me.
“That’s what the sign says.”
“How do we get there?”
“You take a running jump from the end of the pier. What do you think they built it for?”
It is true that there appears to be no boat to speed us to to our new home and this is causing Manuel, who met us at the airport, and who we have discovered to be unofficial leader of the Spanish anti-deoderant movement, great anxiety.
“Fission, fission!” he keeps muttering angrily.
“He means it’s the world’s first nuclear slag heap.”
“No he doesn’t. He means that the ferry boat has gone fishing.”
An hour later we find the latter explanation to be correct and cross to the island with fourteen sardines and a small octopus. All the way, Manuel shakes his head and shrugs apologetically whilst occasionally excusing himself to tear a strip off the boat’s skipper who ignores him and continues to gaze resignedly into space. In the next few weeks we meet a great many Manuels, all of them bearing a responsibility that ends just short of the job you want doing. In fact, we come to say that when a job is done “manuelly” it means it is not done at all.
Another expression we adapt is “traditionally Spanish”. This is much used in the Funfrall brochure and can be employed to describe everything from plumbing – taps that spring from the plaster when touched and wave in front of you like angry snakes – to the electrical fittings which don’t.
At close range, Isla de Amor looks like the abandoned set of a low-budget Spanish western. This is not totally surprising because in fact it is the abandoned set of a large number of low-budget Spanish westerns. Unfortunately they were also low-profit which accounts for Sir Giles having been able to snap up the whole place for the price of a couple of tons of Entero Viaform.
Sir Giles, who would be able to pluck swallows out of the air if they had five pound notes strapped to their backs, was not slow to realise that the “Last Chance Saloon” could be converted into the “Candlelight Casino” and that the “Wagonwheel Hotel” and stables would make an ace dining hall if you bothered to put a wall on the back of them. This, that matchless servant of the British shareholder has done, and as I sit in the Passion Fooderama and nosh my Paella and chips – “Fish, food of love since times immoral” it says on the menu, though I reckon there must be a misprint – I am thinking what a clever old basket Sir Giles is. A couple of ancient aircraft hangers at Melody Bay and this load of traditional Spanish set-building, and he must be making millions. I can’t see any difference between the food either, apart from what is written on the menu. I mean, paella does not have batter round it, does it? “Every attempt is made to combine exotic local foods with the good wholesome English fare that Funfrall’s holiday guests come back for year after year” it says, “you won’t find greasy, garlic-ridden, spicey, indigestible local oddities at Funfralls Continental”. True, and if you do you can always beat them to death with one of the three hundred tomato ketchup bottles handy. “Many of our chefs have been trained in England so they know the high standard we expect”, the menu goes on to say. Looking at the hands of the bloke picking his nose behind the counter, I reckon his training must have been as a mechanic.
Still, one does not want to be too critical, does one? I think, as I sit there on that first night. It is early days yet and we have all had a long, tiring journey. Even Nan, I find as I look underneath the table on my left, is having a struggle to pull down Ted’s fly. Try and look on the bright side, I tell myself. Fortunately, this task is made easier for me by the presence of a dark sad-eyed girl with big tits who is mopping down one of the tables nearby. She is obviously Spanish which I find exciting, and looks tired and bored like me. I smile at her. She immediately puts down her cloth and approaches me with a ketchup bottle in her hand.
“Tomato?” she says helpfully.
“No. No thanks.”
“Brown sauce? Mustard? Thees one?” she holds up the Worcester Sauce bottle which I suppose must cause some pronunciation problems to the average Spaniard. Her desire to help is touching and it occurs to me that she has probably served the needs of the British holidaymaker before.
“You speak very good English,” I murmur, working on the basis that birds anywhere lap up flattery.
“Thank you,” says the girl. “So do you.”
Isn’t she nice? Nobody has ever told me that before.
“What is your name?”
“Carmen.”
I should have guessed, shouldn’t I?
“My name is Timmy.”
“Timmee.”
“That’s right. What time do you finish working in here? I was wondering whether you might show me round the island. Perhaps I could buy you a drink?”
“I think that is possible. They are not very expenseeve.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant—oh well, it doesn’t matter. Do you live on the island?”
Half an hour later I have discovered that, like most of the local staff, she lives on the mainland and is ferried backwards and forwards every morning and evening – “except when I help with big entertainment” she says rolling her eyes at me. She has also worked on one of the American air bases nearby and this raises her availability rating a few notches, especially in connection with the previous remark. I mean we all know what those yanks are like once they get a couple of pounds of T-bone steak and a gallon of ice-cream inside them, don’t we?
Acting on this information I try to touch her up beneath the hacienda but she wriggles away and waggles her finger at me enticingly.
“No, no. You say you want to see Isla de Moscas – I mean Isla de Amor. I am going to reveal it to you.”
“What does Isla de Moscas mean?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she says quickly. “It is an old name for the island. I do not know what it means. Come.”
And before I can ask any more questions, she is moving off towards the higher ground behind the Ghost Town, as Ted calls it.
There we find a shallow, sloping depression in which are situated scores of straw huts looking like stooks of corn in a field. Amongst them is the occasional thatched drinking trough and under the trees are two rows of pig sties – no, wait a minute; they must be traditional Spanish toilets.
“Happy Campers,” exclaims Carmen, rolling her eyes skywards. Happy indeed. I am glad I am tucked away in a little bungalow behind the Candlelight Casino. This place looks like a deserted Red Indian camp, only without the amenities. You don’t have to be promiscuous to sleep in a different bed every night, you just have to be bad at telling the difference between identical straw huts.
We follow a sign which points to “Lover’s Beach” and I discover that this must refer to those who love climbing up and down three hundred steps. That number of feet below us is a strip of sand the size of a cricket square surrounded by towering rocks which must shut out most of the sunshine.
“Where are the other beaches?” I ask.
She points towards the mainland shore.
“Below the sewer works.”
I nod understandingly. “This is the best beach.”
“This is the best beach.”
I throw a stone into the sea, because I never go near the sea without throwing a stone at it, and square my enormous shoulders.
“Time for that drink I promised you,” I say taking her arm firmly but gently. “I know” I try and make it sound as if the idea has just occurred to me “I have a bottle of whisky in my room. Why don’t we have a drop of that?”
“Bourbon,” she says.
“Just like bourbon,”