by Alan Laycock
The Reluctant Expat
Part Four: Settling down
Alan Laycock
Text copyright © 2019 Alan Laycock
The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
1
“So, love, I thought you might like to start doing a bit on the allotment now.”
“You did, did you?” Cathy said, her sharp blue eyes X-raying the depths of Bernie’s optimistic brain.
He waved his turkey-laden fork and cleared his throat. “Yes, my… our field will be my priority for a while now, so I hoped you might be able to find the time to weed a bit and generally keep an eye on things.”
“Ah,” she said, before smiling at Inma, who smiled back.
“Yes, I mean, most of my farming mates’ wives tend to… er, tend to the veg and whatnot.”
“I see,” she hissed, a bit like Pol Pot on being told that his breakfast toast had been burnt. “What do you think, Alan?”
“I… well,” I began, but before I go on with our Christmas lunch chatter I’d better remind you where we were up to when I signed off at the end of the penultimate part of my humilem opus, if that really is how you say ‘humble work’ in Latin.
The hotel-to-be deal had finally been sealed a couple of weeks earlier and Malcolm and Angela had flown back to Norfolk happy in the knowledge that their right-hand man, namely me, would ensure that Cristóbal finished the job by the end of April, on pain of considerable pain – financial and possibly physical – if he failed to do so. Arturo and Diego had already performed some interior destruction work, so as soon as Cristóbal had seen in the New Year he’d be out there with a platoon of workmen and masses of machinery, or so I hoped. There were many more things going on, of course, but I’ll come to them in due course and will now get back to answering Cathy.
“I… well, I plan to cycle over here at least once a week to do some weeding.”
“Like you haven’t been doing for a while.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’ll be busier now, and so will I, because as well as seeing Doña Elena and Mari Carmen (the oldies she visited) I’m going to do some courses.”
“What kind of courses?” Inma asked her in English.
“Oh, I’ll see which adult courses are on offer in town. I want to get out and meet some younger local people, you see, as I’m not planning on becoming a… er, viuda de tractorista,” she said, meaning a tractor driver’s widow.
“You can have a go on the tractor if you like,” Bernie said with a winning smile, not having grasped the widow bit.
“How thrilling,” she murmured.
“When will this field actually become yours, Bern?” I said.
“As soon as I hand over the five and a half grand and we do the paperwork.”
“I thought you weren’t prepared to pay a cent more than five.”
He stabbed a sprout. “I wasn’t, but Spartacus is chewing at the bit now, so I’ve had to meet the old skinflint half way.”
“Who is Spartacus?” Inma asked.
“My tractor.”
“When did you decide on that name?” Cathy asked.
“This morning on the loo. It suddenly came to me as I was… on the loo. Spartacus started life as a slave, like my tractor, but then gained his freedom and went on to greater things. I’ve done my research, you see.”
“He means he’s seen the film,” Cathy said.
“What colour will he be?” I asked, as he’d threatened to paint her light-blue to match Letizia, his trusty 2CV.
“Oh, I’ve decided to stick to the original red. Letizia’s a plaything really, but Spartacus will be a serious workhorse and I don’t want my farmer pals to laugh at him.”
“More turkey?” said Cathy.
“Not for me, thanks,” said Inma, unaccustomed as she was to a big Christmas Day feed. The Spaniards usually have a family dinner on Christmas Eve and some go to church on Christmas Day, but the kids aren’t supposed to get their presents until El Día de Los Reyes – the Day of the Kings – on January 6th, the twelfth day of Christmas, although commercial pressure has ensured that they usually receive a few on Christmas Day too, as it’s a bit of a drag getting all their gifts on the day before they go back to school after pining for them for a fortnight. So, Inma and I had decided on an English Christmas, a quiet New Year’s Eve, and a Spanish Reyes with her parents and other family in Murcia, where the capricious Natalia was sure to make things interesting.
For Christmas I’d bought Bernie a pair of tractor-driving gloves, really standard driving gloves onto the backs of which Inma had skilfully embroidered two little tractors. I’d got Cathy an exciting new Spanish grammar book and a couple of parallel text (Spanish-English) novels, to encourage her to keep up the sterling linguistic work she’d been doing ever since beginning to see her first oldie. They’d given Inma a stylish compact umbrella and me a nifty leather document case which Bernie proposed I carry with me on my site inspections to give me an aura of importance. Inma and I would exchange small gifts on the sixth, we’d agreed, in keeping with tradition.
After lunch Bernie and I strolled down to the impeccable but lacklustre allotment and he pointed out the potatoes, onions and garlic which he hoped to harvest within a month or two.
“Ah, good. Oh, what happened to all the other things we planted?” I asked, as apart from some beans and carrots I’d seen few fruits of our labours.
“Well, I think we started a bit late. Only the radishes did really well.” He shrugged. “Pity no-one likes them.”
“Hmm, are you serious about expecting Cathy to lend a hand? She does look after the non-edibles, after all.”
“I know, but remember the dog scare we’ve just had,” he said, referring to the possible adoption of an unwanted terrier called Luna which Cathy’s friend Denise had finally placed with a local family whose younger members had drooled over the poor little thing. “I don’t want a dog really, as they tie you down so much, so I’d like Cathy to keep busy.”
“Won’t the field and this tie you down?” I said, pointing to the largely fallow plot.
“Not as much. I’d like us to take a few trips this year and I will not have a puppy peeing in Letizia. We still haven’t seen much of Spain.”
“No, me neither. Hopefully when the hotel’s up and running Inma and me will get away too. I want to have a look up north, as it’s said to be like a different country.”
“Yes, me too. How’s your pal Zeferino, by the way?”
“Rejuvenated since resuming his swimming and popping up to his country pad every week.”
“Does the old buffer not get under your feet?”
“Not at all. Him and our neighbour are as thick as thieves now. He’s agreed to house-sit while we’re in Murcia, from his command post in the annex, and he’s sure to spend most of his time with Álvaro. They’ll regale each other with further tall historical tales, which will be a big improvement on all the solitary holidays they must have spent in the past.”
“That’s true.”
“Oh, how’s Jesús?” I said, having forgotten to ask after my ailing pal and sometime employer who Bernie now assisted gratis once or twice a week.
“He’s finished his treatment and the doctors are optimistic, but he does like to harp on about the Big C. The other day in his casita he told me to examine my bollocks.”
“
What, there?”
“No, at home. Although he’s got prostate cancer, he’s fond of quoting statistics about the other types too. It seems to have become something of an obsession with him.”
“Yes, I know. Juan told me that when he enters Vicente’s bar everyone starts fidgeting and trying to get out of the way, as he’s sure to prod them somewhere or other and tell them what their chances of survival are. Juan says they’re awaiting the day when he gets the all-clear so they can stop being sympathetic and tell him to put a lid on it.”
“Hmm, and the stronger he gets, the less tractor driving I’m allowed to do. Still, I’m glad he’s getting better and I’ll soon have my own field to plough.”
“Will… er, Spartacus be able to handle that hard earth and mass of weeds?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, a mate of mine will give it a going over with his super-duper tractor first, as I don’t want to strain Spartacus and the old plough I’ll soon be buying.”
“Will you plant almond trees like you said then?”
“No, olive trees.”
“Oh, right. Why have you changed your mind?”
“Because there’s a boom in planting almond trees right now.”
“So?”
He scratched his tanned, freshly shaven head and smiled. “They’ve been planting almond trees like mad in Spain for the last couple of years, as prices have been high, so I’m going to buck the trend and plant olive trees. Five years from now when they start to bear fruit I’ll be quids in, you’ll see.”
“And what do your grizzled agricultor mates say about that?”
“Ha, they think I’m wrong and try to persuade me to plant almond trees or even vines, but because I’m foreign they have an inkling that I might know something they don’t, so they’re a bit intrigued really.”
“Why should you know something they don’t just because you’re foreign?”
“Oh, well, they aren’t the most cultured men in the world and as most agricultural innovations have come from abroad they don’t quite know what to make of me. I like to seem a bit enigmatic anyway, so that they don’t take me for a complete wally.”
“I bet you do. Come on, it’s getting chilly.”
“Hmm, but it’s not much of a winter here, is it?”
“Inma says winter really starts in January.”
“Yes, my mates do too, but we’re used to real winters.”
“Yes, and central heating. Have you got enough firewood?”
“Oh, yes, what’s left of the ton we bought will see us out, no problem. Sold any coins lately?” he asked as we wandered past the covered pool.
“No. What with all the excitement over the hotel project I haven’t done a thing.”
“You ought to keep your eye in though.”
“I know.”
“Why not invest in some really good coins now that you’re rolling in it?”
I pictured the cornflakes box full of cash in the pantry. “Yes, I suppose I could do that, then keep them for a rainy day. Good idea, Bern.”
He shrugged before skipping up the porch steps and turning to face me. “But if you play your cards right there might not be any rainy days for the foreseeable. Once the hotel’s finished, Angela’s planning to keep you gainfully employed, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but as what? And what if things don’t go to plan and Malcolm chews me up and sprays my remains all over his wife’s unfinished project?”
He laughed. “Ah, good old Alan, always the optimist. Come on, I fancy a drop of that new brandy.”
“Me too,” I said, my new executive responsibilities having already made me turn to drink – a glass of wine almost every day for the last few weeks.
2
“Let’s have a drink first,” said Cristóbal on the second of January when I met him in the still lamplit town, prior to driving over to the hotel project to meet his crack building team. It was a cold, damp morning and I felt a great sense of anticipation, marred only slightly by anxiety.
“We’ll go to Vicente’s bar, as Arturo and Diego might be there.”
“All right. That gypsy pal of yours seems to be a good worker after all, and I don’t think he’s nicked anything yet.”
“He isn’t a gypsy… or a thief,” I said, almost sure that he’d put his wayward ways behind him since he’d started seeing more of his young daughter Rocío.
“Well, I just hope he’s as good at building things as he is at pulling them down. Him and Diego have demolished nearly all the partition walls that had to go, so we’ve now got an almost blank canvas to work on,” he said in his usual gruff manner as we shot up the narrow street in his van.
“Yes, that was a good idea of mine.”
He grunted approvingly and screeched to a halt outside the bar.
“What are you doing here at this time?” I asked Jesús at the bar, as it was just after seven and would be dark for at least another hour.
“I know it’s late for me to be here, but since my illness I’ve been taking things easy. Vicente, get these boys whatever they want.”
I ordered a cortado and Cristóbal a café solo and a glass of Soberano brandy.
“Are you still in pain?” I asked Jesús on seeing him wince.
He nodded at the brandy glass, him not being a big spender. “No, I’m feeling much better now.”
“Yes, you look like your old self again.”
He raised a forefinger and stared at me. “Alan, I’ll never be the same again, not after my cancer, which might still return.”
I noticed Vicente wringing a dry dishcloth and staring up at the ceiling, except that his eyes were scrunched shut. A short, elderly man called Ernesto took two steps to the left, sliding his cup and saucer with him. Jesús observed Cristóbal pouring a little brandy into his coffee.
“Cristóbal, have you checked your balls lately?”
He sputtered. “You what?”
Vicente coughed lightly. “Jesús is on testicular cancer this week. It was lung cancer before that.”
By way of reply, Cristóbal took a packet of fags from his shirt pocket and slapped it onto the bar.
Jesús shook his head sadly. “I’ve just given up, though I didn’t smoke much anyway. Did you know that of the seven men here now–”
“Shut up, Jesús!” Vicente barked more sternly than I’d heard him speak, or bark, before. “Cristóbal hasn’t been here for ages and your bloody obsession is going to drive him away.”
“I paid for his drinks,” he mumbled.
“You’re ca… illness is becoming bad for trade,” he snapped, seeming genuinely annoyed.
“People should be prepared for the worst.”
“Well prepare them for it somewhere else. Another word about… that and I’ll bar you, and I mean it.”
“What are you doing on the land now, Jesús?” I interjected, expecting quite enough stress later on at the house.
“Pruning some of the trees, and ploughing, of course. Bernie has been a great help.”
“I’m glad.”
“Yes, he really does have a feel for the land, though it’s foolish of him to want to plant olive trees now.”
I sniggered enigmatically, or tried to. “Hmm, maybe Bernie knows something you lot don’t,” I said, and as Cristóbal had supped up right on cue, I left him to mull that one over.
“No Diego or Arturo,” Cristóbal said in the van.
“They’ll be there already, I expect. The sun never rises quickly enough for those two.”
As we approached the country house the sky was lightening to the east – as it usually does – and Arturo’s old van was the only vehicle to be seen on the gravelled area to the side of the long, graceful, two-storey building whose innards were about to be transformed.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“They’ll be here at eight, or they’d better be.”
“And the building materials?”
“They’ll be here at nin
e, or they’d better be.”
“It’s a big job, isn’t it?” I said as we stepped out of the van.
“Yes, but it’s become a bit simpler since last night.”
“Oh?”
“Did you not see the email that Malcolm sent at about half nine?”
“Not yet, no. What did he say?”
“Oh, not much really, only that they no longer want to have their own quarters in the hotel.”
I gazed at the fading moon and almost howled. “What? But that’s an intrinsic part of the plans.”
“Yes, it was, but I must say the updated ones are very good. The hotel will now have three more bedrooms, with en suite bathrooms, of course. It’ll make things simpler for me, but no cheaper for him, as I’ve already pointed out.”
“But where will they stay?”
“I couldn’t care less, unless he intends to build another house, in which case I’ll care very much, as I’ll be building it.” He took out his phone and swiped it. “Here it is.”
I saw that Malcolm, as was usual in his curt missives, had written no more than was strictly necessary.
“Well that’s a surprise,” I said as I handed back the phone.
“It might be good news for you, if you do end up working here. Nothing worse than having the boss breathing down your neck.”
“But I can’t see Angela wanting to be too far away. Anyway, I’ll speak to her soon. Here are two more vans.”
“My lads with all our gear. The new blokes had better be here in ten minutes as I don’t want to start the day with a bollocking.”
“Where are they from?” I said as we strolled towards the house.
“You’ll see.”
“Foreigners?”
“You’ll see.” He pushed the main door and found it locked. “Where have those two got to?”
“Al-an! Cristó-bal!” Arturo cried as they approached from the direction of the swimming pool which the caretaker was still keeping clean, now at Malcolm and Angela’s expense. Diego was swinging a flask which I hoped contained their morning coffee.