The Reluctant Expat: Part Four - Settling Down

by Alan Laycock

  She and Inma got on really well and we spoke mostly Spanish, though Angela switched to English when she got stuck or tired. She also retired to her room in the depths of the cave nice and early, so her stay was working out just fine.

  “She’s a pleasant lady, but I don’t really know why she wants to undertake this hotel project when she already has a lot of money,” Inma said later in bed. “She must be over sixty, after all.”

  “Once it’s all up and running I think she’ll concentrate on her courses. I think that’s what really interests her.”

  “And what do you think you’ll do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’d like to get involved in the courses too. I think the hotel will be just a grind, but the courses might be fun.” I yawned. “Time will tell.”

  “Yes. Oh, Bernie finally got his field ploughed today, so he’ll be able to plough it himself from now on. He was in the bar this afternoon with his tractor-driving friend.”

  “That’s good. I’ll go over soon.” I propped myself on my elbow and gazed into her eyes. “How’s Randi, by the way?”

  “She’s fine. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, love.”

  After driving through the fog we reached the hotel at nine the next morning and I wasn’t altogether surprised to see both of Cristóbal’s vans there, not after his ‘chat’ with Malcolm, but I hadn’t expected to see a painters’ van too, or an estate car belonging to his plumber friend.

  “Buenos días, Cristóbal,” I said cheerfully when I found him in the kitchen with said plumber.

  “Hola, Alan. It’s nice to see you.”

  I blinked three or four times. “We have interviews today.” I patted my document case. “Things are busier here, I see,” I said mildly, not wishing to gloat.

  “Things are just as I planned them to be,” he said softly, perchance chastised by the bollocking he must have received from the big man.

  I bet, I thought. “I see,” I said. “We will be interviewing in the lounge and won’t wish to be disturbed.”

  He grinned malevolently, suddenly his old self again. “Tell the painters that.”

  Angela soon told the two painters to apply their pastel tones elsewhere, and after giving the room a quick sweep we were soon ready to begin.

  “I feel like I’m the one who’s going to be interviewed,” I said as I paced around.

  “Ha, me too. This is new to both of us, but Malcolm has given me a few tips,” she said, before running through the questions that she wanted me to ask, her Spanish being a bit hesitant for such a task.

  The first applicant arrived at two minutes to ten. The tallish young man had whizzed up the drive in an old Ford Fiesta and trotted inside.

  “I recognise him from a restaurant in town,” I said from the window.

  “Is he a good worker?”

  “He seemed to be.”

  The youngster introduced himself as Fran. He wore black trousers and a white shirt under his casual jacket.

  “I’ve just come from work,” he explained. “I told them I had an errand to do.”

  A1 for initiative, I thought.

  “Please sit down,” said Angela. “We won’t keep you long.”

  “So, Fran, why do you want this job?” I said.

  “Because the pay is good.”

  “And?” I prompted, having expected a more eloquent answer, as I’d seen lots of interviews on TV over the years.

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “It’s a nice place, or will be.”

  I glanced at my crib sheet. “And, er… what are your strong points?”

  His rather dull brown eyes widened a tad. “I turn up on time and do my work well. I don’t get ill.”

  I looked at my list of typical interview questions and decided to improvise.

  “Does it bother you that the initial contract will only be for six months?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. The contract I have now isn’t worth a… isn’t very good.”

  I smiled, having deduced that he’d been about to say mierda, or shit. “I see.”

  “And the pay is bad. Here the pay is good, so I want to work here.” He glanced at his watch.

  “Can you get references?”

  “From my boss, but only if the job here is definite. Not from my last boss, as he did a runner.”

  He told me where he’d done a runner from and I knew of the man. He’d taken over a bar near the market, neglected to pay his suppliers and workers, and hopped it after four or five months. I also remembered Inma telling me how poorly most bar and restaurant staff were paid in the town, so Angela’s offer of ten percent above average wages was bound to be a big increase.

  “Do you speak any English?”

  “Yes, but not very well. I can try to improve.”

  “Would you be able to start on May 1st?”

  “Yes, or before. I’m a good worker. Ask anyone.”

  I asked him to wait outside for a moment.

  “He’s all right,” I told Angela. “I’ve seen him work and he knows what he’s doing.”

  “When he walked in I wondered why he wasn’t wearing a tie, but it doesn’t seem to matter now. He’s a no-nonsense sort of lad, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Shall we tell him we’ll get in touch?”

  “Ask him to come in, please.”

  Angela then told him in her slow but correct Spanish that she’d like him to start on the first of May.

  He smiled for the first time. “Really? Full time?”

  “Yes, you are our first employee and I hope you will be the best.”

  “Great, thank you. Oh, and references?”

  “Not necessary, in your case,” she said. “We will post the contract. The first days will be training and cleaning.”

  We all shook hands and he walked contentedly out, before jogging to his car and shooting off down the drive.

  “He seems all right,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Should I have asked more questions?”

  “Not really. Let’s just trust our instincts. Look.” She pulled her expensive watch around to the inside of her wrist. “If I pull it round again, that’s like a thumbs up sign. That way we don’t have to ask them to leave the room.”

  “But if you don’t I might go on asking these questions until doomsday.”

  She laughed. “If I don’t like them I’ll start drumming my fingers on the table. Then just tell them that we’ll get in touch. We can write them an email later.”

  I walked to the window and saw a plump woman in her forties step out of the passenger seat of a shiny Citroen C3. I invited her in and we got straight down to business. She also wanted the job – of chambermaid – because the pay was good. She usually cleaned individual houses for cash, so the opportunity to work at least five hours straight was one not to be missed. When I mentioned the six-month contract she said that was fine, not having had any kind of contract since the time she’d worked in a school canteen. Her daughter had made the application, she explained, as she was useless on the computer. She seemed like a simple soul really, and her only problem was that she didn’t drive.

  “But I have a friend who does. If you give her a job too I can come with her.”

  Angela’s hands remained motionless.

  “Has she applied for the job?” I asked.

  “No, but she’s in the car now.”

  “Please ask her to come in,” said Angela, and so it was that we secured two of the three chambermaids in twenty minutes.

  When the women had gone, both chuffed to bits, I asked Angela if we weren’t being a bit hasty.

  “Do you think we are?”

  “Not so far. I mean, all three of them see working here as being so much better than what they’re doing now that I don’t think they’ll let us down.”

  “No, and if they do I’ve a feeling that there’ll be plenty more willing people waiting in the wings. Is the job situation really so bad here?”

  “I think so. Spain sti
ll hasn’t recovered from the crash ten years ago, and I’m not sure things were so great for unqualified people before that either.”

  “Malcolm said we’d get a lot of people spouting a load of bullshit, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.”

  “No, it’s been straightforward so far.”

  The last interviewee was a pretty, bespectacled young lady who had applied for one of the receptionist-administrator roles. She crept nervously into the room, sat shyly down, and on being asked why she wanted the job began to spout a load of bullshit.

  “… so I feel that I have the right aptitudes and qualifications for the job due to my university studies and periods of work experience,” she finally concluded after reeling off the most monotonous soliloquy since I auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Hamlet in the sixth-form play.

  ‘Chill out, babe,’ I felt like saying, having slumped into the posture of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. ‘You’re a cute little broad, so shelve the speechifying and tell us what’s really on your mind, honey,’ I went on to myself, until Angela nudged me.

  “Ah, yes, so… er, don’t you think you’re a little overqualified to be a receptionist, Sara?”

  She gazed at me sadly. “No, most people who take the Tourism degree begin by working as a receptionist or something similar.”

  Angela perused her CV. “So, you studied in Valencia for three years, but you still haven’t worked.”

  “No, I’ve done three placements, but I haven’t done paid work yet. I think I get too nervous in interviews,” she said with a nervous titter. “But I’m hard-working and I speak English and French, and a little Italian and German. I just need a chance.”

  Angela turned her watch and we signed her up for six months. She almost skipped across the gravel to her old car.

  “Four out of four,” Angela said.

  “Yes, er… do you think we ought to employ everyone who comes?”

  She laughed. “Of course not, but why not give them a chance if they seem willing? They did apply very quickly, apart from Elena, and if they don’t work out we’ll have no problem finding replacements.”

  “I agree. So, four down, about… fourteen to go. It still sounds like rather a lot of staff for a small hotel. How many bookings have you got so far?”

  “Four.”

  “Ah.”

  “But there’s still time.”

  “Yes, a month till the first course.”

  “I might lower the price a bit more, just to get bums on seats, and in beds. We’ll need a good website too.”

  I failed to turn my cringe into a smile. “Yes.”

  “Ha, don’t worry, Alan. It’s being designed as we speak by a professional company, with my input. Even though I’ve been at home and on holiday, I’ve been taking care of everything, except the recruitment, which I thought I’d left a little late, but I’m not so sure about that now.”

  “So is everything else ordered?”

  “Yes.” She chuckled. “Test me.”

  I looked around for inspiration. “Curtains?”

  “Yes, and blinds.”

  “Carpets?”

  “No carpets, but plenty of rugs.”

  “Er, kitchen equipment?”

  “In the hands of a Spanish supplier.”

  “All the furniture?”

  “Ditto, and towels and bedding and decorations and everything else you can imagine.”

  I dug deep, determined to catch her out. “A phone system?”

  “Ordered.”

  I pictured myself in a bedroom. “Kettles, hair-dryers, little fridges?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Tellies?”

  “Only one, in here, and I trust it won’t be used very often. The guests I’m hoping to attract won’t be fond of the box, I hope.”

  “A fancy door-locking system?”

  “No, just standard locks with nice big keys.”

  “All the little bottles and sachets that people pinch?”

  “Yes, I suppose we’ll have to have those. Come on, it’s the weekend and I’m keeping you here. As Inma’s free today I’m going to take you both out for a good lunch.”

  At 9.10am on Monday the recruitment agency informed Angela that they’d so far had well over a thousand applications for the jobs, so we were both ever so glad that they were selecting suitable candidates and forwarding their CVs.

  “Just imagine if we’d done it ourselves, Alan,” she said in the car.

  “Yes, we’d have inboxes like... like telephone directories,” I said, as my wit usually sharpens gradually throughout the day.

  During the twenty-minute drive Angela’s phone pinged constantly, each email being a single selected application.

  “Waiter, waiter, receptionist, waitress, cook, chambermaid, waitress… oh, a male chambermaid, however you say that in English.”

  “Are you sure he isn’t a waiter?” I said, as the term for chambermaid is camarera de habitación, or room waitress.

  “No, he’s a camarero de habitación all right. Still, we mustn’t be sexist. Where’s Orihuela?”

  “Between Alicante and Murcia. Too far to travel every day, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, and I want local people. Oh, well. Hmm, I’m not getting any applications for caretaker, maintenance man, gardener or chauffeur. I wonder why that is.”

  “I think some of those people won’t be too hot on the computer.”

  “Hmm, I’m sure we’ll miss some good workers by only advertising online.”

  I tapped my forehead. “But you already have a caretaker, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, that old man is just… well, let’s say he’s in charge of security or something. He wanted us to pay him in cash for keeping an eye on the place, so I’ll go on giving him his two hundred a month.” Her phone was still pinging away. “Waitress, receptionist, waiter… hmm, these people are on the ball, but–”

  “Look!” I cried, unable to contain my excitement upon having one of my all too infrequent eureka moments.

  “What? That’s Arturo, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, he’s our man.”

  “What for?”

  “For maintenance man, gardener, chauffeur and whatever else you want him to be. Arturo’s a true man for all seasons, unless you don’t like the look of him.”

  “Of course I do. He’s quite handsome and somehow… exotic. Very charming too, but doesn’t he like building work?”

  “He likes it well enough, but I have a feeling that he won’t be sad to part company with Cristóbal. They tolerate each other, but Arturo’s a free spirit and he’s a rather bossy boss. I can ask him if he’s interested if you like.”

  “All right, but later. Let’s get ready for our first manager interview.”

  13

  It’s an uncanny coincidence that I should bring Gerardo into the picture at the beginning of Chapter Thirteen, and to this day I’m not sure if his arrival was lucky or unlucky for me. When the trim, slim man of about thirty-five walked into the room in his three-piece suit I didn’t like the look of him at all. I didn’t like his brown, sparkling but disturbingly deep-set eyes, or his fastidiously trimmed goatee beard and silly sideburns, or his limp handshake, or his charmingly insincere smile, or his slightly high-pitched voice and the carefully articulated words it produced, or his pointy shoes, or the fact that he scarcely looked at me once he knew that Angela was the owner. In short, I wasn’t fond of the chap, but Angela was, so he got the job.

  It turned out that he was a native of Almansa and had returned home from Preston because his mother had fallen ill. He had nursed her during the eighteen blank months on his CV, but couldn’t bring himself to mention it therein, as her subsequent death still distressed him deeply. After that he’d decided to work locally for a while, until he regained the strength to resume his serious hotel career.

  “I see. I’m sorry,” I said, not sure whether to believe him or not.

  “Oh, poor man, that’s really awful,�
�� Angela said, after which she conducted the rest of the interview in English while I sat there like a spare part.

  My suspicions may sound insensitive, but even if his story were true, the way he exploited his mother’s illness and death in a job interview struck me as a piece of carefully calculated emotional blackmail which wouldn’t have washed with many people, but appeared to convince Angela. Later when he expressed an unwillingness to request a reference from the big hotel in Preston, instead asking her to settle for ones from London and Almansa, my suspicions that things had gone awry for him in Lancashire increased.

  Although Angela undoubtedly had a soft spot for Gerardo, she did ask him all the questions on her list, and it turned out that he ticked every box, down to his willingness to start soon.

  “The hotel in Almansa is now running smoothly and they know that I wish to further my career, so I’m sure I’ll be able to lower my workload there and begin to assist you almost immediately,” he said with perfect grammar but a typically naff accent, as most Spaniards just can’t seem to manage anything approaching an English one.

  “I… Alan and I are recruiting now, but if you could assist with that, I’d be grateful,” she said.

  He graced me with a wolfish smile. “Of course. I have recruited many members of staff before and am aware of the qualities that are required. I would be more than happy to assist you in this task, from tomorrow, if you like.”

  (I confess that at this exact point in my story I wasn’t sure whether to ham it up in order to get some laughs out of Gerardo’s manner and my reaction to it, or to avoid doing so lest I appear to be a bitter and twisted individual. I’m not one of those, I assure you, so I’ll go on as planned.)

  …if you like,” he said like Kenneth Williams of Carry On film fame.

  (But I won’t overdo it.)

  …if you like,” he said in a rather fawning way.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful, isn’t it, Alan?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “Well, I’m delighted to offer you the job of manager, Gerardo.”

  “Pending references,” I said.

  “Yes, pending references, of course, but I’m sure they’ll be fine.”