A Long Walk in the High Hills

by A Long Walk in the High Hills- The Story of a House, a Dog

  It is hard to admit but I am beginning to appreciate Gunther’s finer points. Used to working in television, an industry stuffed with so much insincerity and effusiveness, Gunther’s candour has taken a little getting used to. I just wish he had a bigger stage on which to display his talent for reinvention and his many and varied dramatis personae.

  I also have a feeling he’s up to something again but I haven’t yet figured out what. I’ve noticed car headlights wobbling along the track at about five in the morning, illuminating, raggedly, the high hills all round, and a grumpy Gunther complaining about the noise of generators in the warmth of an afternoon. He’s obviously heavily into his siesta but why, I haven’t yet been able to fathom.

  It is a quiet afternoon when Kendi and I pluck up the energy to go visit Gunther. At the entrance to his farm an iron bedstead tied to a wooden post with a lump of twine is hanging open which means Gunther’s in and doesn’t mind visitors. Which isn’t the same thing as welcoming them. The lumpy track leads down a hill, passing Gunther’s thriving cannabis plants, before ending up right on his back doorstep.

  Latin music wafts from within and there’s some thumping going on but I can’t yet see Gunther. He is, however, in there somewhere.

  ‘Hola, Gunther,’ I bellow through the kitchen door.

  The music stops and shortly, heading towards me in the cool gloom, is what looks like a bad-tempered satyr. It’s Gunther, a skimpy shirt open to his tummy, held in by a pair of footless tights. He’s wearing ballet pumps.

  ‘What on earth are you up to, Gunther?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m am dancing,’ he says.

  From round the corner Francine pokes her head, similarly kitted out in a floral skirt. I feel as though I’ve hit a bad patch of private grief. ‘I’m sorry,’ I offer, ‘I thought I might be able to talk to you about Kendi.’

  ‘Vy?’ demands Gunther.

  ‘Well, I was wondering, as you are an animal lover, whether you would like to have Kendi come live with you?’

  The moment the words fall out I know by the look on Gunther’s face, it’s not going to happen. Francine, seeing my difficulty, tries translating. If we take the dog, she tells me, it will run off back down the valley to Nico again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  I want to say Kendi won’t run away and hasn’t in all the time she’s been with me but by now I know it’s useless because they don’t want this dog. I am deflated. Gunther was my last hope. Kendi’s puzzled too. She’s by my side, looking at him, her ears in knots.

  ‘What kind of dancing are you doing?’ I try being polite, changing the subject in case I crumble.

  ‘The tango,’ declares Gunther. ‘Soon I go to Argentina to take lessons from a master so I can come back and do exhibitions round the island.’

  ‘Really?’ I begin to rally.

  The tango is arrogant, fiery and demanding, a dance of the night. Kendi’s used to more refined activities, preferably during daylight hours. I don’t think she’d be at all keen on coming to live here permanently. There is nothing more I want to say or Gunther needs to add so I say how sorry I am to disturb them and Kendi and I sidle off. I couldn’t put you through that, I reassure her as we skip along home.

  It is not long after my encounter with the dancer in Gunther the gaucho, I run into Boris coming out of the bank who excitedly tells me he has leased some old sheds on the outskirts of Andratx which he intends to turn into an art gallery where he can sell his paintings and start a cultural centre. ‘You’ll be able to get Gunther to come and do the tango for you,’ I suggest helpfully. ‘He’s into exhibitions.’

  ‘That is not funny,’ says Boris.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I tease, ‘Gunther’s get-up doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It’s very sexy. You’ll pull in the crowds.’

  For a moment Boris considers his erstwhile friend as a hot Latino lover but then spits, ‘Oh, I hate him to his guts.’

  A couple of days after Emmy Lou’s Thanksgiving party a lightning storm slices through the island and rivers run along streets and through fields. A waterfall pours over a stone boundary wall which has never seen such water in its life and the ducks and geese in Nico’s compound think they’ve gone to heaven. The rain doesn’t let up for two days, soaking into the earth, muddying the roads and just as it begins to dry, Ignacio’s digger rolls up the road to gouge out a trench for electricity. Two metres down it claws through sodden soil and rock, pulling up bucketloads of gunge to get a clear run at Ramon’s and then work stops and nothing happens for ages because Gesa hasn’t turned up with the electric cable. Everyone with homes beyond the devastation, which means includes me, has to leave cars and bikes and walk. Health and Safety would have a fit if they saw this deep slippery chasm. It is no place for a night-time stroll.

  Despite our imploring Ignacio insists he cannot carry the trench on a bit further while the digger’s here because he doesn’t have permission from the council yet, so Heinrich hires his own JCB from Palma and in a day digs up the road from his house to Ramon’s and links the two trenches. Now the whole stretch of track is impassable. Ignacio explodes, threatening retaliation, which pleases Heinrich no end. Heinrich then buys a cable from Gesa which he lays in his trench and insists Ignacio connect up to his. There’s now a standoff. Ignacio says he can’t and won’t. Heinrich says you will. For some reason Heinrich wins.

  Once the cable is safely embedded all along the road from the football pitch via Ramon and up to Heinrich and the road infilled and made good, Ignacio then gets permission to dig it up again so he can fulfil his promise to bring electricity to us. His JCB gets to work once more, scouring out rock making sparks fly, and we go through the whole performance again. Mud and delays and angst but what joy when finally I can switch on a light without first engaging with a generator. The two handsome electrician brothers from the village fix the wiring in the house, moving in with a mound of coloured wires and connections and leaving behind a new fridge, cooker, dishwasher and hair dryer. Bliss.

  Our switch-on means Ignacio can get his own back on Heinrich because Heinrich makes the mistake of trying it on again. He slaps in a demand for us to pay him to connect to ‘his’ electric cable. Ignacio feels this is so bad he has to deliver the news to me personally. I commiserate as he goes through the whole sorry saga of who said what because this is Ignacio’s big moment. He has on a cerise cashmere sweater and smells even more expensive. Did I know, he leans in, conspir-atorially, local people prefer you, the English?

  I say, ‘No, I didn’t, but, well, that’s nice.’

  ‘Not people like our friend.’ I presume, by this, he means Heinrich. Ignacio then says Heinrich wants ‘mucho dinero’ from me.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he says grandly.

  I don’t know what Ignacio says or does but not long afterwards word gets round that Heinrich has sold up and shoved off leaving us all with hard-won harmony in our illuminated valley.

  Heinrich’s going coincides with the arrival of some new Germans in the village who have come independently and couldn’t be friendlier. They’re both, interestingly, chefs and so the village has two more eating places which means the pretty restaurant which is always busy opposite the church has competition. Dietrich from Hamburg has staked everything on the lease of the old grocery shop near Lorenzo’s bar while Detmar from the former Communist East wants to barbecue ribs in the back garden of a grand house he’s bought higher up the street. It’s an exciting time as everyone rushes to book tables, checking in so that they can be one of the first to pass judgement on this unexpected culinary boom.

  Dietrich is by far the finer cook of the two, inventive and talented, using simple fresh fare from the countryside to wow his clients. He and his wife Ingrid soon turn the grubby little shop into a cosy and imaginative restaurant with soft lights and delicious food. Detmar further up the village is altogether more commercial. He’s cheaper for starters and has decided that a charcoal fire with a straightforward
and unchanging menu will pull in the kind of customers he’s looking for. Tables in the garden are soon booked up although he’s run into a spot of neighbour trouble. The angry parrot in a cage in the next-door garden is so fed up with the invasion of noisy folk, not to mention the smell and the smoke, he’s set up a particularly unsavoury and loud squawk in retaliation. Which does nothing to enhance the ambience.

  The restaurant opposite the church, meanwhile, has at least one happy and content customer. A black-and-white kitten found dodging traffic in the square now kips down in a cardboard box under the large, red hibiscus in a big pot by the front door, having taken enthusiastically to living à la carte.

  Which is all very lavish compared to the food my bunch of Siamese cats are being given across the street. The nearest they get to haute cuisine is an occasional lump of cheese, preferably mahon from the island of Minorca, which is stronger than the local variety. One of the kittens goes crazy for it, reaching up to place her paw in mine in the hope I might relent and give her more.

  All five Siamese now share their lives with a grey striped young torn who arrived dejectedly one afternoon at teatime. He has a squint and was not in great shape so I took him to be neutered and wormed and now he’s a loving and affectionate cat, who appreciates home comforts too. He also has a blanket in a box but daren’t move far in case an interloper pops in and nicks it. The Siamese tolerate him but somehow, because he is alone, he looks forlorn. He also has a cough. All the cats here have coughs. I’ve called him Jim.

  Jim knows my moods and when I’m happy he is, purring and pirouetting. When I’m feeling a bit low, he leans against me and sometimes follows me along the road to make sure I’m going to be okay which is why, in spite of his squint, I’m very fond of him. I had no idea cats like Jim fell in love until Abulita came along.

  Abulita is brown and black and dainty and she’s much older than him. She must be getting on for fourteen. She was once the pet of an old lady who lived in a house down the road but because of her sudden ill health was sent off to Palma and put into a home. The old lady’s house with all her antique furniture and lace curtaining was sold, but the person who bought it didn’t spare a thought for her cat, and she ended up fighting for survival in the village. The first I knew of Abulita was a plaintive meowing on top of the dustbin at the road end. She was hungry, and had had at least two litters of kittens since fending for herself; the first litter had all been run over. She kept dashing from the house to the dustbin looking for food and what remained of her kittens. It was all too much for an old girl with only a few teeth left. She was easy to catch and handle and soon, she too was neutered and nursed back to health and sleekness in the garden with the Siamese. All her kittens, by then, had died, but Jim was still around.

  I don’t know whether she thinks Jim’s one of her long-lost kittens, but he’s in no doubt about her. He adores her. Wherever she goes, he goes. She licks him, cleans him and he sits there and lets her. They eat together, sleep in the same box together, their limbs wrapped round one another. He is her toy boy and now that Abulita has found a home she, like Jim, stays put. I have, or rather Pepita now has, seven cats to care for.

  I would like to hug Pepita for her steadfastness in feeding the cats when she has so much to do in her own life. Her youngest daughter Pia is having a baby. It will be Pepita’s first grandchild and the whole family is looking forward, excitedly, to the birth. Pia helps in the bar in the morning, getting up at five to open for the labourers arriving for breakfast at six. Bocadillos are a favourite, toasted baguettes with a thick slice of jamon serrano with pickled capers on the side. Beer and cinto très, the local brandy, are consumed this early. No wonder everyone warms to Pia and looks forward to her unaffected welcome. From the moment she pulls back the shutters there’s a cheerfulness about the place.

  Francine too has turned warm. Maybe it’s because I’m proving hard to dislodge but she is now offering help. Her earlier threats to smoke me out have been forgotten and she is suggesting she speak to Nico about taking care of Kendi while I am away so that, in effect, Kendi will be in quarantine with Nico on and off for six months. I will pay for her food but she will be in familiar surroundings until, Francine says, I can take her with me to the UK.

  I’m not going to enlighten her by telling her I have no intention of taking Kendi with me, but her offer coming at just the right moment eases the strain. ‘Do you think Nico will agree?’ I ask. Francine is certain he will, particularly if I provide for Kendi. ‘Will you keep an eye on her for me while I’m away?’ She says she will and I am grateful. Francine’s olive branch is especially welcome as I reckon six months will give me enough leeway to renew my efforts to rehome Kendi.

  I can’t imagine Kendi ever living in Britain, she loves the sun so much, but it’s mainly because I can’t actively think how I’d ever manage to get her there. Contemplating Kendi in a crate, being loaded into the hold of a plane, makes me miserable. She’s nervous under normal circumstances. Fireworks upset her and whenever a gun goes off she whines and shivers, tucking up against me, trying to get into any dark cupboard so she can hide. I also know she witnessed her little brother being shot by Nico’s father when he wouldn’t stop chasing chickens, so how she’ll cope with jet engines I can’t imagine. I’ve already spoken to Petra and been told tranquillisers can’t be given to animals on planes so the question of taking Kendi to the UK is, for me, totally out of the question.

  A desultory collection of letters making up the word ‘Bon Nadal’ has been slung across the village street, the first indication anyone gets here that it is Christmas. With the decision taken about Kendi I’m going to try and enjoy these festive days and, like the locals, contemplate the year’s end leisurely with none of the freneticism of a Britain in full gallop round the shops.

  Christmas is more a church event than anything. Which is how it should be, of course, but things start hotting up the moment the old year becomes new, at midnight, when twelve bells strike the hour and twelve grapes are swallowed for luck accompanied of course by loud firecrackers exploding in the night sky over the port.

  Like Northern Europe, it gets dark very early here in the Mediterranean, which makes the arrival of the Three Kings in their boat at San Telm on the evening of the fifth of January all the more eye-poppingly dramatic.

  By the light of a winter moon, across a black rippling sea, Los Très Reynos are guided to shore laden with gifts for children. Baltazar is black and turbanned, shining with embroidered gold and purple robes which flow behind him as he strides across the pebbled beach, followed by Melchior with his long white hair and a white beard and Gaspar with his green jewels and gold cloak. They mount glistening black horses, feathered and plumed, prancing in anticipation at the fast ride, cantering over the hill into the village, showering sweeties on children lining the route before giving out gifts to each one of them in the Square which will be opened the following morning. The carnival of the three kings is only the beginning. The year will be packed with fiestas kept fresh and exciting by the energy and innocence of local people, helped of course by the blessings bestowed by the weather.

  If the nights in January are dark and long the days are exquisite, protecting a secret only a few are let into. Britain may be shivering and grey but here the sun can be stolen in peace for almost a month. It is always hard to return to the UK at the start of the year but I have to be back in Britain before the month is out to sign papers for the farm. This means Kendi will be left to lodge with Nico in the cooler months and only for a short time so I’m beginning to feel fairly relaxed about it.

  It’s 17 January, only a week to go before I leave, and the feast of San Antonío, the patron saint of animals, when children are encouraged to bring along their dogs, cats, donkeys, ponies, canaries, to be blessed in church. It is a touching scene, this procession of children, boys and girls with their fathers and mothers all dressed in their best. Behind children riding ponies, or carrying small dogs, tractors pull trailers loaded wit
h goats and sheep, bales of straw and the occasional rabbit. I guess when times were really tough and animals essential to the survival of a farming family this feast was a genuine thanksgiving. No matter how hard I try I can’t shake off the way abandoned animals are actually treated here; something, I’m afraid, which follows me around.

  Next morning Kendi and I are outside the bar in the sun, having a tisane, a tea made from fresh herbs which Pepita keeps in a glass jar behind the bar. Kendi has her nose in the dust, and most of the tables are full. The clock strikes eleven. A car comes down the hill towards us, going quite fast but slows as it nears and the window is wound down. A man in the passenger seat throws something into the square and revs off. Soon a plaintive wail comes from behind the hibiscus pot outside the restaurant and a small ginger cat runs for cover. It manages to get into the vestibule of the next house but the inner door is closed and now the kitten is frantic, scratching and clawing, desperate to be let in. Not one person outside the bar bothers. For a moment I wonder if this kitten actually belongs to the people who live in the house but its terrified yowls leave me in no doubt. As no one else seems willing to do anything, I have to go over and pick up the creature. Its little heart is pounding. What on earth am I going to do now?

  When I ask if anyone enjoying their coffee on this sunny day will take the kitten because I have to leave the island in a couple of days, no one wants to know. So, the morning spoiled, Kendi and I take the kitten now purring in the palm of my hand back to the house and begin the forlorn task of phoning everyone I know. All of whom have cats. One has seven and another is feeding twenty. She’s the one who suggests if I can’t look after the cat myself I’ll have to put it to sleep. It will be kinder all round, she says. Which is just great, as the kitten makes itself at home in an easy chair intending to stay for ever. In desperation I phone the animal sanctuary in Palma and get Isobel from Santa Ponsa on the line. She is sorry, she says, but they’ve been forced out of Palma and are trying to set up a new shelter near the airport. They can’t take any more strays right now but she’ll ring round her helpers and see if there is anything anyone can do. So many cats get dumped like this, she commiserates. I tell her she is literally my last resort.