round your neck when you brought him out here.”
“Ungrateful old sod,” rants Sidney. “Doesn’t he realise he’s getting everything for free. You lot are all the same. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. You swallow the whole bleeding arm.”
Poor old Sid is obviously under pressure and in the next few days it does not get any better.
First of all there are the little things that go wrong. The shit house that collapses with the quantity surveyor from Penge inside it – jokes about the quantity he surveyed are considered in very bad taste. The discovery of ravenous insectlife lurking in the walls of the huts. The lady from Chippenham Sodbury who is horrified to discover that what she thought was a shoal of basking fish is in fact evidence of the extra strain being put on the plumbing arrangements. All these things are problems but they are not as disturbing as the failure of people to “inter-act” as Sidney calls it. Despite all the mood muzack being relayed over the loud speaker system, the efforts of the Fiesta Bunnies and Sun Senors, and the fact that everything in the place has a name that shouts sex, nobody seems to want to know. It is as if, when it is so easily available, nobody needs it, or maybe we have all underestimated how long it will take people to thaw out.
With nearly all the love-bites on the island coming from insects, Sidney is a worried man and his state of mind is not made any easier by the fact that the one blossoming romance involves his wife and Senor Volare. Every night Rosie can be found in the Candlelight Casino whilst Hairy belts out a stream of tuneless dirges that all sound the same and contain more groaning and sobbing than you’ve heard since Johnny Ray hung his handkerchief in the airing cupboard. Rosie gazes at him like his mush is the tele screen back home and it is obvious that she isn’t thinking about what to buy little Jason as a going home present.
The rest of Volare’s group are also settling in nicely and I have noticed that Carmen has not been hanging around so much since they got here. I should be pleased but of course I am not. Bloody wops! I mutter to myself, what can she see in that bunch of dagos? Whatever it is, Nan and Nat see it too, because they are also never far away from the Candlelight Casino when Ricci is delivering the goods. All very nice for the staff but what about the paying customers? A few of them gamble a bit, but their number does not include Dad.
“Blackjack and Craps,” he says. “They’re bleeding nice names, aren’t they? Very refined. You won’t catch me getting mixed up with that lot.” And so he joins the silent majority who just sit around and peel the skin off their sunburn. Of course Dad does not go so far as to take his clothes off. He rolls his trousers up to the knee, unbuttons his shirt to the level of the top of his vest and plonks a knotted handkerchief over his bonce. Very trendy. He makes Norman Wisdom look like Cecil Beaton. Mum isn’t much better. She sticks a piece of newspaper under her sunglasses to protect her nose and keeps slapping suntan cream all over her mush until she looks like a greasy penguin. Anyhow, she is definitely enjoying the holiday which is more than can be said for Dad. She even likes the food.
“I thought those little hoops of gristle were delicious,” she says practically ecstatic.
“Give over, Ethel,” says Dad. “That was bleeding octopus cooked in the fat of the last five meals we’ve had. Jesus wept, if you think that’s good, no wonder we eat the way we do at home.”
There is no doubt that Dad’s reaction is more common than Mum’s in every sense of the word and most of the guests are soon either complaining about the food, suffering from it, or both. It is a great disappointment to find that as they become more acclimatised, most of the customers’ energies are devoted to grumbling about conditions rather than getting on the job with each other as they are supposed to be doing.
“I’m not surprised this place is such a bleeding dump, what with Sidney in charge and all those dagos touching the food. They only wash their hands before they go to the toilet, you know,” says Dad.
“They want to get it all done by English people if they want to make it a success,” agrees Mum.
By the second week two more in-takes have arrived, one of the urinals has become blocked and flowed back downhill through the door of the Passion Fooderama in time to greet those sitting down for breakfast, and “Franco’s Revenge” is rife throughout the camp. Romance is nonexistent and morale amongst the camp staff lower than a toad’s testicles. It is not surprising in the circumstances that Sid decides to hold a Francis type meeting which is attended by all members of the staff, with the chief cook translating for the benefit of the Spaniards. This geezer is a real grease ball and, when first seen, appears to be blowing his nose on a dead mole. Closer inspection reveals that it is in fact a handkerchief.
“Right,” says Sid. “I’ve brought you all together because we have problems and I think it best if they are aired in public. Every new enterprise has its teething troubles and ours is proving no exception.”
“Here, here,” says Ted loyally. Sid glares at him and continues.
“Of course, there are special areas such as the lousy foo—,” Sid remembers who is translating, “—Such as the difficulty some of our guests have of adjusting to the rich fare provided by maestro Miguel here, and we are attending to this. In future our menu, which as you know attempts to embrace the best of English and Continental cuisine, will cater entirely for British tastes. But, this is incidental to the main thing I wanted to say to you. Please – you two – do you mind not doing that?” He is referring to Nat and one of the Angelos de Sole who are beginning to slide down towards the floor together. “That illustrates exactly what I am on about. This place is supposed to be run for the benefit of the customers – not you bleeders. You—” He rounds on Ricci Volare, who, in the absence of Rosie, is beginning to nibble one of the chalet maid’s shoulders. “You and your lot should be lashing out all that Latin lover rubbish on the daft sods who paid ninety quid to come out here. Not on my—,” Sid checks himself.
“Nelly?” says Ted helpfully.
“Not on the management’s families. You two! Get out there and start making like Fiesta Bunnies. Why do you think your uncle sent you out here? You’ve driven one man mad and laid most of the staff. Now try arousing some of the poor bastards who’ve paid for it. And you waiters. Why do you think you were selected? Get cracking. They won’t bite you – not very hard, most of them, anyway. All of you. Let’s put the love back into Love Island. We want a lot more amor. And you! for Christ sake put that candle down.”
“I was just scratching myself,” says Nat reproachfully.
“Well get out there and start scratching someone else,” shouts Sid. “That’s what you’re paid for.”
It is easy to detect that Sid has the needle with Ricci but this is obviously not his sole inspiration for the address. It is very true that we have not been getting amongst the customers in the same way that we did at Melody Bay, but this is because the two places are run so differently. There, everything was planned from dawn till dusk. Here, nobody chases you to do anything. Maybe that is the trouble. If there was a bit more organisation, it would be easier to jolly people along. But, as usual, this thought only occurs to me as we are bundling out into the sunshine so I don’t say anything about it.
Next to me Marcia is looking slim as a whippet and just a shade faster.
“Fancy a swim?” I say.
She flutters her eyelashes and for a moment I think I am in with a chance.
“You heard what the man said,” she says. “Ask one of the customers. Anyway, you only live a fantasy once.”
And so saying, she trips off to Sid’s bungalow to take dictation or, more likely, her knickers down. Bloody unfair, isn’t it? I will never understand that bloke who said “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I reckon that once you have had it you know what you are missing and it is ten times worse than never having been there in the first place. Anyway I swallow my disappointment and toddle off to see if they have finished spraying the huts with bug-killer.
It is mid-morning and so the whole of the living area is pretty much deserted.