25. Chapter 25
After leaving the restaurant, Kim decided to walk back up to his hotel, to clear his head from the wine.
The waiter was right, it had truly been a great drop, but he wasn’t used to drinking at midday as everyone seemed to do here.
He searched for his hotel on his online map, and clicked on what looked like the most scenic route of three which the app offered him.
A fifty-minute walk would be perfect to stretch out his legs and unfuddle his brain from the morning’s crisis.
He had managed to extricate himself from the restaurant without getting the waiter’s number, whose name was Miguel.
Not that it hadn’t been offered along with his very seductive and lingering handshake when he got up to leave.
The men here just dripped sex. And they were all gorgeous.
Nothing compared to Dídac, but… tempted?
Sure, of course he was tempted, but getting into bed with someone else was hardly the way to resolve the crisis he had with Dídac…
or with the theater. Because all through his meal, he had been buffeted by the emotional ramifications of trying or needing to break off with Dídac, but barely thought about the other side of this dilemma—Santi’s proposal: should he sack Dídac?
A scandal was brewing throughout Catalonia around one of its most bankable young film stars, from which he felt temporarily isolated.
But tomorrow morning it would all come crashing down the moment he walked into rehearsal if not before.
One of Catalonia’s “straight” leading men had been caught tongue-kissing another guy outside some seedy nightclub.
It seemed to Kim quite a small thing. He’d always been openly gay, and in Australia it was hardly a problem—more the opposite: being gay almost gave you your artistic credentials, like doing your time in rep theater years ago just so you could get your equity card.
Santi was obviously taking it seriously, though.
Would it destroy Dídac’s career? Would it decimate the TV soap he starred in?
Would it sound the death knell on their own production of The Swan? Maybe yes to all three.
Santi wanted Kim to cut Dídac loose immediately to save the production, but all Kim could think about was how Dídac must be feeling.
He would be crushed. Where was he? Probably safe, ensconced with Laia somewhere, poring over the carnage.
Kim wanted to call him and reassure him.
But then what? Sack him? He couldn’t do that, not yet.
Sure he felt anger that he had fallen the emotional victim of Dídac’s charms. But rightly or wrongly he still felt…
something for the young actor. Whatever they had ignited, he couldn’t just turn it off, and cease to care.
Kim walked up Portal de l’àngel toward Placa Catalunya, pondering what to do.
It was fiendishly hot, but he resisted the urge to jump in one of the half-dozen yellow-and-black air-conditioned taxis lined up outside the big department store, El Corte Inglés—“The English Cut”, it translated as.
So he passed them by and continued walking uptown.
Instead of strolling directly on to Passeig de Gràcia, he skirted the square to the left and turned up Rambla de Catalunya.
He’d stumbled across this street on his morning walk down to the theater.
It was a wide tree-lined boulevard with the traffic separated to either side of a wide central pedestrian strip, more calming to walk along than the tourist-congested Passeig de Gràcia.
The businesses here were mainly bars and restaurants, and each had its own wide terrace of blinding white tablecloths and padded dining chairs—a step up from the more homely cafés that abounded throughout the city’s Gothic quarter.
He was tempted to stop and order a double whiskey on the rocks.
Not that that would help resolve this current car crash of a situation—but it certainly couldn’t make matters much worse.
But he refrained. The last thing he needed tomorrow was to try and sort this mess out on a hangover.
At the top of the Rambla, he crossed Avinguda Diagonal, and then continued up another similar boulevard called Via Augusta for a while, before his app urged him to plunge into a network of narrow streets to the right, following the directions on his phone towards his hotel.
After crossing a larger street running perpendicular to his route, he was in an area that felt more like a small village, with lower buildings and fewer cars.
People ambled along, hauling shopping bags or walking dogs.
Gràcia, his phone told him it was called.
In a square with a clock on a pedestal, he succumbed to his earlier desire and sat down at a café, under the shade of its awning.
One more drink couldn’t hurt, surely? The problem was, he was missing Dídac terribly.
He could try and cut the guy off, banish him from his production, replace him with another actor.
But the thing was Dídac had totally gotten under his skin—the first time in years he’d allowed a guy to do that.
And however unfaithful or weak the young man had been, Kim was sure he must be feeling devastated, and needing support.
He wanted to be holding him right now, enclosing him in his arms, and protecting him from whatever fallout was coming.
A dreamy waiter appeared before him, large doe eyes and smoothly brown-skinned, his lithe body filling out his tailored uniform in all the right places.
His cheeks dimpled when he smiled, and his shining eyes twinkled warmly as if Kim were the most perfect guy who could have graced his terrace in the entire afternoon.
“What would you like, Senyor?”
You. Your legs spread wide before me so that I have access to that beautiful ass to do with as I wish.
“Un uisqui amb gel, si us plau—a whiskey on the rocks, please.”
He was Latin American, but Kim’s ear wasn’t sharp enough to discern his particular accent.
The whiskey didn’t arrive soon enough for Kim already to be regretting it.
Drinking whiskey in the afternoon—what am I thinking!
With a decision like this to be made. He was just going to have to go ahead and sack Dídac; that’s all there was to it.
An actor—no, to be correct, a star, because this was not so much about the trade as about knowing how to negotiate the media and one’s public persona—had to behave within a clear set of moral guidelines, like a cart horse between its traces, and not bring the hand that fed them into disrepute.
There, he was mixing metaphors—one sip, and the whiskey was already going to his head.
He’d barely tasted it, but just the fumes were getting him drunk.
They loved their generous measures here, and Kim had never been able to hold a drink.
The waiter, discretely standing back beside the doorway, noted his idle glance, and flashed him a smile.
Stop that at once. We have a production to think of, and theater is serious business.
No, how did it go… a refrain from his theater school days…
His improvisation teacher used to say it…
Yes: “You can fool the town with a tragedy, but comedy is serious business.” Not that it meant much here: Dídac’s dalliances were hardly a comedy—they could have the whole production come tumbling down on top of their heads.
And if this production folded, it could affect the whole tour…
Manchester… The dates after Manchester were blocked in, but if Kim wasn’t receiving the agreed-upon revenues from the contracted productions—and they were dependent on ticket sales—then the only way he could keep going would be by putting up the collateral for his personal touring costs himself; that is, his groaning credit card; since he’d already remortgaged his house to get this show on the road.
Theater is not an industry that makes millions, unlike film.
The whole sector is rather a band of dedicated fanatics, who take ridiculous risks in order to see wild personal dreams fulfilled.
Putting this “tour” together, in which Kim was the only moving piece, was a radical way of doing things.
Normally, you would train up a company, rehearse with a single set of actors, and then sweat blood trying to bankroll transferring the entire production—cast, crew, and sets—to each venue you were able to hook in your promotional drive.
Kim had done things differently. In collaboration with his agent, he had wanted to create The Swan afresh in each new destination on his personal tour, collaborating with local companies and recruiting local actors and stars in each new place, so that each production was original, and local to its clime.
It was risky because, although it involved far less money, he had to jockey unknown companies and personalities around the globe, often with little or no knowledge of the local lingo.
But this was the first time a crisis like this had come up.
What a fool: he’d drunk a whiskey in the heat—on top of the wine at lunch. His head was spinning. He looked around and gestured the waiter, who came promptly.
“Can I get a cab?” What’s the Spanish—Catalan, I mean—I should be speaking the lingo.
“I’ll call one, Sir. Five minutes.”
The people here were so friendly, welcoming.
He didn’t deserve it. Little did they realize he was about to sack one of their most beloved stars.
That was on them. They shouldn’t be so trusting.
Now he just needed to get in the cab, and get to his hotel.
A siesta to sleep off the alcohol, and he’d be fine. What was he thinking!
The cab came and Kim settled his bill, got inside and collapsed on the back seat. He didn’t see the rest of the journey, as he kept his eyes closed, focused on the throbbing in his head.
Kim collapsed on his bed and fell straight asleep.
The heat, the alcohol, and the crisis at the theater put him straight under.
He must have slept for a few hours because when a sound roused him out of his slumbers, the light had changed.
It was late afternoon, sliding toward evening and the air had turned that subtle lilac hue that coincides with the sun’s last golden rays on the Mediterranean.
The annoying buzz in his ears was the telephone beside his bed.
His mouth felt horribly dry as only whiskey can do, and he had the start of a headache coming on.
He pulled himself up the bed and grabbed the phone off the hook.
“Ahh… yeah?”
“Mr. Delatour? There is a person below here, in reception, who would like to meet with you. Mister—”
“Uh, who? No… I don’t… No, I don’t want to see anyone. Please don’t disturb me again.”
He put the phone down. Who even knew he was here?
It could only be someone from the theater.
Laia, or… Dídac. He grabbed the phone, and…
what was the number to call reception… zero…
zero zero… zero one… No. Each combination he tried failed to connect with Reception.
He hauled himself off the bed, frantically looking for the hotel guide where the number for Reception would be printed.
It was sitting on top of the TV, but after flipping hastily through its plasticated pages, he was unable to find the number.
Damn and blast! Where were his shoes? He found one where he’d kicked it off on entering the room, but the other…
Where the hell was it? Bathroom? It wouldn’t be out on the balcony, would it?
No, it must be here. Finally he found it under the bed and, slipping it on, he rushed from the room, just remembering to grab his key card as he left.
Down in the lobby, he could see no one waiting at Reception, but the cute guy who had checked him in—and checked him out—on his first night was there behind the desk, as smiley as ever.
“Hello, ah… there was someone here… to see me? Mr. Delatour? Kim Delatour?”
“Ah…yes, there was… Quite a celebrity. Unfortunately he’s… just left…”
“Where?”
Kim was already heading out the door, but the taxi rank in front of the hotel was deserted. He stormed back in.
“Where did he go?”
“He was in a hire car. He decided not to wait in the end… The car was waiting for him… I’m sorry, I should have been faster, Sir.”
“F**k!”
Kim ran out of the hotel again, but he couldn’t see any sign of a car.
He didn’t have Dídac’s address, though knew he lived close.
The theater… they wouldn’t give him Dídac’s contact details, not under the circumstances, but…
Laia. He pulled his phone from his pocket and searched for her number.
Looking down at himself, he realized he was wearing shoes but no socks, and his clothes were rumpled from having slept in them.
As he rushed back toward the elevator, Laia’s number was ringing but she wasn’t picking up.
No matter, he would make himself presentable and then…