Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  ‘Bloomin’ broke down,’ he affirmed.

  After prolonged and tearful clasps, Joy’s farewells were complete, albeit a touch rushed.

  Once on board I idly mulled over the fact that I was about to embark on an exciting life in a foreign land. I watched as the cabin crew ran through their regular repertoire of useful information, pointing out which doors we were to calmly file out of if the plane plummeted to the ground and revealing the technical intricacies of how to buckle and unbuckle the seat belt. Suddenly a moment of panic jolted my mind.

  Foreign! I thought, and then again a bit louder. Foreign! As in foreign language! It was one of the many elements of emigrating that I had pushed to the back of my mind. How was I going to communicate with the delivery companies? What if I got lost on a shopping mission? I rummaged through my carry-on bag and whipped out a handy phrase book. The panic increased as I tried to ingest every expression that I thought I might possibly need, but it was no good. Spanish words went in one ear and plopped right out of the other. There was too much to learn. Why don’t these books just include general phrases that could be applied in a variety of situations like ‘Say nothing unless it’s in English’? Instead they include specifically useless expressions such as, ‘My hat is on fire and I don’t seem to have any water. Do you know where I may be able to purchase some?’

  I gave up and consoled myself with a Jack Daniel’s. We were actually doing it. I was actually being responsible for my own future. I had always chosen ventures that implied no binding allegiance. It was holistic claustrophobia, keeping my options open. I figured this is what it must be like to be a grown-up and felt strangely elated. I was finally committing myself to something that had no way out, something I had to see through whether I liked it or not. If the going got tough this time, I’d have to rough it out, ride the wave, sink or swim. I slammed the cabin crew call button for an emergency refill.

  Being served alcohol in your seat is one of the few redeeming factors about flying. This aside, it seems that the comfort of passengers is well down on the list of priorities for most charter airlines, just below ‘making sure there are ample miniatures available for the cabin crew to take home’ and ‘making sure the captain has credit on his Visa in case the plane runs out of fuel’.

  Seating arrangements are absurdly inadequate unless you’re prepared to pay extra for the privilege of being responsible for fathoming out the sequence of lever-yanking necessary to operate the exit door after an unscheduled freefall. I was also the victim of an incessant recliner. The only way I could read the in-flight magazine was to rest it on the bald pate of the man in front who had reclined so much that I managed to pass a good few minutes counting the moles on his head.

  The joys of having someone inconsiderate in front can only be equalled by having an oblivious individual behind and I had scored in both directions. Every 20 minutes or so the incontinent grabbed my seat to lever himself up, catapulting my head as he battled to clamber over his neighbours on numerous scurries to the toilet.

  This made reading impossible and for want of anything better to do, I paid a visit to the toilet myself. I have to admit to having a fascination with these sites of sensory overload. They’re like giant Fisher Price Activity Centres. The combined aroma of cleaning fluids, cheap soap and a dozen lingering perfumes confuse your sense of smell whilst the unfamiliar sounds of droning engines, creaking plastic and ‘whoosh’ of water being magically whisked away lead to disorientation. A barrage of notices add to the chaos, warning of dire consequences for disposing of paper products in the waste disposal unit or waste products in the paper disposal unit. Wipe round to clean. Lift up to drain. Push down to flush. Press in to call. Slide across to close. Pull out to open. In a state of increasing panic I struggled to fulfil all my obligations and with one hand hastily trying to hitch up my trousers, the other unwittingly resting on the call button, the door flew open.

  ‘Can I help you sir?’ enquired the stewardess, holding the door open a bit wider and for just a little longer than I deemed necessary.

  ‘You were a long time,’ noted Joy on my return.

  ‘Just trying to pass the time,’ I replied, deliberately disturbing the slumber of my bald lap mate with a well-placed elbow.

  I spent the remainder of the flight staring at the clouds or squinting at re-runs of the sitcom Terry and June that seems to be compulsory viewing for those restrained in padded seats, locked inside metal cells miles away from populated areas.

  After four hours the captain announced our descent. Out of the window the peak of Mount Teide, Tenerife’s sleeping volcano, poked through the cloud cover below. The ethereal vision of our new homeland obscured by cloud yet signalled by the impressive point of Spain’s highest mountain added to the apprehension of entering another world, another life even.

  We touched down, waved our passports at the disinterested customs officials and awaited the arrival of four mismatched suitcases, three borrowed holdalls and a square, plastic flight bag that nowadays is usually only sported by those passengers who still insist on travelling in 1970s safari suits with hair severely parted in a cut-along-here-for-lobotomy fashion.

  We had been happily reunited with half of our baggage but then cases from another flight began to mingle with ours. The tannoy garbled in Spanish and then repeated the message in equally unintelligible English. Something about hairdryers were not to be used on horses.

  A rotund German lady with exceptional BO had stolen my view and I leaned a little closer to the conveyor belt. As I did, an overhanging Samsonite rushed from behind the lady and struck me square in the groin, lifting me up slightly and carrying me along for a couple of inches. Now I had tears in my eyes and an intense urge to lie down to contend with, as well as the pungent sumo obstructing my vision.

  ‘That’s our case on that belt over there,’ said Joy, pointing to the adjacent carousel.

  After relaying back and forth rounding up the remainder of our wayward luggage, the air rife with the fragrance of squelching armpits and with a nagging ache lingering in my gonads, we were welcomed to Tenerife.

  The arrivals hall was a bright but characterless warehouse stocked with a mixture of tanned locals and tour reps in dizzy florid blouses. Each held a board with their company’s name emblazoned across it. Every tour operator that I had ever heard of, and a lot that I hadn’t, seemed to be represented here. Some already had flocks of bewildered, washed-out faces huddled around them, fathers relieved that all responsibility had been passed to someone who knew what the hell to do next.

  Joy and I pushed the trolleys through the milling crowd and emerged blinking into the glaring sunshine of our new country of residence. Hot blasts of air swept over us as we wheeled down the endless line of people waiting for a taxi. Overhead, a piercing blue stretched from the glittering Atlantic beyond the runway to where the mountaintops gashed the sky several miles inland.

  Families herded their belongings together. Their holiday started here and shirts were already off, revealing pasty torsos desperate to be toasted. As with all travel, replacing familiar surroundings with the unknown fires an electric charge that awakens a sense of adventure. Even those whose pool of adrenalin had long been suffering a severe drought were caught in this buzz of excitement.

  Ahead in the queue a beer belly flapped up and down like an elongated can-can dancer as its exuberant owner heaped embarrassment on his two young daughters with a middle-age rave.

  ‘Daaaad! Grow up. Everyone’s looking. Stop being stupid.’

  ‘Holiday-hey... celebrey-yate. Don’t be boring. We’re on holiday now. Come on pet, get in the spirit.’

  ‘Gerroff you nutter.’ His wife rolled her eyes at her scarlet-cheeked daughters.

  We were in no position to judge. In fact, there was a tinge of jealousy at the sight. Shamelessly embarrassing yourself was an expression of joyous freedom. This man had broken free for a fortnight away from a life of responsibility. I was just entering one. It had seemed exciting tw
o thousand miles away but now it was all too real. What if we failed? What if we couldn’t stand the heat? What if we burnt down the bar and had to return to the fish market to pay off our debts? I began to calculate how many trays at ‘three for a fiver’ we would need to sell to pay off one-hundred-and-sixty-five-thousand pounds.

  ‘Ninety-nine-thousand trays of fish if we don’t get the bus.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said a startled Joy, lost in her own private thoughts.

  ‘That’s how many trays we’d have to sell to pay off the debt if it all went wrong, but we’d have to walk home.’

  Obviously she didn’t think it worthy of reply and just shook her head in a despairing manner, quietly pleased that something familiar had surfaced in this alien land even if it was only my anxiety.

  The gleaming white Mercedes continued to line up alongside like bullets fed into a gun. When we eventually reached the front of the queue, eager for a friendly gesture I smiled at the driver and tried out the only words of Spanish that had clung to my memory.

  ‘Buenos dias. Que tal?’

  The taxi driver didn’t even bother to look up as he snatched the cases from my helping hands. What if I couldn’t learn the language? What if everybody hated us as new owners? What if the locals resented us and tried to ruin our business? I thought about all the big lads at the market who we could invite over to defend our holding in the event of an attack. Mac was the first. You wouldn’t want to mess with Mac. He wasn’t the biggest of men but with his skinhead, sunken eyes and chiselled jaw he was not to be messed with. Yeah, he’d come over. I began to feel a little more relaxed as I constructed an imaginary army of fish-reeking soldiers.

  Our heads shot back as we were fired from the queue up the winding dual carriageway towards the motorway. Along the dusty roadside advertising hoardings urged us to sample Dorada beer. A sample was not what I needed right now. Bring two barrels and a straw and leave me alone in a dark corner for about a month. Another billboard welcomed us to ‘Tenerife, the beautiful isle’. I was failing to revel in any beauty at the moment. Claws of spiky cactus leapt from the lava like witches’ hands. Either side, tumbled rocks littered the terrain like the aftermath of a stone-throwing riot. It could have been Arizona; it could have been Kabul.

  We slid from side to side as the driver dodged in and out of the slower traffic, slamming his hand hard on the horn as a small rent-a-car crammed with four pairs of eyes obstructed his way. None of the words aimed at the driver were recognisable but I could guess the gist. He continued to complain as we passed the poor tourists who had hurriedly swerved out of the way to let him pass. As we did he flicked a desultory gesture at the ashen driver. I felt partly responsible and, being British, wanted to apologise but instead exchanged fearful glances, unaccustomed souls at the mercy of a foreign foe.

  On the two-lane motorway, the 120 speed limit signs rushed past at 150 kilometres an hour. The driver had wound his window down, which provided a pleasant breeze for him but left us in the back to be buffeted by the gale. The skin on our cheeks raced for shelter around the back of our heads and our hair became a rave of hysterical strands. To compensate for the noise, he turned the radio up. Snatches of Spanish wailing warning of an unpleasant death for all foreigners rattled my eardrums.

  When we finally careered off the motorway, the relief was immense. We followed a winding road through a walled banana plantation. Explosions of fluorescent pink bougainvillea burst forth at every curve on the quiet route down towards a sparkling sea. Finally the low terracotta roofs of our new community, El Beril, came into view.

  We turned into the complex and drove through a paved parking area that was shared by the Altamira Aparthotel to the north and the El Beril complex to the south. These were the only two developments on this stretch of southern coastline. The glitter of Playa de Las Americas was a two-mile hike around a trio of barren headlands.

  El Beril comprised around 100 bungalows and 2-storey apartments. Half of them occupied a small plateau about 20 metres above sea level, the other half followed a slight incline down to a shingle beach. Most of the housing faced seawards. Even those furthest from the sea looked over the roofs in front and shared a magnificent view of La Gomera, Tenerife’s closest neighbour rising from the ocean around 20 miles away.

  The complex was still in its infancy, evident from the stretches of unpaved walkways and loose wires that protruded from open electricity boxes. A cluster of unfinished apartments was tagged on to the back of the complex, seemingly an afterthought from the developer. An ocean breeze stirred some loose powder into dwarf whirlwinds that danced between a cement mixer and a wheelbarrow before collapsing like broken marionettes.

  Joy, now sporting a just-got-out-of-the-washing-machine look, paid the taxi driver as I heaved our luggage onto the pavement. Happy holidaymakers wandered across the car park from the adjacent hotel in flowery shorts and shiny new sandals. Were these the same happy souls who would be face to face with us in the next few days demanding full refunds and a pound of flesh for poisoning their children and ruining their holiday?

  Some ten feet below where we were standing, through black iron railings stood the Smugglers Tavern. It occupied the two penultimate locales on the left. The turret-like end unit was empty, as were the two to the immediate right. Next to these appeared to be an office of some sort. A British supermarket had taken over the second unit from the right at the other end, furnishing the patio outside with an assortment of inflatable swimming aids and my first reassurance that we were still on the same planet – the red mastheads of British tabloids.

  One more unit remained empty in the corner, its patio in permanent shade from a footbridge that crossed from the car park to the upper level of commercial units. Here, wafts of paella drifted from Bar Arancha, a small Spanish tapas bar, into several neighbouring timeshare offices.

  The Smugglers Tavern appeared full, inside and out. There must have been 20 white plastic tables outside without a spare seat at any. I presumed it was just as busy inside as people scurried in from the mid-afternoon sun. Everybody looked content, a postcard snapshot of happy holiday diners. We’ll soon put a stop to that, I thought.

  Our temporary home was a small bungalow facing Las Americas at the southern edge of the complex. Temporary because the owner was selling it and we would need to vacate as soon as it was sold. It had been decided that David and Faith should get the only long-term rental apartment that was available due to their feline impediment – Mal the cat.

  Our apartment belonged to the president of the community who knew my stepfather from his business dealings here. All the properties were more or less identical apart from the number of bedrooms. Ours had just one, to the left of the front door as you walked in. It was barely big enough to house a double bed and still leave enough room to manoeuvre around. A small bathroom faced the front door and down a short hallway to the right was the living area and open kitchen. The walls were a cooling white, interspersed with shelves and a worktop of honey-toned pine. Beige marble tiles covered the floor, which gave the apartment a beguiling touch of quality. Sliding doors at the far end of the lounge – though I use ‘far’ in the loosest sense of the word as they were only four paces from the kitchen – led onto a small square patio, from which we could gaze across the curving Bahia del Duque (Bay of the Duke) to the vertical excesses of Playa de Las Americas.

  We spent the rest of the day unpacking and then had a wander round. The sunlight illuminated the newly painted white walls to the extent that it hurt my eyes. Our apartment was about a hundred yards from the black volcanic sand and shingle beach that stretched north to the nearest village of La Caleta about a mile away. Here a huddle of one- and two-storey houses clung to the base of a rocky hillside, overlooking a tiny harbour dotted with bright blue and red fishing boats.

  Behind El Beril white farm buildings sat on the shelves of the terraced slopes, above which were patches of green pine forests that decorated the hem of the omnipresent volcano. There hadn’t be
en an eruption on the island since 1909 so I figured in my usual frame of cheery resignation that one was about due.

  That night we both lay on top of the sheets unable to sleep, listening to the high-pitched excitement of a mosquito as it chose its next supper venue. For such a tiny creature I have to say it has a helluva loud squeal and the more I flailed the louder it became. There aren’t many more irritating noises than what sounds like a dentist’s drill kamikaze-ing at your head so in the end, armed with a size ten flip-flop in each hand I stood on the bed, head slightly cocked waiting for the manic giggling to return.

  Thwack-thwack.

  I let off both barrels of the flip-flop cannon causing a snowfall of plaster flakes to drift slowly onto Joy’s head.

  ‘Eeeeeeeee.’

  It danced away towards the window. Keeping my eyes firmly fixed, I followed its path, treading on Joy’s leg along the way. Her exasperated intakes of breath were getting louder but I was sure she would thank me in the morning when she awoke without her ankles displaying the remnants of last night’s dinner party.

  The curtains were open and I caught sight of a cavorting couple. They temporarily disentangled when they noticed an underpant-clad warrior beating his bedroom wall with over-sized footwear. I smiled and waved a flip-flop at them to demonstrate that I wasn’t really crazy.

  In the meantime, the mosquito had settled down at a cosy table for one on Joy’s left ankle. It seemed distracted as it read the menu so holding my breath I slowly raised a hand.

  ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! Get back in bed and stop being an idiot.’

  Meekly I obliged but I kept hold of one of my weapons just in case. As it was, my ungainly battle tactics weren’t needed again. My eyes jerked open as from behind the curtain a huge lizard sprinted over to where the gloating insect was now resting and disposed of it with one quick flick of its tongue. Great, we now had a carnivorous reptile to fend off instead. If we could just find a large cat to dispose of the lizard, then a mean dog to clear up the cat, a vicious bear to get rid of the dog... and so on.