A Long Walk in the High Hills
Page 8
Luckily it transpires Eloise, Boris’s wife, is just the person to help me. She’s Canadian, warm and petite, and met Boris backpacking in Ibiza. Together they live in an old Mallorquín house, so swathed in foliage you can hardly see in or out, which only adds to its cradle-like charm. They are so welcoming, the two of them, as I duck under a mimosa and lift the latch on an old door set into a high stone wall. Supper is going to be outside under the stars at an olive wood table which started out as an old door and had been rubbed for hours with bleach to lighten and then olive oil for shine, so the table glows under the low lamp light.
Bruce and Joleen, an Australian couple, and Hildegard, an elderly German lady, have also been invited. They are all great friends and come to Mallorca for only a few months each summer, Bruce and Joleen retreating to the Seychelles for the winter, and Hildegard to the Alps. There’s a lot of discussion over eye-lifts done on the cheap in Mexico to which Bruce, as an international traveller, is giving some dedicated thought, having taken a fancy, apparently, to his appearance. Bruce is well built, has a confiding voice and a conspiratorial manner, so it doesn’t surprise me that he has been married three times and Joleen is his fourth. I’ve already heard all about Bruce from Dottie. Bruce likes to mix and match his women, bringing them all together even though they probably loathe one another – he likes to think he is a lion with a pride and the village is his den. Bruce’s former wives and girlfriends have all taken up residence over the years, in and around the place.
Maybe it’s because of her accent, but Hildegard has a haughtiness about her, talking to Bruce as though he’s a wayward son, but strangely likeable in spite of it. She tells him it’s time he had his eyes done.
Eloise, meanwhile, is bustling Boris into the kitchen, where she is dishing up a feast of Mallorquín delicacies, new potatoes from Sa Pobla, crayfish from the port, strawberries in season, but for me the star is her wild asparagus salad. She’s picked all the ingredients herself and dressed them in a herb vinaigrette. But how do you set about finding wild asparagus? It is something I’m itching to know after seeing local people gathering armfuls out of the scrub. Whenever I’ve rummaged in the undergrowth, it’s like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Impossible.
‘Wild asparagus,’ says Eloise, ‘hides deep in the prickles of a fern-like plant. You have to part the plant, which is tough, and its spikes can tear your fingers, but you have to know what you’re looking for before you can spot the new growth.’
I suddenly realise which plant she means. I’ve seen its fronds everywhere but thought it was a particularly pernicious weed. Now I know what to search for, tomorrow it’s going to be my very first mission.
‘And then all you do,’ says Eloise, ‘is drop it ever so briefly in a pan of slightly salted boiling water. It’s out of this world.’
As the vino plonko flows in the warming night we get round to discussing the folk who live on my side of the hill. Gunther for starters. Eloise confirms Boris and Gunther were once great buddies and even took a cycling holiday together in the south of France. ‘So what happened to the friendship?’ I ask.
‘Well, the problem is,’ interjects Bruce, ‘they’re too similar. The same age, from similar backgrounds and each thinks he’s right and the other is wrong.’ Boris looks a bit miffed at this. ‘And so the two of them spent most of their holiday arguing. If they got something as straightforward as a puncture, there’d be a tiff. Gunther would want to repair it his way, while Boris insisted on his. They once went to collect apples in an orchard and fell out over how the apples should be stacked. Needless to say, they packed up their holiday early and have never really made up since.’
‘The thing is,’ Eloise confides, trying to see the best in everyone, ‘Gunther is very clever. He had an incredible education under the Third Reich.’
‘Does that mean he was a Nazi?’ Joleen asks in mock horror.
‘Well, I don’t know about that, but he learned to speak perfect English,’ Eloise said, not to be deterred, ‘from a tutor brought specially from England to Germany to teach him before the war. He has marmalade on his toast in the morning. He’s also fluent in French and Spanish and in fact can turn his hand to most things.’
I’m savouring the thought of Gunther, one of the brightest and best of his generation, camped up beside me with his breakfast marmalade, when Boris quietly changes the subject. He wants to build some more walls round my house so that I can have another courtyard at the back and be totally private, he confides.
Bruce has overheard. ‘Where have I heard that line before, Boris?’ he laughs. ‘You know Boris paints pictures which he flogs when he spots a chance?’ continues Bruce mischievously. ‘Well, he once did some building on Peter Ustinov’s house in Andratx and Ustinov bought a lot of Boris’s work. Boris thought he was on to such a good thing that when he’d finished the building he said to Ustinov he should have some more of his pictures. Ustinov in exasperation said, but Boris I have no more walls to hang your pictures. Boris wasn’t to be defeated. “So, why don’t I build you some more walls, then?” Ustinov went off and bought a boat instead.’
Everyone laughs. I feel sorry for Boris, so I say, ‘Well, maybe we can talk about walls when you’re next up at the house,’ to which there’s another bout of hilarity.
The seductive warmth of the island means I am able to walk anywhere at night in comfort, often with the bright light of a rising moon. Supper has been lovely and Kendi, I see, is quiet in her kennel although she stirs as I near to give me a welcoming woof. To my dismay, the fence, I notice, has been fixed, the barricade is back.
There’s a particularly dapper little man who’s always dressed in a suit and tie and lives in one of the magnificent art deco houses in the village. I think he must own a lot of property in the district which he rents out because he doesn’t seem to have a job. He’s in his sixties and spends his spare time burnishing his house, of which he is very proud.
Every spring the shutters are treated to a sparkling coat of red paint and whenever a corbel or pillar chips or cracks, he has stonemasons round to fix it. His wife, who often sits in a chair at one of the windows, appears older than him. He, however, is breezy and friendly and always stops to say hello. I am particularly interested in his patio garden. It is a work of traditional Mallorqun garden art laid out in squares in a Moorish design. There is an orange, tangerine and two lemon trees separated by blue mosaic paths which lead to an old stone well carved with a frieze of vines. A wrought-iron pagoda drips grapes both green and black. There is also a kumquat tree. The garden has a patina of tender carefulness.
Sometimes a daughter, distracted, will leave the house wearing little make-up. I sometimes read my newspaper on a bench nearby and wonder about her ambitions and why sometimes she appears downcast. Soon, I must remember to ask someone about this family.
It has started to rain and across the street Pepita from the bar is out in her back garden with a towel over her head. Her washing is still on the line, a row of espadrilles beginning to dribble and several pairs of knickers. Pepita has a punk taste in hair dye. Red has been a great favourite for quite a while, but the hairdresser, the peluqueria, in the village square is having a go with an odd shade of pink which I’m not sure suits her. Maybe it’s her daughters, Pia and Sofia, who lead her into this kind of mischief. They are a close and loving family and I don’t think their mother needs much encouragement to trot across the square one colour and return illuminated another.
As Pepita’s well protected from the rain she’s begun hunting snails amongst the roses and is obviously finding juicy specimens, because I can hear them plop into her bucket as she moves slightly stiffly along. She must have quite a haul by now, which she’ll cook in garlic, the aroma wafting out and along the torrente, driving the cats wild. Later she’ll dole out equal portions of leftovers near an old well at the bottom of her garden to half a dozen strays who’ve invited themselves over to hers for dinner.
I’m hanging around this early in
the village because I need to exchange my empty gas bottles but the wagon is late. Sancho hasn’t any spares tucked away in his backyard so I will just have to be patient because both my fridge and water heater need replenishing. Dottie, who has arrived and is waiting for Cedric, calls from her car, why don’t we have coffee in Lorenzo’s?
Dottie, her blonde curls in a wiggle, gives up the gossip at such a breathless pace you have to pay close attention. She’s full of Cedric’s latest disaster, which, as it happens, inadvertently involves Bruce too. Cedric had been called out to fix the plumbing, a blockage in a lavatory in a fancy apartment in the port. Bruce had gone along to see if he could lend a hand and to nose round. The apartment was at the top of the complex, one of fifty or so built in a pyramid, on the slope of a hill. The vital services – sewage, water and electricity – were ducted and interconnected, so Cedric sent Bruce with a powerful machine ready to exert pressure on the lavatory in the top apartment when he gave the go-ahead, while he, Cedric, checked the outflow at the bottom of the pile to make sure there wasn’t any obstruction in the system lower down. Dottie by now is almost beside herself. Two maiden ladies, she goes on, were having breakfast on their terrace in one of the lower apartments when Cedric showed up with his bag of tools and set to, prising open a manhole cover just below their balcony. ‘Well, you’ll never guess what happened next,’ says Dottie. ‘Bruce, not thinking, switched on the machine up the hill, which sent the blockage with such force down the main pipe that it burst out at the bottom, rocketing from the manhole thirty feet into the air, showering both Cedric and the ladies having breakfast with the biggest load of you-know-what.’
Dottie is convulsed. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I say, but Dottie is bent double with the awfulness of it all.
Just then, there’s a commotion and the gas wagon finally arrives to obstruct the traffic while Paco, the driver, goes through his routine. He’s out of the cab, unhinging chains holding the bottles, then with a hook on the end of a pole, he fluidly swings each bottle off the truck and on the pavement. Dottie and I have managed to finish our coffee just as he deposits his load. For some reason gas bottles are like gold dust. If you have any, you keep tight hold.
Luckily my car is within Paco’s orbit so he offers to lift the bottles into the boot and soon, having waved goodbye to Dottie, I’m off back to the house weighed down with my vital cargo. Getting a new bottle to the fridge is strenuous stuff. First bend the knees, then lock on to the handles and, taking a deep intake of breath, strain and stagger to the appliance most in need. A satisfying hiss means the cap fits the bottle and has connected to the gas. We’re in business. And this has to be done at least once a week. I’ll be like the Incredible Hulk by the end of the summer.
four
Barcelona is heaving. Both my crews are wired ready to go but the crowds and clammy heat make progress slow. We are trying to film Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, his unfinished cathedral, but half a dozen other TV crews – mainly, it seems to me, Japanese – keep getting in the way. The beggars on the dockside think Christmas has come as boats large and small pile in from the far horizon and in the maelstrom King Juan Carlos is holding a Heads of State dinner in one of Barcelona’s grander hotels. We are slated to be there at six. Juan Carlos is pleased to see us and, with his arm around Fidel Castro, immediately comes over and says, ‘Fidel, meet my friend Selina,’ which, of course, does for my impartiality.
Castro is dressed simply in a dark tunic with epaulettes and a serious cravat. He beams broadly as we are introduced. I can’t believe I’m talking to the man who helped bring the world to the brink of nuclear war thirty years ago, a man who’s squared up to eight American presidents so far and seen them all off. Now he’s focused on something I’m saying and I’m aware how imposing he is, a well-built man, the same height as Juan Carlos. I need to film them, he and the King behaving like brothers, clasping one another, talking close, a demonstration of male bonding I know Juan Carlos is keen to portray, symbolic of Spain’s new relationship with her former dependencies, a partnership of equals.
Watching Castro that evening, joking and engaging with the King, I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn that after the Olympics he made an emotional pilgrimage to the village of Láncara in Galicia, where his father was born in a one-roomed house. Ángel Castro emigrated to Cuba in 1902, ninety years ago, and always dreamed of returning home. He never did. His son, Fidel, had to make the journey for him.
Another famous son, Prince Felipe, demonstrated his own filial pride the night the Spanish team marched into the Olympic stadium with him at its head. It was a quiet defining moment in the fevered atmosphere of the opening ceremony. Holding aloft his country’s flag, Felipe turned and saluted his father and mother, Queen Sofia. Caught on camera, in the royal box his oldest sister, Elena, began to cry.
Meanwhile, like Cinderella, I have to flee the party early to make sure of a bed for the night. ITV had taken so long to sign up to the deal that every single room in the city has been booked. Somehow, we’ve managed to find a guest house in a run-down suburb which has enough space to just about accommodate us all and I’ve been given the best of it. I have a single bed with a light hanging from the ceiling and a cupboard with a bath you could just about sit in if you crouch. There is no air-conditioning and the place smells rancid. The guys have similar rooms, slightly smaller, which leaves Paloma and Alberto having to share a closet with only a couple of camp beds and no loo.
Steve, the cameraman, gallantly offers his room to Paloma, but she take one glance at it and shaking her head sums it all up in her best English: ‘No, no, Steve,’ she said, ‘it’s steell sheet, only bee-gger sheet.’
After the Olympics, the crew fly home for a few days’ break while I decide to take the overnight ferry to Palma, to be there before the Royals arrive for their longed-for holiday after the excitement of the Games.
The Transmediterranea boat leaves at midnight from a berth in the heart of Barcelona so all I need do is turn up and buy a ticket. The cavernous booking hall has the feel of the 1930s about it and appears impressively well organised with dozens of windows marked with letters of the alphabet, but an hour before departure there’s still no clue where in all this I should start queueing. Travellers keep arriving, aimlessly pacing the great tiled hall while they wait for the night’s business to begin. Suddenly a window lifts and there’s a stampede, but it turns out this is for Spanish residents only, who get a cheaper deal.
Cleaners with buckets of disinfectant mop up round feet and bags, and then another queue forms and this time it’s for real. Although not one cashier has a word of English and there’s much fumbling with pesetas, somehow through the chaos we all manage to board the boat on time, trooping up the steps, dozens of backpackers making a mad rush to be first for the benches on the deck.
I’ve bought a cabin for the crossing down several flights of steps. Julio Iglesias pipes me to my bunk but as there’s still a few minutes before we sail, I’m soon back on deck to watch our departure. The bar is, by now, filling with truck drivers, sleeping bags unrolled, while onshore families are building to wave their goodbyes. As the ferry pulls gently away, there’s a sudden tug, the ropes are winched and then, almost as an afterthought, the night ship emits a huge hoot: we’re off.
My sleep, to the throb of engines, is fitful but the crossing is smooth and soon I’m awake, refreshed and on deck at dawn with a cup of tea, ready for our arrival into Palma. The Mediterranean on an early morning in summer is almost ethereal, the grey ocean slowly waking to a dreamy azure day. In the far distance, the glow of the golden stone of Palma’s cathedral can just be made out, it looks like an upturned boat from here, a commanding sight that has inspired seafarers over the centuries.
By nine, we’ve docked and everyone’s off at great and happy speed. I manage to grab a taxi and head west, the whole day ahead of me. I’m looking forward to seeing what Boris and the boys have been up to. As always, I am deposited with my gear at the bottom of the hi
ll as the taxi cannot – and will not – clamber up my road and I prepare myself to confront Kendi once again. Except today she’s not there. Her chain is on the ground so perhaps, I psych myself, the old man has come in early and taken her for a walk before the day becomes too hot. I’ll probably pass her on the way up.
By the time I finally reach the welcome shade of the pine trees I have not run into Kendi, but I can hear Boris, Cedric and the gang whistling and shouting. They’ve fixed the bathroom so it’s no longer a break-away zone and have nearly completed my courtyard, an enticingly private place which incorporates an old stone staircase leading up to a first-floor balcony. The wisteria has been planted and tied to the railings, it’s all very Romeo and Juliet.
Jake is delirious, purring and curling round my legs and Boris straight away wants to know about the wall. Do I want him to start now? It will wrap the house and give me total privacy. Maybe soon, I stall. Right now I have to concentrate on finishing my film, I can’t be sidetracked by anything else. Would he mind coming back after the summer so we can talk again? Boris says that’s fine by him.
Which is lovely, because it gives me time to myself.
Later that day the guys tidy up and leave me with detailed instructions on how to handle the genny so it will keep me topped up with water over summer. I assure them I’ll cope. I’ll be living in the house through these next two months, which will give me a chance to get into the rhythm of what is now my new-ish home. I have mosquito blinds in my bedrooms and a sense of seclusion. I’ll be able to go filming with a king and get a suntan.