Last Days of the Bus Club (13 page)

I looked over at the Doctor, giving him a grin of
collusion
. He had a glass of fino – dry sherry – in his hand. He grinned back. And then I saw that all the innovators were drinking fino. Danny the Chef, it appeared, had called for
wine to sharpen the innovators’ dwindling senses, and his call had been heeded and wine produced. We, the
conventionals
, were racked with indignation, until within a minute or so there were a couple of bottles of sherry on our table, too. Things were looking up again. The slight decline in our enthusiasms, engendered by the inordinate piggery with which we had treated the first four dishes, returned instantly to a gastronomic euphoria. Now, instead of
sousing
ourselves with water, we could hone our senses to the sharpest pitch by steeping them in the pale gold nectar of a Manzanilla. We jurors slapped one another manfully on the back and bent our shoulders to the wheel; only thirty-six more dishes to go …

Dishes #5 and #6, which followed the introduction of the sherry, were greeted with howls of unanimous acclaim. More straight fives on my scorecard. There were a lot of straight fives on my scorecard, I reflected, albeit fives mitigated and modulated by a lot of unfathomable arrows, pluses and minuses, random letters, and other less familiar mathematical symbols. The scorecard was starting already to look a bit like the theory of relativity.

The food was just so good; I had never eaten anything quite like it, and as a consequence my critical faculties were reduced to ecstatic exclamations. Straight five continued to follow straight five. Later an unfortunate oversight, where some bleach had tainted one of the dishes, caused me to drop it down to a three for taste. Bleach tastes detestable, but even there the glorious taste of the tuna shone through. But then I felt sorry for the cook whose hopes had been dashed by somebody’s failure to rinse the plate properly, so I added a couple of pluses, an ascending arrow and a
<
sign, and then a few annotations. ‘JABOB’ it said, which I
could only assume when I looked at it later meant ‘Just A Bit Of Bleach’.

The dishes kept on coming, and as each jury passed the ten mark, more bottles of fino were called for to rouse our
flagging
spirits. No longer were we wolfing down the leftovers of the innovators, nor were they besieging our table for the scraps of conventionality. Indeed, the wolfing had turned to pecking. The immaculate tablecloths and napkins were thickly caked in the droppings from our unsteady forks and it was getting hard to find a place for the food for the heaps of bottles arrayed upon the tables. My back and hip were aching from all that bobbing about and bending half over, and there was a feeling of slight biliousness creeping upon me. The cooking was still world-class, but I was beginning to wish I wasn’t here.

Our eleventh dish was the inevitable
Atún con chocolate
. I was not sure I could face it. I had to say it looked a lot better than you would expect of such unpromising bedfellows, though I gave it four for presentation because there was a small smear of chocolate where I didn’t think there ought to be one. On the other hand, taste and texture were unquestionably excellent … so, five and some
never-to-
be-deciphered squiggles. Authenticity … hmm, I decided to award it four, but qualified by a question mark and a symbol that may have been a reference to the Incas.

The more temperate scores that now graced my scorecard were a consequence of several factors. First, a feeling that my undiluted enthusiasm, reflected in an unbroken procession of straight fives, was not going to get us far in choosing the
winner – and a winner there had to be – this was, after all, a
concurso
and a
concurso
by its nature has a winner. Second, a slightly reduced enthusiasm for tuna, as a consequence of overexposure. As yet this diminishing had not gone as far as, say, never wanting to see another dish of tuna as long as I lived, but that was not unimaginable. And third, I had surreptitiously had a look at Danny the Chef’s scorecard, which he had inadvertently left face up on the table as he poured everybody another slug of sherry. Danny the Chef, who as I have said before clearly knew his stuff when it came to the preparation of tuna, had carefully filled in his card with an eloquent array of ones and twos and threes.

By this time we were round about dish #13, and from there on a study of my scorecard reveals a more sober approach than the mindless enthusiasm that guided my judgement in the earlier stages of the competition. You might suggest that this is not fair, and of course it’s not bloody fair, but such is the nature of these contests. You would have thought – as I had ventured earlier – that those who had the good fortune to present their offerings at the beginning would inevitably win, for there lies the logic … but, if you’ll bear with me, events were to prove otherwise.

Although it was only May, it was hot, and hotter still in the jurors’ enclosure, which was right beside the kitchen. The public outside, now really well oiled and reaching a pitch of anticipation, both for the results of the
competition
and, indeed, lunch, sounded like Armageddon. Those jurors who were wearing ties and jackets had taken them off, and a reeling sense of bonhomie, mixed with a growing nausea, prevailed.

Things calmed down noticeably with the arrival of conventional dish #14, the refreshingly unequivocal
Atún
a
la antigua
– tuna at the antique. I imagined, to my own hoots of private mirth, a large fish running amok amongst the Meissen and Ming. It was OK … I gave it a four, a couple of fives, a three and a two. This last, the lowest score on my card, was prompted by a swift look at Nicolás’s card. He had given it a one, so I, who had been about to give it the customary five, dropped to the two. Then I felt bad about it because by this time I had forgotten what that particular category was about anyway, so I mitigated my disdain with another arrow pointing up.

Christ, there were another nine dishes to go. I was
feeling
distinctly queasy – and even my expert co-jurors were beginning to look a little green around the gills. I hazarded a guess that most of us had more or less lost our critical faculties at this point and were coasting along in survival mode, just hoping to get to the end without besmirching ourselves.

There was a hush … the kitchen door flew open … and in came innovative dish #15. We all gathered in dumbstruck silence to consider this outrageous offering. The dish was presented on a mirror; in a corner of the mirror was a rack containing three test tubes, two of which were filled with coloured liquid, while the third was full of swirling smoke. Nearby was a fine glass retort – looking much like one of those bottles you have to pee in when you can’t get out of bed – which was full of lurid green liquid. A raised glass plate was arrayed with pieces of raw tuna and other
indecipherable
stuff, all disposed to resemble things that they were not, and the reflections of these in the mirror made the whole improbable composition even more bizarre. As a surreal creation it was fabulous, but how would one go about eating it? The innovators discussed this problem
amongst themselves and, by judicious pouring and sniffing and sipping, found a way. And, in spite of the torpor that was overtaking all of us now, they pronounced that it was every bit as extraordinary to eat as it looked … and it looked like a winner.

Oh, how we envied the innovators, who now had only two dishes left to taste, whereas we had no fewer than nine more to go. The hot morning moved on to a hot afternoon as dish followed dish for us to eye up unenthusiastically and then peck at. The quality did not flag, and there was even a light dish – some sort of foam – that afforded us the briefest respite. And then finally, just when we knew we could take no more, the last conventional dish arrived on our table. Talk about the short straw … of course, the last entrant wouldn’t stand a chance, given the bloated, cynical, bilious state in which we the jurors now found ourselves. We stared at the thing through dull fishy eyes, clutching our stomachs, burbling quietly to ourselves, and wishing to die.

What the hell was this? A simple boat of coarse china sat on the table. It was stacked with hot grey charcoal, and perched above the coals on lollipop sticks were eight unadorned cubes of tuna, sizzling in the heat.

It was perfection itself, and simplicity … and it was the winner, being the only dish of the day to get straight fives from all four jurors. The winner of the innovators was the crazy concoction with the test tubes.

‘Lunch, anybody?’ suggested some wag.

It was over; we had made it. We were released to mingle with the public and look at the display of all the dishes with the name of the chef and restaurant. Fortunately, perhaps, for our reputations, Cuqui – who turned out to have been
responsible for that first dish,
Parpatana de atún rojo al 10rf con couscous de frutos secos y torrija salada
– did not win.

As the Doctor and I waddled back through the town, heading for the hotel for a siesta, we passed a tempting-looking ice-cream parlour. It was just what we needed and we both sat down and guzzled chocolate ice creams washed down with coffee.

Then we decided to go for a swim … perhaps, being composed largely of tuna by now, we felt an urge to get into their element. There was nobody else swimming – it was, after all, early May – and the inhabitants of the beach watched, appalled, as the two bloated, old, gay ice-cream salesmen stripped to their grutts and wobbled into the sea. Childishly excited as a consequence of our relief at having come through the ordeal, we played at being tuna.

At about nine o clock that night we hit the town again. We went straight to Cuqui’s. She was expecting us at her tiny restaurant, La Mejorana. We sat in the street and drank wine and ate even more of the most exquisite tuna.

Next morning I was raring to go for the long drive back to Granada, with a break for breakfast in Medina Sidonia. But for some reason Medina Sidonia didn’t appeal and we drove on by without the much-vaunted pig fat breakfast. Perhaps we’ll stop in Medina Sidonia next time.

H
IGH IN THE
A
LPUJARRAS
, a four-hour walk uphill from our farm, through the wildest of mountain scenery, lies a village which is blessed by the presence of a
curandera
, which is to say something between a faith healer and a barefoot doctor.

As a nation dons the cloak of modern urban existence, such people and their ancient gifts tend to vanish, but in the Spanish countryside today the tradition of healers is very much alive. If anything, there has been a resurgence in recent decades, now that they can practise without persecution. In Franco’s time,
curanderos
were frequently beaten and jailed by the Guardia Civil at the instigation of his henchman, the Church – who, typically, felt that the monopoly on miracles should be theirs alone.

Now, our local
curandera
was on my mind because I had just heard a story about a London journalist who had been on holiday in her village. The poor man suffered from eczema, and, hearing about the
curandera
and her particular gift for curing skin diseases, was intrigued enough to pay
her a visit. Within three days she had cured his eczema, simply by stroking the affected part. Fascinated and impressed, and of course enormously relieved, he wrote the episode up in his column. This came to the notice of a man who was unfortunate enough to have shingles in, of all places, his eye. The doctors had told him that there was nothing they could do and he might as well get used to the idea of losing the eye. He made some enquiries and came to the Alpujarras, where, after three sessions with the
curandera
, the shingles simply disappeared.

Of course, there are plenty of stories like this, but they are not necessarily about healers in your own backyard, and it was the backyard aspect of the story that got me thinking. For I myself had been suffering from a skin complaint, albeit – unlike the journalist and his follower – neither shingles nor eczema. No, my complaint was of an altogether more delicate nature – and afflicted that part of my person of which we do not speak.

To put the matter bluntly, I had a horribly inflamed dick.

Like all the best medical conditions, mine had a good and chequered history. It began back in the mists of time, almost a quarter of a century ago, when I was fortunate enough to enjoy the favours of a lady whose name conveniently escapes me. During the course of a relationship that pertained more to the nether abdomen than to the heart, she inadvertently left me with a painful little memento.

She and I were far from the only people in history to whom this has happened, and I bear her no ill will. And the painful little something was of the sort that comes and goes;
indeed, the doctor said that it would appear and disappear with ever less frequency until it vanished altogether. This it proceeded to do until suddenly, many years later, the whole thing flared up again, like a long-dormant volcano, causing acute tenderness and a nasty swelling that not only put paid to any notions of amorousness but made it difficult to walk.

I mentioned the problem one morning to my Dutch neighbour Bernardo, who suggested that I might have ‘fallen prey to a wind-blown particle’. He then proceeded to show me a most villainous-looking infection on his ankle that had, apparently, blossomed from a tiny microbe blown there by the wind. The theory didn’t seem entirely plausible but, given my rural and monogamous state, it was as good as any other. So off I went, with my bandy-legged gait, to the local clinic. There, the doctor studied the affected area with little enthusiasm and sent me home with a
pomada
– a cream – that I was to slap on three times a day. Not that it was certain to do me much good, he added discouragingly.

Having bought his lotion, I set to studying the list of
efectos secundarios
on the packet. ‘Skin irritation’, it began. Well, I was used to that, though it did seem out of the frying pan into the fire. ‘Loss of appetite …’ It didn’t say what sort of appetite, but at my age you need all the appetite you can get. ‘Nervousness … depression … chronic depression …’ On and on it went.

It seemed manifestly unwise to apply this preparation to my person, particularly the more sensitive parts of it. So Ana consulted her herbal tomes and suggested the alternative of a saline solution.

This seemed innocuous enough, though you need a very strong solution. Seawater at 3.5 percent is not good enough,
and even the 7 percent brine that you keep your olives in – the solution at which an egg floats to the surface – is not enough to deal with the maleficent microbes that can make life such a misery. No, to get those microbes scurrying for the hatches the solution must be no less than a ferocious 15 percent. For some days, morning and night, I applied this bestial solution to my person, and there was enough of a tang in it to make me feel that it was actually doing some good. But when I began to develop a sort of crystalline crust, not unlike the caramelised sugar on a toffee apple, it seemed wise to call a halt.

Next out of the natural medicine chest was an essential oil made from grapefruit pips. I applied this stuff daily, drop by drop, from the tiny bottle – but as a certain piquancy in the affected part started to become apparent, I belatedly consulted the label. Under no circumstances, it noted, should the product be applied neat. A dilution of 20:1 with almond oil or suchlike was recommended. By this time, the grapefruit seed oil had virtually flayed the flesh from my poor bone.

Finally, Ana came up with gentian violet. ‘It says here’, she announced, after another read of the herbal, ‘that it’s a gentle, uninvasive and surefire cure. I think we’ve got some gentian violet.’ Which we did, though it was rather more than ten years past its sell-by date. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ pronounced the wife. ‘It’s hardly going to go off, is it?’

What you do with gentian violet is drop a few drops in some water in a mug, and then hang the affected part in it for a bit. It has a gentle antibacterial action, though, if the truth be told, it didn’t seem to do much good, beyond dyeing my penis a spectacular, deep and more or less indelible purple.

It was at this moment of despair that I came across the journalist’s account of his trip. It was clearly my last and best hope.

I shillied and I shallied, and dithered a little, and then, after a few more days of bandy-legged agony, lunged for the telephone and rang the
curandera
.

‘Speak,’ she commanded. (This is what you say on the telephone in Spain.)

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Would you be the
curandera
?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Well, I have a bit of a problem, and I was wondering if you might not be able to help me …’

‘I’ll do what I can. What is this problem?’

‘It’s a skin complaint …’

‘That’s what I do.’

‘Yes, but … you see, well, it’s on … I mean … what I’m saying is that …’

I had not rehearsed this as I ought to have done. I was digging a hole for myself and getting in deeper.

‘You mean it’s a penis, perhaps?’

‘Well, in a sense, yes … it is a penis … er, do you do penises?’

‘
Claro
– no problem. Can you come tomorrow?’

As it happened, we had friends arriving for a few days’ holiday, but that was OK. This was a ball I wanted to get rolling. And after a great deal of thought, I decided to go on foot. Of course I could have taken the car and saved myself a lot of time. But that didn’t feel right; it wouldn’t have been portentous enough for an expedition of this
nature. The
curandera
had told me that it wasn’t necessary to be a believer, nor go to church, in order to benefit from her ministrations, but even so, I felt that any element of spirituality that I could enlist on my behalf could only help. And the very act of walking has a certain spiritual dimension – more than driving the car, at any rate.

And so, thus determined, I gathered the dogs, and, with hope in my heart and my complaint hanging heavily upon me, set off up the mountain. I decided to take the dogs along because, although spirituality is not exactly their thing, they do manifest joy and transmit it to their human companions … and joy is a commodity of which one ought to take all one can possibly get.

As for the journey, well, placing one bandy leg in front of the other, time after thousands of times, and puffing and panting fit to burst my heart and lungs, I made headway through bright golden gorse and blue clouds of rosemary alive with diligent bees. I felt the elation that clambering amid mountains and raging rivers induces, and a tentative exuberance at the thought that I might soon be rid of my burdensome ailment … and also just a hint of apprehension. It was a complicated pot to keep on the boil.

Little by little I left the sounds of the valley below me, the roaring of the rivers swollen with winter rains, the sounds of cocks crowing and dogs barking. By the time I got to the
aljibe
, the stone-vaulted cistern that stands on the ridge between our valley and the next, there was nothing but the moaning of the wind in the broom. This is a sound of sinister portent, one that touches the darkest chords of our collective being.

I felt like a character in a Dennis Wheatley novel, the hapless protagonist in an imminent battle between the forces
of good and evil. And things didn’t improve as I entered the village and made my way, as instructed, past the spring, left at the end of the alley, and down to the last house on the left. I stood collecting myself for a minute before the green wooden door. From inside came the sound of children’s laughter. That didn’t seem right; the last thing I needed now was children laughing … this was no laughing matter.

I thought for a minute of doing a bunk, calling the whole wretched thing off. I stood there vacillating, rocking back and forth, but then took heart and knocked hard on the door. The voices fell silent. Then a cry: ‘It’ll be your man.’ The door opened and a woman peered out, dressed in floral housecoat and carpet slippers. She had an interesting and intelligent face and kindly eyes. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Er … I hope so … I’m the person with the … you know, I rang you yesterday …’

‘Ah yes, you’re Cristóbal. Don’t mind all these people. Come inside.’

The door opened directly onto a small room, in the middle of which sat an incredibly aged woman in a straight-backed chair. ‘This is América,’ said the
curandera
, indicating the old lady, ‘and this is Carmen.’ Beside América stood a young hairdresser, making some adjustment to the few sparse strands of blue-grey hair that remained on the old lady’s wrinkled head. The tableau was completed by a motley assortment of babies and children, scampering or crawling about the room, while a teenage boy sat in an armchair and glowered morosely.

At my entrance, the show seemed to have come to a stop: the scissors hovered motionless in the air while the hairdresser considered me with a bemused smile; the
babies dribbled; the teenager offered me a sneer of dankest disdain; América looked me up and down with an expression of utter bafflement and increasing distaste, until all of a sudden she staggered half to her feet, opened her lipless old mouth and vomited copiously onto the cold tile floor.

I was hustled urgently through a door into a parlour and the door slammed behind me. I stood there alone, listening to the clattering of mops and buckets, the shrill cries of admonition to the children, the pitiful croaking of América.

The parlour was a whitewashed room – even the canes and beams were whitewashed – and I stood hesitantly next to a large TV until the
curandera
came in, pulling the door half-closed behind her. ‘Poor old thing,’ she said. ‘She’s ninety-five years old, you know.’

‘I … I hope it wasn’t my fault,’ I ventured idiotically.

‘What? The vomiting? Heavens, no! She does that all the time.’

She put her hands in the pockets of her housecoat and gazed at me in silence. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and squinted back. After a bit she said: ‘You’re the one that wrote that book, aren’t you?’