by A Long Walk in the High Hills- The Story of a House, a Dog
Today, in late August, nothing can disrupt a swim in an ocean this still. The clarity of the water is incredible, shoals of little fish hoover up near the surface and lower down, above patches of golden sand between rocks, larger, more colourful fish investigate.
I’ve got to know, now, those who come at the same time of day to this spot to swim. They are charming, mainly German, most of whom live in the village. I imagine they once were teachers because they read weighty books, take an interest in politics and speak beautiful English. They are all great friends, changing uninhibitedly in front of one another for their long-distance swim each day. This morning there’s much fulminating about corruption in Andratx. Illegal building is beginning to blight the area and they’re discussing the backhanders officials are given as though it’s accepted legal practice. ‘But of course it happens,’ they lecture at my naivety. ‘Everyone’s into bribery here. There’s so much black-market money coming in, especially from Germany, the place is awash in cash. The local mayor is the main culprit, along with his planning officer. You’ll see.’
A dusty beat-up old car has arrived with a couple who come each morning from a finca high in the hills. She has red hair and stands as a dancer might. Her partner is an artist with a magnificent moustache. Everyone greets them warmly and talk about dirty dealings in the council are put aside. There are no jellyfish today, someone solemnly declares. I notice they are all very supple and don’t stay long in the sun after they’ve snorkelled round the bay.
In any case it’s Wednesday and market day in Andratx so everyone packs up early to join the scrum of local women who muscle with their bags on wheels to be first at the fruit and veg stalls. If you don’t hasten, you queue, which is no fun in this heat. Police straddle the main street screeching whistles at busloads of tourists. Counterfeit Gucci bags, cheap clothes, massive brassieres and knickers, cheeses, olives, pickles and pans overwhelm stalls on every side as crowds take hundreds of half-steps to negotiate the narrow alleyways. There is no hurry, it’s a total waste of time, as the menfolk clustering in the corner bars have so expertly sussed.
I usually make for a stall in the centre of the melee, which sells home-made pesto, fresh basil and small sweet tomatoes grown in a local garden which are scooped up quickly by those in the know. Today I keep bumping into the boys who inhabit the bars in the village, here to find cheap trousers for their building work; every able-bodied bloke it seems builds – mostly around their complicated love lives.
Rex, a Belgian, is tall, diffident and good-looking in a dishevelled sort of way. He falls in love regularly, always introducing his latest as ‘my fiancée’, which tickles the woman in tow but usually means it’s not going to last. He tackles all kinds of building projects to raise money for a quick escape when he gets in too deep. Even so, by the time he’s got the cash the woman he’s about to ditch has usually given up on him and gone off with someone else. Rex is searching through a pile of polyester overalls with a fluffy pup on a lead he found scavenging round his dustbins. The pup has a bandaged paw, her claws torn trying to find food, but she’s now moved in with Rex, which isn’t pleasing his new fiancée.
His great mate, Mick, is with him. The two of them were once partners in their own building firm but thought better of it. Mick is currently into photography although he also fancies himself as bit of a Mallorquín Bob Dylan, soulfully belting out songs whenever there’s a musical get-together. His talents and big brown eyes are much appreciated by the retinue of glamorous girlfriends he attracts. He lopes along to the stall selling sobrasada sausage.
Rex asks if I’d like a lift back to the village, he’s heading in that direction and his pick-up is parked in the square. He hands me the pup on the lead while he pays for his bargain trews and I set off, squeezing my way through the crowds. His truck is loaded with Mexican terracotta cooking pots, piled up and roped together. ‘What on earth, Rex?’ I ask as the pup and I fall into the front seat.
‘It’s a great deal I’ve come across,’ he says. ‘I’ve imported hundreds from South America to flog here as barbecues. I’m going to end up loaded.’
The pup settles softly on my lap, her poor paw resting on my knees as Rex crunches through the gears. We have only gone about fifty yards when there’s a great splintering crash. A pot has deposited itself on the road behind us. It’s bust in two. Rex swears and jumps out, calling me to help. As hooting cars pile up, he grabs the biggest of the lumps while I scramble with the entangled pup to retrieve what’s left. Rex is smirking as we flee the scene. ‘Will you marry me?’ he wants to know.
The tiny restaurant in the village, where Emmy Lou once helped with the cooking, has been taken over by Rodriquez, a young Catalan. Inside it’s painted the colours of the sun, earth and sky. There are clay tiles on the floor, white walls and cobalt blue and yellows on every pillar and arch. It is very relaxed and the food delicious but Rodriquez’s great and marvellous skill is his guitar playing. At night, after hanging up his apron, he brings out a stool and blows the place away. He plays from the heart, his fingers finding chords without a musical score. Today he’s fixing the menu on the door, laughing with Nico who shouts over to me, ‘See you in Sancho’s, Selina.’
Just now, Nico is not drinking alcohol. His doctor has told him it is not good for his condition. He orders a lacao instead, a sickly looking milk drink laced with chocolate in a small glass bottle. I detect a contrived seriousness and wonder what Nico’s up to. Purposefully he props his stick against the chair and leans towards me, tipping his head ever so slightly back just like his father, and sucks in his breath, sharply. ‘Plenty problems in your casa, eh?’ I try a smile, not sure where this is leading. ‘Plenty men,’ his eyes widen, ‘aqui.’
‘Here?’
Nico nods knowingly. And then I’ve got it. I haven’t seen Nico since the press fiasco. ‘Oh, that. It’s all okay now,’ I assure him.
But Nico is not responding the way he normally does. He purses his lips and shakes his head slowly. What else is he going to offer up, I wonder. And then suddenly and quietly, he says, ‘You need a dog to patrol your casa.’
Is he saying what I think he’s saying? I am trying so hard not to leap ahead of what I believe is coming next, holding myself back, waiting for Nico to declare his hand. And then, like a gambler with his winning ticket, he slowly reaches into his pocket and plonks, smack on the table, a set of keys. ‘These are for you,’ he says. They are the keys to the kennel. ‘Kendi can come and protect you whenever you want.’
I want to hug him. After weeks of anguish I’ve been let out of gaol. ‘Does your father agree?’
‘Sí, sí, you are a woman who needs help.’ Nico is now at his most macho.
‘Can I go and let her out this minute?’
‘Sí, I come with you.’
The walk up the road to Kendi is interminable. Nico is relishing his new role as he enunciates every syllable very slowly, milking his new-found importance while my mind clutters with how this arrangement is actually going to work and whether he really means it.
A plastic bag of stale bread left for the hens and goats is hooked on the gates as Nico fumbles with the lock. A bantam runs out, squawking, ducking under the grape vine to join its friends in the chicken run. There’s a door in the shed at the far end which has no window and is also locked. Nico fiddles with the keys again until it opens, and steps back to allow me to enter ahead of him. Inside, it is putrid; a rope hanging from the rafters catches my hair and cobwebs stick to my cheek.
Nico calls her name. Kendi. She makes a small squeaking sound in recognition but can’t move towards us because she’s tied to the wall with a chain. Nico is soon there, patting her on the head, she licking and fussing him as though he’s done nothing wrong. Her tail thumps heavily on the earth floor as I am formally introduced. ‘Can I take her with me now?’ I say, desperate to get her out of this claustrophobic hole.
‘Of course,’ Nico says as he unclips the chain.
Kendi is still on h
er best behaviour, waiting for her owner to decide what’s to happen next. Once she’s told what she can do, she follows Nico as he makes for the door. Outside, Nico reaches for a lead and solemnly hands it to me. It all seems too simple. Kendi has her ears on alert, looking in anticipation at the lead. Let’s go.
She really is a lovely dog, trotting up the road close to heel, glancing up at me for my approval. There’s no pulling or tugging. She’s been trained to walk with Nico, obviously. But when we get to the house, well, it’s pathetic. The moment she’s off the lead she runs and runs before collapsing, panting, on the steps up to the patio.
Her coat is not in good condition either. It’s rough and dandruffy but I’m so happy she’s here. I wonder how long she will be able to stay.
A little later a thunderstorm strafes the sky. For some reason the island magnifies the sound and passion of the elements. A blackness comes first, then an obliteration with a few drops of rain. The early rain has a beat as it hits the tiles, but soon, with the deluge, it morphs into what sounds like a fervent, clapping crowd. Kendi is terrified. She shivers and presses against me trying to find somewhere she can hide. I missed the lightning but smelled it when it struck. Sulphur before the crack. The pink blowsy blossom on the trumpet vine plops sodden to the ground as water cascades off the roof down the pipe into the cisterna. Valuable and appreciated stuff, but delivered with such drama it smarts.
After the closeness comes the airiness as the storm passes and the temperature drops. Out of the hedge flaps the hoopoes, now a family of four, coursing the newly soaked earth for insects. Their long, pointed, dun-coloured neck feathers mirror their sharp, probing beaks, so they resemble a purposeful gang of double-headed hammers going about their business. A slight movement and they’re gone, undulating back to the bushes, weaving and leaving a flash of black and white zebra striping behind.
Carter, Emmy Lou’s son, is not as bashful as the birds. He’s got his sights on the old plum tree and has called in to ask if I’ll let him give the tree a ‘hair cut’ when I leave. He’s been reading all about pruning, he says, and insists it will improve fruiting. I know he sneaked in early in the year to pick the plums when I wasn’t around but Kendi is welcoming him with such big licks I say, well, all right then. He grudgingly enquires how I managed to get her out of the compound as he can see how settled she is already and how good-natured but he’s on his way to the village for a fiesta and doesn’t want to hang around. I would like to have asked if he might take Kendi with him, so he can put her back in her shed as I’m dreading doing it. She has had a good run and a little dog meat from a can I found in the pantry, just enough not to upset her tummy, but I can see he’s not interested so Kendi and I make the journey by ourselves, she meekly allowing me to tie her back up to the wall in her shed and do what I have to, filling her bowl with fresh water from a tap outside, telling her I’ll see her early tomorrow. Trying to be positive.
It’s a good time of year to get to know Kendi. It’s cooler now and soon the ‘second spring’ will come when the seeds that have lain dormant through the hot summer sprout and shoot up with the rain. Everything in the valley will turn a fresh bright green but first there is a harvest to reap. The pomegranates, fat and rosy, are about to tear and fall. Figs turn from green to ripe black almost overnight. It’s also almond picking time. The soft shells of the almonds, like the pomegranates, have split and will soon spill hard kernels on the ground. I shake off the cobwebs covering the roll of green net in the shed, unfurl it around the trees like a carpet and tickle the almonds with a long cane to encourage them to tumble into it obligingly.
I’ve set aside the next few days to try and pick as much fruit as possible but the morning I set off to pick up Kendi again a white, gauzy blob has suddenly appeared, swinging from a branch of the pine tree at my back gate. I know exactly what it is. The dreaded processionary caterpillar has arrived and woven its nest on my lovely tree. Soon zillions of them will be on the march, which means if I don’t take immediate action, the tree will die. I can see they have already chewed their way along one large branch so if I can saw it off along with the nest, I may be in with a chance.
First though: Kendi. I have a bit of a struggle with the lock on her door but suddenly it gives, the key turns and I’m in, the sun penetrating the gloom where sacks of corn for chickens and beans are stacked along with old farm implements and buckets of eggs. Gruesome-looking muzzles and goat bells on leather collars hang from nails hammered into the wall. Kendi is quivering, excited to see me, but as I go to untie her, something scurries over my sandalled foot. When I look again, it’s a rat, a proper rat. Horrified, I see they’re everywhere.
The moment we’re back at the house I’m in the right frame of mind to vent my wrath on the caterpillars. Kendi doesn’t know what to make of me shinning up the pine tree dressed in shorts and T-shirt and armed with a handsaw. She’s sitting on her haunches, ears corkscrewed, waiting as I attack the branch, my back wedged against the trunk, trying hard not to do myself a mischief. The soft resinous wood soon cracks, taking the nest and branch crashing to the ground with all the caterpillars on board. Instantly I feel better.
As I drag the debris to the middle of the field Kendi follows at a distance. She’s obviously had experience of this kind of thing and is not going to get too close. I can see by her expression that she never thought this was a good idea in the first place. And soon I realise why. I start to burn. A painful, itchy sensation quickly creeps along the skin on my legs, arms and hands. Scratching makes it worse. I turn red and feel as if I’m on fire. The secretions by the caterpillars covering the bark of the branch have done for me. It will be a week before the prickling stops and my skin clears up, enough time to learn another painful lesson about life in Mallorca. Of all the creatures on the planet, only the resident hoopoe bird is equipped to handle the processionary caterpillar. If you ask me, hoopoes must have throats like battle-ships.
It wasn’t long before I came to the conclusion that my encounter with the caterpillars pretty much summed up the way the island behaved. Only those hefted to the place, who’d been here for years, were able to clean up.
Which meant, if I was going to hoover up poisonous creepy-crawlies intent on making life difficult for me, I’d have to be as sharp – if not sharper – than any marauding bird. At least that’s the way I felt when I first went into bat with Lauren for an electricity supply soon after my encounter with the paparazzi.
Lauren had fixed a meeting with the local planning department at the town hall because she’d lost impetus getting folk to sign up for her electricity project.
As I’d already spent a day with her, queueing and form-filling in the bronze-tinted edifice of Gesa HQ in Palma and had got nowhere, I couldn’t see how we’d fare any better with another bunch of officials closer to home, but Lauren was insistent. If we could get them to see our plight, they could lean on Gesa to give us electricity ‘if only for social reasons’, she said, whatever that meant.
When we arrived for our meeting, held in a poky room opposite a bar in an Andratx backstreet, some men in suits greeted us politely, assuring us they would do what they could, agreeing that it was indeed absurd that in the late twentieth century some homes in Mallorca still didn’t have a vital supply of power but could they suggest we go away, put together a project signed by all those who want electricity and come back to them?
We were back to the beginning again, but not for long. A few carefully dropped hints from well-meaning locals later and I began to get the message.
It was only when I was officially informed by the planners many months later I would need special permission to have electricity and would have to tunnel through rock and dig up the road all the way from the village to my house so that the cable would be underground at least a metre deep, all of which would cost thousands, that I began to understand the true measure of my predicament. I was one of those caterpillars who had just built a nest and along had come a hoopoe and gobbled me up.
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Turned out, I wasn’t the only one. Once Boris Becker arrived in the east of the island and Claudia Schiffer had become ensconced in the south the German market rapidly became hooked on wild Mallorca. Like the caterpillars, they processed to the island in their thousands. The Brits soon followed: Richard Branson invested in a hotel in Deia; Andrew Lloyd Webber, Annie Lennox and Catherine Zeta Jones ended up in historic houses along the north-west coast, and with such profile came wealth.
A sticky trail of dodgy money, mainly from Germany, soon led all the way to the Med. German deutschmarks slewed into Spanish property just before the euro went universal. Better the marks from under the bed be put into bricks and mortar than converted into an untried coinage. The Spanish were only too eager to assist. A new Spanish phrase came into currency. If you wanted something built were you going to pay in black or white money? The average weekly Spanish wage remained well below the European norm but no one officially admitted it was low because most of it was black. Black money could be spent in supermarkets, white kept the accountants happy.
Politicians salivating at the prospect of an invasion that showed no sign of abating began to put a price on tranquillity, belatedly realising that solitude is something islands are supposed to have in their DNA. Mallorca had tons of it. Old ruins, long deserted because they were cut off and unmanageable, were now not only desirable but valuable.