by A Long Walk in the High Hills- The Story of a House, a Dog
My house went from being an interesting old finca in the Sierra Tramuntana, to a protected Grade 1 property. It got an upgraded name, ‘rustico protegido’ and a new classification. My house got drafted under an environment law to something called a Terreno ANEI without anyone bothering to tell me. It was all done ostensibly for good environmental reasons but with political control came power.
It wasn’t long before the pressure of mountains of international money brought greed and a brazen manipulation of planning laws so that when developers wanted to build, they handed over a bung. Lawyers for each side left the room while the deed was done. I missed out on all the ribaldry because I bought my property before the rush but it didn’t mean I avoided the clunking fist when it fell.
It descended soon after Lauren casually announced I was now in charge of her electricity project as she had got a new job in the north of Spain and would be leaving the island, temporarily. ‘I’ll be back,’ she threatened, ‘and with luck you might have the valley lit up by then.’
We had just had our meeting in Andratx and were supposed to be rustling up signatures from our neighbours. Coming after the water drilling fiasco, I wasn’t happy and told her so. Under no circumstances was I going to waste any more time trudging to Gesa in Palma or the Ayuntamiento in Andratx. If anyone wanted electricity they would have to get it themselves.
That’s not how it got translated, however. Word soon got round that here was I, a newcomer, who had bought a house knowing it didn’t have electricity, now demanding ugly poles and wire be erected on beautiful land for my own selfish ends. Before I realised what was happening, Gunther invited me for the first time into his home to soften me up. He was keen, he said, to show me four big ship batteries he had installed in his kitchen, rigged by cables through the roof to a solitary solar panel. He pointed to an electric light bulb hanging desultorily in his kitchen and said this was all the light he needed. That wasn’t the finish of it. Outside his back door, he proudly pointed to an arch of used plastic water bottles, connected, spout to tail, each to the other, which dripped water warmed by the sun into a washing-up bowl. This was Gunther’s way of heating water and I was inordinately impressed. He then took me back inside and said he didn’t want electricity to come to the valley. So this was what the conducted tour was all about.
‘Gunther,’ I said, ‘I totally understand, but I am not talented like you. I am not able to devise ingenious green solutions to the major problem this valley faces, which is the noise from diesel generators and your diesel generator in particular. It pollutes the air and kills the tranquillity of this place.’ I felt myself warming mightily to my grievance. ‘And what’s more, what’s the problem with having wooden poles carrying electric cables? They’ll blend in and be hidden in the trees? I bet we won’t even see them.’
At this, Gunther threw back his shoulders and spat. ‘You’ll see, there’ll be neon lights and strip joints all the vay up the valley if electricity comes.’
‘Now, Gunther,’ I said soothingly, ‘you know very well we won’t have strip joints.’
‘You vait and see,’ he hissed.
The next day, I was shopping in the village when the second wave came. Francine sidled up. ‘I want to speak to you,’ she said menacingly. As Francine had been stony-faced for weeks I wasn’t surprised she’d been delegated to diss me.
‘People don’t like you,’ she began, launching into a peculiar little war dance. ‘Why don’t you sell up and go? You’ll get plenty of money for your house, you can go and live somewhere else where you’re not so big.’
I think she meant where I was not so well known, but it seemed rude to interrupt her. ‘You’ve only been here a bit, we’ve been here twenty-five years, you bought your house knowing you didn’t have electricity, how dare you now try to bring it to the valley when we don’t want it?’
I didn’t think now was the time or the place to remind her that she was being hypocritical, driving as she did to the port each day to use a friend’s electricity to wash and iron her clothes. No, that was too petty on a busy village street. ‘Are you leaving?’ she demanded.
‘No.’
‘You should.’
As I’d had a master class in cattiness from women who were experts in the field, the so-called ‘bitches of Fleet Street’, Jean Rook of the Daily Express and Lynda Lee Potter of the Daily Mail, who had regularly and gleefully dissected my every move, Francine’s outburst was, to say the least, tiddly by comparison. Only when she burst forth with ‘A lot of people feel great resentment towards you, you ought to be careful because you might find your house threatened. It could be burned down,’ did I snap.
‘That’s a lynch mob mentality, Francine.’
It didn’t deter her. She then delivered what she considered a blinder. Her voice quivering she said, ‘Ultima Hora,’ – a local Spanish newspaper – ‘says you’re finished in television.’
Oh really?
‘Well, Francine,’ I finally said, ‘tough.’
This is probably when I should have left Mallorca. My bolthole had been uncovered, along with bad feelings from my neighbours, but I wasn’t the kind of person to give in. In any case who was going to look after Jake and Kendi? No one I’d come across here.
It was one of those warm late September days, of figs and fennel, when Boris re-appeared. He’d come to build new walls to keep out prying eyes.
‘Ve can’t have you going through that nightmare again, can ve?’ he said as he and his gang set to.
seven
Alentisk bush quivers. A stonechat, sitting on a twig, is devouring berries as Kendi and I scramble past following a dried watercourse into the mountain. It’s tough going. Every kind of prickly shrub has decided to spike us. There are dozens of hedgehog plants or ‘nun’s pincushions’, as they’re called in Mallorca, and higher up tree heathers and carritx grass scratch my arms. I’m taking Kendi into the hills because she is unused to the world and frightens easily. There won’t be too many dogs en route, I hope, but we seem to have got slightly lost. The path we’ve followed into the torrente is obviously a sheep track so we’ll have to start to climb out soon.
Kendi doesn’t stray far until we come to an almond grove or a long stretch of smooth track where she can unleash her legs and run. The pleasure she gets from expending her energy is captivating. She puts her ears back and careers off, turning as if to say ‘look at me!’ as she bolts, before hurtling back moments later with her reckless toothy grin.
We’ve come to a sheer rock face and can’t find a way past so there is now no option but to lever ourselves out. Kendi’s back legs are still weak from hours spent chained up, crouching in the dark, so I have to hold her round her middle and haul her over the most slippery bits. For a big dog she is surprisingly light. Soon we’re on a plateau and a well-defined path but Kendi has decided to take a detour into the scrub. I can hear her barking in short sharp bursts. When I catch up she’s staring at something under a bush. She swivels towards me and then, rapidly, turns back to whatever it is she’s found. Come and look, she says. It’s a newborn baby goat which is beginning to bleat. Another worrying call comes from somewhere higher up. On top of a rock its mother has appeared, watching us anxiously. Kendi looks from me to the mother and then back to me. What’s the deal now, kiddo? Kendi’s in no need of a second invitation, ‘Oh, come on,’ I call and she skedaddles past me up the mountain slope.
Once we’re through the tree belt, the ground turns to shale and rock with little vegetation. An occasional stunted pine tree, gripping some slight and hidden nourishment from underground, is all that stands between us and Gibraltar. The panoramic view at the top is unexpected and magnificent. Over to the island of Dragonera, down to the rocks of Cala den Basset and round to the pine forests stretching the length of the sierra, there is no one in sight. Stone casitas dot the slopes and here and there sheep bells in the lower pastures float up on the wind. I’ve brought a bottle of water which I share with Kendi out of cupped hands
and then, once we’ve marvelled at our prize, we bounce down the mountain by a different route.
There are carob trees with fresh new growth on the lower slopes. In September the carob is a two-tone tree with waxy evergreen leaves and brighter lighter foliage appearing once the deep brown pods of the carob have dropped. Once these carob beans were a valuable food source for people and animals. Now so many just lie rotting on the ground.
The aroma off the pine trees hits us first on the way down the mountain and I can hear dogs barking so I put Kendi on her lead. She’s confused about her role on these walks. Should she stay and protect me or run? Being in an enclosed kennel was an easier option for her where she could be fierce knowing nothing was liable to come in after her. Out in the big wide world she’s just plain scared, and sometimes so am I. Most Alsatians or Mallorquín shepherd dogs are chained or, in more remote areas, kept behind a high wire barrier to guard house and grounds but boy, when they see another dog walking by they are at their most ferocious, leaping and clawing, ready to tear us and the fence apart. Kendi does what she can, springing up and down growling and snarling at the end of the lead all along the length of the fence, which I know is mainly for my benefit because I can tell she’s terrified and wants to be out of here.
I’m trying to take it in stages with her, not going too far into the hills, but even so, on a day like this, she returns to the house and flops. She has long brown toes, graceful digits, which give her an extra spring and which she plonks on my lap whenever she fancies a cuddle. Jake, meanwhile, has found a ready accommodation with Kendi. He’s in charge. Just to make sure she knows who’s boss, he’s taken to giving her a sharp clout when she ambles past his favourite chair. Kendi, good-naturedly, skids off with a wag.
The men have hung their shirts on the old olive as they work on the wall. The wall is to be curved round the back of the house as Boris has ideas that I will have a swimming pool in the middle and needs it to be enclosed. He has some interesting slabs of white fossilised stone he found at the builders’ merchant and wants to know if he can use it on the inside of the wall. I think it will be lovely, reminding me of a seashore, even though a swimming pool will be a long way off.
Mario is digging soil, harrowing it into a heap so that he can spread it at the base of the new wall and grow roses because, he tells me, they are a treasure trove for insects. Ants love roses, he says, because they harbour aphids and with aphids, also, come birds like nightingales. Butterflies love to drink rose nectar so all in all it’s my duty to get digging. While Mario tends to the wildlife, Rafa carts cement blocks for Boris to assemble. The men have a rhythm to their work, although Rafa snatches long moments of deep sleep when he thinks no one is looking. I’ve often come across him, his red head resting on his shoulder, on the bench under the olive. I sometimes wonder if he is as strong as he appears.
I am preparing, bit by bit, to leave the island to cut and assemble the Juan Carlos film in the UK. I’m unable to put it off any longer although I am anxious about Kendi. She’s started crying when I leave her tied up in the dark shed at night. I can hear her whining in the stillness as I walk back to the house. It is more than torture.
One evening there’s a glorious sunset when Boris and his guys finish work for the day and as I walk Kendi home she resists the lead. People are out strolling in the cool air as we pass a patch of prickly pear in some rough ground. This cactus happens to be old and gangly with flat green paddles covered in malicious hairs. Nico sees us and calls out. Kendi lifts her head and takes off towards him, catching me off balance, landing me up to my neck in cactus spikes. My face, hands and legs are pierced with tiny poisonous hairs, which I can barely see yet have to somehow extract. After my earlier brush with the caterpillars, I am beyond consoling.
Nico, however, is laughing. He’s amused Kendi thinks so much about him. In spite of my discomfort I can’t help myself. ‘Look at this lovely dog, she thinks the world of you. Why can’t you let her out of the shed so that she can be with you some more?’
Nico, crestfallen, looks hurt but says quietly, ‘Yes, I will do as you say,’ but then, instead of letting Kendi run round, he ties her to her old kennel, she wagging her tail at him.
‘But Nico, why can’t you just let her be free?’
Nico says, softly, ‘My father, he won’t let me.’
A popular Spanish magazine, has somehow stolen pictures from my Juan Carlos film. It has managed to pirate video highlights of the movie, which it has clapped on each copy to lift sales. ITV’s lawyers have been called in, there’s to be a meeting with the magazine in London but the story is now out and it is stirring controversy,
For starters, the Spanish media feels it’s been shafted. Here’s their King, choosing to give his first interview, not to them but to me, a Brit. Arguments rage in the newspapers between the old mannered elements of Spanish society who are vehemently opposed to their King appearing like this on TV and those just itching to see what all the fuss is about. We’ve had to release some promotional photos to the British press that have also been plastered over every Spanish daily newspaper. There are pics of me with Juan Carlos sitting on a bench in the grounds of the Zarzuela Palace, others of us laughing on his boat and me pointing to the choke lever on his motorbike. Snooty editorials in the conservative press steam over this latest display of informal and, in their view, bad behaviour.
Meanwhile our erstwhile Spanish TV partners who had so cavalierly demanded their money back when they walked out of the deal, creep back to ask could we, please, keep quiet about their involvement. They suddenly realise that they’ve blown it, whether the King spoke Spanish or not, they had a scoop and it’s going to make them look real dumb if news of their tantrum and their bad business decision leaks. This makes my day, and also ITV’s, because it means as the controversy mounts the film grows in value and can be sold to the highest bidder.
While I’m busy working on the film trying to get it ready for airing, I’m called to London for a meeting in the gilt-edged offices of ITV’s corporate lawyers to discuss tactics before the guys from the Spanish magazine arrive on the morning plane from Madrid. We’re seated at an oval mahogany desk listening to the confident tones of the lawyer who has calculated the amount the magazine made out of its pirated videos and says he’s going to demand in excess of £500,000 in compensation for economic loss. ‘Not a cent less,’ is how he puts it. Everyone nods. It all sounds right and fair.
There are three of them representing the magazine who shake hands politely and apologise for the late arrival of their plane before they’re asked to join us at the oval table. Our lawyer immediately lays into them with a lecture on their appalling behaviour and a swipe at Spanish journalistic practices in general as they become more and more agitated. Finally one of the Spaniards can’t hold back. ‘What we’ve corne all this way to do is to negotiate,’ he shouts, ‘what we’re involved in here is a negotiation!’
Our lawyer tries to smooth things over, the last thing he needs is a walkout, ‘Okay, okay,’ he says as tempers are restored, ‘all right: we’re involved in a negotiation.’
For some reason the guys from the magazine remind me of the Andratx officials who wouldn’t let me have electricity. I have an odd feeling these smart little suits are about to spring a surprise.
For the next six hours round that oval table the Spaniards ‘negotiate’ until finally one of them looks at his watch and announces. ‘We have to leave, we have a plane to catch. We’re going to make an offer. Ten thousand pounds. Take it or leave it,’ he says.
Our guy is aghast. ‘This is utterly ludicrous,’ he says, but then adds, ‘we’ll need to talk this through with our clients, but, well, it’s ridiculous.’
The Spaniard says, ‘All I can tell you is if you decide you’re not going to take the money you’ll end up spending four or five years in a Spanish court and it’s highly unlikely you’ll get what you’re looking for. In any case, by that time we’ll have closed the magazine down and started up
another, so make up your mind.’
Finally, our lawyer takes us, his exhausted clients, into another room to ‘discuss’ the offer but the outcome’s obvious. When we return, he mutters, ‘We’ll take the ten thousand.’
It is difficult not to be impressed at their nerve.
With the magazine out of the way, the wrangling over whether or not the film should be shown in Spain moves up a gear as publicity continues to stoke a nationwide appetite. Eventually Spain’s state broadcaster cracks, announcing it would assume ‘the duty’ of screening A Year in Spain to the Spanish public. It would broadcast on a Sunday in January, but wouldn’t commit to an exact time. On the day of transmission, viewers had to hang on all day until close to midnight waiting for it. When the film finally made the airwaves, in the early hours, it recorded the biggest viewing figure for a documentary in the history of the country. And in Britain eight million people tuned in, not bad for a film ITV bosses hadn’t, in the beginning, rated.
But before then I manage to take a break from cutting the film to get to Mallorca. It’s November and already Mario’s roses are shooting up my new wall. I’m not quite sure what colour or even what variety of rose he’s planted, because he’s been indulging in the usual lucky dip in the local plant nursery. The description on the ticket never matches what actually pops up. Magenta ends up as yellow, ramblers refuse to vault and although I know roses are supposed to do well in hot climates and certain climbers are better than others I’m not convinced this new planting is going to be a success. Roses seem a bit incongruous in the middle of an almond grove but it’s the thought that counts.
I have been looking forward to emerging like a moth from the cocoon of my editing suite hoping to steal a bit of summer so late in the year as the months up to Christmas in the Mediterranean can be glorious. The island doesn’t disappoint. On my arrival the weather is calm and serene, the kind of stillness artists crave, although any attempt to sketch the lemon tree in my garden is hijacked by Kendi’s more pressing need to go exploring.