Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain (14 page)

Expira and Old Man Domingo treated the flat with suspicion. We went to see it, and the radiant and newly recovered Expira showed us proudly around, pointing out the more impressive features: the chandelier –
sine qua non
of all modern Spanish homes (and especially the poorest), and the bathroom with all its myriad methods of dispensing miraculous running water. ‘It tastes disgusting – filthy water, you can’t drink it,’ said Expira laughing happily.

Old Man Domingo extricated himself from the leatherette sofa, where he had been sitting mesmerised in a detached sort of a way by the nonsense that was unfolding in shades of iridescent green on the telly. ‘Come,’ he beckoned, and led us outside to his domain. Beyond the flat’s kitchen door was a patch of land the size of a bedsheet – already laying claim as the most intensive patch of cultivation in Europe. There was once a fashion for writing postcards with the writing crossing in two directions, in order I suppose to get more on the card. This was just what Old Man Domingo had done with his plot.

‘Look,’ he said, proudly. ‘Here are the aubergines and the tomatoes and do you not see the little peppers?’

Indeed we did, crammed tightly into their lovingly prepared ridges and furrows, criss-crossed by the young aubergines and the little tomatoes already tied to their first step up the canes. The Meleros were not thinking of living permanently in the flat, it was just a bolt-hole for when things got too rough out at the
cortijo
, somewhere Expira could take things a little easier, but nevertheless the priority was to get the vegetables in.

We sat on the sofa and drank a glass of wine.

‘Life in the
cortijo
is hard,’ said Expira. ‘All that dust and dirt and the flies and the wretched animals, and here it’s easy – why, four strokes of the broom and the place is spotless. But there’s nothing to do except sit and look at that horrible television. There isn’t even a view to make you happy,’ she declared, pointing through the window at the wall of the next block of flats. ‘You couldn’t live here long or you’d go crazy.’

In the new circumstances of his mother’s close encounter with the glory and her convalescence in town, Domingo couldn’t spare much time for the building work at El Valero. He had too much work of his own to do and in any case, he explained, I knew the business well enough by now to carry on by myself.

I had indeed learned both techniques and confidence from Domingo’s idiosyncratic tuition, and perhaps he was right, maybe I could rebuild a house alone. But building a stone house on your own is a job that would take for ever. I needed help. As luck would have it, help wasn’t too far off.

An hour’s walk up the Cádiar river lies Puerto Jubiley, a tiny, more or less abandoned village that straddles the river just before it enters the gorge. Ana and I used to walk up there every now and then to give the dog an airing. The shade cast by the steep cliffs and the swiftly flowing water cool the air in the gorge so on a hot night it is like walking up a cool river of air. Because few people use the river-path these days, the wild creatures that inhabit the cliffs and hills come down without fear to the water to drink. You are almost certain to see ibex, boar or eagles, or just water-snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards.

One evening, Ana and I were taking a walk through the small riverside
vega
of neatly cultivated maize and alfalfa fields that form a bright patchwork of green among the canebreaks at the border of the outlying ruins of the village. A couple stood squinting suspiciously into the evening sun at us from the front of one of the first of the tumble-down houses.

‘
Hola, buenas tardes
,’ we said, returning their suspicious look. They didn’t look anything like our idea of Spanish villagers, too fair, too obviously . . . English.

‘
Buenas tardes
,’ they replied. ‘You don’t look Spanish at all.’

Cathy and John turned out to be long-term refugees from English life, having moved to Spain a decade earlier and, after living for a couple of years near Seville, settled upon this remote spot. On that first meeting – tea followed by wine – we all found ourselves resenting our shared Englishness. After all, we were more or less next-door neighbours and none of us had come to Spain to live next door to our compatriots.

Still, it wasn’t long before we forgave each other’s origins and a friendship developed. Cathy and John lived in circumstances like our own, and were also doing up their ramshackle village house bit by bit, with the limited sums of money they earned through teaching English, doing building work and carpentry, and acting as guides through the arcane web of Spanish administration for other foreigners buying property in the area.

We hit upon a work-exchange arrangement together. Once a week I would ride up to the Puerto and spend a day labouring on our new friends’ house, retailing the information I had picked up from Domingo’s building lessons. And in return we had the benefit of John and Cathy’s skills in plumbing, electrics, plastering and carpentry. At El Valero, tasks with pipes which had before seemed fantastically complex were painlessly completed. An electrical system was installed to work off the new solar panels I had bought in Granada, and little by little the house shed its peasant rags and started to move into what remained of the twentieth century.

However, with just the three of us working sporadically, and with occasional help from Ana, progress was pathetically slow. I couldn’t see us getting the house finished in less than a couple of years. We had to take some action to speed things along. So at the instigation of Carole, my level-headed sister in London, I placed an advertisement in New Zealand House to see if I could persuade some itinerant Kiwis to lend a hand. They would be offered a laughable pay-packet but a chance to see a bit of Andalucía, eat a lot of home-cooked food and drink as much
costa
as they dared. I had worked with New Zealanders in fencing and shearing gangs in Britain and admired their easygoing cheerfulness and propensity for enjoying hard work.

We got more than seventy-five replies. Carole shortlisted them and conducted interviews using a checklist that I had supplied her with. Then I did the final interviews myself from the phone office in Órgiva.

So we found ourselves once again in company at El Valero, living with four strong Kiwis: David and Gitte, Keith and Diane. I took over Domingo’s role and laid the all-important outside stones while shouting at the others till they got their stones right. The system worked well and before long, with the benefit of all the talents and skills of the team, plus Cathy and John’s groundwork, the house started to take shape.

‘Spontaneous Architecture,’ Keith called it. He had trained as an architectural draughtsman in New Zealand and was initially horrified by the way we flouted conventional design procedures. The height of the risers of the patio stairs, for example, was governed by the size of the stones we were using to build them, and almost everything else was likewise designed to fit the materials to hand. Water-pipes were left exposed and electric cables were run along the surface of the walls, rather than being needlessly chased into the stone.

It took about five months to complete the house, with the stone floors laid, the new chestnut beams hoisted into position, and cleaned and oiled with the requisite twelve coats of linseed oil, the plumbing all set to go, and all the rustic woodwork neatly scarfed together. The centrepiece was an elegant fireplace with a moulded chimney and a curved olive lintel, built to the specifications of one Count Rumford, an enthusiast for open fires who had experimented with hearth designs in the late nineteenth century in America. He had come up with the perfect proportions to get the smoke away and up the chimney and the heat out into the room. Our homespun version of the same was a joy to behold.

We had a celebration dinner to admire the finished work – a ‘roof-shout’ the Kiwis called it. Cathy and John had thoughtfully provided some champagne and in the glow of bonhomie that such bottles produce, Keith announced that he and Diane were going to use our Spontaneous Architectural principles on the house they planned to build in New Zealand.

Then a hush descended as I stooped to light the great stack of rosemary and olive logs that we had laid in the grate. The little flame from the match leapt into the kindling and in seconds became a blazing roar that boomed in the chimney, illuminating the room with a dancing ruddy glow. I couldn’t help but feel a little weepy. It was almost as if I was setting in motion the heart of our new home.

DOGS AND SHEEP

AS AUTUMN MOVED INTO WINTER, SNOW FELL IN THE HIGH sierra and the olives turned through purple to shiny black on the trees. It rained and the countryside started to look a little greener, the plants less withered and dusty. Following the example of our neighbours, we set to work harvesting our first olive crop, beating down the ripe fruit with long canes and gathering them in nets spread beneath the trees.

A proper olive-picker will beat every last fruit from the tree, risking life and limb if necessary to creep out along a flimsy branch and whop a single recalcitrant olive. We weren’t up to such exacting standards and risked losing respect by leaving several kilos dangling from the more awkward branches. One of the fortunate things, however, about living in a remote spot like El Valero is that few people pass by and you can get away with the odd bit of botching.

By the time we had got round all of the trees we had picked about five hundred kilos, which we sacked up, separating out all the leaves and twigs, heaved onto the Landrover, and drove to the mill in Bayacas. This is one of the few mills where they press the olives cold, which gives a much better quality of oil. The rate is about four to one, that is to say, you get a litre of oil for every four kilos of olives you deliver. A hundred and twenty litres would be enough for a year’s supply with plenty left over to present to our less agriculturally-minded friends. This was our first stab at self-sufficiency and we couldn’t help but feel a little smug about the results.

By December the snow line had crept round to the peaks of the Contraviesa to the south, clipping the southern wind with an icy chill. The farmwork had settled into a lull and Ana and I were casting about for other projects. Bonka came bounding to the top of our list. She was a sheepdog puppy owned by some English friends of ours who live on a hillside surrounded by almond trees above the Río Chico. They were looking for homes for their new litter of puppies and as we’d always admired the affectionate mother, and were keen to find a companion for Beaune, we decided to stop off and look them over.

Bonka was the obvious choice, and swiftly named (Ana insists that all her dogs begin with B) after a brand of coffee. She bore the closest resemblance to her mother, and seemed to have inherited her calm, playful manner. She also had paws like shovels, promising to match her mother for size. Most endearing of all, however, was her bark. For some reason Bonka’s bark sounded uncannily like a dog trying to impersonate a duck, an impression that grew stronger the more menacing she tried to sound. As far as we knew this was a unique ability in the dog world and not to be overlooked when considering the future matriarch of El Valero’s pups. Beaune, sadly, had been neutered when young and could do little to further the line herself.

Bonka ingratiated herself easily with Beaune and soon made herself at home with the other inhabitants of the farm. We were amazed how quickly she seemed to slot in. One day, however, she came haring into the house with her tail between her legs, whimpering in terror. Some strange new experience had proved too frightening for her. I went outside to investigate. The hillside above the house was awash with sheep. It was the flock of Geraldo, a young shepherd who grazed the high eastern Alpujarra, round the villages of Nieles and Juviles. Every winter he would come down to pasture his flock for a month in the almond groves of the Venta del Enjambre following the Via Pecuaria, an ancient drove-way, that runs straight through our farm.

I watched as the main flock scuffed down the track. They were a pretty unprepossessing bunch, being on the thin side and scraggy with it, with a pronounced tendency towards the goat in them. Yet, as they dropped out of sight into the tamarisk woods by the river, leaving an unmistakable miasma in their wake, I found myself lost in covetous thoughts. A decision that I had delayed making began to resolve itself and press for action. The time had come to buy some sheep of my own.

Ana had reservations about sinking most of our remaining savings into sheep-rearing, and reminded me that our sheep enterprises in Britain had hardly succeeded in making us rich or even comfortable. It was a fair comment but one that pitifully overlooked the existential nub of the matter. I pointed out how essential livestock were to a farm; that it was a travesty to even call El Valero a farm, or expect us to be taken seriously as the owners of it, when we only had a couple of dogs and cats in residence. Surely also she didn’t want to let her skills as a stock-woman go to waste?

Then, embellishing freely, I depicted how trim the farm would look with sheep nibbling away at all the thickets and encroaching creepers and clipping considerately the overgrowth that threatened our paths. This last thought seemed to sway her just a little. I could tell that with some more skilful persuasion, she could be brought round to my way of thinking.

The Sierra de Segura is a rather bleak range of high mountains four hours’ drive away in the north of Granada province. The hub of the area is the small agricultural town of Huescar, a modest place callously omitted from every guidebook that I’ve ever consulted, but the home, nonetheless, of the exalted
Asociación
Nacional de los Criadores de la Oveja Segureña
– ANCOS – the Segureña sheep society.

I hadn’t actually seen a Segureña sheep in the flesh but I had seen them portrayed on a chart in the agricultural office in Órgiva. Their carriage and conformation were quintessentially ovine and the wool was white and, well . . . woolly. They looked so superior that I was convinced they were the stock for El Valero. Anxious not to let the side down as a fellow farmer and breeder, I polished my shoes, put on a white shirt, shaved, and fished out the only pair of jeans that I own with no holes in them. Then, on a chill December afternoon, I removed some cash from the bank and headed north from Granada.

It was evening when I arrived in Huescar and its streets were empty. The whole population, it seemed, were either out in the fields or huddled around
braseros
– small coal stoves that are fitted under the table – in their homes. As I had no idea how to find the ANCOS office, I slipped into a bar. There was only one other customer.

I ordered a drink and asked the bartender for directions. ‘Toñito!’ he called to the other customer far down the bar in the shadows. ‘This gentleman is looking for ANCOS. You know where it is, don’t you?’

At this signal Toñito slithered along the bar towards me, burbling and dribbling as he came. I looked to my clean shirt with misgivings. ‘Good evening, Antonio,’ I greeted him. ‘I am told you know where I might find the offices of ANCOS.’

‘Pah!’ he spat. ‘I know where to find ANCOS and all the other
cabrones
you might wish to find. But first we must take a few drinks together, eh?’

Why is it that I so often seem to find myself in this ridiculous situation? Other men manage to enter and leave bars without having to spend whole evenings entertaining the local drunk. But for some reason big-talking boozers unfailingly zero in on me, sniffing perhaps a foolish politeness, a wish not to offend a stranger in a strange town.

Anyway, of all the many local drunks I’ve had the misfortune to attract, Antonio was the dregs of the barrel. One drink followed another and another until I despaired of completing my mission and resigned myself to remaining a drinking hostage for the rest of the night. Then all of a sudden he swung to his feet, announced that he would now take me to ANCOS and lurched out of the bar hauling me along by the arm. I could have wished for a better guide than this man who was staggering ahead of me, slobbering and howling obscenities as he went, but there was no other choice and he at least knew the way.

‘Where are you from, my friend? I can see you are not one of us?’ We had already covered this ground in the bar but repetitions seemed not to bother him.

‘I’m English actually.’

‘And from where would that be?’

‘England.’

‘Ah England, yes . . . I am well known in that land . . . perhaps you know Fernando Jiménez . .? ’ He shot me a quizzical look.

‘No . . . I don’t think so. I couldn’t be sure. Where in England would Fernando Jiménez live now?’

‘Barcelona.’

‘Ah, now there you are mistaken, my friend, for Barcelona is not in England, it is in the north of Spain . . .’

‘No, Fernando lives in England – Barcelona, England.’

Thus we progressed towards the offices and waiting worthies of ANCOS. I wanted to cut short this conversation about the location of Barcelona – it wasn’t getting us anywhere – but introducing another topic seemed somehow reckless. Toñito, however, had no such reservations.

‘Did you see the football?’

‘No. I don’t actually have a television . . .’

‘Then you’d have seen the goal in the second half . . . ’

‘I didn’t see the match, man!’

‘You couldn’t have missed it – Fernando Jiménez . . . ’

‘Surely not the same Fernando Jiménez who . . . ’

But we had arrived outside the offices of ANCOS.

‘Well, my friend, thank you very much for . . . ’

‘Wait. I am known here. I’ll get Pedro for you.’

‘Really, please, I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.’

‘No, no, it’s no trouble.’

He stood on the opposite pavement and yelled up at the first-floor window.

‘Pedro! Pedro Gallego, you son of a whore!’

There was no reply. I considered bolting.

‘Pedro! Pedro, are you deaf, you pox-spotted shit? I shit on your dead, man – can’t you hear me?’

Toñito stooped to pick up a stone and hurled it at the window. The fates had not at least deserted me altogether. The stone crashed into the frame.

‘Pedro, you Black Milk! Dick in vinegar, where are you, man?’

The window flew open and a face appeared. The face considered us without enthusiasm. I smiled, made a little bow and attempted to introduce myself. Toñito shouted me down.

‘I’ve brought someone to see you, Pedro. He wants some sheep. I shit on your sheep!’ And so saying, he lurched off down the street.

It wasn’t the most promising start but I’d forgotten the whole episode within a couple of hours, as I found myself dining with Pedro Gallego and his family and friends. We ate among other things the delicious cêpes of the Sierra de Segura, seared in butter and then simmered in wine and herbs. After the meal, the men, who had done most of the cooking, washed up, while the women dandled the babies. This was modern Spain.

The next day I set out with Pedro and his father, Don Antonio. Pedro was the secretary of ANCOS; his father, a real Spanish grandee, passionate about sheep, was the president. We clattered around the mountain tracks all morning, visiting farms and looking at beautiful ewe-lambs in stables deep with bright straw bedding.

We eventually selected twenty-five lambs, a dozen in-lamb ewes, and a ram-lamb. I paid a very fair price for them and we organised a lorry to bring them to Órgiva a few weeks later. Then we repaired to a bar to refresh ourselves.

Don Antonio rejected a good-looking seafood
tapa
.

‘Take that muck away, boy, and give us a proper
tapa
of Segureña sheepmeat.’

‘Yes sir,’ said the boy.

By the end of December, the river had swollen with the winter rain. The rickety old footbridge that had served us since we came was listing badly to one side and the bits of driftwood that comprised its walkway were either broken or gone, leaving intimidating gaps. Crossing the bridge was disconcerting enough for Ana and me, well practised in the art, and we had the new flock to think of. There was no way that I would be able to coax such skittery creatures onto such a flimsy contraption. The bridge needed rebuilding. I discussed the problem with Domingo. He had an idea about a quick and easy way to get the job done.

On New Year’s Day Domingo killed his pigs. After the midday feasting he suggested to the dozen or so men who had come to the matanza that they should help me rebuild my bridge. Not everyone fancied the prospect of splashing around in icy water but he was persuasive. It would be in their interests to do so, indeed it was even their obligation as owners of land on the far side of the river. It would also be a good way to dispel the boozy torpor that held them all in its grip.

‘The trouble with all these slobs,’ he complained, ‘is that they’ve lost the habit of building bridges. Before, when it rained properly, we had to build a new bridge at least four or five times a year. We used to be pretty good at it.’

We trooped down the hill to the river and looked at the sad collection of poles and driftwood that spanned it. Of all the company I was the only one who had never before built a bridge. Everyone else knew exactly how it was done. They knew how big it should be, what it should be made of, and, most importantly, where to put it. Unfortunately, building homespun bridges is not an exact science, and thus no two men’s notions coincided exactly. Frasco, who had had a lot of experience, being the eldest present, said that we should forget about Romero’s lethal jumble of wood and build a new one just downriver from the track, where we could anchor the beams to a giant eucalyptus.