“What shops do you have?”
“Um, we don’t really have any, except for Marcia’s shop in the square.”
“What does she sell?”
For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything Marcia sold except sweets for the children, and cigarettes and beer for the adults. And then only enough to half fill one shelf in her shop.
“Oh, this and that.”
“There’s no supermarket?”
“No. There are vans that come into the village most days. There’s a bread van, a fish van, a fruit and vegetable van. There’s even one that sells peaches in the summer. And oranges in the winter.”
Anastasia’s high heels clacked on the floor tiles.
“You buy your produce from vans that deliver?”
“Yes,” I replied. “It’s all locally grown and very fresh.”
“I like to hold parties. What would I do if I ran out of martini, or nibbles, or something?”
“I’m afraid you’d have to drive down the mountain. We tend to be quite organised and stock up on supplies to avoid running out of stuff.”
Anastasia arched her eyebrows.
“Restaurants?”
I shook my head.
“Bars?”
“Yes! We have a brand new bar in the square.”
I omitted to mention that it was only frequented by very old men playing dominoes except on special occasions, like the annual fiesta.
I showed her the dining room, and the kitchen, then led her to the main bedroom.
“It’s a cave,” I said proudly. “It stays beautifully cool in summer and it’s warm in winter.”
I flicked a switch and a hundred tiny white fairy lights twinkled in the ceiling. I loved this room.
“No windows at all?”
“No,” I said firmly. “No windows at all. It’s a cave.”
I took her upstairs and showed her the other bedrooms and the little kitchenette, used by visitors to make drinks and snacks when they stayed. Anastasia didn’t comment.
“And every room up here has wonderful views of the mountains,” I enthused, although I was rapidly losing the will to live.
I threw open the doors to the roof terraces.
“Up here,” I babbled, “there is a wonderful view of the whole village, and the sea in the distance.”
Anastasia clacked over to the wall and looked in the direction I was pointing.
“And over there is the church, and those gates are the entrance to the village cemetery…”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the pair of house martins flit away from their nest under the eaves, probably startled by my energetic arm-waving. Each dropped a deposit as it flew, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the shiny red car below had just been bombed.
Luckily, Anastasia had been looking in another direction and hadn’t noticed her car being targeted. She looked down and along the street. I followed her gaze and saw a black shape walking towards us, hugging the shadows. I recognised him immediately. It was Black Balls, as Joe insisted on calling him. The huge, extremely well-endowed, jet black, battle-scarred tom cat that ruled the village.
“What’s that?” asked Anastasia, pointing a polished, ruby fingernail.
“Oh, that’s just Blackie,” I said. “He’s, er, a local cat.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Well, nobody, really.”
“You mean it’s a feral cat?”
“Um, yes, I suppose so.”
Below us, Black Balls continued padding along with purpose. He was carrying something, and as he got closer, I could see what it was. A whole fish, rotting and falling apart, was clenched between his teeth. Heaven only knows where he had found it, perhaps it had been thrown from the fish van at some time.
I knew Black Balls would be looking for somewhere private to enjoy his feast, and my heart sank. He was probably going to eat it under Anastasia’s car. Sure enough, looking up and down the street to check that no cat, dog or human was going to interrupt him, he began to approach the shiny, red car. I held my breath, feeling Anastasia tense beside me.
“That creature is heading for my car!”
Oh dear. She’d noticed.
“And it’s carrying something revolting in its mouth!”
“I expect he’s looking for somewhere quiet to eat it,” I said.
“I don’t want that disgusting brute under my car,” exclaimed Anastasia, whipping off her sunglasses to see better.
Black Balls didn’t go under the car.
He did much worse.
He jumped up onto the bonnet, probably intending to use the car as a step to jumping up onto the opposite roof.
“Oy!” shouted Anastasia, leaning over the wall.
Black Balls froze.
“Get off my car!”
Black Balls spun his head round to see where the shouting was coming from, then saw us above. Quick as a flash, he leapt over the windscreen and into the car, landing on the cream leather upholstery, rotting fish still firmly clamped between his teeth. The sudden activity didn’t do his meal any good, and I was dismayed to see bits of rotting flesh falling off the fish. I lost sight of him but I knew he would be crouched in the darkness of the foot well.
“Good grief!” screeched Anastasia. “It’s in my car!”
She whipped round and ran back inside as fast as her stilettos would allow. Down the stairs she flew, through the dining room and living room, and burst out of the front door. I followed her.
“Get out of my car, you brute!” she shouted.
Black Balls didn’t hang around. He probably thought this crazy human was after his fish. Out he scrambled and legged it up the street to safety, Anastasia waving her fist after him.
I stood on the doorstep, uncertain what to say, but I might as well have been invisible. Anastasia had reached the end of her tether.
“I’ve had enough of this God forsaken place,” she muttered, unlocking the car and getting in.
Without a backward glance, she roared off up the street.
But not before I spotted twin white splats on the car’s shiny paintwork.
As I had suspected, our house martins had scored direct hits.
I met Joe at the airport on a cloudless day already showing signs of the heat that summer would inevitably bring.
We hugged for a long time.
“I’m so pleased to be home,” he said, at last. “I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing time.”
“Oh dear, I’m afraid we have viewers tomorrow.”
“Never mind, as long as they aren’t as bad as that awful Anastasia woman you told me about.”
“Most of them are really nice, she was a bit, um, unusual.”
“Did Kurt say anything about these ones?”
“Just that they’re a German couple.”
Fritz and Helga were delightful. They both spoke almost flawless English and had wonderful manners. Helga declared that they’d already fallen in love with El Hoyo as they descended into the valley, and that our home was perfect.
They loved the cave room, the big kitchen and the wood-burning stoves. They admired the walled garden and the chicken area. They adored the roof terraces and the stunning views. They enthused over the big garage and the workshop. But something didn’t feel quite right to me. The way they kept looking at each other, as though communicating silently about something, puzzled me.
“You haf a beautiful haus,” said Fritz. “Ve like to live here very much.”
Helga, at his side, nodded.
“The village it is perfect, too. Ve can understand how you haf been so happy here.”
Joe and I waited. To be honest, I could sense a ‘but’ coming, and sure enough, it appeared. And it was a big one.
“But you haf no space for a horse.”
We stared at them.
“A horse?” Kurt asked.
“Yes. We dream to keep horses. Already ve haf one horse ve vill take from Germany.”
“Yes,�
� said Helga, her eyes shining. “Our Gunther is an eight-year-old Hanoverian gelding.”
“Goodness,” I said.
“I think there is no stable here? No place for a horse?”
“No,” said Kurt.
“No,” agreed Joe.
“Chickens, yes,” I said. “But horses? No.”
I was sorry to see Fritz and Helga leave. They genuinely liked the village and our house, and I would have been quite happy handing the keys over to them.
But there was nowhere to keep a horse.
Not even a small one.
“I did not expect that,” said Kurt, after they’d driven away. “But I haf two more viewings up my arm.”
“Oh, that’s good!”
“Yes, both they vill come on Thursday. In the morning, a twosome from Germany, and in the afternoon, a twosome from England.”
“Right, we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
“Yes. It only takes one.”
It was strange, but as soon as Kurt mentioned the English couple, a tingly feeling swept over me. I’m a very down-to-earth person. I never read my horoscope and am a little sceptical about astrology and spiritual matters. I’ve never seen a ghost, nor had genuine premonitions. But I suddenly knew that we would sell our house to the English couple who were coming to see the house on Thursday.
That Sunday, Joe and I sat on our roof terrace watching the activity in the village. The cobalt sky stretched away in all directions, unbroken by cloud. The house martins flitted to and fro, doubtless feeding their babies.
“I wonder how many eggs hatched?” I said, leaning over the wall a little.
The nest was placed so that I couldn’t see in, and I didn’t try very hard because I didn’t want to disturb the parent birds.
To my right was the church. Mass had just finished and the villagers were leaving the church in dribs and drabs. Carmen was in deep discussion with another village lady, and Marcia hobbled back to her shop. As always, nobody ever looked up at the roof tops or they would have seen us. It was as though we were invisible.
Little Pollito Ufarte was also heading home under the watchful eyes of his big sisters. He ran ahead, clutching his latest creation.
“Pollito!” called a twin. “Wait! Show us what you have made in Sunday School today!”
The little boy stopped right below us, and held up his treasure for them to see. From above, it looked like two cardboard tubes, toilet paper roll holders, stuck together with sticky tape.
“What are they?” asked one of his big sisters when she reached him.
“!Prismáticos!” he declared. “Binoculars!”
“Oh! Of course they are!”
“What a clever boy you are, Pollito!”
Pollito beamed and pressed his binoculars to his eyes, scanning the mountainside. Then he peered at our front door through the cardboard rolls, and finally at his own feet.
“Look!” he squeaked, pointing down. “Look what I have found!”
His sisters bent to look, then pulled him away quickly.
“Pollito! Do not touch it!”
“Why not? I want to look! It is a tiny bird.”
Unseen, I peered over the wall and spotted the tiny body of a fledgeling lying in the street, directly below our house martins’ nest. How sad, I thought, one of the babies must have fallen out.
“Yes, it is a poor baby bird,” said Twin #1.
“It has fallen out of a nest perhaps,” said Twin #2.
“It is asleep?”
“No, Pollito, it has died.”
“It will not wake up in a minute?”
“No, it has gone to heaven to be with Jesus.”
“Does Jesus not like little birds?”
“Of course He does! Why?”
“Then why did He throw it back down?”
“Oh, Pollito!”
Smiling, the twins gathered up their little brother and bore him off down the street leaving Joe and I chuckling above.
“It’s hard to believe that we may not be here to watch that little chap grow up,” I mused.
“But you’ll be able to watch Indy. That’ll be even better.”
It was a heady notion.
“We have a busy time ahead of us next week,” I said. “Two viewings scheduled already, and we need to go to the medical centre and get your next injection done. I forgot to tell you, I had an email from my sister this morning. She’s kindly translated your letter from the UK hospital, into Spanish. I’ll print it out and we can take it with us to the medical centre in case the doctor doesn’t understand English.”
My phone rang, and I picked it up.
“It is I, Kurt.”
“Hello Kurt, how are you?”
“I am vell. The Germans vill not come on Thursday. They haf discovered another house.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, but Kurt had already hung up.
“That was Kurt. The German couple cancelled.”
“Oh dear, does that blow your theory about receiving an offer for the house on Thursday?”
“No, not at all. I’m positive the English couple will want it.”
“Well, don’t be too disappointed if they don’t turn up, or don’t like the house.”
“I won’t.”
Prawn Bites
Montaditos de Gambas
These montaditos de gambas are tasty, healthy, and easy to make. They are ideal for a quick lunch, as tapas, or as a starter for your dinner guests.
Ingredients
8 slices of bread, toasted or fresh
½ kilo (1lb) of raw prawns, shells and veins removed
1 or 2 garlic cloves, chopped really finely, or crushed
1 chilli, chopped very finely (optional)
½ teaspoon of paprika
Small bunch of spring onions, very finely sliced, including green parts
Olive oil for frying
Method
Cut each slice of bread in half
Pour a good splash of olive oil into a very hot frying pan.
Throw in all ingredients, except the paprika and bread, and fry for a couple of minutes until the prawns turn pink, stirring well.
Spoon the cooked mixture over your slices of bread.
Sprinkle the paprika over the top.
Serve immediately.
22
IT ONLY TAKES ONE
I’m not sure why I persevered with phoning, emailing and tweeting Iberia Airlines. I could have spent the time more profitably by sticking pins in my feet for half an hour a day, but I guess I couldn’t drop it because the injustice smarted.
It was clear to me that airport staff, most likely at Heathrow, had stolen my camera, external computer hard drive and other stuff, and I felt I deserved compensation. I’d trusted my belongings to the airline and they had betrayed my trust.
With hindsight, I should have simply accepted the insultingly small compensation cheque they sent me, and forgotten all about the incident instead of stressing about it. But I carried on phoning, emailing and tweeting. I rarely received a reply, and when I did, I had to repeat the whole sorry saga from the beginning.
“Yes, you are definitely due full compensation,” they would say. “We’ll phone you back.”
But they never did.
Other issues also preoccupied me, like Joe’s next hormone injection. The timing had to be exactly right, three months from the last one.
When we first moved to El Hoyo, the doctor visited the village once a week and consultations were conducted in a villager’s living room or kitchen, often Marcia’s. I clearly remembered the time when Joe had allowed Marcia to give him a routine injection more than ten years before. Joe had expected to be injected in his arm, and insisted that her family need not vacate the kitchen. All Marcia’s family members stayed and, to his horror, watched as Marcia pulled down one side of his shorts and injected him in the buttock.
But time had marched on and brought progress with it. Our village shared a brand new town hall and modern surgery th
at had been built in a neighbouring village.
And time hadn’t stood still in El Hoyo either. When the council built the new bar, they included a consulting room for the doctor’s once weekly visit. There was even a free delivery service to El Hoyo for filled prescriptions. These arrived on the fish van.
We could have seen the doctor in El Hoyo, but we didn’t want to wait for his weekly village visit as the hormone injection had to be administered on a particular day. So we decided to go to the surgery in the neighbouring village.
In we marched, armed with the syringe and the explanatory letter. To our surprise, the waiting room was empty, although the doctor’s door was slightly ajar.
“It’s quiet today,” observed Joe. “Shall I knock on the door?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re in luck! There’s no queue.”
Joe tapped on the door.
“Come in,” called a female voice.
“It must be the new lady doctor, or the nurse,” I whispered, and followed Joe in.
A nurse stood with her back to us, doing something at the filing cabinet.
“Good morning,” said Joe brightly, in his best Spanish. “I have a letter that explains everything. If you could please just inject my left buttock, señora, I’d be most grateful.”
He put the injection on the doctor’s desk and, pulling down his shorts, helpfully bared his snowy left nalga (buttock) in her direction.
The lady turned, and her eyes widened as her gaze settled on Joe’s exposed pale posterior.
“¡Madre mía!” she exclaimed, one hand flying up to clutch the gold crucifix round her neck.
A duster hung limply from her other hand.
I would say that it was probably at that point that both Joe and I noticed what she was wearing. It was a uniform, yes, but not a nurse’s uniform. It was an overall.
Joe yanked his shorts back up.
“You’re not a nurse, are you?” he asked.
But we both already knew the answer.
The cleaner shook her head, her eyes still wide.
Two Old Fools in Turmoil Page 18