The Arrogance of Power (Epilogue).
Working for the luxury powerboat company wasn’t all nauseating, there were light moments.
One day, our receptionist Veronica returned late from lunch, her car had broken down. A single mum at the time she was not well off. The car was an old Citroen CV2, it looked like it was first off the line in 1948.
She was worried because she’d left it abandoned on the Av d’en Fernando Tarrago, a busy part of town close to Plaça Eivissa where the police parked. The worst place in Cala d’Or she could have broken down. If the police found the car, they’d remove it. Getting it back would cost more than the old banger was worth. I said I’d take a look.
The car was less than 100 metres from a police vehicle that was fortunately unoccupied. Veronica had let the car roll onto the pavement where it now obstructed traffic and pedestrians. It was a wreck. I tried to open the driver’s door, but it was locked. I unlocked it, pulled on the handle, and jumped clear as the door fell onto the street. The hinges were broken. The door was held in place at the hinge end by a piece of bent, fencing wire and secured at the other end by its lock. In pre-EU days, our roads where not the quality they are today. It didn’t take much imagination to picture what would happen if the car, powering along at a top speed of 64Km/hr, hit a pothole in the main road.
I was carrying a VHF radio set to channel 16. I pressed the transmit button, Veronica answered.
“VERONICA, I JUST TRIED TO GET INTO YOUR CAR AND THE DOOR FELL OFF”.
“Oh. Sorry, Bernie, I forgot to tell you about that”. Rant over, I got back to the job.
It wouldn’t look good if the police arrived to find the car door lying on the road. I manoeuvred the door back onto its hinge mount, fiddled the fencing wire into place then closed and locked it. If the police wanted it opened, I’d say the lock was broken.
On the passenger side, I squeezed in through the narrow gap where the door pressed up against the terrace wall of Mark’s Bar. From there, I wiggled onto the driver’s seat. Unaccustomed to the horizontal, umbrella gear stick, I pressed my foot down on the clutch before starting the engine. The next thing I knew, I was on my back in the rear of the car. The seat was not bolted down.
I fought my way out of the car and got on the VHF.
“VERONICA, I JUST FELL INTO THE BACK OF YOUR CAR. THE DRIVER’S SEAT ISN’T ATTACHED TO THE BLOODY FLOOR”.
“Oh. Sorry, Bernie, I forgot to tell you about that as well”.
“RIGHT VERONICA” I composed myself “I’m just about to release the bonnet. Is there anything else you think I should know before I do that?”.
“I don’t think so, I’ve never opened it”.
Like a bomb-disposal tech, I gingerly released the catch and raised the bonnet. I cleared away the pine needles that pervaded the engine space. The positive terminal of the battery was covered in a bloom of blue and white corrosion. Removing the battery caps revealed the cells were devoid of electrolyte.
I closed the bonnet and turned to find myself looking into the face of a tourist on the terrace of Mark’s Bar. With my VHF radio, and dressed in the regalia of a luxury powerboat company, he’d witnessed the whole sorry episode with this automotive relic. Perplexed, he inquired.
“This is, Candid Camera. Isn’t it?”.
“I’m afraid it’s not”. I replied.
With a rejuvenated battery from the company’s scrap pile, Veronica’s CV2 was back on the road.
One October evening, I returned home late from the marina in Portals Vells on the west of the island. As I pulled into the top field of Cana Cavea, I was confronted by the headlights of a car that was just leaving. A stranger walked from the car, introduced himself as Miguel, and asked if I was Bernardo. I confirmed I was, and he exclaimed. “Gracias a Dios. Necesito tu ayuda” (Thanks to God. I need your help).
In Spanish, he explained he was a fisherman from Cala Figuera. His fish finder had broken down, and he could no longer go out fishing, it was a disaster.
I told him I had to work the following day, but I could meet him at seven in the evening by his boat after I’d finished. With extreme gratitude, he told me his boat was the Nuevo Thomas (New Thomas).
Intrigued, I asked him how he knew where I lived. He said he was in a bar in Felanitx looking for help. Someone said, “Necesitas Bernardo, el inglés en Son Barcelo” (You need Bernardo the Englishman in Son Barcelo). And, they told him how to find me. I was impressed, I live over 4km outside of Felanitx down an obscure county lane. It seemed I was famous.
The next evening I drove to the fishing wharf at Cala Figuara where the inlet stretches 100 metres into the rock. With homes hanging off the cliff face above little boathouses, and small craft tethered in the clear water along the path that runs around the inlet’s perimeter, it is one of the prettiest harbours in Mallorca.
Tied against the dock was the Nuevo Thomas. The fishing boat must have been fifty years old. With a green hand-painted hull that had been battered by storms, and protected from chaffing on the concrete wall by old car tires, it looked like something from a Bogart film. It had a small, high box cabin far forward. Aft it had a large working area with two derricks and an old winch. Its nets were spread out on the wharf. The smell of stale fish and diesel transported me to a similar boat and a memory of my uncle Ben in the Rosslare Harbour of my childhood.
I put my oscilloscope and tools on the wharf and waited. The boat creaked up and down against the small but persistent waves that lapped against the dock. With Miguel aboard, I handed my kit over the watery gap and then followed him onto the vessel.
My heart sank when I saw the fish-finder in the cabin. With pen and ink, and paper chart on a rotating drum, in a teak glass-windowed box, the instrument was an antique, a thing of beauty as old as the boat. Miguel wasn’t the type to lean over your shoulder, he went off to busy himself with something.
I switched on the power, nothing. The motor-driven clockwork mechanism stayed resolutely silent. There was a small printed circuit board with a few transistors, resistors, capacitors and a small ferrite cored transformer. I took this to be the pulse generator and receiver. The oscilloscope showed the electronics were pinging away as they should. For a while, I stared at what was a job for a watch-maker. However, the thought of Miguel telling all in Felanitx what a tosser I was was too much for me. Carefully with a fine brush, I dusted down each cog, bearing and leaver. Then, I did it all again spraying each component with WD40 penetrating oil. ‘It’s amazing what a little squirt can do’.
I applied power, the pen came up, and the drum began to rotate. My reputation was saved.
Miguel was overjoyed and asked how much he owed me. I said I made my living from estrangeros and was happy to help a local for nothing. I’d never had a client so eager to thrust Pesetas into my hand, but finally, I managed to escape without payment.
The next evening Sandy and I returned from a trip to Felanitx, to find two plastic bags of fish hanging on the back door. Squid, red mullet, sea bass, lubina and others. We stuffed the fridge, had some for supper and still we had to go around the village presenting fish to our neighbours. It would have been cheaper for Miguel if I’d taken his money.
While in Cala d’Or marina a few months after leaving the luxury powerboat company, I bumped into the accountant. I was surprised he stopped to talk. I was more surprised when he disclosed he was returning to the UK with his family, and I was astonished when he thanked me for leading him to that decision. By getting him to think I was a tax inspector, he’d realised the trouble he could have gotten into if the Channel Islands’ money transfer scam came to light. I returned the compliment and thanked him for acknowledging that I was not the maniac I was made out to be. It was a sort of redemption. That luxury powerboat company’s days were now numbered.