fortnight.”
SHE:
“Oh Clive, don’t be like this, not on the first day.”
HE:
“Just because I don’t want a bloody boiled egg!”
♦
He was wearing black socks and sandals. If I were an airport official I would have confiscated Clive’s socks at customs control.
I lunched in Palma in the Plaza Major. A violent wind blows up suddenly and sends the parasols and tablecloths and tourist menus (475 pesetas) flying across the marble floor. While I am eating my paella an old man asks me if I want my shoes shined – he shows me a tin of black polish. I demur; I am wearing blue suede shoes.
In the old part of the city I see a beautiful leather bag. I buy it. It is so wonderful that I plan to throw it open to the public: admission £1. Sundays only. No dogs. No children. No photographs.
I have a drink in the hotel bar before dinner. An Englishman, who looks like a cartoon crook, asks me if I like the song, ‘As Time Goes By’.
“Of course,” I say. “Who doesn’t?”
“I’ll get the band to play it for yer, when you’ve ‘ad yer dinner,” he says.
As I leave the dining room I hear: “You must remember this…” being crooned into a microphone. I scuttle to the lift before crook-face can get off his bar stool.
Week Two
Wednesday November 4 th
Porto Soller
Manuel, the hotel receptionist, tells me that the train to Porto Soller, on the west side of the island, leaves at 1pm. However, the taxi driver who is taking me to the railway station lies and says, “No more trains today, winter service. I take you, very cheap, 2,700 pesetas.”
I am known for my gullibility, so I agree and we embark on a most exciting mountain drive, during which the driver points out interesting sights such as an occasional car at the bottom of the chasm. However, he drives very carefully on the mad, convoluted roads and acts as my guide and Spanish teacher; he also asks me if my husband is dead. “I hope not,” I say and laugh, rather too loudly and for too long. I am missing laughing and talking.
“You have children?” he asks.
“Yes, four,” I reply.
“Not possible,” he says, politely.
Only too possible, dearie, I think.
After half an hour we start to descend and the driver tells me that the large town in the valley before us is Soller and was built inland in an attempt to avoid the nuisance of attacks by pirates. We then drive one and a half kilometres to the coast to Porto Soller, and I immediately like this small holiday resort with its palm trees and its clean beach and its out-of-season booted German hikers carrying long walking poles. A lovely tram rattles between the Port and the town through orchards of orange and lemon trees and lush back gardens. The tram stops outside the prettiest railway station in the world. Amongst other delights it has a vine-covered bar, an accurate station clock and spanking green and gilt paintwork on the platform.
I seriously covet a pair of gilded angel’s heads I see in a shop window near to the station, but I am never to find the shop open again. The inhabitants of Soller are stomping about in wellingtons because a light drizzle is falling. I buy a kilo of mandarins complete with green leaves, 175 pesetas. I have coffee, 100 pesetas, and catch the tram back to Porto Soller. I overhear two English business women talking. One says, “The trouble with David is, he uses too many commas.”
“For a finance manager,” says her companion.
Thursday November 5 th
The sun has gone to my head. I’ve just gone into a bank and asked for 10,000 pizzas.
“You must go to a restaurant,” says the cashier, laughing, before giving me my 10,000 pesetas. I swim and sunbathe on the beach and then return to the hotel and wait for the photographer who is flying out from England today. I hope he won’t constantly whine about ‘the light’, like most photographers do.
Friday November 6 th
The photographer, Barry, is extremely nice, he doesn’t whine once, he isn’t a bore, and
SHE:
“Oh Clive, don’t be like this, not on the first day.”
HE:
“Just because I don’t want a bloody boiled egg!”
♦
He was wearing black socks and sandals. If I were an airport official I would have confiscated Clive’s socks at customs control.
I lunched in Palma in the Plaza Major. A violent wind blows up suddenly and sends the parasols and tablecloths and tourist menus (475 pesetas) flying across the marble floor. While I am eating my paella an old man asks me if I want my shoes shined – he shows me a tin of black polish. I demur; I am wearing blue suede shoes.
In the old part of the city I see a beautiful leather bag. I buy it. It is so wonderful that I plan to throw it open to the public: admission £1. Sundays only. No dogs. No children. No photographs.
I have a drink in the hotel bar before dinner. An Englishman, who looks like a cartoon crook, asks me if I like the song, ‘As Time Goes By’.
“Of course,” I say. “Who doesn’t?”
“I’ll get the band to play it for yer, when you’ve ‘ad yer dinner,” he says.
As I leave the dining room I hear: “You must remember this…” being crooned into a microphone. I scuttle to the lift before crook-face can get off his bar stool.
Week Two
Wednesday November 4 th
Porto Soller
Manuel, the hotel receptionist, tells me that the train to Porto Soller, on the west side of the island, leaves at 1pm. However, the taxi driver who is taking me to the railway station lies and says, “No more trains today, winter service. I take you, very cheap, 2,700 pesetas.”
I am known for my gullibility, so I agree and we embark on a most exciting mountain drive, during which the driver points out interesting sights such as an occasional car at the bottom of the chasm. However, he drives very carefully on the mad, convoluted roads and acts as my guide and Spanish teacher; he also asks me if my husband is dead. “I hope not,” I say and laugh, rather too loudly and for too long. I am missing laughing and talking.
“You have children?” he asks.
“Yes, four,” I reply.
“Not possible,” he says, politely.
Only too possible, dearie, I think.
After half an hour we start to descend and the driver tells me that the large town in the valley before us is Soller and was built inland in an attempt to avoid the nuisance of attacks by pirates. We then drive one and a half kilometres to the coast to Porto Soller, and I immediately like this small holiday resort with its palm trees and its clean beach and its out-of-season booted German hikers carrying long walking poles. A lovely tram rattles between the Port and the town through orchards of orange and lemon trees and lush back gardens. The tram stops outside the prettiest railway station in the world. Amongst other delights it has a vine-covered bar, an accurate station clock and spanking green and gilt paintwork on the platform.
I seriously covet a pair of gilded angel’s heads I see in a shop window near to the station, but I am never to find the shop open again. The inhabitants of Soller are stomping about in wellingtons because a light drizzle is falling. I buy a kilo of mandarins complete with green leaves, 175 pesetas. I have coffee, 100 pesetas, and catch the tram back to Porto Soller. I overhear two English business women talking. One says, “The trouble with David is, he uses too many commas.”
“For a finance manager,” says her companion.
Thursday November 5 th
The sun has gone to my head. I’ve just gone into a bank and asked for 10,000 pizzas.
“You must go to a restaurant,” says the cashier, laughing, before giving me my 10,000 pesetas. I swim and sunbathe on the beach and then return to the hotel and wait for the photographer who is flying out from England today. I hope he won’t constantly whine about ‘the light’, like most photographers do.
Friday November 6 th
The photographer, Barry, is extremely nice, he doesn’t whine once, he isn’t a bore, and
Similar Books
