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

by John Austin Richards

  Writhing with embarrassment, I turn away. The Spanish are nothing if not direct, but surely he could have chosen his words more politely? Once again, however, I am reminded that British sensibilities do not apply here. The mayoral incumbents seem to regard this level of abuse as entirely normal. Everyone is shouting at once, and whereas in the UK a scuffle would surely have broken out, here it appears that a healthy dose of bellowing allows honour to be maintained all round, and peace breaks out again. Paco shoots me a sly wink and a grin, as if to say ‘Spaniards, eh?’ and we continue on our way.

  Up the hill come the stragglers, at the usual snails-pace, and eventually, after what my bladder considers to be about a century, we reach a look-out, where we can gaze down at the maze of buildings and alleyways below. And the effect truly is magical. Gone is the light pollution, above us are Orion and the Plough, the only constellations I am able to recognise, and here comes Paco, beaming widely. ‘Estupendo, no?’ Indeed it is my friend, and may you reign for another four years. But where is this bloody toilet?

  Strangely, the party seems to be breaking up, and Jose gestures us back down the slope. I am hopping from foot to foot. ‘So what about this loo, Jose?’ I whimper.

  ‘Ees wonderful, no? So much better than before! I hated that orange loo. Was orriblay. Francesca and Paco do phenomino. I vota for they. I no vota for pig Carlo!’

  My innards are completely destroyed. I am so utterly stupid, that I feel like banging my head against a wall, if that would knock any sense into my thick skull. Which it wouldn’t. Luz. Pronounced in official Spanish Looth. ‘Light’, but also ‘electricity’. However the local populace cannot speak official Spanish, can they, so the word comes out as loo. And if I don’t find one in the next thirty seconds, there is going to be an accident of phenomino proportions. By the grace of God, we are outside a bar. ‘Fancy a quick beer, Jose?’ I command, shepherding him inside, and handing him a fiver. ‘You order, I just need to nip to the TOIL….’

  Election day dawns bright and sunny, and in view of the fact that we just know that the voting process will be anything but straightforward, we decide upon a fairly Lazy Sunday, a stroll around the olive groves in the morning, sunbeds in the afternoon, close my eyes and drift away, then the polling station around six, on our way to the cliff-top church, for half-an-hour of quiet contemplation. Yeah, right. At the allotted hour, armed with voting letters, passports, and with ‘table number six’ etched firmly on our minds, we approach the parish hall to find ancient Old-Bill leaning nonchalantly on the wall. Nothing unusual about that, quite honestly, they have so many venerable coppers in this town they could monitor every voting site from here to Madrid. Struggling through the usual melee outside, the first thing we notice is that there are only four tables, labeled one to four, unsurprisingly, but of number six there is no sign. ‘Are you sure we have the right place?’ Chrissie whispers, keen not to draw attention to ourselves, but already it is too late.

  ‘NEIGHBOUR!’ Every eyeball in the place focuses on us, distressingly. Fernando, sitting resolutely behind table number four, although mercifully he has foregone his florescent Spandex, and squeezed his gut inside what appears to be someone else’s shirt. This bloke turns up just about everywhere, usually when we could do without him, although today he could actually be a blessing in disguise, which is not something you will hear me say that often.

  ‘We are looking for table six, Fernando’, I giggle, spreading my arms in a ‘what the hell is all this gesture.’

  ‘I AM TABLE SIX, NEIGHBOUR!’ he hollers, just in case anyone in the next village was looking for it. ‘GIVE ME YOUR CARD!’

  No point being reticent about it, is there, in a foreign country where we don’t have the first clue what is happening? I didn’t come to Spain to be reticent. The melee outside have crowded in to get a ringside seat, and ancient Old Bill is peering through the throng, although bellowing is nothing to get excited about, in this town. ‘No! You are table number four. We want table six’ and I gesture exaggeratedly at my note, folding my arms and pursing my lips.

  Now Fernando has a slight stutter, which usually only manifests itself when he gets excited, or agitated, which is just about always. ‘NEIGHBOUR, I AM TABLE F-F-F-FOUR, TABLE F-F-F FIVE, AND TABLE S-S-S-SIX! GIVE ME YOUR CARD!’

  Chrissie has to turn away, knuckles stuffed in her mouth, but around us there is uproar. An old woman barges her way through the pack. Mercedes, rocking from side to side on her gammy hips, like a drunken sailor on shore leave. ‘Neighbour, are you here to vote?’

  Stating the bleeding obvious again. No, we are here to piss Fernando off, but we might do a spot of voting, later, if there is time. ‘We would like to vote, yes, but it says table six, look, but there is no table six!’ And I shove my card under her nose.

  She studies it carefully, then fixes our corpulent neighbour with a glare. ‘Fernando, what is this? The English come here to vote, and there is no table six. Hombre, you are a TONTO!’

  Priceless. I am willing to bet there is nothing on Spanish TV this evening to match this. We could all be YouTube superstars, if any of these old duffers had a smart-phone. Poor old chap, he only volunteered for this job to get away from his sisters for the day. ‘MERCEDES, IT IS NOT MY F-F-F-FAULT!’ And he leans forward, shirt buttons squealing under the pressure, and tries to snatch my card, but in a split-second I whip it away.

  ‘Say por-favor!’ I grin. But enough teasing. I hand him my letter, and he smiles in gratitude, although it could actually be in frustration. Or wind. He gestures Chrissie to do the same, places our communications neatly in a box, and hands us a plain, white envelope each. I look at my wife, she looks at me, and we both look at Fernando. So what happens next? Now clearly, they have their systems here, and Fernando, and no doubt everyone else here present, assumes we know what to do. Presumably the envelopes are for putting our voting slips in, once we have actually cast our crosses, but how? And glancing round the room, I realise for the first time there are no actual voting booths, with table-tops and pencils on strings. And quite honestly I am beginning to feel a bit of a lemon, standing here grinning. Nothing unusual in that, of course, spent a goodly part of my life standing around like a lemon, grinning, but not generally surrounded by about twenty Spaniards.

  Mercedes to the rescue. ‘Get a voting paper, neighbour. Look, over there!.’ And sure enough, near the door are three separate piles of A4-sized sheets, lying on an un-numbered table-top. I stroll nonchalantly across, as if this were an everyday event and I actually know what I am doing, really, to be confronted by a list of around ten or a dozen names. Now we thought there were only three candidates, and had already decided I would vote for Paco, and Chrissie for Francesca, and nothing for the Pig, of course. We don’t actually know the surnames of our preferred candidates, but how hard can it be to pick them out from a list of three? But who are all these other people? And to be honest, the printing is quite small. Do we simply tick the name we want to vote for? Do we cross the others out? And in any event, there are no actual boxes to tick, or cross, or whatever it is you do in this crazy country.

  I take two sheets of paper from the first pile, hand one to Chrissie, and slink back to Fernando’s table. ‘Do you have a pencil, please?’

  He stares as If I have completely lost my mind, which is a fair approximation of the truth, quite honestly. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT A P-P-PENCIL FOR? JUST PUT THE F-F-F-FORM IN THE ENVELOPE, NEIGHBOUR!’

  ‘In our country, we put a pencil cross on the form’ I confirm, but fearing another barrage I do as commanded, as does Chrissie. Fernando sticks out his tongue in a gesture I take to mean just lick the envelope, neighbour, although he is no doubt thinking now get out of my polling station you pair of lemons, then he nods towards a tin box with a slot in the top, standing in the corner. I can feel my wife shaking with subterranean mirth as she grabs my envelope, stuffs it in the box, and we both crash through the door, squinting in the bright sunshine, and flop against some railings, laughing unco
ntrollably. Ancient Old-Bill is still there, smiling, clearly he senses something funny has just happened, but cannot figure out what could possibly be humourous about the Spanish electoral system. We, on the other hand, have tears running down our cheeks. What the hell just happened? We came down here, failed to find table six, stuffed a list of people into an envelope, but didn’t actually vote for anyone. Utterly and completely bizarre. This place is beyond bonkers. Passers-by are staring so we need to get ourselves together before we get run out of town. Chrissie produces a couple of tissues from her bag, we dry our eyes, and head up to the cliff-top church, away from this madness, a half-hour of relative tranquility. And the sunset over the olives, of course.

  Our route homewards takes us past the polling station again, where the general milling-around of earlier has been replaced by complete anarchy, it appears. ‘NEIGHBOUR!’ Oh blimey. Loli. This woman could cause a riot in an empty room. ‘Are you voting?’

  I smile serenely. ‘Already have, Loli!’ Beat you to it. And no doubt Fernando will give you a blow-by-blow account, later.

  ‘Did you vote for the Labrador, neighbour?’

  Now I am sufficiently au-fait with the lingo to know she is not referring to a retriever, but a worker, although for all the good it did we might as well have voted for a poodle, or a tom-cat. Still, not going to make much difference, is it, our two votes? From what we have seen of the opposition, Francesca and Paco are going to win by a landslide. Whatever, I am looking forward to recounting the tale, tomorrow at the library group, of the time we didn’t actually manage to vote for anyone, animal, vegetable or mineral. Right, home, glass of beer, and a prawn paella from my Rick Stein cookbook.

  The following morning the library is a-buzz with the election result. Or rather, the non-result, due to there having to be a re-count, the first tally being too close to call. ‘So do you voted for Francesca and Paco?’ Jose enquires. No point being coy about it, is there? I mean, it is a standing joke among the Spaniards at the group that we get singled out for special attention by the mayors, so clearly we are going to vote for them. The problem is, as we try to explain, we don’t think we actually managed to vote at all.

  ‘I no understand!’ giggles Rafi.

  ‘Why you not know who you vote for?’ Teri queries.

  ‘Plees say me you no vote for pig?’ Jose wants to know.

  This is worse than paying the rates. Quickly, I sketch out a UK voting slip in my notebook, with three names on a list, and three squares next to the names. I then dramatically rip the page from the book, place a cross in one of the boxes, and mime putting it in a tin container. ‘There! That is how we vote in Britain, with the cross against the person you are voting for. We didn’t do that yesterday, the list had maybe ten names, and we just stuck it in the envelope!’ Phew!

  Total bemusement on the opposite side of the table. ‘But you did voted!’ cries Rafi. ‘You no put cross in box in Espain.’

  This could go on until the next election, quite honestly. They know what they mean, we know what we mean, but ne’er the twain shall meet before one of us dies. ‘Ee-keep-o’ Teri explains. How you say ee-keep-o in Eengliss? In Espain, you vote for e-keep-o.’ Oh, so not the Labrador, then?

  ‘Team!’ giggles dictionary-woman Marie. ‘In Espain we vote for team.’

  Does she mean a political party? I didn’t think the town council elections were like that here. I didn’t see any political affiliations being banded about during the campaign, there might have been of course, but I got the impression this was about who had done what, on a purely local level. Maybe I am wrong, but honestly, I am losing the will to live. Let Chrissie see if she can get to the bottom of all this.

  ‘So how many people are in these teams, usually?’ she enquires.

  ‘Ten, or maybe twelve persons, depend on the team.’ Marie confirms.

  ‘But there were only ten or twelve names on our list, something like that, the one we put in the envelope. There were three candidates, so that is almost thirty names in total. There were definitely not thirty names on that list!’

  Teri is laughing, and I am starting to develop a sinking feeling about all this. Someone has cocked-up again. Not sure how, yet, but I am willing to have a small wager it might possibly have been yours-truly. ‘Cristina, are three lists separate! One for Francesca and she team, one for Paco, one for Pig. Which list you put in you envelope, plees?’

  She has it figured out, of course. Told you someone had cocked-up, didn’t I? ‘I don’t know which list, Teri’ she whispers, menacingly. ‘You will have to ask HIM.’

  Suddenly, all eyes are on me. Not really my fault, though, is it? I didn’t know there were three separate lists, did I? Anyway, all these damned Spanish names are the same, aren’t they? Jose-this, Antonio-that, Maria-the other, and don’t get me started on all those bloody Anna’s. ‘The first pile, by the door. I just picked up the first one I found. Could have been any team. I was confused, OK. I was expecting just three names, and three boxes to tick. I was voting for Paco, and Cristina for Francesca.’

  ‘BUT YOU VOTY FOR CARLO!’ Jose explodes. ‘Thee first pile, by the door, was pile of he. I also voty een thees place, I know thees.’

  At that moment the door bursts open and in crashes Amador. ‘Sorree I late, I RUNNY. Who vote for CARLO?’ Four Spanish fingers, and one English, are pointing in my direction. ‘Oh fox ME! Why you vote for thees ANNY-MALLY? Thees picker of OLIVE? Thees oink-oink, how you say, PEEK? Jonneee, you say me you voty for PACO! Why you voty for thees BOOEY? I will tell Paco, and Francesca next time I see THEY! Oh my GAAD!’

  I am waving my arms like a crazy-man. ‘No, no, please don’t say anything to Paco and Francesca. It was an honest mistake, I swear. Please don’t tell them! PLEASE!’

  Amador grins widely. ‘OK, I no tell they, on one CONDITION!’

  ‘I agree! What is your condition? Anything!’

  The locals are all smiling. They know Amador, and they know what is coming next.

  ‘We go pub, after CLASS! You buy me CUBO! WE GET PISSY!’

  The following morning Chrissie is checking her emails and Facebook, after breakfast. ‘Oh look, a post from the council. The election result. And guess who won? By a mano-something. And what is a mano? Do you know this word? Of course you do! It is a hand, isn’t it? A handful of votes. Car-bloody-lo has won the election. And it’s all your fault, isn’t it? Well you better pray he doesn’t impose an austerity budget, hadn’t you? Treble our council tax. Put a stop to the fireworks, the processions, the fiestas, the flamenco, the cultural visits with free lunches. This wonderful life we have here, could all be coming to a grinding halt, because you were too stupid to read a slip of paper.’

  That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? ‘Well don’t forget, you also voted for Carlo. Your envelope also contained his slip. You will be just as much to blame as me.’ She is joking, I know she is.

  ‘Not at all! YOU gave me the slip. All I did was lick the envelope. And best of luck finding my DNA, among hundreds of others. Anyway, we have that procession this coming weekend, and now you won’t be able to go, will you?’

  ‘What are you talking about? Of course I can go. I remember that one from last year, they gave away free paella afterwards. Of course we are going!’ Surely she is joking?

  ‘No no. I am going, of course. My conscience is clear. But you cannot go. What if you bumped into Francesca and Paco? You wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye, would you, responsible for them losing their jobs? You couldn’t possibly face the pair of them, could you, knowing this was ALL YOUR FAULT!’

  She wasn’t joking. I think…..

  CHAPTER 16. RAMBLIN’ ON MY MIND

  One Saturday evening, a few weeks later, approaching midnight, just as we are getting ready for bed, a text message comes through on our Spanish mobile. Wouldn’t happen in the UK, would it, phone messages, at this time of night? Here, however, the locals show no such reticence. We have even received texts at two in the morning, which explain
s why we now switch it off during the night. Chrissie grabs the phone, and raises her hand. ‘Shut up, all right? I’ve got it! Stay there!’ I do my best to look aggrieved. Haven’t said a word, have I? ‘It’s from Juan’ she confirms. ‘Plees to meet tomorrow at eight and half in morning outside library for sendero. See you!’ She pauses for effect. ‘So, do we know what a sendero is?’

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ I chuckle, having benefited from several large glasses of wine during the evening. ‘I’m going to bed. My brains are switched off! Just text him back and say we’ll be there.’

  She eyes me accusingly. ‘I wasn’t actually aware you had switched them on this morning. Off, on, it’s all the same to me. Anyway, I think a sendero is a car. A Romanian car, a Dacia Sendero, you know, Jose at the library has one, in white, and there are a few others dotted around here, all of them white. They must be quite popular.’

  I am struggling to get my grey-matter into gear one last time, today. ‘So why would Juan be taking us to see a car, at half-eight in the morning, pray?’

  ‘Who knows, perhaps there is a dealer open-day? Or maybe he has bought one himself, and wants to take us out for a spin? And were you listening to what I said about half-eight in the morning? You know what you are like about getting up early, moaning about missing your breakfast. I don’t want to hear your stomach rumbling from the back seat, when we are supposed to be enjoying a leisurely Sunday drive!’

  I still have my aggrieved-face on. Seems to be the default, these days. ‘Well there is one easy remedy for that, then, isn’t there? Just put your alarm on, and make my scrambled eggs a bit earlier than usual. Plenty of seasoning, don’t forget!’ And despite my sleepy state, I dodge what would have been a painful blow.