THE SPANISH WAITER: TWENTY-ONE

The Governor of The Firm is to go to Spain with his secretary

“This,” growled the Governor in his office but into his telephone mouthpiece, “has got to end! I don’t do flying!”

There was a crackling sort of silence and then a female voice replied, as if from far away, “sorry sir can I help?”

“Pack your bags and a spare pair of knickers, we’ve got a trip to make.” he told her.

“Yes sir,” replied the voice, “I suspected there might be problems on the horizon so I’ve packed already. And for you… I put in your second and third best pairs of boxer shorts, you know, the ones you like wearing…” and the voice faded to silence as if something too personal to be put into sound was being somehow transmitted.

“Good on you, sweetheart,” grunted the Governor, and sweetheart was heard to giggle before a click disconnected the circuit.

A second click announced the arrival of someone at his door, and because that click involved the sound of the door opening it was clearly someone more important that the Governor because lesser mortals including his own equals would have knocked and waited to be invited in.

The man who stoon in front of the Governor’s desk moments later might have stepped out of a Victorian novel. He even carried a top hat carefully in both hands as if it was something too precious to leave on his head.

“Smith,” he said in a smooth, oily voice, “you need to be somewhere else.”

“Yes sir,” murmured the Governor as if he was a schoolboy awaiting old fashioned corporal punishment.

“You do know why?” checked the oily stranger.

“It was the Maybe affair,” grunted the Governor almost pathetically, “I had nothing to do with it back in the day, but it was a case belonging to Mr Smith.”

“And you are Mr Smith, so it belongs to you,” nodded the visitor in an even smoother and more lubricated voice, “and you must go and put right what is wrong. And try to stop Mr Maybe from demanding a huge fee as compensation for your inefficiency.”

“Not mine, sir, but Mr Smith’s,” replied the Governor in the sort of voice that exuded an almost total lack of confidence in everything he was thinking.

“Yes, Smith, yours,” nodded the oily visitor as he turned and made to leave the office. When he reached the door he turned, smiled a Victorian smile, “you will have made the relevant preparations?” he asked, “tickets and so on, and proper visas issued to the Firm but in your name?”

“Miss Jones has seen to all that,” Mr Smith said in a voice that implied total female efficiency.

“Ah, Miss Jones,” sighed the other as he brushed the top of his tall hat with a careful swipe of one hand, and prepared to put it onto his head.

The door clicked behind him and Mr Smith picked up the handset to his telephone again.

“The gentleman has left,” he informed it, “Miss Jones, we must depart. Nothing must be left to chance, so do you have all relevant documentation?”

“Of course, sir,” the telephone replied, “a car is waiting outside the rear entrance with orders to take us to Gatwick. I will join you there.”

“Good!” was his monosyllabic reply. And he looked lovingly about his office before shaking his head and then leaving it.

Once out of the building he spied the car, a bland and dunremarkable ten year old saloon with patches of rust and a badly dented back bumper.

He opened the back door and climbed in, acknowledging the driver with a quick single syllable greeting and waiting for Miss Jones, who took mere seconds to appear and climb onto the back seat after he shuffled along to make room for her. The luggage she brought with her was in one large suitcase and the driver, looking as unlike a chauffeur as he possibly could, picked it up where she left it and manhandled it into the car’s boot.

“Is all well done, Miss Jones?” asked Mr Smith.

“Indeed it is, Mr Smith,” she replied, “and I’m really looking forward to what all will believe is a romantic celebration between two loving people on their anniversary.”

“Ah,” he smiled at her, “twenty years in heaven. Do you remember that moment when we met?”

She smiled back at him and reached for one of his hands, squeezing the fingers with unbelievable gentility.

“You were so persistent when the ball was over,” she sighed, “the way you took me in your arms and carried me up the stairs to our suite! So strong and gentle… so strong...”

“You were such an angel,” he whispered, though the driver could hear every quiet word, “the way you were with me. I never believed until then that a woman could stir such passion in a man like me, stuck as I am in an office all day long…”

“You rose to the occasion,” she laughed, “and didn’t you! I thought you were going to bore me through and through!”

“Which is the account of our meeting that must be mentioned as many times as discretion allows,” he told her, “and if either of us is a little physically indiscreet then it will add to the persons we are creating. The hotel is said to be decent and the waiter, our target, is a true gentleman.”

“But first, the flight,” she smiled at him, “and I think it would be a convincing addition to our story were you to kiss me. It’s what lovers celebrating an anniversary do, you know. Yes, a good long kiss mid air over the Bay of Biscay will be a useful rehearsal and give the other passengers something to think about when they return home.”

“Sometimes I think you enjoy this kind of thing,” he told her.

“Miss Jones might, but be wary of Alice Ponsomby because she is very reluctant to touch tongues with strange men,” she said with a wink.

The car took them to the airport from where their tickets told them they would fly to north-western Spain. During the car journey their only conversation was along the same lines as they developed a story that they would have to stick firmly to once they landed.

The flight was uneventful and Miss Jones knew precisely what was needed as they were checked out.

“If you notice,” she whipsered to him as they stood in the queue waiting for their passports to be checked, “the papers are almost always in the hands of the ladies! Look around you and try to decide why everything is male orientated when the females deal with the paperwork!”

“I’ve always said that women are best when it comes to such things, Miss Jones,” he said.

“I can be Alice now, sir,” she said as they boarded the plane.

“No. You are Miss Jones,” he informed her.

“Od course. But Miss Alice Jones will be all right, won’t it?”

“Will it?

She handed him her passport. “Of course. Take a look!” she said with a smile. “I cpuldnt just be Miss Jones! I had to be Miss something Jones, don’t you think?”

“Of course. And I dared say I’m Mr something Smith?

She grinned at him as they took their seats. “Of course, Randy my love…” she whispered.

© Peter Rogerson 21.11.22

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