Two Old Fools in Spain Again (15 page)

“I can’t wait either! I can’t wait for this baby to be born and I can’t wait to see you!”

“Time will fly, you’ll see.”

By the end of June, the sun was often unbearably hot and the villagers were arriving for their summer break. Children played in the streets, mopeds and scooters buzzed and the evening promenade up the mountain road resumed. Only the Ufartes’ house remained quiet and empty. Then, in midsummer, we heard activity again and wondered who was living there now.

“I hope Maribel has come back,” I said. “It would be nice to see the kids again.”

But it wasn’t Maribel, or her husband, Papa Ufarte. Lola had returned and to nobody’s surprise, she wasn’t alone.

Lola’s new companion had long, unkempt hair and a furtive way of looking at one. His jeans were torn and dirty and he made no attempt to talk to us or any of the villagers. I didn’t much like the look of him and it seemed other people shared my view.

“You mark my words,” said Carmen, “that new man of Lola Ufarte’s is not to be trusted.”

“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.

“No and that is what worries me. In a village like this, we all know about each other.”

We didn’t see much of either Lola or her new man. They kept to themselves and rarely emerged from the house except to drive noisily away in a rusty old van with a dangling exhaust pipe that nearly scraped the ground.

And all the time, on the other side of the world, my granddaughter was growing.

17. Birthdays

Steak with Paprika and Herbs

‘Your baby is now the size of a coconut and is getting closer and closer to being able to breathe on her own. Her skin is getting smooth and soft and her gums are rigid. Her liver and kidneys are in working order.’

M
y daughter, Karly, was speaking to me on the phone from Melbourne.

“We’ve done some
great
eBay shopping for Grug and bought a second-hand cot, pram and chest of drawers-changing-table thingy and nappy bag. Cam has sanded down and repainted all the furniture and it looks
amazing
. We’ve saved an absolute
fortune
,” my daughter told me on the phone.

“Oh, well done! Any more thoughts about her name?”

“We’re thinking of calling her Bunny after the Duracell advert where the bunny never stops moving. We keep changing our minds but we have a shortlist of about six now.”

“You’ll know which name is right for her when she arrives,” I said. “At least you can stop calling her Wolfgang or Grug.”

“That’s true. What’s the weather like in Spain now? It’s cold here in Melbourne.”

“Hot! We try to go to the beach at least once a week and the doors and windows stay open permanently.”

“Well, by the time Wolfgang arrives and you come over, spring should be well on the way here.”

It always surprised me how very hot the Spanish sun was. I couldn’t touch the handrail of the outside staircase without scalding myself and the chickens stayed in the shade until evening. They looked their very worst in midsummer as they lost feathers and developed bald patches as they moulted.

“They look like roadkill,” Joe observed more than once.

“Poor things!”

“They look about ready for the pot,” said Joe.

“Sssh! They’ll hear you.”

We had never eaten our own chickens but we delighted in eating their eggs. No matter how hot the summer became, they always presented us with eggs, which I thought was very generous of them, considering the heat. I’m sure I wouldn’t have bothered. The eggs were always rich with gloriously orange yolks. That is until one particular day.

It was a Sunday and I was boiling eggs for breakfast. I hummed to myself as I cut the buttered toast into soldiers and popped the eggs into the eggcups.

“Lovely!” said Joe as he sliced the top off his egg, but his expression soon changed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“This egg. It’s got no yolk!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, “all eggs have yolks.”

“Well, I assure you, this one hasn’t.”

He was right, of course. His egg had no yolk. It was the first of many and, believe me, a breakfast egg with no yolk is no joke.

I looked it up on the Internet and apparently it can happen sometimes. It occurs when something or other inside the hen becomes detached and is most commonly found with elderly chickens. We guessed Regalo was the culprit as she was the most advanced in years, but we never found out for sure.

Naturally, my Facebook friends were full of suggestions. “Make meringues, or an egg white omelette,” they said.

But there was something very unappetising about those yolkless eggs and I couldn’t bring myself to use them. We learned to recognise which were yolkless because the shell was slightly rough and contoured. Whenever Joe or I came across them, we’d set them aside and put them in a carrier bag to dispose of later.

By July, I was getting really excited. In just a few short weeks our granddaughter would be born and I would be jetting across the world to meet her. Joe and I had discussed it at length and reluctantly decided I should go alone. I was desperate to be there to meet and help with the new baby, but we had commitments in Spain, animals to care for and flights to Australia are hugely expensive. Joe would have to be patient.

As our granddaughter prepared to make her entrance into the world, Joe was approaching his own birthday.

When one reaches our age, birthdays cease to be magical and are more of an unwelcome reminder that the years are ticking by. There was no way that Joe could have had a better birthday than the one he had in 2010. That year his birthday coincided with the final of the World Cup, which Spain won. An unforgettable day for the Spanish and for us.

“What do you want to do for your birthday this year?” I asked him.

“Nothing really, it’s just another day. Unless you want to ply me with drinks and entertain me with the Dance of the Seven Veils. That would be good, I’d like that.”

“Not a chance.”

“Well, let’s just have a day at the beach and then go for a nice meal afterwards.”

“You don’t want to do anything different?”

“Nope. No surprises please, I don’t want any fuss.”

We always go to the same part of the beach and hire sunbeds and a parasol for the day. The sunbeds have thick, comfortable mattresses and the parasols are big Balinese type ones thatched with straw or something similar. What could be better than lying stretched out on a comfy sunbed with a good book in your hand, listening to the waves lap and dozing occasionally?

The Spanish are very sensible about exposure to the sun. They flock to the beach in the morning, but at around one o’clock, when the sun is at its highest, they shake out their towels, pack up and leave. The beach almost empties, until five o’clock when they all return after a siesta.

Very few tourists or expats used the part of the beach that we favoured. At one o’clock the mass exodus began and we soon had the beach to ourselves. Well, almost all to ourselves because we shared it with a couple of ladies a short distance away. A glance told me that they were foreigners like ourselves, perhaps English or German.

I dozed off and awoke to see the pair coming back up the beach after a swim in the sea. Sadly, I noticed that one of the ladies was badly deformed with large misshapen lumps all over her torso hidden by her blue swimming costume.
That’s odd,
I thought.
Poor thing, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it before.
I turned away and read my book again.

Some time later I was too hot to read any more.

“Fancy a swim?” I asked Joe, but he was fast asleep.

I walked down to the water’s edge just as the two ladies were also returning for another dip. To my astonishment, both ladies looked totally normal and there was no sign of the ugly lumps I’d noticed earlier. As they approached, I heard that they were English.

Once in the water, we struck up a conversation. The ladies were on holiday, staying at a friend’s apartment and were full of praise for the area. The sea was gentle that day and very clear. As we chatted, the lady in the blue costume suddenly dipped below the water. The other lady explained.

“Don’t mind my friend Lizzie,” she said. “She loves Spain so much that whenever she sees a bit of rubbish in the sea, she picks it up.”

“I just feel I want to give something back, you know, help keep it all clean,” said Lizzie, bobbing up.

She held aloft an old plastic bottle and a dented can. Tucking the offending items into her swimsuit, she sank below again to retrieve more passing trash.

“Ah, that explains the lumps in your swimsuit,” I said, when she resurfaced. I was full of admiration. “What a great idea! If everybody did that every time they went for a swim, the seas would be so much cleaner!”

I resolved to copy her example and started right away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t difficult to find rubbish and my own swimsuit was soon equally stuffed.

“Where are you going? And what on earth have you got in your swimsuit?” asked Joe as I sauntered past him, my swimsuit bulging more than usual and my hands full of more plastic bits and pieces.

I explained, waving the rubbish at him.

“I’m just off to the bin to dump this lot.”

“Do you want any help getting it all out of your swimsuit?” he asked hopefully.

“Thank you, no. I can manage.”

After a very relaxing day on the beach, we enjoyed a good meal at our favourite restaurant and Joe indulged himself by ordering a steak.

At that time of year the days are long and it was still light as we drove home up the mountain. The lush green of spring had long gone, burnt brown by the relentless sun. As the sun dipped, the shadows deepened and stretched, making rocks and caves look even more mysterious than usual. I reminded myself that although we had driven that road countless times, it never looked the same twice.

“I’ve had a lovely birthday,” Joe said. “I’ve really enjoyed it.”

“And it’s about to get even better!”

“Is it? Why?” Joe stole a suspicious glance at me, before concentrating again on the winding road ahead.

“Wait and see. When we get to the next bend in the road, the one nearly at the top of the mountain, I want you to stop the car.”

“Do you want to look at the view?”

“Yes, but something else as well. A surprise.”

“You know I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll enjoy this one.”

There was a handy lay-by at the side of the road with enough room to park the car and enjoy the magnificent view. The sky was streaked orange and peach. In front stretched the Mediterranean sea, blue and dotted with tiny boats. Below us the cliff dropped, great rocky crags jutting out at crazy angles and burnt orange by the evening light.

“So why have we stopped? What’s the surprise?”

I opened the back of the car and carefully lifted out a heavy carrier bag. By now Joe’s curiosity had been aroused.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “What’s in the bag?”

“Get out of the car and I’ll show you.”

He got out and I opened the bag to reveal the contents.

“Eggs,” I said. “All those horrible yolkless eggs. Let’s throw them at the rocks below.”

I believe there is a secret vandal in all of us. Is there anybody who wouldn’t enjoy throwing eggs at rocks? Joe and I stood on the edge of the drop and looked down. A large rock far below jutted out perfectly and we chose that for our target. One by one we threw the eggs, watching them explode as they hit the rock. Very satisfying.

Swimming, sunbathing, a nice meal and finally hurling eggs over a cliff and watching them smash on the rocks beneath. Joe agreed it was the perfect birthday.

With Joe’s birthday over, another birthday was absorbing all my thoughts. A brand new little person in Australia was about to make her long-awaited entrance into the world.

As the due date arrived, Karly had a few problems. She’d developed gestational diabetes, which needed to be monitored, although that didn’t bother her as much as restless legs, which drove her crazy.

“If I don’t go into labour this weekend by myself, I’ll be taken in on Monday to be induced,” she told me. “So it looks as though you’re going to be a grandmother by Monday at the latest! Cam’s parents are flying down from Sydney on Monday so that’s good timing. And Nana and Pa (great grandparents) will be here on Tuesday. She’ll have quite a reception committee.”

We all know that things never go to plan when babies are involved. The weekend passed uneventfully and mother- and father-to-be set off for the hospital.

“Goodbye house,” said Karly. “When I come back I’ll be a mother! Goodbye street, goodbye car, goodbye...”

Cam just rolled his eyes.

In spite of being induced, the baby wasn’t ready to appear. Nothing happened.

“Not to worry,” said the cheery nurse, “come back tomorrow. Things will be moving by then.”

On Tuesday, they returned. After a full day waiting, still nothing was happening.

“Well, you might as well go home tonight,” said the cheery nurse. “Baby isn’t ready yet. Come back tomorrow.”

On Wednesday, they went to the park and played in the children’s playground. Not even the slide or the roundabout started things moving. The nursery was ready. The crib was ready. The pram was ready. All the little clothes were ready. Karly and Cam were more than ready. But the star of the show wasn’t ready.