More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (4 page)

The arrivals hall was a bright but characterless warehouse stocked with a mixture of tanned locals and tour reps in dizzy florid blouses. Each held a board with their company’s name emblazoned across it. Every tour operator that I had ever heard of, and a lot that I hadn’t, seemed to be represented here. Some already had flocks of bewildered, washed-out faces huddled around them, fathers relieved that all responsibility had been passed on to someone who knew what the hell to do next.

Joy and I pushed the trolleys through the milling crowd and emerged blinking into the glaring sunshine of our new country of residence. Hot blasts of air swept over us as we wheeled down the endless line of people waiting for a taxi. Overhead, a piercing blue stretched from the glittering Atlantic beyond the runway to where the mountaintops gashed the sky several miles inland.

Families herded their belongings together. Their holiday started here and shirts were already off, revealing pasty torsos desperate to be toasted. As with all travel, replacing familiar surroundings with the unknown fires an electric charge that awakens a sense of adventure. Even those whose pool of adrenalin had long been suffering a severe drought were caught in this buzz of excitement.

Ahead in the queue a beer belly flopped up and down as its exuberant owner heaped embarrassment on his two young daughters with a middle-aged rave.

‘Daaaad! Grow up. Everyone’s looking. Stop being stupid.’

‘Holiday-hey… celebrey-yate. Don’t be boring. We’re on holiday now. Come on pet, get in the spirit.’

‘Gerroff, you nutter.’ His wife rolled her eyes at her scarlet-cheeked daughters.

We were in no position to judge. In fact, there was a tinge of jealousy at the sight. Shamelessly embarrassing yourself was an expression of joyous freedom. This man had broken free for a fortnight away from a life of responsibility. I was just entering one. It had seemed exciting two thousand miles away but now it was all too real. What if we failed? What if we couldn’t stand the heat? What if we burnt down the bar and had to return to the fish market to pay off our debts? I began to calculate how many trays at ‘three for a fiver’ we would need to sell to pay off £165,000.

‘Ninety-nine-thousand trays of fish if we don’t get the bus.’

‘Sorry?’ said a startled Joy, lost in her own private thoughts.

‘That’s how many trays we’d have to sell to pay off the debt if it all went wrong, but we’d have to walk home.’

Obviously she didn’t think it worthy of reply and just shook her head in a despairing manner, quietly pleased that something familiar had surfaced in this alien land, even if it was only my anxiety.

The gleaming white Mercedes continued to line up alongside like bullets fed into a gun. When we eventually reached the front of the queue, eager for a friendly gesture I smiled at the driver and tried out the only words of Spanish that had clung to my memory.

‘
Buenos dias
.
Que tal
?’

The taxi driver didn’t even bother to look up as he snatched the cases from my helping hands. What if I couldn’t learn the language? What if everybody hated us as new owners? What if the locals resented us and tried to ruin our business? I thought about all the big lads at the market who we could invite over to defend our holding in the event of an attack. Mac was the first. You wouldn’t want to mess with Mac. He wasn’t the biggest of men but with his skinhead, sunken eyes and chiselled jaw, he was not to be messed with. Yeah, he’d come over. I began to feel a little more relaxed as I constructed an imaginary army of fish-reeking soldiers.

Our heads shot back as we were fired from the queue up the winding dual carriageway towards the motorway. Along the dusty roadside advertising hoardings urged us to sample Dorada beer. A sample was not what I needed right now. Bring two barrels and a straw and leave me alone in a dark corner for about a month. Another billboard welcomed us to ‘Tenerife, the beautiful isle’. I was failing to revel in any beauty at the moment. Claws of spiky cactus leapt from the lava like witches’ hands. Either side, tumbled rocks littered the terrain like the aftermath of a stone-throwing riot. It could have been Arizona; it could have been Kabul.

We slid from side to side as the driver dodged in and out of the slower traffic, slamming his hand hard on the horn as a small rent-a-car crammed with four pairs of eyes obstructed his way. None of the words aimed at the driver were recognisable but I could guess the gist. He continued to complain as we passed the poor tourists who had hurriedly swerved out of the way to let him pass. As we did he flicked a desultory gesture at the ashen driver. I felt partly responsible and, being British, wanted to apologise to the tourists but instead exchanged fearful glances with them, all of us at the mercy of a foreign foe.

On the two-lane motorway, the 120 speed limit signs rushed past at 150 kilometres an hour. The driver had wound his window down, which provided a pleasant breeze for him but left us in the back to be buffeted by the gale. The skin on our cheeks raced for shelter around the back of our heads and our hair became a rave of hysterical strands. To compensate for the noise, he turned the radio up. Snatches of Spanish wailing warning of an unpleasant death for all foreigners rattled my eardrums.

When we finally careered off the motorway, the relief was immense. We followed a winding road through a walled banana plantation. Explosions of fluorescent pink bougainvillea burst forth at every curve on the quiet route down towards a sparkling sea. Finally the low terracotta roofs of our new community, El Beril, came into view.

We turned into the complex and drove through a paved parking area that was shared by the Altamira Aparthotel to the north and the El Beril complex to the south. These were the only two developments on this stretch of southern coastline. The glitter of Playa de Las Americas was a two-mile hike around a trio of barren headlands.

El Beril comprised around a hundred bungalows and two-storey apartments. Half of them occupied a small plateau about 20 metres above sea level, the other half followed a slight incline down to a shingle beach. Most of the housing faced seawards. Even those furthest from the sea looked over the roofs in front and shared a magnificent view of La Gomera, Tenerife’s closest neighbour, rising from the ocean around 20 miles away.

The complex was still in its infancy, evident from the stretches of unpaved walkways and loose wires that protruded from open electricity boxes. A cluster of unfinished apartments was tagged on to the back of the complex, seemingly an afterthought from the developer. An ocean breeze stirred some loose powder into dwarf whirlwinds that danced between a cement mixer and a wheelbarrow.

Joy, now sporting a just-got-out-of-the-washing-machine look, paid the taxi driver as I heaved all our luggage onto the pavement. Happy holidaymakers wandered across the car park from the adjacent hotel in flowery shorts and shiny new sandals. Were these the same happy souls who would be face to face with us in the next few days, demanding full refunds and a pound of flesh for poisoning their children and ruining their holiday?

Some ten feet below where we were standing, through black iron railings, stood a two-storey row of commercial premises. The bottom right property was empty. A British supermarket next to it had furnished much of its own and its neighbour’s terrace with an assortment of inflatable reptiles and other swimming aids. The shop to the left was seemingly mountain treks, dolphin rides and pirate escapades amongst its many excursions. Another office, of unheralded business, stood between the tour office and a double-fronted bar. The entrance was between dark wood panels, topped by two large picture windows. Above these, “Smugglers Tavern” had been painted in gold lettering on a black background that extended across both locales. Several of the letters had faded badly and at first glance it read “Muggers Ta”. Outside, around twenty white plastic tables were occupied. I presumed it was just as busy inside as people scurried in from the mid-afternoon sun. Everybody looked content, a postcard snapshot of happy holiday diners. We’ll soon put a stop to that, I thought. One more unit remained empty in the corner, a stone turret with its patio in permanent shade from a short walkway that provided access to the upper level of commercial units. Here, wafts of paella drifted out from Bar Arancha, a small Spanish tapas bar, wedged between several more empty locales on the top level.

The rest of the complex fanned out behind the bars and offices. Our temporary home was a small bungalow facing Las Americas at the southern edge of the complex. Temporary because the owner was selling it and we would need to vacate as soon as it was sold. It had been decided that David and Faith should get the only long-term rental apartment that was available due to their feline impediment – Mal the cat.

Our apartment belonged to the president of the community who knew my stepfather from his business dealings here. All the properties were more or less identical apart from the number of bedrooms. Ours had just one – to the left of the front door as you walked in. It was barely big enough to house a double bed and still leave enough room to manoeuvre. A small bathroom faced the front door and down a short hallway to the right was the living area and open kitchen. The walls were a cool white interspersed with shelves and a worktop of honey-toned pine. Beige marble tiles covered the floor, which gave the apartment a beguiling touch of quality. Sliding doors at the far end of the lounge – though I use ‘far’ in the loosest sense of the word as they were only four paces from the kitchen – led onto a small square patio, from which we could gaze across the curving Bahia del Duque (Bay of the Duke) to the vertical excesses of Playa de Las Americas.

We spent the rest of the day unpacking and then had a wander round. The sunlight illuminated the newly painted white walls to the extent that it hurt my eyes. Our apartment was about a hundred yards from the black volcanic sand and shingle beach that stretched north to the nearest village, La Caleta, about a mile away. Here a huddle of one- and two-storey houses clung to the base of a rocky hillside, overlooking a tiny harbour dotted with bright blue and red fishing boats.

Behind El Beril white farm buildings sat on the shelves of the terraced slopes, above which were patches of green pine forests that decorated the hem of the omnipresent volcano. There hadn’t been an eruption on the island since 1909, so I figured in my usual frame of cheery resignation that one was about due.

That night we both lay on top of the sheets unable to sleep, listening to the high-pitched excitement of a mosquito as it chose its next supper venue. For such a tiny creature, I have to say it has a helluva loud squeal, and the more I flailed the louder it became. There aren’t many more irritating noises than what sounds like a dentist’s drill kamikaze-ing at your head so in the end, armed with a size ten flip-flop in each hand I stood on the bed, head slightly cocked waiting for the manic squealing to return.

Thwack-thwack.

I let off both barrels of the flip-flop cannon, causing a snowfall of plaster flakes to drift slowly onto Joy’s head.

‘Eeeeeeeee.’

It danced away towards the window. Keeping my eyes firmly fixed on it I followed its path, treading on Joy’s leg along the way. Her exasperated intakes of breath were getting louder, but I was sure she would thank me in the morning when she awoke without her ankles displaying the remnants of last night’s dinner party.

The curtains were open and I caught sight of a cavorting couple. They temporarily disentangled when they noticed an underpant-clad warrior beating his bedroom wall with over-sized footwear. I smiled and waved a flip-flop at them to demonstrate that I wasn’t really crazy.

In the meantime, the mosquito had settled down at a cosy table for one on Joy’s left ankle. It seemed distracted as it read the menu so holding my breath, I slowly raised a hand.

‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! Get back in bed and stop being an idiot.’

Meekly I obliged but I kept hold of one of my weapons just in case. As it was, my ungainly battle tactics weren’t needed again. My eyes jerked open as, from behind the curtain, a huge lizard sprinted over to where the gloating insect was now resting and disposed of it with one quick flick of its tongue. Great, we now had a carnivorous reptile to fend off instead. If we could just find a large cat to dispose of the lizard, then a mean dog to clear up the cat, a vicious bear to get rid of the dog… and so on.

It must have been an hour later before I finally dozed off with my head full of spiralling images of creatures at ascending levels in the food chain. Then without warning, Joy let out a scream. As we both sat bolt upright she screamed again and head-butted me on her rapid evacuation from the room. With a throbbing temple, swirling confusion and not a little fear, I raced after her.

‘Something just fell on me. Something heavy. Go and see what it is,’ she blubbered.

With one hand rubbing my forehead and the other holding a not-very-menacing toilet brush, I edged back into the bedroom with Joy peering over my shoulder. Expecting a puma to leap out or a rabid bat to fly at me from any angle, I menacingly flicked the loo brush back and forth épée-style. It quickly became apparent in the sparsely furnished bedroom that whatever beast had ventured in had also ventured out again. It was only on closer inspection of the bed that we realised what had actually attacked Joy was the fitted undersheet as it pinged free from the mattress. I added the toilet brush to my arsenal at the side of the bed and we recommenced what was left of a fitful night’s sleep. Tomorrow we had to learn how to pay back £165,000, and we had four days of tutoring in how to do it. We’d both slept better.

CHAPTER
FOUR

The sun filled the bedroom with an unearthly resonance that demanded we wake. I had one of those split second ‘where am I?’ moments before the rabid butterflies began to gnaw on the inside of my stomach. A new life began today. Not a trifling matter to ponder before even a bowl of cocoa puffs had passed my lips.

At 7.45 a.m., the sun was already baking the pine furniture in the lounge, releasing an unusual warm-wood odour, a substitute for the damp plaster smell that I was accustomed to in Bolton. I filled the kettle with warm water from the cold tap and removed the jar of Carioca coffee from a plastic bag containing a basic welcome pack from
el presidente
. There were two cans of San Miguel beer, a bottle of water, a carton of semi-skimmed milk and a jar of apricot jam. No bread, just the jam. Eating was out of the question anyway, and after showering and putting on shorts and TT-shirts, we set out for the bar in anxious silence.

We decided to take the scenic route, walking around the perimeter of the complex, down past the sea and back up what I breathlessly dubbed Cardiac Hill. Two or three florid bathing caps bobbed in the gentle wake a hundred yards from the rocky beach where neatly folded towels lay waiting.

For the last few working days at the market, a vision of early morning dips in the warm ocean provided a constant distraction from my ice-cold fingertips and interminably damp feet. It was one of many anticipated pleasures but for now it would remain just that.

The supermarket was already busy with holidaymakers clutching cartons of milk, sticks of bread and yesterday’s editions of the
Daily Mirror
and the
Sun
. One man, dressed in knee-length, green Hawaiian shorts and with a white T-shirt tucked in at one side, shuffled across the car park reading the day-before-yesterday’s sports news. An open-top Porsche narrowly missed him as it screamed past in first gear. The young, blonde driver acknowledged the close call with the barest of sideways glances, while the oblivious sports fan carried on reading.

It was nine in the morning and Mario, one quarter of the previous partnership – in ownership, not in bulk; he made up four fifths in that department – was already slicked in sweat as he carried two crates of empty Dorada beer bottles to the outside store cupboard under one of the stairwells.

Mario was the kind of man that casting directors would have hunted high and low for to play the part of an archetypal ice-cream vendor. His chubby face was decorated with a handlebar moustache and two other tufts of hair protruded above his ears like upturned question marks. His hairy belly poked out from between a grubby white T-shirt and an inadequately-sized pair of blue shorts. ‘It’s flickin’ hot,’ he smiled, ‘You gonna love it,’ he added with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. The worry fairies set to work.

‘I show you how for four days, then you on your own. Piece a cake. I tell you who’s trouble and who’s OK. OK? OK, let’s go.’

Mario led us into the bar. Two locales had been knocked through into one. A trio of supporting pillars running down the centre separated the two halves. A brick-fronted bar and five high stools occupied much of the right hand wall extending to a false wall at the far end, behind which the men’s and ladies’ toilets were situated.

Immediately to our right, just inside the doorway, in a recess between the big picture window and the start of the bar, three small stools were positioned around a large wooden barrel, which served as an extra table. Two more of these black painted barrels had been placed at the far end of the bar, in front of the false wall.

Two square tables were separated by the supporting pillars in the centre of the room, five other square and rectangular tables were spaced at even intervals along the left hand side. We trailed Mario past them and walked through an open doorway in the end wall.

In a kitchen obviously never designed for such a large gathering, the three of us pressed together as Mario demonstrated the correct place to hit the fridge door so that it would open; the culinary implement most suitable for turning off the gas in an emergency (a pair of tongs); which knife he used for chopping salads; which he used for paring fruit and which he used for slicing meat (the same knife as it happens). He also exhibited which cloth to use for drying dishes, holding hot pans and wiping sweat off his face and fat belly – as feared, the same cloth for all tasks.

You may have gathered, as we had by this early stage, that the health and hygiene efforts of the Smugglers Tavern were a little deficient. Joy and I gave each other panic-filled glances and at every new revelation her nostrils flared in horror. We made mental notes for sweeping changes.

After an hour the heat was unimaginable. We may as well have been swimming –

perspiration turned our clothes several tones darker. Mario was still moving around with an uncanny speed considering his bulk and I guessed the temperature was something that we would also get used to eventually.

He showed us how to prepare the local spud accompaniment,
papas arrugadas
, or Canarian potatoes using a pan that could house a family of four, and a kilo of sea salt. Then, after an interactive tour of the general workings, we trailed our mentor to the cash-and-carry where a juggernaut-like trolley was piled with such goodies as 24-packs of tuna, beans and corn.

When we returned, David and Faith were inside the bar with Jan, Mario’s wife. Jan was humming to herself, flicking a feather duster at the mirrors and bottle shelves that occupied the back of the bar area. David and Faith sat on tall bar stools ‘testing’ the beer.

‘How’s Mal?’ I asked as Joy and I sat down at one of the square dining tables. I sensed from Faith’s face that all had not gone to plan.

‘He’s been detained,’ she replied frowning, ‘in Madrid.’

Apparently the reams of paperwork in his personal flight bag were not sufficient to warrant a smooth transition from Salford to the sub-tropics, and he had been bound over by a zealous customs official until the missing form could be located and faxed through. A succession of phone calls had indeed located the necessary piece of paper and, all being well, Mal would be enjoying some in-flight Whiskas on the last leg of his journey tomorrow.

‘Well, it’s all ours now,’ I said, looking round as Jan took her humming and flicking outside. The bar hinted at mock Tudor. Between the black painted beams, the white ceiling was turning a grubby yellow. Horse brasses behind the bar and on the walls looked absurdly out of place in this sunny clime.

‘They’ll have to go,’ said David. ‘And those.’ He nodded towards two fluorescent yellow posters that had started to curl off the two floor-to-ceiling windows either side of the main door: ‘Tonites specal – leg of labm – 750ptas’; ‘Open 6 too midnite’. They looked like they were written by a two-year-old dyslexic during an earthquake.

Bench seats around the walls were complemented by a mixed array of black, wooden chairs that surrounded eight rectangular tables. They were protected by faded pink tablecloths which were in turn enveloped in thick sheets of clear plastic. This top layer had acquired a patchy adhesiveness due to two years of alcoholic spillages. Sweat was rolling off our arms leaving small pools on the surface.

This stickiness was nothing compared to what carpeted the terracotta floor tiles behind the bar. For some reason this region seemed to have been a mop-free zone with the previous owners. The bar area was overrun with gas bottles, soft drink canisters, beer barrels, fridges and drink coolers. Thin yellow tubes ran in all directions, looping around each other like a treacherous roller-coaster before disappearing into the many black recesses. All this in an area not much bigger than a double bed. What clear floor space remained was tar-black. Every step involved a ‘schlup, schlup’ to free footwear from the glue-like texture.

We drew up a long list of all the cleaning jobs that needed doing over the next few days. We also decided on a work rota. As we were going to continue Mario’s opening hours – 6 p.m. until midnight – until the busy summer season began, we decided that we could work in couples, one night on, one night off. Daytimes would be spent cleaning and removing much of the tack that sullied the bar. We’d decided that once the summer season got underway we should open for lunch as well, but we would deal with that once the initial shock had subsided.

It was during this first session that one of the biggest shocks to our business partnership was revealed.

Joy had set about sweeping behind the bar, amassing an impressive collection of bottle tops, cigarette ends and spent matches. Faith was just about to help herself to a Fanta Orange when suddenly, ‘Aaargh,’ she screamed. ‘Daaaaaviiiiid!’

‘What’s wrong? What have you done?’ We all fussed round her expecting our first use of the woefully inadequate first-aid box.

Faith, not bearing the most continental complexion at the best of times, had turned arctic white. Her eyes were aghast with horror, her lips trembled.

I followed her frightened gaze to Joy’s refuse collection, anticipating a severed finger or a dead rat, but there was nothing that you wouldn’t expect to find behind a particularly grubby bar.

‘Faith’s got a phobia about matches,’ muttered David, somewhat embarrassed.

There was a short period of silence while we waited for the punch line. None came.

‘Matches?’ Joy and I queried in unison. I couldn’t contain a slight smile.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Faith. ‘I’ve always had it. If I see a match in the street, David has to go and get rid of it.’

David nodded in confirmation.

‘Is it just burnt matches or any matches?’ I asked half sarcastically.

‘All matches… and matchboxes… and ashtrays.’

‘Ashtrays?’

‘Sometimes I don’t have to see one, but if I think there’s a match inside a matchbox or an ashtray I get a panic attack,’ explained Faith. ‘My brother’s got a phobia about wet wood,’ she added, as though this reduced the oddness of her own fear.

‘That’s going to be kind of awkward if you’re working in a bar, isn’t it?’ said Joy.

‘Everybody will have to make sure all the ashtrays are empty and check the floor before I come in,’ said Faith.

‘We’ll have to tell people to use lighters instead of matches,’ suggested David, keen to play down the potential seriousness of this revelation. ‘We’ll get some Smugglers lighters made up and give them out whenever we see someone lighting up.’

‘Sell them, you mean,’ I interjected.

‘Either way, we’re going to have to make this a match-free zone,’ he added.

I could see this was going to be an ongoing problem. I sneaked a glance at Joy. She raised her eyebrows and flared her nostrils, and we carried on our tasks without further discussion of the subject.

Bearing in mind Faith’s match aversion, it was decided that she would do the cooking and David would work out front. Similarly, I was to be the chef in our team with Joy using her outgoing nature to placate the customers out front.

The following day, our routine was repeated with cleaning and shopping sessions during the daytime, and cooking lessons with Mario for a few hours during the evening. It was obvious from the number of customers who poked their heads into the kitchen to say hello that Mario was a popular figure in the community. Knowing this merely added to the pressure. Understandably, we were going to be continually compared to the previous owners on all accounts, from the quality of food to the friendliness of service. I wondered how we could compete when Mario had almost two years’ head start on making friends.

It still seemed surreal to be standing in a commercial kitchen surrounded by all manner of grown-up culinary equipment. The knives looked natural in Mario’s huge mitts but felt cumbersome and awkward when I picked them up. The biggest blade I had ever used was a serrated bread knife. The largest in our set of black-handled weapons was the size of a cutlass.

Being the proud owner of a dozen matching condiment sets felt strangely uneasy. I was a drummer, a market worker. What authority did I have to be responsible for twelve condiment sets?

‘Is all flicking easy,’ Mario said, sensing my worry. He was tossing various ingredients into frying pans while simultaneously pushing buttons on the microwave and chopping greenery for the salad garnishes. ‘Is all in the timing. You start with what takes longest and cook it in order. You just got to know what takes longest. No problem. No?’ We nodded, unconvinced, dreading the time when Mario wasn’t around to instruct us in ‘a little bit of this and a lot more of that’. That day came sooner than we anticipated. A lot sooner.

On the morning of the following day we were a little taken aback to hear that Mario thought the time had come.

‘OK. I go to Santa Cruz. You carry on. I back sometime today. Cheerio.’ And he was gone.

Terror struck. We had flipped a coin and Joy and I were going to be first to fly solo with David and Faith on standby just in case we had to make an emergency landing.

‘Shit,’ said Joy succinctly as we watched Mario’s car disappear along the shimmering tarmac. The mountains in the distance seemed to close in, the sea swelled up ready to swamp us in a deluge of incapacity.

‘Right, well… I suppose I’ll get shopping, you do the salad prep… do you think?’ I drove off in our red Renault 5 that we had taken on long-term rental. Five minutes later I was back. ‘What do we actually need?’

‘I don’t know, look in the fridge and see what we haven’t got.’

I made a list and headed off again, returning after two hours with enough tomatoes to open a ketchup factory, four big boxes of what I thought were hamburgers but were in fact meatballs and enough toilet rolls to keep an army of little Labradors playful for years.

Joy in the meantime had managed to cut just the tip of one finger off and upon my return was standing pale-faced and wide-eyed with her hand under the cold-water tap.

‘Had a bit of an accident,’ she explained unnecessarily. Splashes of blood on the table gave the game away.