Last Days of the Bus Club (20 page)

José was still hunched over the phone. He seemed to be getting agitated, really agitated.

‘But we did all that stuff,’ he said, ‘and they accepted it and there was not going to be a problem …’ And then he exploded. ‘It’s that
hijo de puta
of a
Búlgaro
. The bastard is trying to fuck us over … So what are we going to do about it? What the hell can we do about it?’

He put the phone down and stared at the windscreen, seething in silence. ‘What’s going down,
primo
?’ I asked. ‘Who’s the Bulgarian?’

The
Búlgaro
, it appeared, was the biggest
pez gordo
(fat fish) in Spanish sheepshearing, and a man you didn’t cross lightly. José told me of the dastardly stunt the
Búlgaro
had just pulled, which had something to do with persuading some crony in a high place to insist on a minute inspection of every aspect of Guerrero’s Uruguayans’ paperwork. José was certain that everything was in order, but it would involve him and his people in a mountain of useless administrative work.

We both watched the road for a while and then José shook out another cigarette and lit it, and reached over to turn the cassette. ‘Just you wait, Crease,’ he said. ‘That
cabrón
is going to wake up one of these days with a red-hot poker stuffed
right up his Bulgarian arse and on the other end of it will be none other than José Antonio Guerrero.’

We had been driving for nearly an hour through the ocean of olive trees to the north of Jaén. We zoomed across the muddy Guadalquivir on its long journey down to Sevilla and the sea, and finally left Andalucía through the pass at Despeñaperros, not, as in days gone by, winding down and up amongst the organ-pipe rock formations and the forests, but hurtling across the top of it all on a road supported on towering concrete pillars. It was quicker, of course, and less dangerous, but you couldn’t help but feel that something fundamentally important had been lost in Spain’s headlong dash to replace every country road with an
autovía
.

And then we were high on the endless plains of La Mancha, stretching all the way to Toledo. We hammered down the slip road into the city, and my hopes of a less headlong rush were dashed as José, still angrily preoccupied with the machinations of the
Búlgaro
, weaved a lunatic course amongst the traffic. We were here, apparently, to visit yet another
pez gordo
, Javier, a man who, as president of one of the biggest sheep cooperatives in the country, held the destiny of a hundred thousand sheep and more in his hand.

‘I know this guy a little,’ said José, ‘but we’ve got to make a big impression on him today. I’ve more or less got the job in the bag for my boys, but you never know with that goddam
Búlgaro
trying to poke his nose in. Still,’ he said trying to shrug off these dark thoughts, ‘Javier’s going to buy us lunch and if I know the food in this town it should be a good one.’

We parked where we could, and clumped up the stairs to an office full of files and books, the walls hung with oil paintings of eminent sheep. Nice-looking sheep they were, too – Merinos mostly. Spain’s medieval economy was largely based upon Merino wool, and it is still the finest of any sheep on earth.

Behind the desk sat a smooth young man in an impeccable suit. He rose to greet us. This, then, was Javier.

‘This is my friend the Eenglish writer,’ announced Guerrero unctuously, poking me in the back. ‘I told you I was going to bring him to meet you. You’ve heard of Genesis?’

Javier had heard of Genesis.

‘Well, Crease was the drummer of Genesis.’

Javier looked a little bemused, wondering no doubt why I didn’t look more like Phil Collins. (Phil Collins had more famously taken my role after I’d been ejected from the group as a schoolboy.) I felt a bit of a berk.

‘Did you bring that book from the car, Crease? The one I’m in …’

I handed it over. José handed it to Javier. Javier looked at the back cover. ‘You must dedicate it to me,’ he said, brandishing a biro.

I wrote in the book, something along the lines of ‘To my esteemed and admired friend, Javier. I hope you enjoy this book.’ Then I handed it back to Javier, who studied the dedication with a nonplussed air. Perhaps it was my writing. Anyway I figured that that was about all that he would ever read of the book. He thanked me.

‘It’s not me you should thank, it’s Guerrero. It’s from him. I just signed it.’

Next there was some business to attend to, and while José and Javier were deep in discussion I tried to immerse
myself in the only other piece of literature in the room, the co-operative’s yearbook. Now, although I’m as keen as the next farmer on the minutiae of the ovine world, you can only get a certain, limited amount of mileage from a sheep co-op’s yearbook. I had, moreover, begun to feel decidedly peckish but reckoned this was no bad thing, as there was bound to be a spectacularly good feed to follow, with all the culinary sophistication one expects from Spain’s ancient capital.

At last the tedious business was over and Javier ushered us out and round the corner to a small restaurant. It looked a touch unpromising: in fact, it looked like the typical bog-standard eatery you find on almost any street corner. But the incongruity of this served only to heighten my anticipation. Often (but perhaps, if one is truthful, not that often) you find the most exquisite fare in the most unexpected places. We were shown to a formica table and I winced as the waiter, a large smelly man in a grubby nylon shirt, brushed past me, smacking me in the ear with a stack of dirty plates. The noise from the television, which was perched on a bracket just above Javier’s head, was so deafening that I was unable to hear a word of what my companions were saying. More promisingly, though, Javier had begun conferring confidentially with the slob of a waiter.

At length, he turned to me and shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Apparently the
hamburguesas
are off. There’s only macaroni for starters. The main course is
albóndigas
or
pollo al ajillo
.’

Jeezus, I thought, what sort of a lunch was this to be treated to? Those unspeakable
albóndigas
would be out of a catering tin, chemically salvaged meatballs … and the chicken would be slathered in garlic and fifth-rate olive oil. It filled me with nothing but the deepest dread.

Guerrero stared fixedly at the television. The waiter looked expectantly at me for my order.

‘Well, I guess it had better be the macaroni and the meatballs,’ I said, attempting just the faintest hint of irony.

The waiter shrugged, then hurried off in answer to an imperious ping from the microwave.

I was thinking by now that Javier was less estimable and admirable than I had suggested. I also figured that José was laying me on the line with this pan-Iberian road trip.

I had it out with José as we hurtled a little later through the horrible traffic on the ring road, during one of the cricket’s silent spells.

‘But of course I’m using you,’ he replied with surprising candour. ‘It’s because you’re famous, and you owe it to me, your old mate, to help me out a bit with this, your famousness. After all, you didn’t ask for it – and it doesn’t cost you anything, does it? – and look what you’re getting: the benefit of my company on this trip across the country you’ve chosen to live in but never get off your arse to see. You can’t ask for fairer than that, can you? And me? Well, I need to put my name about and keep it up there in the minds of all my customers. Now generally they’ll remember me because I work it that way and I’m a pretty memorable sort of a bloke. But when I’ve got Mister Famous in tow, and they’ve got a dedicated book in their office or to give to their mistress, well, they’re going to think of nobody but José Antonio Guerrero when it comes to handing out those contracts. You wait and see, Eenglish. It’s going to be
pan comido
. So just loosen up.’

To congratulate himself on this subtle mix of sophistry and marketing cunning, he lit another cigarette. I pondered his words a while. Perhaps he was right. Why shouldn’t he make some use, if he could, out of my low-key fame? I’ve been lucky, so why not ‘loosen up’ and enjoy spreading it about a bit. José’s reasonable and matter-of-fact attitude went some way towards restoring my spirits. And so I settled to the task of helping my friend with his winter activity of consolidating gains, muscling in on the
Búlgaro
’s territory, and keeping himself in the shepherds’ eyes. I, in my dubious incarnation as Mister Famous, had become the new tool in his kit.

‘So where are we off to next?’ I asked.

‘Just you wait … We’ve got the best part of the day to come yet: we’re going to see your fans, Jesús and Eugenia, in Aranda. You’re going to love ’em. Oh, and just before we get to Aranda we’re paying a visit to Rafael. Rafael is important. He’s got a thousand sheep. I sheared them already, but he’s a member of a huge cooperative with flocks ten times that size. I really need to get my boys in on it.’

We raced on up the long, long
autovía
, the pale winter sun slipping beneath the hills, the temperature dropping like a stone. Now my purpose had been defined, I was starting to enjoy the journey a little more. An hour north of Madrid we pulled off the motorway and almost immediately into the village of Pardilla.

Rafael’s operation was modernity and enlightenment itself. He welcomed us in a great stone-walled restaurant that, beneath mighty beams of oak, served wine from his vine-yards alongside milk-fed lamb from his sheep, and the odd
suckling pig. It was a temple to carnivorosity that each weekend draws hordes of devotees from Burgos and Madrid. The farm itself was on the edge of one of those tiny villages of Castilla where nothing happens from one year to the next and all the young people head for the cities in search of work and life. Rafael, with his restaurant, kitchen and ornamental gardens, slaughterhouse and distribution operations, employed just about everybody who stayed.

Rafael was about thirty, a driven man, bouncing with enthusiasm. He had just been nominated for an EC award for business innovation. Proudly he showed me the brochure and the papers he was about to submit to the judges. It was written in an unusually lyrical style, aimed at conveying not just the objectives but the very passion of the enterprise. Opposite each page was what purported to be an English translation. ‘To visit us’, it declared, ‘is to wake the bug of livestock and fight with it, to dignify and publicize a career so forgotten, as it is to be livestock.’ I could sort of catch his drift, and it was a nice, almost poetic, line of thought. But when he asked, I had to admit: ‘It’s not quite there yet, Rafael, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

He watched anxiously as I read on. The next bit had a slightly sinister, biblical, tone: ‘The production is semi-extensive with a pastor who draws the livestock from the beginning, ours is only “flesh”.’
Pastor
means ‘shepherd’ in Spanish and it had clearly slipped through the net of whatever electronic translation service he was using. ‘Flesh’ seemed to refer to the fact that the lambs were reared purely for the table. There was some succinct culinary advice to follow on the proper utensils and method for preparing his lamb: ‘If not used mud pie, we recommend adding a little water. Instructions are for one room.’