Sunsets and Olives 2: Back to Spain...... the madness continues!

by John Austin Richards

  Maria is still in translation mode. ‘Fine.’ Actually it’s not fine though, is it, shoving this undecipherable scribble by a left-handed octopus, which contains naff-all information as to amounts and due dates, into our mail box? Don’t they have a printer in this town? And it didn’t even come in the post, someone just shoved it into the box. AND IT’S IN THE WRONG BLOODY NAME. Old Joey Shepherd could be dead, for all we know. And if he is, I guarantee his family didn’t get pissy after his funeral. But I digress. ‘No, it isn’t fine.’ There, that should do it.

  Juan still seems agitated. ‘No no, yees, thees moolta, es fine, es penalty. You no to pay you houses-tax, you must to pay penalty. Moolta!’

  Chrissie and I stare at each other, dumbfounded. WHAT? He has to be kidding, right? We have been fined, for not paying something we haven’t received a bill for? Arriba right over mi cuerpo, as they say in Andalucia. Such an infuriating contrast, living in this country. Only last night, on our evening paseo, we were remarking on the pavement cafe-culture here, tables and chairs occupied by large family groups, all generations together enjoying the warm evening sunshine, and so utterly enchanting, especially when compared to the stress-inducing nightmare of the M27, in the rain. And now this. Down to earth with a colossal bang. Clearly, we knew there would be some form of houses-tax here, and have been expecting a demand to drop into our box in the fullness of time. I referred to it a few weeks ago, when complaining about the apparent inability of the local constabulary to evict Crazy-Man. But for the town hall to issue the communication to the previous owner? Surely they were notified we had moved in? Didn’t Pedro our lawyer do this? Basic stuff, surely, and I can feel my blood, not exactly boiling yet, but on a low heat, certainly. Simmering.

  I need to be careful here, as none of this debacle is the fault of our good friends around the table, a fact not lost on Chrissie who, smiling sweetly, showing remarkable calm under the circumstances, takes up the narrative. ‘Does anyone know approximately how much our actual bill is likely to be, and the fine also?’

  ‘My house similar to you’ Rafi observes, ‘and we pay eighty euros, so I think possibly you will be similar?’ The others nod in agreement. ‘And I not sure but maybe the moolta is ten por-cento? One or two shrugs, but no outright dissenters. OK, eighty euros a month? I can cope with that. Less than half what we paying in the UK, that’s for sure. So ten months, say, eight hundred in total, plus a ten per-cent surcharge for something which wasn’t our fault? That’s a bit naughty, stiffing us for another eighty. OK, ignorance of the law and all that, but it’s taken the shine off my day, I can tell you. Bubbling up, I am. A sign my long-suffering spouse recognises.

  ‘So when do we need to pay this eight-hundred, plus the fine of eighty?

  Rafi is waving her arms around. ‘I sorree, my Eengliss ver bad, I say eighty, not eight-hundred. Ochenta euros.’

  Chrissie places a reassuring hand on our friend’s arm. ‘Your English is very good, Rafi, it is us who don’t understand! But eighty euros a month, for ten months, is eight hundred …’

  There are wild gasps, and excitable Spanish shouting, around the table. Followed by uncontrolled laughter. ‘Eighty euros por an-yo, a jeer!’ splutters Juan, wiping away a tear. A YEAR? Did he just say a jeer, I mean a year? Eighty euros a year? OH MY GAAD, as Amador might have said. Someone has switched off my gas, and I am returning rapidly to room temperature. But hang on just a cotton pickin’ minute, to paraphrase Deputy Dawg, before I start punching the air, and performing acrobatics. I have to get this nailed down, right now.

  ‘You are telling us our houses-tax is likely to be around eighty euros, a year?’ I whisper, as my throat has gone dry suddenly. Five Spanish heads nod and grin in agreement, and Chrissie is almost in tears. I love this country, did you know that? What an utterly unbelievable place this is. If I haven’t yet convinced you to buy a house here, do so, right now. Get on the internet, before the best ones are gone. I want to give them all a big wet slobbery kiss. And the Lord and Lady Mayor as well. ‘Shall I tell you how much we used to pay in England?’ I croak, hoarsely. ‘One thousand, eight hundred pounds, a year.’

  The stunned silence is punctured by Amador, predictably. ‘TWO THOUSAND EUROS? OH MY GAAD! You no SERIOUS! What thees words you friend Derreee teach me, at Eengliss party, funeral my haunt? Fox ME! OH MY GAAD!’ Oh my gaad indeed. Eighty Euros. Seventy quid or thereabouts, for which we get three massive, professional firework displays, with music and lasers, the saints days and processions, free productions at the theatre, the flamenco, brass-band and classical music concerts, and so much more. I feel I have died and gone to heaven, a fact which has not gone un-noticed by Amador, who is checking his watch. ‘Yees, the pub OPEN! Come ON! We take much BEERS! We get PISSY!’

  Indeed. Why not. Absolutely. I feel like dancing, and a beer certainly to ease my tonsils, which are on the arid side, to be sure. Seventeen-hundred smackers in my pocket, as good as. Just one small clarification, however. ‘Yes, we would like to invite you all to the bar after this, but just one question.’ Silence falls around the table, an unusual event certainly, in this noisy country. I grab the creased, grubby, yellow paper, which if not virtually unreadable before, certainly is now. ‘So can I go to the office with the flags tomorrow, and pay this?’

  Juan smiles. ‘I can go with you, if you want, but plees no forget your knee.’

  Well good job you reminded me, my friend, I was going to unscrew my whole leg, actually, and hop down there. I do this, from time to time. Grinning, I point to the joint between my shin and thigh. ‘Knee?’

  The poor fellow is confused, momentarily. ‘Yees, no, yees, sorree, no Rhodesia!’

  Rhodesia? Been Zimbabwe for about thirty-odd years, hasn’t it? Ian Smith, UDI, Mugabe and all that. The capital was Salisbury, as I recall, although not the dreamy spire as depicted by John Constable. ‘Rhodesia? The country?’

  This is the wonderful thing about these conversation groups. No-one has the slightest clue what is happening, or what anyone else is talking about, but we get there in the end. Most of the time. ‘No, yees, no, Rhodesia ees knee in Espaniss, I no say you Rhodesia, knee, I mean you knee plastico.’ And he wipes away a bead of perspiration.

  He thinks I have a replacement knee? Not me, matey. I spent enough years having seven shades of all things holy kicked out of me, during the rugby season, and never a broken bone to show for it. In fact, I’ve had far more head injuries in this country, bashing my nut on ludicrously low door lintels, built for five-foot Spaniards.

  Marie is performing sterling service on the dictionary, this morning. ‘Tar-hetta. Card. Espaniss card plastico.’ Indeed we have our various UK bank cards, plus the one issued on this side of the Bay of Biscay, the Spanish health card, entitling us to full access to doctors and hospitals, which Juan himself helped us obtain, last year. Trouble is, and this might also be a problem getting drinks for the assembled locals later, I rarely carry my wallet, on the grounds I am too absent-minded, and likely to leave it somewhere. Too many bangs on the head, see? Luckily, Chrissie is rooting around in her bag, locates said bill-fold and fishes out the green tar-hetta, which she passes to our friend. He holds it up, indicating, in the bottom corner, the legend N.I.E, followed by some random letters and numbers.

  ‘Look! You knee!’ Well blow me down. Actually he has Chrissie’s card, and quite what that was doing in my wallet will be a conversation for later, but mine is identical, presumably, apart from the names of course. And the knees, one assumes. We have a pair of Spanish knees. Who knew? But he has not finished yet, it appears. ‘Thees not you knee, you have other tar-hetta plastico, plees?’

  I regard our friend with a puzzled frown. At this rate, the pubs will be shut, and Amador will have to wait for another occasion to get pissy. ‘You just said this was a knee, N.I.E in English, so do we have another number, are you saying? Two knees?’ The tax might only be seventy quid here, but I am beginning to realise why. This must be what it was like paying your rates in the
Middle Ages. In groats, or swans.

  I swear I can read his mind. Why the hell did I want to learn English, anyway? Why didn’t I just stay home playing Candy Crush? ‘Yees, no, here in Espain you must to have tar-hetta knee, with you knee!’ Well we haven’t, all right, so that is that. And who could possibly care less? There is the knee number, stamped on the medical card, so whoever produced the thing, with their Spanish Letraset, or one of those hand-held embossing tools you could get in England in the sixties which printed a strip of sticky-back tape with your name on, which you could put inside your wellingtons in school, but which always peeled off in the first shower of rain, must have had a record of it. Bit like your NI number in the UK, isn’t it. Mine has a ‘Y’ in it, but if you offered me a million quid I could not name one other single numeral. And why would I care? In the unlikely event of anyone wanting to know it, I could dig out an old P60, possibly, and there it would be.

  I glance at Chrissie, and roll my eyes. ‘Hang on a minute’ she ponders, tapping her head with a finger. ‘Don’t we have those bits of paper at home, from that heffe bloke, with an official stamp? You remember Pedro the lawyer gave them to us, with the house deeds?’ Nope. Slept since then, my dearest. I flash her my best why the hell didn’t you say that ten minutes ago in case one of us died stares, but before she can frame a suitably ribald reply there is a sharp intake of breath from around the table. What? Have we transgressed? And do you lot actually want a celebratory drink, or what? I know what I am having, one of those cubo’s, five bottles of beer, in an ice bucket, with tapas, for three euros.

  ‘A paper knee?’ wonders Teri. Ah yes, I remember now, two A4 sheets which describe me as ‘Austin John Richards’, and Chrissie’s as ‘Anne Richards Christina’. Pedro obtained them when we opened our bank account, and they have been shoved in with the house deeds, ever since.

  ‘You no have plastic knee?’ Rafi worries. ‘What happen if polices-mans ask to see you edente-fee-kathy-on?’

  Identification? Is that what this is all about? ID cards? Plastic knees? Must be. But it’s time to get down the pub. That cubo is calling, the seventeen-hundred is burning a hole in my pocket, and I could crawl faster than any copper in this town could run, so who cares?

  And a mellow time was had by all, the summer-wine, buckets of beer and tapas galore were dutifully consumed. And only one of us got pissy. DIDN’T YOU, AMADOR?

  The next morning we present ourselves, knees intact, outside the tax office, at the crack of dawn, or about half-nine in early-retirement-speak. No sign of Antonio Banderas, however, which is actually a good thing as far as I’m concerned, not having any of his records on my iPod... The usual Spanish hullabaloo is in evidence, although as we enter the building, through the foyer and into a larger room beyond, there are only two old men, brandishing yellow slips just like ours, two male staff sitting at desks pointedly doing nothing, and a harassed-looking receptionist who appears to be in charge of four large cardboard boxes, into which hundreds of green A4-sized forms have been stuffed. Clearly the paper-less office hasn’t arrived in this locale yet. And how can five people possibly make so much noise? Seems impossible, doesn’t it? But every cloud and all that, because everyone looks up, as they always do here, whether it be shop, bank, post-office or any other public building, and wishes us a cheery buena-dia. There is always time to wish a stranger ‘good morning’ in Spain, and I have to say I find it delightful.

  The two old boys seem highly amused about something. Us, it appears. They are waving their slips, and pointing at ours, which Chrissie has produced from her bag. Like the walk of shame isn’t it, us non-payers, we’ve all been caught, and fined. Mooltad, if you like. Suddenly, the front door bursts open and in crash three old ladies, side by side like a four-foot-ten Pontypool Front Row, and suddenly it is getting crowded. Here we are, crushed into this little corner, whereas the room is huge. The Spanish don’t mind this of course, they love to squash together in tight groups, and seem to have no concept of personal space, whereas us Brits like to stretch out a bit. I can peer over their heads of course but I can see Chrissie becoming agitated as she is surrounded by jabbering locals, at eye level. I indicate for her to give me the yellow slip then wait in the foyer until our turn arrives, which it hopefully will, some time soon. One of the old ladies spots this and starts bellowing. ‘Bastardos! Lad-Ronnies!’ Indeed. I know this word, Lad-Ronnies, which has nothing to do with a boy called Ronald, as it happens. No, it means ‘thieves’. And the reason I am aware of this is because the locals use it to describe any politician or person in power, on the assumption that the whole lot of them are corrupt. Furthermore, the word is similar, to my untutored ears at least, to Lad-Rios, the name for ‘bricks’. And on one memorable occasion, I went to the builders merchant and ordered a hundred Lad-Ronnies. They still talk about it to this day, at the builders yard, where for ever-more I will be known as the Englishman who ordered one hundred thieves.

  So who are these particular Lad-Ronnies and Bastardos? Each old woman is clutching a screwed-up yellow slip, and the comments appear to be directed at the office staff. Who seem to be entirely unfazed, I have to say. Perhaps being called a bastard and a thief is an everyday occurrence, in the Spanish tax office. And the old woman is not muttering under her breath, that’s for sure.

  Eventually, it is our turn. I smile at harassed-woman, wave the yellow slip, and trot out my rehearsed speech. Quiero pagar mi ee-bee. There. What about that, then? The perfect way to inform a woman in the tax office you would like to pay some tax. Or not. She seems confused about something. Maybe she is mystified I haven’t referred to her as a bastard or a thief, who knows? She peers at the writing on the slip, which after all came from her office so surely she is familiar with it, opens her mouth as if to speak, changes her mind, narrows her eyes and gazes at us as if we have just arrived from Mars, then licks her index finger and starts flicking through the first box of papers. Can’t be that difficult a job, can it? Presumably the forms are filed alphabetically, by street, or by taxpayer, but she is rifling away like crazy, getting nowhere. More wetting of fingers and on to box two, without success, another intense scrutiny of the screwed-up yellow missive, then on to box three. Just as I am beginning to form the impression she might not be the sharpest tool in the box, she actually confirms it. ‘These forms were a different colour green, last year.’ Which has to be the second-most stupid thing anyone has ever said to me, in my lifetime. Want to know the actual stupidest thing? Just wait a few moments. It is coming. I mean, who cares if the forms are sky-blue pink with unicorns in each corner? They are all the same shade of green. They could be carved on to tablets from the time of Moses, for all the difference it makes.

  I am not sure what to say next. Chrissie meanwhile has turned away as she is unable to keep a straight face, and I am struggling. Harassed-woman presses on to box four, and then, triumphantly, extracts a green slip, identical to the rest of course, but a different shade to last year, apparently, and with a flourish, places it reverently on the desk. And emits those immortal lines. ‘Are you Jose Ocana Pastor?’ Am I Jose Oca…. I am a blue-eyed, blond-haired (all right, all right, with the merest hint of grey, OK?) fair-skinned, ruddy-faced, six-foot Anglo-Saxon. I could hail from nowhere else on earth. I bear less resemblance to the local population than Mickey Mouse does to Mount Everest. I could never consider committing a crime in this country as the identification line-up in the police station would be a farce. Seven swarthy Spaniards and me. ‘There he is, officer.’

  ‘No.’ Come on, what else can I say? Describing this woman as ‘thick’ would be a gross injustice to thick people everywhere. I would like to have been a fly on the wall at her job interview, actually. Can you imagine what the other candidates were like? And I cannot wait to discover what she makes of our knees. Just imagine her deciphering Austin John Richards and Anne Richards Christina. Not sure I have that long left to live, actually, and I am rapidly losing the will. Why didn’t we stay in Britain, when we had the chance
? I would happily pay eighteen-hundred quid to get away from this complete absence of brains.

  Chrissie fishes out our knees from her bag and places them on the desk. Not sure that was a great idea, actually, judging by the reaction. We might as well have produced Martian ID, to be honest, for all the good it does. Must be the paper, obviously. Confused the hell out of the educated Spaniards at the library, imagine what is going on inside this woman’s head. Very little. The cogs are turning, but not meshing up with anything. Right, that is it, I admit defeat, surrender, white flag. Ask Juan or one of the others to come with us, tomorrow. ‘We will return with our Spanish friend’ I smile, painfully. Give her the chance to pull a sickie, hopefully. I am out of here.

  Stumbling into the bright sunshine, we are laughing hysterically, leaning precariously on the old stone walls for support, attracting curious glances from passers-by. Eventually Chrissie is able to stand unaided, and grabs me by the arm. ‘Come on Jose Ocana Pastor, let’s get you home, you must be worn out, you poor old chap!’

  The following morning, clutching the yellow slip, our knees, and the deeds to the house, which Marie advised us to bring, we rendezvous with our dear friend at the same ungodly hour as yesterday, to find a complete absence of anyone calling anyone else a bastard or a thief. Silence. Perhaps we have been beamed back up to Mars. The two office blokes are still there, doing nothing, but harassed-woman looks even more harassed, despite there being no customers. Probably spent a restless night, having nightmares about our return. Briefing her last night on the phone regarding our experiences of the Spanish tax system that morning, we merely recounted there were one or two difficulties, not that we thought harassed-woman was thicker than the entire contents of a brick factory. She might conceivably be a friend or relative, in this little town. Let her make her own conclusions regarding her abilities. Marie immediately takes charge, and fairly soon it becomes clear from the dialogue, which we can just about follow, that she shares our opinion. The woman is making a phone call, calling for help from superior I imagine, and hope, when our friend turns to us, and in a low whisper confides ‘she is plug.’ Surely not? Plug from the Bash Street Kids? I am immediately transported back to the world of my boyhood, and tales of Fatty, Smiffy, Spotty, Danny and Wilf, not forgetting Teacher of course. And it’s not as if harassed-woman has sticky-out ears, and protruding teeth. Bit harsh really, Marie? ‘Yes, she is plug, we say here in Espain. Some person got job for she.’