Seriously Mum, How Many Cats?

by Alan Parks

  “Are you OK?” I was a little concerned.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry, just a bit of a nosebleed, that’s all,” she assured me.

  But over the next few days, she had one of these nosebleeds every day. Some days, it went on for what seemed like ages, and on others it stopped quickly, but to be honest, it didn’t seem like much to worry about. Lorna is quite private and would take herself off, rather than be seen leaning over the sink bleeding profusely. One day, when she did just this, I wasn’t overly concerned. However, time passed by, and after a half hour or so I went to see if she was OK.

  “Are you alright?”

  “It just keeps going…” Lorna replied, “and I feel a bit dizzy.”

  “Sit down on the toilet, I don’t want you fainting.”

  It was a throwaway comment really.

  “Oh no, that made me feel worse...”

  Lorna stood to move towards the sink. She started to splash cold water on her face.

  “Are you OK? Really?” I asked her.

  She didn’t reply. I went over to see if she was alright and just as I reached her, she groaned and started to fall. Luckily, I was there to catch her, and I lowered her to the floor and put her into the recovery position. I didn’t know what to do and I was more than a little worried. About 30 seconds later she woke up.

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted. Don’t move too fast. I think we’d better get you to a doctor.”

  Gradually Lorna stood up, with a bit of support from me, and we moved to the sofa.

  “I don’t even remember what happened,” she said.

  “I’m going to phone Jorge and see if he wouldn’t mind coming with us to the doctor. I think we should get you checked out.”

  I telephoned Jorge, our pharmacist friend who spoke fluent English, and arranged to collect him outside his house so that he could come with us to translate at the medical centre. Lorna was looking washed out.

  After picking up Jorge, who looked at Lorna with sympathy, we headed into the centre and handed over Lorna’s medical card. Our usual doctor wasn’t there, but another man came to see her. He listened to her heart, checked her blood pressure and pulled down her eyelids to look at the colour underneath.

  “Low iron,” he told Jorge. “Very low iron. She should get checked at the hospital.”

  It was about 3pm, mid-siesta, but Jorge insisted that I take Lorna immediately in case she needed a blood transfusion.

  Driving as fast as possible, but not so fast as to draw attention to ourselves from the Guardia Civil, we got to the hospital about an hour later. We approached the reception desk and although we always try to use Spanish whenever possible, sometimes, such as in a medical emergency, we ask if anybody speaks English. We think it is best to be as clear as we can about symptoms, and for us that would be in English. Of course, no such luck.

  We knew the word for blood was sangre, so I mimicked a nosebleed, while saying “Mucha sangre,” and then pretended to faint. The lady behind the desk seemed to understand, scanned Lorna’s card and sent us through to what we would call triage. The same scenario unfolded. We were given a folder and sent to wait on chairs until we were taken through to the next room. There we handed our folder to a lady behind the desk and she waved us towards a waiting room. We found ourselves two seats and hoped we wouldn’t have too long a wait.

  After about an hour (we didn’t think that was too long; it was about 5pm by then), we were called into a room. There was a young doctor and a nurse and between them they spoke a tiny bit of English. We explained what had happened and they did a very thorough check on Lorna, including an ECG, and we were told to go back to the waiting area and we would be called.

  So we settled back in and waited. The emergency department here in Cordoba feels very different to one in the UK. As well as the usual people waiting, sitting on chairs, there are always a lot of elderly people, some of whom look at death’s door, lying on trolleys being wheeled in and out.

  There was one elderly man we had noticed, who looked as though he’d had a nasty fall or been in a fight. He had scratches and cuts on his head and was lying on his trolley, groaning. At one stage he stumbled to his feet and staggered across the room to the toilets, before making his way back to his trolley, heaving himself back up there and sighing with relief. After a time he was wheeled away and before we had been called he had come back down, stitched up, cleaned up and looking a different man as he left.

  Then there was an elderly lady accompanied by somebody who looked like she may have been her daughter. They had wanted to strike up a conversation with Lorna (I tend not to look particularly approachable in these situations, but Lorna attracts people), and Lorna had tried to say she didn’t speak Spanish, but the old lady wouldn’t take no for an answer. She kept talking to Lorna and giggling, which made her daughter and Lorna giggle. She was like a naughty little girl.

  Finally, a hugely overweight lady in a wheelchair sat next to us, again accompanied by a daughter. Again, they tried to talk to Lorna, but this conversation didn’t take off. It was very warm in the room and after a while the large lady sent her daughter off somewhere. After a few minutes she came back carrying something and handed it to her mother. It looked like a large adult nappy. It was a large adult nappy! Lorna and I glanced at each other with dread. Surely this wasn’t going to happen? But no. The daughter went off again, to buy some food this time, and the mother just stayed sitting there, fanning herself with her adult nappy.

  “You’d better make a note of that for the next book,” Lorna said to me.

  Time passed slowly. I’d played Angry Birds until the phone no longer had any battery power and visited the toilet more than enough. At around 8.30pm we were called back into the consulting room.

  “You can go. Everything is OK,” said the young doctor. No prescription, nothing. “You just have a low iron count. Go and see your doctor.”

  When we got home we called Jorge to tell him the news.

  “Come into the Farmacia in the morning, I will give you some medicine and we will arrange to see the doctor,” he said.

  Jorge thought the best thing for Lorna was to take an iron supplement until we could see the doctor. The one he gave us looked like little vials of blood and Lorna had to drink one each day, mixed with orange juice. When we went to see the doctor, again he pulled down Lorna’s eyelid and said, “Low iron,” and gave us a prescription for the same medicine.

  After that incident, Lorna hasn’t had another nosebleed, and she is no longer on the prescription.

  Chapter 9

  Death of Zumba…Long Live Sevillana

  Over the Winter, when it was dark and gloomy outside, at the end of Lorna’s Zumba classes on a Thursday evening, we were being hassled and harried to leave the room as soon as the clock turned 8pm. There was a group of ladies waiting, with one stern-faced woman who seemed to be in charge. I would always take the music system out to the car and Lorna would follow me when she was ready. One time I was left waiting for a few minutes and she came out to the car excited.

  “They’re learning Sevillana dancing, Alan. I was watching them. I’d love to learn.”

  Over the next few weeks, at the end of the class Lorna would linger longer and longer, trying to pluck up the courage to ask if she could join the class. She had even been looking online at Sevillana dancers and she was so excited, but she was scared. One particular evening, I must have waited 45 minutes in the car before Lorna came out, all smiles and looking a bit flustered.

  “I did it! I asked about joining in and she let me try it out for a while. I love it.”

  So Lorna started to attend the Sevillana classes after Zumba.

  The Zumba classes were not going well. After the summer break, we only had a handful of regular attendees, and sometimes only two or three people per class.

  “Let’s give it a couple more weeks,” we kept saying.

  Then, of course, Lorna had her fainting incident and we had to ca
ncel classes for a couple of weeks, after which the classes never recovered. We pottered along until the Christmas break and decided to try and relaunch in the New Year. Sadly, throughout January not one lady came to any of the classes, so we had to stop them. However, by now Lorna was so in love with Sevillana she wanted to continue.

  I always thought it should be helping her Spanish language loads, but she doesn’t seem to learn much each week, but attending this new class reignited her love of dancing.

  One evening when I collected her, she came to the car all flustered and blushing.

  “They’re so funny. They were talking about you. I didn’t understand of course, but they said hombre and fucki fucki and were pointing to the car with much hilarity!”

  After about six months of going to the classes Lorna was invited along to attend the Cordoba feria with some of the ladies. She was desperate to go and had arranged to meet the ladies mid-afternoon at the feria. Sadly, the night before, we received a text message telling us that one of the ladies’ dad had died that day, and his funeral was going to be the following day, so the outing was off.

  Lorna was disappointed, so we decided to head out to the feria ourselves during the day instead.

  We had only ever been to the Cordoba feria at night-time before, which we have always loved. Seeing the lights of the feria ground and hearing the loud music coming from the tents dotted around always created an amazing atmosphere.

  We parked the car in a shopping centre car park across the road to avoid paying the fee to park in the feria ground itself, as it costs about €8 and it is still a fair old walk.

  We sat and had a sneaky lunch, watching the ladies and girls passing by in their feria dresses. We saw women pulling purses out of bras, or stowing small bags in garter belts underneath the flowing, colourful dresses. Does anyone look bad in one of those dresses? It doesn’t seem like it; it looked like a parade of beautiful women, of all ages and shapes. There were men dressed up in Cordobés hats, very tight trousers and crisp white shirts and braces. Mostly these outfits were worn by the men riding horses or driving the horse-drawn carts around the feria.

  As we crossed the road, the atmosphere seemed to be much more relaxed than on previous occasions. There were lots of families milling about and children running and playing in the fountains. Usually, when we’ve arrived in the evenings, it’s been so crowded we’ve been almost shoulder to shoulder and in the hot weather it can be stifling. This afternoon was pretty pleasant, although, as always, it was hot in the sun.

  We decided to do our usual thing and go for a walk around the fairground rides. Neither Lorna nor I have an interest in going on them, but it is nice to see the children having fun and funny to see the older kids being thrown about on some of the more violent attractions.

  We were sad to see that there were still the live equine carousels, using miniature donkeys and horses for the children to ride on. We had hoped that these might have been banned after we heard about one donkey dying at the Seville fair, but sadly not. Although the animals did look in better condition than some we see in the campo, we just couldn’t understand how it still happens in this day and age. We have never even taken a photograph of one of these rides.

  We witnessed small girls and boys wearing full copies of the outfits that their parents were wearing, but playing in that carefree way that only children can. Hook-a-duck, dodgems and miniature log flumes were all proving popular. This year the Cordoba fair was also hosting the biggest temporary Ferris wheel anywhere in Europe, and gigantic it was too. I managed to persuade Lorna to take a ride on the wheel with me, and it certainly provided the best views of the fair we had ever seen.

  We decided to have a wander around the casetas to see if we could see any traditional Sevillana dancing. We were surprised to see the casetas were heaving, even at this quiet time of the day. The music was pumping out; from children’s favourites like Whigfield’s Saturday Night to the latest chart toppers in the European dance charts. Outside many of the casetas there were girls dressed in very short hot pants, trying to lure youngsters in with promises of special offers on drinks and entry fees, much as you would expect to see in a club resort like Ibiza.

  As we walked along, all of a sudden, people started diving out of the way, as a van of the Policía Local passed us. This was followed by tens of horses, some with men on the back, some with ladies riding side-saddle and plenty more with carriages filled with ladies in gypsy dresses.

  When they reached the end of the road, a man in a suit, accompanied by yet more Policía, pulled all the horses over. He then checked each owner had the paperwork necessary to be at the fair, all whilst under the midday sun.

  It was the first time we have ever seen any kind of paperwork checking for horses. We have always felt that alpaca owners get a bit of a hard time (not us, but friends of ours) when it comes to moving animals to and from farms, and it has always looked to us as though horses can be moved as and when they like. We often see them being transported from one place to another in the back of beaten up old vans, exchanging males to be used for breeding on another farm.

  After that little show, we did manage to peek around the corner into one of the casetas where there was some Sevillana taking place, but, without her friends from the class, Lorna wasn’t brave enough to join in. We stood and watched for a while. Then it was off to the churros stand. (Churros is a doughnut-like fried mixture, often shaped in a huge spiral and is served with piping hot, thick hot chocolate, and no feria visit is complete without churros) before heading home for the evening. We’d had a most relaxing afternoon.

  Chapter 10

  Stranger in the Night

  As the nights got longer and longer we got to the stage where we would be going out for Lorna’s Sevillana class after dark, and by the time we returned home at about 10.30pm there was no-one left in the campo and no lights anywhere. At times like this, it can be both a little unnerving and also a little awe-inspiring. Even in the winter, often the sky is clear, the moon is huge and the stars are infinite. Just looking up into the sky makes us realise how small and insignificant we really are.

  One night we were driving home after the class and as we turned a corner on the dark track I caught a bright flash of light from across the trees. Then, as quick as it had appeared, it was gone.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Lorna.

  “No,” she replied, “I was looking out for the dogs.”

  Sometimes there are guard dogs on the track. They live at one of the cortijos and can jump out at the car at night. If one isn’t expecting it, it can take one by surprise.

  “I thought I saw a flash of light, across the hill, but maybe I was wrong.”

  We passed by the dogs without incident and rounded the bend by the old ruin. It’s a blind corner and I used to beep the horn as I turned, but these days I rarely do. I turned to say something to Lorna and as I did, I could see her face change; the colour drained in surprise, and she looked a little scared.

  “STOP! Look!”

  She pointed forwards and I turned back to the road expecting to see the dogs, or a horse, but instead there was a woman standing in front of our car.

  “Shit! What’s going on here?”

  Horrific scenarios flashed through my mind, warnings of scam artists trying to distract you to get you out of the car and rob you. It didn’t even occur to me that our track, especially at 10.30pm, would be a pretty strange place to wait for someone to come past by chance in order to rob them.

  The lady was scruffily dressed and looked distressed. Her olive skin and messy hair said one thing to me - Romanian! We wound down the window to speak to her and a barrage of rapid Spanish tumbled from her mouth and she was quite clearly upset about something.

  “I guess she’s broken down.” I said to Lorna. The lady was waving her mobile phone as if to say it wasn’t working, but we couldn’t make out what she wanted us to do.

  “¿Donde esta tu coche?” I asked. Where is your car?

&n
bsp; She beckoned me out of the car and I was still nervous that this was a scam. Was a man going to jump out of the olive trees and mug us? Lorna got out too.

  We walked a little way on the track before the lady made her mobile light up and held it up in the air in front of her. This is it, I thought, she’s giving someone a signal to come and murder us. Then I saw it. A white car, down amongst the olive trees, with the front smashed into a tree. Pieces of the puzzle fell in to place. The flash of light, she must have lost control and careered down into the olive grove. Plus, it was Ramon’s wife’s car. Suddenly I recognised the lady.

  “Ah, Ramon!” I said to her. “Si, si.”

  She climbed in the back of our car before we could invite her to and waved us off as if to say, “Take me home”. I had to check whether she needed to go to the campo house or to their place in the village, but she just kept waving. I started off up the track towards Ramon’s house.

  To be honest, I don’t even know Ramon’s wife’s name, but she was gabbling on in the back of the car; I think maybe she was in shock. I thought I heard her say that she thought Ramon was not going to be happy.

  As we pulled through the gates of his house and drove around the back I beeped the horn. Out came Ramon and Ramon Jr. They saw me and waved a can of beer at me, gesturing for me to come in. I pointed towards the back of the car.

  Ramon’s wife got out and started shouting and screaming at him, even making towards him as if to punch him. Then she burst into tears. Ramon and his son mobilised. Ramon Jr went off on his dirt bike to assess the situation and Ramon fired up the tractor. By now it was past 11.30pm and we needed to check on the animals, so we went home.

  About 30 minutes later, the dogs started going mad as the tractor passed by the gate, then it stopped and I heard shouting. Not “ALAN” or even “INGLES” just a loud shout. So I went out to see what was going on.