So Joe started explaining in detail, and slowly I began to understand.
“I’ve just had my 59th birthday, and now I’m racing toward my 60th. I love it here in El Hoyo, but I feel useless. It’s okay for you because you’re quite happy writing, but I want to do something constructive, too.” He paused and sighed again.
“Well, why don’t you start writing the book you always said you’d write?”
“No, that’s not enough. I want to go back to teaching, being with kids in the classroom one last time. Being useful.”
“But you haven’t taught in a school since 1989!”
“I know. I just feel now is my last chance. I’ll never get a teaching job when I’m sixty years old. But it’s not just that, it’s also because of money. My pension is just not stretching as far as it used to. We get a third less income every month since the Credit Crisis and the disastrous foreign exchange rates. We need more of an income to cope with the bills.”
“But where would you teach?” An icy hand had clutched my heart and a thousand questions crowded into my mind.
“I don’t know. Not England. Maybe China, or the Middle East? Somewhere where they pay well. You could stay here and write.”
“What? On my own?”
“Well, you don’t want to go back to teaching, do you?”
“No, but I don’t want to stay here alone.”
My hands were shaking. No! This couldn’t be happening. Joe leaving? Not now when life was so good.
“Well, you managed very well when we first came out here to Spain, remember? You were here for months on your own before I could come out. And the house was a mess then, no bathroom or kitchen, remember?”
“Yes, but...”
“I doubt I would get a teaching job anyway, at my age. It was just a thought...”
We talked through the night, not noticing that most of the guests had already left and the band had packed up. When we got home, we talked again. I slept fitfully.
In the morning, I felt lightheaded and agitated, but I had to set aside the hideous thoughts that plagued me because there were important jobs to do. We had an appointment with Sandra at the vet’s for all three kittens, plus MumCat. The kittens were successfully weaned and it was time for MumCat to be sterilised, ensuring she would bring no more unwanted kittens into the world. The kittens needed vaccinations and the vet would issue pet passports so that the girls could travel to their new homes in Germany. We wanted Chox to have a pet passport, too, in case he ever travelled with us.
I felt like a zombie going through the motions. Catch the kittens, put them in their crate. Catch MumCat, put her in her crate. Check they all had water. Lock the house and leave. Drive to the vet. It was like being on autopilot; my body worked but my mind was detached and churning.
As usual, Sandra had brought an assortment of other cats and kittens that needed attention, including a massive orange tomcat that bulged out of the crate he was being carried in. His name was Big Boy and he was being tested for diseases before they attempted to re-home him. Then it was our turn.
“Ah, I remember you,” said the vet to Chox. “You are Feet of Chocolate, no?”
Fortunately, this time, none of our kittens misbehaved and we left MumCat in the surgery to be operated on. One of Sandra’s cats was also being sterilised, so Sandra, Joe and I went to kill time in a nearby cafe. Sandra told us tales of all the latest cats she had rescued and the antics of her own.
Sandra and her husband lived in an apartment with a balcony, and one of their cats kept getting them into trouble. The people in the next apartment had plastic flowers and plastic trailing ivy on their balcony, and Sandra’s cat would systematically destroy the arrangements, much to their neighbour’s annoyance and Sandra’s embarrassment.
I listened, but wasn’t really paying attention. I kept stealing glances at Joe. Was he serious, or was this just a passing whim? Would he really leave me and Chox and our house and chickens to go and teach in some strange country? How would he manage on his own? How would I manage? An hour later, we returned to the vet who handed over a semi-conscious MumCat.
Back at home, I couldn’t settle. I tried to write but the kittens were being particularly naughty, as though they sensed some future upheaval in their lives. Chox decided he wanted to type, causing pages of Greek to appear on the monitor. Smut and Beauty squeezed behind my desk and began pulling on the cables, resulting in the computer and router sliding backwards away from me.
“Enough!” I said to the little monsters and banished them outside.
MumCat was still sleeping off her operation. She had a row of fearsome looking stitches in the centre of a bald patch down her side, where she’d been shaved. We had to keep her in solitary confinement, so shut her in the bathroom upstairs to give her time to recover. We’d been told to keep the kittens away from her for a few days.
When I’m anxious or preoccupied, I pace. I must have tramped several miles, pacing up and down the kitchen, trying to come to terms with Joe’s bombshell. Joe was in the garden, pretending to read a book. He’d been out there for over an hour, and I hadn’t yet seen him turn a single page.
To clear my head, I started writing one of my famous lists.
For
Probably Joe’s last chance to work
Satisfy Joe’s wish to feel useful and work with kids
Earn some money
Against
Don’t want to live on my own
Will miss him desperately
I chewed the end of my pencil. Lists normally come naturally to me, but this one was not flowing. I looked out over the mountains and imagined not being able call Joe to grab the binoculars to watch mountain goats, or an eagle in the sky. I silently cursed him. Why did you have to turn our lives upside down when we’re so happy and comfortable here? I knew I could just put my foot down, say no, refuse to go along with it, but the damage had been done. Joe had poured his heart out to me, and I had to make the right decision. Let him go, or what? Selfish, selfish, selfish, a voice kept repeating in my head. Joe had come to Spain to please me. Wasn’t it time I did something to please him?
I marched outside. “Joe?”
“Uh huh?”
“I think you should go and search on the Internet. See if you can find any teaching jobs abroad.”
Slowly, Joe closed his book and locked me in a steady gaze.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Perhaps you can find a job somewhere warm. A temporary contract just for six months or so, I think I could manage that long without you if I had to. I’ll just get on with writing the Chickens sequel. I’ll be okay. It isn’t forever.”
“Right!”
Secretly, I doubted there were any jobs to be found. In fact I was banking on that.
The kittens were growing fast and were the picture of health. My Facebook and Twitter friends looked at photos I’d posted up and told me that Smut and Beauty looked like Snowshoe cats, a term I hadn’t heard before. Their fur was longer than Chox’s and silkier, and their colouring was unusual. They were mostly white, but had beige streaks, brown ears and tails and beautiful powder-blue eyes.
Choccy-Paws, once the runt of the litter, had made up for lost time and was now just as big as his sisters. He had the same huge blue eyes, but his markings were all Siamese. He was by far the calmest of the three and the most affectionate. Wherever I went, Chox came too, even just to sit under the grapevine, or to hang clothes on the washing line.
All three were becoming very independent, and the fact that MumCat was locked in the upstairs bathroom, recovering from her operation, didn’t seem to bother them at all.
Smut was the only kitten who had learned to climb over the bucket I’d fixed to the grapevine trunk, and she was now able to leave the garden at will. Beauty and Chox would sit side by side, staring up into the canopy, watching her, but they hadn’t yet succeeded in negotiating the bucket obstacle.
I was forever worried that a villager might ca
tch Smut and carry her away, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. My niece Becky had given all three kittens sparkly collars that I hoped would indicate that our kittens were owned, if found. But being so small, Smut slipped out of her new collar immediately, and short of confining her to the house, I’d run out of ideas to stop her escaping the garden.
In August, our grapevine was a thick thatch of bright green, so dense that the sun could not penetrate it. When in full leaf, it provided shade and privacy, and even The Boys standing on their roof terrace looking down into our garden couldn’t see us. Thanks to Uncle Felix and his pruning expertise, and Joe with his sulphur, massive bunches of grapes hung down, heavy and delicious. Each bunch was the size of a rugby ball, packed with more purple, delicious grapes than we could ever eat.
Our grapevine provided a leafy roof that stretched from the kitchen door to the barbecue area. We set out a long table and chairs beneath, allowing us to sit outside even on the hottest of days.
We wove lengths of fairy lights through the grapevine and on a hot summer night, the tiny lights twinkled through the leaves and reflected off the purple grapes. For me, it was the perfect place to enjoy a meal, better than any restaurant in the world, particularly if Joe had barbecued and I didn’t need to cook.
The kittens enjoyed barbecues as much as we did. When Joe opened the cupboard under the barbecue where the kittens were raised, and pulled out the sack of coals, the kittens appeared from nowhere. As he poured out the coals, they would sit and watch, ears pricked, eyes huge. They knew that before long, some delicious fishy or meaty morsels would be coming their way.
But now, we didn’t have a barbecue planned. All three kittens were safely asleep on one of the living room chairs. Joe was busy working on his résumé. He hadn’t needed to provide a C.V. for many, many years, so it was taking quite a long time to put one together. I didn’t mind; any delay was welcome.
I went outside and looked up at the grapes. Most had already blushed from green to deep purple and I thought that they might now be ready to eat. Something caught my eye amongst the leaves. It wasn’t green or purple, this thing was black.
Puzzled, I climbed onto a chair, reached up and pulled it down. It was a wispy bit of nothing, a little piece of gossamer fabric. I held it up to examine it. It was a thong.
I inspected it further and marvelled. Had I ever worn anything quite so small and wispy when I was young? Embroidered in tiny fancy letters was the word Lunes, the Spanish word for ‘Monday’, but apart from that, there were no clues.
How had it got there? Whose undergarment was it? I hooked it over one finger and carried it in to Joe, who was poring over his computer. He looked up.
“What’s that?” he asked, swivelling his chair round and leaning forward to look. “It’s a thong, isn’t it? Very nice! Go and put it on, I can finish this C.V. later...”
“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s not mine!”
“Well, whose is it then?”
“I don’t know! I found it in the branches of the grapevine.”
“What? How did it get there?”
“I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Do you think the wind blew it there?”
“That’s possible, I suppose. I don’t know how else it could have got there.”
Joe stood up. “Show me where you found it,” he said.
I led him outside and pointed. He squinted up into the branches.
“What’s that?” he said. “Good gracious! I think it’s another one!”
31 Joe’s Shame
Being six feet tall, Joe had no problem reaching up into the grapevine. He parted the leaves and plucked out another thong, shocking pink and shiny. This one was embroidered with the word Sabado, Saturday.
Joe and I looked at each other, trying to fathom the mystery.
“Beats me how they got into our grapevine,” Joe said at last.
It’s funny how useless pieces of information that have been filed away in one’s brain, surface when you least expect it. I’ve often surprised myself by being able to answer a random Mastermind question correctly, having no idea how I knew it. I suddenly remembered something I had read, or perhaps seen on the TV about cats that were chronic thieves.
“Joe, I think it may have been a cat.”
Joe raised his eyebrows. “A cat? What are you talking about?”
“Cats have been known to steal stuff, like washing off clothes-lines.”
“Never!”
“Yes, honestly! I remember reading it somewhere. There really are some cats that like to steal clothes and underwear.”
To prove the point, I went on the Internet and searched. Sure enough, there were plenty of cases reported. Interestingly, many of the culprits were Siamese.
“Listen to this,” I said, reading aloud. “‘...in the past three years, this cat has stolen over 600 items, amassing a growing pile of loot at home, ABC News reported. He’s not choosy. Stolen goods include towels, stuffed animals, gloves, socks, shoes, spongy footballs. He stole a Converse sneaker and returned later for the other one, the station said. He lifted a neighbor’s bikini bottom drying outside, and came back for the top a few minutes later.’ There, you see! It’s one of our cats that’s turned to crime.”
“But MumCat is locked upstairs, recuperating. And the kittens can’t climb over the bucket...”
“Smut can...”
Realisation dawned. Smut! I knew Smut was an excellent climber, but I didn’t know she was a criminal. So Smut was a kleptocat? It was hard to believe.
“I think I can guess who the thongs belong to,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Joe. “Lola Ufarte.”
I nodded. I couldn’t imagine anybody I knew, apart from Lola Ufarte, who would wear such insubstantial under-garments.
Few people in the village had gardens or any outdoor space of their own. We were lucky with our garden and roof terraces, which gave us plenty of space for a clothes-line. In the summer, Carmen-Bethina hung her enormous white drawers to dry on the burglar bars outside her window, and the Ufartes also used their window bars as a drying rack. Joe and I always averted our eyes when we walked past, considering it rude to stare at other people’s laundry.
“So what do we do?” Joe asked.
“Try and keep an eye on Smut, I suppose,” I said.
“No, I meant about the thongs.”
“We’ll have to take them back and explain,” I said.
“You will, you mean. I’m not taking them back.” Joe was adamant.
“That’s not fair, why does it have to be me?” I really didn’t want to be lumbered with the embarrassing task. I grabbed a euro coin. “Look, we’ll toss for it. If it lands with the king of Spain up, you go. Okay?”
“Hang on a second. Is this a case of heads you win, tails I lose?”
“No. I won’t cheat.”
“Okay.”
I tossed the euro into the air and allowed it to drop. It rolled away, wavered, then settled. The king of Spain smiled at me.
Joe looked at it unhappily. “Best of three?” he asked hopefully.
“No, we agreed, so you’ve got the job. Just go round to the Ufartes and explain. Tell them the truth.” I began to giggle. “And you’d better be quick!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s Friday today. We’ve got Lola’s Saturday pair here, so she won’t have anything to wear tomorrow.”
Joe was far from amused but grabbed the little wisps and set off down the street.
I opened my emails and waited for him to return. One was from Sandra Marshall of Alstrays, concerning the re-homing of the kittens in Germany.
Hi Victoria,
Your little girls already have an adoptant! Kerstin in Germany put their photos and your great video up on their website this morning, and within 2 hours somebody had reserved them! This is great as when they travel to Germany they will go straight to their new home, and they’ll be together.
I wasn't sur
e if you had named them. We have called the one with the black on her nose Milly, and the other one Mia.
Sandra x
Of course I was delighted that Smut and Beauty already had homes to go to. Even better, they’d be together. But I was dreading parting with them, and hearing their new names, however pretty, just drove home the fact that they weren’t ours, and that they’d soon be leaving for ever. Thank goodness Chox was staying with us. Imagining him in some other house, snoozing on somebody else’s lap, bringing his dreadful catnip mouse to a complete stranger, was just too painful.
“Well, girls,” I said to Smut and Beauty. “You’d better brush up on your German. You’ve got a lovely new home waiting for you.”
Joe stamped into the house, and his expression banished all thoughts of the kittens’ future from my mind. He was empty-handed so I assumed he had found the rightful owner.
“How did it go?” I asked.
Joe’s mouth was set in a grim line, and he gave himself a vigorous scratch down below.
“Well? What happened?” Obviously it hadn’t gone well.
Joe’s reply was too punctuated with four letter words for me to reproduce verbatim, so I shall try to recreate the sorry scene as he reported it, minus the expletives.
Apparently, he’d reached the Ufarte’s house, but was reluctant to knock on their front door for two reasons. Firstly, he was embarrassed clutching the thongs, and secondly, he certainly didn’t want another incident with Fifi. Since laundry was already hanging on their burglar bars, he decided to drape the thongs alongside the other bits and pieces drying there and swiftly leave. A good plan.
So he looked up and down the street. Nobody there, all clear. Good! He leaned forward and furtively peeped through the window, hoping nobody was home. To his horror, Lola Ufarte was looking right back at him.
Both of them jumped in fright, then Lola vanished, and the front door was wrenched open.
“Excuse me? What exactly are you doing?” she asked, head on one side, hands on her hips, bracelets jingling furiously.
“Oh! I was just...”
Two Old Fools - Olé! Page 21