More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (6 page)

I’d never met a Blackpool landlady before but Betty seemed to epitomise the fading holiday town – tastelessly decorated, depressing and dated. In the conversation that followed, it emerged that most of her family seemed to have either ripped her off or else befallen some tragic consequence after having spent time living and working in the guest house, or hotel as Betty preferred to call it. There were suicides, muggings, and attempted murders galore, not to mention all kinds of infidelity. I made a mental note never to visit Blackpool’s version of The Bates Motel.

Eric, in a moment of extreme swaying, toppled backwards off his stool, narrowly missing the edge of a table.

‘I think he’s had enough now,’ said Betty as if this was her husband’s equivalent of fetching his coat.

While Joy balanced the money against the till reading, I washed the remaining glasses and began to sweep and mop.

‘The reading might be a bit out,’ I shouted. ‘I think I cocked it up when I came out for a break.’ Indeed the till was out, by exactly one-hundred-and-fifty-million pesetas. ‘A simple error due to an over-sensitive ‘zero’ button,’ I explained.

We switched off the lights and stood in the doorway surveying
our
bar. All the furniture, the upholstery, the ceiling fans, the bar pumps, the bottles, the kitchen equipment, the washing machine, the urinals. I’d never owned a urinal before. It felt good.

But it still hadn’t fully sunk in that this was our business, and it was entirely up to the four of us whether we succeeded or failed. Last week we were minions of the fish market, this week we had entered the world of entrepreneurs. We had been brave enough to trade a comfortable, albeit uninspiring, life for a ‘new improved’ model in a land of eternal spring. We wanted to tell somebody, but at 3 a.m. as we walked home hand in hand, all was silent.

Joy went straight to bed while I sat on the patio, beer in hand gazing at the most vivid sky I had ever seen. With no light pollution, the velvet black was awash with blinking stars. It seemed infinitely clearer, as though we had been looking at it through dirty glasses in England. This clarity extended further, though. We had now chosen a path and were actually on it rather than dreaming about it. This was a success in itself.

Yes, we had made mistakes, some more than others, and yes, there was still a mountain to climb before we knew what we were doing, but we had made a start. Result – 32 people fed, zero poisoned.

My mind was whirring with thoughts of what had gone on that night and what we had to do tomorrow. I started to make a mental list.

I awoke to the sensation of beer racing down my leg, the bottle tilted on my lap. I left the warm night air and flopped on top of the sheets next to Joy. It seemed that within minutes the alarm was frantically trying to stir us both to life. For a moment my brain clicked into autopilot, preparing to go through the rituals of a normal market day: reluctantly pushing off the thick quilt followed by a rapid dash to the cold bathroom; standing at the sink with my hands in hot water to warm up; flattening down my errant hair; piling on layer upon layer of warm clothes before unwillingly leaving the relative shelter of the house and dashing out into the pouring rain; watching in disgust as the first bus of the day pulled away from the bus stop.

Only there was no quilt. In fact, there were no bedclothes at all. They had been kicked off the bed during the night. After a rapid appraisal of the surroundings, the elation of last night was replaced with the heavy heart of knowing there was another long and stressful day ahead of us.

CHAPTER
FIVE

David and Faith were drinking coffee at the bar when we arrived at 8.30. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ I said. ‘Long night.’

‘How did it go?’ asked Faith. We filled them in on the problems with the electricity and the difficulty of timing the food right. They listened intently, the fact that we had sort of succeeded merely adding to the stress they were facing on their first night.

‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,’ I lied. ‘You’ll be fine. How’s Mal, by the way?’

‘He’s hiding in the wardrobe, won’t come out,’ said David.

‘He’s in a bad way, poor thing,’ added Faith, ‘we shouldn’t have made him come.’

‘I bet he’s hot in that fur coat,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to shave him.’

‘He’s getting rid of it himself,’ said David. ‘He left half his hair in the cage at the airport.’ It seemed we weren’t the only ones to be anxious about the move. According to Faith, Mal was a victim of stress-related alopecia and was currently quivering behind David’s shoes in their wardrobe, unable to cope with the challenge of a new beginning. No prizes for guessing which parent he took after there.

Whether it was down to the constant smell of burning food and the inordinate amount of time it took for said food to be passed to waiting tables or merely a coincidence, the second night was worryingly quiet. Worrying on a financial basis but a blessing for David and Faith, who had a mere eighteen meals ordered and only a small crowd of drinkers. At least their first night passed without incident.

We had listed a number of jobs that urgently needed doing to improve the overall look of the place and allocated the various tasks. On the fourth day, while David and Faith carried on with the daily chores of shopping, preparing food and readying the bar, Joy and I began cleaning up the bar terrace. After all, it
was
the first thing that potential customers judged us on. Even though we had the monopoly on British food and drink within a two-mile radius, the present state of the exterior would still put some people off.

Only four days into our illustrious careers as catering entrepreneurs and Joy and I could be found on all fours wearing yellow Marigolds, scrubbing the outside floor tiles. Even though it was barely mid-morning the heat sapped all our energy within minutes of toil. The sun had risen just high enough to pull back the shadows from the Smugglers’ terrace. Beads of sweat dripped onto the small mosaic tiles as we frantically brushed. The original speckled white pattern slowly emerged through beer stains, cigarette burns, splattered cockroaches and dried bits of food, but progress was painstakingly slow.

The ‘energy spent to surface area cleaned’ ratio was unimpressive and after two-and-a-half hours we had only completed around two square metres. At this rate it was going to take days to restore all the tiles to something like their former glory. ‘Why don’t you ask the
technico
if you can borrow his floor machine?’ suggested Patricia, the supermarket owner. She had been watching us with her arms folded for several minutes now that the morning rush for papers, milk and bread was over. ‘That’s what the rest of us do.’

Every residential complex has either one or a team of maintenance people. Owners of property on that complex pay community fees, which includes the wages for these
technico
s, as they’re referred to. They’re responsible for the communal garden areas, swimming pools, garages and general tidying duties. Like most of the Canarians, their workday is divided between a 9.30-till-1.30 stint in the morning followed by a 4-till-7 shift in the afternoon. Outside of these hours, most are happy to forsake their
siesta
and lunchtime for the chance to earn a bit extra on private jobs for the owners. This can be anything from installing a new water heater to tending a private garden. Or in this case, renting out one of the community machines for a small backhander.

I found Miguel, El Beril’s
technico
, perched atop a ladder by the side of the swimming pool. The pool was split in two by a line of smooth grey boulders separating the larger adult area from the toddlers’ pool.

There was nobody around and the temptation to break the glassy blue surface was immense. My baggy, cotton T-shirt clung like Lycra, I was covered in dust and I smelled of bleach. Full submersion in the cool, clean water was only a step away but I resisted.

Miguel was sawing through the branches of a young palm tree that was beginning to extend over the shallow children’s end.

‘
Hola
,’ I shouted, shielding my eyes from the sun. He looked down, nodded indifferently, and continued chewing his gum. ‘Have you got a machine for cleaning floors?’ I asked.

Miguel shrugged his shoulders. ‘
Como
?’

‘Machine… for floors?’ I mimed holding onto the handles and pulling back and forth rapidly. Miguel turned his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. I continued the impression with renewed vigour until I realised that this looked somewhat lewd.

‘No, no, no, no,’ I said dismissing the notion with a flurry of hand waving. Miguel had settled himself comfortably against the tree with his arms folded, awaiting the next act.

I crouched down and began to pat the rust-coloured tiles that surrounded the pool. ‘The floor… floor… clean, here.’ I smiled, though evidently I was not making things better. Miguel had stopped chewing. Both eyebrows were raised and I could see his grip on the saw had tightened.

An ageing German couple, each dressed in a white bathrobe, emerged from one of the poolside apartments and began to clamber over their garden fence, revealing more wrinkled anatomy than I would have preferred to see at this time in the morning. They obviously knew Miguel and waved a cheery greeting. Miguel seemed genuinely pleased to see somebody he knew. He garbled something in Spanish and the Germans nodded and smiled politely. Their lack of response suggested they hadn’t the full grasp of what he said.

‘Hello,’ they said in unison, nodding as Miguel pointed towards me. ‘
Ja
,
ja
,
ja
.’ The man leaned towards me, his face so close to mine that I was engulfed in garlic with every exhalation. ‘
Guten morgen
. I help,
ja
?’ He shouted as though volume would compensate for any disparity in our respective languages.

‘I’m trying to ask Miguel for the floor cleaner.’

‘
Ja
.’ The man continued to share his breath.

‘Floor cleaner? Cleaner de floor?’ I continued.

‘
Ja
.’ He blinked and cocked his head to one side.

‘Cleaner. Machine. Vroom vroom.’

‘Ah so.
Maquina
.’ He raised an index finger as a declaration of understanding then turned back to Miguel and curled his fingers round an imaginary steering wheel. ‘
Auto
,
auto
,’ he barked, turning the wheel from left to right.

‘No, no, not
auto
,’ I intervened, grabbing the invisible steering wheel.

He stopped. ‘
Nein
,
nein
,
nicht auto
,’ he said, wagging a finger at Miguel as if it was completely his misunderstanding.

I decided to bypass the un-hired help. ‘I have the bar,’ I said slowly, raising an imaginary drink to my mouth to help with the explanation. ‘I want you…’ I continued, pointing a finger first at myself and then at Miguel, ‘… give me…’ I patted my chest, and fell into the trap of my first mime again. ‘
Si
?’

By now Miguel had descended the ladder and was scuttling off in the opposite direction, glancing over his shoulder as he retreated. I wandered back to the bar dispirited, leaving the Germans to debate my intent between themselves.

‘He’s a bit strange, isn’t he?’ I asked Patricia. ‘He just ran off.’

‘He’s normally fine,’ said Patricia. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find him.’

Five minutes later Patricia returned pulling the rotating floor cleaner behind her. She was doing her best to conceal a smile. ‘You want to watch him,’ she said to Joy. ‘Miguel said he made a pass at him.’

They both looked at me. ‘Weirdo,’ I murmured. ‘I just wanted to borrow the machine.’

Attaining at least a basic grasp of the Spanish language to avoid subsequent embarrassments was just one of the things that I had yet to learn.

Not allowing well-intentioned locals to blow up the bar was another.

Frank was a dour truck driver from Oldham who had brought his kids to Tenerife after separating from his wife. At 49 he had taken early retirement and bought one of the first apartments on El Beril. Along with most of the English-speaking expats – and I’m sure other nationalities as well – he got easily bored. Being bored abroad is a mischievous combination.

We had a standard team of barflies, eager to occupy the tedious sunny hours with other people’s concerns. They worked on a rigid two-two formation: Frank would hold the left wing next to the Dorada pump; Al, an alcoholic from Liverpool with a mysteriously large amount of cash and an equal quantity of razor-sharp wit, would provide a constant flow of banter for him to head at whatever target happened to have been chosen that day. At the back, Frank’s son, Danny, would lob the odd remark over his dad’s shoulder or pass it along to his sister, Sam, to dribble with for a while until the two attackers took control.

The two kids had tried a term in a local school when they first arrived but didn’t like it and hadn’t been back since. ‘They know enough already, couple of wise-arses,’ Frank would argue when the subject was broached. Since their brief affair with education, they spent much of their time with their dad which, when not fishing, was more often than not on a Smugglers bar stool.

Danny probably knew more than us about running the bar, from cocktail recipes to how to change a barrel. Over the first few nights the thirteen-year-old would often help Joy or Faith out in times of crisis. ‘’Undred ’n’ fifty pesetas,’ he would demand from customers, his eyes barely level with the black painted bartop. The two girls had been scared out of changing barrels by Frank – ‘Don’t lean over it. Knew a man in England who got his head taken clear off’ – whereas Danny would be only too happy to oblige.

As one of the original El Berilians, Frank was a self-appointed troubleshooter dealing with a variety of problems that befell the other English residents. He wouldn’t, however, help the foreigners as he called them. The Germans, French, Italians and Spanish were part of the problem and, ironically, Frank’s colonialist policy would have been to shoot them all if they didn’t go back to their own countries. Racist he may have been, but if you had a problem with your car or needed some DIY doing, Frank was your man, though the results were not always positive.

Two tall tanks housed in a flimsy metal cabinet on the terrace fed propane gas through the exterior wall, along the length of the restaurant and into the kitchen. This routing left a lot to be desired as the slightest leak combined with a casually discarded cigarette could have seen a drastic repositioning of the Smugglers Tavern.

There was a safety device in place, which cut off the gas inside the cabinet if there was a fire or some other disagreeable disturbance in the flow. A week after the electricity supply was restored with a plank of wood, the shut-off valve jammed shut after one too many flaming chicken breasts. We called out the gas engineer on the Tuesday morning but by Wednesday lunchtime, they still hadn’t arrived. This meant that only microwave meals and salads could be served and it wasn’t proving too popular with the regulars.

‘All you need to do is bypass the valve,’ suggested Frank knowingly, and in spite of our voiced doubts, he finally managed to separate the safety feature from the top of the gas canister.

‘Right, try lighting it,’ he shouted from what I noticed was a fair distance. With visions of a propane bottle shooting into the facing hotel like a rocket, I clicked the electronic lighter and watched, relieved as a pretty blue flame danced around the ring.

‘Seems to be all right,’ I shouted, just before a short, sharp and loud bang blew the top off the gas cabinet.

Frank was struggling to shut off the propane as it filled the air with flammable fumes. Several people came running to investigate the explosion, including Patricia who was holding a cigarette. ‘PUT THAT FUCKING THING OUT,’ shouted Frank waving a spanner at her. It was the most animated I ever saw him.

‘What happened?’ I enquired when it seemed that we, and the surrounding buildings, were out of danger.

‘I don’t think it’ll work without that valve,’ he replied sagely.

The bar was beginning to look a little happier even if our power situation was not. The frosted ‘mock fishing float’ glass lamps turned out not to be frosted at all, merely dust-encrusted. Replacing dozens of light bulbs added to the brightness and the increase in luminosity was astounding. Thanks to brand new tablecloths and a major ‘dustathon’, the Smugglers Tavern no longer resembled a dingy taproom. It was at last beginning to look like a restaurant.

Chris Rea taunted us with ‘On the Beach’, as we paused to admire the way the bar was looking. Then suddenly he fell silent. The fans slowed to a halt and the mercury in the bar thermometer instantly journeyed north.

I stuck my head out of the bar, as the other business owners were doing. ‘It’s not just us, then?’ I asked Robin, Patricia’s daughter.

‘No, we’re all off. The hotel’s still on though. Its generator hasn’t kicked in.’

There was not much we could do in the heat. At the far side of the bar, the kitchen received little daylight through the open doorway and had been plunged into darkness. Fortunately all the prep had been completed and put away, but with the fridges off, any food would soon go off in theis heat.

We sat outside with tepid beers. The cooler soon reverted to a heater without electricity. Half an hour passed and still the electricity didn’t come back on. We knew it wasn’t the old box at the back of the complex, as Mario had managed to get the electricity company to fix the problem.