by A Long Walk in the High Hills- The Story of a House, a Dog
From Na Popia the view of the ocean and the island’s vertical cliffs is staggering. There are hawks everywhere, rare Elenora’s falcons catching the currents, soaring high, gracefully sweeping the cliff edge. They nest here before migrating to Madagascar for the winter. Lucky birds.
When I get back the boat is anchored a little way off the shore. Rick is in the water with his mongrel, doggy-paddling beside him. The sun is high and the water inviting. Like an eager mermaid, slipping from the rocks into the depths, I’m soon at the boat and aboard. Luigi is pleased with the speed and sound of the engine so he’s gone off on a more gentle amble to the southern lighthouse and will be back soon.
Rick and his dog only have eyes for one another. Rick tells me the usual tale of how he found Pip tied without shade in the hot sun and starving when he was working on a building site. He sneaked back one night, cut Pip’s chain and took him. Pip now follows him everywhere. ‘But what if you have to go back to England? ‘I want to know. ‘You’ll have to put him in quarantine or leave him behind.’
Rick shrugs. ‘I’m going back soon,’ he says, ‘and Pip’s coming with me. I can’t afford quarantine. I’ll smuggle her in on a boat. Everyone does it.’ Pip gazes up adoringly.
Luigi, back from his walk, shouts from the shore for Rick to coax the boat to the jetty. There’s just time for our picnic and afterwards, with the hot sun directly overhead, we start the engine and bounce wildly back over the waves to the Port.
It is because of the sensation of a cool sea in a hot summer that I’ve started day-dreaming about a swimming pool at the house. Boris has been clever, of course, leaving me enough space in the centre of his high stone wall. The thought of slinking into my own pool on a July night is ridiculous of course. How can I ever contemplate such a thing when I don’t have electricity?
Only a couple of weeks after my trip to Dragonera the mountain behind my house begins to glow. It has a strange orange halo over it and I can’t quite work out why. These July days have been impossibly hot, made worse by a dry wind blowing from the Sahara, parching the grasses and unsettling the animals in the fields. Now it is night, the wind hasn’t fallen and the sky flares and falters in the west. It must be a forest fire; it can’t be anything else. There is nothing between me and the coast except thousands of hectares of pine trees and scrub. Somewhere in there a fire has begun.
Friends who have come to stay are getting edgy. They are in their bedroom, nervously watching the mountain as smoke begins to fill the valley sucking the smell of burning towards us. They have to leave, they say, fearing if they don’t go soon, they’ll be trapped.
The strength of the blaze, I’ve decided, must be colossal. The orange glow has now turned glossy crimson as the mountain on fire appears to pulsate. ‘Perhaps if I get you to the airport I’ll be able to get back here to see what can be done,’ I suggest. They don’t hesitate, now desperate to get away from the flames wrapping the hill.
Thankfully Kendi is in her kennel, out of the valley, but I’m worried about Jake. I need to catch him and get him to safety, but as I load up the car Jake doesn’t respond. I pray he’s in the house, hiding from me, as usual.
I’m at the airport and back in under an hour as villagers arrive to help. It’s a fire at the monastery of Sa Trapa, they say, and it’s spreading fast, heading to the valley. It won’t be long before it reaches the village. In the glow from the distant blaze, I can make out Mario and some other fit young men who have turned up, nerved to act. They have scythes and other sharp implements and are making for the far side of the nearest hill to try and cut a fire path through the scrub, to attempt to block the route of the flames. They have to do something, they say, and can they take my chainsaw, which is hanging in my garden shed?
The police, the Guardia Civil, has barricaded the track to prevent people getting too close, but this hasn’t stopped those on foot circumnavigating to offer support. We’re hearing there are fires all over Spain. A blaze on Ibiza has meant one of the two planes scrambled to fight our fire has had to be diverted. The Canary Islands also have massive forest fires. Mainland seaplanes have been sent there. All we’ve been left are volunteers from the village and the local fire brigade, whose vintage engine has taken up position outside Lauren’s home. It has no access to any water.
The young couple with a baby who have rented Lauren’s house for the summer have taken fright and driven off. Gunther and Francine are out in the valley, so too are Emmy Lou and her friend Joleen who, having taken a rake from my shed, are marching up the road following Mario. I can hear horses in the fields higher up, whinnying. I still can’t find Jake in the commotion but if I leave the doors of the house open, hopefully he’ll come in, soon, for cover. Panic is building as the fire, now uncontrollable, begins showering ash.
I’m finding it hard to remain inactive, behind the police barrier, waiting for the worst. The knowledge that Mallorca is so ill-equipped to deal with a catastrophe like this is incomprehensible. Soon the fire will be on us. I cannot hang around any longer so I catch up with Mario and the guys on the north slope of the next hill, who are hacking back dried branches and rangy shrubs. The men are speedily working in an organised line clearing a way through the pines. Emmy Lou is standing with the rake, like Boadicea, watching as Mario frantically breaks branches with his hands trying to halt the impending devastation. Another young man is using my chainsaw to slice through a tree which together we manage to roll further down the hill.
Suddenly there are shouts that a helicopter has arrived with a bucket to douse flames. The wind has also started to back down. No one is sure what to do next, it could be dangerous for those of us exposed on the hill so quickly we all move to leave, reaching the valley bottom just as hell descends.
I have never been so close or seen or heard anything in my life quite like it. The wind having backed, suddenly decided to veer again, sending the fire raging over the high mountain top down into the torrente towards us. The flames, which were now funnelled, charged past the sheer slopes of the valley, tumbling and growing, exploding over every tree. The fireball then leapt up, took out the hillside we had just been working on, and then suddenly retreated. What happened in those few minutes was remarkable, the wind had changed direction several times in a couple of minutes, finally whipping round to drive the fire away, away from the valley but searing those standing close by as it passed.
Now, however, we had help: a sole helicopter was on the case. He clattered over the valley with a bucket slung under the fuselage which he targeted on the blaze. Back and forth he flew to cisternas in the village, taking up water to finish off patches of fire which kept surfacing on the hill. All night long the pilot worked, beyond all safety limits, ferrying water until only plumes of curly black smoke remained.
As dawn broke that morning, the air remained grey in the burned-out almond groves. Skeletons of ancient olives, hundreds of years old, smouldered on for weeks, the fire at their heart fed by the oil in their sap. On the hill we had tried to protect, stone walls once lost in vegetation, now stood clear, along with traces of time-worn footpaths. Everything else had gone, leaving a stark hillside delineated with the bare terraces of centuries long gone. I didn’t think then, but certainly realised now as I looked at the force the blaze had wrought in minutes how stupid I had been to fight this fire and how close I had come to losing my life.
‘Monster Forest Fire Horror, Homes Evacuated in Selina Scott’s village’ said the local paper that day, but for me the horror was in the loss of my lovely cat, Jake. Jake never returned that night or the following morning, although I looked everywhere in the house for him, under the beds, in the bread oven, climbing the hill to see if he was hiding somewhere. There was no sight and no sound. In the days following I searched and searched, eventually advertising for his return. In an island inundated with stray cats, it was a forlorn hope. I never saw Jake again but in my better moments tried to believe he had charmed his way into someone’s house and they were now caring for him
as much as I did. Even so, I never lost hope that I might find him again.
As for the saviour of the valley, the helicopter pilot, who gave so much in such frightening circumstances, a thanksgiving celebration was laid on in his honour. The women, Emmy Lou among them, cooked and baked and organised. On the day, however, a Saturday, our hero was held up and, arriving late, discovered that the banquet had gone, it had been eaten up. Fine words were all that were left, along with a couple of sausage rolls.
The forest fire was a disaster for Mallorca. Although everyone was convinced the fire had been started deliberately in the old monastery of Sa Trapa, the fact that the island, in spite of its wealth, couldn’t deliver equipment to cope with an emergency on this scale became a trigger for action. A new fleet of spotter planes began patrolling the summer skies looking for fire, signs went up over the island warning against the use of matches, and a local law forbidding bonfires in the summer months came into force. Vigilance had finally taken hold, although it was too late for the mature pine forests and old olive groves that had informed the beauty of this part of the island. Now, for miles along the western coast, the stumps of pines jagged on the slopes punctuated this area of outstanding natural beauty.
In all the anger following the fire, perhaps the only person to feel a certain satisfaction was Gunther. For years he had been castigated for letting his goats wander the valley stripping the ground of plants until it turned brown and bare. Now was his moment. If it hadn’t been for the goats clearing the hills of a fire hazard, Gunther regaled, none of us or our homes would be here today.
eight
Unfortunately Carter seems to have killed my plum tree with his heavy-handed pruning. The haircut obviously hurt. The tree started weeping heavy drops of sap out of every cut in January and by June it was dead. I never saw Carter again. If I had I’d have scalped him. Soon after the massacre of my hundred-year-old plum, Carter left Mallorca to take up horticulture in Mexico. His mother, Emmy Lou, cooed how Carter, her talented boy, was particularly gifted with plants.
After the forest fire I returned to work, travelling to the US to set up my next project, a documentary on a secret journey King Constantine was planning to Greece to give his young family the chance to experience a summer in a homeland none of them had ever known and which he hadn’t visited for longer than twenty-four hours in twenty-five years. We would fly to mainland Greece and then board a boat to sail through the Aegean, a trip which promised fireworks because the King, exiled after a military coup a quarter of a century back, had decided not to tell the Greek Government of Mitsotakis he was returning. It was, to say the least, an audacious move by this ex-head of state, who knew he was not at all welcome. To conduct, all these years later, an undercover mission to the country of which he was once King was pretty obviously the stuff of headlines. Not that ITV, who commissioned my documentaries, saw it that way. They simply could not envisage why anyone outside Greece would be interested.
Which was just as well. I had a feeling there’d be firecrackers and wasn’t particularly keen on stirring up another media storm in the UK so soon after the film on Spain. When America with an eye to its massive Greek population snapped up the idea instead and assigned me two crews, I felt oddly relieved. If there was to be a fuss better it be Stateside.
With my itinerary now sorted, and just before filming began, I managed to get back to Mallorca.
It is getting so I don’t know what to expect when I turn up after a few weeks away, but on the balmy morning of my arrival I am thrilled to see Kendi running round her enclosure. Nico is with her, feeding the goats, ducks and chickens, happy to tell me he always lets her off her chain so she is able to stretch her legs. What a turnaround. When Kendi spots me she does cartwheels, vociferously letting me know, as if I don’t already, that it’s great to have me back and for God’s sake, get me out of here. Nico doesn’t seem to mind this exuberance, he’s laughing as he goes to get her lead so that soon Kendi and I, together, career up the track, she with unfettered pleasure, towards my shuttered house.
While Kendi canters round the field, I wade through the debris of dropped petals and leaves to unlock the door and let the sun shine in. More than anything, the smell of this house, when the doors creak open after a time away, is immediately soothing. I think it has to do with old stones and oiled wood absorbing heat that penetrates through the floors and roof, mixing with the lavender hanging in bunches from the beams. It is just like being in an old oak cradle.
Except this time, Jake isn’t here. I miss the adorable Jake most of all in the mornings, but through the tears I have decided there’ll be no more cats coming to live here, adept at worming their way into my life, desperate to be my one true friend. I can hardly blame the breed of cat that inhabits this island. Apparently Mallorquîn cats came over on boats from Egypt centuries back, the kind of cat Cleopatra might have had with their regal profile and intelligence. When I hear of kindly folk in other parts of the island who start off feeding a few and end up coping with dozens, like Emmy Lou once did, it keeps me awake at night.
Luckily and blessedly, Pepita in the village has stepped in to help feed the Siamese kittens living in the garden next door. She knows them well, as there were once thirteen. She got landed when her neighbour died and his two pet Siamese were turfed out. Over the years these two cats brought back litter after litter for Pepita to feed. Only five from this original family have survived, all with creamy coats, smudgy black and brown paws and eyes of ice. The father of this brood prowls his territory beating off interlopers while the mother cat feeds and sleeps with her kittens, all curled round one another, in a discarded metal trunk. This is her second batch of kittens in a year. The first all perished so I know if I don’t feed them and stop the females getting pregnant this latest litter won’t last a winter. It’s not what I would have wished my first task back on the island to be, particularly as I don’t have much time, but some things can’t wait. I have to tackle their father, the big torn, first.
Sancho is in his backyard sorting crates when I show up with the cat trap again, baited with a morsel of chicken. Tom cat, who has sharp eyes in a broad head, is all of a swagger but when he saunters up to sniff the chicken he somehow senses trouble. He pads round, paws the cage, jumps on it, shaking it with his sudden weight, and then shoots off as the trap suddenly clanks shut. Sancho starts to chuckle from behind his crates of empty bottles.
Plan B. I reckon the piece of chicken isn’t tempting enough. If I was a greedy male I’d need more than a morsel to get my juices going, so I’m back to the butcher for a whole half. If this doesn’t get him in, nothing will. When Mr Tom eventually reappears his nose is twitching. He marches straight up, can’t believe the chunk sitting there and rushes in. He’s caught. The door has banged tight behind him. As the cage spins up into the air, torn cat turns into a tiger, snarling and spitting to be out. Sancho reappears and calls out ‘¡El gato, magnifico!’ But it is too late. ‘Oh, tragico, muy, muy tragico,’ he moans as torn cat and I head to Petra.
It didn’t take long and I’m sure it didn’t hurt because Tom is raring to go after his quick nip, catapulting into the plumbago on his release. When he shows up again it isn’t with malice. He gobbles and growls as I dole out his food and carries on beating off all cats who dare put a paw on his patch. He certainly hasn’t lost all his cojones.
The rest of his gang I manage to collar in the days ahead and when Pepita offers to feed them when I’m away, I feel this little family has finally been given a fighting chance.
My coming and going from Mallorca makes me do things I would never contemplate if I lived full-time on the island. Like finally building a swimming pool, for which I blame Boris totally. His arty walls, made with a pool in mind, enclosed a space which when he’d finished looked bereft. The roses faltered. Planted against a south-facing wall in heavy clay, they couldn’t cope with the scorching sun, but it was the cracks in the new walls that finally did for me. What began as hairline fissures soo
n sprouted ants’ nests, which sent their inhabitants swarming up and over everything. The ants branched out into the rangy roses, they tunnelled under the clay, emerging every now and again carrying an egg in their front claws to kick off yet another nursery in a more spacious residence further up the line. It was as though Boris had built the wall especially for these resourceful creatures. There was nothing for it but to build a new cool blue pool and move the wagon train on.
Except Boris has gone to ground. He has another project, he conveniently announces, the reconstruction of an old corn mill which will take many years to complete. I think he guesses what lies ahead. So Mario, Rafa and Carlos disappear up another dirt track to the top of a nearby mountain where a similar derelict bolthole beckons. Only Cedric is offering to stay, as long as someone else digs the hole, because Cedric’s out of the game for a while. He’s broken his leg tripping over the dog.
Can you build me a pool this year? I ask Ignacio Ramirez, another local builder. Yes. Are you certain it will be ready for next summer? Of course. And what about electricity? Do you think I will ever manage to get a supply to my house? Yes, definitely. I will do this for you. You will? Will it be soon? Yes. Are you sure? Absolutely.
One of the most disconcerting traits of a Mallorquín is his ability to never tell you the truth straight up. I now know this; I didn’t then. I think it has something to do with politeness and not wishing to offend. So he doesn’t say ‘no’ but instead procrastinates by telling you ‘yes’.
And so it was I decided to go ahead with the mad folly of making a pool without a proper source of power. Do you think the generator will work the jets to circulate the water? Of course. How long will I have to run it to keep the pool clean? Oh, mas o menos, quatra horas (more or less four hours). Are you absolutely sure? Yes. There will be no problem.