Moving On. Part 5
Considering our relationship was hanging by a thread, it’s remarkable Sandy and I achieved what we did in the last weeks of October 1998. But, fortune favours the bold, and life is full of surprises.
On 7 Oct 98, Linda, Lucia’s mum, rang us about a house for sale for 15 million Pesetas in Calle Zavella. That evening we met the owner, an honest woman, who pointed out every fault in the building. However, the house had three garages on the ground floor, and car parking had become a serious problem in Felanitx. We told the lady we were interested, but we had to think about it.
Not everything was about finding accommodation, moving and storage. With a daughter in university and a nineteen-year-old son, there were always issues. To his credit, Rohan got a job. He was fluent in Spanish, Mallorquí, Catalan, German and English, and he had enough French to be an asset to the tourist medical centre in Calas de Mallorca. Leaving work one evening, Rohan found his car had two flat tyres, one at the front and the spare in the boot. Before a friend dropped him off at home, they hid the spare in bushes to take it for repair in the morning. Why they didn’t bring it home, I have no idea.
The next day we retrieved the wheel. With the repaired tyre and a spanner borrowed from the garage, we picked up Rohan’s friend, Pinto, and headed up the coast. Rohan said he’d need the jack from the Corsa I was driving, the one for the Fiesta was supporting my Escort, that he’d left wrecked in the garden. It’s complicated.
At Calas de Mallorca, the borrowed wheel spanner didn’t fit, nor did the one from the Corsa, or the one from the doctor, or the one acquired from a stranger. With no urgency, like two cool adolescents from ‘Grease’, Pinto and Rohan strolled off to the car hire place. They returned empty-handed, the shop was closed for lunch. I watched these two brilliant minds light up a couple of Marlborough and ponder the problem. Pinto’s bright idea was to call a taxi? Rohan suggested I leave the Corsa jack and he’d find a wheel spanner. I made clear my reluctance to drive back to Felanitx without a jack and left. As I drove away, they wandered off, leaving the spare wheel lying on the road. I wondered where I’d gone wrong.
For weeks we’d tried to make a rental contract with Sebastian for his house in Porto Colom. The house wasn’t ideal, but we were out of options for a place to live when we left Cana Cavea.
On the morning of Fri 9 Oct 98, before we left to close the deal, the telephone rang. The caller, named Anita, said she had a house for rent in Cala Llombards. The previous day, Sally, an old client of Sandy’s, had told Anita we were looking to rent, hence the call. We arranged to see Anita’s house at 13:30. This meant we would have to postpone signing Sebastian’s contract. We left for Sebastian’s worrying about how we would explain our reluctance to sign. In the event, he wasn’t around when we arrived. His wife said he’d be an hour, so we took the opportunity to reschedule the meeting for the following Tuesday.
As Sandy and I entered Cala Llombards, I ran over a bottle which exploded across the road. Fortunately, it didn’t puncture my tyre. From the bar, where we’d arranged to meet Anita, I walked back to clear up the glass. When I returned, Anita had arrived and said what a good neighbour I was. I couldn’t have planned it.
We followed Anita into a well kept, unnamed road. The house was second line, but with a large gap between the properties in front, it had a sea view. It was the first time I’d seen wallpaper in a house in Mallorca. Anita explained she’d recently bought the place from an old English couple who had to return to the UK for health reasons. It had a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, a conservatory and garage. In the living room, after a struggle, Anita threw open the French windows that gave the view to the sea.
“This is Stanley,” she said “He comes with the house. He’s playful, nothing malicious, he tends to go for the ankles.”
We peered down onto a large ball of black fur curled up on the sofa. A slowly raised lid revealed a dark, sinister feline eye. We drew back. Under his watchful glare, Sandy leaned forward and stroked Stanley. I suggested she leave him alone.
While Sandy and Anita toured the garden, I made an attempt to bond with Stanley. As I put out my hand to stroke him, he struck like a cobra. I jerked my arm back, but too late, Stanley’s claw was hooked into the sleeve of my jacket. Tired of playing, the brute released my arm and sauntered off. I wondered how things would go when Stanley met our cats Toby and Lacey, and the dogs Cromwell and Lady.
The house was full of abandoned junk that needed clearing out, but it fulfilled our needs. I was overjoyed, a cleanup and a lick of paint and we’d have a Shangri-La by the sea. We left with the understanding we’d return in the morning with one month’s rent of 50mil and a 20mil deposit for electricity.
On the way home, Sandy was worrying about the limited bedroom space, so I volunteered to sleep in the conservatory.
Tayrne came home from university for the weekend. In the Palma flat she wanted a new bed, hers had broken boards, and she was falling through the mattress. A bed was justified, but the four-poster double she wanted from IKEA for 200,000 Pesetas wasn’t.
She asked if she should take on a new student lodger for 15mil a month. We said it was her decision.
“He’s gay,” she said.
Were we supposed to be shocked?
“Has he got AIDS?” I thought that was a reasonable concern.
“Mummy asked that too.” she said, “Only she said, ‘ask him if he is healthy’.”
“And?”
“He said before he came out, he’d travelled the world by himself, now his parents wanted to lock him up for his own safety.”
It didn’t answer my question, but Tayrne was happy, so it was fine.
She said he’d felt so comfortable when she’d vetted him for the flat, he’d paid five months rent in advance. When he phoned her the other night, he said his father glared at him because he only spoke that long to his best friend, a girl in Peru, or to a boy. I had empathy with his dad, issues with sexual orientation are insignificant compared to long-distance calls to Peru.
Our family was getting bigger. We now had Stanley the sociopath cat, and Tomeu, the gay with a girlfriend in Peru. I already had the answer if Tayrne’s next request was for a phone in the flat.
From her room, Tayrne blasted us with the soundtrack from ‘Titanic’. I went outside for some peace, everywhere was damp after the rain. In the darkness, a car pulled up in the lane near to where Erich and Ute’s new house was being built. A flashlight came on, and I was sure it must be thieves after building materials. I thought of phoning the Guardia, but they would probably arrive too late. Nervously, I groped my way in the darkness, and climbed the boundary wall. Impaled by a prickly cactus, I fell into the lane in front of two Mallorcan ladies searching the wet walls for snails in the dark.
I managed a polite “Buenos Noches” and retreated into the night.
Enough excitement for one day, I went to bed glad that I’d not summoned the Guardia.
The next morning Sandy said she’d not slept worrying about the new house for rent. It seemed Cala Llombards was too far to get the mail every day from the post box in Felanitx, and possibly we would not be able to transfer our 58 prefixed phone and fax number. I tried to convince her the house fitted all our requirements perfectly. She couldn’t fault my logic. Then she came up with the one thing that I’d omitted from my argument.
“There’s Stanley to consider.” She said. I was beaten on that score. Stanley was a problem I’d hoped might just go away. I had visions of the big black brute savaging poor little Cromwell’s nose on his first inquisitive sniff around the house. It seemed I’d lost my case. Then surprisingly, she said.
“Stanley needs a home as well”.
“Of course he does my darling” I agreed and pressed on with my rationale.
Stanley had become a political pawn.