by A Long Walk in the High Hills- The Story of a House, a Dog
For some reason, at around five in the afternoon, the heat intensifies in a last great blast before nightfall. It’s only when the sun drops, at around eight, that there’s a lull in temperature, enticing people out on to the streets to talk before heading indoors again, late, to eat.
Two young swallows siesta each afternoon, clinging to a shady ledge above my back door, silently waiting for dusk and feeding time. They’ve just taken wing with a lot of chirping when Lauren arrives with Nico in her car. He’s smiling and has on smart khaki pants and white shirt and although he has difficulty negotiating the steps up to my patio he is full of bonhomie. He deposits himself in a wicker chair under the vine and lights a cigarette as I make for the chilled rosado and cold beer, just happy he is here, hoping that now I may be able to get through to him and find a way to get Kendi out of the shed.
We talk about everything else at first. The village, the weather, what happened to his arm and leg after his motorcycle accident and the treatment he’s now receiving. He has to go to Madrid to have more grafting operations soon, he says, to repair damage to his brain. He is being very matter of fact about it all and explains he will be taken by air ambulance from Palma to get the best medical treatment on the State. I think he is being very brave about it, but ask him, ‘What is going to happen to Kendi when you go into hospital? Who will walk and feed her?’
‘Mi padre,’ he quickly confirms.
‘Is it possible, do you think,’ I ask carefully, ‘that she might come up here and see me sometime? Perhaps I can take her for a walk, I would like a dog to accompany me.’
Nico lowers his voice and says, ‘Kendi, she protect mi casa and mi animales,’ emphasising ‘mi’ as in ‘my’.
I try a different tack. ‘But how can she protect your property if she is shut up all the time? If banditos come she can’t get at them, can she?’
Nico looks uncomfortable. I know I’m touching his macho pride, which unsettles him, in common with many Spanish men I’ve met in recent months. I try one last shot. ‘Well, can she come and protect me and my house when I’m here?’
Nico is taken aback. ‘I will have to speak with mi padre,’ he eventually demurs.
Lauren takes this as her cue to leave and suggests I give Nico a lift back to the village but he’s not ready to shift just yet. He’d like another beer. He hadn’t realised until now his dog is desirable.
Lauren tries to steer me away. ‘It’s no use pursuing it,’ she says quietly as Nico nips off the end of his cigarette, ‘you’ll only antagonise him.’
Nico takes a long drag and begins to talk about his mother and how lost he was when she died unexpectedly while he was so ill and needed her. The night falls silent. Only when baby almond rats begin to play, galloping round the iron canopy above our heads, chasing each other with manic squeaks in and out of the vine leaves, does Nico finally move to go.
As he carefully places his walking stick in the space between the front seats and eases himself into the car, I decide I won’t say anything more about Kendi tonight, but as we bump down the road and pull into the village square he turns to me and says, very seriously, he’s been thinking that it’s ‘maybe good’ Kendi comes to protect my house. We can share her. He promises to speak to his father and will tell me his decision ‘mañana’. And kisses me on both cheeks.
Dawn is grey in summer, oddly dark before sunrise, so for a moment the day ahead looks negotiable, as if it might not be sunny after all. This morning, however, I have no time to ponder the weather. We’re sailing on the Fortuna again and I need shorts, T-shirts, sun cream and a swimsuit as the trip will last all day. On board will be the King’s family, his daughters, son Felipe and Queen Sofia, along with their three Greek cousins, Princes Paulo and Nikolaos and Princess Alexia. I am hoping to talk to all of them but especially Prince Felipe as heir to the throne, if we can find a quiet moment.
The family are waiting for us at the Marivent where Queen Sofia has organised picnic hampers and a minibus to take us to the boat. She is immensely fond of her brother King Constantine’s children who are invited each year to the Marivent for their holidays, both sets of young royals being around the same age with similar interests. None of them hang around for long. They’re on the boat and ready to go, like a pack of puppies, looking forward to finding the right place to drop anchor and spend an afternoon swimming. Their favourite spot is amidst the sea turtles and dolphins just off the unspoiled island of Cabrera, where rubbish floating on the water off Mallorca is not so much in evidence. Polythene bags cause dreadful damage, particularly to turtles who swallow and choke on them.
An old couple in a small wooden Mallorquín boat, a llhaut, are fishing for shrimp, he’s got on a straw hat and is burned brown. His wife, in a large brimmed hat and a black dress with an apron, is reading a newspaper under canvas stretched between two crooked masts, as the glamorous Fortuna slows to pass. The King is the first to wave, leaning out to greet them. The old man at the tiller lifts his hat and shouts a hearty I ‘bon aía’ as though he’s known Juan Carlos all his life, while his wife waves her rolled-up newspaper. Soon we find the perfect spot to swim and talk on camera about Mallorca and what it means to the family. Queen Sofia is sanguine about the way the island is altering. She says that although the coast is developed, in the interior the place is ‘as it always has been’. There is still an agricultural way of life, whose discernible rhythm, its customs and fiestas, are still in tune with an older Mallorca. Nothing has changed, she assures me.
I can detect, while she is talking, the young Greeks getting restless, desperate to beat each other into the ocean. I need to collar Felipe before he jumps in and joins them. Nikolaos is laughing as he and his older brother Paulo jostle at the edge of the boat. Both young men have had a good dose of exile, living their lives outside a country neither has ever really known. Their father, Constantine, fled Greece during an uprising before they were born and has never been allowed to return full time.
Felipe is like his mother, Queen Sofia. He has a calm, quiet centre, obviously aware that as next in line to the throne he has to get it right. His own family’s exile has been only a heartbeat away. It must be a tough call to follow a charismatic father with a sure touch yet Felipe is cool and assured about the future, as we speak to one another on camera, the boat gently rocking. He is dressed casually, in shorts and T-shirt, but manages to convey his strong sense of where Spain is heading and how he feels he has a special contribution to make as its future king. Representing his country at the Olympics has meant this summer has been good for him, given him confidence in what might be expected in the years ahead. Felipe is the quintessentially handsome prince who has been linked with every eligible European princess and the daughters of most of Spain’s aristocracy. He seems to take it all in his athletic stride when I ask about the difficulty of choosing the right woman to marry. ‘It’s not easy marrying into royalty,’ he says. ‘But when I find somebody I think is capable of taking on all the duties of a queen, it won’t matter whether she is royal, aristocratic or a commoner. I’ll know she’s right when I find her.’
There’s an almighty splash and lots of shouting as everyone leaps into the ocean, calling out for us to join them. I don’t need prompting. The day is too beautiful, the vast aquamarine sea too tempting to waste it on working. So I’m tipped in too. And on shore, a couple of paparazzi with long lenses sneak shots which end up in glossy magazines across the Continent.
five
Antonío must love his Muscovy duck. It’s bunkered down under a buttercup-yellow parasol anchored in a pile of dirt. Antonío is the local JCB contractor and has a smallholding near the village where he keeps speckled hens, a dazzling cockbird and the Muscovy black and white with a big red beak. The duck has been waddling in and out of an old tin bath, dug into the ground and filled with water, but today the parasol has appeared and the Muscovy is sitting contentedly under it. It must be summer.
No one dare light a match or set a fire outside now. There
has been no rain since May and the hills are friable. Dried grasses crackle and pine twigs snap, too easily, underfoot. It’s getting to be dangerous. Even an empty glass bottle casually chucked into the undergrowth can cause a fire if the sun’s rays catch it long enough. I’m being extra careful with petrol when I top up the generator, amazed that, with so many remote fincas without electricity in the woods, there hasn’t been an accident. My generator gets so hot after a couple of hours the start button sticks. I have to press it hard to make the thing stop. I feel a kind of terror welling up every time.
Someone from the council has been diligently hanging see-through plastic bags on pine branches all along the track, hoping to trap the dreaded processionary caterpillar – its official name is Thaumetopoeidae – about to hatch from its hole in the ground and mate, unleashing a thousand offspring to march in single file through the pines, devastating the forest. There’s an order out for its total arrest, hence the bags, which hang like so many baubles on a Christmas tree. They’re filled with a deadly hormone that attracts and ambushes the caterpillar before it can get its teeth into the trees. Unfortunately, the council workers haven’t put a bag on the magnificent pine tree that overhangs my back gate, which means that’s another job for me on a cooler day. I’ll have to go to the Ayuntamiento in Andratx to pick one up; it’ll be a shame if out of all the trees, Thaume-whatsit decides mine is the one it wants to gobble.
Bugs in trees will have to wait because the phone’s ringing and suddenly tonight’s Royal supper in the Port is beginning to look dodgy. My crews are on standby but I’m being told security is freaking over the amount of people already gathering on the quay a couple of hours before the Royals are due to arrive. It’s now down to the King and he won’t make a decision until he gets there. If it’s too intrusive he says he will call it off and have a quiet dinner with the family somewhere else. Which would be disastrous for us.
It’s hard to stay positive when I also have nothing to wear. No electricity means no iron and everything I grab is creased. Jake’s creeping and pouncing on my bare feet just increases my irritability. A brown linen sundress is the only answer. I reckon if it were hanging there pressed it would still end up crumpled, so it will just have to do. With my notes under one arm and the cat under the other, I manage to make it to the door without stopping for the phone, shoving Jake in the bread oven on the way out.
In the port outside the Miramar a large crowd has gathered on the pavement, the arc lights are in place, the hovering film crews dressed smartly, but it doesn’t look good to me. The King will have to fight his way through this lot. Juan St Juan is standing, looking sickly, with his back to the wall as his waiters scurry about, being particularly attentive to punters who have turned up to dine on what they think is going to be a quiet night out. None of Juan’s customers has been told the King will be joining them so there is consternation as film crews, a band and a hundred or so locals jostle for position.
The musicians, three men and four women, have taken trouble to dress traditionally. One of the guys I recognise – the guitarist – is the black moustachioed owner from the café next door, who’s kitted out in straw hat, knee-length breeches, long socks and a fuchsia sash slung raffishly under his big tummy. The fellow with the flute is raring to go, as are the women in their long skirts and colourful aprons, lace scarves framing their eager faces. All are impeccably turned out, they must have spent hours getting ready. My heart sinks. I have agreed that if Juan Carlos thinks the music is too loud, he will give me a thumbs down and I will step in and, trying to avoid causing offence, stop them. Even so, after they’ve all made such an effort, I know I’ll never be able to show my face in Port d’An-dratx again.
Nacho has clocked the local curly-haired photographer and a couple of other paparazzi hanging around in the crowd. ‘They’re over near the boats,’ he points, ‘do you want me to get rid of them?’
I can’t imagine anything I would want less than Nacho having a punch-up right now. No, there is nothing more we can do. We will have to wait and see what the King’s reaction will be.
As darkness falls a long half hour later, we find out. I was beginning to think I couldn’t take the tension a moment longer when a surge of security men with walkie-talkies descend, pushing the crowd aside, clearing a way for the imminent arrival of the Royals. As the gleaming black cars pull into the port the camera lights go on and the crews move to follow the family to their table. Juan Carlos is the first out. He doesn’t look pleased. His son and daughters along with the young Greek royals come next. I can see there’s a discernible hesitation, a fear that it’s not going to happen, they’re not going to sit down to eat as exhibits in a zoo. Then Juan Carlos says something to Queen Sofia and, instead of leaving, smiles broadly, strides towards Juan St Juan, shakes him by the hand and turns and waves to the onlookers who clap and whistle back. He is going to stay and eat after all.
As the musicians begin to play and platters of fish and salad arrive in relays to their table I can sense the family relaxing, soon they’re laughing and talking animatedly. After half an hour we’ve got all the pictures we need, the lights are dimmed but the band is still blasting it out and have another six songs to sing. I look across the tables and catch the King’s eye. Mimicking a thumbs up or thumbs down, I dread his reply. Juan Carlos pushes his napkin aside and like a Roman Emperor delivers his verdict. Both thumbs, up.
This vibrant scene on a warm summer’s night will later be broadcast in Germany and spark a transformation of the port. A surge of upmarket developments in this once quiet backwater will deliver huge wealth to local people in their rapid and enthusiastic embracing of a North European way of life where pricey boutiques, five-star restaurants and multimillion-dollar homes and boats drop like Stardust. Soon their small port will become another St Tropez, thanks to the King choosing to dine here.
After the success of the night the crew partied. They’d received an impromptu invitation from some English women who had been dining in the Miramar and asked them back to their villa. Next morning it is hard to get the guys to focus, asthey are so full of the amazing sea views and the great night they’d all had swimming in the infinity pool and dancing under the stars. Only Nacho is tetchy, again pressing me to ask the King if he would speak in Spanish on camera before we left the island. Trying not to be tetchy in return, I assure him I will.
At the Miramar the evening before I had persuaded one of the waiters to give me the juicy remains of a big piece of cod I noticed a customer, too busy staring at the Royals, hadn’t eaten. It seemed a pity to waste it when the cats in the village are desperate. So a parcel, full of fishy titbits neatly wrapped in brown paper, was presented to me like the crown jewels, which it was as far as Jake was concerned. He gave me his mightiest purr, which earned him a morsel before I stowed the rest in the fridge for more deserving cases the next day.
I have decided the tabby cat who lives near Miguel the taxi driver is responsible for the kittens at the bottom of the road. Miguel does what he can, leaving piles of dried cat food out on the pavement, but she is feral and won’t be handled. She is pretty, white with black and brown splodges, and is a constant conveyor of new-born cats, one batch following another. The males are ginger and the females, like their mother, multi-coloured; most meet awful ends. Even so, no one seems to have any interest in neutering her. The latest bunch of kittens are now half grown, scrawny and wormy and still, just about, managing to scavenge round the rubbish bins outside the village school. The aroma of my parcel from the Miramar calls all cats and soon the cod has been demolished and they’re ravenously attacking the dried cat food I’ve also brought along.
There is still no news from Nico on whether I can walk Kendi, but I’ve discovered, through the local paper, a rescue centre based in Palma which is appealing for funds. As I’m due at the Marivent later to film the last set-piece interview with the King, I’m going to make a detour so I’ll know where to head if ever I need help in an emergency.
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sp; The sanctuary turns out to be a bunch of ramshackle huts in a run-down part of the city bordering a cemetery in a street called Jesus. It’s at the bottom of a steep dirt track, in a dip in a valley, trapping the smell of animals on this hot afternoon. The dust rises, covering my clean pumps. As I’m on my way to the palace I’ve dressed up in a pale turquoise silk shirt over tight white knee-length pants but I’ve got this far and I can see dogs through the wire in their runs, barking. There are lots of cats too, irritable in their makeshift boxes. The place is locked but someone is inside, sweeping the kennels. He sees me, smiles, and comes over to explain there is no one here yet. They will come in a few hours at five. He is Mallorquín and middle-aged and as I leave I notice him talking and playing with the dogs.
It doesn’t take long to get from the sanctuary to the Marivent, as the traffic through the centre of town, usually heavy in the mornings and evenings, has quietened on this hot summer afternoon. I’m feeling happier, if muckier, after my excursion to the dog’s home; I now know where to come if I need help.
Local people call Palma a simple word, City, La Ciutat. It became, officially, Palma at the turn of the twentieth century, named after its earlier Roman name, Palmeria, the city of the victory palm, but the great protective wall built by the Romans didn’t survive. It was flattened after surviving over a thousand years, demolished when the city got its new name. It is an avinguda, an avenue, now, carrying one of the city’s fast roads, which I’m on today. Its zigzag course is the only obvious evidence of the old wall beneath. Palma is a beauty with plane trees and palms shading wide avenues, steep stone steps linking ancient thoroughfares, heritage gems at every turn. There are fragments of other historic city walls built in the centuries following Rome around every corner.