More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (26 page)

It felt like we had passed an exam, proof to ourselves that we could now finally call ourselves caterers and business people. It felt like the climax to what had seemed to be an endless period of meddling in the dark, learning by our mistakes and bluffing when all else failed. We had passed the crucial six-month honeymoon without falling prey to the lure of our own beer pumps. None of us had been tempted into forbidden territory despite our visitors’ regular state of undress. We’d narrowly avoided a potentially fatal gas explosion and learned how dangerous boredom can be. We’d beaten all attempts by the electricity company to finish us before we had started and refused to give in faced with the island’s second biggest threat after the volcano – blindingly inefficient bureaucracy. We’d won over many of Mario’s old customers and made the bar our own, then proceeded to poison the majority of the most faithful – but got away with it.

Neither small time gangsters or squatting prostitutes, giggling health inspectors or jobsworth paper shufflers, thieving staff or lusty customers, ludicrously poor entertainers or demented locals had succeeded in thwarting our efforts to make the Smugglers Tavern a success. The six-month itch had left a few scabs but it hadn’t proved fatal. I felt we were in the clear, we’d done it all. I mean, what else could running a bar abroad possibly throw at us?