Driving Over Lemons

by Chris Stewart

  Introduced at lunch, Chloë regarded Richard and Eleanor with suspicion. They were, after all, very tall and imposing, and when they tried to weaken her defences by treating her as if she were a fellow human and by being nice to her, she sought refuge in silence. The next day, however, she was persuaded to accompany our guests down to the valley to give them a botanical tour. She was good at this; it gave her an opportunity to regurgitate the litany of botanical names she had learned on our seed-picking expeditions. But quite apart from revelling in sing-song Latin, she had a real love of plants and a good knowledge of the poisonous ones, which Ana had instilled in her before she could walk. To non-botanists, the sound of a three-year-old trilling out names like Adenocarpus decorticans, Euphorbia characias or Anthyllis cytisusoides might seem monstrously precocious – though city children are just as fluent with the names of favourite dinosaurs. In any case, we doting parents thought it was marvellous, and Richard and Eleanor, to whom such names were as bread and milk, were roundly impressed. The discovery of their shared enthusiasm for plants broke the ice, and when they returned to the house both factions seemed charmed by one another. I was dispatched to buy the ingredients for a giant paella and to inform the previously warned guests that all was in readiness for the following Saturday.

  Susanne, a friend from the other side of town, was to be the godmother. She, like Domingo, was another person we wanted to draw into our family orbit. She had come to be a neighbour of ours as a result, so she said, of sticking a pin in a map of Europe and then moving lock, stock and barrel to the point thus decided upon. Like Georgina, she is one of those formidable young Englishwomen who steer their chosen course through the world quite oblivious of navigational hazards. Susanne is a gifted artist; she wanders the Alpujarra in her reprehensible wreck of a car, doing landscapes in pen and watercolour. As with astrologers, there is no shortage of artists in the Alpujarras, but Susanne’s work, in its originality and the exquisite skill of its execution, holds its own with the best.

  For the last few years Susanne has been confined to a wheelchair, due to crippling rheumatoid arthritis, but along with a disarming sultriness, she manages to maintain her unshakeable good humour. In her dark smoky voice she explained to me how the wretched disease was the result of unspeakable transgressions in earlier lives, something to do with supplying cosmetics containing white lead to the ladies of Minoan Crete, in the full knowledge of its harmful properties. Her eyes twinkled with delight as she growled out this singular story.

  Chloë adores Susanne, because she is one of those people who are never too busy or too tired or in too much pain to fool around with children. She is one of the few foreigners in the Alpujarras whom I visit regularly, and she can always make me laugh. Anyway, the day before the christening, Domingo and I helped Susanne onto the back of the patient Bottom and waded with her across the river. Ana had had to leave early to collect her parents who were staying at a holiday apartment on the coast and, instead of waiting for the return of the Landrover, Susanne opted to process by donkey up to the house – the only guest to realise my more romantic plans for the christening.

  I had also invited some friends from the town, along with Cathy and John and half their neighbours from Puerto Jubiley. Wherever Cathy and John go, half the villagers go along for the ride – but never more than half. There are two opposing factions in the village as the result of some fifty-year-old dispute concerning a poplar tree and a goat, and only one of the factions can be accommodated at any one time. For the christening we had the west of the river faction. Old Man Domingo and Expira were of course going to attend in their official capacity of godgrandparents; and then there were Bernardo and Isabel with their children, Fabian, Maite, and Chloë’s beloved Rosa. Antonia, who by this time had become a very special friend of the family, was in Holland for an exhibition and so unable to come. In lieu of her presence she had sent Chloë a tiny sheep cast in bronze.

  Along with Ana’s mother and father, that made about forty people. So I borrowed two huge paella dishes and lit a great fire of rosemary and olive over which I placed the tripods. All morning the fire blazed away, scenting the breeze with its sweet smoke. The kitchen was cluttered with helpers making salads and dishes of dainties, and a great tub of fruity costa punch made its appearance. Somehow we gathered enough chairs and tables and cable drums for the company and Ana decked them with the snowy cloths I had dreamed of, setting arrangements of wild flowers on each table. Meanwhile Chloë played happily with Rosa and the accursed Barbies, composing new episodes in the dolls’ lives to accommodate the bronze sheep, blissfully unaware of the preparations.

  At last the guests started to arrive, parking their cars by the bridge and scuffing up the dusty hill in their finery. The older members of the party who didn’t fancy the trudge up to El Valero were ferried up the track in the Landrover. I placed the paellas on the fire and the drinks began to flow.

  The Spanish contingent watched fascinated as Richard made adjustments to his robes. The older guests had little inkling of our religious persuasions and were perhaps expecting some sort of pagan rite. They shuffled carefully into a position from where they could bolt if things got out of control. With cries of ‘a la misa’, I managed to gather the English and a few of the bolder Spaniards round the altar, a consecrated cable-drum with embroidered cloth and flowers, and quieten them enough for Richard to give a moving and simple address and read some prayers.

  ‘Why don’t you translate what he’s saying so everybody can understand it?’ Ana whispered.

  ‘Because I’m overcome by the gravity of the moment, Ana,’ I lied. The truth was that I didn’t have the necessary apparatus connected for simultaneous translation from Biblical English to Alpujarran Spanish.

  Chloë was persuaded to abandon Rosa and the dolls for a while and step forward in her party dress with Domingo and Susanne. She was a robust, reluctant and slippery toddler, so the godparents had to dispense with the tradition of carrying the infant tenderly to the font, and stand awkwardly beside her instead. Chloë looked as if she was about to cut up rough but Ana managed to bribe her into a hesitant co-operation by flashing the edge of a bar of chocolate, kept at the ready in her pocket, and pointing meaningfully towards the altar. Chloë edged forward throwing side glances at the chocolate in the way that sailors keep a lighthouse in view when crossing onshore tides.

  Richard looked magnificent in his beautiful robes, standing in the dappled sunlight beneath the acacia tree. He bent down and placed his hand gently on Chloë’s shoulder, uttered the appropriate incantation and made the sign of the cross with the holy water and oil on her scrunched-up brow. Ana and I breathed a sigh of relief as she slunk back to Rosa clutching her chocolate. I like to think they shared it. It’s no good just going through with the form of the thing, you have to act by its precepts.

  As a climax to the service, and to the utter bafflement of the Spanish faction, the English then sang ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’, this being the only hymn in which we could all pass muster. Chorus, then first verse, then chorus again, then a verse that Richard had written specially for the occasion, then a last chorus. Unaccompanied and a little wobbly at the start, the communal voices soon gathered in strength and soared across the valley, their song swelled by the rushing of the rivers and the call of a nightingale ringing out from the barranco.

  WATER OVER THE BRIDGE...

  DURING OUR FIRST YEARS AT EL VALERO THE WEATHER HAD been more or less predictable. The summers were hot and the winters were mild. Although a feeling of nervous anticipation would set in when we contemplated the onset of the fierce summer heat, we were surprised, when it actually happened, by how well we adapted to it. We soon learned to drag the bed onto the roof and sleep beneath the stars, to hang a heavy blanket over the door to keep the cool air in the house, and to put a bottle of frozen water in the struggling gas fridge. Winter weather was comfortable, cool and sunny, though with not quite enough rain to keep the flora of the hills in good fettle. E
ven during our own short time here we had noticed that the winters had seemed to become just slightly drier – nothing dramatic but enough to leave an air of dejection about the trees and a desperation among the more shallow-rooted plants.

  The river ran on easily and inoffensively through winter and summer alike, swelling briefly as the June heat melted the mountain snow, then returning to its lazy summer level. The rain and the river muddled along in their own way, apparently reluctant to give us any trouble, until the summer after Chloë’s christening when we had our first taste of serious drought.

  Almost no snow had fallen that winter on the mountains, and the spring rains fell feebly and dried up with a spate of hot winds coming up from the Sahara. By June the river was no more than a few brackish puddles among the boulders, and then in July, for the first time in living memory, the trickle of water in the Cádiar river stopped altogether.

  Dead fish lay rotting in the dry pools and the paths of the valley were ankle-deep in hot dust. The grass in the fields at El Valero withered to brown and crackled beneath our feet, and the leaves of the trees shrivelled and curled. On hot summer evenings in previous years we would stroll en famille down to the ford, and bathe in the pool, or sit enjoying the breeze and watching the swallows and bats put on their evening aerobatic show; but that summer it was difficult to imagine water ever running again in the river. The silence of the river was made more sinister by the insane screaming of the cicadas.

  It’s the Greenhouse Effect, said some . . . the hole in the ozone layer . . . El Niño . . . an unfortunate alignment of planets. The old men shook their heads and predicted dark times to come. The drought affected the whole of Andalucía and most of Spain. Rivers and springs dried up all over the province; wells were down to the salty sludge at the bottom; whole forests of trees, even the hardy Aleppo pines, withered and died. Órgiva was limited to an hour of water a day, and there were bush-fires breaking out right across Spain.

  Ana and I felt somehow let down by the river. We had bought our farm on its far side – cheap, because nobody else wanted to take the risk – and during all of our time here the river had been nothing but a good neighbour to us, entertaining us during the day and lulling us to sleep at night. It had left our bridges alone, it had permitted us to drive the Landrover through the ford at most times of the year, and it provided cool bathing to refresh us from the heat, and clear water to irrigate our crops. It showed none of the nasty tendencies we had been warned about – and now it had gone and dried up.

  I had found the idea of living close to a really dangerous and elemental force rather appealing but it had become about as elemental as a duck-pond in a municipal park. It was a dying thing, it seemed. When I mentioned these thoughts to Domingo or his parents, they would shake their heads and look at me in consternation. Nonetheless, as September arrived and there was no sign of the thunderstorms that come to break the summer heat, people grew more and more concerned.

  As if to compound the misery, towering banks of thunderheads would gather around the mountains, and then black clouds would boil up the valley, but not a drop of rain fell. As night drew on, the stars would appear through the gaps in the cloud and by the time midnight came the sky would be clear once again. Perhaps this really was a fundamental weather change. A number of foreigners thought this was the case and talked of abandoning their Andalucian homes. Barkis’s rescuers, George and Alison, who live high up on the Contraviesa, were thinking of moving north to rain-sodden Galicia. They had created a water-garden with a pool and waterfall, right beside their house, but the spring that supplied its stream had dried up the year before and now there was barely enough water for the rabbits. Moving away was hardly an option for us, as we had already burnt our boats by buying a farm that no one else was likely to want. It was a relief, though, not to have to bother ourselves about that decision. Like Domingo, we would be staying come fair weather or foul, and the knowledge that this was so served to strengthen the bonds between us.

  Then in mid-September it rained. A few heavy drops fell, sporadically at first, each one making a small crater in the dust. Little by little the drops coalesced into a steady drizzle. The colour of the land darkened and the air filled with the smell of hot wet dust and pine. The stones in the river glistened and with the passing of the hours tiny rivulets and puddles began to form. A quiet sussuration became apparent where before there had been silence. By the morning, still with no heavy rain, the river was flowing again. With the lowering of the clouds everybody’s spirits started to lift. It rained lightly for three days, enough to settle the dust and build up the flow of the river, and then it stopped. Everybody agreed that there had not been enough rain to water even the peppers, and that the time for rejoicing had not yet come.

  September moved into October with no more rain, though something kept the river going. And then in November the downfall began, not with a deluge, just a nice steady downpour that kept on coming day and night, day and night. By the morning of the second day there was a terrifying flow of dark water racing down from the gorge. Effortlessly it shifted the bridge out of the way, pulverising the stone piers and sweeping the beams far down the river. And with each passing hour it rose still more, bringing with it boulders the size of small buildings thundering like cannons as they moved through the awful tumult. The water was black and evil-smelling, and all the country round, normally so quiet, echoed to its monstrous noise.

  The days of rain became weeks and our roof started to leak, the solar power died, and all the firewood was so soaked it was useless. The river thundered on, filling the valley with a sense of foreboding. As the earth became saturated with water, the hills began to crumble into the valleys. We would hear a roar and watch as hundreds of tons of sodden earth and rocks avalanched down the mountainside, bringing trees and bushes along with it. Much of the acequia was destroyed by landslips so that there was not even a trace of its former path, and a huge mass of rock had slithered down onto the track. The only way to get things up to the house now was with the wheelbarrow. I had never imagined such awesome erosion; the mountains were literally being swept down to the sea.

  We had no telephone, which had the effect of emphasising our isolation, though we were also pleased not to be worrying people by telling them how awful things had become. There were fourteen buckets and bowls dotted about the house catching drips, and the nearest thing to good cheer was a dull fire smouldering in the chimney.

  Ana, with her usual foresight, had amassed a decent stock of tinned tomatoes and dried pasta to eat, some potatoes, onions and flour, custard powder and anchovies, but there was little else. We weaved around the drips in the house, trying to find amusements for Chloë and distractions from the minor ailments that were beginning to plague us; coughs, sniffles, wheezy chests and a lassitude that the damp pages of Juliette and a water-logged herb garden could do little to alleviate.

  I remembered Expira and Old Man Domingo’s warnings about the river and their dread tales of the Deaf One’s daughter dying in childbirth, or the woman with acute appendicitis whose mule was swept from beneath her when she tried to reach the hospital. So this was what they had been talking about.

  There was a way out from El Valero if an emergency arose but it involved a four-hour walk up the hill and along to Mecina Fondales. The bridge at Mecina was an ancient stone one built fifty feet above the river in a narrow gorge and usable at any state of flood. This way might have been an option for shopping, at a pinch, but less useful in cases of appendicitis.

  As our enforced isolation continued, we became daily more disheartened and began to feel a little threatened by the ceaseless roaring of waters and the rain and mist that now never left the valley. Under normal circumstances we would do all we could to avoid going to town, but now we were almost reduced to tears by the thought of its unattainable delights.

  And then one day as I was wandering about down by the river, I saw Domingo. What struck me about his presence was that he was on our side of the river. When
I had finished expressing my astonishment, he told me that he had managed to walk across in a place where the river was wider and shallower, using a stout stick to support himself. He had just come to check that we were alright. ‘What we need to do is fix up a cable across the river,’ he announced. ‘It’s never been done here before because people are too old-fashioned to think of anything new, but I think it could be the solution to your problems.’

  The next morning I stood on the bank of the river just upstream from the ford, waiting while Domingo sorted out a tangle of string and wire on the far side. After several tries he managed to throw across a stone attached to a line of string. I pulled on the string and steadily the wire cable passed over the river. On the wire was a bag containing a spanner and a pair of bulldog clips. I passed the cable around the base of the trunk of a stout bush and connected it with the bulldog clips.

  When I had finished, Domingo connected his end to the trunk of a tamarisk, in a similar manner to my side but including a tensioning screw, which he then wound up as tight as he could. Then he snapped a shackle onto the cable, and, suspended beneath it on a rope, inched out across the water. The cable stretched as he reached the middle but he was still a good metre above the river, and in less than a minute he landed among the bushes on our side.

  I clapped him on the back and laughed for sheer relief that he was safe, and delight that the thing was going to work. We then set to work putting in a couple more tensioning screws and reinforcing the anchor around the bush, and within the hour we had a safe and serviceable aerial cableway that we could use until the river dropped enough to build a new bridge.

  Over the following weeks we refined the ‘Flying Fox’ with a smooth-running system of ropes and pulleys, a comfortable canvas bucket-seat, and a landing platform on either side of the river. Its only small disadvantage was that, except for those with a very outward bound sort of disposition, you needed two people to make it work, thus reducing the already thin incidence of single visitors. Chloë loved to be hauled across; it was the best swing she has ever known. We all got pretty skilled at using it, passing across gas-bottles, sacks of animal-feed, sacks of shopping, a new water-tank, friends and neighbours and their children, some rams, and, on one occasion, a sick ibex.