneous eating. You have to wait for Hemingway before there’s an eating scene that even compares. In
Beyond the River and Into the Trees
, he describes in simple language a scene with a fisherman eating a plate of beans and bacon that he has cooked over a fire by the river. None of the great banquets of baroque literature come anywhere near the meals in
Cuore
and Hemingway’s short story. But such possibilities of enjoyment are coming to an end. The stars don’t lie. Everything is carrying us towards death and extinction.’
    ‘But you’re still making money …’
    ‘It’s my duty.’
    ‘You’d be ready to defend your heritage by every available means. Even war.’
    ‘I don’t know. It depends. Not if it was a very dirty war. Although I suppose that any war can be made to look attractive. But no, I don’t think that I’d come round to supporting violence.’
    ‘So? What are you afraid of?’
    ‘That an era in which necessity rules over imagination will deprive me of this house, this servant, this chablis and this morteruelo—although the morteruelo may just survive, because the left has recently promised to preserve the “hallmarks of popular identity”, and cooking is one of those.’
    ‘Stuart Pedrell tried to escape from his condition. You take