The five years I worked for Roche I commuted back and forth on a branch line of what for us Barcelona locals call the Ferrocatas. For all intents and purposes the Ferrocatas are a parallel and complementary service to the Barcelona metro system although in reality they predate the metro. Roche’s installations are in a rather lush business park situated, more or less, between Sant Cugat and Rubí and the station that serves it is called Sant Joan. To get there you can either catch the train that terminates at the Universidad Autónoma or the one that goes all the way to Sabadell a few kilometers further; either one will do. At peak times, between the thousands of employees of numerous multinationals based at Sant Joan and the thousands of students on their way to lectures at the university, the train is packed and heaving; a seat being hard to come by. Over lunch, one day, my then boss asked me how I found the ride in in the mornings. Cheekily I said that if they’d only close down IQ and move the university to another part of town it might actually be a pleasant ride. He laughed and retorted that if it ever came to that they might well have to close down the line. No doubt!

Once at Sant Joan there is a bus service that does the rounds of the business park and the immediate stop before Roche is for IQ, who’s expansive installations are further amplified by apparent acres of parkland, games courts and playing fields. If it wasn’t for the logo on the side of the building closest to the road you might be forgiven for thinking it was the campus of a university. The hundreds of young professionals alighting at this stop, in their glorious late twenties and early thirties and seemingly from all over the world, give off an air of relaxed self-confidence and a feeling of being at ease with what they are doing. It all smacks of some sort of post-graduate program…but with a decent salary, based in an envious part of the world. The posts come, no doubt, sweetened with guarantees of an active and varied social life with like-minded un-attached individuals eager to jump into bed with one and other. Nothing quite like a mindless shag to clear the head before having to show up for work a few hours later. Here I’m referring to the international crew, fresh out of business school, who seemingly are rotated every eighteen months or so.

Locally contracted employees, I’m told, live another reality altogether. They must look around the refectory at lunchtime and grumble about “how it is alright for some”! IQ are infamous for their brutal treatment of people and trade unions here absolutely loath them. Near and around their installations all signs and references to them are ritually and continuously defaced with graffiti that denounces their heartless, cynical “hire and fire” policy managed carefully within the constraints of the law as it stands. The 1500 meters from the train station to the gates of IQ are decorated with numerous banners denouncing them as bastards and with spots of sprayed graffiti on the asphalt spelling “IQ: Sons of whores” in Catalan. I wonder what the smart set make of it all.They probably don’t give a fuck. After all, it’s all going rather well for them.

Back and forth on the train for five years, many of these young belles and beaux became familiar faces to me. I gave them names and sketched out lives for them in my mind; complete fantasy on my part but fun and entertaining nonetheless. So many of them come to mind. I might have already mentioned Sara Pipelinni in a previous story; the tight, german aristocrat with the cold, hard blue eyes. Isla Skye was a fit blonde Scott, blessed with the lithe figure of a greyhound and with a racy sense of style that made me think of Lady Gaga. Vote For Pedro, a Spaniard, reminded me of a close Colombian friend. In the mornings he was always in a bright mood, cracking jokes and giggling earnestly with his peers. If I happened to cross him in the evenings he was always quiet and sullen. Ulf, a seven foot Scandinavian with long blonde hair, a horned-helmet away from being the caricature of a beserking viking except he seemed too kind and placid for the part. I saw him the other day somewhere in El Gótico, wrapped around a dark latin girl who cannot have been more than five foot tall. Then there was Jap’s Eye; very lanky, hairy and sweaty and with a point of acidity about him. I only saw him around for a few months. Dungeons n Dragons was a rather dour and geeky trunk of an Italian metal-head; always draped in acres of black and grey cloth. I once overheard her and another two workmates discussing their preferred sexual positions in hushed nervous whispers; her eyes were popping out of her head. I could go on…

Isabel II I imagine is Swedish. Long and tall, her elegant chiseled features set long green eyes slightly puffed below the eyebrows. Her auburn hair sometimes was wrapped in a bun, other times blowing about wild in the wind as we waited for the bus. I found her stunning.