Tales of the Mantequero

Chapter 5

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She was the clever one, the one who was brilliant at languages, the only one in her family ever to go to university. She was supposed to have a glamorous life. She was supposed to travel to exotic places and meet interesting exotic men, one of whom would prove to be her soul mate, sweep her off her feet and marry her. She wasn't supposed to spend her waking life trying to cram a modicum of foreign language into the brains of teenage louts at the mercy of their hormones, who were unable to think of anything but s*x. And she was not, under any circumstances, supposed to end up as a dried-up old maid looking after her senile and no doubt eventually incontinent old mother.

She was thirty-two and already her life was over.

"We thought,"said Mary, "that it would be a good idea if you could move in before Christmas."

"Out of the question,"said June. "I'm going away this year."

It was almost worth the anguish to see the expressions of surprise on her sisters' faces.

"But where? Who with?"said Ellen. "Is it a school trip?"

"It's not, as it happens. I'm going with a friend."And she got up and walked majestically out of the hall, leaving her sisters staring after her, open-mouthed. Ha!

~ * ~

Of course, now that she had said that, she had to do it. Strike while the iron is hot, she thought and headed off to the travel agent she used for booking the school trips.

By the time she got to the travel agent, she had decided where she wanted to go. Not Germany or Greece, it was too cold in December. And not Italy or France. She had been to both countries so often on school trips, she could write travel books about them. But Spain, Spain was perfect. Warm winters and lots of interesting places she had never visited. For some reason Spain was seldom considered as suitable for school trips. There weren't enough people studying Spanish for a start, although God knows why when it was the most popular language next to English for commercial companies.

But also Spain was regarded with disdain as of insufficient cultural interest. There was a general idea that it was all tacky resorts and plastic donkeys.

June knew better. Away from the tourist ghettos, Spain was full of fascinating history. For hundreds of years it had been ruled by the Moors, and they had left behind many beautiful buildings, mosques and palaces. Especially in Southern Spain, the last stronghold of the Moorish kings.

Not for her the dreadful eighteen to twenty resorts full of bright red Brits looking for fish and chips and discos. Not for her the crowded beaches and English pubs with huge screens showing football matches.

She wanted a taste of the real Spain. She wanted to lose herself in another culture. She would go to the Alpujarras, and stay in one of the tiny mountain villages where no-one spoke English. She would visit the fabulous Alhambra Palace in Granada. She would wander about in the old Moorish district and buy wonderful presents in the soukh. She would have eat fabulous lunches in Moroccan restaurants and visit Arab tea-houses and drink mint tea whilst sitting on cushions on the floor.

She would leave her mobile phone behind and tell no-one where she was going.

She was amazed at her own daring.

~ * ~

The holiday went really well. The airport was crowded, as it always was. The queues were abominable and the staff were harassed and rude, but it was so wonderful having no surly gangs of teenagers to worry about. For the first time ever she could take her time and read a book instead of constantly checking that her charges weren't shoplifting in the airport shops or doing unspeakable things behind the notice boards. And the flight itself was sheer heaven. She sat in a window seat and looked down on a bed of clouds and, later, the glittering sea and the mountains of Spain.

She stayed in a tiny house at the top of a little mountain village. The house had very small windows to keep out the sun and very thick walls to keep out the heat. Priorities were different in Spain. It was cold at night, but there was a little wood stove that burned sticks, and the house was so small that it was enough. It was cosy in the little house, and she felt at home.

The people in the village greeted her cheerily and were keen to talk to her, the foreigner who spoke their language. She soon fell into a routine. She went to the shop every day to buy bread and meat and wonderful fresh vegetables and fruit. She went to the little bar in the Plaza for her morning coffee. At lunchtime she would make herself something to eat or sometimes go back to the bar and have the menu del día, a ridiculously cheap three course meal. The only good thing, in her opinion, that Franco had ever done was to decree that every bar should serve a proper three course meal, including wine, that a working man could afford. In the evening she sat outside and drank tinto de verano - red wine with lemonade, not the appalling sangría stuffed with fruit, so beloved of the tourists - and chatted to the villagers who passed by.

She went for long, leisurely walks early in the morning or late afternoon when the sun was low in the sky. It was the first time ever that she had had a holiday when she only had herself to think of. Every so often she had a moment of panic, convinced she should have students in tow and had somehow mislaid them, but after a few days it hardly ever happened, and after she met Ignacio it never happened at all.