Wearing Purple

Chapter 26

I missed Jan like crazy, all that night. She’d have loved being with the crew in Barcelona, especially to see me being interviewed by a reporter from the Catalan television station. They were looking for Spanish speakers, so Daze took me along to the studio with him. His grip of Castillian was much better than mine, but I think I scored more points with the presenter by managing a few words in Catalan.

We were happy to do the slot, since there were still a couple of thousand seats left in the big arena, and Everett was keen to have a full house.

Jan would have loved our night on the town too, at a long table in one of the Catalan capital’s most famous restaurants, a big galleried place with some seats which let diners look down into the kitchen, with its huge, original, cast-iron range.

Eventually I couldn’t restrain myself any longer. I dug out my mobile phone and called her, from the din of the restaurant. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Having dinner.’

‘In the street, by the sound of it.’

‘Naw, honey, the street’s quieter than this place.’

‘Well lucky you. Me, I’m still working on Susie’s papers.’

‘Turn it in love. There’s always tomorrow. You’re sleeping for two now, remember.’

The satellite link was clear, but I could barely hear her against the background noise. ‘I suppose so. I’ve got the hairdresser in the morning, and I’m shopping in the afternoon, but I can always work in the evening, before your show.’ There was a roar from a table near ours, and I had to strain even harder to make her out. ‘I’m getting there, Oz. I’ll let you see what I’ve found when you get home.’

Jan would have enjoyed the next morning too; a tour of the city on our chartered bus, with stops at the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s great cathedral, which has been under construction for over a hundred years and is still nowhere near completion, at the Ramblas, for coffee in one of the dozens of street bars, whose tables are set under the trees between the avenue’s twin carriageways, and at the enormous Camp Nou, home of Barcelona Football Club and a place of worship for most Catalans, where a light buffet was set out in a hospitality suite.

By the time the bus arrived at the Arena, dead on one pm, I had decided to spend some of my windfall income from the GWA commission on a surprise spring weekend trip to the city for the two of us.

Sonny Leonard was standing at the performers’ entrance to the stadium, smoking a cigarette, as we dismounted from our vehicle. ‘Everything ready?’ Daze called to him.

‘Yeah, boss,’ the foreman replied. ‘These Spanish guys know what they’re doing okay. The CWI crowd did a couple of tour events here last summer, so they had a good idea of what our business is like.’

‘That’s good. Take a break, Sonny. You and the bus driver take a cab back to the hotel, go into the five-star restaurant and have some lunch. Get back here for six.’

‘Yeah, okay. I’ll do that.’ He dropped his cigarette and ground it into the tarmac with his right foot, then headed towards the bus.

Watching him go, Everett grunted. ‘CWI, huh? Guess we’d better show these people how a real wrestling promotion should be.’ He turned to the team. ‘Come on, Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s get inside and into the run-through. ’

He beckoned to me. ‘Oz, while I get changed into my ring gear, you go find Barbara and ask her how the tickets have gone since Channel 33 broadcast our interviews last night. If there are any left, tell her to let them go half-price.

‘After you’ve done that, with Leonard off patch, I want you to do what you did last week. Go over the staging and look for problems — anything that shouldn’t be there.’

I did exactly as he asked — everyone always did exactly as Everett asked — steadily through the afternoon; during breaks in the run-through action, and while I wasn’t polishing my minimally bilingual introductions for the show itself. As I checked the staging, I was careful to ensure that I wasn’t noticed by Liam Matthews, who had joined the commentary team for the event. However the Irishman seemed to be well on the way back to top form, which meant that if it wasn’t female, he didn’t notice it.

‘All clear, Everett,’ I told the giant as he stepped out of the ring after his last run-through with Jerry and Rockette, a heavily curtailed affair, with only the speed moves but none of the power stuff being rehearsed. It looked like a good match; I had never seen Daze and The Behemoth go at it before, other than that one time on television in Anstruther, and I was looking forward to it.

‘You didn’t find anything unusual?’

‘Nothing at all; everything seems fine. Did you check the whiz-bangs?’

‘We ain’t using them here; they’re against regulations. Just lasers, lights and noise. . lots of noise. I’ll put four of our hired Spanish security guys on duty at the ring before we let the crowd in, to make sure than no one — marks or otherwise — goes anywhere near it.

‘With luck, we’ll get through this show clean.’