12: A Cork

Mario left his car in the parking space assigned to him at the company — the offices sat directly across from the flat he shared with his father.
Wretched momentum carried him all the way to his own front door, and for the first time, he had no energy to greet his father with the usual account of his day.
He weighed his options, and pretending seemed the best one. He drew in a breath, exhaled slowly, and went inside.
"Good evening, Mario."
Mario gave his father a smile — polite, nothing more.
"I have something to tell you, though I'm not sure whether it's good news or bad." Manuel pressed on.
"Can it wait until tomorrow, Dad?" Mario couldn't help sighing. "I'm exhausted and I want to sleep."
"Mario, I need you there from first thing Tuesday morning." Manuel touched his son's shoulder to make him look at him. "Not as head of PR, not as union liaison, not as New Business director." His expression was serious but warm, as always. "Just as the company's heir. Are we clear?"
Mario rolled his eyes, shrugged off his father's hand and headed to his room.
"I'm done in, Dad. I don't want to talk about the company until tomorrow."
Manuel was left with the words on the tip of his tongue, deeply worried about his son.
Mario reached his bed and let gravity win. As he raised his arms, he noticed.
He was still wearing the flannel shirt Marta had given him.
He smelled it, and felt a small pang of disappointment that it didn't carry her scent of pineapple and pine nut. But then, that was her fragrance — not the clothes she kept for guests.
He sighed.
His mind wandered, and he found himself thinking how much he had liked that small village in the mountains outside Madrid. It had seemed small — but then, he had only been on one street on the outskirts.
He made up his mind to go back. And with that thought, Mario fell asleep.
He dreamed of her, and of the feeling of holding her. When he woke, he was both lifted and deflated. He understood that this would be his routine from now on.
He kept the flannel shirt to remember Marta.
He dressed in a suit without a tie and a pair of classic trainers — he looked like a television presenter, but he was the New Business and PR director of ADAN, and as such, he was heading to La Cabrera to look for potential clients.
On the way, he called a friend through the hands-free.
"Susana?"
"Well, if it isn't the handsome publicist!"
"Are you still doing tattoos?"
"More than ever, thanks to ADAN — did you doubt it?"
Mario smiled.
"I want to get a tattoo."
"You're joking, Mario — you've changed your mind!"
"Just one, Susana, but it means a great deal to me. Could it be this afternoon?"
"For the man who pulled me out of a hole — anything. What are you thinking?"
"I want a drawing of a cork and a name."
"Would the name be inside the drawing, or outside?"
"If it's inside, it'll be hidden. I prefer that."
"Tell me the name and I'll have the design ready before five."
"Her name is Marta." Mario smiled faintly. "I'll be there."
And he hung up.
He arrived at the door in three quarters of an hour. He looked at the old bench where he and Marta had sat watching the street go by on Saturday afternoon.
"It's not that hidden away." He caught himself saying out loud what was going through his head, and smiled all the same.
"Young man!"
Mario turned around. It was the neighbour who had lent them the milk and the sponge fingers.
"Neighbour!"
"Oh, what a joy you are!"
"I'm sorry?"
"If you're calling me neighbour, it's because you think of me as one." The woman opened her arms wide. "That means you did well — and you're coming back."
Mario wanted to answer with the truth, but he didn't want the woman to judge Marta, so he scanned the little houses along the street. He noticed something that caught his eye.
"Who knows — you might end up seeing more of me than of Marta."
"I don't follow, son."
"I liked the village so much, I want to buy a little place of my own around here." He was looking at a black and orange estate agent's sign hanging from a balcony further up the street.
"I think it's wonderful when new faces come to the village."
The old woman started back inside, but before she closed the door, Mario stopped her.
"What's your name?"
"My late husband called me Celeste — my name is Celestina, and everyone in the village knows me as Auntie Tina."
"Thank you, Tina. I'm Mario."
The woman nodded warmly and closed the door.
Mario called the number on the for-sale sign for the small flat in that four-storey building.
Luck was on his side, and he was able to get through to the estate agent that same afternoon.
Mario spent the whole morning working the streets of the village and came away with three commercial contracts for the company. A little girl tried to play matchmaker between him and her nanny, and by one o'clock he had managed to reach the estate agent.
"Gonzalo." The man extended his hand.
"Mario Ruiz Montenegro." Mario reached out in turn and they shook.
Mario invented a story about an interest in property investment, and the agent raised no objection when Mario showed no interest in negotiating the price.
By two in the afternoon, Mario was the owner of a neat little top-floor flat in a small village in the mountains outside Madrid.
He picked up one more client from one of the businesses in the same building, and, satisfied, bought himself a Hawaiian salad to take away.
He ate it sitting outside Marta's little house. He thought about how much his life had changed in four days — more in his mind than anything else, but it had been because of an extraordinary woman: Marta.
The name led him to think of the tattoo, and from there, to check the time.
"It's four o'clock."
He started the car and drove straight to Susana's tattoo parlour in the Aluche neighbourhood, to have a cork drawn into his skin — one that would hide a name inside it: Marta.