by Alan Laycock
“Sunbathing on his country estate.”
“Good, he’s an old bore.”
Although I’d expected Juan to sit in one of the easy chairs we’d once brought in his van and give me instructions, he’d arrived at the bar dressed in faded blue overalls, toting an iron bar with which he playfully tickled Jesús between the legs.
“Hey, don’t touch me there of all places, you big oaf.”
“No, not there,” said Vicente. “Or you’ll start him off again and I’ll have to throw him out.”
“Vicente won’t allow me to talk about my… condition here anymore,” Jesús told us.
“Thank God,” said Juan.
“As he thinks he’ll lose customers, but I tell him that he’ll lose more customers to… you know, if they don’t follow my advice and examine themselves thoroughly every morning.”
“Je-sús,” Vicente growled.
He raised his hands. “That’s all I have to say.”
“Why are you still here at this time?” I asked him, as it was almost ten o’clock.
“Still here? I’ve already been on my land for hours. The truth is that there’s little to do right now, so I’ve come to cheer everybody up.”
Vicente groaned.
“Why don’t you come to help me and Juan do a bit of work on a poor old man’s flat?” I asked.
“I’ll let you wield my tool if you come,” Juan said, waving it about.
“No thanks, there’s always ploughing to do.”
I waited for him to enquire about Bernie’s tractor or field, but the selfish old sod didn’t, so we finished our coffee and headed off.
I’d brought half my armoury of building equipment along, but Juan just had the extremely long chisel, and while I was carting my stuff up the stairs he’d grabbed a hammer and was making short work of the skirting tiles. We then emptied the room of furniture and set about the floor tiles, most of which came off with a couple of light blows.
“I thought they’d be harder to get off,” I said as we toiled.
“No, for many years now the Spanish builder has worked fast, especially on flats.”
“I hope they do a good job at the hotel. They’ll also be laying some tiles today, I think,” I said, having asked Arturo to apprise me of any issues.
“Cristóbal will do a good enough job, I’m sure. What will you do there when it opens, Alan?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to work there full-time,” I said, having given some thought to the matter since Natalia had suggested I might end up managing the place. “I’d like to do something interesting that won’t tie me down all the time.”
He straightened up and wiped his sweaty brow. “You like your freedom, don’t you, Alan?”
“Yes.”
“Quite right. Sell your coins and look out for more house buyers. You have no need to become an employee now.”
“No. What have you been up to?”
“Oh, getting a little bored, to be honest, but I hope to do some more driving soon.”
“For the furniture company?”
“Perhaps, but an old friend was home in the holidays. He has lived in Vitoria for many years.”
“Ah, in the Basque Country?”
“Yes. He has a company which manufactures components for the automotive industry. He asked me if I was still driving and I told him I was, for friends. He may wish me to do a few trips, from Vitoria to Valencia, Alicante and Murcia.”
“Does he not have his own vans?”
“Of course, and he uses transport companies, but the truth is that I expressed a certain willingness to deliver his goods and as I’m an old friend he was happy to give me some work.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t need me, but he’s more than happy for me to do a few trips. He’s only three years younger than me and still works hard, so he understands why I get bored.” He shrugged again. “Ha, if I were a more imaginative man like you, Alan, I might have more to do.”
“You could do some spor… exercise. Walking, or even cycling. You told me you used to cycle a lot.”
He cradled his considerable paunch and shook his head. “I don’t think so, Alan. It would be unseemly for a man of my age to go cycling.”
“Not in my country.”
“Anyway, I’ve come here to do some exercise,” he said, before laying into the remaining tiles with a vengeance.
When we’d finished he asked me where my capazos were. Capazos are the large, rubbery tubs with handles and I’d brought a single one in which to pour the mortar. I pointed at it.
“That little thing? We need big ones to carry this rubble down to the van, and then to mix the material in.”
“Ah, but I’ve bought this special mortar for the tiles,” I said, pointing to a tub.
He shook his head. “Then this will be the most expensive floor since they laid the tiles in the great mosque of Córdoba. What did you and Arturo use when tiling your little house?”
“Er, sand, cement, and something else, but the lad at the builders’ merchant’s recommended this stuff.”
“That stuff is for small surfaces, and for guiris.” He sighed and took out his phone.
When I’d carted most of the old tiles down to Juan’s van, another van arrived with bags of sand and cement and two huge capazos. Juan emerged with a tub of mortar.
“Take this back and he’ll come to reckon up later,” he said to the driver.
“OK,” he said, and was off.
“We’ll use the other tub for coating the back of the tiles.”
“All right.”
I can see that I’m in danger of giving you a blow by blow account of the tiling of a floor, so I’ll skip the mundane stuff and move on to the point where I brought up the subject of Juan’s Vitoria trips again. By that time we’d chipped away some of the old cement and had begun to spread the new stuff (me), and lay tiles (Juan).
“Won’t they be rather long trips for you, Juan?”
“Yes, but better long trips than none at all. Vitoria is about seven hundred kilometres from here, so I’ll drive up one day and back down the next, via Valencia. Then on the third day I’ll make the deliveries to Alicante and Murcia.”
“Can’t you make all the deliveries on the second day?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not alone, no. It would be too much for me.”
“I’ll come with you then.”
“Oh, no, Alan, you’re far too busy now.”
“It’s only two days, and I am my own boss, remember? You don’t have to pay me, as I’m keen to see the north anyway.”
He chuckled. “My friend will pay me well, I’m sure, and I’m not really doing it for the money either, so there’ll be enough for both of us.”
“Where will we stay overnight?”
“At my friend’s house, of course. His wife is Basque and a very good cook.”
“Great. Tell me as soon as you know the dates.”
“All right. Pass me two more tiles and some spacers.”
Thursday was a busy day for me, as after prising Zefe out of the annex I drove him home, mopped the new floor, carted his furniture back into place, took him swimming, allowed him to invite me to lunch at a decent restaurant, took him home again, and finally made it out to the hotel at about five o’clock.
“Been having a nice time while we’ve been working like blacks?” Cristóbal mumbled with a screw in his mouth, as he was removing a door.
“Yes,” I said, resisting a strong impulse to show him my slightly blistered hands. “Is everything going well?”
He glared at me, twisting the screw between his lips like Clint Eastwood’s cheroot in those spaghetti westerns. “You don’t need to ask.”
“I have to ask.”
“See for yourself.”
“I have. I’m amazed by how much work has been done.”
He grunted amiably. “I think your bosses will be pleased when they come next week.”
“Next week?”
“Do you never read your emails, Al
an?”
“Not since this morning.”
“Did you buy your phone in the Stone Age?”
My mobile was still the same basic one that I’d ‘borrowed’ from Cathy and Bernie not long after we’d arrived at their house. “About then, yes.”
“Ha, some executive you are,” he said, spitting out the screw.
I looked at my executive watch and stroked my executive document case. Inma had used the word not long before and the more I heard it, the less I wanted to be one. If I really became an executive, how could I shoot off with Juan on trips to the north or do other interesting things on a whim?
“What did he say in the email?”
“She said that they’d be arriving next Wednesday afternoon, and more stuff that I couldn’t be bothered to read. Look, it’s addressed to you anyway.” He handed me his dusty smartphone.
Angela, in an email about twenty times the length of Malcolm’s usual notes, said that she was very excited about visiting her project, but that Malcolm still hadn’t told her where they’d be staying. She hoped that I’d be there on Wednesday, as she wished to discuss her ideas for the hotel with me, now that the opening date was drawing nearer, etc, etc.
“Hmm,” I handed back the phone. “Six days from now. Could you, er… finish a suite or something, so they can see what they’ll look like?”
“No, I have a plan, and I’m sticking to it.”
“I thought you might say that. They’re going to be impressed anyway, so we needn’t worry.”
“Do I look worried?” he said with a fierce and unworried grimace.
“Keep up the good work,” I said, patting him paternally on the shoulder, before marching purposefully from the room.
I found Arturo and Diego just outside the main door, mixing cement for the skilled workers.
“Everything OK?” I asked.
Diego straightened up and puffed out his cheeks. “Cristóbal’s become more of a slave driver than ever. He’s got us working eleven hours like the bloody Manchegos.”
“And this weekend too, as they’re not going home,” said Arturo almost gleefully. He patted his brother-in-toil on the back. “Cheer up and think about the money.”
“My bloody wife keeps it all. She doesn’t trust me with it.”
Arturo grasped his arm. “You mustn’t drink, Diego, or not much. Follow my example and you’ll be all right.”
“Hmm.”
Had Arturo mauled Diego like that a few weeks earlier he’d probably have called him a gypsy swine, but he now seemed content enough to work alongside the effusive chap, though he tried not to show it. Vicente had told me that Diego rarely got drunk anymore, at least not in his bar, and that his previously stormy family life appeared to have settled down. Arturo seemed to be positively thriving on all the hard work, and I asked him if he didn’t miss the markets that he’d begun to visit again after being forced to stay away for a while due to selling a dodgy car to some ‘bad’ gypsies.
“Not at all, Alan. Here I come, work and make money, whereas there I go, set up at some ungodly hour, and then stand around all day hoping to sell my stuff.”
“But on the markets you can use your eloquence and talk to lots of people all day long.”
“Yes, but always trying to sell. Here I can use my eloquence on my colleagues, eh, Diego?”
Diego grunted.
“On the markets I’m a gypsy and here I’m a payo, or try to be. On the whole I prefer to be a payo at work and a gypsy at play. A good life balance, eh?”
“Yes, I guess so. How’s your daughter?”
“Rocío is fine, thanks, but will miss her Dad this weekend, as I’ll be here.”
“That’s a shame.”
He shrugged. “No matter. I can now buy her everything she needs,” he said, before beginning to fill a fresh cement mixer. The afternoon was turning chilly, but he was still dressed in a vest and his dark arms seemed more sinewy than ever, the veins standing out on his fine biceps. When Diego wheeled a barrowful of material to the men inside I asked him if everyone seemed happy on the job.
He poured a final bucketful of water in and switched on the mixer, before fishing his cigarettes from his back pocket and lighting one. We stepped away from the building and I saw lights on in half a dozen rooms, or ex-rooms, as parts of the place were still awaiting new walls and everything else.
“Yes, I think so. The Manchegos are used to this kind of work. They’re tough men and they rarely complain. They have everything they need for the evenings now, including televisions, so it’s just business as usual for them.”
“And Cristóbal’s boys?”
“Oh, they tend to moan a little, especially about the long hours, but this weekend they’ll all be here, as they too like to earn money after some lean times.”
“The following weekend they can rest when the Manchegos go home,” I said, feeling like a lazybones in the company of so many grafters.
“Yes. Hey, do you think the owners will want to have a small house here? Cristóbal seems to think we’ll be staying here to build it.”
“I don’t know, Arturo. Next Wednesday we might find out.”
6
The following Wednesday I was on site by twelve and rushed inside through the pouring rain, using my document case as an umbrella. Both teams’ cement mixers were rumbling away in what was to become the foyer and I found Cristóbal upstairs, giving instructions to Rafael, the head Manchego.
“Hola, Alan,” said he.
“Hola, how’s this cabrón treating you all?” I said, as I tried to utter a few manly vulgarities on each visit.
“We’ve had worse bosses, and we’re off home for a rest at lunchtime on Friday.”
“Are you excited about seeing Malcolm and Angela?” I asked Cristóbal.
“Do I look excited?” he growled. “Have you mentioned the new house we’re building them yet?”
I twisted my neck to hide the inevitable gulp. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“Well, as there’s this big mystery about where they’ll be staying, it didn’t seem appropriate to mention it,” I said, grasping my document case and trying not to cringe.
“Pah, some mystery! They’ll be staying at a hotel, of course,” he said before stomping off.
“A pleasant man,” I said to Rafael.
“Oh, he’s all right. He’s just a little timid, that’s all.”
“Timid?”
“Yes, that’s at the root of his grumpiness. He may be a younger child whose older siblings made him feel inferior.” He shrugged and twiddled his trowel. “Who knows? I just know that he pays us every week and is managing the project well. The other day he took Anacleto to the dentist’s.”
Anacleto was the oldest of the Manchegos, apart from Rafael himself, and I remarked that it had been unusually considerate of Cristóbal.
“Yes, well, he wanted him to get his tooth extracted so that he could go on working, but he wouldn’t let him pay the bill.”
“Ah, he’s got a heart of gold. Oh, it sounds like a van’s arriving,” I said, wandering over to the window. “Bloody hell,” I said in English.
Rafael joined me. “I think it’s some kind of bus.”
I gazed down at the rain-streaked silver roof and put two and two together.
“Es una autocaravana,” I said, meaning motorhome.
“It’s a big one,” said Rafael.
“Malcolm’s a big man.”
“The owner of this place?”
“Yes, him and his wife.”
The van circled and came to rest on the gravel right next to the tiled area leading to the pool. Rooted to the spot, I was expecting the driver’s door to open, but instead my phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Alan, are you here?” my master’s voice roared.
“Yes, I…”
“Come outside. I have a surprise for you.”
“I can see it.”
“Well come here. I want to ta
lk to you.” He hung up.
I trotted down the stairs and into the rain. On approaching the van, the side door swung open.
“Come in, come in, Alan,” the big man boomed, smiling from ear to ear. “Wipe your feet,” he said as he grasped my hand and pulled me in.
“Well, this is a surprise. Hello, Angela.”
“Hi, Alan. A cup of tea?”
“Yes, please. Don’t you want to see the work first?”
“That can wait,” Malcolm said, propelling me to a cosy nook with a small round table. “Sit down. What do you think of her then?”
Assuming he meant the van, I said it was even more impressive inside than out.
“Yes, only the best is good enough for my Angela.”
She brought the mugs of tea and sat down with us. “I knew nothing until this morning, Alan. When the taxi took us to a huge place near Elche with dozens of motorhomes I thought we were just going to look, but they drove this one round and before I knew it we were off to a hypermarket to buy everything we needed.”
Malcolm’s huge head was nodding. “I planned it all meticulously, Alan. After I’d decided that I didn’t want us to live in there, I got thinking and came up with this simple solution. When we come over we can stay here, and if we get bored we can shoot off wherever we want.”
“Oh, so are you not driving it… her back to England?”
“No, she’ll stay here. You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you?”
“Of course. What make is she?”
“She’s a Hymer B-class Supreme… something or other. The best they had in stock, and she didn’t come cheap, but we’ll get some use out of her, won’t we, love?”
“We certainly will. She drives really well for such a big van, Alan, and I’m sure we’ll visit lots of places.”
“Yes, it’ll be great,” I said, glad that she really seemed to like it after not having been consulted in the matter.
“Years and years ago we had a little Volkswagen camper van and we went all over Britain in it, until Malcolm became too busy to take proper holidays.”
“Ah, I see. We could get Cristóbal to put outdoor plug sockets near to wherever you’re going to park her.”
“Good idea, Alan,” he said, before his mighty brow creased. “I’m glad you’re keeping us up to date on the work, because that Christabel doesn’t seem to be able to write more than a sentence.”