The Reluctant Expat: Part Four - Settling Down

by Alan Laycock

“And that depends on both Angela and me keeping ourselves busy, doing what we like doing.”

  “Ye… I see.”

  “You’ll be contracting the builder for that house and you’ll be getting your commission.”

  “Will I?”

  “Yes, so you’ve no need to be grubbing around for a few pesetas or whatever they call money here.”

  “Right, I won’t then.”

  “Think big, Alan,” he said, finally removing his hand.

  “Yes, I will.”

  He tapped his head. “In the world of work it pays to keep well in with the people who count.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  On the drive back up the motorway he looked at the clock and clicked his tongue. “No time for a round this aft. I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow.”

  “So early? I mean, I’ll be up, but...”

  “You don’t think we’re only going to play one round on that joke of a course, do you?”

  “No, Malcolm.”

  You’ll have noticed that I often end chapters by feeding back to Inma, and this one will be no exception.

  She shook her head and laughed. “Oh, what a difference a day makes.”

  I cradled my head in my hands and rubbed my temples. “It’s all a bit disturbing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I feel like I’m being manipulated. I’m putty in his great big hands.”

  “Go with the flow,” she said in English.

  “If I go with the flow I’ll end up playing golf every day,” I whined, also in English, my sweetheart being an exception to my otherwise strict language rule.

  “Lucky you. At this time of year it will be very nice to be outside, hitting a little ball from time to time, or don’t you like to be with Malcolm?”

  “Oh, I like him well enough. Anyway, tomorrow when he sees how badly I play, he’ll soon start looking elsewhere for a partner.”

  16

  “Ooh, beginner’s luck,” I said after pitching my very first ball onto the edge of the green. It was a cool, sunny morning and we were the first people on the course, at nine o’clock on the dot. Malcolm had paid our fee – much cheaper than the real golf course we’d visited – and was visibly excited to be playing his first round for over a week, having been tied up by business matters back home. So excited, in fact, that he overhit his first shot, sending the ball over the green and under a tree.

  “Used to whacking it when I tee off,” he said with a shrug.

  He walked fast for a big man and I saw that he was fitter than he looked. As soon as I’d putted my ball to within about three yards of the hole, he skilfully chipped his from under the tree and right over the green.

  “I have a tendency to overhit, my coach says,” he said cheerfully.

  “Yes.”

  “He thinks it may be a psychological trait.”

  “Could be, as you always were a big hitter in business,” I quipped.

  He paused on his way across the green. “Still am, but please don’t say stuff like that, as it reminds me of all the toadies I’ve played with over the years. Ha, I could go round in over a hundred and they’d still be praising my shots, the silly buggers. Right, get yours in… oh, bad luck.”

  He made an excellent putt, so we both scored four.

  “Matchplay or stroke play, which do you prefer?” he asked.

  “Er, what’s the difference?”

  He cringed. “Do you not watch golf on telly?”

  “Not much. I remember Nick Faldo winning the British Open once.”

  “He won it three times, many moons ago. When did you last play?”

  “Oh, about five years ago, I think.”

  He grinned. “Better make it matchplay then. We score each hole instead of adding up the shots.”

  “OK. Why is that better for me though?”

  “You’ll see.”

  On the second he overhit again, while I fluked a really good shot and got down in three, to his four.

  “One up to you, Alan.”

  On the third I sliced my first shot, but recovered with the second and we both scored four. (Don’t worry, I shan’t be going on like this for long.)

  On the fourth he got into the swing of things – ha, ha – and scored three, while I needed seven shots due to the intervention of a bunker.

  “Put it behind you, Alan. That’s the beauty of matchplay, you see.”

  “Yes.”

  And he was right, because apart from a bit of luck on the sixth and the ninth, where we drew, I made a real hash of the other holes.

  “I enjoyed that,” I said hopefully.

  “The beauty of this silly little course, Alan, is that it’s designed so you can play the same holes again, but from different tees.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “So we can carry on and complete the eighteen without repeating ourselves. Quite clever really.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your shot.”

  Then my game really went to pieces, but Malcolm was kind enough to explain why on the seventeenth, where I’d landed in the pond before starting again and finding the bunker.

  “When you don’t play for a long time, you tend to start off all right. It’s as if your brain’s remembering how it’s done and your body obeys, at first, but as you carry on you usually lose it and your game goes to pieces,” he said patiently while I hacked away at the stupid bloody ball.

  “Yes,” I seethed.

  “Try to relax.”

  I was no longer counting the shots and although the eighteenth was a bit better I was glad when it was over.

  “Not bad for a first try,” he said as we walked back to the clubhouse.

  “It was bloody annoying when it all went wrong.”

  “Good thing we played matchplay, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “For me too, as I was none too hot myself. We’ll get a bite to eat now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go round again.”

  I almost dropped the bag of seven or eight clubs that he’d allowed me to carry. “Again?”

  He shrugged. “You can just stroll round and keep me company, if you like, but I think you’ll find that you’ll want to have another go in an hour or so.”

  “I doubt it, but I don’t mind walking round.”

  In the event he was right, because when he slipped his tee into the mat my hands began to twitch.

  He grinned and plucked another from his shirt pocket.

  “I’d better go and pay for my round then,” I said.

  “Already paid. This time, if I were you, I wouldn’t even count the shots. Just chat to me and don’t worry about the game. You’ll play better that way.”

  He was right again, as although I usually needed about five shots to get the ball down, I wasn’t nearly as awful as I’d been before our break. Malcolm quizzed me about my life in Spain, something he’d never done before, but when I asked him about his life he became rather reticent.

  “Oh, Alan,” he finally said on the ninth, or twenty-seventh. “My life’s just been work, work, work for the last thirty years. When I first expanded I thought things would get easier, being able to delegate, you know, but it just got more and more complicated.”

  “And you still haven’t retired,” I observed.

  “Not properly, but I will. If we like it in Spain I’ll get out of the food business once and for all.”

  “Do you think the hotel will do well?”

  “Not really.”

  “No?”

  He sighed, before hitting a lovely chip. “This is what I think will happen, Alan. Those courses will do all right, as long as the teachers or whatever you call them are decent, but the rest of the time there’ll just be a few stray tourists who’ve stumbled across the place.”

  I thumped my ball through the grass in the right direction. “But they’re going to advertise on those hotel websites.”

  “So what? Look, it’s not on any major routes, there
are no especially interesting places nearby, and though the countryside’s all right, it’s nothing to write home about, is it?”

  “I guess not,” I said, whacking my ball on the move. “Have you shared these thoughts with Angela?”

  “I’ve told her not to get her hopes up too much. She only really wants arty-farty folk there anyway, so I can see the day when the place’ll be open mainly for the courses and there’ll be a lot less staff. It’s bloody ridiculous the number of folk they’ve persuaded her to take on, but who cares? We’ll keep the best and let the others go, including that sly little sod who’s setting it all up for her.”

  “Then you’ll have more time to go off in the Hymer.”

  “Exactly.” He grasped the flag. “You help her to make those courses a big hit and the rest will take care of itself.”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled out the flag and performed a short, one-handed putt. “Get yours down and we’ll be off.”

  I was delighted to sink a six-footer.

  “Unless you want to go round again,” he said, before cackling, slapping me on the back and steering me off the course.

  “I think Malcolm’s probably right about the hotel,” said Inma after listening patiently to a blow by blow account of our game. “Although I hope he’s wrong, as it will be a good thing for the area.”

  “He does have a habit of being right though. I guess it’s his instinct that’s made him successful in business. Anyway, he’s given me a day off golf tomorrow. He says I’ll play less badly if I have a rest, so he’s going back to Villena and taking me to the proper course on Saturday, as I told him you were working. He’s actually more considerate than he appears at first sight.”

  “You obviously like playing golf though, as you’ve told me so much about your game that I almost felt like I was there.” She chuckled. “I hope you don’t become obsessed by it like some men do.”

  I shook my head and tutted. “No chance of that. I admit that it’s been fun to have a go again, and I wouldn’t mind playing now and then, but it’s not for me. I don’t approve of all the water they use for a start. No, I’ll humour Malcolm for now and just hope that he meets some people to play with soon.” I narrowed my eyes and tapped my nose. “Anyway, in the world of work it pays to keep well in with the people who count, you know.”

  “Like Malcolm said.”

  “Yes, like Malcolm said.”

  The next day I worked at the hotel and on Saturday we played golf on the course near Monforte for the first time. We got there early to avoid the crowds, but it was busy anyway, which did nothing to improve my game, as when a man handles a wood for the first time he doesn’t really want to have three impatient young blokes from the south of England standing nearby, tutting and sighing as he bungles shot after shot, Malcolm having decided that he ought to get the hang of it before commencing the game proper.

  “You go to a driving range to do that,” one of them finally muttered, upon which Malcolm bade them step up and go ahead of us, before standing two yards behind them, tutting, sighing, groaning and murmuring that they weren’t much bloody good either, though I think his looming presence was affecting their swings somewhat.

  “Right, let’s try again,” he said when they’d hurried away to find their widely dispersed balls.

  It isn’t easy to hit a golf ball straight with a wood, and despite Malcolm’s sound advice I soon found myself faced with the choice of either whacking the thing and hoping for the best or playing a more conservative stroke but only making it about half way down the fairway, if that. He urged me to settle for this option, and by giving me a one-shot handicap we managed to have a fairly competitive game – he won by two holes – as he was happy to admit that he wasn’t much of a player either.

  “Eighty-four is my best ever score,” he told me on the par-five fifteenth. “That was on a perfect day on an easy course and I played a blinder. I was walking on air for a week. I even picked up the phone when my salesmen called, just to tell them about it. A golfer lives for days like that, but they don’t come around very often.”

  I gave the ball a good whack and sent it curling into the rough.

  He sighed. “That pillock was right. You need to spend some time on a driving range, with a coach.”

  As he then hit a fine drive, I decided it was time to lay my golfing cards on the table.

  “The odd game of pitch and putt is enough for me, Malcolm. I realise what it’d take to make me a half-decent player and I’m not really up for it. It’s too expensive for one thing and it’d take up too much time to become any good. There are other things I prefer to do than play golf.”

  “Like what?” he said mildly.

  “Oh, work on the land for one thing, and… well, other things, plus my work at the hotel, of course.”

  We found my ball and I managed to get it back on track with a six-iron.

  “Good shot, Alan. You have a bit of ability, you know, but if you won’t put the time in you’ll never be any good. Still, I don’t mind coming here on my own. There are plenty of foreigners and I’ll soon meet someone to play with.”

  “Yes, there are quite a lot of them.”

  After a marvellous third shot on the eighteenth which left my ball within spitting distance of the hole, I reiterated that I wouldn’t mind playing pitch and putt at Villena once in a while.

  “Maybe once a week,” I said, before sinking my putt. “Or twice.”

  “Ha, today your drive has let you down, but mark my words, you’ll want to come back here in a couple of weeks to have another go.”

  “I doubt it,” I said, but feared that he might be right, as he so often was.

  “I still think a nice big lawn would look good behind the hotel. We could rig up a net and practise our driving there, and have a smoother bit for putting too.”

  “I don’t think Angela would like that.”

  “No, she wouldn’t, but I’ll tell you one thing. If she made the hotel into a place where folk could practise their golf, she’d get a damn sight more customers.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  He replaced the flag. “I know I’m right. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “Lunch is on me,” I said, as our round had cost him almost €100 and would have been much dearer had we begun after nine o’clock.

  “All right, Alan, you’re the boss.”

  17

  A few days later, on returning from a spell of grafting at the hotel, I spotted Álvaro watering some plants outside his house, so I jumped out of the car and went to have a word, Zefe having been exiled to the town for a few days.

  “Nice plants, Álvaro.”

  “Hola, Alan. Yes, they were Zefe’s idea. He bought them for me at the garden centre.”

  “He likes coming up here, doesn’t he?”

  “Ha, if it were up to him he’d never go home.”

  “Yes, I’ve sometimes had that feeling too,” I said, wondering how best to broach the subject of Zefe maybe one day, in the not too distant future, installing himself in one of his spare bedrooms.

  “He loves staying in your annex.”

  “I know, and as soon as he arrives he comes down to see you, ha ha.”

  “Yes, he does, ha ha.”

  We laughed a bit more, and as I laughed I pictured Malcolm’s face, which I’d been seeing quite a lot of, because contrary to his avowed intentions he’d been roaming around the hotel like a moody lion, keeping both Gerardo and Malcolm very much on their toes. How would the big man have approached so delicate a subject? I asked myself.

  I cleared my throat and gazed into his eyes. “Álvaro, have you ever considered having Zefe as a lodger?”

  “As a lodger?”

  “Yes, as a lodger.”

  “Well...”

  “On a trial basis at first, of course, just to see how you get on together.”

  “I...”

  “With a view to him maybe moving in permanently.”

  He opened
his mouth again, to no avail.

  “That way you’d have more money to buy books, as I’d ensure… I’m sure he’d pay you a decent amount of rent.”

  I’d hoped that the magic word ‘books’ would make him see the light, but he continued to shuffle and squirm, struggling to get his head around the idea, I assumed.

  “As you know, Zefe is quite old now,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And he won’t be leaving anything to his son, because he never visits him.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “So I believe… did he?”

  “Yes, more than once. Alan, he has already dropped many hints about moving in with me, and also about the likelihood of my becoming his heir should I acquiesce to such a move. He’s even expressed a preference for that bedroom.” He pointed to a dusty first floor window. “And has offered to pay for a thorough cleaning of the house, a skip to take away all my unwanted stuff, and new furniture for the bedroom and whatever else I want.” He smiled grimly. “He can be a very persuasive man, Alan.”

  “I know he can.”

  “I’m not altogether averse to the idea, and the extra money would indeed be useful, but I’m worried that if he makes the initial monetary contribution that he wishes to, I’ll be forever in his debt, so if for whatever reason we cease to see eye to eye, it will put me in an awfully difficult position.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “So what do you suggest? Do you have any bright ideas as to how I can allow him to stay, on a trial basis, without compromising myself?”

  Malcolm still stood looking over me. “Yes,” I said firmly.

  “How?”

  Malcolm vanished. “I… I’ll ask Inma. She’s sure to know the best way to go about it.”

  “Thank you, Alan. Please let me know what she says before Monday, as when I pick him up he’ll begin to pressure me once more.” He sighed and set down the empty watering can. “How can I concentrate of expounding my ideas if he’s constantly looking up at the ceiling through which he sees his proposed bedroom?”

  I reassured him that Inma would know what to do, before driving home, kissing her, and succinctly summarising our conversation. Ten minutes later I was knocking on Álvaro’s door.