VALENTINE'S DAY - SOLO
Valentine’s Day: not easy for the determinedly not-sorry-for-herself singleton like Yolande in Flamenco Baby…
Fernando Morales: a Puerto Rican volleyball player, a Manchester City striker, a Chilean university professor. Eventually a Spanish article praising Nando’s teaching at a Flamenco workshop in Madrid, complete with blurred action picture. On his own, he didn’t seem to be cutting much of a profile. Antonio Molino and Fernando Morales. Aha. Pages and pages of notices of performances. Reviews by breathlessly infatuated critics, the odd carp from flamenco purists. Some interviews about their shows, in which ‘FM’ had fewer words but somehow more to say than ‘AM.’ YouTube clips: dizzying camerawork jumping from sweating, pained faces to the thundering feet and back to spinning arms and wet black hair. A couple of incomprehensible interviews on Spanish TV in which they sat on a sofa, initially serious but then making each other laugh like I’d seen at the reception. But apart from their flamenco heritage, Molino and Morales had managed to conceal every detail of their private lives. Even Antonio Molino + esposa failed to reveal his marriage to Pilar.
Their website. Eerie strings behind a full-screen picture of them, sinuously expressive in black silk. A resonant, rhythmic vocalising of those strange sounds like Alicia sometimes made when showing me steps: takata con-con, takata con-con, takata con... Ta... Ta... Unmistakably Nando’s voice and speaking directly to my limbic system as other images faded in – moodily sexy or smiling at applause. I clicked on Biografía: he was only thirty-three. His training, prizes, tours, solo guest appearances. Molino’s was an almost identical read. Calendario: Madrid, Seville, a frantic criss-crossing of Europe then South America in September; there was no time for private lives.
I switched off the computer and switched on the day; I was going to have a good one if it killed me. Some Spanish, more on a flute and piano piece I was composing, tidy the flat to salsa, a turquoise bath. Then out for lunch.
A sunny Sunday lunchtime and Valentine’s Day: not the easiest of times for a determinedly not-sorry-for-herself single to be strolling by the canal. Even the mad-cap bikes had to defer to the crowds of stuck-together couples dawdling along with wan morning-of-sex faces. Perhaps I could have been one of them, if I’d just... It wasn’t that I... Well, no, it was that... I had in the past, sort of... But not the first night for God’s sake.
Dark, wearing what could be the same jacket, leaning back on the bench with his arm around a girl… No: too bland a face. Asian. But a similar body, his girlfriend’s hand on his tummy. That was it: I’d given him the wrong idea. I’d reached the age of thirty-eight, a total of five lovers, and still didn’t really understand the language of sex. Like my Spanish, stuck at some lower intermediate level by some unidentified limiting factor.
My phone trilled in my pocket. Jeremy.
‘How’s my valentine?’
‘Fine thanks, how’s mine?’
‘In need of some female company. This festival... mass gayness just isn’t my thing. So what’re you up to then?’
‘I’m on my way to the Narrow Boat with Mao’s Last Dancer. Bit sad I know – it’ll be chocker with couples.’
‘Ha - you won’t even notice them with Li Cunxin for company. So tell me, how was the theatre reception party? Did you use your Spanish?’
‘I did!’ I described how I’d told Pilar that her beautiful song had made me cry.
‘Oh well done. Anyone else?’
‘Well... yes. Guess who I shared profiteroles with?’
‘Antonio Molino?’
‘Nope.’
‘Fernando Morales?’
I left a dramatic pause. ‘Yes! But his English was better than my Spanish so I sort of gave up.’
‘Wow! Nice guy? Did he flirt with you?’
‘No of course not! But he was an absolute sweetie.’
‘Listen to you. You’re gorgeous, when are you going to start believing it?’ I heard a Spanish voice in the background. ‘Oh... Vicente agrees but says he’s starving. You’ll have to tell me more tomorrow – we could have a late lunch together, yes?’
‘Definitely.’
I’d arrived and made my way to a cramped table in the corner spurned by the couples.
‘No boyfriend today?’ asked our usual waitress.
‘No. Had to go to Spain for a few days.’
‘So you thought you’d celebrate anyway.’
‘Something like that, yes.’ Bloody hell. It was impossible for Jeremy and me to go anywhere without being thought of as a couple. There were even a few restaurants where we avoided taking partners, not wanting to spoil the illusion.
I tried to re-immerse myself in the Chinese peasant boy’s life, periodically turning to the photos of him dancing and leaping later on, but it was difficult now: it was half two – only an hour and a half before the performance. And afterwards... He wanted me to come to the Stage Door.
Fernando Morales: a Puerto Rican volleyball player, a Manchester City striker, a Chilean university professor. Eventually a Spanish article praising Nando’s teaching at a Flamenco workshop in Madrid, complete with blurred action picture. On his own, he didn’t seem to be cutting much of a profile. Antonio Molino and Fernando Morales. Aha. Pages and pages of notices of performances. Reviews by breathlessly infatuated critics, the odd carp from flamenco purists. Some interviews about their shows, in which ‘FM’ had fewer words but somehow more to say than ‘AM.’ YouTube clips: dizzying camerawork jumping from sweating, pained faces to the thundering feet and back to spinning arms and wet black hair. A couple of incomprehensible interviews on Spanish TV in which they sat on a sofa, initially serious but then making each other laugh like I’d seen at the reception. But apart from their flamenco heritage, Molino and Morales had managed to conceal every detail of their private lives. Even Antonio Molino + esposa failed to reveal his marriage to Pilar.
Their website. Eerie strings behind a full-screen picture of them, sinuously expressive in black silk. A resonant, rhythmic vocalising of those strange sounds like Alicia sometimes made when showing me steps: takata con-con, takata con-con, takata con... Ta... Ta... Unmistakably Nando’s voice and speaking directly to my limbic system as other images faded in – moodily sexy or smiling at applause. I clicked on Biografía: he was only thirty-three. His training, prizes, tours, solo guest appearances. Molino’s was an almost identical read. Calendario: Madrid, Seville, a frantic criss-crossing of Europe then South America in September; there was no time for private lives.
I switched off the computer and switched on the day; I was going to have a good one if it killed me. Some Spanish, more on a flute and piano piece I was composing, tidy the flat to salsa, a turquoise bath. Then out for lunch.
A sunny Sunday lunchtime and Valentine’s Day: not the easiest of times for a determinedly not-sorry-for-herself single to be strolling by the canal. Even the mad-cap bikes had to defer to the crowds of stuck-together couples dawdling along with wan morning-of-sex faces. Perhaps I could have been one of them, if I’d just... It wasn’t that I... Well, no, it was that... I had in the past, sort of... But not the first night for God’s sake.
Dark, wearing what could be the same jacket, leaning back on the bench with his arm around a girl… No: too bland a face. Asian. But a similar body, his girlfriend’s hand on his tummy. That was it: I’d given him the wrong idea. I’d reached the age of thirty-eight, a total of five lovers, and still didn’t really understand the language of sex. Like my Spanish, stuck at some lower intermediate level by some unidentified limiting factor.
My phone trilled in my pocket. Jeremy.
‘How’s my valentine?’
‘Fine thanks, how’s mine?’
‘In need of some female company. This festival... mass gayness just isn’t my thing. So what’re you up to then?’
‘I’m on my way to the Narrow Boat with Mao’s Last Dancer. Bit sad I know – it’ll be chocker with couples.’
‘Ha - you won’t even notice them with Li Cunxin for company. So tell me, how was the theatre reception party? Did you use your Spanish?’
‘I did!’ I described how I’d told Pilar that her beautiful song had made me cry.
‘Oh well done. Anyone else?’
‘Well... yes. Guess who I shared profiteroles with?’
‘Antonio Molino?’
‘Nope.’
‘Fernando Morales?’
I left a dramatic pause. ‘Yes! But his English was better than my Spanish so I sort of gave up.’
‘Wow! Nice guy? Did he flirt with you?’
‘No of course not! But he was an absolute sweetie.’
‘Listen to you. You’re gorgeous, when are you going to start believing it?’ I heard a Spanish voice in the background. ‘Oh... Vicente agrees but says he’s starving. You’ll have to tell me more tomorrow – we could have a late lunch together, yes?’
‘Definitely.’
I’d arrived and made my way to a cramped table in the corner spurned by the couples.
‘No boyfriend today?’ asked our usual waitress.
‘No. Had to go to Spain for a few days.’
‘So you thought you’d celebrate anyway.’
‘Something like that, yes.’ Bloody hell. It was impossible for Jeremy and me to go anywhere without being thought of as a couple. There were even a few restaurants where we avoided taking partners, not wanting to spoil the illusion.
I tried to re-immerse myself in the Chinese peasant boy’s life, periodically turning to the photos of him dancing and leaping later on, but it was difficult now: it was half two – only an hour and a half before the performance. And afterwards... He wanted me to come to the Stage Door.
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