He gestures me to sit, and plonks himself on a footstool. ‘And it just gets worse. Our electric has blown, so the beers didn’t chill, the electric is off everywhere at the top of town, so all the bars, the corner store, the chicken shop, everything is closed. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and no roof. We are, as you might say, utterly buggered.’ Andy meanwhile has slumped even further into his chair. An air of total despondency permeates the air. ‘Anyway’ he continues, ‘maybe you and Del can come round tomorrow, give me a quote, let me know what I am looking at, to get it fixed?’
Shall I, or shan’t I? Laugh or cry, he said. I blow out my cheeks, the way builders often do. I suck in my teeth, as garage mechanics are known to behave.
‘What? What is it?’
I perform my routine again, puffing, and sucking, with a slow shake of the head thrown in for dramatic effect. ‘Well, I don’t know quite how to tell you this, my friend.’
‘WHAT? TELL ME! TELL ME!’
I screw up my eyes, to prolong the agony a few more seconds. ‘The thing is’ I whisper, nodding towards the sack of mortar standing forlornly in the hallway, ‘I’m not sure one sack of yesso will be enough…’
‘YOU ABSOLUTE SWINE! YOU TOTAL ROTTEN SOD! You really had me going there. You wait, Richards, I’ll get you back for this!’
Andy meanwhile is crying with laughter. ‘He got you there, Jakey! You should have seen your face!’
Shall I continue down this path? Hell, why not? ‘How many bedrooms do you have here, Jake?’ Knowing the answer already, of course.
‘Two’ he confirms, sighing loudly. ‘Well, actually only one, at the moment, for the foreseeable future, as the guest room is completely destroyed.’
‘So how many beds do you have in your room?’
‘Only the one, mine and Ros’s double, why?’
Here we go…’Oh no reason really, I was just wondering which one of you is having that bed, that is all.’
‘I AM!’ they both holler, in union.
‘No no no’, Andy splutters, ‘I am the guest here, I get the bed.’
‘Well, it’s my bloody bed’, Jake affirms.
‘Yes, it might technically be your bed, ‘Andy persists, ‘but any book on etiquette will tell you that in these circumstances, the host has to give way to the guest, and sleep on the sofa. Just good manners, really, isn’t it?’
Jake almost chokes. ‘THE SOFA? THE SOFA? You’re sitting on it! And what do you know about etiquette, and good manners, you savage?’
His buddy is now frantically scrabbling to examine his seating arrangements. A small, two-seater sofa. A tiny woman might just about curl up on it, but a six-foot bloke? Forget it. He seems less than impressed. ‘Well that is just fan-flaming-tastic. First you promise me wall-to-wall sunshine, and we get a Biblical deluge. Roast chicken, tapas, a fridge full of beer, toasty breakfasts? Nope, there ain’t any electric. AND NOW YOU WANT TO BLOODY SLEEP WITH ME!
Now I have tears rolling down my cheeks. ‘What if he bought you dinner and a bunch of red roses? Would you think about it then?’
‘Not even if he got down on one knee and produced a diamond engagement ring!’
There is silence for a few moments as both men consider the appalling prospect of sharing a bed together for the next three nights.
‘Jake?’
‘Yes mate?’
‘Do you wear pyjamas in bed, usually?’
‘No mate, totally in the buff. What about you?’
‘Same here. Bollock naked. Mind you, I am keeping my pants on, tonight!’
‘Well I am keeping my bloody JEANS on, tonight, don’t you worry!’
Priceless. Absolutely priceless. And I still have one more up my sleeve. ‘Did anyone see that film ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles? Steve Martin and John Candy, where they have to share a bed, and wake up in the morning with their hands round each other’s butt-cheeks, which they thought were pillows?’
Clearly they have, as both men spring to their feet, start beating their chests, and flapping their arms. ‘AAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!’
‘Did you see that bears game last week?’ cries Jake, in a theatrically deep voice.
‘Hell of a game! Hell of a game!’ growls his friend, ‘Bears got a good team this year.’
Andy is still flexing his muscles but Jake is keen to get on. ‘Right, better get cleaned up, and head down into town, hope the bars are open down there. Lucky the hot water in this house runs off the gas bottle!’
‘Yes, I think you will be better off down there’ I confirm, ‘in the circumstances.’
‘Well yes, with the electric cut off up here in the top of town, you mean?’
Still got a last one in reserve. ‘No, it was the other circumstances I was thinking of, actually.’
A frown appears on his dusty countenance. ‘What other circumstances? What are you talking about?’
‘Well, it’s a bit more traditional up here in the old part, isn’t it?’ I’m enjoying this. ‘They are more easy-going down there, about that sort of thing.’
His scowl deepens. ‘What sort of thing? You are talking in riddles, Richards.’
‘Well, you know, men sleeping together, that kind of malarkey.’
Andy is rocking around on the sofa but Jake raises himself to his full grimy height, and points dramatically to the door. ‘Be gone, thou vile miscreant! Ne’er darken these doors again!’ Always fancied himself as a Shakespearean actor, did our friend.
I raise my palms, placatingly. ‘Hey, it’s the twenty-first century, live like you wanna live, baby. Just one word of advice, before I take my leave.’ And I open the front door, to make good my escape. ‘Just don’t hold hands, when you are walking past the church, OK?’
And I skip off down the street, leaving the yesso where it is. Only a quid a sack. Worth every penny.
Luckily, Jake’s reply is carried away on the breeze…..
A week or so later I am digging the foundations for a new wall in the lower part of our garden, when my phone rings. Chrissie, who is up at Ros and Jake’s place, having been tasked with putting the bedding and towels on to wash. ‘Help! I cannot get the water to come on. Something is wrong with it.’
Resisting the urge to curse, I mentally run through the options. ‘Have you made sure the stopcock under the sink unit is turned on?’
A healthy dose of sarcasm comes my way, down the phone-line. ‘Duh! Oh why didn’t I think of turning on the stopcock?’
So that is a yes, then. ‘Well what about the water-meter door out in the street? Perhaps it is turned off there.’
I can feel another caustic remark heading in my direction. ‘Well I need that special key, don’t I, to open that door?’
‘Well there must be a key hanging up there somewhere, surely?’
My wife takes a deep breath. ‘Do you really think I would be wasting my time, and phone credit, talking to you if I had that key?’
So that is a no, then. ‘Well, you can open the water door with a pair of long-nosed pliers. Do you have anything like that up there?’
‘Oh, just let me check in my bag. Purse, tissues, hairbrush, house keys, but for some strange reason, I forgot to bring the long-nosed pliers. What an empty-headed woman I am.’
Another no. But two can play at that game. ‘What, you forgot your Swiss Army knife with the thing for getting stones out of horse…’
‘FOR PITY’S SAKE! Just get up here with the pliers, will you!’
Ten minutes later, mentally cursing Jake for turning off his water when he had specifically asked Chrissie to do his washing, I arrive at his front door, brandishing my trusty pliers, to find my wife leaning on the wall, drumming her fingers. ‘Look! This is what you need in your bag, instead of all that crap you carry around with you!’
She narrows her eyes. ‘Oh, you mean that crap like YOUR wallet, YOUR car keys, sweets for the journey to fill YOUR fat guts, you mean?’ She got me again.
Snapping the pliers dramatically, I proceed to unlock the
door, and pull it back with a grand gesture. ‘Open sesame!’
Strangely however, instead of grateful thanks, I get a burst of uncontrolled laughter. Bending my head to peer inside, I am stunned to find nothing there. Where there should be a water-meter with attached stopcock, is simply a void, with two unconnected pipes on either side. Some criminal has nicked his meter! Unbelievable. Why would anyone do that? Surely they have no value? Or maybe they do. Perhaps Jake’s reading was low, on account of him not being here that often, and some scallywag has decided to nick Jake’s, and install it in his own house? Whatever has happened, it is clearly the work of Lad-Ronnies. Or is it Lad-Rios? Forget now. I step back in utter amazement. ‘The thieving swines!’
Chrissie however has other ideas, and shoves her head into the void cavity. ‘No, look at this. The pipe on the left has a seal across the end. The meter hasn’t been stolen, they’ve been cut-off!’ Sure enough, an official seal bearing the legend Aqualia, the water company, has been permanently affixed to the pipe leading up from the mains, thereby preventing anyone from re-attaching a meter, or indeed simply connecting the two pipes and stealing the water. So is that what has happened? Haven’t they been paying their bills? And when were they cut off? Must have been in the last few days, as Jake and Andy actually went home last Thursday, and it is only Wednesday now. Can the water company do that? I thought that water was a human right, and didn’t I read somewhere that in the UK at least, they weren’t allowed to cut someone off? Clearly it is different here, but didn’t Aqualia send a reminder? Surely they don’t just take the meter away without sending at least a warning letter? And besides, I imagine Ros and Jake pay their bills here by direct debit from a Spanish bank? So don’t they have sufficient funds? Not our business of course, but so many questions. I need to speak to the man himself.
He answers after three rings, and I decide to dispense with the formalities, and start right in. ‘Who’s been a naughty boy, then?!’
‘Oh good morning John, yes I’m fine thank you, good to hear from you too, hope you are both well, yes we had a good flight home thank you, I had a window seat and Andy ……’
‘Never mind all that! Your water has been cut off!’
‘WHAT? WHEN? WHY?
That got his attention. ‘Well we were hoping you might have some of the answers, actually. Chrissie is here attempting to do your dirty laundry, and Aqualia have removed your meter and sealed the pipe. So I repeat, who’s been a naughty boy, then?!’
I have my phone on speaker, so we can both hear the spluttering from a thousand miles away. ‘When you asked me to do your washing, Jake’ Chrissie chuckles, ‘I assumed you would provide the water!’
‘THE BLOODY BASTARDS! They took the meter, you say? We pay through the bank, so I just don’t understand. I mean, Ros takes care of all of that, so I am guessing this is her fault, but…’
‘DON’T YOU DARE BLAME YOUR POOR WIFE!’ cries an outraged Chrissie.
‘No no no, I am only joking of course! Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now, does it. Sorry about this Chrissie, sorry to waste your time, but just leave the laundry for now, we are coming over again next Easter, so we will sort it all out then, OK?’
NEXT EASTER? That’s four months away. Clearly he has forgotten something. ‘Er Jake, you remember Del and I are fixing your roof?’
Laughter down the line. ‘Blimey, how could I ever forget that cursed roof! Next Monday you said, didn’t you? Starting next Monday, take you about a week, you said?’
‘Well actually there’s been a bit of a delay. We can’t start Monday now.’
Panic down the line. ‘What? Why not? When can you start, then?’
I am going to enjoy this. ‘Ooh, we probably can’t start until next Easter, now.’
‘WHAT! NEXT EASTER? THAT’S FOUR MONTHS. CHRIST, IT CANNOT WAIT THAT LONG! I mean, I know you put a tarpaulin up there, but that was only temporary, right? The roof needs fixing before the winter storms, you said. You ordered the bloody materials, you said. I PAID you for the bloody materials. So why in God’s name can’t you start until bloody Easter?’
Loving it, I am. ‘Well sadly there is one material we don’t have. I mean, I thought we had it, but now we don’t. There’s a shortage around here, apparently.’
‘What materials? I gave you a hundred bloody quid. You said you had everything in hand, in fact you made a big play about how organised you were. Those yard-long bricks, for spanning the beams, the mortar to bed them in, the thick PVC sheet to make everything watertight, the reproduction roof tiles to replace the ones that were damaged. I am not happy about this, I have to tell you, in fact if you can’t start until Easter then we will have to have a re-think, get someone else to do it.’
Oh yeah and best of luck with that, matey. ‘Sorry Jake, we forgot about the camel.’
‘WHAT BLOODY CAMEL? What the hell are you talking about? You are crazy, Richards, you know that?’
‘Well we will need a camel, sorry. Get him to drink about a hundred gallons, then lead him up to your patio, stick one of those plastic beer-taps into his hump, so we can draw off some WATER. You know, the wet stuff which comes out of taps? Only it doesn’t do that here, any more, because you are too stupid to pay a WATER bill. You remember? WATER? That stuff we will need to mix the CEMENT to fix your BLOODY ROOF?’
The noise coming down the line is incredible, not sure if it is crying, laughing, choking or a mixture of all three. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry! Yes I forgot, all right? It was the shock, all right? I am in work, middle of a big job, not thinking straight, all right? This is all Ros’s fault, I will giver her hell when…’
My wife, who was leaning on the wall crying with laughter, is up like a shot. ‘THIS IS NOT ROS’S FAULT! DO NOT blame her. YOU were here last week. YOU were obviously too drunk to check your post. YOU were too busy sleeping with your boyfriend!’
Ouch. Bit below the belt, that one. Jake sees the funny side however. ‘Yeah, well, you know what they say, you cannot beat the real thing!’
Time for a woman to take charge, clearly. ‘Where do you keep your mail, Jake?’
He has to think, for a moment. ‘Try on the kitchen unit, on the right, as you enter.’
She nips off, returning a few seconds later with a hand-full of envelopes, mainly water and electricity bills by the look of it. ‘Ooh look, a RED envelope, from Aqualia. And what is this? A recorded delivery note from the postman, they tried to deliver a registered letter, so you have to go to the post office to retrieve it. And all these communications were shoved on the kitchen unit, so unless the postman limbo-danced under your front door, and placed them there, then YOU clearly saw them, YOU were too drunk to care, which means that WE have to go to the Aqualia office and WE have to get your water reconnected so that MY husband can start work on YOUR CRAPPY ROOF! So don’t you DARE blame poor Ros!’
We can feel the shame wafting down the phone-line. ‘Blimey, a bit fierce, your missus, John! But she is completely correct, I have stuffed up. Can you open the red envelope and see what it says, please? I just can’t understand it, there is plenty of money in our Spanish bank to pay the bills, Ros usually checks the account online, to make sure…’
‘This red letter is dated fifteenth September, Jake’ my wife interrupts. ‘It is all in Spanish of course but it does say in bold capitals they will be cutting the supply in two months. So it was here, all the time you and lover-boy were rolling around amid the empty beer-bottles. So what do you want us to do?’
He is clearly hugely embarrassed. ‘I am so sorry to put you through all this, of course we need the water back on, and of course John and Del need it for next week. Can I ask you to try to sort it out, with Aqualia?’
I take over the conversation. ‘I have a new student, Lydia, she is studying for her ‘C-level’ English exams, and was thinking about starting a translation service in her spare time, helping dumb Brits who have had their water cut off! Maybe you can be her first customer? She was only planning on charging a nom
inal five euros an hour. We have a class in the morning so I can explain it to her and hopefully she can get to the bottom of what has happened?’
The relief is palpable. ‘That would be fantastic, whatever it costs, no problem, thank you so much, just add it to the bill for the roof.’
Chrissie is having the last word, however. ‘Don’t you need to check all that with Ros first, Jake?’
Ouch again!
The following morning Lydia is delighted to have acquired her first dumb Brit client, so immediately after our class we head, a-back-o, to the Aqualia office. One of the delights of Spanish life for many expats here is that it reminds them of how the UK used to be, fifty years ago, including offices for the water and electricity boards, where customers can actually go, a feature of British life sadly long since consigned to history. Entering the building, my first impression is of a doctors waiting-room. In the middle is a desk, behind which sits a middle-aged female receptionist, listening disinterestedly as an old man recounts what appears to be his life story. The other half-dozen customers however are seated around the edge of the room, in no particular order seemingly, busily nattering away in one giant conversation. As we seek a couple of spare seats, we receive the usual Buenas Dias from the entire room, who are no doubt wondering exactly who this Englishman and his daughter actually are, as Lydia bears absolutely no resemblance to any Spaniard I have ever seen, certainly in these parts. Tall, five-eight maybe, mid-twenties, blue eyes, blonde hair, although thankfully for her, nothing like Prince Charles, Bobby Ewing or Jim Bergerac, she could easily pass as offspring number three. Until she speaks, that is. Within about thirty seconds she has gleaned the complete history of every single client, something no glowering Brit would ever be bothered to do, even if they could speak the language fluently. And I have to say, it certainly passes the time in a delightful manner. The old man next to us, for instance, should be getting his tractor ready for the olive harvest, which starts next month, but his wife has gone to visit her sister in Granada, so he has to come here and pay these Bastardos. His olive trees are on the left as you leave town in the direction of Malaga, in case you were wondering.
Sunsets and Olives 2: Back to Spain...... the madness continues! Page 16