A Lizard In My Luggage (11 page)

  'I beg your pardon,' he says in a parody of an aristocratic English accent. 'I shall take more care in the future.'

  'Where did you learn to speak English so well?' I ask suspiciously.

  He gives a slow, enigmatic smile. 'Ah, that's a long story.'

  I'm like a dog on the scent. 'I take it you've lived in England?'

  'I have lived in many places,' he says gravely.

  Grinding some ash beneath his foot, he focuses his gaze on the field. I await further pearls but none are forthcoming so decide to end the questioning there for today. Somehow I feel there's a lot more to our new friend, Pep.

  The hour flies by and I find myself gripped. Can I really have enjoyed watching a game of football? This is a revelation. Ollie has scored two goals for his side and is given a hero's pat on the back by several boys in his team. He basks in the moment then jogs over to us, red faced and panting. Pep leans forward to congratulate him on the game. 'I am Pep. You must meet my son, Angel, soon. He can practise with you.'

  Ollie smiles shyly and turns to greet several team mates who've caught up with him. They acknowledge Pep with friendly nods and there's an exchange of banter. He takes a ten euro note from his pocket and gives it to them after a brief mock tousle. The boys pull Ollie by the arm and together they head off for the bar.

  'They seem very friendly.'

  Pep smiles at me. 'I have known most of them since they were babies. I tell them all to buy ice creams.'

  'Well, that's very good of you,' says Alan. 'Do you fancy a beer?'

  'Yes, but Angel and I must be off home or his mother will complain. I will call you.'

  He shakes Alan's hand, kisses me on both cheeks and exhaling a long puff of smoke, saunters off towards the pitch, in search of his son.

The build up to Festa del Bou has been immense, and now we are jostling for position in a heaving crowd awaiting the release of a young black bull which once unleashed will run amok around Catalina's local village. Five hundred or so wags, mostly young men who have spent the previous night imbibing heavily, will run in advance of the bull in a mad scramble, hoping to stay the course without being mauled. It is a kind of adrenaline rush which happens annually and Catalina and her village are proud that animal activists have so far been unable to ban the event. It is a matter of honour. This is the last village on the island able to hold such a fiesta because of its historical significance, and the regional government is twitchy about village insurgences, so chooses to turn a blind eye. Spectators and runners come from all over the island, many arriving the night before for some macho revelry. Evidence of a recent corybantic affair can be seen in the
plaça
where a line of tipsy black bin bags, bulging with empty wine and spirit bottles, prop each other up against a wall like a bunch of debauched and snoozing old soaks. Small groups of disorientated, haggard youths yawning and clutching beer cans drift around the streets mutely like sleepwalkers.

  Alan and I stand in the crush next to Ramon, Catalina's husband, who has popped Ollie effortlessly up on to his rock-like shoulders for a better view. Being a stonemason in the mountains means that Ramon works on tough terrain outdoors and is subsequently bronzed all year round and has the muscular physique of Popeye. He's also a good football player, keeps hens in his garden, and drinks copious amounts of chocolate Nesquik and Pepsi every day, all major brownie points when it comes to coolness rating with Ollie. Catalina and Ramon's young daughters are at nursery school so Ollie is delighted to have his new hero's full attention. Ramon observes the excited runners with a nonchalant air and raises a cynical eyebrow when among them; he sees his wife yelling joyously at him. He throws me a slightly bewildered glance. 'She is crazy. Do you see other wives doing this?'

  Ramon is one of Mallorca's natural philosophers, a man well beyond his years in wisdom, who tolerates the antics of his exuberant and tomboyish wife because he knows that he can never change her and in his heart he would never want to. He was born and raised in another village, and has the advantage of being able to revert to outsider mode whenever he chooses. No event in the valley passes by without Catalina's presence and sense of fun and Ramon is aware of this. It makes him proud although he would never show it. I catch her eye and give a thumbs up sign. She throws us all a dazzling smile and blows kisses, before gathering up her thick dark hair and scrunching it into a ponytail. Despite her cavalier attitude, I wonder if she might be just a tiny bit nervous.

  A gun is fired five times to announce the arrival of the bull. Everyone calls out and claps, full of anticipation. From where we are standing, the creature's head can just be seen jutting out from the back of the truck. A huge cheer goes up when an official releases the catch to its cage and a stumbling dark form emerges, raises its head, pauses for an instant, then careers down the ramp of the van, sensing the chase is about to begin. And now at the sound of another gunshot, the bull is off, racing down the steep hill on the village's outskirts towards the
plaça
. Members of the
Guardia Civil
are pushing people back out of the roads and blowing whistles at the stragglers. At first, as if in a daze, the participants marvel at the animal's thunderous descent until snapping into action as it gains momentum and is nearly upon them. There's a scramble as they scream and fly in all directions, over walls, up trees, and squeezed against doors as it pounds down the cobbled streets. Catalina, her sturdy frame clad in Tshirt, shorts and blue sneakers is running fast amid the throng. Red-faced and exuberant, she hops gamely on to a pavement and, sensing the bull hot on her heels, leaps deftly through an open door of a house in the nick of time. She waves triumphantly at us from across the street. I feel my own heart beating fast. Alan shouts '
Bravo!
' in her direction and nudges Ramon. 'My God, you've got a plucky wife.'

  Ramon shakes his head and laughs. 'Mad, you mean.'

  One man slips on the stones and there's a sharp intake of breath from the hundreds of spectators lining the pavements and cobbled steps winding up from the
plaça
. Will he be trampled? Can he crawl away in time? The man is grabbed out of the way by a friend and the bull crashes past. There's a sigh of relief from the masses.

  Ramon gives me a grim smile. 'Well, he will live to see another day.'

  'I hope they all will,' I reply.

  'Everyone makes their own choices,' he says enigmatically.

  Although a part of me is caught up in the exhilaration of the event, I'm wondering what will happen to the bull when the event is over. In London, an all-night vigil and a 'Save the Bull' rally would already have been underway. Ollie, as if reading my mind, leans down and asks the question. Alan puckers his brow and gives an awkward cough indicating that he'll leave me to find a choice response.

  'He'll go back to his field to play,' I reply as chirpily as I can.

  When his attention is diverted I ask Ramon in Spanish what will become of the bull.

  He is pragmatic. 'When it finishes running, it will be taken to the abattoir and killed. Then everyone in the village receives a piece of the meat. It is the tradition.'

  There's a roar from the crowd as about fifteen strong local men, stripped to the waist, swoop on the bull and attempt, with three thick ropes looped around its neck, to lead it into the small
plaça
where it is to be crowned with a garland of wild flowers. A mass of villagers scream and shout as the men, jostled by the crowds, pull this way and that against the bulk of the creature which lashes out at them, snorting and baying indignantly. The men bob up and down, a small flotilla of fragile vessels dancing about in a wild sea. Rearing back, the bull bucks and thrashes against the ropes, writhing up in the air and lowering its horns in rage and fear. Some of the men, weakened and trembling with the strain of gripping the ropes, fall to the ground, others jumping backwards as the bull lunges forward, its horns homing in on them like a missile. With difficulty it is finally coaxed to the fountain where it immerses its shaggy head in cold water, then rises, shaking the drops from its hide and surveying the noisy, bustling scene with uncomprehending eyes. The leaves shiver on the bowed, ancient plane tree in the square, gently brushing the animal's hide and a cheer rises as a ring of gaudy flowers is placed brutally on the creature's dampened crown. I feel a rush of sorrow. The chase is over and the little black bull will soon be led away to meet his fate.

  Ramon taps my sleeve. 'That's that. Now comes the really big event.' He pulls Ollie off his shoulders and begins tickling him. Ollie writhes mirthfully at his feet, yelling out loudly.

  'Which is?' Alan asks expectantly above Ollie's squeals.

  'Breakfast, of course.' Then to Ollie conspiratorially, 'For you and me that means chocolate croissants, Nesquik, Pepsi and biscuits…'

  Ollie nods and gives him a cheeky smile. Then clapping his hands together loudly, Ramon leads us jauntily through the crowd towards his and Catalina's house.

The computer shop is in darkness, the metal barrier snapped shut like a heavy metal eyelid over the window. I look at my watch and frown. It is past five o'clock and siesta is over, so where is everyone? I wander up the street a little and discover that few shops are yet open. The menu in the window of a cosy little restaurant named Can Gata, catches my eye. It is offering a scrumptious sounding three course lunch with wine for about a fiver. I convert the euros to pounds in my head. That would just about buy me a coffee and a muffin in London. A
moto
, one of the small noisy motorbikes beloved by Mallorcans, screeches past me emitting a waft of acrid grey smoke. I fan the still air with my hand and walk slowly back down the quaint cobbled street, past the colourful shop windows to the lively
plaça
where I spy Antonia's petite form huddled over a glass at a bar. She sees me and beckons.

  'Oh it's so hot!' she complains, her face beaded with sweat, 'I'm having an iced tea. Here take the key. Help yourself. I'll be there in a minute.'

  I'm a little thrown by her faith in me as I reach for the key to the shop but we've become friends and she's shrewd enough to see that I'm hardly robber material. For the last four years, she and her interminably unflappable American husband, Albert, who used to serve in the American armed forces, have run HiBit, the leading computer shop in the valley and therefore a Mecca for loping, geeky teenagers, computerate locals and neurotic, tech-obsessed expats. HiBit is of course much more than just a computer shop. It is a meeting place for computer illiterates in need of advice, people who just want a chat or those whose spirits and businesses have been all but broken by the incompetence or dilatory service of the local telephone provider. Antonia, in perfect English but with a pronounced Mallorcan twang, offers humour, sympathy and vengeful solutions where appropriate, while Albert, the ghost of a smirk on his face, listens quietly while fiddling with the plethora of coloured wires and metal screws of a computer he's just built. Then he'll blink, his pale blue eyes wandering towards the ceiling as though seeking divine inspiration and say, 'Well, I guess I can fix that if you can leave it in overnight.'

  Even when a computer problem is terminal he'll manage a 'Well it could be worse' or 'Do you want the good news or the bad news?'

  Albert is one of those reassuring rocks that surfaces once or twice in town life. He's a friend to all souls given that he speaks the local Mallorcan dialect and Spanish fluently and subscribes to that staple school of thought that teaches that no problem is insurmountable.

  Pottering back up the street and through the throng of shoppers, I attempt to open the door. A grim thought strikes me: say one of the neighbouring shopkeepers gets suspicious and thinks I am a
lladre
, a thief? As I struggle with the padlock for some minutes, a large man, cigar butt balanced on his lower lip, approaches me, puts down his shopping bags, turns the rusty key and brutally wrenches the door open. He nods and walks off without a word. A trusting soul. I turn on the lights, drop the key on the glass-panelled desk by the till and cross the showroom. It is small and functional with white walls and tiled floor but still manages to display a significant number of shiny computers against one wall and a selection of technical accessories against the other. By the bottom stone step leading up to the offices, I notice that new stock has arrived. Cardboard boxes are piled there, some already torn open with their contents, cellophane-wrapped Game Boys and diskettes spilling all over the floor. I climb slowly up the stairs to a narrow room where a row of computers is set up for locals and ex-pats alike who need access to e-mail and Internet and who, like me, are probably waiting for their own to be connected at home.
Poc a poc
. I switch on the overhead fan and plug in my own laptop. As soon as it connects it begins to flash wildly as if it's receiving a blood transfusion, whirring and purring, its lights flickering green and amber. Then like a clucking hen laying eggs, it bleeps excitedly as it downloads my e-mails. They appear on the screen in quick succession, as if by magic. The front door slams and a voice yells '
Hola!
' I pop my head over the banister. A shy young man with anxious grey eyes and thick chestnut hair swept back in a ponytail is staring up at me. He's wearing hippy-chic clothes, a nose stud and seems to want to buy a computer. Where's Antonia when you need her? I tell him to come back in five minutes. He shrugs and gives me a confused little smile, mystified that I don't want his business, then leaves. I return to my e-mails, noting with relief that none of them are particularly urgent.