A Lizard In My Luggage (8 page)

  'So, now you're here, what can we do for you?'

  She hurls me some small plastic bags which, in a fluster, I begin to fill rapidly with the various voluptuous offerings on her counter.

  She settles her hands on her ample hips and smiles mischievously.

  'What are you doing?' she yells with incredulity. 'Throw all that junk out and start again.'

  I have to admit I'm confused. 'Er… what do you mean, Teresa?'

  She sighs and shakes her head, as do all the other spectators, and grabbing an avocado, thrusts it under my nose. 'Smell it, feel it.'

  Obediently I give the fruit a gentle tweak and sniff the surface. More titters and tuts.

  'No, not like that! Watch.' Teresa snatches up another, gently feeling and prodding it rather like a doctor might do when examining a patient for mumps. Then she closes her eyes, presses her nose to the dark green skin and inhales deeply. Perhaps this is the locals' answer to glue sniffing.

  'Now do you see?' She is greeted by approving smiles.

  'Sort of, but how is it supposed to feel and smell?'

  Teresa pats me on the cheek. 'Ah senyora, you've a lot to learn. Let's start with the peaches.'

  My pannier brimming with fruit, vegetables, a baguette and a bunch of lilies, I stagger in the simmering heat out of the town, away from the bustle and eventually along our dusty track. As I pass Rafael's silent house with its muted green shutters, his boxer, Franco, barks loudly from the outside run. I dump the pannier on the ground and squeeze my fingers through the wooden railings to stroke the dog's ears. He wags his stunted tail and licks me, his warm baggy snout snuffling against my skin. At that moment, a ball comes thundering up the track from nowhere and hits me on the head. Bullseye! I pick it up and squint accusingly into the sun. Fast little feet pad towards me in a hail of dust. It's Ollie, red faced and panting. 'Ah. You've got it! Can I have it back? We're playing football.'

  'We?' I ask irritably.

  'Me and Helge.'

  'Helge and I,' I sniff primly. 'And who is Helge?'

  'She's German and lives next door. Bye.'

  And off he trots with his football, leaving me nursing a bruised head and still none the wiser. I notice that he's abandoned the floppy hat. Picking up my bag, I slowly approach the house nearest to ours, a well-worn stone
finca
whose pergola overflows with crimson bougainvillea that hangs down in a dense fringe over the cobbled terrace. A stunning woman with glossy dark hair, clad in a slinky silk dress, emerges from a side gate which leads to the garden. She is holding Ollie's hand.

  'What a gorgeous little boy you have!' she says sweetly in broken Spanish. I notice she's slightly out of breath from running. 'I'm Helge. I think you've met my husband, Wolfgang.'

  I'm momentarily distracted by her apparent ability to wear silk and run without perspiring. What's her trick? I proffer a hand and explain that her husband and I have merely exchanged hand waves. She beams at me.

  'You know we are so happy to have you as neighbours. Ollie says you speak some Spanish which is good because I don't speak English.'

  She tells me that she and her husband live in Berlin but visit Mallorca during the summer. They'll be away from September but have a local family keeping an eye on their house. Ollie kicks the ball towards her and she scrambles after it energetically and somehow elegantly. Maybe some people are just born svelte.

  'Listen,' I burble, 'If Ollie is being a nuisance…'

  'No, no,' she smiles. 'He saw me on my terrace and invited me to play football. He was so sweet, how could I resist?'

  I narrow my eyes at my devious little darling. 'Hm, I manage well enough. Now Ollie, I think it's time for your bath.'

  He pulls a face. 'But I want to stay with Helge.'

  I give him a warning grimace and he quickly drops his hand from Helge's clasp. 'Can I see you tomorrow?'

  'Of course,
liebchen!
' she cries, giving him a hug. 'It's so nice to have a little boy around again. I remember when my son, Tomas, was small. Listen, why don't you all come and have drinks with us tomorrow night? It would be good to get to know one another.'

  Given Helge's instant star rating with my son, he'll probably bring adoption papers round for them to sign. I thank her heartily and, with Ollie shuffling behind me, make my way through the courtyard and into the house where I drop the bulging pannier on the concrete floor and collapse onto a flimsy beach chair. I try not to fix my eyes on the boxes of unpacked kitchen utensils and crockery around me. What I'd give to have fitted cupboards and a decent dining table and chairs, but I'm just going to have to wait.

  'Had a fun time?' enquires Alan, striding into the kitchen with a pair of secateurs in his hand. Sometimes I think they're welded to him.

  'I need a cup of tea before I expire.'

  He steps over the assortment of vegetables that have spilled out of the pannier and cheerfully fills up the kettle. I notice Ollie skips over the same heap en route to the biscuit tin.

  'Well, I got the e-mails done and met Antonia and Albert who own HiBit. She's Mallorcan and he's American and so I didn't have to use my awful Spanish.'

  'What a cop out!' growls Alan. 'Were they any help on Ollie joining the local football team?'

  'Yes. Antonia says there'll be no problem with him joining. She's going to speak with Felipe.'

  'When can I start?' Ollie pipes up.

  'I think the new season starts in September, so very soon.'

  His face brightens. 'Good, and Helge's agreed to play with me until they leave.'

  'Who's Helge?' asks Alan, slapping a mug of green tea in front of me.

  'Our glamorous next-door neighbour. She's invited us round tomorrow night for drinks.' I give him a leading smile.

  'A glamorous German,' he muses. 'I wonder if she likes gardening.'

  'Yes, she does,' says Ollie enthusiastically. 'And football.'

  'Sounds just like my sort of girl,' replies Alan roguishly.

It was one of those spontaneous decisions that are easy to make here. The sky was blue and the air still and warm, so Alan and I decided to call it a day and go for an early evening walk in the mountains. And why not? Ollie, aimless around the house until able to start his new school, had been invited by our builder, Stefan, to spend the evening round at the house of Catalina, his older sister, and her husband Ramon, both of whom we are yet to meet. The promise of a large plate of
macarrones
, delicious pasta tubes with Bolognese sauce, the staple diet of children up here in the mountains, and a rumbustious game of football with Catalina's two tomboyish young daughters had proved irresistible. We agreed to collect him from Stefan's mountain village later in the evening.

  So, having made a two-hour climb, here we are alone on the summit of one of the mountains in the Tramuntana range that offers a spectacular view over the whole valley. Alan is scrabbling around the rocks shovelling herb specimens into a polythene sandwich bag while I sit on a tree stump revelling in the peace.

  That's when Judas rings. The name Patterson flashes up on the screen.

  'Honey, how are you?' a voice bellows as clear and loud as a bell.

  'Oh, on top of the world, Bryan. Is everything OK?'

  'OK? Are you kidding? You got me the best media coverage in town. That party was a triumph! We lurve you, sugar. You're the Queen of Aphrodite. No, that's me,' he quips smoothly. 'You can play goddess, Aphrodite herself.' False laughter.

  Bryan's party to launch Aphrodite beauty products on the London stage seems a million light years away but barely a week has passed since I was in the thick of it. As parties go in media land, it was a raving success. It was held at a private Soho club and two statuesque black bouncers called Randy and Baz stood on either side of the front door throwing mean glances at anyone who dared to walk up the red carpet without first fluttering a gilt-edged invitation in their direction. Guests were practically frisked before gaining entry and a few chancers were unceremoniously hurled back on the pavement. Bryan, grey haired and suave in a petrol blue velvet smoking jacket, matching trousers and monogrammed, tasselled Savile Row slippers, received his visitors cordially in the hallway with his white pet rabbit, Tootsie, in his arms. This adored and over-indulged pet sleeps on his bed, roams his Upper East Side apartment when he's at work and shares his popcorn while watching movies with him late into the night. At six every morning she wakes up and munches on a carrot while Bryan enjoys his first espresso of the day. He brings her to every Aphrodite launch, he tells me, for luck and I can only imagine that he's used his considerable power and resources to get round the quarantine laws to allow her on his private jet. Quite simply, I have acquired another deranged but fascinating client.

  Alan is arranging sprigs of rosemary in my hair and doing a rather good impression of Bryan in mime. I try not to giggle, waving him away with my hand. Bryan is still gushing. 'The British press is so marvellous and the
Telegraph
interview hit just the right tone. I simply can't wait to see the party shots in
Tatler
.'

  I try stifling a yawn. A rabbit pops up in front of me and then disappears down a hole. I wish I could join it.

  'Oh and by the way, sweetie, no big deal but when your staff drop me a line, remind them that it's Bryan with a "y" and not with an "i".'

  'Like Anne with an "e" who doesn't drink tea?'

  'If you say so! Big hugs now. Tootsie sends a kiss. Love to London!'

  There's a click and he's gone. Poor Bryan with a 'y', all the money and influence in the world and only a floppy bunny for company.

  A passing bee hovers excitedly over a small bush of white flowers, before descending cautiously into its depths. I turn my head and see Alan some way off, poking a stick in among some rocks. Sinking back against a cushion of long bleached grass, I stare upwards but the sun glares down with such force that I scrunch my eyes shut. A golden glow, the colour of egg yolk, is playing in front of my closed lids. I remain still, blind, suppressing thought, suspended in a void where only the olfactory sense functions. Blankness. I drift off into a world of light and dark shades. Some time later, I prise open my eyes, squinting at the hot sun, and find Alan standing over me, smiling. 'What are you thinking about?'

  'Nothing. Nothing at all.' After years of exhaustive and failed attempts, I have finally managed to hammer a spoke into the hamster wheel of unrelenting thought. I have learned how to eliminate thought itself.

  He nods meditatively and then squats at my feet, rustling his small plastic bag of specimens. 'Guess what I've just found?'

  'A pot of gold?'

  'Of a kind.
Artemisia arborescens
.'

  I'm used to these horticultural riddles. 'Which is?'

  'Shrubby wormwood,' he says. 'The local nursery charges four euros a plant and here we've got it for free.'

  I hold the gold and white flower in my hand. It's good to know that a saving of a few euros is sufficient to warm the cockles of a Scotsman's heart.

I slip downstairs, bare-footed to the
entrada
, our lofty hallway. The flat, cream, marble slabs feel sleek and cool underfoot. I open the front door. It isn't locked. It's unheard of to lock up your house at night around here. Alan and Ollie are asleep upstairs, unperturbed by the intense heat. I step outside on to the porch. The frogs appear to be partying, quacking and rasping at the tops of their voices like an amphibian boy band. Carefully I pick my way through the builders' rubble and rocks and up the steps to the pond. The singing stops, followed by a series of small plops. I'm the original party pooper. Water gurgles quietly from a small bubbling fountain, its spout obscured by a fine green stubble of moss. Come on boys! Don't ice me out. I draw my bare legs up in front of me and sit on the wide stone ledge. Still no sign of life. Then suddenly there's a sound like a small cough. I peer into the water and then on to the terracotta tile on the pool's edge. In the dull light of the moon I see the silhouette of a fat bullfrog. He's filling out his chest and fixing his bulging eyes on me. For a minute I'm carried back to Miami, where on a three day business trip I ended up with a group of Cubans at a crazy American diner where outside a gigantic electronic frog, or maybe it was a toad, wise-cracked clients as they entered the restaurant. I never discovered whether there was a real person hidden inside but the frog left a lasting impression on me. Insanely I fantasise that he's with me now.