More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (7 page)

‘Not paid your bill?’ a voice asked from up above.

‘You waiting for it to come back on?’ grinned another man leaning over the railings at street level. We nodded.

‘They’ll be waiting a long time then, John,’ sighed the first man.

‘Aye, John. A very long time.’ The two Johns nodded their heads pityingly. They obviously required some coaxing to share their secret.

‘Is there something you know that we don’t?’ I asked, squinting in the sun. Thick gold chains rested on tanned chests. Both had silver hair, combed back away from identical Ray-Bans. Although each had a reasonable physique, I guessed they must have been in their 60s.

‘You’ve been cut off,’ said the shorter John.

‘Aye, snipped,’ dittoed the other.

‘Not just you. Everybody. Everybody’s been cut off. Apart from us, that is,’ continued John One.

‘We’re all right though, aren’t we, John?’ added John Two.

‘Are you going to buy us a beer then?’ John One led the taller one down the middle set of stairs.

Apparently, the unfinished apartments at the top of the complex were the problem. In Tenerife, the builder is obliged to provide electricity and water until the complex is officially finished and handed over to the community, by which time the responsibility is passed to the individual owners. Our builder had decided that he had finished all the work that he was going to do and informed the electricity company, who duly noted that nobody else had applied to take over the electricity account, and promptly pulled the plug. Everybody on the complex was affected apart from those who had found out about the need to apply for a private supply and had already had individual meters installed. Our two jovial Johns had heard about the new requirements by chance and were two of very few on the complex who had not been plunged into darkness. For want of anything better to do, they were now wandering through the complex, gloating at everybody they could find.

‘It’s a bit serious, isn’t it,’ said John One. ‘I mean, a bar without electricity? What can you do? Become a salad bar?’

‘Aye, a salad bar. Good one, John. Salad and water – warm water, mind.’ They both set about laughing. This was getting us nowhere apart from feeling more irritated by the two clowns.

‘What do you suggest?’ I asked, interrupting their mirth.

‘Dunno really. You should have gone and got your own meter,’ said John One.

‘You should have got your own,’ repeated John Two.

‘Nobody told us we had to,’ said Joy.

‘They won’t have done. You have to go and find out,’ said John One.

‘Did you not find out?’ John Two sucked through his teeth noisily and shook his head. The other John stood with his hands on his hips confrontationally.

‘When did you two know about this, then?’ I asked.

‘We’ve known for ages,’ said John One.

‘A long time,’ affirmed the other.

‘Well, why didn’t you tell anybody else?’ said Joy, beginning to get annoyed.

‘That’s not my problem,’ he replied. ‘It’s not my fault if you don’t shag the right people, eh?’ He nudged Joy and winked knowingly.

‘What are we going to do, then?’ I asked Joy in an attempt to cut the two Johns out of the conversation.

‘Have you got a long cable?’ interrupted John One.

‘How long?’ I asked. I knew several extension leads snaked underneath all the bench seats throughout the bar, as the number and location of power points had proved to be woefully inadequate.

‘Well, if you can find a long enough cable to stretch from my apartment to here, you can feed off our electric until you get your meter installed.’

I was surprised by their sudden show of generosity. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

‘We’re happy to help out, aren’t we, John?’ said John Two.

‘Mind you, you don’t get nothing for free in this life,’ said John One. ‘You can pay both electric bills while you’re using ours and buy us the odd beer every now and then.’

‘Can’t say fairer than that, John,’ agreed John Two.

We had no other choice than to agree to their deal. Fortunately John One’s house was one of the closest apartments to the bar. We strung a succession of cables together across the roof tiles of three other buildings and ran them down into the commercial area, ready to be plugged in. At least we could power up enough equipment to stay open.

But DIY has never been one of my strong points. Give me a flat-pack for an eight-foot-high wardrobe and I’ll build you a five-foot-high dog kennel with a skylight and trapdoor. Add in a flash of distraction and the surrounding area becomes a danger zone. Thus when the final piece of cable was dragged to just outside the bar doors for me to wire it into an extension box, I somewhat foolishly overlooked a rudimentary aspect of working with electricity. It’s best to dispense with the current first.

‘What you doing, Joe?’ asked Justin, suddenly vocalising his presence behind me.

‘Oh, hi Justin,’ I said, ‘didn’t hear you arrive.’ Nobody ever heard Justin coming. He was one of those children who suddenly appear at the crucial point of concentration, like an apparition sent to test your resolve. His family owned one of the apartments at the Altamira where they spent weeks, even months at a time. Justin didn’t seem to be lacking in education despite his forced absence. He was intelligent to the point of genius, constantly pushing his bottle-bottom glasses up his freckled nose as he rushed to explain how something worked. However, what he scored in intellect he lost in physical coordination. His mind always seemed to be three minutes ahead of his actions, making concentration on what he was doing a major problem. Not a night would go by when Justin wouldn’t either break, or cause to break, a glass, plate, ashtray or plastic chair. The sound of shattering glass would usually be followed by a cry of ‘Justin!’ from his beleaguered parents.

I unscrewed the plug. ‘What are you up to, Justin?’ I began, and grabbed the bare wires. It felt like a shark had just bitten my arm and was trying to yank it from my shoulder. I wanted to let go but my hand wouldn’t unclench. Justin was the only one around to share my eye opener, but he just stared on impassively. Instinctively I fell backwards and the cable slid from my grip.

For a moment I lay staring at the big blue, startled by the shock and by my own stupidity. ‘We’re going to the beach,’ said Justin standing over me. My right arm and shoulder tingled with a dull ache. The same performance on a wet day in Bolton would probably have killed me. I thanked Tenerife for being so dry in June.

‘Oh, that’ll be nice,’ I said from the floor.

‘Did you just get an electric shock?’ he asked after a while.

‘Yes.’

‘You should have turned the power off.’

‘I know.’

‘See you later, then,’ he said, and skipped off.

‘Yes, see you later, Justin.’ I got to my feet just as John One appeared.

‘Is it working?’ he shouted from the top of the stairs.

‘Erm… do you think you could unplug it at your end?’ I asked.

Fortunately the connection proceeded without my body becoming an integral link again, and we managed to power up the beer and mixer coolers, one bar fridge, a random selection of house lights, the kitchen fridge and the freezer. All of the ice creams were ruined leaving a sickly pool of meltdown on the bottom shelf of the display cabinet. Everything else was transferred into the kitchen chest freezer or the tiny freezer compartments in our own homes.

Apart from the financial loss of orange sorbets et al, our dining patronage understandably waned as all we could tempt customers with were salads in various guises – tuna, prawn, seafood (tuna and prawn), cheese, ham, ploughman’s (cheese and ham) and the Smugglers Special House Salad (a crafty combination of tuna, prawn, cheese and ham). There weren’t many takers at the compulsory ‘healthy eating’ nights.

We had to put up with four weeks without a regular electricity supply despite constant pleas at the electricity company’s counter. Our business life had now invaded our only sanctuary. Lasagne, shepherd’s pies and huge trays of curry had to be cooked in our apartments and hauled to the bar in time for evening meals, just to provide a bit of variety.

During our down time, the two Johns milked their ‘odd beer’ for all it was worth. They spent an inordinate amount of time sat at the bar buying drinks for new holidaymakers, female ones in particular. It mattered not if their husbands were with them. The two Johns assumed that as residents they were naturally more appealing.

There existed a certain amount of disdain for the ‘Billys’, as holidaymakers were affectionately known by the residents. We as newcomers had yet to adopt that arrogance but it was all too plain to see in the more seasoned expats.

Just as the two Johns tried to impress on the new customers that they were frequenting
their
bar, so it was on the island in general. Whether in Las Americas or in the secluded villages like La Caleta, the expats treated the island as if it was their own, making it perfectly obvious that holidaymakers were naive and ignorant in the ways of
their
land, and were fair game to be parodied.

‘
Dos El Dorados por favor
,’ those brave enough to make the effort with the local language would ask at our bar.

‘
Dos Dorados
? You’re not asking for a TV programme, you know,’ mocked John One. ‘You mean Dorada. It’s not
dorado
, it’s Dorada.
Dos
Doradas
por favor
. If you’re going to speak the language, speak it properly.’ This was from a man whose Spanish vocabulary came to a spluttering halt after exhausting his knowledge on two beers, a hamburger and shouting ‘oy,
guapa
’ (oy, beautiful) at anything with smooth legs and a pulse.

Mind you, our own attempts at ploughing into the local lingo had not altogether harvested the desired results. All of the delivery companies were Spanish and rather than call them all ‘Manuel’, as many of the expats did, we gave them nicknames: Chop delivered the meat; Captain Birdseye brought the frozen fish; Crusty took our bread order; Marine Boy dropped off the bottled water; Popeye was our soft drinks man; and Bill and Ben, two rotund beer truck drivers, delivered the barrels of Dorada.

It soon became apparent that learning the numbers was essential if we wanted to order the correct quantities. Miming 60 bottles of water was not only time consuming but also carried something of a margin of error.

Flushed with the success of placing an order for extra beer barrels over the phone for the first time, I decided that it would save a lot of time getting the cash-and-carry to deliver what we needed, rather than going on our daily two-hour shopping trip. It was to be a lesson in realising my own limitations after I inadvertently ordered
quinientos
(500) packs of toilet rolls instead of
quince
(15),
doce
(12) bottles of Johnny Walker instead of
dos
(2) and only
uno
(1) frozen chicken fillet instead of
once
(11). On top of all that, the flour was self-raising instead of plain, the tuna arrived in what seemed like one-ton containers rather than the usual one-serving cans that we preferred, and the lettuce looked like it had already been eaten once. It proved too difficult to get across our grievances to the teenager, who was neither interested in nor willing to listen to our pained complaining. Our lack of Spanish language ability was judged as a sign of stupidity and we were treated as though we had no idea what we were doing – which wasn’t altogether untrue.

CHAPTER
SIX

Having successfully reconnected to the electricity supply we were now required, not altogether unjustly, to arrange some means of paying for it. A transfer to pay the first instalment then a standing order for subsequent bills was the obvious solution, and one favoured by the electricity company. However, because we had three separate accounts with the bank (personal accounts for David and me, plus a joint business account for the Smugglers), there would have to be some shuffling of funds between the three before we could make the initial payment.

At the best of times the dealings with our bank had not been totally satisfactory and we were loath to trust them with something as complicated as making a transfer and setting up a standing order. It was a mystery as to how the bank was so inept. When you employ a gardener you quite reasonably expect him to look after your garden; when you pay a cleaner you expect them to take care of your dusting. But when we trusted our finances with a bank, the one thing that they seemed incapable of doing properly was looking after our money, although it has to be said, they were very proficient at furnishing us with free gifts of kitchenware and bombarding us with generous offers of credit.

To date there had been only one occasion when a statement had arrived and not revealed that some fortunate stranger had benefited from an involuntary charitable gesture from our account.

Our branch was is in Los Cristianos. With the arrival of tourism, this sleepy fishing village had been hauled out of bed and re-dressed from top to bottom in hotels, apartments, souvenir shops and banks.

As was the norm, I took my place in a queue that started just outside the adjoining cake shop. I wanted to explain that I was not a charity, and just because I had been seen making polite conversation with other account holders in the queue, we had not yet reached that cosy stage of friendship whereby my funds were freely available to all and sundry.

There were two counters at the branch but as the queue inched forward I could see that, as was customary, only one was in use. Behind the other sat a stern-looking madam, inattentively flicking through a bulging wad of 10,000-peseta notes. Occasionally she glanced up, and from over horn-rimmed glasses, cast a lofty look of contempt over us all.

The man at the front of the queue had emptied the contents of one of several large brown envelopes onto the counter. The clerk set about sorting the notes into separate piles, meticulously making sure they were all face-up. We were in for an exceptionally long wait.

To pass the time, I decided to write down the precise details of what I hoped to achieve from this particular visit. I drew pictures showing little stickmen happily passing money to one another. From these I felt sure that there could be no doubt that I required money to be transferred from account A to account B and then to the electricity company. I knew that if this actually occurred it would be a minor miracle and I, along with my little stickmen, would be extremely joyous.

After forty minutes of slow shuffling I gave the piece of paper to the girl. She turned it around in her hands and, without a glimmer of cordiality, passed it back, informing me that I had to join another queue to process a transfer. To save the trouble, I suggested she just withdraw the money from account A and then deposit it back into account B. We stood eye to eye while I waited for the logic to register. It finally clunked into place. Hesitantly she filled out a form, pondered over it for a while, screwed it up and filled out a different one before asking for my signature.

I then queued to see the assistant manager to find out why I had been chosen to pay my brother’s health insurance, my stepfather’s phone bill and a complete stranger’s monthly subscription to
National Geographic
magazine.

‘They didn’t have enough money in them,’ he explained. ‘To avoid them going overdrawn, we transferred the money from your account.’ He sat back and smoothed down his tie, content that this was a perfectly logical solution to the problem.

‘But that was my money!’ I said, exasperated.

‘But you know them,’ he countered.

After I explained that it was totally unacceptable, completely immoral and probably illegal, he begrudgingly agreed to put the money back and promised, with a tone that suggested he thought I was being a little selfish, that it wouldn’t happen again. We both knew that it most certainly would.

By way of an apology for our near incineration, Frank offered to take the four of us out on his boat the following morning. When he wasn’t tampering with gas supplies or threatening to shoot the locals, he could usually be spotted bobbing several hundred yards out at sea with a fishing rod in one hand and a cool beer in the other. He admitted that he wasn’t a people person and even back in the UK he much preferred the companionship of dead carp.

David and Faith had to decline the offer as they had to take Mal to the vet. Apparently he was struggling with a combination of heat and stress. Since he’d been released from the airport he’d spent all his time at the back of a wardrobe shedding great tufts of hair and developing an unsightly rash. It was also their night on duty. Frank’s two kids, Danny and Sam, were staying with friends and Al, his alcoholic friend, was recovering from a three-day bender in his apartment.

The marina of Puerto Colon has often been called Tenerife’s secret, though how multi-million pounds worth of flashy steel and sail, the majority skippered by a bunch of raucous nouveau riche, can remain a secret is anybody’s guess.

Tenerife’s yacht-erati shared their berth with an array of excursion boats, varying in size and comfort from the latest catamaran to converted fishing boats with more on-board animals than Noah’s floating menagerie. There were bright yellow glass-bottom boats, fiery red speedboats, replica schooners and a dozen or so serious ocean-going yachts.

The rattling and chinking of masts brought forth similar feelings that I had about airports. This was a port of fantasy. From here, lifetime adventures would begin, culminating in a step ashore on any exotic coastline that took the fancy.

Frank was about to enlighten Joy and me about the mysteries of the fishing world, which we had previously thought of as a sad, sullen population of loners who would much rather sit in the rain staring at ripples than join the real world.

He was almost ecstatic in his enthusiasm. Well, at least as ecstatic as Frank could be.

‘Best thing in the world,’ he droned in a monotone as we trampolined along the pontoon towards a row of sleek and shiny motor cruisers.

Could it be that Frank’s dress-down demeanour was a guise? Was he a secret millionaire living the idle life? His drinking partner Al had hinted that Frank was a secretive soul who liked to keep some things to himself. Was this his mystery solved?

No, was the answer. ‘Flash bastards,’ he muttered as he put down his cool box, plastic bag and petrol can on the wooden pontoon, underneath the overhanging bow of one of the mega-cruisers. In the shadows, between this and another similarly showy boat, was an 8-foot motorboat. It was the colour of an old beige bathtub and rocked from side to side in the water like a demented, trapped animal. It could barely accommodate the two thin wooden benches. In-between lay empty beer cans, more carrier bags and an assortment of fishing tackle. Frank was certainly not from the old school of seamanship. ‘Shipshape’ and ‘Bristol fashion’ were clearly absent from his nautical vocabulary.

After bailing out a small puddle he yanked on the starter rope and fired the bathtub into life. I had never been particularly good travelling on water or rather my insides hadn’t, although the outside was more than happy with the exfoliating sea spray, sun on skin and breeze through hair. Fortunately, as we set off the sea was remarkably calm.

‘It’s still,’ I noted, content that even my weak stomach could hack this millpond.

‘We’ve not left the harbour yet,’ said Frank. ‘It’ll be a bit choppier out there.’

Sure enough, as soon as we passed the harbour walls the boat began to lunge at the oncoming waves. Joy and I lurched back and forth on our bench like Muslims at prayer.

‘It’s not too bad,’ said Frank.

By the time Puerto Colon was bobbing on the horizon, I was not feeling my best. I scanned our surroundings; further west over the great watery expanse lay the Americas, shorewards Tenerife’s southwest coast played hide and seek behind the swell. Beneath us lay the very creatures that I was so keen to escape from in Bolton.

Frank cut the engine and opened the cool box. ‘First things first,’ he said, taking out three cool cans of beer. We sat in silence for a while, drinking Dorada. The ocean clapped time against the side of the boat, a rhythmic accompaniment to our synchronised swaying.

‘So how’s it going with the bar?’ Frank broke the hypnotic spell.

‘Ok, so far,’ I said. ‘Most of the regulars seem nice.’

‘Aye, well don’t believe what anybody says, they’re a bunch of two-faced bastards. Kiss your ass in the morning and stab your back in the afternoon.’

‘Why? Who’s like that,’ asked Joy.

‘All of them,’ said Frank. ‘The two Johns are the worst.’

‘They’ve been all right so far,’ I said. ‘They were good to help us out with the electricity.’

‘Aye, and they won’t let you forget it. They’re nasty little gits, especially little John. Don’t get too friendly with him.’

‘We’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Same goes for Patricia. She might seem okay but she’ll be saying differently behind your back. Watch what you say to her.’

‘What about Al?’ I asked.

‘Al’s OK. Pain in the arse when he’s pissed but he’s okay on the wagon. It might seem like a tight-knit community but believe me, they’re all stabbing each other in the back behind closed doors. They’re bored. Fucked off and bored, that’s their problem.’

‘And you?’ asked Joy. ‘What do they think of you?’

‘I call a spade a spade. If they don’t like it they can fuck right off. It’s no skin off my nose. They probably think I’m a common piece of shit, maybe I am, but at least I don’t try to hide it.’

‘Why did you come here?’ said Joy. ‘You don’t seem so happy.’

‘Don’t let this miserable face fool you. I like the sun and I like my fishing and that’s all I need. I wouldn’t go back to England now if you paid me. Too much rain, too much bad news on the telly, too many foreigners and too much tax. You can’t make a living in the UK now, you just work to pay the taxman. Plus Shark Bait would want some more money off me.’ He could see we were puzzled. ‘Shark Bait… the ex-missus.’

‘So you’re hiding from her, then,’ asked Joy.

‘No, she knows where I am but she can’t get anything from me if I stay here.’

‘Why did you split up?’ Joy persevered.

‘Let’s just say a difference of direction,’ he answered, throwing back the last of his beer. ‘Anyways, come on. We’re not here to fucking gossip, let’s fish.’

The beer had helped to quell the seasickness momentarily and Frank handed me a rod baited with semi-frozen prawns. The nausea soon returned though as he reached into a bag beneath where he was sat and threw a handful of reeking
Cebansa
into the water.

‘What the hell is that?’ I said, holding my nose.

‘Anchovies, sardines and tuna mixed with biscuits,’ he said. ‘The fish love it.’ He extended a handful of the mush towards me. ‘Here, want to try it?’

I had only fished once before. It was with some school friends at a duck pond in Howard Park. This outing had merely resulted in a telling off from the park keeper after nearly lassoing a mallard with an errant cast.

Thankfully, in the absence of webbed obstacles, I managed to cast my line without any immediate threat to Joy, Frank or myself. The bright floats played peacefully on the surface of the ocean while Frank and I watched them like protective parents. Joy had already lost interest in her line and had reclined as much as Frank’s boat would allow. The sky was an unblemished canvas of vivid blue, reflecting its glory in the vast ocean.

Suddenly my reel began whirring. ‘Got one, you bastard,’ Frank shouted. He put down his rod and turned his attention to mine. ‘Give it a jerk and start reeling it in,’ he said. The fish didn’t put up much of a fight, presumably saving its energy for face-to-face combat. It broke the surface a couple of metres from the boat. I lifted the line and it swung in towards Frank’s face, missing by inches.

Now, don’t believe every rubber-suited wet-head who boasts of the unspoilt beauty that lies beneath the waves. There are some damn ugly creatures living down there. I’m not saying that the undersea world doesn’t have its fair share of fetching characters. The unjustly named Bastard Grunt has a certain cutesy appeal with its delicate shade of pink while large gangs of Turkish wrasse with Day-Glo blue decorate the water like hand-painted ornaments. But let’s face it, sea cucumbers, weever fish and moray eels are not going to win any underwater beauty pageants. These unsightly monsters understandably spend much of their time hiding their afflictions in dark caves or camouflaged against the seabed until some scuba diver starts adding to their misery with a spear gun.

It’s the downright hideous that elicit most gasps and I had one of their brethren dangling by the lip. Back on the market this was not a fish that would have sold at three for a fiver, even ten for a fiver. Its brown and white body was mottled with a profusion of tiny warts and its dorsal fin was clearly designed to be left alone by the sensible.

‘Fuck!’ muttered Frank. ‘It’s a twatting scorpion fish.’

Anything prefixed with the word ‘scorpion’ – or ‘twatting’ for that matter – did not sound like it should be encouraged to share my personal space. ‘What do I do with it?’ I held the rod at arm’s length, which sent it swinging in an even larger circle amongst us. Joy was awoken by the commotion and sat up just as the spiky brown creature headed straight between her eyes. She flicked her head to one side, narrowly avoiding a more intimate introduction and the fish spun wildly past, opening and closing its mouth in a dizzy protest. After the fish had completed a couple of circular tours causing all three of us to duck consecutively, Frank seized his moment and grabbed the rod, lowering the creature back into its more familiar surroundings with a small splash. He reached and cut the line, releasing it, and us, from the unpleasant encounter.