A plastic menu was thrust upon us listing such imaginative delights as egg and chips, sausage and chips, burger and chips. Each one was accompanied by a glossy photo for the benefit of those who had never eaten before.
The menú del dia of prawn cocktail, half a chicken in mushroom sauce and a choice of ice cream would suffice and I gazed around for someone with whom I could share our opinion. Both waiters were now loitering round a table of giggling teenage girls and despite much eyebrow-raising, finger-extending and finally arm-waving, their attention would not be prised.
We were in no great rush as the real reason for a visit was to steal Elvis so we sat patiently until a shadow loomed over our table. A barely visible flick of the head signalled that our waiter was now prepared to take the order and I decided to attempt to utilise the nursery level knowledge of Spanish that I had managed to ingest.
‘Dos de los menús del dia, por favor, y un medio litro de vino tinto,’ I offered jerkily.
‘Prawn coat tail, half a chin with sores and I scream. Yes?’
There was a slight pause as we stared at each other.
‘Perdone?’ I said somewhat baffled.
‘What?’ He flicked his head again.
‘Repitez s’il vous plait?’
‘Como?’
‘I’m sorry?’
By some miracle we both glided back into our own languages and shaking his head, the waiter whisked away the menu.
In a worryingly short space of time, two prawn cocktails and a specimen jar of wine were, if not slammed, then sternly placed in front of us. The prawn cocktail comprised just that. A solitary prawn, friendless in a pink and white sea of stirred ketchup and mayonnaise.
The ensuing main course was covered in a sauce so thick and sticky that I feared plunging my knife and fork into it lest I was unable to pull them free again. However, I managed to persuade some of it to let go of the plate and just as I was lifting it to my mouth a tray of glittering jewels blocked its path. A representative from one of Asda’s African branches had chosen this moment to show me a range of watches that they were apparently now stocking.
‘Good price for you Jimmy. Asda price. Give me five thousand, any watch. Good quality. Ok, ok my friend, four thousand. For you special price, three thousand and I give you a bag. Asda price. Two thousand, yes? Take two, one for your special lady.’
I fended him off with a stale bread roll that I hadn’t ordered but was sure to be charged for and he wandered away to barter with himself at another table, a piece of my chicken dangling from beneath his tray.
Just at that point the lights dimmed and to an impressive fanfare of feedback, Elvis appeared on stage. Now correct me if I’m wrong but Elvis was tall, talented and dashing. The spectacle before us was dressed in extra-wide Bacofoil, was about four-foot-ten, 160 kilos and had a voice like George Formby on helium. The only thing that distinguished him as The King was that after every song, following a short bout of eye-crossing concentration, he would contort his mouth into what presumably was an Elvis sneer and mumble in the lowest falsetto that he could muster, ‘Uh-huh. Thang-you, thang-you. You’re all won’erful people. Uh-huh’, in a thinly veiled Scottish accent.
We persevered through the main course but our appetites for the food, and for this particular Elvis had long since fled so decided to forego the ice cream.
We arrived at the next bar amidst quavering brass and a crescendo of keyboards. A man in over-tight, blue spandex trousers flamboyantly introduced the handful of audience to his beaming assistant. Undoubtedly a dropout from the ‘Delightful Debbie’ School of Stage Assistants, the poor girl’s feathered crown slipped over her eyes as she curtsied to the non-existent applause. She dutifully returned the compliment to her master who accepted the silent adoration with conceited charm.
Formalities over, both flourished into position. The girl manacled herself to an upright slab of black hardboard whilst el maestro dramatically threw his arms to the heavens and strode towards a spot some 20 feet away from her.
He withdrew three metal strips from a black velvet bag. We were to presume they were knives but they looked more like crucifixes from year one’s first metalwork project. Evidently he was going to hurl these primitive missiles at his trusting assistant but in case there was any doubt amongst the audience he went through three demonstrations, feigning acts of drunkenness, blindness and foolishness respectively in a bid to heighten the tension.
The only change in emotion seemed to be from his assistant whose toothy smile was beginning to wane as she tipped her head back, peering from beneath the band of plumage, which again had come to rest on the bridge of her nose.
I have to admit that at this stage I was intrigued. Was the girl’s life really going to be put at risk for the sake of half a dozen customers who seemed more interested in a large cockroach that was scuttling along the dirty tiled floor? It began to appear not.
I noticed that the man had discreetly shuffled to within six feet of his assistant during his mimes of ineptitude. The music turned to a drum roll and he asked the silent audience for complete quiet. The man’s face took on a look of serious concern. By now we couldn’t see the girl’s face at all as the crown had managed to slip past her nose and was only being prevented from travelling further south by her resolutely puckered lips.
Gripping the knife between finger and thumb, the man drew his arm back and brought it sharply forward again leaning close enough to his target to be able to literally place the knife in the board. When all three objects were safely embedded he spun round, arms aloft and stamped a foot almost in time with the final cymbal crash. Neatly, it came down square on the cockroach for which he gained a trickle of applause.
Obviously money had exchanged hands for this performance but who in their right mind would book such an act? Not us, that was for sure. After a fruitless search we decided that we were going to have to resort to the dreaded sing-a-long. The question was who to get to run it. We needed a compère and with the summer season a mere week away and all the best performers booked up we needed to act fast.
Another pub owner who had come to the bar one night to check us out recommended a friend who had just arrived on the island and was looking for work. She had her own gear and although it had been a while since she’d been on the circuit we were prepared to give her a try.
However, whilst the rest of Las Americas were regaled by the slippery patter of their own Graham Goldenthroat, Johnny D’Amour or Simon J. Shinyshoes, our Delightful Debbie turned out to be a Dour Doreen.
Despite last minute protestations, particularly from David and Faith who absolutely detested any form of cheesy entertainment, table number five was dragged down the bar towards the kitchen to form a partnership with table number one. We decided against dangling tinsel as a backdrop and instead bought a huge piece of black cloth to force those sitting outside to watch the fun from within.
We have to admit that although ceiling fans were constantly in use, causing surface ripples on our patrons’ pints, they only managed to circulate the hot air that was trapped inside. The heat in the bar area was occasionally overbearing, leading to an exodus to the outside seating, however it was nothing compared to the heat in the kitchen.
Sundays were the busiest nights for food with 100 people plus ordering a traditional roast beef dinner. The piece of topside delivered to accommodate this demand looked like a full quarter of a cow and the effort to just lift it into the oven when the kitchen thermometer read 140 was enough to guarantee a tidal wave of perspiration.
Mario had built up quite a following for his Sunday roasts with people coming from all over the south to get their helping of edible reminiscence. It was all that we served on a Sunday and made for a somewhat more relaxing shift in the kitchen, except for the washing-up.
Mario had installed a dishwasher, which we promptly uninstalled. It was proving just as efficient to wash by hand as the machine would take the best part of an hour to trudge through its cycle. Not only that, c
lose inspection revealed that it was the home of probably the cleanest community of cockroaches anywhere in the western world. The damp, warm interior provided their perfect pied-á-terre, a veritable holiday camp of spindly beasties waiting to jump out from gleaming crockery.
Proportionally, the little things in life shouldn’t scare the big things. But it happens. It was a common sight to see a bar load of adults fleeing from one side of the room to the other just to avoid being anywhere near a two-inch insect. Of course, the bug realises the terror it can cause. Why else would it chase people?
This cat and mouse game actually encourages the roach population to run amok amidst crowded areas; think of the power trip it must be on, scattering people like a motorbike in a ballroom.
It’s believed that the cockroach is the only creature that could withstand a nuclear holocaust and thereby take over the world. If those aspirations were being considered, we were doing our utmost to rain on their parade.
One of our more common purchases was ‘Raid’. In the cash and carry it was the pharmaceutical equivalent of buying condoms. You hid a couple of cans between the beans and frozen chips before making your way sheepishly to the check-out.
If you had a can of ‘Raid’ amidst your stock you might as well have stood up, raised one arm and admitted, ‘Hello, we’re the Smugglers Tavern and we have cockroaches.’ Our bar was constantly the scene of an aromatic battle between ‘Tetramethrin’ and ‘Airwick’. We’d spray the little buggers like it was napalm, despite the fact that only a little zap was actually required to send it into a frenzied break dance.
We also scattered several cockroach traps around the bar, kitchen and patio. These are not leg-grabbing bear snares but little black discs filled with an alluring chemical. The intention is to attract the bugs into the maze with the equivalent of a cockroach cream-cake. Whilst in there, in the excitement of finding such a treat, they trample through a slow-acting poison which they then unwittingly tread back to roach HQ to contaminate all their friends and family. Consequently, not exactly being the most popular roach in the neighbourhood they’re sent to Coventry and die a lonely and miserable death in someone else’s dishwasher. Or something like that.
Fortunately, the novelty factor of the Smugglers Tavern hosting a karaoke night had overcome our customers’ aversion to heat exhaustion and the bar was packed.
At 10pm when the kitchen closed the karaoke bandwagon that we had all dreaded slipped into top gear. ‘Right, I’m off,’ announced Frank, slamming his empty glass on the bar top. ‘I’m not listening to this shite.’ Danny stayed behind, loyal to the end while his sister shrugged her shoulders, smiled and ran after Frank slipping an arm round his waist, happy to have her dad to herself for a while.
Maxi Belle - it goes without saying, her stage name - was a large lady who would have looked more at home on a milking stool than on a makeshift stage. Her mouth was fixed in what looked like a cross between sheer terror and hysterical laughter. She wore a billowing lilac dress under which any number of small cars could have easily been parked. For a supposedly experienced artiste, and a large one at that, Maxi displayed a dazzling lack of stage presence.
‘Yurr simply the best …’ she sang in a heavy Blackburn accent as two kids played catch-a-ball at an ever-increasing pace right in front of her.
‘Betturr than all the rest.’ Her eyes belied the pasted smile as they flicked nervously back and forth to the children. Invariably the little ball went wayward, striking her in the middle of her forehead before disappearing beneath the many folds of her flowery frock.
‘Beturr than … Gerroff! … anyone.’ With one hand she swatted at the kids who, oblivious to her performance, were lifting the hem of her dress in search of the plastic ball.
‘Have you found it?’ asked a young mother as she bent forward to help in the hunt. Her micro mini skirt slid north revealing to the audience a pair of tiny pale blue knickers doing its best to accommodate the flabby white twins within. This in turn brought a spontaneous round of applause, both encouraging and surprising Maxi. To her credit and in the best traditions of showbiz, she carried on with renewed vigour, bobbing and bending to sing past the expanding search party, some of whom had now joined her onstage.
Soon she was swamped. Muffled enquiries were booming through the PA:
‘Start spreadin’ the news …’
‘It can’t have gone far.’
‘There it is!’
‘I’m leaving t-day … Ow! Get your ‘ands off me toe.’
‘Sorry love!’
‘I wa-nna be a parrt of it…‘
‘Hey, hasn’t she got big feet?’
‘I like that nail varnish. Irene! Come and have a look at this nail varnish.’
Strangely, the ball never was found even after Maxi left the stage sobbing.
The karaoke started after our host had managed to compose herself and we had persuaded her not to hand in her resignation. A litter of miniature Spice Girls got up and stared open-mouthed at the screen for three minutes and twenty-five seconds before skipping back to proud parents under rapturous applause.
Several young lads tunelessly shouted the words to Wonderwall for what seemed like a couple of days, until finally, after many other wannabees had demonstrated that they were clearly nevergonnabees, the big finale was provided by a short man in a well-worn suit who made his way unsteadily to the stage from a dark corner of the room.
In the bar we had often witnessed the sad sight of couples who, after many years of marriage, had simply run out of things to say to each other but who still fulfilled their social duties by sitting together for hours in complete silence.
‘This is for my wife Madge, whom I have loved dearly for 65 years.’
With alcohol inducing romantic memories of cavernous dance halls and the smell of Brylcreem, he proceeded to wring out a teary-eyed version of ‘My Sweet Love And I’. The depth of his passion did little to compensate for the ear-slashing rendition of what was once probably an adequately tuneful ballad. At the point where it seemed no more emotion could be wrenched from the discordant song, he broke down and buried his head in the ample bosom of the embarrassed compère. Maxi Belle led him back to the source of his anguish.
‘You silly old sod. You’ve had too much to drink,’ said his wife, unmoved. ‘Get your coat, we’re goin’.’
Needless to say, two bouts of onstage blubbering would always put a bit of a dampener on what was supposed to be a night of family fun but the till had never stopped ringing as customers purchased the courage to appear in the spotlight, proof enough that it was worth having entertainment.
Another good point that came out of the evening was that Joy and I were offered another apartment. The bad point was that the lead came from Micky and Ron who had returned to the bar whilst we were in full swing.
CHAPTER 8
‘Doing alright I see,’ shouted Micky above the karaoke riot. His father had his back to the bar and was smiling to himself, evidently pleased with the crowded atmosphere.
‘It’s going all right,’ I answered. ‘We’ve not seen you around for a while.’
‘No,’ said Micky, ‘we’ve been taking care of a little business. Thought we might take a little time off now, spend some time round here.’
‘Have you bought somewhere on El Beril then,’ I gulped.
‘You could say that.’ Father and son looked at each other and laughed.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Down on the front, number 28. Nice place, or at least it will be after a bit of work.’
‘That’s Richard Forgreen’s isn’t it? I didn’t know he wanted to sell it.’
Ron turned round. The smile had gone. ‘Neither did he.’
Richard Forgreen was another of the original El Berilians, an estate agent who was rarely seen on the complex. Probably a wise move considering his less than shiny reputation. He and his family had been in the bar only once and even then he never seemed at ease, constantly looking over his shoulder
.
‘You and the missus still living at the back?’ continued Ron. I figured Joy wouldn’t have told them where we lived. I certainly hadn’t. I was feeling uneasier by the second.
‘For the time being. We’re looking for somewhere else though so we’ll probably be out of there soon.’ The truth was, ‘soon’ was at the end of the week and still we hadn’t been able to find anywhere.
‘Why don’t you ask Terry? He’s looking to rent his out,’ said Micky. ‘We could be neighbours,’ he added, smiling at Joy.
The thought of borrowing a cup of sugar from the local mafia wasn’t overly appealing and for the time being we dismissed the idea.
The day before we were due to move we had resigned ourselves to not finding a new home. We had neither the time nor the energy to look round properly and had no option but to rent a holiday studio in the Altamira for the time being.
The view from our new home was jaw dropping. Double patio doors framed a tri-band of green lawn, turquoise sea and blue sky. However, the inside was not so agreeable. The small living room doubled as both bedroom and dining room. The bed had to be folded away every night to make room to sit down but the biggest problem were the sun’s rays which loitered on the glass doors for most of the day. Inside, the temperature was stifling.
Although air-conditioning units were fitted in the hotel, they were never activated. The community of residents who owned several apartments had decided that the costs of such a luxury would weigh too heavily on their community bills. All units were controlled by the same master control so if one was switched off none of them functioned. It was like being back in the Smugglers kitchen.
What little available time we had for sleep was spent tossing and turning, trying to find a cool patch of pillow. Joy had taken to lying on the tiled floor in a bid to cool down. Even with the patio doors open, the breeze that circulated was only marginally cooler than the stuffy air we had trapped within, plus it was an open invitation to mosquitoes.
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