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counter and treated himself to a malt whisky with no ice or water. He was feeling the need to disconnect his capacity for self-control, but he wasn’t sure why. Bromide finished with his clients and then applied himself to Carvalho’s shoes, apologizing all the while for having kept him waiting.
    ‘People are beginning to want their shoes polished again, Pepe. Shoeshines are doing good business. The young ones, mainly, because I just do my usual customers, and three or four others a day. Why are people wanting their shoes shined, again, Pepiño? Have you asked yourself that? You should think about it, because you’ve got a good brain, and it’s worth some thought. If you ask me, things are changing. Everything. And I’m not talking about a change like in the 1940s or the 1950s, or the years when everyone was flush, the sixties and the seventies, up until Franco died. It’s another sort of change. I see it from people’s attitude to their shoes. For ten years people have been too ashamed to stick their feet under the nose of a shoeshine and say, “There you go, cleanthem.” They didn’t mind going to the dentist to get their teeth cleaned. But when it came to cleaning their shoes, they preferred to do it in the privacy of their own homes, with those shoeshine machines that put the likes of me out of a job. For years they all wanted to be so egalitarian, and it wasn’t the done thing to have someone else shine your shoes for you. So what’s it all about? What’s happened is that they’re not embarrassed any more, Pepe. So shoeshines are making money again. But I wouldn’t say other things were so great. In fact things seem to be going from bad to worse. What do you think?’
    ‘Do you know anything about someone putting the screws on a centre forward?’
    ‘Schuster?’
    ‘No. First because he’s not a centre forward, and second because he’s no longer with Barcelona.’
    ‘A centre forward, you said?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No, nothing.’
    ‘Well see what you can find out.’
    ‘Keep your voice down, Pepe, because round here even the Coca-Colas have ears.’
    ‘What are you so scared of, Bromide?’
    ‘Everything.’
    ‘Scared that they’re putting bromides in the water so’s you can’t get a hard-on any more?’
    ‘That’s the least of it. People are terrified these days. Everyone’s scared, wherever you go. And me too. Things aren’t what they used to be, Pepiño. I’ll come to your office in a couple of hours, and we can talk more freely.’
    ‘I’ll have a glass of wine, please.’ Bromide’s request had the urgency of a shipwrecked man just rescued from the waves and wracked with thirst. Biscuter disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle and three glasses. He filled Bromide’s glass half full, and handed it to him. The shoeshine sniffed it, held it ata slight distance to judge its colour against the light, and crinkled his nose.
    ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but is this stuff decent?’
    ‘Look at the label on the bottle. Val Duero. The boss is in the process of trying all the wines from Ribera del Duero. One after another. Last month he tried all the wines from Leon. With all due respect, boss, I’d say you’ve been getting a bit obsessional recently. The boss says, and he can correct me if I’m wrong, that he wants to try all the good wines in the world before he dies.’
    ‘So why didn’t you fill my glass right up?’
    ‘The boss says that a glass of wine shouldn’t be filled to the top.’
    ‘Is that what you say, Pepiño?’
    ‘Biscuter, for Bromide you should fill it right up. Bromide’s ways are different to ours.’
    Biscuter was upset at being taken to task, so he retorted that Bromide could pour it himself, and there-upon disappeared into the little kitchen next to the toilet, slamming the door behind him, as an indication of a state of internal torment that the rest of them were going to have to work out for themselves.
    ‘The dwarf’s in