Nope. Me neither. Luckily, Valentine has been scrolling through his smart-phone. ‘Apple-eedo. Sooor-name.’
Got it. Christian name and surname. Why didn’t they say that in the first place? Hester-Anna is not satisfied with something else, it appears. ‘No direction.’ Me neither, actually. Utterly and completely lost.
Jose snatches my crumpled document. ‘You knee, it not show you direction. You address. Why you knee no show you address?’
You know what, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. Keeps me awake at nights, it does. NOT! But what the heck. ‘My direction is Castle Street, number fifty-five’, I smile, using the Spanish method of putting the house number after the street name. Right. I’m getting thirsty. Can we please get whatever we have to do done, and move on? Apparently not. Hester-Anna is still not satisfied. ‘Esky-toora?’
Ah, I know this one. Esky-toora. The house deeds. Stuffed in the back of the drawer with our knees, usually….Oh. She. Cannot. Be. Serious? Yep. She is. I have to go home AGAIN and get my Esky-toora. I am struggling to remain calm. ‘Jose, I’ve just given her my address, what is the problem, doesn’t she believe me?’
Jose grins, but has the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Yees, no, sorree, you might be lad-ronny. Criminal. She must to see document with you direction address.’
I’ll give him criminal. People driving around with no insurance or MOT’s. I take a deep breath, and smile, widely. No point getting annoyed, they have their systems here, and we have to fit in. But honestly? ‘Are we driving?’
Arriving back at the office for the third time, I am absolutely dripping. I have the deeds, the plans, every damned thing I could find in the back of the drawer. If this doesn’t do it, I am off. Thankfully however, it seems it does. Five minutes of frantic typing pass quickly, and eventually I have a sheaf of printed documents to sign. Jose rifles through them, and emerges with one particular form. ‘Thees ees permisso de circulo temporary’ he confirms. ‘Ees much important you keep thees documento in the car, in case polices-mans want to see. In two weeks Hester-Anna will call you, when you permisso de circulo arrive from office of traffico, you must to come here and collect thees.’ I have to come here AGAIN? At this rate I will have to add Hester-Anna to our Christmas-card list.
Still. Finally. We are done. The car is mine. Wrong! She has not finished with me yet. ‘Fifty-five euros plees.’
WHAT? I turn to our friend, with a what the hell is that all about look. ‘Yees, you must to pay twenty-five euros to traffico to translate car to you name, and thirty euros for she.’
I slump theatrically on the desk. What was that about a lad-ronny? Shall I tell her? Yeah, why not? I’ve paid for her time after all. ‘In my country, you write your address on the form, sign it, and put it in the post. GRATIS!’
Cue hilarity around the table. But Hester-Anna has the last laugh. ‘In you countree I not have job!’
Right. Pay the lady, pay Valentine, get the keys, hug Jose, grab my paperwork, and call Chrissie. ‘Meet me in that street where we used to leave the Volvo, in five minutes, if you like. We can go for a spin.’
‘A spin? It’ll be dark soon! Are you like Johnny Cash, collecting the car, ‘one piece at a time?’
And here it is, our first Spanish vehicle, standing proudly at the kerb, glowing in the evening sunshine. Waving at the others, I automatically open the right-hand door, to find no steering-wheel. Gonna take some getting used-to, this left-hand-drive malarkey. Jose and Valentine are crying with laughter, so to cover my acute embarrassment I wave my arms dramatically. ‘Some Lad-ronny bastardo has stolen the wheel!’ Switching sides, I take a few minutes to familiarise myself with the controls and gear stick, none of which are in the right place, then gently, like the little old lady with the basket of eggs, I pull away up the street. And it is so easy. No problem at all. Approaching the meeting point with Chrissie, I indicate, then suddenly BANG! Complete panic. I haven’t hit anything, but I have lost all forward motion. The engine is still running but the gears have disappeared somewhere. Luckily this is a slight downhill stretch so I am able to pull into the kerb and switch off the engine, heart in my mouth and a sick feeling in my stomach. I’ve only travelled half a mile, and now this. Has Valentine stitched me up? Surely not, the thing was running fine yesterday. In desperation, I exit the car and am frantically looking around, just as Chrissie comes strolling around the corner.
‘Lost something have you?’ she giggles, then spots the look on my face. ‘Blimey, you’ve gone white! What on earth has happened?’
I am almost crying. ‘The car went bang. The engine is still going, but the clutch has fallen off, or the gearbox, or something like that. Oh my God, what are we gonna do?’ And I drop to my knees and start peering underneath.
‘Well what do clutches look like? And gears?’
‘I don’t bloody know’ I snap. ‘Clutches are like dinner plates, I think, and gears are like, well, gears, with teeth.’ I crane my neck then roll on the ground. ‘But I can’t see any….’
‘And what are potholes like?’
‘Eh?’
‘Potholes, you know. Holes in the road about a foot deep. About a yard wide. Please tell me you didn’t drive into that, IN OUR NEW CAR?’
I am still scrabbling around in the gutter. ‘What pothole?’ I struggle to my knees, peering round the back of the car in the direction my exasperated wife is pointing. ‘Blimey, look at that pothole.’ I didn’t, surely? Although, in my defence, I was struggling with the controls, everything on the wrong side, trying desperately not to hit anything. And I did, it seems.
‘So why don’t you get back in the car, start the engine, and check if there are any clutches and gears, then?’ she hisses.
My heart is still racing, however. ‘I can’t. I’m too jittery, too stressed. Just leave the car here, and come back tomorrow.’
She barges me out of the way, wrenches the door open, shifts her seat forwards, starts the engine, clips on her seat-belt, and with a quick check of the mirror, pulls smartly away, leaving me standing, feeling like a lemon, on the pavement. Oh well, looks like I’m walking home, then. Could do with the exercise, actually.
Suddenly, around the block, comes a little white SEAT. She pulls over, rolls down her window, and in her best Cockney-Del voice, calls out ‘awright, darlin’. Fancy a ride, nah wot I mean? ‘Op in, will ya!’ One of these days I’ll get it right…..
CHAPTER 8. WHERE DID ME ROOF GO?
‘Was that lightning I saw then, over in those mountains?’ I am driving from Malaga airport to Santa Marta with Jake, who has a holiday cottage in the town, together with his mate Andy. ‘A few days, lying in the sun, drinking beer!’ Andy had giggled, rubbing his tired eyes, lobbing his bag in the boot outside the terminal.
‘Yeah, I saw that too’ chips in Jake, from the front seat. ‘That’s our direction, roughly, isn’t it?’
Don’t want to worry them, but it was exactly our direction. Maybe it won’t come to anything… ‘That kind of direction, but a lot further away, I think’ I cheerfully lie.
Ten miles further down the road and the weather has taken a decided turn for the worse. Ahead and to our right the sky is inky-black, and huge jagged forks of lightning are illuminating the scraggy peaks of the mountains and rocky valleys with an awe-inspiring display of the power of nature. Then the rain starts, a few huge drops on the windscreen at first, thunder-spots as my Nan used to call them, from the back seat of the family Austin 1300, but within twenty seconds the skies have opened, I have the wipers on double, headlights on full and have reduced my speed by half. Visibility is down to about fifty yards and the little car is being buffeted by massive gusts of wind. ‘Jeez, whatever is this, Jakey?’ comes the cry from the back, although we can barely hear him due to the rain hammering on my immaculate paintwork. ‘You promised me wall-to-wall sunshine, but this is worse than bloody Manchester!’
‘Rubbish!’ comes the predictable reply. ‘You don’t get olive trees in Manchester, do
you?’
‘Olive trees? What olive trees?’ This is true, the olives have disappeared, everything has disappeared. All we can see out of the windows is rain, mist, fog, and the occasional terrifying flash.
‘Anyway don’t worry’ Jake continues, ‘it will clear up in a few minutes!’ Clear up? If anything, the rain is getting harder, I am down to third gear, crawling along, as in places I can barely make out the road ahead.
Another ten miles however and it seems Jake’s prediction was correct. The sky is clearing, the rain has stopped, and by the time we reach the Santa Marta turn the sun is peeking through. Cresting the final ridge, there is the little town below us, bathed in glorious sunshine, roads steaming as they dry, the pyramid-shaped mountain with the sugar-cube cottages clinging to it’s sides, the church towers, the castle and the turrets of the ruined city walls, all sparkling after their soaking. Andy is spellbound. ‘Hey, look at that! You were right, matey. It’s nothing like bloody Manchester!’
‘That’s my house over there’ I observe, pointing to the higgledy-piggledy jumble of houses below the castle, ’the white one with the terracotta roof.’
‘And there’s mine, look’ Jake pipes up, indicating area below the church tower, clinging to the hillside, ‘the white one with the terracotta roof.’
Silence from the back seat for a few seconds while Andy digests these nuggets. He had an early start this morning, poor chap, getting to the airport. ‘You pair of pillocks!’ he cries, as the penny finally drops. ‘They’re all white, with terracotta roofs!’
Jake is clearly excited, seeing the old town again. ‘Anyway, we’ll be up there in about ten minutes, sipping cold ones on my patio! Can’t wait!’
‘Don’t forget it’s Sunday, mind’ I caution. ‘None of the supermarkets will be open, if you need to get any food and drink.’
My friend chuckles. ‘Ah, listen here! I stocked the fridge with beer, my last visit, and Maria, the old lady next door who has our key, was coming in last night to turn on the electric. The beers will be chilling nicely, as we speak. And we don’t need any food, of course. I am on holiday, not here to do any cooking.’
This time, the shouting from the back seat is instantaneous. ‘DON’T NEED ANY FOOD? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Me belly thinks me throat been cut! All I had was a biscuit, at stupid o’clock this morning. And we couldn’t get anything to eat at the airport, BECAUSE YOU WERE LATE, and you were too mean to spring for a sandwich on Paddy-Air, and my money was in my suitcase, AND I AM BLOODY STARVING!’
Jake is calmness personified under this assault to his eardrums. ‘Ah ye of little faith! There is a chicken shop just down the road from the house. That is where we will be getting our lunch, fear not!’
His buddy brightens considerably. ‘Fantastic! I love KFC!’
Now it is Jake’s turn to holler. ‘NO! NOT K-EFFING-C’. Funny that, I always thought the ‘F’ in KFC stood for ‘fried’. ‘It’s a little local shop, on the hill down into town, spit-roasted chicken, coated in garlic oil, they serve it with chips and about a yard of crusty bread. The Spanish go crazy for it at the weekends, so that is what we will do. Then tonight, when we sample the delights of the local bars, you get a free tapas with every drink. They are not huge, but a little plate of food with each beer you will be surprised how it fills you up. FOR NOTHING! So you won’t need to get your wallet out your suitcase, WILL YOU? Then in the morning, the bars are all open for breakfast, great long lengths of crusty bread, toasted, cut in half, smothered in chopped tomato with olive oil, cup of eye-wateringly strong coffee, just over a euro, all in. So no, I ain’t buying any bloody food and I ain’t doing any bloody cooking!’
We are all laughing now. ‘Don’t forget the sol-y-sombra for breakfast’ I remind him.
‘Sally who?’ Andy giggles. ‘Is this some local senorita you’ve been keeping quiet about?’
This time it is my turn to be on the receiving-end of Jake’s bellowing. ‘SHUT UP! I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT SALLY! ROS WILL KILL ME!’
Andy is in his element. ‘You dirty old dog, Mitchell! No wonder you keep popping over here all the time. Now I know your secret, you dark horse, so I won’t have to get my wallet out at all, this holiday, WILL I?’
Grinning widely, Jake turns to face his accuser. ‘It’s a drink, OK? Sol-y-sombra. Sun and shade. Brandy and anise, which they brew over here. Blows your head off. And there are no optics in the bars, they just slosh it in the glass, straight from the bottle. You end up with about half a pint, for a couple of euros.
Andy is not having it, however, and folds his arms defensively. ‘Don’t believe you. A drink, my eye. It’s a woman. I know you Mitchell, you randy old goat. And I’m gonna spill the beans, when we get home, unless you refund my air-fare, AND pay for the K-EFFING-C, AND all the beer, AND the breakfasts. My wallet is not getting unpacked, this trip!’
I can hardly see where I am going for tears running down my face, and Jake is doubled up. ‘Who was that plasterer fellow from South Africa, used to have a sol-y-sombra for breakfast every day? What was his name? Is he still alive?’
‘A Plaster-ER?’ Andy cackles, ‘don’t you mean a plaster-ED!’
‘Who, Pieter, you mean?’ I croak. ‘The fellow who reckoned he was in the South African SAS, thirty years ago? Said he shot his wife’s lover, after catching them in bed? Abseiled down from the chimney and burst through the window on them? Came round to our house last winter, said he could get me a job as a tractor driver picking olives, drank almost a whole bottle of my Laphroaig, and collapsed in the street? Yes, he’s still around. A couple of months ago he met this Belgian fellow who’d bought a house in his street, the chap said he was a painter and decorator, so Pieter gave him carte-blanche to paint his front room. The Belgian thought Pieter was English, apparently, and might appreciate a Union Jack theme, so painted the room red and blue, with white walls. Anyway, Pieter came home late that night, him and Del had been out for a session, and found his house looking like the British Airways check-in desk at Heathrow airport, and promptly booted him up the arse. People are still whistling ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me!’ at Pieter to this day!
Jake is roaring with laughter. ‘Yeah, those new BA flights I read about, from Heathrow to Santa Marta! You speak with forked tongue, Mr Richards!’
I am struggling to steer. ‘I swear this is true!
Jake is getting nostalgic. ‘And what about the Cockney, Phil, and that dim wife of his? Bought a load of Spanish cockerels, expected them to lay eggs? What was her name?
‘The lovely Jackie? She is history, they had a massive row, ooh, a few months ago, I think. What happened was that Jackie was back in London visiting her daughter, and while she was away Phil found out somehow that she was having an affair with the son of the bloke who supplied the chickens! They’d been having it away in the barn, so the story goes. Anyway, Jackie came back and went absolutely ape, the chickens were all gone and the beautiful hen-house, which I’d built, in ruins. Then Phil kicked her out! She’s back in London, as far as I know!’
My passengers are in fits. ‘Is everyone in this town completely potty?’ Andy ponders.
Jake and I glance at each other, and in unison, ‘YES!’
I drop the blokes outside Jake’s cottage, then head home to get on with the rest of my day, which hopefully will consist of nothing more strenuous than a few dips, and a snooze in the garden. Wrong! I have only been home half an hour or so when I receive a text, from Jake. ‘Wonder if you have a spare sack of yesso handy? If so please could you drop it up, soon as possible? Ta!’
Chrissie, understandably, is less than impressed. ‘I thought you said they were planning on sitting in the sunshine for three days, drinking beer?’ she complains, in the kind of voice women often adopt when referring to men who are planning on sitting in the sunshine for three days, drinking beer.
That’s what they told me’ I concur, ‘maybe he found a bit of plaster off somewhere, decided to fix it now, before the serious boozing start
s. Can’t be much anyway, can it, only one sack? I’ll take it up now, before I get too settled.’ So strapping the mortar to my old shopping-trolley frame, which now performs sterling service as a yesso-transporter, I struggle, perspiring freely in the afternoon sunshine, up the cobbled streets to Jake’s place, to greeted at his front door by a rubble-encrusted figure, unrecognisable as the jolly tourist I dropped there not an hour since. Plaster, brick-dust, mud and fragments of bamboo are clinging to his hair, face and clothing, a truly grotesque apparition on a Sunday afternoon, when there is a fridge-full of lager just waiting to be consumed. ‘Oh my God, Jake, what on earth has happened?’
The look on his face tells me all I need to know. A disaster, of some sort. ‘Follow me’ he splutters, rubbing detritus from his eyes. I follow him into the hallway and into the sitting room, where Andy is slumped on the sofa, head in his hands, then up the stairs, past the main bedroom, across the landing and into the guest room, where I am confronted by a scene of utter devastation. Where once was a plaster ceiling is now a gaping hole maybe eight feet across, above which are the tree-trunk timbers and shafts of bright sunlight filtering through what might at one time have been described as a ‘roof’, but which now resembles a collection of random fissures. Piles of debris and shattered terracotta-tiles are strewn across the floor, the bed and side-tables have been pushed to one corner of the room, and he has clearly made an effort to begin clearing the mess, but it is a hopeless task.
For a few seconds I am rendered speechless. What can I possibly say which will not sound wildly inadequate? ‘Oh Jake, your poor house. At least no-one was hurt, imagine if Andy had been lying in that bed? And it can all be fixed, of course.’
He rubs his plastery hands through his hair. ‘Quite honestly I don’t know whether to laugh, or cry. But you are right, someone could have been seriously injured. Anyway, come on back downstairs, there is nothing more we can do up here.’ And he closes the door on the carnage. As if that were possible.
Sunsets and Olives 2: Back to Spain...... the madness continues! Page 15