Prostitutes, transvestites, transsexuals - the modern icons of Madrid as seen through the eyes of its most devoted chronicler, filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.
Almodovar lives round the corner from us. I sometimes see him tramping down the Calle O'Donnell, a "don't talk to me" look stamped on his face.
His best ideas arrive, he has said, when he's nursing a cafe con leche at a local breakfast haunt. But he won't have found any of his exotic "underbelly-of-Madrid" characters on the streets of the deeply conservative neighbourhood we both inhabit.
A street-walker here could be assaulted by mink-covered matrons heading for Mass.
Not all madrilenos share Almodovar's enthusiasm for the seamier side of city life, least of all its conservative mayor, Jose Maria Alvarez del Manzano.
He doesn't want the prostitutes anywhere near his voters - especially those who live around the business hotels of Castellana boulevard. So he sent them all to the park, instead.
The Casa de Campo is Madrid's answer to Hampstead Heath. Shaped like a wedge of tortilla cut out from the city centre, they call it "the green lung" of Madrid.
This is where, naively, we set out for a walk on a recent drizzly Sunday. There have always been a handful of prostitutes here, but they stayed close to the Lago metro station. It had been easy to steer clear. Not any more. This is now Mayor Alvarez del Manzano's new red-light dumping ground.
Up to 500 prostitutes a day now work in the park. At midnight, when business is thriving, there are traffic jams. Giant car parks spring up. The already sparse flora is ground into the dust.
Local newspapers have printed maps of the areas in which the different groups work: Spaniards, East Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans, rent boys, transvestites, transsexuals all have separate turfs, closely guarded by a legion of pimps.
Madrilenos call it el supermercado del sexo; hypermarket would be more accurate.
Walkers might just as well forget it. Every bush hides a hurried, tawdry business transaction. Twice we were forced to pack the kids back into the car. The trip out took us along a road packed with the semi-naked, vying for trade. It evoked a barrage of back-seat questions from small voices. "Why is she wearing her swimming costume and holding an umbrella?" is not an easy question to answer.
We headed back to the packed Retiro park in the city centre, where there are no prostitutes. This is where the mayor's friends walk. I wonder where Almodovar goes.
