Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain (6 page)

‘Alright, go ahead.’

He had already hopped onto his bulldozer, no half-arsed dust-pecker on rubbers this one, but a proper machine with tracks. There followed an astonishing virtuoso performance in which the little red machine, all but invisible in a cloud of sunlit dust, cavorted and pranced on a near vertical hillside. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of Andreas’s face, lit up with a grin as he deftly flicked the levers and sent the machine waltzing gracefully backwards up a terrifying slope. In half an hour this dazzling and improbable ballet came to a close and Andreas was hired to put my road in. Tomorrow he would come to walk the land with Domingo and me.

The road was to be finished by November, and Pedro Romero was engaged to be the impartial arbitrator who would check the hours worked daily and resolve any questions that arose over where or how to put the track. Andreas insisted upon this arrangement so there could be no question of foul play: not that there was any question of foul play, but you know what people are like.

MOVING IN WITH PEDRO

IN THE AUTUMN WE BOUGHT AN OLD LANDROVER AND trailer, loaded it with the carefully chosen remnants of our former life and took the ferry for France. For six days we lumbered south through France and Spain, huddled in the cab. Ana, Beaune and I. The Landrover was slow, the load was heavy, and the hills were long, so there was plenty of time for reflection. We stared morosely through the pathetic little wedges of window cleared by the wipers, not saying much.

It had been very grand to say to everyone at home, ‘Oh we’ve bought this farm in the mountains of Granada – you know the kind of thing, no road, no power, no water, no nothing. Oh yes, we thrive on a bit of adventure, not for us the dismal round, that’s the way we are!’

And then we found it was actually happening. We had tossed aside all that was comfortable and predictable about our lives and hurled ourselves out into the cold. Anyone passing us on the road might have thought we had the look of refugees forced to leave a beloved homeland, but we weren’t so much depressed, just numbed with surprise to find ourselves actually taking part in a script we ourselves had written.

It seemed endless, the long tedious inclines up mountain ranges drained of colour by drought and frost, then the plains at the top, with the chill wind whipping the roadside dust. Then late one afternoon on the fifth day we found ourselves creeping down a long pass with dramatic green-cloaked rock formations on either side. As we descended we seemed to enter a different world. The washed browns of the grass above turned to rolling meadows of deep green, sprinkled with autumn flowers. The sun shone warmer, the sky was blue and we peeled off layer after layer of woolly clothes. Little white farmhouses, bright with flowers, were tucked into shady valleys and everywhere was the cloudy green of olive trees. We were coming down the pass of Despeñaperros and entering Andalucía.

At El Valero, the roadbuilders had cleared a wide bare space by the old pomegranate water-butt and there we came to rest. Beaune leapt from the Landrover and set about investigating her new domain. Of course she wouldn’t have seen it then as her domain, just another night-stop on a seemingly endless journey. And it must have looked a pretty odd sort of hotel.

‘Well, here we are. This is home. Here we lay our bones.’ We laughed and walked arm in arm up to the terrace where we sat dangling our legs over the drop below while the sun slipped down behind the hill.

What we needed was a cup of tea. If you’re English, or for that matter Chinese, you always need a cup of tea at such moments, even if you’re just moving into your new home on the continent. So we set about gathering the wherewithal for a brew. Nothing that we had brought with us up to the house was suitable for that purpose and I refused adamantly to unload and go back across the river to where we had left the trailer before I had drained my first cup.

We eventually found a bent aluminium pot. The sort of pot you boil up handkerchiefs in. It looked as if a mule had trodden on it. Then we built a fire of twigs, filled the pot with water from the pomegranate-dribbling hose, and suspended it over the flames with some bits of rusty wire. When the water began to smoke – not steam, oddly enough, but smoke – we removed it from the heat and put in some sort of tea-bag we’d located. Then we covered it with a flat stone to mast.

‘Cups, cups, cups . . . what shall we do for cups?’ But of course! There were some empty tuna-fish tins lying around here and there. I took a couple and went to scrub them in the water-butt. ‘Have six minutes elapsed yet?’ They had, and we poured the loathsome grey liquid into the tuna tins.

‘You didn’t wash the cups very well,’ said Ana accusingly.

‘I did the best I could – they’re alright.’

A scum of fish-oil was floating on top of the tea. We sat back and sighed, gazing at the lovely view of rivers and mountains below us, while we sipped what must surely have been the most detestable beverage ever to pass the lips of man.

Nonetheless, we have kept as family treasures the paraphernalia of that first brew and on November 26 each year we celebrate El Valero Day by seeking to surpass in vileness that first momentous cup of tea.

Romero came up and watched as we unloaded the Landrover. ‘What’s this for? What on earth do you do with these?’ he asked as he fingered and rubbed all the myriad things that had no place in his simple countryman’s armoury.

‘It’s a thing for slicing eggs . . . an asparagus kettle. That? Oh that’s a tea-cosy . . . for keeping tea-pots warm . . . a device for applying rubber rings to the balls of lambs, a pepper-mill, a food-processor . . . a word-processor . . . ’ I felt more and more abashed as, with my explanations, I laid bare for him the fripperies of our existence. It seemed somehow wanting when compared with the elemental earthiness of his.

Alpujarran man has no need of such dross. He makes do with what he has got or what he can find for nothing. Give him a plastic fizzy drink bottle and half a hank of baler-twine and he will create an object of delicate beauty that is also functional in that it keeps your water or wine cool – or just below the boil at any rate – in the heat of summer. An old car tyre will become a pair of sandals for irrigating. A bit of bone sees use as a doorstop. The plants that grow on the hillsides furnish just about everything the home needs.

‘And what in the name of the Host is that?’

‘What?’

‘That!’

‘It’s a bed.’

‘But it’s made of wood. You can’t have a wooden bed!’

‘Why ever not?’

‘It breeds chinches. Wood breeds chinches.’

‘Well, what might chinches be, then?’

‘They’re the
bichos
that sting and bite you at night. There’s enough of them here as it is. You don’t want to go encouraging them with a wooden bed!’

I knew we’d never be able to get everything right in Pedro’s eyes. We liked the wooden bed, so the wooden bed stayed.

‘I’m making something to eat,’ said Pedro. ‘Come and join me. It’s
papas a lo pobre
.’

Ana gave me a look.

‘It’s really very nice of him: I do think we should accept his invitation. Thanks Pedro. We’ll be down in ten minutes.’

I banged some big nails into the arms and legs of the homemade wooden bed to cut down on the wobble. The floor of the room fell steeply away towards the goat-stable below, so I also stuffed some books and magazines under the feet to level it. Ana wiped every last speck of dust from the bedroom and then opened the window wide to let in the fast-moving night air and the ever present miasma of goat.

Pedro still did his cooking in the lower part of the house. It was dark and starlit as we walked down the path, and the air was sweet with jasmine and woodsmoke. There was an electric light-bulb hanging in the middle of the room but Pedro was much too frugal to use it. The twig fire blazing beneath the black pot of potatoes illuminated the scene, aided by a skilfully adapted tuna-fish tin with old oil floating inside and a rag for a wick. Shadows and low light danced on Pedro’s big body as he crouched over the fire with his preferred stick, stirring the happy concoction. ‘Cristóbal, you lay the table and pour some wine for Ana.’

I set the drum and poured Ana some
costa
. She took the glass, sat beside the makeshift table and gazed down at the river. It was a less fine wine than she might perhaps have wished for (Ana had, after all, named her favourite dog after a particularly delicious wine from Hospices de Beaune) but she sipped it without a murmur. I had hoped she would station herself by the cook and chat about recipes or the like, but no, it seemed that Ana was not quite so sure about Romero as I was.

That first meal was not a success. I did my best to lubricate the wheels of sociability but the gulf was great. Pedro had decided on some whim that he couldn’t understand a word of what Ana was saying, despite the fact that she was at least as fluent as I was. Ana returned the favour by withdrawing from the conversation and the meal soon degenerated into an embarrassing exchange of grunts and sighs, punctuated by long silences.

‘Is he going to cook that for us every night?’ Ana whispered as soon as we were alone. ‘And how long do you think he intends to stay? He’s alright in his way, I suppose, but he’s rather an oppressive presence, don’t you think?’

‘Well, I can’t deny it would be nice to be alone,’ I had to agree. ‘But we have to remember that we are pushing the poor man out of his home and livelihood . . . ’

‘No we are not. We’ve bought the place from him and he has a perfectly good home to go to with a wife and family waiting for him.’

‘Yes I know, but he loves it here. He says it’s his spiritual home.’

I thought it best not to mention the wild offers I had made in the summer about running the place in partnership with Pedro, of how he would have a home with us for as long as he wanted. I was not well versed in the niceties of buying and selling properties and was still working on the assumption that the buyer was taking cruel advantage of the poor oppressed seller, a part Pedro and his family played very well.

‘Well, I hope he doesn’t make it his home, spiritual or otherwise, for too much longer. It’s one thing buying a peasant farm, it’s quite another buying the peasant with it.’

I blushed inwardly at the word. Ana has a sharp tongue, though one often frighteningly close to the mark.

‘No no, don’t worry, he’ll be gone soon enough. Anyway I think we have a rare privilege to be living here and benefiting from the knowledge and skill of this noble . . . er, noble . . . ’

‘Peasant?’

‘You know I don’t like that word, Ana. I really do think it would be as well not to use it.’

‘Alright then, noble what?’

‘Son of the . . . no, master of the soil. ’

‘Pompous fart! He’s a peasant, Chris. What’s wrong with saying it?’

‘Alright, noble peasant.’ I choked out the word with difficulty.

‘But to get back to what I was saying, there are not many people who are as lucky as we are in being able to get to grips with a foreign culture by actually living in the same house as one of the local . . . ’

‘Peasants.’

‘Yes, one of the local people.’

This conversation was taking place hissed in the darkness by the pomegranate tree with its oil-drum of grubby water. We were cleaning our teeth in it. We decided to leave the washing up for the light of the morning, and retired to bed. Romero had his bed in the next room but one – all of which were connected by doorless doorways. It was a lovely night, with a gentle breeze and a clear sky. We left the window open, as was our custom, and despite the unaccustomed noises slept deep and soundly.

I’ve never been good at getting up early in the morning. The warmth and comfort of a good bed shared with an agreeable companion have always triumphed over the potential excitements of a new day. And this morning, our first in our new Spanish home, was no exception. The delights of my warm careless slumber were, furthermore, compounded by confusion as to what to do with the momentous day that lay ahead. What should one do on the first day of a new life? It would be so easy to make a mess of it. Best perhaps to fudge the issue and stay in bed.

The almost reflex imperative of making my sleeping wife a cup of tea, however, soon asserted itself and I had fully roused myself before I remembered the cup we had shared the evening before. We could breakfast together later, I decided.

Through a frame of dark ivy I could see the low sun brightening the geraniums and roses that lined the path of beaten dust and cow-dung. The sound of animals grunting and burbling rose from the surrounding stables. It all looked worth investigating so I shuffled down to the oil-drum to splash my face with water. As I came back up the track, Pedro was edging his way down, mollusc-fashion, with his bedding piled high on his head and shoulders and dragging in the dust.

‘You’re not moving out, are you?’ I asked, incredulous.

‘No no, but you left the window open in your room last night. The night airs will kill you good and dead.’

‘Nonsense, man,’ I reassured him. ‘We’ve spent all our lives with the bedroom windows open, in colder weather than you’ve ever known, and we’re still alive.’

‘That’s as may be – over there – but here the breezes of the night are absolutely fatal. I had an uncle who visited someone once and passed the night in a room where the window didn’t quite shut properly; no big thing; mind you, just a crack in the casement. Anyway, the next morning he woke up sick as can be, was dead by nightfall, and is now in the glory.’

And he raised his eyes to heaven in that way that people here do whenever the glory comes into the conversation.

‘Blimey, Pedro, that was more than just a crack. We had the window open wide all night, and we’re alright – well, I think we are. I’ll just go and check that Ana’s okay.’

‘You’ve had a lucky escape but I’m moving out to the other house. Another night like that and I may not be so lucky. I have to take care, I’m old and feeble but I have no wish to pass to the glory yet.’