Unhappy Christmas Read online

  ‘Natalia...’

  Isabel and Natalia hugged. Natalia was comforted by this human contact, the warmth of a distant friendship, but at the same time felt a bit weird, realising just how long it had been since she’d last given Isabel a hug.

  ‘Come in, come in, please, don’t just stand there. You look great, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks. You too.’

  ‘There’s no need to lie to me, Natalia, I know I’m a wreck.’

  As she walked into Isabel’s small flat, Natalia became aware of the mess her friend was living in: clothes strewn all over the place, objects she had to step over or walk round in the narrow corridor, furniture heaped up with all kinds of papers and odds and ends.

  ‘If I’ve come at a bad time, we can catch up later. I don’t want to disturb you,’ said Natalia, bewildered and shocked by what she was seeing around her.

  ‘Not at all, don’t be daft. Anyway, if that’s what you’re worried about, we’d never find a time, it’s always a bad time lately.’

  ‘Where’s Juan?’

  ‘Juan left me for a younger woman two years ago.’

  Natalia was gobsmacked. She didn’t know what to say. She looked at Isabel standing in the middle of her bombsite of a living room, in her tiny working class flat, and she realised that she was in the home of a total stranger.

  ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea,’ Natalia stammered. ‘I really didn’t. You know what our work is like. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to...’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself. I could have written to you to tell you, but as you can imagine, I didn’t feel like it. Sit yourself down. Would you like a coffee?’

  Natalia accepted the invitation, forcing a smile. Isabel disappeared into the kitchen and Natalia tried to find a space to sit down. She took off her designer coat feeling a bit embarrassed and put it on a chair covered with yellowing underwear. She moved some t-shirts to one side of the sofa and sat down.

  Selfishly, it occurred to her that Isabel wasn’t exactly the friend she needed right now. Her life seemed to have been unhappy for a long time, not just a few minutes like Natalia’s. She needed someone to console her and cheer her up, not someone who was in a worse state than her and would depress her even more. Isabel came back with two coffees served in resin mugs on an old plastic tray.

  ‘Have you got the day off today?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that...’ said Isabel, enigmatically, sitting down on a chair on top of a pile of clothes and facing Natalia with a serious look on her face.

  ‘Something like that?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me. You haven’t shown signs of life for years and then out of the blue you call me today of all days.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Your pal Jose Antonio’s fired me. Me and a load of other colleagues. He told us yesterday.’

  ‘Ah...’ Natalia couldn’t help herself.

  ‘See how you knew?’

  ‘No, I swear I had no idea that you... I bumped into Rosa San Lazaro on the plane and she said something...’

  ‘How cute, you and Rosa on the plane together. I bet she was on her way back from Christmas shopping in the States, right? Of course, as she’s an executive’s wife and appears on a programme that boosts the ratings at the cost of people’s feelings...’

  Natalia looked at the floor, embarrassed.

  ‘They’re firing us because the network doesn’t have the money to pay so many staff. The shareholders would stop earning money if we kept our jobs. It’s only natural that they don’t want to give up their New York shopping trips. But the viewers of course can do without current affairs. The misery and suffering of all of those affected by the financial crisis doesn’t interest anyone, don’t you know? That doesn’t build up the ratings. Another thing is to make a grotesque show of it, that certainly gets the viewers, but that’s not why we studied journalism, at least I didn’t.’

  ‘Honestly, Isabel, you don’t know how sorry I am...’

  ‘Don’t lie. Ever since you started creeping up through the network you’ve forgotten about your friends in the editorial department. To tell the truth, you never treated us like friends, although we treated you like ours. You gradually drifted away from us and spent more time with the bosses and their silly, air-headed wives. Maybe, deep down, you’re just like them. And now you’ve found out that we’re out on our ear and you come to see me like people flocking round the scene of an accident. Like a charitable lady visiting the poor and covering her nose with a perfumed hanky.’

  Natalia was speechless. Isabel was sitting opposite her, oozing hostility, resentment and reproach. She had left behind a friend she had known for many years, one she could have a laugh with, work with and who was there in the good times and the bad, and now she found herself facing an aged and bitter enemy.

  ‘I don’t think it was such a good idea to come,’ said Natalia, standing up and reaching for her expensive coat.

  ‘No, that’s one thing we can agree on. I’ll see you out.’

  Natalia could feel Isabel’s dragon breath on her back as she walked along the long, dark corridor towards the door. Natalia, hands trembling, looked for the door handle and opened the door. Before leaving, she turned round and looked at Isabel.

  ‘I know we’ve lost touch recently, but I honestly knew nothing about them firing you. I just wanted to know how you were.’

  ‘If you’d worried about that before, you’d already know that I’m screwed and right now, at the bottom of a pit. But, luckily, I’ve got good friends I can turn to. Goodbye.’

  Isabel shut the door in her face. Natalia hurried down the stairs and out into the street, taking in a deep breath of cold air.

  When had she stopped being Isabel’s friend? Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that, she decided. Christmas Eve was ticking away, her husband that she didn’t want to see kept calling her mobile compulsively, she had nowhere to go for dinner and one of her few friends had revealed herself to be a total bitch. Without even thinking about it, she hailed another cab and got in, determined to find someone to give her a little support on this one hell of a day.

  She dialled Veronica’s number again but it was still switched off. Where could she be? If there was one person who could console her it was her best friend, she could never let her down like Isabel had. Right then, she realised that she only had one other option, one friend other than Veronica: Rosa.

  Shaky and feeling a bit embarrassed, she dialled her number and before she had time to backtrack, Rosa picked up.

  ‘Natalia? It’s all or nothing with you, I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. How’s it going? How did you find Madrid?’

  ‘Different...’ Natalia didn’t know what to say. ‘Are you busy?’

  ‘No, well, a bit but... It sounds like you need to talk, do you?’

  ‘Yes, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In a taxi, but I don’t know where right now.’

  ‘Come over.’

  ‘OK, thanks. See you in a bit.’

  Natalia hung up and realised that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea showing up at her boss’s house in her present state. But she had nobody else to turn to.

  Chapter 6

  A false friend

  Natalia’s taxi arrived at the residential area of Pozuelo, went through security at the entrance and continued on to Jose Antonio and Rosa’s villa. She paid the extortionate taxi fare, got out of the taxi and pressed the buzzer on the video intercom. Rosa’s maid opened the gate and, after crossing the enormous garden, the door to the house. Rosa was waiting for her in a huge living room that looked like something out of the glossy supplements in the Sunday newspaper and which, in fact, had appeared in a couple of them.

  Rosa gave Natalia a hug, not saying anything, condescending. Natalia felt Rosa’s skinny bones digging in to her skin and the coldness of a corpse brushing against her. When she hugged Isabel
she had at least felt some warmth, perhaps the very last embers of their friendship. Right now, all she felt was the iciness of a tomb.

  ‘Tell me everything, Natalia, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Is it so obvious that something’s up?’

  ‘You’re totally different from when I saw you on the plane. Something’s happened. You can’t fool a friend that easily,’ said Rosa, helping Natalia out of her coat and folding it carefully, with a hint of fetishistic awe. She knew what brand it was and how much it had cost.

  Rosa signalled for Natalia to sit down and she promptly slumped down on the luxurious leather sofa, which was as cold as everything else around it. Rosa planted her bony hips in an armchair opposite the sofa, waiting expectantly.

  ‘I wanted to surprise Miguel. I lied to him, told him I’d be home later, so that I could sneak in and surprise him and I caught him with another woman.’

  ‘No!’ said Rosa with an exaggerated gesture of surprise and a dramatic expression on her face, a bit too dramatic. Natalia thought she could see a hint of pleasure in her eyes. But it was so brief that she couldn’t say if she'd been right or if it was just a figment of her imagination. ‘What a bastard! Poor you...’

  Rosa got up from the armchair and hugged Natalia once more. This time, Natalia could feel more life in her, as if the misfortune of another human being had livened her up just as blood brings a vampire back to life. Just then, feeling this strange vibration, like a cat purring, Natalia had a revelation. She stepped back from Rosa and looked her in the eye.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Rosa was taken aback. For just an instant, she had lost control of the role she was playing, always in the right place and composed like a professional actor on the stage.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Rosa. You knew that Miguel was cheating on me.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that I knew as such... How would I know that? I don’t think it’s something he would go around shouting about.’

  ‘But?’ Natalia’s journalistic instinct had woken up and was implacable. She could smell the lie hidden behind Rosa’s expensive perfume.

  ‘I had heard something,’ Rosa had to admit.

  ‘What did you hear? It would have been nice if you’d told me this morning on the plane.’

  ‘How could you expect me to tell you that?’ said Rosa with a frozen smile and a malicious shine, yes, malicious, in her eyes. Natalia thought that she was either totally paranoid or Rosa was getting a thrill out of the situation.

  ‘What do you mean by ‘that’? Can’t you speak clearly once and for all?’ Natalia was starting to lose it.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you, because I don’t know for sure. It’s just rumours flying around Madrid. You know you're a well-known couple. You’re living in the States and your husband is gorgeous, the best gynaecologist in Madrid, and there are a lot of loose women out there on the prowl, what do you expect? People talk. But who knows how many of those that’ve said they've slept with him are telling the truth and how many are just making it up. You know how it goes.’

  ‘You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?’ Natalia snapped, unable to stand Rosa’s fake, theatrical smile any longer.

  ‘How could you say something like that? I know you're hurt, but that’s no reason to take it out on me,’ Rosa replied sharply and with a touch of impertinence.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Natalia wouldn’t allow herself to be intimidated. ‘I get the feeling that you’re happy about it.’

  ‘Who the hell do you take me for?’ Rosa hissed, like a true viper. ‘Watch what you say, Natty. Just remember who you’re talking to. We don’t want any upsets just before Christmas.’

  Natalia was dumbfounded. Rosa looked at her, trying to hold back a triumphant smile.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Natalia, with a tiny voice. The discovery that someone she had thought was her friend was in fact jealous of her and full of a secret hatred buried under a layer of falseness made her legs tremble and brought tears to her eyes. She tried to set the situation straight. ‘I’m sorry, I’m a mess because of all this with Miguel and I've taken it out on you. I’m sorry, I truly am.’

  ‘Sweetie...’ Rosa put her friend mask back on. ‘I don’t hold it against you. I understand you perfectly.’

  Rosa gave Natalia another hug and Natalia felt the bile rising in her throat, feeling how that bitch’s heart was beating, full of jealousy and satisfaction at her misfortune, next to her tormented, broken heart.

  ‘I've got to go. Thanks for sparing me the time.’

  ‘It’s the least I could do, Natalia. Who are you going to spend Christmas Eve with?’

  ‘With my family,’ Natalia lied. ‘I’m leaving shortly for Teruel.’

  ‘That’s good, at least we’ve always got the family to turn to. If you do change your mind, for whatever reason,’ said Rosa peering into Natalia’s darting eyes, looking for confirmation of what she suspected, that is, that dinner in Teruel was a lie, ‘you know you’re more than welcome to have dinner with us.’

  ‘Thank you, Rosa. Truly.’ Natalia tried to appear sincere and hide the disgust that she was feeling right then. She did it instinctively, out of common sense (she didn’t want to lose the only thing that seemed secure at that moment, her job, by coming to blows with her boss’s wife) and she didn’t want to let that snake get away with it and see her screaming like a madwoman, beside herself and making a scene.

  Rosa accompanied Natalia to the door in silence. She kissed Natalia goodbye and told her once again what she already knew, that she was there for her along with all the other worn-out, insincere clichés pouring out through her skinny, red, hyena lips. Natalia crossed the garden, head down and followed by a final, now openly malicious look from Rosa.

  The maid opened the gate to the property and Natalia walked out into the empty, dead street of the residential area. She felt ashamed, ridiculed, indignant, irate, shattered and more hurt than ever.

  Chapter 7

  A shoe for a prince

  Natalia sat in the back of another taxi sobbing silently, heading back to Madrid. She picked up her mobile, deleted the new calls that Miguel had made since she last looked at it and tried to get hold of Veronica again, but her phone was still out of range. Her only friend, if she was still her friend and didn’t have any horrible secrets like the others, was out of reach. And what Natalia needed most right now was a good friend. She didn’t know what to do or where to go.

  What if she went to Teruel? No, she couldn’t just show up in Teruel, not after lying and saying that she was staying in the States. After making plans that didn’t include her family and now that those plans had fallen through, she couldn’t show her face there. She was embarrassed. She felt like a failure, horrible and mean. What was she going to do? Who was she going to spend Christmas Eve with? What was she going to do with Miguel?

  The bastard! The whole of Madrid was talking about his goings on behind her back. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of listening to his explanations and then turn up at his family dinner acting as if nothing had happened. Tonight he could be the one with egg on his face. Tomorrow we’ll see...

  ‘We’re there, madam,’ said the taxi driver.

  Desperately leaving Pozuelo and catching a cab, without thinking Natalia had told the driver to go to Avenida de America, to Veronica’s address. Come to think of it, it did make some sense. Even if Veronica’s phone was off, she might still be at home. After all, it was the only option she had left after such a horrible day.

  Natalia reached Veronica’s front door and pressed the doorbell, quivering like a jelly. Veronica didn’t answer the door either. Natalia insisted. She was getting more and more restless and wobbly in her expensive, stylish heels, the same ones that she had taken off to surprise Miguel.

  Bloody Miguel! Why couldn’t she get him out of her head? She even thought that she could see him coming towards her right now, just twenty metres away down the street, with red eyes
looking worried and hurt, but just as fit and handsome as always. That reddish-brown hair, manly square jawline, sensual lips...

  It was Miguel! Of course, he must have guessed that Natalia would go and look for Veronica. Natalia started running in the opposite direction.

  ‘Natalia, please, wait!’ Her husband shouted after her.

  Natalia couldn’t wait or think, she could only run clumsily as fast as her designer shoes would allow her, until one skidded on something slimy, almost making her fall. Natalia looked down and saw that her two-thousand dollar shoe was covered in dog crap.

  This brief incident made her lose precious time in her escape from Miguel who, taking advantage of Natalia stopping, thrown off balance at the sight of her shoe, had almost caught up with his wife. Natalia saw him coming and reacted without thinking. She quickly bent down, took off the crap-covered shoe and threw it at Miguel’s head.

  Miguel dodged the shoe but instinctively reached out to catch it. Before he knew it, he had the shoe in his hand and his hand was covered in dog muck. Miguel froze, disconcerted, looking at Natalia.

  Natalia took her chance, spotting a taxi that had stopped at a traffic light right next to her. Dropping her other shoe on the pavement, she jumped in the car and in a flash was fleeing from him again, without even looking back to see his upset, incredulous look as he watched his wife disappear into the distance with her shoe in his hand.

  Natalia smiled vengefully as she pulled her wool socks over her feet. She’d thrown a shoe caked in shit at Miguel. You’ve got what you deserve, she thought angrily.

  ‘Where are we going, miss?’ The taxi driver asked.