'You must come up for a drink,' I encourage. 'Meet the family.'
He nods enthusiastically. One day soon, yes, he will visit us. We too must meet Cristian, his nine-year-old son who, he tells me, is in the park walking his boxer, Franco. There's no sign of a wife. He also promises to give me details of a half marathon race which is coming up in Palma soon. It will be such fun and we can compete together, he insists. As I stagger back down the track I ponder on this curious trick of fate that finds my nearest neighbour, in the middle of nowhere, a fervent disciple of running.
We have been here barely a month and yet despite the on-going adversity, I have already grown accustomed to the scene of pine-clad mountains from my window at the top of the house. In no time at all I have exchanged a view of grubby concrete blocks and an unremitting grey London sky for one of breathtaking beauty. And yet chaos reigns around us. From dawn till dusk we share our home with a pack of swarthy, tool-wielding strangers yelling good-naturedly and interminably in a foreign tongue who clomp around the house and grounds in boots which exude enough sand and grit to fill a new Kalahari Desert. In every room, yawning sockets disgorge tufts of gaudy wires, concrete floors remain un-tiled, walls unpainted, plaster crumbles, flatulent bathroom taps expel nothing but hot air, and ants and lizards run rampant throughout the house, but do I care? Somehow one glimpse of the verdant paradise unfurling from my office window makes it all seem OK. I can cope with the sawing and gnawing, the banging and clanging, the plaster disasters, and lack of furniture and amenities. One day, I tell myself, we will look back on this period and laugh. Maybe we'll be strait-jacketed at the time and in the high security psychiatric wing of a mountain hospital, but we'll be laughing.
Sitting at my desk each morning, gazing over the valley in wonder, I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe it's real. Beneath the high ridges and soaring peaks a chain of brawny, squat hills, like small plump Buddhas, curl around our small market town in a firm and, one hopes, everlasting embrace. The sunlight moves mysteriously along the peaks and by mid morning a white film envelops the higher ridges and clouds settle on the lower plains like candy floss. By early evening, streaks of rich vermilion light spread across the entire Tramuntana range so that its face is suffused with a rosy hue like a happy imbiber of good red wine.
It's already sizzling hot as I sit in an old white T-shirt and shorts, tapping slowly on the computer keys. I take childish glee in not having to wear a suit, make-up, jewellery or even shoes and wonder what on earth my clients in London would make of my dishevelled state. More to the point, am I really bothered? The sense of personal freedom is palpable. The builders, clad in faded shorts and battered trainers, are singing outside in the courtyard, not pop songs but ballads in their native Mallorcan tongue. Everyday this small contingent of workmen arrives at the house to tile a bathroom, fix a door, lay some paving or repair a wall. These are not just cosmetic challenges; some are structural and we will have to grit our teeth and live in a certain amount of turmoil until the finca is truly completed.
Although it was five years ago that we acquired the finca, it had lain abandoned for half that time awaiting the completion of architectural drawings, planning consent from the local council and permission to upgrade its utilities. Having been recommended a talented local architect through our estate agent – albeit one who didn't speak English – we tried to straddle Mallorca and London, taking it in turn every month to visit him on the island in order to move the project forward. We didn't speak any Spanish or the local dialect so communication involved spirited charades, enthusiastic nodding and si si's, and hand-drawn diagrams. The finca had no running water and the electricity ran weakly to 115 volts so on our architect's advice we applied to go on mains water, which would involve running pipes underground from the village to our house, and upping the electricity supply to 230 volts. This was no mean feat and in order to get things moving we enlisted the help of a buildercum-supervisor named Senyor Coll. This wealthy builder from Palma advertised in a local newspaper and, bewitched by his impressive client list and chummy and solicitous ways, we had entrusted him with the task of reforming our ruin. As it transpired, Senyor Coll was a man so devoid of principles as to make my client Greedy George seem like Gandhi. Within a year it had become abundantly clear that he was nothing more than a wily con artist when, having drained us of funds, he abandoned the project halfway through, leaving us to pick up the pieces with an honest and hardworking local builder named Stefan. Did we bear a grudge? Yes, until, that is, we came to accept that there are prowling wolves even in Utopia.
So with a new roof, wooden beams, staircase, bathrooms, doors and windows we have at last been able to move in to our new home. Shutters have been fitted, mains water now brought up to the house and we have a decent electricity supply. The kitchen is without work surfaces, cupboards or tiles on the floor but at least we have a plumbed-in washing machine and working hob, fridge and sink. When the newly installed plumbing isn't playing up, we even get some hot water in the guest bathroom, although the other two still aren't usable and taps lie dust-laden in their wrappers aloft heaps of tiles waiting to be attached to walls. The once gloomy botega, cellar, has been transformed into a guest en suite and the ancient stone walls of the finca have been re-pointed and made secure. There is still a long way to go and a huge amount of structural work to be done outside such as terracing, creating walls and the laying of paths. We have also set aside an area beyond the kitchen for a swimming pool but, given the cost, we shan't be able to make that a reality for some time. As they say in Mallorca, 'Poc a poc…'
Having arrived half an hour ago, our workmen will sweat it out until nine and then stop for their breakfast, a fat entrepà, a crusty white roll, filled with Serrano ham or chorizo sausage and tomato. I've got into the habit of following their routine, pottering downstairs when they down tools to make some tea. Alan likes to greet them on arrival, standing with crossed arms in the front doorway, his tall frame blocking out the sun, until he hears the pop pop of the motos as they gnaw up the lane. Then with a huge beam on his face, he strides into the sunny courtyard and in his rich Scottish brogue exchanges hearty 'Holas' with them as they gather under our porch. But my greatest entertainment is listening to Alan attempting to converse with them in Spanish. He's a master of the weighty 'Si'. No matter what the topic, Alan can find a way to deliver the simple, delicious monosyllable. Sometimes he manages an 'Ah si' with huge gusto and enthusiasm, usually when discussing the performance of the Real Mallorca football club. At other times, if conversation moves to summer water shortages, he looks thoughtful, nods his head sagely and mutters 'Si, si si' with sad conviction. Then there's the questioning 'Si?' when he furrows his brow as some revelatory information is imparted to him, and exclaims 'Si?' as in 'Really?' This male bonding of an Anglo-Mallorcan kind can carry on fruitfully for half an hour or so with the builders hanging on Alan's every 'Si', clapping him on the back and offering him broad smiles of encouragement. It can only be a matter of time before he conquers 'Non' and then there's no knowing where the conversation may lead.
My office door swings open and Alan strides into the room with a satisfied air.
'Do you know,' he says cheerily, 'I can't quite believe it, but I think I've developed quite an ear for Spanish.'
'Really? What about Mallorcan?'
'Oh, come on! I'm just trying to get to grips with Castilian Spanish first.'
This is often the dilemma facing the foreigner moving to Mallorca. Do you learn mainland Castilian Spanish first, or the local Mallorcan dialect? We have opted for Castilian lessons to begin with and hope to pick up the local lingo as we go along. However most of the building vocabulary we have learnt is in Mallorcan because that is what our builders converse in most of the time.
'So, tell me about your Spanish ear.'
'Well, I've just had a great conversation with Stefan and the boys. You would have been impressed. Maybe I should think about jacking in those language classes?'
&nb
sp; Like an intransigent child, Alan has resisted all efforts by Paula, his seventy-year-old Spanish teacher, to get to grips with the language. Each week he returns dejectedly from her tiny flat in the town square with sheets of grammar exercises, which he examines with glazed eyes out on the patio late at night, glass of malt whisky in one hand and the inevitable puro, a fat cigar, in the other.
I try not to smile. 'Since you're becoming so fluent, maybe you should increase your lessons with Paula. You know, move on to the subjunctive and more complex grammatical issues?'
He pushes a fretful hand through his greying locks. 'Hm. Actually, I can't help thinking Paula's a bit past it.'
'Past what exactly?'
He draws up a swivel chair from the other side of the desk and sinks heavily into it. I notice that his tattered old shorts and brown legs are streaked with mud from the garden.
'I mean she's nice enough but not exactly exciting to be with.'
'I'm not sure if you're supposed to get excited about your Spanish teacher, are you?'
He gives me a naughty grin. 'Well, if she was forty years younger, and forty pounds lighter, I might.'
I give him a look of mock disapproval.
'Anyway,' he argues, 'when are you going to start lessons?'
'Look, I'd love to,' I say, a tad insincerely, 'But when I answered Paula's advert in the Majorca Daily Bulletin she only had one slot left. Anyway, your need is greater than mine.'
'I can't think why,' Alan grumbles. 'You've only listened to a few Spanish tapes yourself.'
'Well, at least I've progressed beyond si.'
'I take it you mean sea as in el mar?' He gives me a wink, stands up and peers out of the window. 'I'm a bit worried about the new irrigation channel Stefan's set up for me. The water's very slow. What do you think?'
Stefan has spent hours with Alan running water irrigation pipes around the orange and lemon trees in our field. Like small boys, they smacked palms triumphantly when the first drops came through. They work well together despite the language barrier, Stefan in the role of project manager coordinating the works while Alan acts as general overseer.
'Is there enough water in the safareig?'
He registers that I'm cockily using a Mallorcan word to fox him, but is not to be outwitted. He gives me a derisory look. 'Well, of course there is. I'd be a pretty poor gardener if I didn't think to check the water tank.'
'Well then, I've no idea. You'll have to confer with Stefan.'
'Indeed,' he sighs and plods off downstairs.
The temperature has now risen to 40˚C. I have several e-mails waiting to be sent which is a good enough excuse to vacate my seat and brave popping into town to investigate HiBit, the local computer shop which has Internet access, and to buy some vegetables from the market. The ADSL installation, which we need for emailing, will take time and, according to Stefan, will involve serious excavation of the nearby roads, but he ominously insists there will be no problem which is enough to make my heart sink. No problema, indeed. Miraculously we now have a phone line in operation but it is temperamental and given to seizures in the middle of calls. I can only imagine it takes umbrage at certain topics of conversation and cuts us off mid-flow. I get up and walk over to the window that overlooks the field. Aha! Caught him. Small intermittent puffs, like smoke signals, are rising from the doorway of Alan's den, down in the field. I call this his abajo, which strictly speaking means 'down below'. Naively he thinks his daily puro smoking goes undetected, his lair being shielded by a conifer and two lemon trees.
I potter down into the garden where Ollie, clad in shorts and a floppy brimmed hat, is pounding a battalion of ants with his small fists. Like most small boys he has an unsettling fascination with all things in the soil of a hairy, swift of limb, creepy-crawly kind.
'Do you want to come into town?'
He squints up at me from the grass. 'What on earth are you wearing?'
This time, unlike my first and only ill-equipped attempt at walking along the track, I'm taking no chances. Today I'm kitted out like a proper walker, wearing sensible loafers and shorts. Sartorial elegance is not a priority.
'What's wrong with it?' I ask a touch defensively.
He shrugs his shoulders. 'Well, you look scruffy. In London you wear suits.'
'Yes, well, I'd look pretty ridiculous wearing a suit in this heat. Besides I'd stick out like a sore thumb.'
He sighs deeply. 'I hate this hat. I look like a girl.'
'Don't be silly. It'll stop the sun burning you. So, do you want to come with me?'
'I'm rather busy killing these ants.'
'I'll buy you an ice cream.'
He pauses and rises on his haunches. 'Are you driving there?'
'Heavens, no. It's a lovely day for a walk.'
He shakes his head. 'I'm not walking anywhere. I'll stay here with daddy.'
'OK suit yourself.'
He gives me a cryptic little smile. 'You're not scared to go all by yourself, are you?'
'Scared? What on earth of?'
He mumbles something and shakes his head dismissively, his interest diverted by the ant carnage around him. Maybe he knows something I don't.
Alan is puffing on a beefy brown cigar as I appear silently round the door of his abajo and shriek, 'Caught you!'
He nearly jumps out of his skin and vainly tries to dispel the clouds of acrid smoke with his arms.
'Don't bother. You're only making it worse.'
'My first one of the day,' he says lamely, choking on the fumes.
'Hm… and what about the other four cigar stubs in that ashtray?' I point to the overflowing terracotta saucer by his computer.
He knits his brows. 'Those are just old ones. I hope you don't think I've smoked them today?' He gives me a wounded look.
'Actually I think you're a lousy liar but I'm in a hurry so haven't got time to prolong the discussion.'
He seems relieved. 'Ah, you're off to HiBit. Can you remember to ask Antonia, the owner, about Ollie joining the local football club? Stefan says her brother, Felipe, is the chap in charge.'
'Will do.'
On my way out of the house, I pause to grab a handmade straw pannier from the kitchen, a new purchase from one of the mountain villages. Foolishly I imagine it might give me some kudos with the market stallholders who, so far, have found my linguistic combination of poor Spanish, mime and semaphore hugely entertaining.
Walking down our rocky lane, without heels but with laptop and pannier in tow, is verging on the enjoyable were it not for the intense heat. On one side of me is a lofty but misshapen stone wall, distended in the centre by ancient bulging rocks, which give it the wry appearance of an old paisano, a country dweller, with a pot belly. On the other, there's a steep drop into a veritable Eden of neighbours' orchards, densely packed with fruit trees of every kind – orange, lemon, fig, pomegranate, plum, pear, apricot, peach and cherry. I pause to contemplate the sheer abundance and richness of colour of the ripening figs and pomegranates, fruit which in London I might fleetingly glimpse, pale and cellophane wrapped, and exorbitantly priced in some drab supermarket. The fruit's pungent, sweet aroma hangs in the warm air and I suddenly feel giddy and so alive it is as if my every pore has been awakened. Like an ecstatic and entranced Eve on a voyage of discovery, I peer up above the porch of my neighbour Rafael's house, overcome with an inexplicable joy when I see clumps of maturing avocados and fat ruby grapes ripe for the picking.
We have four neighbours in the vicinity of our property but so far I have only met Rafael and had a friendly wave from the German owner next door. However, when we viewed our property for the very first time, an agitated, elderly senyora had hobbled from the chalet at the mouth of the track and blocked our path, waving her arms frantically and shaking her head. Toni, our agent, had spoken to her in local dialect and then explained to us with a nonchalant shrug that she had mistaken us for lost tourists. Although she stepped aside, like a border control guard she continued to gaze unsmilingly and s
uspiciously at our car as it heaved its way over the rocky terrain and up to our finca. Now as I reach the corner, I glance nervously at her porch, expecting the same small, bespectacled and matronly form to rush out like the troll under the bridge to challenge me. No one's about. I take a left and head for the town and the local computer shop. It is just off the main plaça with its gaudy Gaudiesque church and bustling outdoor cafés jam-packed with vociferous locals and small children squirming on their mothers laps as they try to grab at the tails of sly feral cats prowling beneath the tables. I decide to polish off my e-mails quickly, visit the market and hopefully have enough time to sneak a delicious iced coffee at Café Paris, my new favourite bar, on the way home.
The heart of our local market beats in a modest, unprepossessing white building in the town centre and yet its arteries extend far into an adjacent car park and spill still further on to a broad terrace where the sellers of livestock – birds, hens and rabbits – vie for space on a Saturday morning. During the week, the vast interior of the building is awash with fresh fruit, luscious vegetables, flowers and plants and the smell of sweet, damp earth fills the air. From behind mounds of lettuces, cucumbers, plump tomatoes and oranges, the heads of stallholders bob up and down like expectant geese as they search out potential purchasers and old friends. Lining the walls of the hall are permanent stands and kiosks selling dried beans and nuts, meats, grains and fat red sausages, chorizo and huge rounds of milky white manchego cheese. A side hall betrays its briny contents from the street as the strong whiff of fish seeps out from under the market's swing doors and fills the front porch. At the weekend, the whole place is seething with sharp-eyed housewives, keen for bargains and the best, most delicious produce. Queuing at stalls is a lengthy and, at times, dispiriting experience if you are an estranger, a foreigner. The town's women enjoy a loud and raucous gossip with the various stallholders and as a matter of course jostle and forcefully elbow their way to the top of the queue ahead of timorous newcomers. Forging their way to the front, they arm themselves with anything green, voluminous, and preferably spiky with which to make a final assault on those who fail to scuttle out of their path. To stomp off in ill humour in order to offer your custom elsewhere will serve no purpose whatsoever as each stall will already be mobbed with another baying crowd and should word get round that you're not a team player you might never get served at all.
A Lizard In My Luggage Page 5