A crash in the bathroom wrenches me from sleep. Groggy-eyed, I reach for my mobile and check out the time: 7.40am. Brilliant. "I dropped it," says the bloke - emerging from the bathroom, swaying, with pieces of the porcelain soap dish spilling from his fingers.
How the hell did he manage that? It was glued to the wall!
I groan and pull the covers over my head. This is not one of those Saturday mornings he will spring out of bed and go fishing. He's just on his way to collapse into a rum-induced coma after a night out with the Spanish crusaders.
Most people who meet my boyfriend for the first time probably don't know what to make of him. He's a bit of a strong character whose mouth moves a gear ahead of his brain. And he likes a drink or ten, after which he turns into a firing on all cylinders pub hobgoblin. But then if you think that's hard going, god you should see him when he gets together with his friends.
They're all at least five years older than him, though you'd never know it. In fact by their behavior you'd be hard pressed to pin an age on any of them. Their friendship goes back to the Eighties, when they took the bloke under their wing and let him hang about with the older kids cos he used to swap computer games with one of their gang.
The most of them are there when we rock up to el Maison del Puerto at about 10pm. I was hoping at least one other wife or girlfriend would be there, but no, it's just the boys. Oh and me. Sticking out like a sore thumb and also wearing a dress, just to make the difference even more obvious.
There's el Gordo (fatty) who "isn't allowed out that much any more" since his wife had a kid. He's not fat at all since he got seriously into rock climbing, but the name stuck like a wellie in the mud. He's like a big brother to the bloke, who always listens to his advice.
A few feet above the rest is el Largo (the Large). I've never seen a man so tall - especially a Spaniard, which I usually pip in the height department. He talks so fast that I find him impossible to understand most of the time. Though I've never spoken to him about it he has an unusual job - he is a creative responsible for coming up for ideas for TV commercials.
It's curious, I've never spoken to any of them about their careers - I don't know what most of them do. The conversation here is just not about all that 'real life' boring stuff. I do know that Luisito (little Luis) runs a bar, though. at the moment he has longish hair and a beard but I don't know how long that'll last. He's dyed his hair pink in the past, and one time he wet shaved his hair off completely for a friend's wedding. I was talking to him for ten minutes before I realized who he was.
The last one here this evening is Miguelito (little Miguel). He's obsessed with football (He's the one who took me to el Classico not that long ago).
Together they seem like a herd of characters from a Almodovar film, all trying to be heard at once, and gesticulating wildly. (Bloke says: "You have to scream to be heard in this group" and don't I know it)
Amazingly, the fist hour of the night (and perhaps more) is taken up by bitching. Bitching! like a group of old abuelas (grandmothers) About how they weren't treated right at one bar or another, how another one serves garrafon (fake alcohol) About the correct etiquette of how to treat your friends if you own a bars.
Alcohol is a reoccurring theme. Would you think it's possible to talk about whisky for 30 minutes solid? Well it is. And not only that, these boys can really put it away. i thought I'd known big drinkers in my time but nothing compares to this group. In the two or so hours we're stood having tapas the bill lists 12 beers and 24 copas.
And they're truly eye watering measures, which keep getting bigger as the night goes on. Gordo is drinking neat whisky - in the final drink at this bar his measure reaches the top of the glass.
By the time we leave El Maison the barmen are crying with laughter at the bloke's imitation of the local San Martin accent: "Que paha tio?" And Miguel is doing football-style commentary of the barmen clearing up for the evening. Everyone apart from the bloke - who amazingly quit smoking two weeks ago - is chuffing on cigars, filling the bar with acrid smoke.
Before we leave, Largo tells me in his broken English that having a baby doesn't need to change your life. You can still to go out, you can still have fun. You can still go on holiday. His girlfriend had a baby three weeks ago and he certainly still looks like he's having fun. He admits his other half is staying home with the new arrival at the moment, but assures me that as soon as she feels up to going out with her friends he'll be happy to stay in with the baby. Sounds like a fair enough deal.
At that point I leave them, going home while they head off into Pelayos to tear up the town. Definitely five men on a mission.
When the bloke gets up the next afternoon he has to ring the others to piece together the night before. At least there were no fights this time. Two weekends ago the bloke got slapped in the face after he grabbed a girl by the arm to bring her to talk to Luisito. He thought this girl had been making eyes at Luis all night. But it had been another girl - this one had a boyfriend, who did the slapping. It was all smoothed over in the end though - and for some reason the bloke hugged the guy who had slapped him. He spent the next day beating himself up over it though.
Oh and the best thing was that Luisito was oblivious to the whole thing. "That's the last time I try and help him get a girlfriend," says the bloke afterwards.
What the bloke can remember is falling straight backwards, flat on his back, Charlie Chaplin style in the middle of a bar. And no-one coming to see if he was all right afterwards, apart from Luisito. "At least you didn't spill the drinks though," Luis tells him the next day.
And they can remember jumping over the chairs in their local bar 'If', and the other "normal" people sitting outside the bar waiting for them to leave before they came in.
The bloke apparently left the bar at 6.30am but didn't get home till a good hour later. Apparently Miguelito had to talk him out of going swimming in the lake.
Poor Gordo seems to have come off the worst, though. After telling the rest of the group to take it easy he ended up in the worst state, and has hurt his hand and wrist, though doesn't know how. The next day he has to go to A&E and ends up with a plaster cast, going all the way up to his elbow.
"Oh dear," says the bloke. "I don't think we'll be seeing him out for a while." I think he could be right.
I'm amazed they've got home in one piece. And i'm even more amazed, that the next day we all meet up again to go over the night's events (with the women in tow this time) they're all sitting round sipping on tinto de veranos, and not one of them has even the a sniff of a hangover. How is that possible? how is that fair?
Must be something in the Spanish blood. Either that or they've got livers of steel.
Showing posts with label el pantano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label el pantano. Show all posts
11/06/2010
Dead battery
"We're fucked," says the bloke. "We are so fucked." This is serious - I've only heard him say this on a handful of occasions - one being the time when we accidentally did an illegal u-turn in front of the police. Well, the u-turn itself wasn't an accident, but doing it in front of the policia certainly was.
Like adults who only swear once in a blue moon, he wheels out the phrase at the crucial moment - and I know things are not good.
He turns the key in the truck's ignition. It wheezes like an old man then dies away to nothing. Turns it again, now there's only a high pitched scream, then silence.
"We can forget about going fishing," says the bloke, glancing sadly at the pile of rods stacked up between us. Then even more forlornly at the lake, glittering invitingly through the back windows of the chevvy.
The battery is dead. We are stuck in reverse in the lane by the boathouse, meters from the shore. The afternoon turns in a matter of seconds.
All business now, the bloke whips out his phone and calls for help. But he's soon spitting curses again when it dies too – cutting him off mid sentence. "Great," he says, putting the useless phone to his forehead, as if he could bring it back to life with the power of his brain.
I pass my mobile and he begins to tap digits from memory, pure Rain Man style. That's something I've always been fascinated by. Despite problems with dyslexia as a child he has a photographic memory where numbers are concerned. He can recite the phone numbers of friends and family, without trying, even as far back as remembering his landline in London, seven years long gone.
As he talks to his brother I get out of the truck, and sit down on hot concrete to wait.
"Charlie's coming to help us," he says. "If we're lucky we can get it started, go home and swap it for the car then get back in time to still go fishing."
And then: "Will you go get me some cigs while we wait?"
It used to really annoy me, him asking me to buy him cigarettes, when he knows I hate him smoking. But he looks so stressed it doesn't even cross my mind to argue. So I grab the euro bill out of his hand and set off for "el Club"
There's maybe two hours of daylight left, but el pantano (the lake) is in fifth gear. In my head it's Madrid's beach - with a sandy shore, families lounging on towels, boats roaring up and down dragging wake-boarders behind them like children running with kites.
I can feel grains of sand already in my shoes as I go, even though I haven't been anywhere near the shore yet.
To the left there's a bare-chested man fixing the sail to the base of his windsurfing board, two little dark-haired, slack-jawed boys squatting down watching him intensely. Just behind them two tiny girls in bikinis chase each other round in circles cackling wildly.
I wonder at what their childhoods must be like, growing up with this as their playground. How wonderful to be dipped in delight on a daily basis, run barefoot through the surf before going home for tea. I can count the amount of times I went to the beach as a child on ten fingers, and though my memories are hazy, I remember wellies and raincoats to have played a starring role.
Before I can stop myself I'm playing my favourite game – the one that I stopped myself playing well before the operation, but have taken back up again now, now that i know that everything seems to be OK.
It's very simple - just looking at children and wondering if they could be ours - what would our kids look like? Would they be blonde, like the little girls tearing after each other, or dark, with deep brown eyes, like the boys, still sat watching their father with their hearts' proud eyes? Would they be shouting at each other in English, or Spanish? I can't wait to find out.
A car sweeps past and I have to look twice. It's a bright blue Mini Cooper with a Union Flag roof and wing mirrors. The guy driving it looks about as British as Antonio Banderas though. What on earth was he thinking? I'd like to drive a Spanish equivalent of the gaudy car around Durham and see what happens.
As the moving piece of Britain disappears from view my eye falls on a van emblazoned with 'DOGOKI' and 'CATOKI', which puts my mind in a spin. Is it like Karaoke for pets? But a backwards look reveals a slogan, todo que necesitas para tu mastcota (everything you need for your pet). It's nothing more than the van of a pet shop.
Up the concrete walkway, like a catwalk to pisshead-ville, is el Club, where the bloke and his brother finished up at silly 'o clock last night, playing 50 games of darts. It's straight out of the Seventies, a square mess of glass, metal and stone - decorated with ship's laterns, rope, and water skiis - with a terrace overlooking the lake. It could have been magnificent once, but now the white paint is creeping with black and green stains and the curtains are worn and patchy.
I push through the glass doors to see the bar manager Vol Damm sitting watching TV. No customers, only dust particles glistening in lines where the last of the evening sun shines through in rays.
Vol Damm jumps up to get me some change for the machine. He's a curious creature – mean face that screams 'hard as nails', tattoos and gold Nike tick earrings. He's Romanian but speaks flawless Spanish, much better than mine.
I want to ask him if his name is in fact the same as the beer we have here or if everyone is pronouncing it wrong. I want to know how he came to be running a bar here, in a comunidad in Pelayos, in the middle of nowehere.
But instead I put my money in the cigarette machine and say: "They're not for me, you know. They're for your friend," mentioning the bloke's name. Vol Damm laughs, showing a few missing front teeth. I smile back, remembering that the bloke has a sore arm from arm wrestling Vol Damm last night in a moment of madness. I consider telling him about what's happened with the truck, but decide against it, in case he feels obliged to help.
Back at the truck a crowd has gathered, each person alternating between scratching their heads and giving advice about what could be wrong. Even the guy from the boat house, who was arguing with the bloke half an hour earlier, is trying to help. There's a huge buzz of excitement when the engine revs into life suddenly, followed by a round of curses when it dies away after Charlie has disconnected the jump leads.
I sit down again to wait. The sun is sinking lower in the sky. Mums are trying to talk and bribe their ninos round to the idea of home time.
There's a tickling in my shoe, and I take it off to reveal a giant ant, slightly crushed at the bottom. I tip it out and watch it struggle around in crooked lines, several of its legs bent and useless. My stomach sinks when I realise I'm going to have to kill it. Silly thing to get sad about, it's only an ant. I eat meat, I wear leather. What's the problem? But still, as I crush it under my shoe I feel guilty. It's not moving now. Where does it go, the life?
I've barely had time to think it, when another giant ant comes along, lifts the remains of the dead one above its head like a champion weightlifter, and scuttles off. Waste not want not. Wow.
With a lion roar, the engine starts up. This time it sounds like we might be going somewhere. "Get in quick!" shouts the bloke.
The ants are immediately forgotten as I spring up - using my index fingers and thumbs like a champion sprinter - and run towards the truck. I won't tell him about them, it would sound like a silly thing to say it out loud.
But I can't stop thinking about it later, when he does finally hook that first special fish that makes all the effort worth it.
Where does the life go when it's not there any more?
Like adults who only swear once in a blue moon, he wheels out the phrase at the crucial moment - and I know things are not good.
He turns the key in the truck's ignition. It wheezes like an old man then dies away to nothing. Turns it again, now there's only a high pitched scream, then silence.
"We can forget about going fishing," says the bloke, glancing sadly at the pile of rods stacked up between us. Then even more forlornly at the lake, glittering invitingly through the back windows of the chevvy.
The battery is dead. We are stuck in reverse in the lane by the boathouse, meters from the shore. The afternoon turns in a matter of seconds.
All business now, the bloke whips out his phone and calls for help. But he's soon spitting curses again when it dies too – cutting him off mid sentence. "Great," he says, putting the useless phone to his forehead, as if he could bring it back to life with the power of his brain.
I pass my mobile and he begins to tap digits from memory, pure Rain Man style. That's something I've always been fascinated by. Despite problems with dyslexia as a child he has a photographic memory where numbers are concerned. He can recite the phone numbers of friends and family, without trying, even as far back as remembering his landline in London, seven years long gone.
As he talks to his brother I get out of the truck, and sit down on hot concrete to wait.
"Charlie's coming to help us," he says. "If we're lucky we can get it started, go home and swap it for the car then get back in time to still go fishing."
And then: "Will you go get me some cigs while we wait?"
It used to really annoy me, him asking me to buy him cigarettes, when he knows I hate him smoking. But he looks so stressed it doesn't even cross my mind to argue. So I grab the euro bill out of his hand and set off for "el Club"
There's maybe two hours of daylight left, but el pantano (the lake) is in fifth gear. In my head it's Madrid's beach - with a sandy shore, families lounging on towels, boats roaring up and down dragging wake-boarders behind them like children running with kites.
I can feel grains of sand already in my shoes as I go, even though I haven't been anywhere near the shore yet.
To the left there's a bare-chested man fixing the sail to the base of his windsurfing board, two little dark-haired, slack-jawed boys squatting down watching him intensely. Just behind them two tiny girls in bikinis chase each other round in circles cackling wildly.
I wonder at what their childhoods must be like, growing up with this as their playground. How wonderful to be dipped in delight on a daily basis, run barefoot through the surf before going home for tea. I can count the amount of times I went to the beach as a child on ten fingers, and though my memories are hazy, I remember wellies and raincoats to have played a starring role.
Before I can stop myself I'm playing my favourite game – the one that I stopped myself playing well before the operation, but have taken back up again now, now that i know that everything seems to be OK.
It's very simple - just looking at children and wondering if they could be ours - what would our kids look like? Would they be blonde, like the little girls tearing after each other, or dark, with deep brown eyes, like the boys, still sat watching their father with their hearts' proud eyes? Would they be shouting at each other in English, or Spanish? I can't wait to find out.
A car sweeps past and I have to look twice. It's a bright blue Mini Cooper with a Union Flag roof and wing mirrors. The guy driving it looks about as British as Antonio Banderas though. What on earth was he thinking? I'd like to drive a Spanish equivalent of the gaudy car around Durham and see what happens.
As the moving piece of Britain disappears from view my eye falls on a van emblazoned with 'DOGOKI' and 'CATOKI', which puts my mind in a spin. Is it like Karaoke for pets? But a backwards look reveals a slogan, todo que necesitas para tu mastcota (everything you need for your pet). It's nothing more than the van of a pet shop.
Up the concrete walkway, like a catwalk to pisshead-ville, is el Club, where the bloke and his brother finished up at silly 'o clock last night, playing 50 games of darts. It's straight out of the Seventies, a square mess of glass, metal and stone - decorated with ship's laterns, rope, and water skiis - with a terrace overlooking the lake. It could have been magnificent once, but now the white paint is creeping with black and green stains and the curtains are worn and patchy.
I push through the glass doors to see the bar manager Vol Damm sitting watching TV. No customers, only dust particles glistening in lines where the last of the evening sun shines through in rays.
Vol Damm jumps up to get me some change for the machine. He's a curious creature – mean face that screams 'hard as nails', tattoos and gold Nike tick earrings. He's Romanian but speaks flawless Spanish, much better than mine.
I want to ask him if his name is in fact the same as the beer we have here or if everyone is pronouncing it wrong. I want to know how he came to be running a bar here, in a comunidad in Pelayos, in the middle of nowehere.
But instead I put my money in the cigarette machine and say: "They're not for me, you know. They're for your friend," mentioning the bloke's name. Vol Damm laughs, showing a few missing front teeth. I smile back, remembering that the bloke has a sore arm from arm wrestling Vol Damm last night in a moment of madness. I consider telling him about what's happened with the truck, but decide against it, in case he feels obliged to help.
Back at the truck a crowd has gathered, each person alternating between scratching their heads and giving advice about what could be wrong. Even the guy from the boat house, who was arguing with the bloke half an hour earlier, is trying to help. There's a huge buzz of excitement when the engine revs into life suddenly, followed by a round of curses when it dies away after Charlie has disconnected the jump leads.
I sit down again to wait. The sun is sinking lower in the sky. Mums are trying to talk and bribe their ninos round to the idea of home time.
There's a tickling in my shoe, and I take it off to reveal a giant ant, slightly crushed at the bottom. I tip it out and watch it struggle around in crooked lines, several of its legs bent and useless. My stomach sinks when I realise I'm going to have to kill it. Silly thing to get sad about, it's only an ant. I eat meat, I wear leather. What's the problem? But still, as I crush it under my shoe I feel guilty. It's not moving now. Where does it go, the life?
I've barely had time to think it, when another giant ant comes along, lifts the remains of the dead one above its head like a champion weightlifter, and scuttles off. Waste not want not. Wow.
With a lion roar, the engine starts up. This time it sounds like we might be going somewhere. "Get in quick!" shouts the bloke.
The ants are immediately forgotten as I spring up - using my index fingers and thumbs like a champion sprinter - and run towards the truck. I won't tell him about them, it would sound like a silly thing to say it out loud.
But I can't stop thinking about it later, when he does finally hook that first special fish that makes all the effort worth it.
Where does the life go when it's not there any more?
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