More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (20 page)

‘Well, everywhere,’ I gestured. ‘Here, and here, and here.’ I showed the man the small cracks in the wooden bar top, pointing with my finger. He gave each area a blast, barely giving me time to move my finger out of the way.

‘Do we need to cover the glasses?’ I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, unleashing a stream of poison along the back of the shelf.

The insecticide was acting fast. Seconds after spraying, dozens of roaches emerged from the cracks and gaps, dropping on to the tiled floor like lemmings. The dozens turned to scores, then hundreds. Piles of tiny bugs lay at the foot of the bar like wood shavings.

‘
Dio mio!
’ My God, he exclaimed. The fumigator looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I felt ashamed.

Just then a young couple walked into the bar, ignoring the ‘Open at Six’ sign on the closed door.

‘Are you open?’ said the man. I rushed over to block them coming any further. ‘No, sorry. Open at six,’ I answered. He spotted the man with the container and tilted his head to see what he was doing. I tilted mine to block his view.

‘So we’ll see you at six, then,’ I said, my head still at an angle.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked the man.

‘Varnishing.’

His eyes flashed from me to the pale brown piles on the floor.

‘What are those?’

‘Wood shavings,’ I said. ‘We’ve been sanding. That’s why we’re closed. See you at six, then?’ I took hold of his shoulders and steered him and his wife back out.

I continued to lead the fumigator round the bar, pointing to all the nooks and crannies; behind the bar, behind the dart board, in the store cupboard, in the toilet door frames, in the washing machine cupboard, under the benches, in all the joints of the wooden tables. Communities of various sized roaches occupied every conceivable living space. On seeing the devastation, I was only surprised that we weren’t awash with them during opening hours.

Buster lifted his head, opening one eye as a cloud of chemicals engulfed him. He sneezed once, then tucked his head under his massive paw and went back to sleep on his padded bench.

The kitchen was to be the final battleground. The fumigator refilled his tank and stepped into the front line. Anywhere there was the slightest gap between shelf and wall was inhabited. He pushed the nozzle underneath the serving top and, sure enough, within seconds a mass exodus was in progress.

I asked again whether we should cover the stacks of plates that were exposed on an open shelf above the sink. He shrugged and dismissed the suggestion again.

There was one area that I dreaded showing him. It was only a few days before that I found a small roach scuttling up the stainless steel doors of our main fridge, next to the oven. Despite several attempts to flick it off with a tea towel, it eluded my aim and disappeared under the rubber door seal and into the fridge. I opened the door just in time to watch its bottom wriggling inside a crack on the plastic door interior. We had cockroaches living in the fridge!

After satisfying himself that the kitchen was done, the man made for the doorway.

‘
Perdone
,’ I coughed, opening the fridge door and pointing to the crack. He looked at me doubtingly. I nodded. He fired one tiny jet into the crack and waited. One by one a line of small brown roaches scrambled out of the crack onto the floor, kicking and flailing. He forced the tip of the nozzle into the opening and sprayed some more. We both stood watching.

‘Hello.’

I peered round the open door. Justin was standing on the other side of it.

‘Are those cockroaches?’

‘Err… yes, Justin. Those are cockroaches.’ I replied looking at the pile of dead insects at his feet.

‘They’re dropping out of the fridge,’ he said without emotion.

‘I know.’

‘So will they have been crawling on the food then?’

‘Look, Justin. How about you get an ice cream out of the freezer and pretend you’ve never seen this? What do you say?’

‘Sure.’ He opened the upright display freezer releasing a freezing mist. ‘Should I just tell my dad?’ he said. His glasses had frosted over.

‘No, no one.’

‘Okay.’ He wiped his glasses with a knuckle and skipped out of the bar.

After the man had left, I swept all the roaches into one pile in the middle of the bar, just out of morbid curiosity. It was the size of a large molehill. Although satisfying to know that we would no longer need to do subtle Michael Flatley impressions behind the bar, it was also disconcerting to know that we’d been sharing our workspace with literally thousands of cockroaches. And god knows where they’d been stomping their little buggy muck.

That night the jeep had returned. The mysterious man was watching our apartment for a second night. We woke the security guard again to inform him. He dutifully sprung into action, yawned, and then trudged to his stakeout behind the bin liners.

Again in the morning he had disappeared and again we looked forward to a day on the beach. Joy made
bocadillos
, long rolls, from some leftover chicken we brought back from the Smugglers the previous night. I packed a cool box with beers and a bottle of premixed
tinto verano
or summer red, a heady concoction of red wine and sprite.

‘I’m just nipping up to the bar for some olives,’ I shouted to Joy.

David was in the bar when I arrived. He was pouring himself a Fernet Branca, a potent herbal drink and supposed digestive aid. The Germans would drink it for fun but it was always served to the Brits as a forfeit in any drinking game. Nobody I knew could drink it without severe facial contortions. It had the colour and fluidity of treacle but the taste of creosote seasoned with stinging nettles.

I waited till he’d stopped convulsing. He looked like he was going to be sick. ‘Hangover?’ I enquired.

‘No, got a god-awful gut ache and sore throat. I was sick twice in the night,’ he said.

‘Maybe there’s something going around. Frank didn’t look great last night either.’

‘Frank never looks great,’ replied David.

‘That’s true.’

‘Hang on a minute… gonna be sick.’ David rushed off to the toilets where I could here him gagging.

‘You look terrible,’ I said when he returned. ‘Are you going to be okay with the shop and prep?’ We were taking it in turns with the daytime chores, but David looked in no fit state to do anything but hang by his chin from a toilet bowl.

‘To be honest, no. Can we swap and I’ll do the prep tomorrow,’ he croaked.

‘No problem, I’ll just go and tell Joy.’ The beach would have to wait again.

Joy brought the sandwiches up to the bar and we shared them on the way to the cash and carry.

I had become adept at making our money go a long way at the cash and carry. All those months ago, Mario had showed us how to stack the trolley most economically.

‘They so flickin’ lazy they no get off their ass to check. They only charge for what they see.’ It was true. The more expensive items were placed at the far side of the trolley behind bundles of toilet rolls and catering cans of Heinz beans. We had saved a fortune over the months and justified the cover-up by the fact that many a time we had been overcharged for items due to careless mistakes on the till. We rarely checked the receipt but when we did, there was more often than not a mistake in their favour, but it was inevitably always too late to complain. This ‘careful placement’ policy helped to balance the books somewhat.

That night Joy and I ran the bar by ourselves. David was still suffering with the mystery bug. The bar was strangely quiet and it soon became apparent why.

‘Two portions of chips to take out,’ shouted Justin, startling me. He had magically appeared at my elbow just as I was carefully slicing through a tail of fillet steak.

‘Your mum and dad not coming in tonight, Justin?’ I asked, sucking the blood from my finger.

‘No. They’re not very well.’

‘Why, what’s the matter?’

‘They’re both being sick and my dad’s lost his voice.’

The mystery bug was claiming a lot of people. Several of our regulars had called in for a drink then left early, complaining of the same ailments. Even Buster was more lethargic than usual and his meow had turned embarrassingly pitiful for such a macho cat.

Late that night Joy and I started to suffer the same symptoms. We were too busy staring at porcelain to notice the jeep pull up outside again. Even if we had, we would have been in no state to kick-start ‘the sleeping policeman’. By the following morning we were bedridden. The beach was the last thing on my mind.

Wayne called round later that day to see how we – or more importantly to him – Joy was doing.

‘What you been eating them, youse look like shit?’ he asked.

‘Nothing unusual. We’ve been eating from the bar,’ strained Joy.

‘Ah, well that’s it isn’t it?’ he joked, ‘The shit they serve in there would kill anyone.’

‘What you been up to anyway?’ I whispered.

‘I’ve just been to see your David, tell him I’m back and see if he wants me to do anything.’

‘You’re back? Where’ve you been?’ croaked Joy.

‘I had a mate come over from Wolverhampton so I’ve been off me face with him. Can’t remember anything from the last two days.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ I said, nodding.

‘Hang on.’ Joy rose from the settee wrapped in a quilt. ‘If you’ve been away for the last two days, when did you go in and wash all the plates and glasses?’

‘I haven’t been in yet. I’m still waiting for the bug man to come.’

I looked at Joy. ‘Oh crap.’

Wayne could see the alarm in our faces. ‘What?’

‘He’s been. He sprayed insecticide everywhere,’ I said.

‘Including the plates and the glasses,’ added Joy.

‘Well, nobody told
me
,’ said Wayne, sensing that he was about to get the blame.

One of my worst fears had materialised. ‘We’ve poisoned everybody,’ I announced solemnly.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

I broke the news to David. Fortunately he had recovered enough to go back into work. It was vital that we kept the revelation to ourselves or our reputation would be ruined. On a small and isolated complex such as El Beril, that was potentially disastrous.

Both Wayne and David immediately set about cleaning the crockery, glasses and work surfaces while I made my way back to bed. All the food had to be thrown out and the fridge completely restocked. We’d managed to poison twelve people that we knew about, not including ourselves. It had been a costly mistake but the price could have been a lot higher.

Both Joy and I managed to make it to the bar that night and were relieved to see a lot of the old faces back.

‘Did you get that bug as well, Frank?’ asked Joy. His colour had returned but his zest for life remained unchanged.

He nodded. ‘Couldn’t stop crapping all night.’

‘It did the rounds, didn’t it?’ said Joy continuing to plant the idea.

‘I hate this time of year,’ he said. ‘When summer finishes and winter kicks in, everybody always gets ill. It’s those bastard Moroccans sending their germs from Africa. Should all be shot.’

The change of seasons could hardly be called drastic. The mercury might have dropped a couple of millimetres but we weren’t exactly clamouring for hats and mittens. However, the frequent
calimas
or sand storms from the Sahara that shrouded the islands in a dusty haze for days on end were known to trigger various ailments.

Fortunately it seemed that we had escaped any finger pointing and our regular array of cheerful patrons, plus Frank, soon littered the bar once more. There was also one addition to the regular barflies who would prove to be more trouble than the rest of them put together.

A dark haired, dark-eyed girl sat at the bar. She appeared nervous as she asked for her second beer. She kept looking down at the bar top in an almost subservient manner, as though she didn’t think herself worthy enough to look anybody in the eyes. Joy took pity on her and tried to engage her in conversation.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Czechoslovakia.’

‘Are you on holiday here?’ she asked.

‘No, I am work here.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘I work Hotel Conquistador. I clean room, make bed.’

John One had come into the bar and headed straight for the girl. ‘You can make my bed any day, love,’ he said, putting his arm round her shoulders. She pulled away from him, eyes wide in horror. Even John was surprised at the reaction and raised his palms to apologise.

‘Did you come to Tenerife by yourself?’ continued Joy.

‘No. I come with boyfriend but now I have big trouble.’ Her head lowered even more.

‘Why, what’s happened?’ asked Joy.

‘My boyfriend he leave. I nowhere stay,’ answered the girl sadly. ‘I need find apartment.’

Joy tutted sympathetically. The girl looked to be on the edge of tears, holding her head in her hands. John began to beam, a smile he considered his most beguiling. He looked like a dog baring his teeth. Joy sensed he was about to play the saviour and quickly butted in.

‘I have a friend who has an apartment on El Beril. I think it’s free at the end of the week. I could ask her if you like,’ said Joy.

The girl looked up. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly. She asked Joy for her phone number and said she would call in the next couple of days.

Two days later Joy still hadn’t managed to get in touch with Siobhan, the owner, but she did know that it was going to be free for two weeks before Siobhan’s next friend arrived.

The only casualty who did not seem to be making such a quick recovery from ‘the bug’ was Buster. His puny call had deteriorated to a silent mouthing whenever somebody ventured close, and any inclination to travel beyond table five had completely vanished. When one of the Spaghetti Beach residents ambled into the bar with a Dalmatian, Buster lifted his head from the soft padding of the bench seat, looked at the spotted enemy and flopped down again. It was clearly time to seek professional help.

Over the weeks, Buster had gained an enormous amount of weight. From being barrel-shaped and burly he had become more like a furry beach ball. His personal hygiene had also fallen by the wayside. He now sported a permanent black stripe running the length of his spine, a legacy of his favourite stakeout place underneath a parked car. However, whereas before he had been able to remove the camouflage once his mission was over, the middle of his back now remained frustratingly just beyond the reach of his probing pink tongue. Sitting on his haunches he would strain his neck in an attempt to lick off the oil but more often than not, he would lose his balance, roll over his own shoulder and let out an indignant sigh of defeat.

Buster’s attraction to cars wasn’t restricted to the underside, even though he spent a lot of time sprawled under chassis now the bar was closed in the daytime. After sleeping, eating and chasing dogs, going for a ride in the car was Buster’s favourite pastime.

On those mornings when time was short and we had an insurmountable list of tasks that needed to be accomplished before the bar opened, speed was of the essence. Without fail these mornings coincided with Buster’s innate urge to be a passenger. He would have no qualms about standing resolute in front of a revving car until a door would open and in he would leap.

If the chores of that morning involved meetings and appointments at which Buster’s presence wasn’t required, he would content himself with a quick circuit of the car park before being dropped off back at the bar.

Thus it was no challenge to entice him into the car for a trip to the vet. He jumped in and assumed his usual position. Two front paws rested on the dark grey dashboard, purring and dribbling saliva onto Joy’s lap as he watched the world go by on the way to Las Américas.

‘He’s been poisoned,’ announced the German vet.

‘Has he?’ we both feigned surprise. She gave him an injection, which he accepted with a flicker of pain or protest.

‘He needs to be neutered,’ said the vet, noting Buster’s two appendages. ‘Bring him back when he’s better. It’s time he had the snip.’ Buster looked up at us and opened his mouth, aghast, but nothing came out.

With Buster on the mend and our stomachs the right way round again, the day was ours. There was only one thing for it. The beach bag was packed once more.

El Beril’s offering was no Copacabana but it still attracted a few hardy souls, who must have treasured the chiropractic qualities of lying prostrate on a lumpy stone mattress. I assumed these were the same people who forced themselves into freezing water, happy in the deluded notion that doing awful things to your body was healthy for body and soul.

Joy and I had no such wholesome intentions and headed to the nearest swathe of soft golden sand, with the aim of plonking ourselves down and doing bugger all for as many hours as the day would allow.

We found a spot on the newly created Las Américas beach. I say newly created as the coastline, although beautiful in a rugged sense, was originally just a series of rocky crags interspersed with pockets of coarse black sand, remnants of Tenerife’s volcanic birth.

As the tourism industry quickly took hold of the island, it wasn’t long before the authorities recognised the fact that Northern Europeans weren’t in the least bit attracted to bitumen-coloured beaches. Buckets and spades were sent to the Sahara Desert to dig up the preferred golden variety and transport it back across the water, where it was dumped at the feet of huge hotels to cover up unsightly black roots.

Naturally, environmentalists were none too pleased with this trans-continental transfer of earthly treasure. Consequently, many of the South’s other beaches had to draw on sub-oceanic reserves, sucking golden sand (and startled marine life) off the seabed, blowing it along lengthy sections of tubing and spitting it back out onto dry land, just like the one in Las Américas.

Joy and I pitched camp between two families. One was Spanish, several generations sheltering from the sun under a marquee of overlapping beach brollies. A wall of towels draped from the umbrellas provided security from the gusts of sea breeze, protecting the picnic they had laid out on one of the white plastic sunbeds. A carpet of remaining towels protected the delicate feet of the younger members of the family from the hot sand.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they were all dressed in swimsuits, except the grandmother, who was clad all in black save for a straw boater, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you were peering into someone’s living room. Huge efforts had been made to repel the conditions that you’d normally seek on a beach – sand, the sunshine and a sea view.

A red-top newspaper protruding from the top of a straw shopping bag gave an obvious clue as to the nationality of our other neighbours. The family of four couldn’t have displayed a more contrasting outlook on beach excursions. They were here to revel in all three enemies of the Spanish clan.

Mr Brit was standing, one hand cupped over his eyes, surveying the scene for a glimpse of the topless oak-tanned girls he’d heard about back home. His white legs gleamed in the midday sun like flagpoles on a tropical parade ground. His other hand rested on hips housed in purple knee-length swimming shorts. Above this a pale blue short-sleeved shirt was unbuttoned, flapping in the slight breeze. It still had two lines running parallel from top to bottom and one across the chest from left to right, a neat tribute to the packers at C & A.

Mrs Brit sat upright reading Jackie Collins while slow cooking in coconut oil. The wide brim of a straw hat threw shade over the novel and her shoulders, where both straps of her black one-piece had been pushed daringly off their perch.

The junior Brits were both lying comatose. The boy of about fourteen lay on his back atop a Sheffield United beach towel, a glorious antithesis if ever there was one. Pale skin and red hair hinted that this wasn’t an environment particularly suited for him. Nevertheless he slept soundly, blissfully ignorant of the pink glow spreading over his freckled shoulders.

His sister was possibly a year older. She was lying on her front, bikini top unfastened, arms and legs spread wide to minimise the catastrophe of acquiring white bits. A teen mag lay discarded in the sand at the side of her head, its pages blowing back and forth from one Hollywood hunk to another.

We spread out two towels and flopped down. Joy smothered herself in sun cream, took out a magazine and
immediately fell asleep before she had time to learn why a C-list soap star had decorated her bathroom in zebra stripes.

We had been living within a hundred yards of the ocean for nearly 140 days. We had driven past the beach six days out of seven for those four and a half months. We had welcomed hundreds of customers in various states of undress who had obviously come straight from the beach, expressing envy at our lifestyle while asking the inevitable; ‘Why are you so white if you live here?’ But this was the first time we had been able to enjoy for ourselves what 99.9 per cent of holidaymakers came for – to lie in the sun and do nothing.

Beach-goers can generally be divided into two schools; those that see the sand as a giant communal mattress and those who see it as an activity centre.

For every comatose sun worshipper there’s another indulging in a beach activity – some more traditional than others.

Just beyond the Spanish encampment a tanned Latin girl sat astride her boyfriend, who lay on his front. Her face was contorted in fierce concentration as she nipped his flesh with two thumbs, minesweeping for spots along the length of his back then wiping the results on the back of his shorts. His eyes were open, watching two portly British lads trying to impress a group of nearby girls with their keepy-uppy skills, competing with the wind for control of their 200-peseta plastic flyaway ball.

A small boy stood watching, open-mouthed. In one hand he held a red plastic spade, in the other his willy. Behind him, his father was putting the final touches to an intricate sand village, complete with irrigation system and walled surround. His tongue was between his teeth as he lay on his front etching mullion windows into the houses, oblivious that his son had wandered off having become bored with the complexities of making sandcastles with dad.

‘It’s time for a change.’ Joy had woken from her doze and finished all the articles in her glossy on
How to get thin by eating nothing but chocolate
, the latest cellulite treatment involving hydrochloric acid, a stiff wire brush and several months in intensive care, and yet another conclusive study revealing that all men are crap. She was now propping herself up on one elbow, staring at my manhood.

Insulted by this deflating remark I stopped my manly posturing. As gravity let go of my shoulders, chest and stomach they slumped down towards the focus of her gaze. My ego fought hard to convince me that it was the packaging and not the contents at which she was expressing displeasure.

‘Nobody wears those nowadays,’ she announced.

I had to admit that there weren’t many other bodies sporting red Speedo trunks, but not being a dedicated follower of fashion, I wasn’t concerned. I’d had this swimming costume years and apart from a quick dash into (and a quicker dash out of) Blackpool’s icy water, they had enjoyed a very restful life.

It’s only in places like Tenerife that you realise beachwear is such big business. It’s the least amount of clothing you’re likely to wear in public, yet can produce the most amount of concern in the run up to summer holidays.

Joy’s revelation that I looked a prat did little for my confidence, surrounded as I was by such eye-popping beach-goers. I was going to go for a stroll but opted instead to have a doze. Several yards away a group of local girls were doing the same. As I lay there, it dawned on me what a particularly odd place the beach was, especially for the Brits. As a supposedly socially inhibited bunch, the last place that you would think a typically shy Brit would come for some relaxation was a wide expanse where you were expected to undress in public, and lie shoulder to shoulder amidst a crowd of complete strangers.