Andy checks his watch, with the two of them still standing there. ‘We were wondering if you might, you know, come down there with us and translate, if you can speak Spanish that is? Only we don’t have much time, see.’
Not going too well, is it, this ‘more time for ourselves’ plan? I’ve only been back a day. And quite honestly he could have phrased his request more politely. Still, I have some time this morning, before seeking out Jimi and Janis, so why not? They must be talking about ‘Auntie Vera’ as we christened her when we first arrived, Antonia to her friends, neighbour of Leopard-skin woman. We were devastated to hear she was selling up, as our days are brightened considerably by the pair of them, even though we only understand a fraction of what they are telling us as we pass by, but smiles and laughter are always the order of the day. Antonia is only moving to the other end of the street to live with her son, up by the hairpin bend, so we will still see her from time to time, but it won’t be the same. Everything changes, as they say.
And I wonder if Babs and Andy have been warned what to expect, house-hunting, Spanish-style? The homely aroma of fresh-baked bread, or percolating coffee, will not waft past their nostrils, that’s for damned sure. We were greeted by a dead-man’s breakfast, and the imprint of his corpse in the bed, at our first viewing. No such horrors will greet them in Antonia’s, hopefully, unless Pirate Pete crept into her bedroom last night, un-noticed, and croaked, but still, her house is like a cross between a church and a shrine, complete with a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary lurking in the corner. You don’t get that in Henley-on-Thames, as far as I’m aware. So, should I warn them? Andy is checking his watch again, clearly in a hurry, a habit he is going to need to lose if he ever wants to move to this country, unless he intends winding up as a gibbering wreck. Nah. Let them find out the hard way….
‘Right, let me splash some water on my face’ I smile, ‘and we can get down there.’ Emerging from the bathroom, I can see Chrissie gesturing surreptitiously in a tell them about the Virgin Mary way, or she might just have something in her eye, or wind, who knows, and who cares quite frankly, as Andy steals another glance at his watch, so I open the front door, to be confronted by Loli. ‘GOING DOWN TO LOOK AT ANTONIA’S HOUSE, NEIGHBOUR?’ she hollers, on the off-chance that anyone this side of Granada was unaware of my plans, which I only formed within the last minute. We have long suspected she has our house bugged, but how she translates our indoor conversations into her native tongue is beyond us, or MI6.
Nodding serenely, but wishing secretly I could have our crazy neighbour committed, or tranquilised at the very least, the three of us head down the street, to be confronted by another welcoming committee consisting of Ferret-woman, Leopard-skin-woman, Pirate Pete and of course, Auntie Vera herself. ‘Is there an asylum, or some sort of institution, near here?’ Babs whispers. ‘We only arrived in Malaga yesterday, drove straight up here, but everyone seems, you know, completely barking mad. Why are they all just staring at us? Don’t they have anything to do?’ Wish I had time to explain Babs, but your husband has just checked his watch again, and you do look like you’ve stepped of the set of ‘Baywatch’, fifty miles from the nearest beach, but we are here now, so in we go.
Antonia apologies profusely. ‘Sorry I don’t speak any English, and your friends don’t understand Spanish, so I sent them up to you! Pasa, pasa!’ Which means ‘come in’, I am guessing. Gesturing for my new acquaintances to follow the little old Spanish lady inside, I turn and wink at Leopard-skin woman, and step over the threshold. This is going to be good. York Minster has a gift shop, but I am willing to bet there are fewer religious artifacts per square foot in their emporium, than there are in this house. With big heavy curtains across the front door, and the windows shuttered, I lurch into the gloom and almost collide with Babs, who has stopped dead, in sheer utter amazement. ‘Bloody hell, is this a church?’ she whispers, under her breath.
When I was a boy I always wondered at the meaning of the song ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ Marching in where, precisely? And now, fifty years later, I know where. Antonia’s house, Castle Street, Santa Marta, Andalucia, Spain. Over twenty of them, at least, ranging in size from a couple of inches to over a foot, on every available surface, a dresser, side tables, shelves, with religious pictures adorning every wall. I have been in here a few times and it always takes me by surprise, so what our new friends must be thinking I have no idea. Catching Babs’ eye, I nod my head imperceptibly in the direction of the Virgin Mary, standing regally behind them in the far corner. She follows my glance, then screams spectacularly as she focuses on the figure, grabs Andy who has also spotted the image, and the pair of them lurch drunkenly into me, almost scattering a dozen figures in their wake. By a miracle, I manage to retain my footing, and Antonia’s saintly collection remains unscathed, although I receive a painful kink in my spine for my trouble. Babs is clutching her heart and has gone a deathly shade of white, while Andy utters the ‘Eff-word’ under his breath. What our elderly neighbour is thinking I cannot begin to imagine, although a burst of Anglo Saxon is beyond her translation skills, I am praying. ‘There are not usually saints in British houses’ I smile, by way of explanation, a statement Antonia seems completely unable to come to terms with, although at that moment the peace is further shattered by a loud burst of machine-gun Spanish as Leopard-skin Woman pokes her head through the door, having no doubt been alerted by the commotion. Babs again jumps spectacularly, then turns to me, ashen-faced, beseechingly, as if all this is somehow all my fault. Yeah well, at least she isn’t looking at a dead man’s egg and bacon.
The remainder of the viewing passes in somewhat of a haze, particularly for our new British acquaintances, who seem totally shell shocked by the experience. Lounge, kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and outside space are all inspected in a state of complete unreality before we find ourselves once again confronted by the Virgin Mary, and the burning question. How much is Antonia asking for this cathedral, with a small house attached? Time to show Andy that, yes, I can actually speak Spanish. More or less. ‘Quanto questa, la casa?’
The little old Spaniard smiles sweetly. ‘Quattro.’
Quattro? Four? Surely not. Four thousand euros? Spanish numbers I find confusing, but surely ‘forty’ is ‘quarenta’? So what else can ‘quattro’ be? No way is she asking forty grand for this, so it must be four. And if it is, I am off home right now, scrape together every single euro in the house, be back in two minutes with the deposit, then max out our credit cards and return by nightfall with the balance. Tell Babs and Andy she is asking thirty. Andy senses, perhaps, my confusion. ‘How much did she say?’
I take a deep breath. Annoying, aren’t they, consciences? ‘Er, not sure, exactly.’ I turn to our neighbour. ‘Quattro?’
‘Si.’
Bloody hell. My ship has just come in, after all these years. Has to be worth at least twenty, even with Westminster Abbey thrown in. Winter in the Caribbean beckons. ‘Quattro meel?’ Four thousand?
‘Auntie Vera’ throws back her head and roars with laughter. ‘Neighbour! Not meel, mee-lee-onay!’
Mee-lee-onay? Millions? Surely that is impossible. Something has gone badly wrong with my Spanish translation, although enquiring the prices of things is an everyday occurrence and surely I should have mastered it by now? Apparently not. Four million? I narrow my eyes and shake my head, indicating I have maybe misunderstood. ‘Quattro mee-lee-onay?’
Our lovable neighbour smiles patiently, takes my hand, and traces a four, followed by six zeros, confirmation she is indeed asking four million for this unremarkable lump of Spanish real estate. My senses are reeling. Maybe the saints, and the Virgin Mary, are included in the price. Perhaps they are priceless artifacts from a bygone millennium, even though they look identical to the ones on sale in the Chinese bazaar in town.
‘I thought you said you could speak Spanish’ whispers Andy, accusingly.
I turn my head and focus my best Paddington Bear stare in his general dir
ection. ‘She is saying four million is the price’ I growl, which elicits incredulous gasps from the Oxford contingent, hopefully shutting them up whilst I get to the bottom of this riddle. I focus again on Antonia. ‘Euros?’
This time she screams with delight, convulsing into laughter. ‘Neighbour, not Euros, pesetas!’
PESETAS? WHAT? For a few seconds I am too stunned to speak. Pesetas? How long ago did Spain join the Eurozone? Has to be a decade. There are no pesetas here, apart from a few old coins we found hiding in the bottoms of drawers in our house. We have lived here for just over a year and the word ‘peseta’ has never once come up in any aspect of our existence. So why is she quoting pesetas now? OK she is elderly, maybe she still thinks in the old money. I know I do, and Britain lost shillings and pence in 1970 or thereabouts. ‘FIFTEEN BOB FOR A MARS BAR?’ was one of my utterances on our recent UK visit. But a house is not an item of confectionery, and I would never use ‘bobs’ to a foreigner, although many of the ‘Village People’ here are particularly unworldly, rarely venturing outside the province, let alone the country. Maybe she thinks we understand. So is there a parallel currency in operation here? Is this maybe a tax fiddle? Does she have a huge stash of pesetas under her bed, or buried in the garden? I guess we will never know. But I can at least attempt to discover how much four million might be. ‘How much is that in Euros?’
Antonia is now sitting down, no doubt recovering from the shock to the system this visit by English people has been. She shrugs, and grins. ‘Don’t know!’
Well that solves that then. ‘OK, I am going to the library later, I can ask them there about it.’
The look of utter horror on her face is a picture. ‘JONNEE NO! DON’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT MY HOUSE IN THE LIBRARY!’
Well obviously I wasn’t intending to be specific, just mentioning that a little old lady was selling her house for four million pesetas, and did anyone have any idea how much that might be in real money. So maybe it IS a tax fiddle, with her not wanting the authorities to find out? Perhaps she already has the hole dug, although I have to say I didn’t see anything suspicious in the garden. Perhaps she has it covered with sticks and leaves, like a Pooh Trap For Heffalumps, intending to slink silently down there in the dead of night with her sack of swag.
Andy checks his watch for the umpteenth time. ‘Right, we have to get going, thanks for your help’, and he turns to Antonia. ‘Muchas gracias’.
‘They are going to look at some other houses now’, I explain to our bewildered-looking neighbour, and we stumble gratefully out into the daylight, where by some miracle the crowd has dispersed. Phew! No Spanish Inquisition required. As we stroll back to our place, where Babs and Andy will carry straight on for their meeting with the estate agent, I whisper that I will enquire at the library, in general terms, about the pesetas. ‘Pop back tonight if you like, we can have a drink on the terrace, have a catch-up.’
‘So how much do you think that place is worth?’ Babs enquires, ‘give us some idea what to expect with the others we be looking at.’
I puff out my cheeks. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if it was twenty-five grand’.
Andy giggles. ‘Would that be groats, florins, guineas, or Euros?’ and he shakes my hand, Babs pecks me on the cheek, and they amble off up the hill to their meeting.
Right, I need a sit-down, recount the extraordinary tale to Chrissie, grab my laptop, and seek out the company of Jimi and Janice. There is still time, if I get a move on.
Wrong! Chrissie is full of her latest discovery. ‘There are dozens of artists’ canvasses down by the bin, just dumped there’ she explains breathlessly. ‘Proper professional canvasses, like you see in art shops, stretched out over wooden frames. Some have been painted on, some are blank, but they must be worth a fortune.’
I greet this news with less than enthusiasm. I cannot draw for toffee. I am all right slapping up a coat of gloss, and I did get GCSE Art in school, but that was for ceramics, not painting. ‘What, thinking of starting a new hobby, are you?’ I chuckle. ‘Thought you had enough on your plate with the garden?’
‘Not me you plonker’ comes the reply. ‘I thought our artist friend might like them.’
‘Artist friend? What artist friend?’ I have absolutely no idea to whom she is referring. Totally baffled.
She smiles sweetly. Always loves these little battles of the sexes, does my wife, contests she invariably wins. ‘Phil, the chicken-man?’
Blimey, I’d forgotten the father of John, Paul George and Ringo, formerly known as Bossy, Flossie, Bessie and Jessie. Spanish ‘ens, who turned out to be geezers. I vaguely recall, one drunken evening last year, after being plied with strong cheese and malt whisky, being shown round his ‘studio’, an attic room containing brooding, disturbing depictions of women in various states of undress. ‘Do you shell many of theeshe?’ I recall slurring. ‘None yet, but don’cha worry, mate, I will’ he optimistically predicted, gazing deeply into my eyes, arms round my shoulders for balance.
‘Go down the bin quickly, before someone else nabs them, and see what you reckon,’ Chrissie continues, ‘give him a call if you think he would like them.’
Not gonna happen, is it, Hendrix and Joplin? And this time for myself is going well, too. Shooting my wife a hunted look, I grab my phone and head down to the refuse, where indeed several dozen canvasses have been thrown in a haphazard heap. Some have already been started, modern, cubist representations, not to my taste, but Phil can always paint over them, I believe. Didn’t Michelangelo do the same thing? There is also a large frame picturing a golden retriever sitting on a path somewhere, the unknown artist has captured perfectly his wide doggy grin, tongue lolling, his ruff glowing in the sunshine. The only problem is the scale of the background, it is too small to my admittedly untutored eye. The dog resembles a Jumbo jet coming into land. Wouldn’t like to come face to face with the creature on a dark night, that’s for damn sure. Still, the eye of the beholder and all that. I whip out my phone and call the Londoner, who seems supremely keen on the haul, and he promises to be right with me.
I suppose I had better shift the paintings away from the bin slightly, first come first served of course, so I need to claim them as mine. Incredible what people will throw away. Much of it complete rubbish, old beds and sofas, crappy chipboard furniture. But just before our holiday we picked up two canvas deck chairs, almost new condition, together with a five-gallon wooden wine barrel, complete with stand. I cut a hole in the top, Chrissie planted it up, and it now resides on our ‘El Sombrero’ patio, where it gives off a wonderful alcoholic aroma, as well as a floral display. The best of both worlds. And these canvasses, I have no idea how much they cost new, but at say a fiver each there is over a hundred Euros worth here. Or a thousand pesetas if your name is Antonia. There are too many to carry them back to my place, so I start to shift them a few yards away, when suddenly a tortured, squealing sound rents the air behind me. Startled, I turn to see a diminutive, hairy figure on a bicycle hurtling down the hill, gripping his brakes in a vain attempt to bring the ancient conveyance to a halt. Boggle-eyed, he steers majestically around the bend, and finally comes to a breathless halt on the uphill section. ‘Blimey Phil, you need to get your brakes adjusted!’ I laugh, ‘and best of luck carrying two dozen paintings on that bike!’
‘Nah worries mate, I was just up the hill when ya called’ he puffs, mopping sweat from his brow, and eyeing his prizes. ‘These look great though, ta ever so much, can we shift them to your house, then I can come back with the car?’ Indeed we can, and by another miracle we manage to transport the goodies to our place without attracting the attentions of the local populace. Not a single Spanish housewife is sweeping or mopping the street, which must be a first in this dusty old town. Ten minutes later he returns with his battered Ford Escort, we load the frames into the back, and after more grateful thanks, and the promise of a ‘little nip’, which I fully intend holding him to, he chugs off up the street.
Right. Half ten. If I re
ally get a serious move on, I can copy the two CD’s to my laptop before the conversation class begins at eleven. Wrong! ‘Neighbour! What you doing?’ Juan, ‘The Dustman’, dragging his rubber bin behind him, puffing up the hill for his morning break. ‘Morrow loco!’ he cries. Indeed. Juan is a lovely man, always keeps us abreast of local events, but the problem is his teeth, or rather the lack of them. Which makes deciphering his utterances all the more difficult. ‘Loco’ is crazy of course, so clearly something crazy is happening, but ‘morrow’? Not a clue. ‘Tomorrow’ is he saying? No, can’t be, everyone knows the Spanish for ‘tomorrow.’ Manana. Man-yanna. The most popular word in the dictionary. Usually with Juan I have to wing it, and I have to say I usually get there in the end, but today I am stumped. ‘Your friends house’ he continues, no doubt sensing the hesitation in my reply. ‘Your friends house, the street below, puerta rotada.’ Broken door? Blimey, but whose door? ‘Gracias, ya boy’ I tell him, which means I am on my way, apparently.
Chrissie to the rescue again. ‘What about Janie and Nigel?’ Oh hell, I forgot about Janie and Nigel, they have a holiday cottage on the hairpin below us, had it for a few years, and manage to get across for a week or so at a time, as they are both still working. Luckily we have their key, to keep an eye on the place, which I have singularly failed to do, but I only got back yesterday. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it, so grabbing my phone and Nigel’s key, I head rapidly down the zig-zag, to their house, unsure of what I might find.
As I near the bend, I can suddenly hear metallic clanging, irregular banging, certainly not a tune by the Bee-Gees, or Elton John. No, someone is beating the hell out something. As I approach Nigel’s, all becomes clear. A wild looking man is hitting an aluminium soup ladle against the wrought iron around the window of the next-door cottage, as you do. A tall man, same height as me but smaller about, mid-thirties maybe but difficult to tell exactly under a mane of shaggy hair and unkempt beard, clothes he has clearly been sleeping in for a month or more, and shoes with his filthy toes poking through. He turns towards me, waving the ladle menacingly, and bellows ‘ROO-SEE-YA!’ Quite. My thoughts entirely. Is he shouting ‘Russia’? Does he think I am from the Former Soviet Union? Is this the famous morrow loco? Certainly seems that way. Determined not to appear intimidated, but equally keen not to be beaten over the head with a kitchen implement, I fish Nigel’s key out of my pocket, craning my neck to confirm that someone has indeed broken open the wooden door of the next house. ‘Inglaterra’ I smile politely but firmly, and unlocking the door, I disappear inside, bolting it securely behind me. And blow out my cheeks. As my heart rate returns to normal, I take a tour of the house, checking for signs of intruders, but thankfully all seems well. OK, dilemma. Do I tell Nigel someone has broken in next door. I don’t want to worry him unduly, but I feel he should be aware of the situation. Difficult one.
Sunsets and Olives 2: Back to Spain...... the madness continues! Page 4