Parrot in the Pepper Tree (19 page)

Yet these are all minor linguistic inconveniences, compared to the minefield of the written letter or note.

If you live your whole life in the country you were born in, you are unlikely to be greatly taxed by the problem of writing notes to school bus drivers. Of course you may have to do it, but you will probably be able to dash it off without a moment’s thought:

To Whom it May Concern:

My daughter, Chloe, will not be returning with the school bus this afternoon as she will be engaged in after-school activities in town. Thank you for your co-operation.

Yours sincerely, Christopher Stewart (father).

I imagine they go something like that, dashed off in haste, though I’m not altogether sure as I’ve never had to do one in English. Here in Andalucia, it’s very different.

‘Chris, can you write a note for the school bus driver?’ Ana asked one day. It was not an unfamiliar request.

‘Why, dear?’ I answered, stalling as usual.

‘Because Chloë is staying after school tomorrow with Alba-Teresa and Laura-Maria.’

‘Can’t we just tell the driver?’

‘No, we really have to do it properly. You must remember what happened before?’

Ana was referring to an occasion on which we were blamed for keeping six children incarcerated on a bus on a sweltering afternoon, all because we had failed to pass on a note saying that Chloë was staying behind for a dance class. The fact that Ana had already alerted the bus driver to this on two separate occasions was of no account. Poor Chloë had to suffer a week of frosty looks and comments from the assembled parents before the spotlight fell onto some other poor noteless sap. So these days we always write to the school bus driver and to Mari-Carmen who is the loader and checker at the school end.

‘Well, why can’t you write the note then?’ I countered.

‘Because I’m busy and, besides, I thought you were supposed to be the writer in the family?

Ana’s dig seemed a little below the belt but I resigned myself to the task and set to finding a suitable piece of paper to write the note on. The paper shouldn’t be too big, as the sort of note I planned to write wouldn’t occupy very much space, and a big piece of paper would draw attention to this. It shouldn’t be too small either, as this would give an impression of impecuniousness or, worse, meanness — neither of which are the sort of impression you want to make on school bus drivers. Having unsuccessfully combed the house and all its outbuildings for the right-sized piece of paper, I hit on the notion of cutting one to the exact dimensions required — creating a sort of bespoke bus driver’s note page. The cutting, of course, had to be just so. I tried with our ancient pair of scissors, some knives, a ruler, folding and tearing.

Eventually I achieved the perfect piece of paper, found my pen, and sat down to compose. I thought for a bit.
Muy Pino mio,
I wrote — ‘Very Pine Mine.’ This was a standard beginning but I didn’t like it much; something didn’t quite click, and besides I wasn’t sure who was driving the bus that week. There were three potential drivers: Pino, Moya, or Jordi. It was too late to ask Chloë, who was fast asleep.

I crossed out
Muy Pino mio
— but no, that was no good, I couldn’t have crossings out. I crumpled the paper and took up another sheet. This time I’d do it first in rough. A part of the problem is that Spanish letter writing has a tendency to be rather formal, and the writing of formal business Spanish seems to be mired in lunacy. I caught a whiff of business Spanish once in a book I was learning from, and just that brief exposure seems to have contaminated my style.

Estimado señor
— ‘Esteemed Sir’ — I began again. It had a nice ring to it but was perhaps a bit heavy. It would have to go. I crossed it out and with a flourish wrote
Querido amigo,
‘Beloved Friend? I considered this uncertainly for a while, doubting its literary merit. And that was another problem; people in town knew that I had had some success abroad as a writer, so the contents of this note might not just be between me and the addressee. There was the awful possibility that the note would be passed around all the bus drivers to be mulled over, criticised, admired or reviled. In my worst, most paranoid, imaginings I could see my note pinned to the public notice board in the Ayuntamiento, the Town Hall, as an example. I had to get this right.

I thought hard about the note for some time with no success. Then I drank my share of a bottle of wine to see if I could find any inspiration there, but it only induced a desire to go to bed. Probably the inspiration would come during the night and I could just dash it off in the morning. Of course I spent the night rolling about in anguish, tormented by various combinations of address. ‘Esteemed Friend, Beloved Sir, Most Excellent Bus Driver… Very Bus Driver Mine…’

Next morning I rose early to prepare Ana’s morning cup of tea, get Chloë’s breakfast, and do some more work on the note.

Hola Jordi,
I started. Chloë had told me that Jordi was on this week, and Jordi, being younger and more modern than Pino or Moya, would more than likely be happy with a less formal approach.
Hi Jordi, With this letter I inform you that my daughter Chloë will not be returning with the school bus this evening, but will be staying on in town.

I wasn’t wild about the construction but it would have to do given the approaching deadline. ‘Will not be returning’: that ought really to be in the subjunctive as it referred to an act contemplated in an uncertain future and was also referred to at one remove. That seemed like a good case for a subjunctive. But it would be such a bunfight dredging up the appropriate subjunctive that I decided to let it slide. Jordi wouldn’t mind.

But how to finish the note? It wasn’t a business letter, and I knew Jordi pretty well, so it wouldn’t be necessary to roll out all the ornate religious stuff about ‘God Guarding the Recipient Through Many Years’ — a formal but surprisingly common sign-off in Spanish letters. This left the following options:
atentamente
(sincerely),
un saludo
(a salute),
un abrazo
(a hug),
un beso
or
besos
(a kiss or kisses). This last I dismissed out of hand. I liked Jordi but not quite that much.

Un saludo, Cristóbal.

With a sigh of relief I hunted about for an envelope, then headed off to take Chloë to the school bus. I was pleased to discover that it was indeed being driven by Jordi.

‘Morning, Jordi, here’s a note for you,’ I announced.

‘Oh yeah, what’s it about?’

‘It’s just to tell you that Chloë isn’t coming on the school bus this afternoon.’

‘OK. I’ll remember that?

‘Yes, but take the note.’

‘But you’ve just told me. I don’t need the note.’

‘Go on, take the note.’

‘No. What do I need a note for?’

‘It’s the proper way to do it … I have to give you a note.’

‘It’s really not necessary, Cristóbal …’

‘Look, Jordi, I’ve been up half the bleeding night writing this note, I’m certainly not going to take it home with me.’

‘Tranquilo, Cristóbal, tranquilo.
There, I’ve got your note.’ And he took the envelope and stuffed it in the sun visor.

Satisfied with a job well done, I stood and watched as the bus disappeared round the cliff in a cloud of dust and a rattle and clank of the loose fittings. Had I known what further authorial chores awaited, I’d have been a lot less complacent.

One of the reasons that Ana had no time for notewriting was that she was preparing to meet her mother for the weekend in Malaga, leaving me to look after Chloë, the farm and animals. I fed the livestock and, before settling down for a long day’s grind staring at the computer, set about making some pancake mix for Chloë. If you do pancakes you can always get children on your side, which I find sets the whole business of childcare off on the right footing.

At six I headed across the valley to fetch Chloë from a school-friend’s house. ‘Guess what we’re having for supper tonight,’ I said as we walked together down to the river.

‘Pancakes, I expect,’ she said, rather absently, then revived a little, adding,’ Ooh lovely, my favourite.’

There was clearly something preying on her mind.

‘Daddy?’ she asked, after a pause.

‘Yes?’

‘Daddy, you promise not to be angry if I ask you something?’

‘I’ll try to promise, though it does depend on what it is you want to ask me.’

‘Well … I want to stop going to
religión
classes. I just don’t like them anymore. Can I stop, Daddy? Can I?’

‘There’s no reason I should be angry about a thing like that, is there? I’ll tell you what, we’ll have a talk about it when your mother gets home.’ Normally I can stave off thorny issues with this simple delaying device, but Chloë wasn’t going to be sidetracked this time.

‘But it’s
religión
on Friday and I don’t want to go. Can you go and talk to the teacher about it? Please, Daddy, please.’

We had reached the bridge by this time so conversation was momentarily suspended while we picked our way along the timber beams above a torrent of white water.

The
religión
question was by no means new. When Chloë had first joined the school we had thought long and hard over whether to keep her in the Religious Education class or plump for
ética
on the grounds of my confirmed agnosticism. We had decided in the end that an insider’s knowledge of the Bible and the tenets of Christianity would be more of a help than a hindrance in getting to grips with European literature and culture. It also seemed a good way to get a grounding in the numerous festivals and saint’s days that pepper the Alpujarran calendar.

A glance through the
religión
school books satisfied us that the opposition were getting a fair crack of the whip. There were brief accounts of other faiths accompanied by caricatures of people of a dusky hue with bulging eyes wearing loin cloths and sitting about in the lotus position. Mohammed and the Muslims got pretty short shrift if I remember rightly — too close for comfort in Andalucia — but the more oriental religions were assumed to be far enough away not to pose a threat. These books were obviously not produced with the Alpujarras in mind, however. All the oriental religions are well represented here and within ten kilometres of Orgiva there are more cults and sects and sub-sects than you can wave a joss stick at.

I questioned my daughter a little more. ‘Why are you so against
religión,
Chloë?’

‘Religión
is boring and I just don’t really like it and
ética
is much more interesting.’

‘Ah, but how do you know it’s more interesting?’

‘Hannah told me.’

‘Of course, she must know quite a bit about it by now. Hannah is Chloë’s best friend. She’s German and her parents are rather progressive, so Hannah got opted out of the religious classes from the very start.

‘And Zohra, too,’ Chloë added. Zohra is another close friend of Chloë’s, and as you might deduce from the name, is a Muslim.

‘And Alba Recio? Alba Recio’s parents are Spanish progressive. The picture was becoming clearer now. Chloë liked the idea of being part of the exclusive little coterie, sitting apart and studying ethics, while the lumpen masses droned through catechisms and learned how to tell their rosary beads. I was impressed, and as we sat and ate our pancakes together, I mused out loud about what an interesting subject ethics was.

Chloë agreed wholeheartedly and before she went to bed we read two chapters from
Heidi,
a favourite of Chloë’s at that time. I’d hoped to fit in a discussion about the different ethical universes of Grandfather and Fraulein Rottenmeier, but we got engrossed in the astonishingly curative effects of toasted cheese and mountain air on Clara’s disability. I did note, however, that Chloë showed no absolute objection to Grandfather returning to the village church and hob-nobbing with the vicar.

The next night, when Ana arrived home, I told her about our discussion. ‘Are you sure she doesn’t just want to have an hour off to fool around with her friends’, she said.

Ana can be shockingly suspicious at times. But she did agree that it would be hypocritical of us to force Chloë to continue with religion if she’d specifically opted for ethics and that we should, perhaps, swing behind our daughter on this one. Personally, I was delighted with Chloë’s anti-clerical stance and thought it boded well for a free-thinking future. So the next afternoon I went along to see her teacher, Don Manuel.

Chloë horsed around in the playground while I was sent up the stairs to do the deal. Don Manuel was very understanding, but, he said, there was a problem: it was late in the spring term and, normally, if you wanted to drop a subject you should do it at the beginning of the school year. It was the sort of irregularity that might have everyone jumping on the same wagon, because, he confided in me, there were quite a few who wanted to change classes.
Ética,
it seemed, was becoming increasingly popular among the pupils.

‘Oh, Don Manuel,’ I said,
‘porfi?’
— I had found myself using the children’s abbreviation
of por favor.