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The Iberian Horseshoe — A Journey

Part I. North West

Villain on my Tail

Steve Porter

Global Fiction

First publication: June 2006

http://badosa.com/n250-15

New Year came and went. As we prepared to go south, Lisa returned with news that she had been sacked. Kane had phoned her at home in England to tell her not to bother coming back. Of course, she had left all her stuff behind in Vigo and had to return, via Madrid, to collect it.

Lisa accompanied us to the bus station. We sat in the cafe surrounded by half a dozen cases and bags. Lisa was drinking her trademark glass of red wine while an old man ranted on about his civil war experiences. I hoped that one day Lisa would no longer be at war with herself. I was as restless as they come and itching to get out of Vigo. A Galician piper entered the bar to give us a traditional farewell.

I used to think that stories mirrored life but maybe the opposite is true. On the bus, we watched When a Man Loves a Woman—and when that was over, an adventure came on in which Sherlock Holmes was chasing his arch-enemy up to a hotel in the city of my birth. Kane, shared a surname with Conan Doyle’s villain. To this day in Inverness, I creep past hotels with caution in case I should bump into a bespectacled Irishman.