For eight years he did not set foot on Mallorca. The island that was for decades a synonym for his summers, for the yachts, for the photographs with the whole family at Marivent - has been missing from his calendar since Easter 2018. On Sunday, Juan Carlos landed there again. Not for a holiday, not for a reconciliation staged for cameras, but for a birthday dinner.

The occasion was the 80th birthday of his close friend, businessman Miguel Arias. The celebration was held at the Flanigan restaurant in Puerto Portals - a place that was for years one of his favourites, back when Mallorca was still royal ground. Arias owns the restaurant. The circle closes, only eight years later.

The most interesting part of the story is not the dinner. It is the scheduling. That same weekend, King Felipe VI was on Mallorca on official duties. Father and son were on the same island at the same time, and still arrived and departed separately. That is not coincidence, that is logistics. Somebody carefully worked out who lands when.

Juan Carlos did go to the Marivent Palace to see the family, including Queen Sofía. But he did not stay the night. He slept at a friend's place, in a private house. The former king of Spain, on the island he considered home, is a guest in somebody else's bed.

Since he left for Abu Dhabi, his appearances in Spain have been counted and carefully chosen - mostly sailing regattas in Galicia, where sport provides the excuse and the sea provides the distance. Mallorca is something else. Mallorca is family, archive images, a nation's summer. Which is why going back there means more than any regatta.

The palace says nothing. No statement, no photograph, no explanation of what this means for the future. And the silence is precisely the message: Juan Carlos is allowed to come, but he is not allowed to be part of the picture. A private dinner at a friend's - yes. A frame with the king and queen - no.

The Balkans know this scene by heart. A man with enormous power who ran everything for years, and then became inconvenient for those who came after him. Nobody exiles him publicly, but nobody invites him to the main table either. This is not a Spanish peculiarity - it is the universal stage set of power going out of use.