Page 11 of The Last Postcard

Bull Shot

Take a jigger of imported vodka and a gill of homemade beef bouillon. Add half a pony of lemon juice and three dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt, pepper and hot Spanish paprika. Shake well and serve over cracked ice. Not for the faint of heart.

I knew from the beginning there was something wrong about that day.

Put it down to intuition, to a thief’s gut instinct, if you like, although it was undeniable that the morning started badly. Not long after breakfast a horse had gone wild in the stable – for no discernible reason – and trampled one of the cats. I didn’t blame the horse. They say animals know things, and I believe the creature had opened his nostrils and snuffed in the scent of a city on the edge of hysteria. Anyone would have gone wild, smelling that.

It was the final day of the feria, the night when anything could happen. The heat of the past three days had been unbearable, too hot for the season, and people had taken to drinking themselves to sleep, only to wake an hour later tangled in their clothes, sweating sherry. Sore heads, parched throats, minds all too aware that after the feria came the heat of summer, merciless as the cracked mud of the yard.

I’d not yet recovered from the chaos of the stable when I came face to face with Morales. Her dark hair was already damp with perspiration, her blouse giving up its starch to the heat.

‘We’ve received a request for tonight’s meal,’ she said.

I nodded. It was not unusual for a group of swells to think highly enough of themselves to order something special. ‘What do they want?’ I asked.

Morales shifted her neck in the taut collar. For a heartbeat, I thought she looked uncertain. ‘They have asked for rabo de toro.’

I frowned. Stewed bull’s tail. It was rich and meaty and thick, and not at all suited to a summer night, to stomachs full of sherry.

‘I don’t have the ingredients,’ I told her. ‘And anyway, it’s too hot.’

I don’t know what made me speak like that. Perhaps it was the blackened end of my temper, or the animal shrieks and frenzied hooves that lingered in my mind.

Morales’ face hardened, her lip curled as she leaned towards me.

‘They have asked for rabo de toro, and that is what you will make.’

The words were plain, but there was a viciousness in her tone that made me step back.

‘Of course,’ I murmured, dropping my eyes. ‘I’ll make it. For how many?’

‘For four,’ she said. ‘The Señor, and his friends.’

My guts flinched at that. We had many señors visit us, genuine or otherwise. I disliked most, and envied them their freedom, but Morales knew which señor I truly despised, the one I kept the greatest distance from, the one who seemed to take pleasure in my discomfort.

‘Don’t skimp on the sherry,’ she said, watching my face.

There were few things she could have said to make my day worse.

Although it was barely ten o’clock in the morning, the Plaza de la Corredera was already awake. The plaza itself, a slab of hot stone, was empty. Life was taking place in the shade of the colonnades, in the cave-like bars.

The market smelled of bruised tomatoes and fermenting vegetables, fish turning pungent in their trays, perspiring cheeses. The stalls had already been picked over. With all the extra mouths to feed in the city, other cooks would have arrived at dawn, perhaps even waylaid the farmers on the road into town to buy what was best. I jostled through, wishing I could wear Ifrahim’s old, roomy work trousers out here without being sneered at, instead of the too-thick skirt that made my thighs chafe.

The butcher looked at me as if I was mad when I asked for bull’s tail, and I had to bite my tongue rather than roll my eyes and remind him that we always catered to clients’ whims. He was a church man and didn’t like us. The second butcher was friendlier. His stall was smaller, dirtier, and sold what the other had turned down.

‘Try the slaughterhouse,’ he said, palsied hands laying down the cleaver. ‘Heard they had a bull in today. If not, they might give you cow, or a bit of ox. Those drunk bastards won’t know the difference.’

Outside the slaughterhouse, the cobbles were tacky with bloodstained water. When I stepped across the threshold into the dim, reeking shed, I found the place in a frenzy. The butcher was right, they had just slaughtered a bull, but it had gone badly. The creature had worked loose and tried to escape, crushing a boy’s chest in the process. When I asked, the man in charge skinned the tail and gave it to me for free, saying that the beast had been possessed by the devil, and if I wanted to cook with its meat, that was between god and myself.

The bull’s tail was so fresh that it dripped through the newspaper. I paired it with some old, ropey ox-tails and thought it lucky that the slaughterman was such a fool. I imagined telling Ifrahim about it. He would have winked at me and said that idle fears never did put food on the table. That thought was enough to dilute some of the anxiety I’d felt since speaking to Morales.

I had to hurry, for there was the noon meal to prepare and the girls to feed. All week I’d served ajo blanco for lunch, soaking the previous day’s bread in milk and water and pounding it into a silky soup, as cold as I could get it. People scooped it down, sitting on stools in the shade of the balconies, and I was glad to see them eat – glad to see them sigh, soothed by the simple flavours, for a little garlic and bread does wonders for stomachs wretched with wine.

That day, the siesta hour felt strange. Heads fell on to arms, shutters were pulled closed, and hardened drinkers shrank into the darkness of the wine cellars as usual, but there was something fretful about it all; like a breath being held.

No rest for me, not with a rabo de toro to make along with everything else. In the kitchen, I changed into Ifrahim’s old trousers and hid my hair under a scarf once more. Then, slowly, I unwrapped the bull’s tail. The animal had killed someone today, for all I knew. When they ate it, the señors would have the blood of the bull’s victim in their stomachs.

Watch what comes out of their mouths, as well as what goes in, and you will know them for what they are …