by Joe Cawley
Joy and I found a seat at one of the pavement bars. Next to us, a group of sun-wizened musicians under south-sliding panamas looked like they’d peaked too soon. The maracas player was doing his best to join in the rhythm. The other members had long since decided that boisterous singing was the best they could manage in their inebriated state. The louder they sang, the more talcum powder was hurled their way, until even the lame vocalising spluttered and coughed to a halt.
‘Do you really think you’re pregnant?’ I asked.
‘I dunno. I just feel… weird. Been feeling like this for a few days.’
As the procession approached, we realised that conversation was futile. Making eye contact with anyone on the street was a declaration of war. It wasn’t long before I felt as if I was back in the chill of my nan’s bathroom, aged three, choking in a blizzard of Woolworth’s finest during a liberal dousing with talcum powder
After an hour or so of indiscriminate attacks, people, palm trees and road were as white as the smallholdings stretching up the slopes to the volcanic peaks. Like a Christmas scene from Dickens, flaking doors and low-hanging dark-wood balconies bore snowball scars, and loose powder formed drifts on windowpanes.
We decided to dip out and watch the rest of the mayhem from our hotel. As Joy went to the bathroom, I set chairs up on the balcony and checked out the minibar.
‘Rum and Coke?’ I shouted, just as Joy came out of the bathroom holding the pregnancy tester.
‘Better make it just Coke,’ she said with a smile.
Back at home the following night, we discussed the impending arrival and how it would affect our current situation. As we were doing so, we heard a familiar squeak. We both stopped talking and raised our heads like meerkats.
The squeak was repeated. I slid open the patio door and looked down. It was like Groundhog Day from three years ago. At my feet, a dishevelled white cat looked up. It was Fugly, still alive after being absent for six days! We were both ecstatic.
The birth of Molly, the impending arrival of our son, Sam, and, in an indirect way, Fugly’s reappearance, finally made me realise what I’d been chasing all of my adult life. It wasn’t really adventure, or change or praise. It was a return to the concrete stability of family, my own family. Just like Tenerife, I too had now officially passed from reckless adolescence into adulthood.
That year, 2004, would see the birth of our beautiful son, Sam. But that was not the only new beginning. The publisher who I’d spoken to on the phone four months earlier called me at my office the day after Carnival. She’d read my three chapters, and that was enough to convince her that she wanted to buy my crazy scribblings about moving from Bolton fish market to a bar in the sun. She asked if I could send the rest of the book. I confessed that what she had was all that had been written.
‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed.
I felt the publishing deal slipping from my hands. ‘But the rest is all planned out, so it wouldn’t take me long to finish it,’ I lied.
‘How long?’
‘Nine months?’ I figured if the advance was enough, I could spend the next nine months working from home, which would mean I’d be released from the shackles of office work and free to spend time with Molly, and for the birth of Sam.
She hesitated. ‘Okay, fine. Have the rest of the manuscript to us in six months and we have a deal. I’ll email a contract with details of the advance and royalties we’d like to offer. What’s the book called, by the way?’
‘I’m not 100 per cent sure yet, but I think it’s going to be called More Ketchup than Salsa.’
‘Love it,’ she said. ‘Perfect.’
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About the Author
Joe Cawley is a full-time writer living in the hills of Tenerife with his family and an assortment of other wildlife. He’s the author of More Ketchup than Salsa, Even More Ketchup than Salsa, and Less Ketchup than Salsa, and the co-author of Moving to Tenerife, a useful guide for those determined souls who haven’t entirely been put off living in Tenerife after reading this.
Find out more about Joe and his other books at www.joecawley.co.uk. Joe would be mighty pleased if you joined him and said hello on the following social media channels:
Twitter - @theWorldofJoe
Facebook - Facebook.com/JoeCawley
If you’d like to get in touch, please send a message to [email protected] with any comments, opinions, requests or general waffle. Writing can be a lonely chore and any contact with the real world is much appreciated.
Joe is also the editor/owner of the online MyGuideTenerife, so if you’re visiting the island and what to know what to see/do/visit, you’ll find all you need to know right there.