Two Old Fools in Spain Again (5 page)

5. Moths and Yeso

Roasted Mushrooms with Onions and Herbs

T
he spontaneous burst of hand-clapping and cheers as Alejandro Senior rose to his feet set off the village dogs. They began barking excitedly then galloped as a pack into the throng, which parted to let them through.

“
Madre mía!
” shouted Paco and Carmen from somewhere. “Bianca! Yukky! Come here!”

“Copito, Canelo!” shouted the Boys.

“Fifi!” shouted the Ufartes.

But there was no stopping the dogs. None of them ever obeyed any commands anyway, even when not excited. Today, the pack was large, comprising weekenders’ dogs, Geronimo’s three and some strays we’d seen occasionally.

“Poor things. Those stray dogs should be caught and cared for,” I once said to Geronimo.

“There are too many of them,” he said, “but they are useful. Dogs keep foxes away from our chickens.”

The Grand Opening and the possibility of scrounging tit-bits had attracted them all. And for some unknown reason, the applause had sent the pack off in a frenzy.

The panting, baying mob of canines ran alongside the front of the stage, past Joe, Judith and me and almost bowled over the now standing Alejandro Senior. He stumbled backward and sat down heavily on the wobbly bench. The sudden weight proved too much and it tipped over, throwing Mother and Alejandro Senior together in a jumble of arms and legs.

Hands shot forward to help the elderly pair back to their feet.

“
Madre mía!
” everybody said, concerned.

“Mother! Are you all right?” asked Judith.

“I am so sorry,” said Alejandro Senior, gripping Mother’s arm.

“Please don’t worry,” said Mother, a little shaken but as serene as ever. “I’m absolutely fine.”

As Alejandro Senior brushed himself off, I stole a glance at Mother’s face. She was smiling, a naughty gleam in her eye. Our eyes met, her lips twitched and one eyelid dropped in a tiny wink. She’d enjoyed it!

Order was restored and the speeches continued until the building was declared open. We mingled a little and Judith hailed friends and caught up with their news. Food was uncovered and the dogs now snuffled the ground, looking for dropped morsels.

I kept an eye on Alejandro Senior and Mother, but they never stirred from their seat on the bench. They sat close together, deep in conversation, oblivious to the party around them.

We left the festivities earlier than most. In our experience, Spanish parties could continue well into the night.

“I think it went well, don’t you?” said Joe.

“Apart from Pancho asking me for private English lessons. How
could
you leave me on my own with him?

“You didn’t agree, did you?”

“No, of course not. I hope he forgets all about it.”

“Interesting meeting Alejandro Senior, wasn’t it?” said Joe, unlocking our front door.

“Yep and if I’m not much mistaken, Mother has got herself a toy boy.”

Joe paused. “You’re joking, of course...”

“I’m not,” I said. And I wasn’t.

As I took a last look round the kitchen, I noticed a couple of moths crawling up a cabinet.

Oh no... Let’s hope it’s just a couple of stray ones
, I thought, then yawned and went to bed.

The next morning, I nibbled my toast as Joe tucked into his customary muesli.

“I think they’ve changed the recipe for this,” said Joe, speaking with his mouth full. He took a swig of coffee. “It tastes okay, but it’s kind of lumpy.”

“We’ll try another brand next time,” I said, absently staring out of the window at the beautiful day. The blue sky was almost too bright for my eyes. One of our chickens launched into the Egg Song and a cock crowed somewhere in the village. The telephone rang and Joe disappeared before the second ring.

“Vicky?” Dogs barked in the background.

“Morning, Judith.”

“Have you got Mother with you? She didn’t come home last night. I just took the old gal a cup of tea and her bed hasn’t been slept in.”

“What? No, she’s not with us! What time did you leave the party?”

“Oh, about half past two, I think. Mother said she wasn’t ready to go and said she’d get a lift home later.”

“Really? Gosh, I hope she’s okay...”

“Oh, cancel that, dear! A car’s just drawn up outside. Good lord, you should see it! I think it’s a Mercedes, a flashy, black one. One of those posh cabriolet jobs. The roof’s folded back and yes, Alejandro is driving it. He’s getting out now and opening the door for Mother. Must go! Speak to you later.” The receiver was hurriedly replaced and the line cut.

“I was right,” I said to Joe, chuckling. “Mother has got herself a toy boy.”

We chortled over that for a while, until Joe noticed another couple of those pesky moths crawling along the counter.

The next day, to our horror, there were many more of them in the kitchen. As I began to prepare breakfast, they were crawling up the window, the walls and every work surface.

“Finish making the breakfast,” I said. “I’m going to look them up on the Internet. This is getting ridiculous.”

I typed ‘moths in the kitchen’ and literally thousands of references jumped up. I picked one at random. Yes, that photograph was most definitely our moth. I read further.

‘Food moths, or pantry moths, are generally pale in colour and about 1 centimetre long. At first you may see only one or two individuals, but before long, they will multiply quickly. They can often be found in bags of bird seed or dried goods.’

Yes, we’d discovered that to our cost. But we’d dealt with that, the chicken grain had been disposed of. I read on.

‘Food moths lay their eggs, which hatch into larvae and will then continue their life-cycle by weaving cocoons in any crevice they can find before emerging to start the cycle again.’

Did we have food moths breeding somewhere in our kitchen? It seemed very likely. After all, we’d had a plague of them and a few could easily have sneaked into the house and started breeding. I wondered where they were hatching and read a little more.

‘You may notice tiny grubs swinging from thin threads from cupboard doors. You may see empty cocoons on the folds of paper bags and the corners of food packets or boxes. It is advisable to check your flour and cereal for clumps. Close examination will show that the clumps seem to be held together with little strands, like spiders’ webs...’

My hand flew to my mouth in horror, just as an anguished howl rent the air. I abandoned the computer and ran to the kitchen, already pretty sure what I might find.

“My muesli! They’ve been hatching in my muesli!”

“The moths?”

“Yes, of course, the blasted moths!” he shouted, his face a picture of disgust. “I’ve eaten two-thirds of that packet of muesli! I told you it was lumpy! Look at it, it’s crawling with the things!”

I took the cereal bowl over to the light and examined it closely. Yes, there were the sticky clumps I’d just read about. And there were the tiny grubs, wriggling happily amongst the nuts and oats.

All other plans were put aside that day as we systematically went through the cupboards throwing out all the boxes of cereal, bags of flour and packs of rice. Not until we’d washed down every shelf and vacuumed every crevice were we satisfied.

Touch wood, the pantry moths haven’t returned.

In the heart of summer, any casual visitor might be forgiven for imagining El Hoyo was a ghost town. The searing heat chased everybody inside, or under cover. Dogs were too hot to bark and lolled listlessly in the shade and cats hid in crumbling, disused buildings.

Only when the sun had safely set did people venture outside again. At twilight, they promenaded up the hill. Cats mysteriously reappeared and the dogs barked at the cats. The old folk sat in the square and watched the children play while motorbikes buzzed up and down the streets.

In our street, Papa Ufarte sat on his doorstep, quietly strumming his guitar, head bent low as he watched his fingers move over the strings. Granny Ufarte sat in her armchair in the street, dozing. The Ufarte children ran in and out of the house, squeezing past Papa Ufarte and his guitar.

Gradually the music became louder and more insistent. Maribel, Lola and any visiting friends and relations emerged with chatter and chairs. Sometimes one or two of the guests brought guitars and the sound of flamenco and applause soon filled the street.

The ladies chatted, called to each other and laughed. Inevitably toes and feet tapped, then hands were clapped, all in time to the rhythm. One by one, the ladies rose and so began the ancient Andalucian gypsy dance. With heads held proudly and arms high, they stamped and whirled with defiant, explosive steps. Joe and I often stole up to our roof terrace to admire the scene down below.

All too soon, the sultry summer days began to shorten and it was September. Our boxes from Bahrain finally arrived, although by then, they were almost more well-travelled than we were.

They left Bahrain but first holidayed for a while in neighbouring Doha. Then they returned to Bahrain. After that they spent a few weeks in a warehouse in Germany. From Germany they flew to northern Spain. Foolishly, we believed we’d soon be welcoming them home but, instead, they set off back to Germany.

After a long weekend in Germany, they decided to visit Belgium. Obviously Belgium wasn’t to their liking, because, yet again, they returned for another week’s holiday in the warehouse in Germany.

Every few days I typed in our tracking number, which by then I knew by heart: 1Z97840-V6-87906. I learned that our boxes had, at last, returned to Spain, this time Madrid. They obviously enjoyed the city, because they seemed rather reluctant to move from there.

I wrote to the company, asking for news. Back came the reply, in English.

‘Please don’t worry Mrs Twead. The shipment is under my personal control. Now, we are showing the documentation to Customs Authorities. We think they will like your documentation and you will meet your boxes soon.’

Finally, our boxes made their slow way down to us in the south. To be exact, they were delivered to a friend in the next village, as we didn’t trust the parcel company to be able to locate El Hoyo.

It was a bit of an anticlimax when they finally arrived. We had to pay another 20 euros for ‘country tax’ or something and the boxes themselves were battered and had clearly been broken into.

By now we could hardly remember what we’d packed and when we tore the boxes open, most of the stuff was of very little use. All those long trousers, shirts and ties for Joe, the long skirts and long-sleeved tops for me, when would we ever wear them again? They were essential for our teaching career in the Middle East, but here in Spain? I packed them all up again and instructed Joe to store them in the garage, where they remain, gathering dust.

However, packing the stuff away gave me a good feeling of closure. That chapter in our lives, that year in Bahrain as the Arab revolution raged around us, was over, shelved out of sight but not quite out of mind. It had been a stressful experience, one that cannot easily be forgotten.

Not so many decades ago, El Hoyo had been a mining village. The main road from below did not exist then and the village could only be approached along ancient and well trodden paths. In those days all provisions and mail arrived by mule.

As the mine prospered, the village thrived and a better road was laid. Even today, when one drives down the mountain, one still sees the remnants of mule tracks and the buildings where travellers and mules stopped for the night.

Receiving mail had always been rather a problem for us. When we moved in, our front door had no letterbox, so one of the first jobs was to buy a mailbox and fix it on the wall. There wasn’t much choice at the hardware shop. We could have a square black one, a square black one, or a square black one. Unsurprisingly, we chose a square black one. It wouldn’t be until much later that we realised we were wasting our time.