Seriously Mum, How Many Cats?

by Alan Parks

  We decided to visit the centre on the day of Primark’s opening. We have since discovered that there seems to be nothing Spaniards like better than the opening day of a new shop. On the morning in question we drove into the underground car park to find queues of people waiting for spaces. The only time we have seen similar scenes is during the feria, and only then because that car park is free.

  We drove around for 20 minutes and not being able to find a space, left the car park at the opposite end to where we had entered. Luckily, a car was just pulling out of a space outside and with a bit of manoeuvring I managed to squeeze Frank into the spot.

  “Something must be going on today. Surely this can’t be because of Primark?” I said as we locked the car.

  We entered the building and stepped onto the travelator up to the first floor. As we rose, I was looking at Lorna and her mouth dropped open. There were literally thousands of people queuing to get into Primark. Imagine the worst day on a bank holiday at Alton Towers or any popular theme park, and you will be on the right lines.

  The shop had instigated a policy of letting in a few people at a time and we could see people milling around the centre with their tell-tale paper carrier bags filled to bursting.

  “Well I guess as we are here, we may as well wait and have a look around,” Lorna suggested.

  So we waited.

  After about half an hour in the queue we were nearing the front. The excitement around us was palpable. There are a few Primark shops in Spain now, but most of the people here would never have seen anything like it.

  Once inside it was clear it was not the ideal day to look around in a relaxed manner. People were charging around the shop, seemingly throwing random things into baskets, and it was all the staff could do to keep the shelves filled. We saw people racking up bills of €100 and €200 at the tills, and coming away with bags and bags of shopping.

  Obviously, since that day, it has quietened down somewhat, but the opening of Primark has turned around a shopping centre that was dying slowly. So much so, that they have had to buy their security guards Segways.

  We sat down at our usual café to have a little something to eat before doing our shopping. Every few minutes one of the guards would zoom past on his Segway, leaning forward to propel the machine in the direction he wanted to go. They don’t seem to move very fast, and for manoeuvrability I think they must be a little difficult to get used to.

  After a few minutes we could hear a commotion coming from the other end of the centre. Of course, one of the things that the natives do have here is a keen interest in what is going on around them. You could see all the customers coming out of shops to see what was happening.

  All of a sudden, a scruffily dressed man came running past us, turned the corner and slipped on the shiny floor. He got up fast and carried on running. He was being followed by one of the guards, leaning forward on his Segway for all he was worth, chasing down the man and gaining on him. As the pursuit continued away from us we could see the two men weaving in and out of benches, litter bins and children as the thief tried to complete his escape.

  Just as he had almost succeeded, the villain of the piece caught his leg on a table outside a tapas bar and landed with a thump. This time the guard was onto him in a flash, rolling his machine over, jumping off and slapping a pair of handcuffs on him. He stood the thief up and dragged him onto the Segway and propelled himself back through the centre as though parading a trophy, mounted high on his carriage. Slowly, everybody drifted back to their shopping and Lorna and I back to our doughnuts.

  “Well, that is something you don’t see every day!” Lorna smiled.

  Chapter 6

  The Greyhound Man

  “There’s somebody different working on our olives at the moment. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Miguel around for weeks,” Lorna remarked.

  “Maybe he’s got stuff to do in Andujar or Andrea is at school. I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Anyway, there hasn’t been any rain for 18 months, so there aren’t any olives to pick.”

  A few more weeks went by, and while looking out of the window, staring into space, I noticed Miguel with another man dressed in work clothes and a flat cap. It looked like he was showing him around the olives. As fast as Miguel had reappeared, he vanished again.

  Before the end of that same week, a battered old horse transport van rumbled down the track and parked at the bottom, by Miguel’s gate. (For gate, read chain suspended between two posts and held in place by a padlock.)

  A lady, three kids and goodness knows how many dogs piled out of the van, followed by the same grizzly man who I had seen Miguel with previously. The dogs were barking and the kids were screaming. This was unusual; normally we’re surrounded by all the peace and tranquillity we could ever want.

  For the whole day all we could hear was children shouting, and dogs barking, running wildly around the land. That evening, the van trundled back down the hill, locked the gate and left. The same pattern continued for a few weeks and then The Greyhound Man (we had started referring to him as this, as two of the dogs that followed him faithfully were Spanish Galgos) appeared on the land.

  First he drove around the olives in his van and then, soon after, he was using Miguel’s tractor to work on the olives.

  While all this was happening, the two men who seemed to be working our own olives would turn up occasionally, do a bit of work, nod at us politely if we passed each other and go about their business. Winter was approaching and as luck would have it we saw Miguel pass the house one day on his tractor. He must have been here to check up on things.

  “Miguel! Necesito leña!” Miguel, I need wood!

  We didn’t have any the previous year and we were aware that before long we would be needing a fire in the evenings.

  “No hay problema. Mañana!” he said and trundled off on his tractor.

  The following day we returned from a visit to Montoro to find a pile of chopped olive wood outside the gate. It wasn’t loads, but it was a gesture and would get us started for the winter. We didn’t know if it had come from Miguel, The Greyhound Man or the two new chaps working on our trees. The two men had been seen collecting wood on the land, so we were hopeful that more would be delivered soon. On one occasion I came out to check on the alpacas and found the men parked outside on their ancient tractor, throwing pieces of wood over the fence.

  “Hola!” I said to them.

  They just threw faster and left as quickly as possible, without saying a word.

  I had begun to feel a little uneasy about The Greyhound Man as I am only too aware that here in Spain, greyhounds, or Galgos as the Spanish call them, are used for hunting rabbits. Once they become too old for hunting, or if they are bad hunters, they often get hung from a tree by the Galguero. So I was worried that one day we would find these dogs hanging from a tree.

  One night, after The Greyhound Man had left for the night, we could hear a crying coming from the hill up to the house. We soon worked out that he had left one or more of the dogs up at the house. The first few nights were bad. Our dogs could hear the new dogs and night-time was particularly noisy. Arthur was very unhappy. Imagine the scene at the start of 101 Dalmatians; that was it.

  As time passed, The Greyhound Man would appear every few days, hopefully to feed the dogs and work on the land. Sometimes, he just left without even shutting them in the fencing. They chased him down the track and then made their way home once he was out of sight.

  In more recent times, he has even moved horses onto his land. Sadly, the horses are hobbled (their front legs tied together in an attempt to stop them escaping). I recently had an opportunity to talk to the vet from the local OCA office (our equivalent of DEFRA) and she told me that they were able to impose big fines on people who do that to horses, and I did quietly mention the horses around us that were being mistreated.

  A few days ago, out on one of my walks, I saw three of The Greyhound Man’s horses roaming the countryside, but their legs were free.
I am not sure if the vet had anything to do with it, but I hope so. I have a dream that if we ever get to move house, the day we leave I will take a knife and cut the ropes used to hobble all of the horses we see around us.

  Chapter 7

  Semana Santa

  When you think of Easter, what is the first thing that comes into your head? Be honest. I bet it’s chocolate eggs. Did you know that it is in fact a religious celebration? I am joking with you, of course, but I do think that sometimes we lose sight of why we celebrate these things in the UK.

  One of the things we love about our life in Spain is the lack of commercialisation of holidays such as Easter and Christmas. I remember going into a supermarket in England as early as February and there being a whole aisle dedicated to mass-produced chocolate eggs. Visit similar shops here in Spain and you’ll struggle to find a chocolate egg anywhere.

  “Do you want to see Padre Jesus come out on Thursday night?” Ricardo, our good Spanish friend, had asked us over dinner the previous week. “It is amazing. Everyone in Montoro come out and cram in to the square like sardine. It make me cry.”

  Ricardo ran a finger slowly down from one of his piercing blue eyes. The emotion was obvious and already building up.

  Before I could jump in with an excuse Lorna replied.

  “We’d love to,” she said. “I want to see it.”

  Lorna is a Catholic and whilst these days she does not visit church regularly she still holds her faith close to her heart.

  Semana Santa (Holy Week) begins on Palm Sunday and finishes on what we call Easter Sunday. Easter Monday is of no significance religiously speaking, either in Spain or the UK, just a reason for a bank holiday.

  The main features of the week are the daily processions, during which large statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus are carried around the town by brotherhoods from the different churches. These brotherhoods practice for weeks beforehand; some of the effigies can weigh up to five tons and they must be carried on the shoulders of the Costaleros (people carrying). The statues are often made from precious metal and sit on large, ornate wooden bases. There is even one day when the statue is carried solely by a group of women.

  At the start of the week we popped into Cordoba to watch one of the processions. We had seen the pointed hoods before, and they do look similar to the hoods worn by the notorious KKK in the US, but these hoods do not signify anything threatening, and even young children wear them.

  While we were watching one of the parades in Cordoba, it was pretty obvious that the Costaleros carrying the statue of Jesus through the streets were taking it in turns to have a break from carrying, grabbing a swig of beer from somebody in the crowd and a quick cigarette, and then ducking back under and giving somebody else a break.

  Recently we had had the fortune to meet some lovely new friends. Richard and Natalie had bought some land in the Montoro countryside and were building their own house. They have two young children, Rosie, 4 and Henry, 3. Natalie got in touch with us through the wonderful world of the Internet and we met up for a drink and have got along like a house on fire ever since. Rosie was involved in a miniature version of Semana Santa with her school, and along with Ricardo and Rita, Ricardo’s English wife, we had been invited to come along and watch. The parade was taking place on Thursday morning, then Ricardo and Rita would come back to our house (after lunch in town) and spend the evening with us, have some dinner and then head out to watch Padre Jesus leave the church at 4am!

  We arranged to meet at a bar and as usual we were last to arrive. Rosie was getting ready at school and Henry was in a state of excitement. He had been given some chocolate and when we arrived he kept asking to be thrown around or hung upside down. What could I say? I didn’t know he had been filled up with the sweets, so I obliged.

  As time went on we made our way along the road so we could catch a glimpse of the children in the parade. Henry was still hyperactive and running all over. The parade went by in a flash, but it was a full miniature version, including a band and even a tiny effigy for the children to carry. There was one hilarious moment though, as one of the local dogs, who lives in the stationers and often walks himself, obviously decided he wanted to be involved too, and he ran up to the children, in and out of their legs, barking as he went. No-one seemed to mind too much and there were plenty of smiles luckily.

  At the end, Natalie had to escort Rosie back to school, so we went back to the bar where we had met. We all sat down for a drink, but Henry was being suspiciously quiet sitting on a bench in the shade. After a few minutes, Natalie returned having safely dispatched Rosie to school. She sat down with a sigh, exhausted and took a sip from a cold beer. Just then, Henry wandered over, stood in front of his Mum, looked a bit sad and promptly threw up all over her. Poor Natalie! You should have seen Lorna move. She went in to the bar ‘to find some tissues’, but I knew it was only an excuse to escape the vomiting child.

  Of course that put paid to our day, but arrangements were made for Ricardo and Rita to come and stay at The Olive Mill on Thursday night and we would all go and see Montoro’s biggest procession.

  On Thursday morning the weather was horrendous and we were highly doubtful that the day’s processions would go ahead, but Ricardo and Rita decided to come over anyway, even if we had to stay in. Most of the day was spent watching the weather developments on a variety of websites, and during the evening it looked as if the rain was due to clear during the early part of the night.

  Padre Jesus was due to leave the church at 4am and it seemed as if all might be OK, so we got dressed and ready to leave the house at midnight. We thought that we’d get a drink and then have a look in the churches and bag ourselves a prime viewing spot before the masses arrived.

  As we drove in to Montoro, it was still raining and the streets were deserted. We found a place to park and unloaded the folding chairs from the boot of the car (Ricardo and Rita were prepared). We managed to find a small bar that was open and ordered some drinks. Ricardo was asking the barman if he knew whether or not the night’s festivities were going to go ahead, but the man shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  After our drink we were on the move again and we paid a visit to a couple of nearby churches which had men on duty in them, guarding the valuable effigies. They are huge and often embellished with gold and silver, and probably worth a lot of money. In one of the churches we discovered that the guard was a member of one of the brotherhoods involved. Apparently, they had been in touch with someone in Seville, where the processions had left the church already, and the better weather was heading in the direction of Montoro. Padre Jesus would be leaving the church.

  We went to go and bag our spot on the deserted pavements. Ricardo was adamant that come 4am there would not be a place for us to stand, but I was doubtful. There was only the odd, lonely soul walking the streets, wrapped up against the inclement weather.

  As time passed, the square outside the church started to fill up with people and there was a bit of a buzz in the atmosphere. By the time it was nearly 4am there were hundreds, or even thousands, of people crammed into the small square, all looking at the entrance of the church.

  The first action was when the Roman centurions marched to the church to guide Jesus out. They were playing trumpets and the massed crowd parted for them as they approached.

  The soldiers seemed to be followed into the square by even more people. Everybody was standing shoulder to shoulder and there was nowhere to move. I looked around and, to a man, everyone had their eyes fixed on the doorway of the church. There was an audible crackle of electricity in the atmosphere.

  After a few minutes, there was movement inside the church. We could just make out the purple cloaks of the men that were carrying the effigy as they approached. There was a hum in the crowd as people murmured in hushed voices. Everybody was transfixed.

  At the arched doorway, the statue had to be lowered slightly and moved slowly forward to get out. Just before they exi
ted, all the streetlights were turned off and the crowd went silent. Still the statue shuffled forward, inch by inch. As they emerged into the square the lights came on suddenly, a lone trumpeter blared and everybody started clapping. Then the men had to hoist the statue back up on to their shoulders. I counted 60 men underneath Jesus that night. For the next few minutes, time seemed to stand still. The men holding Jesus up started to sway, slowly at first but picking up speed and a lone man in the crowd started to sing. The Montoreños just stood and stared.

  I looked over at Ricardo and he had a single tear running down his cheek.

  By this time the crowd had swelled further, yet the procession needed to exit the square. I just couldn’t see how it was going to happen, but, as the procession began to move, a small space appeared in front of them as the people seemed to just squeeze into each other. Slowly, about a metre at a time, the statue made its way out of the square. It took about half an hour for the procession to move about ten metres.

  Just as it moved away a lady in the crowd sang. It felt as though she was just singing spontaneously, but I am sure it was decided beforehand that she would sing at that time.

  Some of the crowd were following Jesus as he moved down towards the main plaza in Montoro, but there were a few spots of rain and umbrellas were being raised, so we decided it might be a good idea to head home and hopefully escape the worst of the weather.

  Witnessing Padre Jesus leaving the church on his journey was, for me, humbling, if only to see all those people that were so completely ‘in the moment’. I have never been and will never be, religious, but I do understand how it gives people great comfort and, living in a small traditional town like Montoro, I cannot help but come into contact with it most days.

  Chapter 8

  It’s a Bloody Business

  Lorna hadn’t been ‘quite right’ ever since she had returned from the UK after the start of her dental work. She was finding it difficult to eat and seemed to be living on bread and jam for a lot of the time. One day I found her sitting on the settee pinching a tissue around her nose.