'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

by Barbara Skelton

  Sunday, February 8

  A very delicious day. (Probably the most enjoyable of the whole trip. Everything still new and interesting.) We rise late, then set off to lunch the other side of the Guadarramas. I borrow a very splendid pair of sunglasses that I intend to keep. A dream pair, just sitting on the bridge of the nose without producing lines under the eyes. A slight mist covers the ground, but it is warm and sunny, the mountains faintly obliterated by a haze. Halfway up the Guadarramas the road is blocked by heaped snow and we are unable to continue. We retreat and lunch at Miraflores; a summer resort. Impeccable meal, ordered cautiously. Bill unaccommodating with advice as though he did not want to be held responsible. Start with hors d’oeuvres, including some excellent tinned tunny fish, followed by a tortilla filled with diced potatoes, veal cutlets, salad soaked in water and vinegar (better than it sounds), Spanish lettuces being very good and crisp, and finally a speciality of the house, rice pudding with a lemon flavour. The Castille wine, Riscal, was drunk nonstop throughout the trip. We then motor to Annie’s dream-house: a vast turreted circular castle, owned by the Marquis of Alcapulco, now inhabited by peasants, cows, sheep and goats, and the whole place smothered in animal pellets. It was in a very ruinous state, but Annie says she only intends to live in one of the ten wings, and would be content to do it up one room at a time. Cyril says that will take a lifetime, at the end of which one would have no money left and have to depend on charity.

  *

  Later a visit to the Prado. A conducted tour by Bill who walks ahead in dapper dress swinging a cane. I lingered at Goya’s Shooting of La Moncloa. Cyril absorbed in the Bosch paintings.

  Sunday, February 15 Malaga

  In bed with ’flu. Have been stricken ever since leaving Madrid. As we leave the house, I complain of a sore throat and insist on stopping at a chemist. Everyone thinks I am making unnecessary fuss. Leaving Madrid, we motor across a dull plateau, a dun-coloured, endless vista of wild country fringed with foothills, very aware of the ubiquitous sky fleeced with white clouds. When we crossed over the Andalusian border Pop gears us all for the observation game, tells us to cry out when we see some sign of a southern climate. The person who pipes up first is rewarded with ten pesetas, the unobservant ones paying the forfeit. The first sign being a palm followed by an aloe, Pop is the first to spot both and cries out, unable to stifle his pleasure at his own cleverness. I just concentrate on spotting a cactus, deciding that is the best tactic. Call out when I sight a prickly pear, but everyone looks so grumpy, I decide to drop out of the game. After leaving the plain, everything becomes green; eucalyptus of giant height with rustling silver branches fan the road. We pass through the Sierra Morena, driving through several Moorish towns of great beauty.

  Stay the night at Ubeda in a converted palace with a patio. Pop and I on very bad terms, me irritable and ill. Spend a sleepless night – such dim lighting it is impossible to read. Annie says dim lighting is typical of Spain. Bill agrees and gurgles with pleasure, the idea of our discomfort being a huge joke. He drives in silence, occasionally emitting a grunt. Annie chatters nonstop. I periodically turn round to release a fresh barb at Cyril, or glare.

  *

  Next day passed through two ravishing towns, Baeza and Mancha Real, clusters of palms, clumps of aloes, prickly pears and regiments of olive trees. Dwarf blue and white irises border the road; there was an occasional carob and a sudden burst of bright yellow as we passed a climbing jasmine. We had a glimpse of the first orangery and a touch of spring, at last – almond trees in blossom, a wonderful sight, the pink flowers contrasting with the dark negroid barks. A very good lunch at Jaen of paella, merluza (the inevitable hake) and manchego cheese. We end the meal with large glassfuls of orange juice. The people of Andalusia more sympathetic than in Castille and better-looking, maybe due to their having darker skins. Annie thoughtfully buys me a pair of white woolly gloves as I left the last pair behind in Ubeda. We visited the cathedral, a lot of elaborate wood carving, then push on south. The Sierra Nevada capped in snow. We stop the night in a fishing village and summer resort, Almuñecar. Cyril and I both with temperatures. Drink hot grogs and become muffled. We read that in England there is snow, an epidemic of ’flu and roads are cut off. Once more dim lighting in the hotel. We are the only guests, it being out of season. Pop now ill, flushed and bundled up in woollen clothes and overcoat with turned-up collar. Drink more hot grogs. Wake up to see the nets being hauled in, the bedroom looking right onto the sea. All the fishermen gather round with baskets, some leading donkeys onto the beach to cart away the fish. Pop shows us the custard apple trees at the back of the town. Many ravishingly pretty Renoir women with deep pools for eyes. Scores of beggars everywhere. After three days, when Cyril has retired to bed, Bill opens his mouth for the first time to elucidate on the things that give him pleasure: (a) farting loudly for people to hear and then turning round with a surprised leer; (b) peeing all over the lavatory seat to annoy women; (c) blowing his nose into his fingers and flinging the snot. As we left next morning, we saw two dogs copulating and Bill went on sniggering until several miles outside the town. On arrival at Torremolinos, Cyril immediately looks fluffed out and furious à cause des anglais partout.

  *

  We whizz through the main street deploring the newly-built villas, haunted by the possibility of running into David Tennant. Leave the bungalow world of Torremolinos and spend the night in a luxury hotel. A comfortable room at last looking onto the sea. Bright lighting and hot sea water bath. I retire to bed with Gerald Brenan’s South from Granada.

  In the evening, the Davises return from some trip to announce their car will have to be laid up, as it has a leak in the gearbox. They are fed up at the idea of being static. Cyril and I wink with pleasure, as we had been discussing earlier how we could get them to stay put for a few days. The plan is to return to Malaga, unfortunately one of the dullest towns in the south. There was nothing to see but a commonplace Gothic cathedral and a museum of nineteenth-century paintings, one Zurbaran, a few Riberas and a ravishing seventeenth-century Christ sculptured in wood.

  *

  My ’flu gets steadily worse. Spend three nights with dinner in bed, then we visit the Brenans for tea. It was a very cold day and we were all shivering; the garden was at its worst. It is the same shape as ours, but in place of a hawthorn hedge is surrounded by a wall. The only pleasing spectacle on such a windy day was the tall shiny ochre-coloured bamboo canes that swayed and creaked like a galleon in the wind. He had an avocado pear tree too, but the whole garden was dominated by an enormous deciduous tree with a greyish bark resembling a giant elm, that could be seen standing out against the skyline when approaching Churriana from Malaga. We all drank tea crouched round a circular table, enveloped in a blanket, under which was a large brazier full of smouldering charcoal.

  Gerald Brenan did most of the talking, said we were the first guests they had had since arriving back five weeks before. He was terribly pleased to see people, just as Cyril is after being deprived of company for five days. I was at my most tactful and asked to borrow Mrs Brenan’s book, promising to return it before we left Malaga. The visit was considered a success and Cyril and I found it refreshing to see intelligent people for a change.

  The car was eventually ready and we pushed on to Gibraltar. I had a fresh outbreak of fever and sat in the front seat with a suffering face. Bill dropped us at the Rock Hotel for lunch and disappeared to deal in some currency transaction. Cyril was in high spirits; he and Annie had a bibulous many-course lunch while I looked on. It was rather a nice contrast to Spain, everything clean and well-run. Strange seeing the English PC uniforms at the frontier. They looked like men in a musical comedy.

  From Gibraltar we drove along the coast high up above sea level. We passed through Tarifa under a Moorish arch, looked at the crenellated Moorish towers, were stopped by the Spanish police, then motored on to Cadiz through the flat, bull-breeding country. Cadiz was a lovely city with vistas of long narrow street
s and everything dazzling white, with iron-grilled windows looking onto neat squares with palms and shrubs and wooden benches where women sat nursing babies. We stayed in a small well-run parador with comfortable rooms and soft hot water. I ate dinner in bed of langostina, followed by the most divine ‘knuckly’ baby lamb cooked in garlic and butter with artichoke centres and small round baked potatoes, followed by tangerines. Very soon after, I fell into a deep sleep from which I awoke feeling completely restored.

  I had a hot bath, washed my pyjamas and, with renewed spirits, was conducted round the town by ‘my old Pop and Barrel’. Bought a pair of perfectly hideous green-and red-striped sandals and visited the museum where we saw some Zurbaran saints originally intended for the monastery at Jerez. We had lunch at a summer resort. Drank sherry and mineral water sitting in the sun facing the sea, watching the donkeys being driven down to the water and loaded up with sand. In the evening, we had drinks at the tiled café mentioned in William Sansom’s book of short essays, Pleasures Strange and Simple. I felt ready for a night out but there is never anywhere to go in these Spanish cities and the old folks are never in the mood for it.

  Tony Bower was mentioned at lunch and a few cats were let out of the bag in the way of ‘home truths’. It was a question of what Tony Bower had said to us about the Davises in England, followed by what Tony Bower had said about the Connollys to the Davises in Spain. Tony had stated that Bill led a secret life in Madrid and not only kept a mistress in the form of Sabena, the servant, without Annie knowing, but that, each time he disappeared out of the flat, he made a beeline for one of the brothels. That he was always drunk and beating people up. Annie was quite injured and indignant at the reference to Sabena, stressing that she had engaged her as a servant herself. They had been warned by Tony to put a time limit on our visit, as Cyril was inclined to be a squatter and would most certainly overstay his welcome. I was described as having two sole interests: (a) money, and (b) sex. And, of course, my dear, the marriage was going terribly badly.

  *

  Pop and I are beginning to feel Spain is a blighted country, wonderful for scenery and architecture, but full of gibbering monkeys. The pleasure one has from sightseeing is counteracted by irritation caused by the succession of beggars. Swarms of children follow us through the villages, each one anxious to act as a guide. We pick our way across cobbled streets, with unsmiling, cross faces, like Pied Pipers, while everyone ogles with curiosity.

  *

  The cathedral in Seville was rather disappointing. Even the Columbus tomb was installed in 1900, his body having been brought back from Cuba. There were some gilded Baroque gates of great beauty and some seventeenth-century Doric pillars in pinky-brown Alicante marble. We pressed on to the Alcazar, which had been terribly restored. But the gardens were very peaceful with fountains and orange trees and box hedging. Here we had a guide who was both bored and courteous, and very grateful when over-tipped. Bill told Cyril it shocked him to think of us seeing all the obvious things, that neither the cathedral nor Alcazar were worth visiting. The following day Bill himself conducted a tour in as bored and courteous a manner as the guide, showing us two palaces and a Roman house with perfectly preserved mosaics of fish.

  We had two of the nastiest dinners there, in the main street near the hotel where we saw the bullfighter, Litri. He looked very young, barely twenty, shy with a rather big hawk nose, gawky and badly dressed. One day we lunched outside Seville at one of the roadhouses with a corral, where they keep the bulls during the season just before a fight. It was a very hot afternoon and we sat on the terrace overlooking the corral, where an old sow and mule lay stretched on a bed of moist dung. The mule, with a distended penis, kept wandering round the corral making a terrible noise.

  We had another session of ‘home truths’. The Berniers were brought up. It was a question of what Peggy Bernier’s sister had revealed to Bill, what Cyril had said to the Berniers. There was a reference to Cyril doing an imitation of Bill and Annie when we were dining at the Berniers. It was all true, but we managed to convince them no malice had been intended. Later, Pop had to go back to the hotel to do his review and we went to see Italica, a Roman ruined city with some well-preserved mosaics, fifteen miles outside Seville. The guide said they were the best Roman mosaics in the world for they included fifteen different colours!

  In Seville, we made enquiries about flamenco singers and were told of two possible places. The music hall and a brothel called La Terrasse. We went to the nightclub-cum-brothel but our escorts were bored so, after one bad brandy and several mediocre cabaret turns, we left. In it was one dreadful-looking man, resembling a travelling salesman, whom I fancied. Before leaving the city, we saw an eighteenth-century bullring. The walls were sandy-ochre with white portals, curved dark red tiles and brick red sand. It must be lovely to watch a bullfight there on a hot day with hot sun and lots of blood about.

  *

  We arrived at Cordoba around six in the evening. We dined at a small restaurant called Gomex, which had huge stuffed bulls’ heads attached to the walls. The one above where we sat was towering and black, and had lost its ear.

  Towards the end of dinner, Cyril hears a guitarist playing in an adjoining room and goes in to investigate. The guitarist tells him there are two good flamenco singers in the town. The better singer is not to be found but, after a great deal of telephoning on the part of the waiters, we are informed that the second best is on his way. In a short while, a spry dwarf appears; he has carefully smarmed hair, sticking-out ears and is newly washed. He at once drew up a chair, we offered him a brandy and, beating time with his palms on the rim of his seat, he began to sing. Bill moved away from our table and slouched in a chair a few feet away, and was such a dampener that I asked him why he didn’t go to bed. His face looked flushed and pained for a moment, but he eventually departed with good grace, handing over to Annie a wad of notes. While we had been dining, two businessmen wearing black Cordoba hats had remained standing at another table drinking sherry. One was very talkative and kept putting his face very close to the other, and we gathered they were discussing prices. They were completely absorbed in their conversation but, when the singing began, we suggested they join us. Both of them removed their hats before sitting down; one of them bowed and kissed Annie’s hand and then mine. They were a great help with the ‘oles’ and Cyril was very happy conducting the concert. The singer kept his eyes tight shut as he sang but opened them wide on the last notes as they rose from his stomach in a great swell of feeling at the end of each song. There was a chef standing outside the kitchen. He had a plate and dishcloth in his hand and, whenever the warbling notes came out, he writhed about as though he were being tickled, clasping his hands across his stomach and shaking his head, as much as to say, ‘I don’t know how he does it.’ Suddenly one of the businessmen brought out a jewel box and handed round a collection of precious stones. We all inspected them politely. Then the guitarist offered to take us to a nightclub. Annie was very drunk and seemed absolutely dead set on prolonging the evening. An argument arose between the three of us until Cyril adamantly stormed back to the hotel. Assuming him to be the moneybags, the two artists were rather perplexed, but the singer insisted on taking us to a square, called the Place of Sorrows, where a ten-foot Christ was being crucified in floodlighting. To our surprise, he flung himself to the ground and, kneeling at the foot of Christ, bowed his head and muttered a prayer, and rose with tears streaming down his face. The nightclub turned out to be a brothel full of black-haired women who made every effort to be friendly. Taking the guitarist onto the dance floor, Annie kept saying, ‘Where’s the flamenco. I wanna hear flamenco …’ We could hear music coming from a private room. ‘I wanna go in there,’ Annie said, ‘why can’t we go in there? I wanna hear flamenco.’ Finally, she pushed her way in where a blind man sat, a guitar on his knee, surrounded by whores. ‘Play sommink,’ screamed Annie. Everyone laughed as they realised she was drunk. ‘It’s five o’clock,’ said one of the wom
en. When we walked out, the singer tugged me up some narrow steps, where we were faced by an angry woman in black who started waving her arms in the air and screaming, so we quickly descended and encountered Annie coming out of the nightclub who, seeing me, carried on screaming where the other woman had left off. ‘So, you bin in a brothel,’ she shrieked, as if she hadn’t seen me for several hours. ‘If that’s the kind of person you are, I’m off.’ She swept round a bend of the street and was out of sight.