Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  ‘I hope you’re not in a rush then,’ Joy was becoming agitated in the stifling heat of Julie’s poky waiting room. She started to fan herself with a copy of Island Connections, the local newspaper.

  This was by no means our first foray into Julie’s world of ceiling-high paperwork, half-empty coffee cups and interminable waits. Time was of no importance. Specific appointments were merely general indicators of the day you were requested to camp in her office. A quick drop-in to pick up a piece of paper could take three hours - one hour waiting for her to show up, another hour before she managed to disconnect herself from the telephone and another hour whilst she complained about how busy she was and what new problems this latest addition to our library of forms would ensue.

  When we were eventually seen, at 5.30 p.m., Julie went through the lengthy process of repeating how we were running a high risk of Joy getting deported and that we should legally employ her and pay her a wage. However, if we contracted her as a part-time worker this would save on the tax bill and mean we only had to fork out a small amount on social security payments.

  This simple solution hadn’t been mentioned before but Julie offered it as though it was old news.

  ‘Why didn’t you suggest that before?’ asked Joy.

  ‘They’ve only just changed the rules,’ replied Julie. ‘It’s hard to keep up. Until recently all businesses had to offer any jobs to locals before employing a foreigner.’ Joy was to be contracted as working 10 hours per week. There was still a slight risk as the hours she was supposed to be at work had to be specified on the form but at least if she was found out now it would only lead to a fine, not deportation.

  It was true that the rules were changing on an almost daily basis. Since the foreign invasion, bureaucracy had replaced bananas as the number one preoccupation for the Canarian workforce. As the influx of foreigners was more sudden than anticipated, the authorities had to quickly develop a system of registration formalities and administrative procedures. This they did with great aplomb but nobody told them when to stop. Sheaves of triple copy forms were produced in varying colours, all demanding the submission of supporting coloured copies that could only be procured by the presentation of certain other legal documents.

  Every form had to be presented in quadruplicate, accompanied by three other supporting documents, two brown envelopes plus a note from your mother explaining why you were late returning it. Invariably this was because the letter urging you to do so arrived five days after the demand date thanks to another of the Canary Islands’ inadequate institutions, the postal service.

  Our legal adviser had also informed us that it had been decreed that all catering establishments were required to obtain a health and hygiene certificate before an opening licence would be issued.

  In theory we weren’t supposed to open the bar without this but as it was two years since Mario served the first customer, we regarded this lack of paperwork as a triviality. However, a routine inspection by two uniformed officers from the local police further enforced our intention to do things by the book.

  To gain the health and hygiene certificate the kitchen department, namely David and me, had to attend a two-day course on correct practice in the workplace and apply for medical certificates validating that we were free from contagious disease and any hindering impediments. This certification proved easier to obtain than we feared. An appointment was made with a local doctor who seated us at his desk, smiled and asked us if we were feeling okay. On hearing a positive response he stamped two proclamations of good health in exchange for the equivalent of 20 quid and wished us a good day. We were now medically entitled to carry out culinary operations. We just needed to go on the course to prove we were of sound enough mind not to poison too many people.

  Inevitably, Joy’s form-filling involved yet another one-hour drive north to Santa Cruz, the island’s capital. We had already been this way before to register our residency at the consulate and also to apply for work permits for David and me. It was not a trip we enjoyed. The bureaucracy required both David and me, as official partners, to go and sign everything. This meant at least two of us were out of action for most of the day, putting extra strain on the girls.

  On this particular occasion, Joy, as the intended employee, also had to present herself, which meant we had to shut the bar for most of the daytime and lose money. But the most aggravating thing about our paperwork quests up north was that more often than not they were unsuccessful.

  We knew that as soon as we entered the police station or foreign office or department of health and social security, a frumpish bulldog would be assigned with the sole intention of barking a curt ‘No!’ even before we’d had the chance to explain our raison d’être.

  And this was no normal ‘no’, delivered with a hint of pity and suggestions of alternative routes. The rejections that we were served with were full-blooded, self-satisfying absolute refusals served with a strong side order of condescension. Apparently we either had produced the wrong documentation, presented it in an unsatisfactory manner, at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes and with just the wrong inflection in our voices. The official ‘No-ers’ would not be moved, no matter that we had a business to run and couldn’t afford to return the following day and thereby lose a consecutive day’s profits. No matter that we had risen at 6.30 a.m., driven all the way from the south and spent an hour trying to find a parking space in a city that had none and on an interminably stupid one-way system that flung you back south if you accidentally missed the unsigned turnoff.

  It might have made an inkling of difference if the capital was a pretty city. But in 1991 it wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination. The first monument that greeted travellers from the south was a shoreline oil refinery whose odour was twice as unpleasant as its intestinal architecture. Once in the centre, a hotchpotch of architectural styles dotted the ubiquitous Plaza de España, a place where gypsies would swarm at you waving linen tablecloths and frilly pillowcases like a flock of ghosts. And that was your reward for enduring a white-knuckle ride along the TF-1, a testing ground for kamikaze taxi drivers and 16-year-old rally wannabees.

  We entered the police station with a large sigh, a foreboding sense of doom and a bulging folder containing every piece of paper we’d collected since history was invented.

  Inside, all seemed calm. The only noises were the low hum of fluorescent lighting and a periodic ‘clack’ as a large bespectacled man in the background cautiously poked at his computer keyboard. Every tap was followed by an uncertain glance up, checking that every letter typed was in fact making its way from fingertip to screen. Satisfied that it was, he would then gaze around looking for someone with whom to share his accomplishment.

  ‘Take a number’ the sign said. I looked up at the electronic counter - ‘13’ it read. Our ticket said 112. We sat down and flicked disinterestedly through a couple of faded Hola! magazines that had been thoughtfully provided in 1987.

  The minutes moved on but the numbers didn’t. Whatever problem befell the elderly English couple at the desk; it was not being rectified despite their exasperated insistence in front of the shoulder-shrugging assistant. They had given up struggling with the local tongue and were now remonstrating in strong Geordie accents. The girl behind the counter had suddenly acquired an inability to speak English and was having none of it. She shooed them off with a wave of her hand and summoned the next in line. The Geordies sauntered off, red-faced, clutching the wad of seemingly ineffectual forms. They had my sympathy. Several times before we had failed to impress a paper-shuffler, only to return the following day with a different clerk on duty who would then process our paperwork with not the slightest of fuss.

  Eventually, with a colossal leap from 18 to 112, the counter indicated that it was our turn. I passed over the bundle of papers.

  ‘Do you have the 123 and the 234?’

  I lifted the top copy and there indeed they were. The girl scanned every detail trying desperately to find a reason why the
y shouldn’t be accepted.

  ‘Residencia,’ she demanded, annoyance now creeping into her voice.

  This we produced and frustrated again, she moved up a gear, converting back to Spanish to try and throw us.

  ‘Did you submit your double ‘O’ seven, fill in a 36C and receive a signed copy of the B52s?’

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘Have you ever taken an A2B, forwarded a 4-4-2 and been given a T4-2 or a 2-4T?’

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last month.’

  Her face lit up as if she’d tripped over a bucketful of gold.

  ‘Then it’s expired’.

  She sat back in the chair contented. Her smug expression and folded arms evidently insinuated that she was done with me and victory was hers, but we were not giving in this time. We’d faced worse than her. We’d been to the foreign office and fought with the best, where, after half a dozen trips north trying to secure my work permit, I was only narrowly defeated by a classic jobsworth. She feigned everything from selective deafness to complete ignorance (although looking back I don’t think there was much feigning about that) and beat me on a technicality - an eleventh hour change of rules.

  From our folder I slowly produced another form. Our eyes locked in a Mexican standoff. As she saw the form, her mouth dropped and we both knew I had won. We had the notorious re-submitted, double stamped, top yellow copy of form 666. A valid extension from hell. The lights flickered, horrified heads turned to stare and the girl behind the counter shielded her eyes.

  ‘Sign it,’ she screamed, tossing a chewed biro onto the desk. The clock chimed twelve as we flung open the doors. The daylight streamed in causing the clerks to wince and groan. We had won. Joy was at last going to be legal, well, part-time legal anyway.

  There were around twenty of us huddled in a small lecture room at the town hall, ready to be hygienically educated. The Canarians were seated at the front, notebooks, pens and pencils at the ready. The other half were foreigners like myself who had not been advised as to what may be necessary and were trying to borrow pens from each other.

  From what we could gather, day one would involve learning about what we could and couldn’t do in catering via a slide show, lectures and reading material. Day two would be concerned with seeing how much of it we had absorbed by means of a multiple-choice questionnaire.

  The lights dimmed and the slide show commenced. Pictures of pans, chopping boards, cats struck with large red crosses and various examples of fire extinguishers slid before our eyes as the young man in charge explained the relevance of each and answered questions from the Canarian contingent.

  It became quickly apparent that no English was going to be spoken that day and the Brits looked at each other as we realised the maximum we could contribute was our attendance.

  After a short break for lunch, the course resumed. Within minutes a pack of cards was produced and whist broke out at the back. For three more hours, occasional glances were thrown at pictures of cattle and cauliflowers projected onto the front wall.

  The test paper consisted of 35 questions of which you were expected to get at least 30 correct to qualify for a certificate. There didn’t seem to be too much fuss made when consultations were made over some of the more obscure questions. Others, like, ‘Are cows allowed in the kitchen?’ needed little help to choose the right box to tick from ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Sometimes’. All the foreigners passed with exactly the same score - 34 out of 35. The question that baffled us all was so obscure as to defy all logic and neither of the three answer options provided a satisfactory response. But we had passed and been certified and could now add this qualification to the bundle of papers that were required by law before you could boil an egg for payment.

  Equal informality was apparent on our health and hygiene inspection that surprised us one particularly frantic morning. We had both woken up late after a frustrating night struggling to separate a table of six French timeshare salesmen from two glasses of beer that they had been nursing for over an hour. It was 2 a.m. and everyone else had left. We had washed up, swept and mopped around the remaining table. We cashed up in the kitchen and finally turned the lights off but still they remained resolute. Finally they left when we took the half-full glasses and told them we were going.

  In the morning we had less than an hour to get to the cash and carry and prepare the restaurant for opening. A queue of people clutching newspapers had formed outside the bar as I pushed past with the last of the boxes of supplies. With no time to put them away I dropped the boxes wherever there was a space and lit the oven in readiness for the orders. A tray of chicken fillets lay half-tenderised to one side and several oranges rolled off a box of Iceberg lettuce that was balanced precariously on 24 double-ply toilet rolls.

  ‘Four full breakfasts and a scrambled egg on toast. Then two full and two bacon sandwiches,’ Joy looked around at the mess but could see my eyebrows were raised and said no more.

  The eggs were spitting viciously at me when Joy returned. ‘Joe, the health inspectors are here.’

  I turned around and over Joy’s shoulder could see two teenage girls holding a clipboard. I wondered for a second if it was a wind-up.

  ‘Them?’ I asked, waving a spatula at the two girls who had now started giggling.

  They strode over the packets of serviettes that were littering the floor and asked in broken English if they could look around.

  ‘Si, si. Be my guest. We’re in a bit of a mess this morning though,’ I started to explain but they were too busy trying to find out how to open one of the fridge doors.

  ‘Handle came off yesterday.’ I smiled and kicked the bottom rim with my foot. It sprung open. The girls looked at each other. The one with the clipboard wrote something down. The other seemed quite impressed with my Tupperware collection. ‘Bien,’ she said. They seemed to be playing ‘good cop, bad cop’.

  ‘Tienes un uniforme?’ asked the clipboard.

  I motioned towards the aprons that were hanging from the First Aid cabinet. She asked me to put it on. After checking the interior temperature of the freezers, looking into the extractor hood and standing on one of the stray oranges, they signed a form, asked for my autograph and disappeared giggling again.

  I didn’t know if we were to be congratulated or condemned until a week later when a letter arrived telling us that we were officially regarded as healthy and hygienic and the confirming certificate could now proudly be displayed on the wall. ‘Possibly in the kitchen,’ I thought, over the hole through which cockroaches made a hasty retreat from our napalm bug spraying.

  CHAPTER 9

  Having been informed about the latest rule change that abolished the need to employ Spaniards before foreigners meant that we could now think about taking on some extra help over summer. Faith was becoming increasingly discontent, adding to the strain.

  Her latest outburst involved a kilo of sugar and a box of Golden Delicious. Apparently she had now developed a fear of baking and couldn’t sleep because of crust-topped nightmares. In order to save her last remaining shreds of sanity, Faith was relieved of pie-making duties.

  Fortunately one of the very few culinary skills that we had imported between us was Joy’s knack of baking apple pies. The Smugglers had recently gained a reputation for its exceedingly good cakes, apple in particular. Holidaymakers with all the time in the world to chat (but a disproportionate lack of subjects about which to chat) would bask around the pool and make plans for their next meal, which invariably would include the famous Smugglers Tavern apple pie.

  Sunlounger marketing was so efficient that by mid-morning we would receive a procession of people popping their heads into the kitchen to save a slab of Joy’s speciality. No matter how many we made, the majority of slices had already been claimed by the time the evening meals started.

  The same was true of our weekly fish and chip special. David had developed his own batter, trying out various secret ingredients before choosing half a pin
t of Dorada as the winning addition. The crispy cod was another sure-fire winner, especially with the older set who ‘knew what they were getting with a nice piece of fish’. For some stalwarts even our “Hawaiian Burgers”, simply chicken breast crowned with a pineapple ring, would prove too exotic for simple palates: ‘Hawaiian burger? Oooh nooooo. Foreign food doesn’t agree with me. Have you not got anything like curry or bolognaise?’

  Although the menu could hardly be called inventive, aside from the odd, extravagant excursion offered by David, it consisted of meals that we knew would sell, principally steak, chicken, pork chops, mixed grills, burgers, salads and omelettes.

  By now our meal count averaged around 40-50 breakfasts and lunches combined, and 70-90 evening meals. Naturally we had had to increase our efficiency to turn around more tables but it was no mean feat in the searing temperatures. All the more draining as we now also provided entertainment in the evening. We needed help.

  We knew it was going to be almost impossible to find anybody that could cook and that would endure the heat and pace of the kitchen for the paltry wages we were offering. The biggest help that we could hope for would be a couple that could come in after all the food had been served and clean up and run the bar until closing time. This would at least put an end to some of the 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. bedtimes that we were suffering now it was summer.

  The most annoying nights were when only one or two tables remained at a relatively decent hour. Thoughts of an early night would prevail especially if all remaining tables ordered the bill before midnight. It was hard to resist breathing a sigh of relief and start visualising fleecy bed sheets. But, as Murphy would have it, the plot would always change. Just as the last people were bidding their goodnights, after the floor had been mopped and all the tables cleaned, a taxi full of young revellers who had been turned out of a club in Las Americas would shatter the pre-sleep calm and crash into the bar like a herd of rabid cattle.