Chapter 6
Temperature Rising
Ed found married life very much to his taste. It was not just waking up beside Ção or falling asleep inside her or imbibing a constant night-time aroma of sex and cinnamon. It was also the knowledge of having an anchor in a transient world, even as the world before them changed for the better, and they were happy to be part of it.
At the end of their first week back in Lisbon, Ção surprised Ed by getting out of bed as soon as they woke up.
“What’s going on?”
“Demo!”
“Come back to bed. I want to make love to you before breakfast.”
“I don’t think we’ve got time for sex, you know, or even breakfast. We’ve got to get this demo up and running, so we can’t just lie in bed.”
“We?”
“You, me and the other true revolutionaries.”
“Er, who are these true revolutionaries?”
“The MRPP, of course.”
“The who?”
“The Movement – oh, let’s just say the Maoists. Come on, darling, get up!”
“I’m not sure I want to associate myself with Maoists, my love. I’ve heard they have a rather different idea of loyalty to mine. The Maoists in China, anyway.”
Ção slipped back under the covers and placed her naked body over part of Ed’s.
“OK. Compromise. I’ll suck every last drop of sperm out of you, and then we’ll go.”
Coming from Ção, it was an offer Ed could not refuse.
When they got down to the docks, the demo was in full swing. Ed had expected to feel out of place among hordes of hard-looking, rough-clad peasants, but most of these Maoists were young and dressed with casual care. Ed and Ção fitted in pretty well. The youngsters managed to be tough and uncompromising in the words they addressed to the targets of the demo – conscript troops being shipped off to the colonies.
“But I thought the wars were going to end.”
“So did we. Yet the National Salvation Council says we’ve got to negotiate an agreed peace, not just withdraw our troops, so here we are sending these boys off to replace other kids whose tour of duty in Africa is coming to an end. It doesn’t make sense!”
“Well, actually, you know, I can sort of see the point.”
“Oh, Ed, don’t be so naive, it isn’t funny. Most of these kids are younger than you. Some are even younger than me. And some of them won’t be coming home.”
Ed was not going to argue. He just wanted to keep Ção out of harm’s way, so he gently but unrelentingly manoeuvred her to the sidelines, well away from the potential points of contact between the soldiers and the demonstrators. The youngsters on the boat looked back blankly as their counterparts on the quay called them murderers and urged them to desert, while the vessel slipped its mooring and took them into the broad estuary, seawards, away from everything that was familiar.
“There was an awful lot of noise,” Ed said to Keith, the day he paid out on the bet he had lost, “but it never looked as though anyone was going to get hurt.”
They were sitting outside the Suiça café in Rossio Square, the city’s heart.
“That’s par for the course. Let’s hope things stay that way. I expect they will, you know. Now, since you’re paying, you can order for us both.”
Ed perused the menu, conferred with the waiter and asked for a series of choice items.
“Hmm. Your Portuguese has improved. It’s come on leaps and bounds since we last spoke. To what shall we attribute that, eh?”
“Necessity. I’ve been using it more.”
“One of my teachers has just published an article called Language Learning in Bed. A title like that, anyway.”
“Could be on to something. But I’ve been using Portuguese for business, too. Outside the cities, where hardly anyone speaks English or French.”
“Ah, business. Getting difficult, isn’t it?”
“A mere blip, in my opinion. People are waiting to see what happens. With this civilian government that has just come in, I think people will really go for it. All that untapped potential for enterprise. Keith, it’s a dream coming true!”
“I just hope you don’t get a rude awakening.”
The strong afternoon light reflected off the metal edges of the tables. Ed let the sparkling wine tickle the back of his throat and stimulate the taste buds that the bland food had failed to arouse. He opened and closed his eyes to create a strobe effect, and felt glad they were sitting down, and under an awning. Tomorrow he would go out and drum up business, but this afternoon he was going to enjoy the southern lifestyle and the northern company, and in the evening he would let love rule. It really was a perfect way to live.
Rarely had the world so readily and so whole-heartedly endorsed a military coup as it did Portugal’s bloodless “Carnation Revolution”. International approval was cemented by the installation of the civilian government, which included members of all the major political forces outlawed during the dictatorship. People believed that Utopia was around the corner. To judge from their words, they were willing to die for it. To judge from their actions, they were not willing to bet on it. This was particularly baffling, and galling, for Ed.
“What are they waiting for? Don’t they know that the early bird catches the worm?”
“Maybe,” said Hélder, when they next met, “they think that the early bird will be the hunter’s first target.”
Ed was not afraid of hunters. He had a car to earn, a wife to maintain, a shining future to build, and he threw himself into his business with boundless optimism and renewed determination.
His optimism was contagious. Although the supermarket chains refused to commit themselves, small independents began to put pen to paper. The day after the government brought in a minimum wage for the first time in the country’s history, two large grocers in a dreary suburb of Lisbon signed up with Ed for RSS’s loyalty card scheme. Back in the city centre, he went straight to the Sussex School, where Ção was having her German lesson, to break the good news to her directly. He joked with the secretaries at the reception desk as he waited for the lessons to end.
“See if you can cheer up your fellow-countryman,” said Laura, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. She pointed to a black-haired man with a straggly beard who was resting his thin, lengthy frame in a chair against the wall and gazing at the ceiling with a sombre expression. Ed went over and introduced himself. The man looked steadily at Ed through his stylish glasses.
“Oh, yes. I’ve heard of you.”
“Yes, I’m the bloke who’s just got married. It’s an open secret around here.”
“I’m married, myself. Waiting for the wife now, actually. She teaches French.”
A bell rang. The classrooms emptied and the reception area filled. Ção appeared by Ed’s side.
“Darling. What a lovely surprise!” She kissed him for long enough to raise a few eyebrows. The thin man got up and greeted, with a light kiss, a woman whom Ed recognised as Simone, the French teacher he had met several months earlier. He introduced Ção to her as his wife. She, in turn, introduced them to her husband, Mark.
“Won’t you come and eat with us?” Ed offered. “We’re celebrating.”
“What are we celebrating, darling?”
“I’ll tell you in the restaurant.”
The restaurant was full, so they had to wait for a table. As they stood at the bar drinking aperitifs, Ed told them about his successful day. Ção was thrilled; Simone was pleased; only Mark could not produce a smile.
“Sometimes you get lucky,” was his comment, “but it doesn’t last.”
Ed wondered why Mark was trying to rain on his parade.
Must have his reasons, I suppose.
He decided to thaw him out with wine and good cheer. It was hard work. What did the trick was Simone bringing up the topic of families. Not the ones they had, which was still a sore point with Ção, but the ones they were going to have. They were united in a desire for plenty of children. As they savoured their caramel dessert, they also relished a feeling of being together on a path toward personal fulfilment.
A late Spring downpour that freshened the evening caught Ed and Ção on their way home. Once inside, they helped each off with their clothes. Ed sat his wife on his lap, facing him, and dried her hair with a towel.
“You do know who that was, don’t you?”
“I’ve run into Simone a few times. Had a nice long chat with her in French, once. She’s Joséphine’s best friend here.”
“No, silly, I meant her husband.”
“Mr. Face-ache? No.”
“He’s the trading stamps man. His name’s Mark Rotherfield. You know, your rival in business.”
“No reason for his nose to be out of joint. He’s got the same great opportunities here as me. Should be better placed, in fact, since he’s been here longer. More contacts. Talking of contact, can you just move up and ... over? Aaaah, yes!”
Ed was going through his paperwork in the “party room” the next morning when Mark rang him.
“Look, I’m sorry about last night. The thing is, I’ve been frightfully down ever since this so-called Revolution came along. It’s made things terribly difficult for us business-wallahs.”
“Are you sure, Mark? I used to think that stability was the be-all and end-all, but, honestly, I’m more optimistic now than when I arrived.”
“Yes, you’re doing jolly well. Congratulations. Really. Sorry I didn’t offer them in the restaurant. You show ‘em! It’s just that ... things are not going so well for me.”
“Hey, come on, it’s early days yet. If you were the type who threw in the towel at the first sign of trouble, you’d never have come here in the first place.”
“That’s true enough. But one man’s throwing in the towel is another man’s cutting his losses while he still can.”
“Look, personally, Mark, I’m here to make money, but I’m not here to ruin your business. This may be a small country, but it’s big enough for both of us. Don’t you agree?”
“I hope so, Ed. Let’s just see how it pans out. If I can help you, let me know. As long as you don’t need money – mine is evaporating.”
“I’m on a salary, fortunately. Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m my own man. Living on an inheritance, as it happens. Sadly, it’s rapidly running out.”
“Well, let’s keep in touch, and help each other if we can.”
“OK, old chap, jolly good. See you soon, I hope. Toodle-oo.”
June was a hot month, much hotter than Ed was used to. The mercury rose way above Stevenage levels. It was hot in Ed and Ção’s bedroom. It was hot in the streets, where militants of political parties old and new, mostly left-wing, vied to outdo each other with the biggest, noisiest demonstrations. And it was hot in the nation’s workplaces, where the new right to strike was wielded like a blunt instrument by workers who had never had the chance to acquire dexterity in its use. Landlords, except Ed’s, came to realise that their days as darlings of the establishment were over when people previously confined to slums and shanties started to occupy flats kept empty by speculators, and nobody sent the police in to expel them. In the countryside, especially in the south, where the inheritance system had created enormous estates farmed by armies of landless labourers, often for the benefit of absent landlords, the words “land reform” started to be uttered, first hesitantly, then with burning insistence.
Negotiations to end the wars in the colonies started, but the wars continued at a lower intensity. The independence fighters were not willing to lay down their arms in return for vague promises when they clearly held the upper hand, and Portugal’s new rulers were not willing to abandon the Portuguese settlers. Nevertheless, settlers felt the winds of change on their necks, and many feared what those winds might bring. They began to trickle “home”, where they were not always welcome. It was one thing to bring your sons home; it was quite another to have to find room for distant cousins who blamed you for their present discomfort.
The momentum of Ed’s business scheme slowed. People were optimistic, even wildly so, but not many were prepared to put hard cash towards fulfilling their vision of a better future. Investment and innovation sunk even lower on the list of priorities for businesses. Ed did not mind swimming against the flow; he did it with some success, but it was hard.
If June was hot, July was scorching. There was conflict among the new rulers, between the Armed Forces Movement, which had physically ousted the fascist régime, and the civilian government, which sought to include all sectors of society. The soldiers were flush with the moral authority of having restored civic freedoms that had been suppressed for nigh on fifty years, and it was they who prevailed. The first “provisional government” resigned. The departing Prime Minister alluded to military interference as the reason. Three days later, the President, General Spínola, appointed a soldier as the new Prime Minister.
Ed increasingly sought refuge from the heat, hard work and uncertainty in his wife’s arms and charms. She never disappointed him. They took to staying in bed until late in the morning, luxuriating in love-making. By associating it with sloth, they gave their sexual activity back something of the spice of sinfulness that it lost when they wed.
Telephone-induced coitus interruptus was not a method of contraception that Ed was prepared to contemplate. One morning, however, a particularly insistent caller rang yet again while they were in the afterglow of orgasm, and Ed unhurriedly got out of the bed, pulled on his underpants and went into the party room to answer it. The caller was James Towsey.
“Are you sitting down, Ed? I would if I was you.”
“Good news or bad?”
“Bad, I’m afraid. Though the dark cloud has a silver lining.”
“Let me guess. The car is going to be a Renault.”
“No. It’s worse than that. Are you sitting down?”
Ed wished he were still in bed with Ção. He yawned and sat on the table that held the phone.
“Yes, I am. Out with it, James.”
“Well, the company is really happy with the work you’ve done over the last few months.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“No, that’s good. But the outlook has changed.”
“James, I keep telling you, the outlook here is great! Portugal is ripe for innovation and crying out for investment. More so than it’s ever been. My figures aren’t bad now. Imagine what they’ll be like once things settle down. Believe me, it’s going to be plain sailing.”
“Yes, I believe you, Ed. I do know exactly what you mean. It isn’t Portugal where the problem lies.”
“So where is it? And what is it?”
“This is it. England! At this point in time, the company does not discern a success scenario for loyalty card schemes in the United Kingdom. On the basis of results and feedback to date.”
“Portugal is not the United Kingdom, James. You know that.”
“Well, the bosses feel they could do the United Kingdom without Portugal, but not Portugal without the United Kingdom. They’re pulling the plug, Ed.”
Ed felt glad he was sitting. His neck hurt as though someone had just landed a rabbit punch on it. Words forced themselves out of his dry mouth.
“Where does that leave me, James?”
“The company doesn’t want to lose you, Ed. They want you to do a year’s management training here in Croydon. Paid. There’ll be a decent job for you at the end of it. Oh, and a small car.”
Ed knew James was being kind, but it sounded like a life sentence.
“I see. Tell you what, James, I’ll talk to my wife about it.”
“Your wife? I didn’t know –”
“Best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Congratulations. Join the club.”
“I’ll talk to Ção and get back to you.”
“What?”
“I’ll talk to my wife. When we’ve made up our minds, I’ll let you know. Thanks for your support, James.”
He felt stupid, as well as angry. He had not seen that coming. He felt betrayed. He had been ready to ditch Retail Support Services, but the company had unwittingly got their retaliation in first. Going back to England was not an option. He would rather starve.
Might have to. No, I’ll pull through. Got to. For Ção’s sake. For both of us.
Ed went to the bathroom and took a long, cold shower. The water refreshed his mind as well as his body. His neck no longer ached. Saliva formed easily in his mouth, and he spat it out together with his disgust. Life was good. Without Retail Support Services, it could be even better.
Ed went back to the bedroom and forgot about loyalty cards for the rest of the day.