A Lizard In My Luggage (20 page)

2. Save time and fool other motorists by ignoring NO ENTRY signs. Make a principle of driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

3. Should you stop at give way signs?
Home!
Ever heard of Mallorcan pride?

4. A fast car is approaching on the opposite side. Do you overtake the car in front? Of course! The other driver can always use the hard shoulder or veer into a ditch.

5. Car mirrors serve no useful purpose other than for your girlfriend to touch up her make-up. Ignore them.

On my fifth and final lesson with Tomeu, he takes me up a winding mountain road at nightfall and then instructs me to drive back down again using my headlights in the dusk. I actually enjoy the challenge and find Tomeu no longer threatening but, dare I say it, endearing. Once he decides to stop yelling at me and begins to acknowledge that I'm not going to make him another dismal road statistic, we begin to talk. In fact, on that lonely last run, I'd almost go as far as to say we connected. We laugh and chat about work, travel and politics and suddenly it dawns on me that I am being instructed by a hugely well-educated man who, on leaving university, opted to open a driving school rather than follow in the family accountancy business. As we arrive back at his driving school he shakes my hand, slaps me on the back, and with a broad smile says, 'You'll do, you'll do.'

It's a crisp November day and heavy white cloud is draped like a thick pearly mantle over the valley. Alan, clad in a heavy knit, twill trousers and green wellies, is manhandling a lavender plant on the terrace and replanting it in a perfunctory way in a nearby flowerbed. Defiantly he puffs on a
puro
, his brow furrowed and eyes downcast. I have no intention of remonstrating with him about his nicotine habit at this juncture. He is in ill humour because despite excuses, artifice and subterfuge on a Machiavellian scale, our house visitor has not been deterred and is still arriving tonight. Catalina has made up the basement guest room, previously our dank and creepy cellar, and cut fresh seasonal flowers which she arranges in a small glass vase on the dresser. The room is spotless, the terracotta floors scrubbed and polished to perfection, the white walls and ceilings cleared of any lurking cobwebs, ants, spiders, diminutive scorpions and moths. The bathroom is the only truly functioning one in the whole
finca
. The old four-poster bed is covered in simple white cotton sheets and duvet and a selection of reading material from
¡Hola!
to
The Economist
is piled neatly on a side table. Even Charlotte Jacobs, fashion and style guru for one of the broadsheets with her own TV spot to boot, won't be able to find fault with anything. On second thoughts… I walk into the kitchen where Catalina is brewing some savoury concoction on the stove. It smells heavenly.

  'You busy in office, so I make you
albondigas,
tomato sauce and rice for dinner. Your friend like meatballs?'

  Heaven only knows what she likes. Charlotte's fads change with the weather. Formerly a vegan in her chrysalis period she evolved into a vegetarian then a macrobiotic but last time we met she had switched from the Atkinson diet to the blood-group dietary plan. However the whole thing is a sham so there's no point in sharing this lunacy with Catalina.

  Charlotte is a menopausal woman in her early fifties who can't accept that she is no longer the staggering beauty she once was. Divorced and childless, she now lavishes her money on three overfed Persians with whom she shares a luxury flat in St James's, a hair's breadth from the Ritz. She has a full time maid and a butler for weekends and dinner parties. Her lovers are wealthy, some married but most are divorcees who, rejoicing in their newfound bachelor freedom, are only ever interested in short-term affairs. Charlotte is a useful stopgap, a polished companion for sporty weekends hunting and fishing in the country, a valuable party ticket in London's media land, and a reasonable bit of crumpet for an indulgent, naughty weekend in Paris, Venice or Rome. Hailing from a modest family in Sussex, Charlotte – real name Katie – yearned as a young child to live like her picture book American heroine, Eloise, in a luxurious hotel with servants, nannies and the best things that life could offer.

  So, from her early twenties she reinvented herself, developed a plummy accent, and claimed to have been educated not at the local grammar but at an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland. At twenty-three, she disappeared to Paris to study haute couture, returning two years later in a new guise. Katie, the
ingénue
, had departed and the sensational debutante, Charlotte, had arrived. In a short while, she became grand, orgulous and imperious, hacking her way with ruthless ambition to the top of the fashion ladder, working on the glossies and then the national press. Television was a natural progression and her thrice-weekly fashion spot on a breakfast show continues to secure her a healthy income. But Charlotte has a few dark secrets. She is clinically depressed, hopelessly insecure, lonely and neurotic and in daily decline. Ostensibly a health junkie, she is, in reality, a vodka slugging, pill popping, bulimic who needs extended siestas each day to sleep off her various addictions. Poor Charlotte thinks her secret is safe, but her brooding army of adversaries are watching and waiting for her to crumble and then the media machine will do everything in its power to drive her to the point of destruction and ultimately, extinction.

  I met Charlotte some years ago at a magazine launch party at the Savoy. She was wearing a bronze silk evening dress with a sash at the waist and a slit that ran half way up the thigh. Her hair was swept up in a French pleat and fragile crystal baubles hung from her ears and neck. Provocatively and covetously she leant close to a powerful newspaper magnate, giggling and sharing small confidences with him. However, I observed her hand shaking as she raised a glass of champagne to her lips and, in her other, a redundant jade coloured cocktail cigarette burned slowly. An editor friend noticed her too and crassly interrupted her intimate tête-à-tête to introduce me. Her cold eyes met mine for an instant and then, with a look of ennui, she asked condescendingly how I came to be at the party. I told her that I had managed to slip the doorman a fiver to gain entry, hadn't a clue who anyone was, but had brought my disposable camera in case I caught sight of a celebrity. She looked momentarily disconcerted and then suddenly rolled her head back and screeched with laughter. 'Are you always like this?'

  'Always,' said our mutual friend and left us to chat.

  There was something about Charlotte that intrigued and amused me. She was obnoxious, capricious and downright rude at the party but when a serious player crossed her path she became beguiling, coquettish and animated. Her behaviour was both appalling and fascinating.

  After the event, I was about to step into a taxi outside the hotel when I heard quick footsteps behind me, and Charlotte, tearful and distraught, tersely demanded that she share the ride. I agreed to drop her off en route to my flat. Tipsily she fell on to our shared seat and stared morosely out of the window at the falling rain, tears staining her face. Awkwardly, I made a vain attempt to comfort her but she was as brittle as Brighton rock, indignant and vengeful, yet revealing nothing. Two days later she phoned me at the office and invited me to lunch at which she frostily advised me to forget the whole taxi episode. For some inexplicable reason we keep in touch. Like a member of a Greek chorus I observe her charade of a life from the sidelines with pity, powerless to influence, and wretchedly waiting for the whole sad denouement and tragic climax. For her part, she finds me unthreatening and an occasional emotional prop when things aren't going her way. She has been in Mallorca for a fashion shoot and found herself with a few days spare. Much as I created a million ingenious excuses as to why she couldn't stay, she haughtily brushed them all aside and finally and pathetically I caved in.

  There's a commotion at the kitchen door. Three workmen are attempting to shift a small digger full of rocks which has broken down. They are here to repair the stone wall which runs the length of the garden and which was partially washed away in the recent storms. The engine suddenly bursts into life and there are cheers. Sluggishly it crawls forward over rubble and, to my relief, away from the patio. Catalina turns to me.

  'He is unhappy,
si?
' she inclines her head in Alan's direction on the far terrace.

  'He doesn't like Charlotte very much. He thinks she's flaky.'

  She frowns, registering the word flaky and rightly assuming it's not complimentary. 'But you said she's your friend. Why she comes if you don't like her?'

  'That's because we're hypocritical cowards. She's not a real friend, just a contact, a leech really. There are lots of them about, but this one is particularly clinging.'

  Catalina has already fumbled in her handbag and located leech in her pocket dictionary. 'A blood sucking annelid worm. Hm. It's good thing she stays only a few days.'

  I'm on the mobile to Bryan Patterson in London when I hear the sound of feet crunching gravel in the garden. Alan has arrived back from Palma where he had gone to collect Charlotte from her luxury hotel. My stomach sinks like a botched soufflé. I muster up enough enthusiasm to leave the call on a high note, and am just saying goodbye when Bryan cuts in sweetly, 'Tootsie sends you a whiskery kiss.'

  I ring off with a shudder. A vision in white floats towards me from the
entrada
with arms outstretched. I display a well-rehearsed smile of welcome. 'Charlotte! Great to see you.'

  'You too, darling. Isn't it simply divine here, although it's much colder than I expected.'

  'Did you have a good flight here?'

  'No. My penny-pinching paper flew me out on one of those ghastly budget airlines. I'm still recovering.'

  'What about the shoot?'

  'A disaster.'

  Alan raises an eyebrow and stalks off to the kitchen, no doubt to embolden himself with a glass of whisky. I make small talk, and ascertain that Charlotte now only eats white meats, fish, and vegetables (no potatoes or carrots) but she will succumb to a little wild rice and polenta. I decide it's best to humour her.

  'No one does caffeine, wheat or dairy now. It's very passé,' she says breezily. 'Oh where's your son? We're yet to meet.'

  'Ollie's staying with his friend Angel in the village tonight. You'll meet him tomorrow.'

  'Oh good,' she says without enthusiasm.

  I settle her downstairs in the guest bedroom and rush off to the kitchen to organise supper. I'm half way through chopping at some beans when I hear a blood-curdling scream from her room. Alan has already bounded down the stairs ahead of me. Charlotte is standing in the bathroom where water gushes vertically from one of the taps whose top has blown off and lies broken in the basin.

  'Do something!' she commands with vitriol, 'I'm soaked!'

  Alan stems the flow with a hand towel which he winds round the body of the tap.

  'Hold this,' he growls at her.

  She doesn't move. Instead I grasp the towel, leaving him to sever the water supply to the bathroom. He fiddles under the basin, closes off the gauge and the torrent is halted. He gets up and wipes his face with a towel.

  'You wrenched the tap the wrong way and snapped the valve.'

  'Well it was awfully stiff.'

  Alan stares at her with incredulity, shakes his head and plods back upstairs, muttering about calling Pere, the plumber. I gather up the wet towels, mop down the bathroom and attempt once again to make dinner. An hour later, Charlotte drifts upstairs in a flowing Moroccan style robe and observes me while I cook.

  I offer her a drink. She declines, saying that she never touches alcohol now. I wonder why we have to play these games. Opening the fridge door, I charge my glass for a second time.

  'It's very rustic here, isn't it?' A sugary smile lingers on her lips.

  'Yes, the countryside usually is.'

  'It must be simply ghastly here in the winter with no culture and no one stimulating to talk to. Thank God you can escape back to London each month.'

  'Oh, it's not so bad. I've got an imaginary friend, actually a rather highbrow American toad, and there are macramé classes in the town during the cold months.'

  'Don't jest.'

  'Charlotte, we're not on a desert island. Of course there are things I miss, like theatre and oatcakes, but I make up for it when I return.'

  She eyes me keenly. 'It's novelty value now, but you'll get bored with island life.'

  I can feel my hackles rising, so quickly select a CD and engross myself in cooking.

  'Still playing
Buddha Bar?'
she rolls her eyes.

  'When I'm not dancing to Des O'Connor's greatest hits.'