The mayor approached the wooden box that Geronimo had placed for him. He stepped up and the two distinct groups of villagers fell silent.
“Good evening,” he said. “Today I come with good news for El Hoyo. Señor Alejandro Fernández Rodríguez has generously agreed that his land may be used for an extension to the cemetery. The land will remain legally in the hands of the Rodríguez family but the village has been given permission to use it indefinitely.”
The crowd buzzed. Alejandro Senior stood with his arms folded, beaming benevolently.
“And that is not all,” continued the mayor, holding his hand up for silence again. “I have another announcement. Señor Alejandro Fernández Rodríguez has also generously agreed to pay for the work himself, out of his own pocket. His team will draw the plans and take care of all the construction.”
“Bravo! Bravo mi amigo!” shouted Paco, breaking the stunned silence and strode across the square to his old friend, clapping him on the back and pumping his hand.
As though Paco’s shout was a signal, the village square became a mass of cheering, handshaking, hugging and kissing as families merged and congratulated each other and Alejandro Senior. Dogs barked. Geronimo took a huge swig of beer from his bottle and Marcia allowed herself a little smile. I saw Alejandro Junior make a beeline for Sofía and they stood, arms wrapped around each other, Sofía’s head resting on his shoulder as the crowd seethed around them.
“Perfect!” I said to Joe. “The perfect solution! Alejandro Senior gets to keep his land, but lends it to the village. I wonder how Mother pulled that one off?”
“We’ll have to ask her,” he said, smiling.
So we did. We popped over to the next village, a few nice bottles of celebratory red in our hands and knocked on Judith and Mother’s door.
“Come in, m’dears!” said Judith. “So you’ve heard the news? Top-hole, isn’t it? Mother and I are sitting outside. Let’s open those bottles and have a little drinky-poo.”
The evening was still warm as the sun went down and stars began to pop out. When the dogs had calmed down sufficiently for us to talk, I asked the burning question.
“Mother, how on earth did you manage to change Alejandro Senior’s mind? We’ve heard he can be very stubborn.”
Mother smiled to herself and sipped from her glass, taking her time.
“I’ll tell ’em!” said Judith. “You appealed to the silly old man’s vanity, didn’t you, Mother?”
Mother nodded and blew a smoke ring into the night air.
“Mother suggested he keep the land in his name, but let the village use it. Well, the old codger wouldn’t agree to that at first. So Mother said, what about if he had the extension built himself so he could control it and designed some big fancy gates with his family name worked into them.”
Mother smiled.
“He liked that,” she whispered.
“Mother, that was inspired!” I said admiringly.
“Brilliant!” said Joe, then pulled a face. “I just hope in future generations that his family don’t claim the land back. They’d have to dig up all the deceased and move them.”
“Well, it’s all sorted for the foreseeable future,” I said. “A job well done, Mother! Thank you.”
As a million stars flickered above us, we raised our glasses and drank a toast to Mother, Alejandro Senior, future generations and the new cemetery.
With our Australian family’s visit drawing ever closer, Joe and I tried to spruce up the house a little. Naturally this was yet another opportunity for a domestic disaster.
I guess it was all my fault because there was nothing really wrong with our toilet seat. It was just old and I wanted a new one. Joe agreed. Although it was perfectly serviceable, we’d had it for nine years since we’d first built the bathroom back in 2004 when we moved to Spain.
The next time we went down the mountain, we visited our local DIY store. We headed straight for the bathroom section and gazed with awe at the dazzling display of toilet seats fixed to the wall. Such choice! Transparent ones, coloured ones, ones with seashells, zebra-print ones … even one that glowed in the dark.
“Just a plain one, I think,” I said at last.
Joe agreed and we picked out a handsome, black, wooden seat and carried it to the checkout. It cost 35 euros, which seemed rather a lot, but it was a good quality seat, heavy and polished.
“Are you sure it’ll fit?” I asked Joe.
“Of course it will! Toilet seats have universal fixings. I’ll fit it as soon as we get home.”
True to his word, he removed the old toilet seat and attached the new one. He was right, the fixings were correct. At first sight, the seat looked good. It wasn’t exactly the right shape, but only an obsessive toilet inspector would have noticed. Joe hurled the old seat, plus the packaging of the new one, into the village dumpster.
It was only after Joe had tested it that we discovered a fault. The seat and lid had a habit of slamming down without warning, especially during mid-flow, which he found most disconcerting. He put up with it for a few days, but after a few near-misses, he decided it had to go. The seat was threatening to inflict permanent anatomical damage.
“I’m going down the mountain to get another one,” he said, “and this time I’m going to get the right shape.”
“Don’t you want to take some measurements?”
“No, I know now that we need a D-shaped one. Don’t worry, I’ll recognise the right thing when I see it.”
He returned with a plain white seat, even more expensive than the black one. In case we needed to take it back, we unwrapped it carefully, tearing open the plastic wrappings but keeping the box intact. Joe tried it for size. Perfect.
He removed the black one, then howled with dismay. The new, white seat was the right size and shape, but the fittings were completely wrong.
Luckily, we’d kept the receipt and the box, so Joe repacked it and went back down the mountain. When he came back, he was empty-handed and shaking his head.
“It all went wrong,” he said. “They wouldn’t give me my money back because it was missing the inside plastic coverings. I just left it there, it’s no good to us. And they didn’t have any others that would fit our toilet, so we’re stuck with the evil black one.”
All in all, if one included the cost of petrol plus the price of the useless second purchase, we had spent nearly 100 euros on our new toilet seat.
There are times when I am very glad I am female.
“Mum, we were thinking that it might be nice to invite Luciano out to Spain at the same time as when we are there.”
Luc (pronounced Looch) was one of my daughter’s greatest friends from university. I’d met him for the first time at Karly and Cam’s wedding in Australia. He’d travelled out from the UK and formed an important part of the bridal party as her ‘bridesman’. Not to be outdone, Cam also had his old friend Hayley as a ‘groomsmaid’.
At the time, bride, groom and many of the bridal party stayed in a house on the outskirts of Sydney, which had been rented for the wedding. Space had been scarce, so my niece Becky and I shared the bottom tier of a bunk bed, while Luc slept above us. Such intimacy in our living and sleeping arrangements meant we got to know each other well and I was delighted at Karly’s suggestion that Luc should visit us in Spain.
Luc was duly invited and he accepted immediately. He had a passion for driving, so instead of flying straight into Almería airport, he decided to hire a car and drive from Málaga. It would be a trip of many hours, but a good opportunity to see something of Spain and compare it with his native Sicily.
Preparations were now in full swing and I was so excited to be seeing the little family again. Ten months had slipped by since I’d last seen Indy and I knew she would be a very different little person from the baby I’d left behind in Melbourne. Those ten months of separation had been hard, but eased a little by the daily photos winging their way from Australia to El Hoyo. They showed Indy smiling, then crawling, th
en standing. I could not wait to cuddle her again.
We borrowed a highchair from a friend in the next village. We already had a stroller, a paddling pool and a travel cot.
When I’d finished cleaning the rooms, I fetched the cot and opened the box. It all came out in one piece and as Simple Assembly, No Tools Needed was written in big letters on the side of the box, I imagined erecting it would be a piece of bizcocho (cake).
It came out of the box as a single unit. Releasing a few clips, I was soon gazing at what looked like a disjointed tripod. I pulled. I pushed. I searched for hidden switches, buttons or levers. I turned it upside down and tried again. And then I admitted defeat.
“Joe! Come and give me a hand. I can’t get this wretched travel cot up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Joe, coming into the room. “Look, it says, Simple Assembly, No Tools Needed on the side. Here, give it to me, this’ll take seconds.”
I pushed it over to him and watched, arms folded, toe tapping, eyebrows raised. He pulled. He pushed. He searched for hidden switches, buttons or levers. He turned it upside down and tried again.
He’s going to blame the design now, I thought to myself.
“There’s obviously a design fault,” he said, scratching himself before he abandoned me.
So, for the third time I battled and failed again.
I went downstairs and typed in the travel cot brand on the Internet. Up popped a YouTube video entitled ‘How to erect your travel cot in less than 30 seconds’.
I watched in awe. So that was how it was done! Pull out the end struts, pull up the base and hey presto, it all snapped into place! I ran back upstairs and tried it. It worked!
“Joe, come here, I know how to do it!”
“Really? Show me...”
Joe entered the bedroom and watched my performance. Pull out, pull up, snap! I was even faster the second time.
“Well,” he said, admiration in his voice. “I take my hat off to you. How did you work that out?”
“Oh, natural intelligence, of course. You know, a woman’s intuition.”
Not a mention of my friend Mr Google. My nose probably grew by 12 inches.
I checked everything for the last time. I paid particular attention to Luc’s room, remembering how clean and tidy he had been in Australia. I checked the jars of baby food, toys, towels, buckets and spades, the food in the fridge, special baby milk…
I also checked the pile of wrapped presents, birthday cake, balloons and bubble makers. Indy would be celebrating her first birthday in Spain.
27. Highs and Lows
Luc’s Italian Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce
Before our visitors arrived in Spain, they had spent a week in England catching up with other family members and introducing Indy to a host of friends who hadn’t yet met her or Cam.
Their flight from Australia had been horrendous. A couple of weeks before their journey, Indy had suffered from an ear infection. The doctor had pronounced her fit to travel, but he was wrong. The poor little mite screamed for 15 solid hours on the flight. It can’t have been much fun for Mum and Dad or their fellow passengers. Karly and Cam were reduced to walking up and down the aisle trying to pacify her.
After a week in the UK, Indy was back to her usual sunny self. At last the day came for their arrival in Spain.
“Time to drive to the airport,” said Joe.
And then suddenly, there she was, bouncing in her mother’s arms.
I held her, stroked her soft, baby skin, played with her curls and drank in the scent of her, making up for lost time.
Our house came to life, ringing with Indy’s giggles. Floors, once clean and tidy, were strewn with toys and smeared with discarded food. Books were pulled out of the bookcase and papers scattered across the floor. Baby bottles appeared on the draining-board and baby paraphernalia covered every surface. After 24 hours it seemed as though they’d always been there. We loved it.
We discussed their forthcoming move from Melbourne back to Sydney and how they planned to buy a new house with a garden and plenty of space for grandparents to stay. Life was wonderful.
Luc arrived in the tiniest car, sending us into peals of laughter. It looked like a Noddy car and he looked exactly like Enid Blyton’s Noddy sitting behind the wheel.
Luc in his Noddy car
But it was useful having another vehicle. There were so many of us and Indy’s car seat took up a lot of space in our car.
One night, we went to Judith’s village and had a meal at the outdoor restaurant there. It opened at 9 in the evening, which was far too late for Indy to be up. Joe kindly offered to stay home and babysit. We all enjoyed sitting under the almond trees and the food was good.
“Was Indy okay?” Karly asked when we arrived home after midnight.
“Never heard a peep,” said Joe. “She never woke at all.”
Unfortunately, Indy woke up as soon as her parents entered the room. She howled, rather spoiling poor Karly and Cam’s night and it took several hours before she settled again. She was teething, so easily forgiven as most of the time she was a happy baby.
The Spanish are extremely family-oriented. Carmen wondered at how we lived so far from our families as her family had never ventured out of Andalucía and had no wish to. In the village, every new baby was proudly shown off and now I had a baby to show off too. I knew that Carmen and Paco wanted to see Indy and visiting them would be a good opportunity for Cam to see the interior of a typical village cottage. This was his first visit to Spain and, being Australian, he was fascinated by village life, which was so different from his own back home.
“Guapa!” shouted Paco.
“Guapa!” exclaimed Carmen, stroking Indy’s hair.
Indy beamed at her.
“Is she walking yet?”
“No,” I said, “but she crawls really fast.”
To demonstrate, I set her down on Carmen’s floor. Indy shot off at a rate of knots, closely followed by a snuffling Yukky.
I caught Cam looking around the neat little house with its host of family photographs crowding its white walls. No doubt he was comparing the tiny interior with the large, airy, spacious houses of his native Australia.
Our next stop was the village shop. Uncle Felix sat outside and forgot his reticence long enough to touch Indy’s cheek with his ancient, horned finger.
We entered the shop and Cam stared around in disbelief. There was nothing in the shop apart from a counter, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and a yellowed portrait of the village saint. No shelves of merchandise, no freezers full of food, no fresh produce. Not remotely like the supermarkets he was accustomed to in Australia.
“Guapa!” said Marcia and offered Indy a lollypop from under the counter.
Karly thanked her and slipped the lollypop into her own pocket. She didn’t want to start rotting Indy’s teeth before they had even grown. Indy cooed at Marcia’s black cat as it wound itself round the old lady’s ankles.
On the evening before Indy’s birthday, Joe and I inflated fifty balloons and hung them everywhere to surprise her when she came down next day. I couldn’t wait for her to open her presents.
Indy’s birthday
The balloons were a great success and entertained Indy (and us) no end as she chased after and caught them. Of course she was far more interested in tasting the tinsel and eating the paper than the gifts themselves. Eventually each present was opened and then it was time to move outside so she could enjoy her birthday cake.
We put the cake on the ground, in the middle of a large plastic tablecloth decorated with birthday greetings.
Indy’s birthday cake
The idea was that she could dive in, making as much of a mess of herself as she pleased. Unfortunately it backfired a little because Indy was uncertain about the strange looking thing in front of her. Instead of heading for the cake, she turned and headed for her mum. However, after a little encouragement, she got the idea and managed to cover almost every part of he
rself and the sheet with the cake.
A splash in the paddling pool washed off any excess cake. She cooed and gurgled as bits of cake, plastic frogs and ducks floated around her, while she made every effort to empty the pool using a plastic bucket.
Cleaning the cake off the plastic birthday sheet had an unexpected consequence. We hosed it down and left it on a glass table to dry out in the sun. The next morning we found the tabletop had shattered, much like a car windscreen does during an impact. Initially, we thought somebody had thrown something heavy over the wall and it had struck the table. Highly unlikely and no missiles were lying on the ground so we dismissed that theory. We could only surmise that water trapped under the plastic cloth had been heated by the sun during the day and then cooled overnight, causing the table to shatter. Sweeping the garden took forever as the bits of glass had flown far and wide.
Apart from that small mishap, the days were filled with banter and laughter and we loved it. Indy enjoyed sampling the Spanish fruit and soon became a big fan of peaches and watermelon.
Indy wearing watermelon
We never tired of teasing Luc about his toy car, but he was a good sport and took it in his stride.
Evenings were spent eating and drinking outside under the vine. We shared cooking duties and one night Luc cooked us a delicious Italian dish.
All too soon the visit came to an end.
“We’re going to try really hard to come over to Australia this winter,” I told Karly and Cam.
“We’ve contacted our builders,” said Joe. “We want to make sure this house is totally secure so we can come over for a few months.”
“We should be in our new house by then,” said Karly, excitedly. “We should have loads of room.”
“So we’ll probably see you in a few months,” I repeated, trying hard to look on the bright side.
“Time to drive to the airport,” said Joe.
With leaden hearts, we waved our family goodbye.
Two Old Fools in Spain Again Page 19