I found Miguel, El Beril’s technico, perched atop a ladder by the side of the swimming pool. The pool was split in two by a line of smooth grey boulders separating the larger adult area from the toddlers’ pool.
There was nobody around and the temptation to break the glassy blue surface was immense. My baggy, cotton t-shirt clung like Lycra, I was covered in dust and I smelled of bleach. Full submersion in the cool, clean water was only a step away but I resisted.
Miguel was sawing through the branches of a young palm tree that was beginning to extend over the shallow end.
‘Hola,’ I shouted, shielding my eyes from the sun. He looked down, nodded indifferently, and continued chewing his gum. ‘Have you got a machine for cleaning floors?’ I asked.
Miguel shrugged his shoulders. ‘Como?’
‘Machine... for floors?’ I mimed holding onto the handles and pulling back and forth rapidly. Miguel turned his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. I continued the impression with renewed vigour until I realised that this looked somewhat lewd.
‘No, no, no, no,’ I said dismissing the notion with a flurry of hand-waving. Miguel had settled himself comfortably against the tree with his arms folded, awaiting the next act.
I crouched down and began to pat the rust-coloured tiles that surrounded the pool. ‘The floor... floor... clean, here.’ I smiled, though evidently I was not making things better. Miguel had stopped chewing. Both eyebrows were raised and I could see his grip on the saw had tightened.
An ageing German couple, each dressed in a white bathrobe, emerged from one of the poolside apartments and began to clamber over their garden fence revealing more wrinkled anatomy than I would have preferred to see at this time in the morning. They obviously knew Miguel and waved a cheery greeting. Miguel seemed genuinely pleased to see somebody he knew. He garbled something in Spanish and the Germans nodded and smiled politely. Their lack of response suggested they hadn’t the full grasp of what he said.
‘Hello,’ they said in unison, nodding as Miguel pointed towards me. ‘Ja, ja, ja.’ The man leaned towards me, his face so close to mine that I was engulfed in garlic with every exhalation. ‘Guten morgen. I help, ja?’ He shouted as though volume would compensate for any disparity in our respective languages.
‘I’m trying to ask Miguel for the floor cleaner.’
‘Ja.’ The man continued to share his breath.
‘Floor cleaner? Cleaner de floor?’ I continued.
‘Ja.’ He blinked and cocked his head to one side.
‘Cleaner. Machine. Vroom vroom.’
‘Ah so. Maquina.’ He raised an index finger as a declaration of understanding then turned back to Miguel and curled his fingers round an imaginary steering wheel. ‘Auto, auto,’ he barked, turning the wheel from left to right.
‘No, no, not auto,’ I intervened, grabbing the invisible steering wheel for some unknown reason.
He stopped. ‘Nein, nein, nicht auto,’ he said, wagging a finger at Miguel as if it was completely his misunderstanding.
I decided to bypass the un-hired help. ‘I have the bar,’ I said slowly, raising an imaginary drink to my mouth to help with the explanation. ‘I want you...’ I continued, pointing a finger first at myself and then at Miguel, ‘... give me...’ I patted my chest, and fell into the trap of my first mime again. ‘Si?’
By now Miguel had descended the ladder and was scuttling off in the opposite direction glancing over his shoulder as he retreated. I wandered back to the bar dispirited, leaving the Germans to debate my intent between themselves.
‘He’s a bit strange, isn’t he?’ I asked Patricia. ‘He just ran off.’
‘He’s normally fine,’ said Patricia. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find him.’
Five minutes later Patricia returned, pulling the rotating floor cleaner behind her. She was doing her best to conceal a smile. ‘You want to watch him,’ she said to Joy. ‘Miguel said he made a pass at him.’
They both looked at me. ‘Weirdo,’ I murmured. ‘I just wanted to borrow the machine.’
Attaining at least a basic grasp of the Spanish language to avoid subsequent embarrassments was just one of the things that I had yet to learn.
Not allowing well-intentioned locals to blow up the bar was another.
Frank was a dour truck driver from Oldham who had brought his kids to Tenerife after separating from his wife. At 49 he had taken early retirement and bought one of the first apartments on El Beril. Along with most of the English-speaking expats – and I’m sure other nationalities as well – he got easily bored. Being bored abroad is a mischievous combination, one that will eventually drive most people to seek desperately and without conscience anything to give them a purpose for being. Drink usually provides the fluidity necessary to find out about each other’s business and thus discover that purpose.
We had a standard team of barflies, eager to occupy the tedious sunny hours with other people’s concerns. They worked on a rigid two-two formation: Frank would hold the left wing next to the Dorada pump; Al, an alcoholic from Liverpool with a mysteriously large amount of cash and an equal quantity of razor-sharp wit, would provide a constant flow of banter for him to head at whatever target happened to have been chosen that day. At the back, Frank’s son Danny would lob the odd remark over his dad’s shoulder or pass it along to his sister Sam to dribble with for a while until the two attackers took control.
The two kids had tried a term in a local school when they first arrived but didn’t like it and hadn’t been back since. ‘They know enough already, couple of wise-arses,’ Frank would argue when the subject was broached. Since their brief affair with education they spent much of their time with their dad which, when not fishing, was more often than not on a Smugglers bar stool.
Danny probably knew more than us about running the bar, from cocktail recipes to how to change a barrel. Over the first few nights the 13 year old would often help Joy or Faith out in times of crisis. ‘’Undred ’n’ fifty pesetas,’ he would demand from customers, his eyes barely level with the black painted bartop. Whereas the two girls had been scared out of changing barrels by Frank – ‘Don’t lean over it. Knew a man in England who got his head taken clear off’ – Danny would be only too happy to oblige.
As one of the original El Berilians, Frank considered himself to be a self-appointed troubleshooter dealing with a variety of problems that befell the other English residents. He wouldn’t, however, help the foreigners as he called them. The Germans, French, Italians and Spanish were part of the problem and ironically, Frank’s colonialist policy would have been to shoot them all if they didn’t go back to their own country. Racist he may have been, but if you had a problem with your car or needed some DIY doing, Frank was your man, though the results were not always positive.
Two tall tanks housed in a flimsy metal cabinet on the terrace fed propane gas through the exterior wall, along the length of the restaurant and into the kitchen. This routing left a lot to be desired as the slightest leak combined with a casually discarded cigarette could have seen a drastic re-positioning of the Smugglers Tavern.
There was a safety device in place, which cut the gas off inside the cabinet if there was a fire or some other disagreeable disturbance in the flow. A week after the electricity supply was restored with a plank of wood, the shut-off valve jammed shut after one too many flaming chicken breasts. We called out the gas engineer on the Tuesday morning but by Wednesday lunchtime they still hadn’t arrived. This meant that only microwave meals and salads could be served and it wasn’t proving too popular with the regulars.
‘All you need to do is bypass the valve,’ suggested Frank knowingly, and in spite of our voiced doubts, he finally managed to separate the safety feature from the top of the gas canister.
‘Right, try lighting it,’ he shouted from what I noticed was a fair distance. With visions of a propane bottle shooting into the facing hotel like a rocket, I clicked the electronic lighter and watched, relieved as a pretty blue
flame danced around the ring.
‘Seems to be alright,’ I shouted, just before a short, sharp and loud bang blew the top off the gas cabinet.
Frank was struggling to shut the propane off as it filled the air with flammable fumes. Several people came running to investigate the explosion, including Patricia who was holding a cigarette. ‘PUT THAT FUCKING THING OUT,’ shouted Frank waving a spanner at her. It was the most animated I ever saw him.
‘What happened?’ I enquired when it seemed that we, and the surrounding buildings, were out of danger.
‘I don’t think it’ll work without that valve,’ he replied sagely.
We decided that brandies were in order and celebrated that at least we were still alive.
The bar was beginning to look a little happier even if our power situation was not. The frosted ‘mock fishing float’ glass lamps turned out to be not frosted at all, merely dust-entrenched. Replacing dozens of light bulbs added to the brightness and the increase in luminosity was astounding. Combined with brand new tablecloths and a major dustathon the Smugglers Tavern no longer resembled a dingy taproom. It was at last beginning to look like a restaurant.
Chris Rea taunted us with ‘On the Beach’, as we paused to admire the way the bar was looking. Then suddenly he fell silent. The fans slowed to a halt and the mercury in the bar thermometer instantly journeyed north.
I stuck my head out of the bar, as the other business owners were doing. ‘It’s not just us then?’ I asked Robin, Patricia’s daughter.
‘No, we’re all off. The hotel’s still on though. Its generator hasn’t kicked in.’
There was not much we could do in the heat. At the far side of the bar, the kitchen received little daylight through the open doorway and had been plunged into darkness. Fortunately all the prep had been completed and put away, but with the fridges off any food would soon go off in this heat.
We sat outside with tepid beers. The cooler soon reverted to a heater without electricity. Half an hour passed and still the electricity didn’t come back on. We knew it wasn’t the old box at the back of the complex as Mario had managed to get the electricity company to fix the problem.
‘Not paid your bill?’ a voice asked from up above.
‘You waiting for it to come back on?’ grinned another man leaning over the railings at street level. We nodded.
‘They’ll be waiting a long time then, John,’ sighed the first man.
‘Aye, John. A very long time.’ The two Johns nodded their heads pityingly. They obviously required some coaxing to share their secret.
‘Is there something you know that we don’t?’ I asked, squinting in the sun. Thick gold chains rested on tanned chests. Both had silver hair, combed back away from identical Ray-Bans. Although each had a reasonable physique, I guessed they must have been in their 60s.
‘You’ve been cut off,’ said the shorter John.
‘Aye, snipped,’ dittoed the other.
‘Not just you. Everybody. Everybody’s been cut off. Apart from us, that is,’ continued John One.
‘We’re alright though, aren’t we, John?’ added John Two.
‘Are you going to buy us a beer then?’ John One led the taller one down the middle set of stairs.
Apparently, the unfinished apartments at the top of the complex were the problem. In Tenerife, the builder is obliged to provide electricity and water until the complex is officially finished and handed over to the community, by which time the responsibility is passed to the individual owners. Our builder had decided that he had finished all the work that he was going to do and informed the electricity company who duly noted that nobody else had applied to take over the electricity account and promptly pulled the plug. Everybody on the complex was affected apart from those who had found out about the need to apply for a private supply and had already had individual meters installed. Our two jovial Johns had heard about the new requirements by chance and were two of very few on the complex who had not been plunged into darkness. For want of anything better to do they were now wandering through the complex gloating at everybody they could find.
‘It’s a bit serious, isn’t it,’ said John One. ‘I mean, a bar without electricity? What can you do? Become a salad bar?’
‘Aye, a salad bar. Good one John. Salad and water – warm water mind.’ They both set about laughing. This was getting us nowhere apart from feeling more irritated by the two clowns.
‘What do you suggest?’ I asked, interrupting their mirth.
‘Dunno really. You should have gone and got your own meter,’ said John One.
‘You should have got your own,’ repeated John Two.
‘Nobody told us we had to,’ said Joy.
‘They won’t have done. You have to go and find out,’ said John One.
‘Did you not find out?’ John Two sucked through his teeth noisily and shook his head. The other John stood with his hands on his hips confrontationally.
‘When did you two know about this then?’ I asked.
‘We’ve known for ages,’ said John One.
‘A long time,’ affirmed the other.
‘Well, why didn’t you tell anybody else?’ said Joy, beginning to get annoyed.
‘That’s not my problem,’ he replied. ‘It’s not my fault if you don’t shag the right people eh?’ He nudged Joy and winked knowingly.
‘What are we going to do then?’ I asked Joy in an attempt to cut the two Johns out of the conversation.
‘Have you got a long cable?’ interrupted John One.
‘How long?’ I asked. I knew several extension leads snaked underneath all the bench seats throughout the bar as the number and location of power points had proved to be woefully inadequate.
‘Well, if you can find a long enough cable to stretch from my apartment to here, you can feed off our electric until you get your meter installed.’
I was surprised by their sudden show of generosity. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘We’re happy to help out, aren’t we, John?’ said John Two.
‘Mind you, you don’t get nothing for free in this life,’ said John One. ‘You can pay both electric bills while you’re using ours and buy us the odd beer every now and then.’
‘Can’t say fairer than that, John,’ agreed John Two.
We had no other choice than to agree to their deal. Fortunately John One’s house was one of the closest apartments to the bar. We strung a succession of cables together across the roof tiles of three other buildings and ran them down into the commercial area ready to be plugged in. At least we could power up enough equipment to stay open.
But DIY has never been one of my strong points. Give me a flat-pack for an eight-foot-high wardrobe and I’ll build you a five-foot-high dog kennel with a skylight and trapdoor. Add in a flash of distraction and the surrounding area becomes a danger zone. Thus, when the final piece of cable was dragged to just outside the bar doors for me to wire it into an extension box, I somewhat foolishly overlooked a rudimentary aspect of working with electricity. It’s best to dispense with the current first.
‘What you doing, Joe?’ asked Justin, suddenly vocalising his presence behind me.
‘Oh, hi Justin,’ I said, ‘didn’t hear you arrive.’ Nobody ever heard Justin coming. He was one of those children who suddenly appear at the crucial point of concentration like an apparition sent to test your resolve. His family owned one of the apartments at the Altamira where they spent weeks, even months at a time. Justin didn’t seem to be lacking in education despite his forced absence. He was intelligent to the point of genius, constantly pushing his bottle-bottom glasses up his freckled nose as he rushed to explain how something worked. However, what he scored in intellect he lost in physical coordination. His mind always seemed to be three minutes ahead of his actions, making concentration on what he was doing a major problem. Not a night would go by when Justin wouldn’t either break, or cause to break, a glass, plate, ashtray or plastic chair. The sound of shattering glass would us
ually be followed by a cry of ‘Justin!’ from his beleaguered parents.
I unscrewed the plug. ‘What are you up to, Justin?’ I began, and grabbed the bare wires. It felt like a shark had just bitten my arm and was trying to yank it from my shoulder. I wanted to let go but my hand wouldn’t unclench. Justin was the only one around to share my eye opener but just stared on impassively. Instinctively I fell backwards and the cable slid from my grip.
For a moment I lay staring at the big blue, startled by the shock and by my own stupidity. ‘We’re going to the beach,’ said Justin standing over me. My right arm and shoulder tingled with a dull ache. The same performance on a wet day in Bolton would probably have killed me. I thanked Tenerife for being so dry in June.
‘Oh, that’ll be nice,’ I said from the floor.
‘Did you just get an electric shock?’ he asked after a while.
‘Yes.’
‘You should have turned the power off.’
‘I know.’
‘See you later then,’ he said and skipped off.
‘Yes, see you later Justin.’ I got to my feet just as John One appeared.
‘Is it working?’ he shouted from the top of the stairs.
‘Erm... do you think you could unplug it at your end?’ I asked.
Fortunately the connection proceeded without my body becoming an integral link again and we managed to power up the beer and mixer coolers, one bar fridge, a random selection of house lights, the kitchen fridge and the freezer. All of the ice-creams were ruined, leaving a sickly pool of meltdown on the bottom shelf of the display cabinet. Everything else was transferred into the kitchen chest freezer or the tiny freezer compartments in our own homes.
Apart from the financial loss of orange sorbets et al, our dining patronage understandably waned as all we could tempt customers with were salads of various guises – tuna, prawn, seafood (tuna and prawn), cheese, ham, ploughman’s (cheese and ham) and the Smugglers Special House Salad (a crafty combination of tuna, prawn, cheese and ham). There weren’t many takers over the compulsory ‘healthy eating’ nights.
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