The Full English

Revised Chapter 1

2010-03-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

Cover Art by Mike Wade

The Full English

It’s 1994. Newly divorced Ben Webster chucks in his IT job and buys a bar in Spain. Sun, sex and Sangria aren’t his primary motivations, although they’d obviously be welcome. If there's a way to lead a life as opposed to simply staying in your lane and trying not to crash, Ben would like to know about it. The Costa del Sol seems like a place where all you need to succeed is a good idea and boundless energy. What he doesn’t know is that there’s barely a Rizla between ordinary citizens and the criminal underworld. Part thriller, part Bildungsroman.

Three years after I posted the first chapter of The Full English, I have revised the entire manuscript, slicing about thirty thousand words from it. I have radically changed the end too.

I am grateful for the advice of four people who really helped me pull this together. Firstly, my writing buddy Phillip Mann, whose own new novel-in-progress I have had the great pleasure to read over the last two years, offered invaluable insights, especially about plotting. Phil is an experienced science fiction novelist and theatre professional and he helped me to understand the importance of the dramatic arc. It was through his assessment that I realised I had written a comic thriller rather than a literary novel. Getting that clear made it a lot easier. I followed Phil's suggestions to the letter. They made a big difference.

My blog pal Reading the Signs gave me excellent advice about creating texture and a sense of place, something she does with great finesse in her own writing. The Full English is set in Spain, a country with a uniquely colourful and sensual culture. Signs helped me to see that there were rich pickings to be had there.

My old friend Peter Loveday has been resident in Spain for over twenty years where he makes great music and writes books in both Spanish and English. I am indebted to him for painstakingly and meticulously correcting my Spanish - most of which was wrong!

Finally, my sister Cass has always shown me unconditional support. She read draft 8 over the Christmas holidays and, I am pleased to say, liked it. She thought there were still a few refinements to be made on character and set-up. Cass has an intuitive understanding of people and what they might do in certain situations - something I do not. She is also working on a Masters in creative practice. In the lastest and, I hope, final draft, I have incorporated her suggestions for making these people and their actions more believable.

Here is that revised first chapter. I welcome your comments. You can email me at thatssopants@gmail.com.

They say trouble knows where you live. Perhaps it was rash of me to buy a bar on the Costa del Sol sight unseen from a man I’ve never met. Simon sounded a bit dodgy on the phone. He might be a straight up old toff in a crushed white suit and then again, he might be halfway to Rio with my thousand-quid deposit.
I like to think I’m a reasonable judge of character. I take the time to concentrate on what people are saying. My Dad always said you have to listen for the words between the words if you want to find the truth. Like a lot of what he told me when I was eight or nine, it makes more sense now than it did then. I don’t like to think where he would have stood on deciding to change your life on a whim because an ad listing foreign bars for sale leapt out at you while you were flicking through a property magazine in the dental hygienist’s waiting room with your brain on standby.

‘Would you like a drink sir?’
‘Beer please.’

The air steward skilfully sets the beer down, along with a plastic cup and a tiny packet of peanuts. She smiles. I smile back. It means nothing and everything. I’ve not been thinking that clearly these past few months or, if I’m honest, ever since the split with Lauren. Her idea. It came from nowhere after eleven years. You don’t walk away from a marriage as if you were leaving a football match. At least I don’t.
If ever there was a moment to take a risk, it’s right now. I’ve never been impetuous. In fact I often wished a risk would come along and invite me to take it but Lauren always got there first. I was the cautionary, reliable one. But I’m no longer ruled by responsibilities, so there’ll never be a better time to take a high dive. At thirty-four, I’ve got nothing to lose.
This old RAF watch Uncle Keith gave me after Dad died is the only one I’ve ever owned. It confirms I’m drinking beer at nine-thirty in the morning. What it’s unable to predict is that I intend to drink another before this short flight is over. The watch has a special transmitter in it that can pinpoint you anywhere in the world according to Uncle Keith. I doubted I’d ever use that function. I knew London as well as any cabbie. I never worked out how it was activated anyway. I always meant to ask Uncle Keith but never got around to it.
I have brought my aikido gear, a portable CD player, a dozen favourite CDs, just enough personal grooming equipment to keep me from getting arrested for vagrancy and whatever clothes could be crammed into the remaining available space in the compact rucksack I’ve had since my first trip to Japan. My weapons, the bokken and jo, are in the overhead locker. They don’t always let you bring them on the flight. It felt good when I was able to persuade the young woman at check-in, like it indicated a return to form.

The attentive steward passes as I drain the last drops of beer from the plastic cup. She takes the empty can from my tray table, shakes it and cocks her head to one side.
‘Another?’
‘Please.’
My head sinks into the headrest and divests itself of all cares.

A loud, sharp voice slices through the subdued cabin. I’m on my feet and halfway down the aisle before I’m even aware I’m moving. The owner of the voice is several rows in front. He’s bladdered and he’s got hold of the steward by the arm. He’s trying to get the beer out of her hand. She’s panicked and trying to pull away from him.
‘Easy mate,’ I say, ‘You can get into a lot of bother causing trouble on a plane.’
‘I just wanna drink.’
He shows no sign of wanting to let go so I take hold of his wrist and pinch down hard on a pressure point just above the joint. He yelps and releases his grip.
‘You need to cool it. You don’t want to be spending your holiday in a cell.’
He slumps back into his seat and snarls.
The steward gestures for me to take the beer. I shake my head. She gets the message and retreats.

‘Buenos días señor.’
‘Hi.’
‘El pasaporte, por favor.’
‘Passport. Right. Here you go mate.’
‘Gracias señor.’
The disinterested customs officer has a lopsided moustache and a shirt at least two sizes too small. He glances casually over my passport, and then down at the cotton bag containing my aikido weapons.
‘What is in the bag?’ he says.
‘Wooden sticks, for training aikido,’ I say. I’ve learned never to use the word ‘weapons’ when going through customs. ‘It’s a martial art,’ I add in a soft, reassuring voice when he looks baffled. He takes another look at my passport, tosses it back to me and waves me into Spain.
My head rushes with the sharp punge of tobacco as the whole arrivals lounge spontaneously lights up those extra potent cigarettes that leave you in no doubt you’re in Europe.
I initiate a soundtrack to accompany my first, faltering steps into the future. Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain seems far too sophisticated for this moment but it’s what my inner DJ has picked and the mournful opening bars of Concierto de Aranjuez propel me towards the baggage carousel in search of my world-worn rucksack.
All around me the sounds of the Spanish, laughing and carefree, swirl. It’s April and too early for nervous English tourists in their clashing checks and sandals with socks, worrying about how they’ll cope with the food and whether or not the cab driver will fleece them on the ride from Málaga to Marbella.
These are the sounds of confident residents returning home from business trips and spring breaks. I don’t know what they’re saying but it seems certain that the constant banter in some way underscores the activity that they’re engaged in. ‘There are our bags now. Go and pick them up.’ ‘Okay, get off my case.’
I have arrived in Málaga with a vocabulary of approximately two hundred words of Spanish, mostly food and drink, and nearly all single words that don’t relate to each other unless they’re describing a number, a colour or a digestible object, like una cerveza por favor, that type of thing. Nothing that is going to be useful as small talk around a baggage carousel.
My rucksack appears as I’m spliced between two noisy families who have spotted an item of theirs simultaneously. As the husbands lurch towards their respective giant family suitcases, the wives, designer-wrapped and weighed down with gold, each raise an eyebrow in my direction. I smile sweetly at one and apologetically at the other. Neither gesture works particularly well. I only just manage to hook onto one strap and whip my rucksack out between them.
‘Inglés,’ sniffs one of the women as I breeze past her with my light, single man’s load.

‘Los Amores por favor,’ I tell the stout, middle-aged man perched on a tall stool behind the tar-stained toughened glass window at the ticket box. He continues implacably puffing on his cigarette as he prints out a ticket and points to an electronic readout indicating how much I have to pay. I take out a new thousand-peseta note from my wallet and slide it under the security window. He retrieves it with an accompanying sigh, presses some keys on his ticket machine and a quantity of coins bullets out of it like a Las Vegas one-armed bandit.

‘Gracias,’ I tell him but his eyes have already locked onto the punter behind me. The clatter of a train pulling in prompts me to get a move on and I hustle onto the platform with the other light travellers.
The train shuffles into dry, open country. Cloudless brightness pierces the carriage like an early morning call. We speed along, without effort or noise to Los Amores, my final destination.
All the planning, packing, flogging off and giving away is done. Now it’s just me, my rucksack and a belief that something good will come from all this upheaval.

Clutching the faxed map, I try to match the street names on the signs with the jagged squiggles on the paper. The bar, marked with an X is between the station and Simon’s office. It seems sensible to stop there first. If it’s a dump, better I find out sooner rather than later. A right turn, a left and another right. I have not passed a soul. The streets are deader than Cheapside on a Sunday.
There. That’s it. Bar Rincón. In Spanish it means corner and that’s just what it is; a tiny corner. It looks small. Bit hard to tell from the outside just how small. It’s firmly shuttered and there is not the barest glimpse of the interior available but you can’t fault the location. The beach is right opposite. So far, so good.

Simon Horan-Smith Inmobiliaria, the reassuring bronze plaque outside an enormous marble-clad building announces. The solidness of the building suggests a degree of establishment.
‘Can I help you?’ The young Spanish receptionist asks in easy English.
‘Yes. I have an appointment to see Simon. I’m Ben Webster.’
‘Ben!’ The voice booms from an open doorway at the end of a long corridor. It sounds like Brian Blessed preparing to take the stage. A huge Englishman hurtles towards me, his chubby hand bearing down as if propelled from a fisheye lens. My own hand springs to obedience and is gripped and shaken as if it were completely separate from me. The rest of my body takes a few seconds to join in.
‘Simon,’ he says, ‘yes Simon.’ He's either convincing himself of his own identity or just very happy to be who he is. ‘And you're Ben, yes Ben.’ Oh right. I’ll have to stop making these snap judgements about people. That’s a very Lauren thing to do and I'm no longer doing very Lauren things. ‘You’ve come straight from the airport?’
‘Uh-ha.’
‘Excellent, yes excellent. We must get a coffee Ben, come with me.’ I fall into step behind him and we descend the flight of marble stairs. The passage is eclipsed into near darkness by his enormous presence. At a small café on the corner he orders espresso and brandy for two.
‘This is how we do business in Spain,’ he explains. ‘Have you been to see the bar yet?’
‘Took a look on my way here. Good location.’
‘Location, location, location. You'll get plenty of business there in the summer. The previous lessee was pulling down a hundred thousand pesetas a week in the season.’
‘How much is that in pounds?’
‘About five hundred.’
‘A week?’
‘Yes indeed, and that's just what he was declaring. He could have been making a lot more. It's a cash economy here. You didn't get that from me.’
‘Mum’s the word.’
You hear about businesses with two sets of books. I’ve never cheated on the tax in my life. Lauren felt it was our moral duty to try and evade paying it wherever possible and I often found myself glibly reminding her that our taxes pay for our hospitals amongst other things. She responded by going out and signing us both up to BUPA.

‘Finish your drink then and we'll motor down to the bar and get you all signed up and ready for action. Did you get the money transferred into a local bank?’
‘That wasn't a problem. My best mate's in the banking game.’
‘Which bank?’
‘Banco Santander.’
‘Wonderful, my brother-in-law is the manager there.’
He has a funny turn of phrase does Simon. ‘Yes indeed?’ he blasts as he squeezes himself into an improbably small Seat car, and drives like Fangio down the Avenida Los Amores. And here we are again at Bar Rincón, the corner, right there at the end of Calle Don Cervantes.
Simon fiddles with the roller shutter for ages. It is, he says, ‘a bit tricky’. Eventually he gets it open and there's a moment where I can't actually see anything as light swamps the place. Then all is revealed. It is tiny, but it is beautiful. There’s lots of wood for a start, reassuringly dark hardwood and great nautical lamps and tiles. Dark, cool terracotta tiles. Calm down, calm down. I'm so bloody nervous I can't believe it. Talk about reality bites. It just jumped up and swallowed my tongue.
‘Ben?’ I haven't said a word for quite a while.
‘Yeah!’ I nod like a madman. He must think I'm a complete plonker, ‘It's good. Good!’ I am a complete plonker with zero vocabulary. ‘Good,’ I say it again just in case he missed it the first two times.
‘Look around,’ he instructs. I have been standing at the very edge of the bar all this time, not moving so much as a tendon. I shunt forward, unsure of what to look at first. I edge towards the shelves and check out the bottles of spirits all lined up, waiting for a party to start.
‘I have the stock list,’ says Simon as he pulls a folder from the shelf. ‘Spirits here, all sealed of course and wines in racks to your left.’
We proceed through the list in an orderly fashion, checking off the stock items one by one.
‘You’ve all the usual poisons. Gins - Gordon’s and the local muck Larios. Quality whiskies and cheap ones. Vodka - Smirnoff and Kirov, like the ballet. No Pissov though. Ha-ha. A selection of wines - no extra charge for the dust.’
We check each bottle off against the list.
‘Everything seems to be in order, wouldn’t you say?’
I nod and turn my attention to the bar top. There are no beer pumps. It looks like they've been ripped out.
‘What about beer?’
‘Beer companies provide you with pumps, no charge. If I were you, I’d invite them all down and sample everything they’ve got. Drink for free for a couple of days. They'll give you fridges as well and other items - umbrellas, glasses, serviettes. It's all very straightforward indeed.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Any questions?’ I should have a million but I'm so happy I can't think of a single one. Instead I poke around for a bit hoping a question will present itself. It doesn't. Maybe I have finally found a situation that doesn’t need any questions.
‘No. It’s all good.’
‘Very well, to the bank then?’

‘Here we are. Banco Santander.’
Simon manoeuvres the improbable Seat into a crack between a skip and a tradesman’s van. The din of building work bangs on my eardrums as soon as I open the car door. On either side of the bank, refitting work is being carried out on deserted shops. The whole street is a bowl of cement dust. As we approach the bank’s doors, workers on both sites stop and greet Simon. He’s a local celebrity by the looks of it. The automatic doors glide soundlessly aside as we approach. A man of equal barrel proportions to Simon wafts towards us on a current of cool air. Both barrels have their arms outstretched.
‘Pepé!’
‘Simon!’
They collide in a backslapping embrace. I hunt for the cash transfer forms in the many side pockets of my backpack as they conduct a long exchange in Spanish. The introductions are made just as I retrieve the paperwork and my passport, ready to rendezvous with the point of no return.

‘Welcome to Spain Ben,’ Pepé booms, making an instant mockery of his diminutive name. If anything, his handshake is even more of a shoulder dislocator than Simon’s. The two lead me into an imposing office with outsized furniture. Pepé burbles into an intercom, sits back in his massive maroon leather chair and interlocks his fingers across his vast chest. His mouth opens into an expansive grin, exposing a set of perfect white teeth. To establish whether or not they’re real, I’d have to stare longer than would be polite.
An impeccably groomed young woman in a red suit enters and deposits a slim file on Pepé’s desk. She seeks my face as she exits and we exchange a smile. Hers has the assurance of freshly applied lipstick. Pepé opens the file, extracts some papers and places them in front of me.
‘Sign here,’ Simon prompts, pointing to a pencil-marked cross. I insert my signature and underneath it the date; 14th April 1994.

By the time Simon deposits me at Hostal Ambos Mundos, I’m another nine grand lighter and flushed in all the wrong ways. Pepé insisted on taking me for a drink after the signing ceremony to fill me in on the impressive range of services the bank provides. It seemed a good idea to stick with the brandy.
Simon is disappointed Delvene, the landlady, isn’t around. He introduces me to Federico, suitably named as he bares a striking resemblance to Fred Flintstone. Wary of Simon, he processes me with quiet precision, neatly transferring details from my passport into a ledger and then onto a yellow card, which he pushes towards me along with a pen.
‘Sign please.’
The hostal is a traditional Andalucian building with a central courtyard and twenty or so rooms on two floors, all opening onto it. A festival of red and pink geraniums tumbles from narrow boxes strapped to the iron railings. The patchwork of a dwelling runs between two streets with a passage connecting them.
Ambos Mundos is the name of the hotel where Ernest Hemingway lived in Havana and for me that bodes well. Hemingway is a big hero of mine. He was Dad’s favourite writer so I grew up with his stories. Jim Webster was an intelligent man who supplemented his bare minimum education with a lifelong devotion to the local library. He found English novels claustrophobic and preferred books where the working man got a chance to shine. He never travelled outside of England and he loved adventure stories set in exotic locations, especially by writers he considered political allies. Hemingway was highly credentialed in that regard, as was Orwell. He also loved Jack London.
My tastes are broader. I’m post-Thatcher, thankfully. And I’ve had the privilege of travel. I wonder what Dad would say if he knew I’d been to Havana and Moscow. I wonder what he’d make of contemporary Spain. When he died, Franco was still in power. It seems like generations have passed since then. The world is a far different place from the one he left.

My room is on the second floor and faces the street. It has a sweet little balcony with cast-iron railings. A rickety wooden table and two folding chairs lean against the wall, waiting to be set up. The floors are a dark pink granite and the furnishings all shades of brown and cream. A tentative breeze tiptoes in bringing with it a weave of tobacco, salt air and coffee.
There’s a cubicle in one corner with a narrow shower, toilet and small wash hand basin squashed into it. The meanness of its dimensions is offset by the generosity of two enormous fluffy white towels and the overall impression of simplicity and cleanliness. I’m tempted straight into it. It’s nearly six o’clock and I could do with a big perk up and a little lie down.
Showers in Spain can be a bit dodgy but this is like a water cannon and the water’s tomale hot. Mum always says ‘good things come in small packages’, and she means it for exactly this kind of simple pleasure. I stay under that shower for a very long time.

Chapter 1

2007-09-02T04:45:00.001-07:00

Cover art by Mike Wade

Here you will find Chapter 1 of my latest novel

Your comments are very welcome

Note to new readers - this first chapter has been edited by popular demand.

Chapter 1

They say trouble knows where you live. Perhaps it was rash to buy a bar on the Costa del Sol sight unseen from a man I’ve never met, especially since I concluded from our two conversations on the phone he sounded a bit dodgy. He might be an old fashioned remittance man from an aristocratic family, scraping a living by separating the gullible from their savings and counting on the credibility of his posh voice. Or he could be a bang on the money conman with convincingly faked authoritative tones. Then again, he might be a straight up old bean in a crushed white suit. I hope he’s the last option. I’m guessing he’s a large man. His voice was at the booming end of the sound spectrum.

Maybe it was naïve or just plain thick but I like to think I’m a reasonable judge of character. I take the time to concentrate on what people are saying. My dad always said you have to listen for the words between the words if you want to find the truth. Like a lot of what he told me when I was eight or nine, it makes more sense now than it did then.

I don’t like to think where he would’ve stood on deciding to change your life on a whim because an ad listing foreign bars for sale leapt out at you while you were idly flicking through a property magazine in the dental hygienist’s waiting room.

“Would you like a drink sir?”

“Beer please.”

The air steward gently sets the beer down, along with a plastic cup and a tiny packet of peanuts. She smiles. I smile back. It means nothing and everything.

Possibly I’ve not been thinking that clearly these past few months or, if I’m honest, ever since the split with Lauren after eleven years of marriage. The rejected partner doesn’t get any warning so the shock effect tends to last a while. It’s like when someone has a heart attack. It comes from nowhere and then you’ve got to assemble all the bits of fallout into an order if you can.

If ever there was a moment to take a risk, it’s right now. For the first time in my life, I’ve no reason not to. I’ve never been impetuous. In fact I often wished a risk would come along and invite me to take it but Lauren always got there first. I was the cautionary, responsible one. Life is no longer dictated by responsibilities, so there’s no better time than now to take a high dive. I’m only thirty-four. How wrong can I go?

This old World War II Breitling watch Uncle Keith gave me after Dad died is the only watch I’ve ever owned. It confirms I’m drinking beer at nine-thirty in the morning. What it’s unable to predict is that I intend to drink another before this short flight is over. The Breitling has a special transmitter in it that enables the emergency services to find the owner if they ever get lost. Uncle Keith told me that when he gave it to me. I doubted I’d ever use that function. I knew Camden as well as any cabbie and never went anywhere I couldn’t find my own way back from. Later I understood what he was giving me was something to count on. It’s the only watch I’ll ever need.

The backpack I’ve brought with me contains the portable CD player I received as a leaving present from British Telecom, a dozen CDs, two books, my Aikido gear, just enough personal grooming equipment to keep me from getting arrested for vagrancy and whatever clothes could be crammed into the remaining available space. I never was one for possessions. In a way, the tendency to be easy going about my surroundings probably prolonged my marriage for five years longer than it should have lasted. Lauren was always particular about things and got worse as time rolled on. It was my job to maintain them and navigate around them as best I could. That’s something I really won’t miss. I also have a receipt for the thousand quid deposit I put down on the little bar in Los Boliches safely lodged in a side pocket.

The attentive steward passes as I drain the last drops of beer from the plastic cup. Wordlessly, she extends her hand towards me without disturbing the elderly lady dozing in the aisle seat and I hand her the empty can. She shakes it and cocks her head to one side. I nod and she hands me another beer and some more dry roasted nuts. I smile. She smiles back. It’s been a long time since I could look at women without feeling lonely.

†

“Buenos dias señor.”

“Hi.”

“El pasaporte, por favor.”

“Passport. Right. Here you go mate.”

“Gracias señor.”

The disinterested customs officer with a lopsided moustache and a shirt at least two sizes too small glances over my passport, tosses it back to me nonchalantly and waves me into Spain. My head rushes with the sharp intake of pungent tobacco as the whole arrivals lounge spontaneously lights up those extra strong cigarettes that leave you in no doubt you’re in Europe. I initiate a soundtrack to accompany my first, faltering steps into the future. Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain seems far too sophisticated for this moment but it’s what my inner DJ has picked and the distinctively mournful opening bars of Concierto de Aranjuez propel me towards the baggage carousel in search of my shabby backpack.

All around me the sounds of the Spanish, laughing and carefree, swirl. It’s April and too early for nervous English tourists in their clashing checks and sandals with socks, worrying about how they’ll cope with the food and whether or not the cab driver will fleece them on the ride from Málaga to Marbella. These are the sounds of confident residents returning home from business trips and spring breaks. I don’t know what they’re saying but it seems certain that the constant banter in some way underscores the activity that they’re engaged in. ‘There are our bags now. Go and pick them up’. I’d love to join in but there’s no one to share the dialogue with so I go back to humming Miles and wait for the reunion with my stuff.

I’ve arrived in Málaga with a vocabulary of approximately two hundred words of Spanish, mostly in the food and drinks category and nearly all single words that don’t relate to each other unless they’re describing a number, a colour or an object, like una cerveza por favor, that type of thing. The bar I’ve bought is just down the train line. I’m to meet the smooth-tongued estate agent Simon Horan-Smith there at two o’clock.

My backpack appears on the carousel and I have to squeeze between two noisy families who’ve spotted an item of theirs simultaneously.

“Excuse me. Excuse me.”

As the husbands lurch towards their respective giant wheeled suitcases, the wives; designer-dressed and heavily gilded, each raise an eyebrow in my direction. I smile sweetly at one and apologetically at the other. Neither gesture works particularly well. I only just manage to hook onto one shoulder strap as the bag comes whizzing past. I extract it as deftly as possible, leaving the husbands who have now become awkwardly entangled, to wrestle their individual pieces of luggage off the speeding conveyor.

“Inglés,” sniffs one of the women as I breeze past her, feeling slightly guilty for the lightness of my load. It doesn’t do to be weighed down by possessions. I’m going to try to remember that in future. Burdens are for bores. I don’t know where I heard that. It isn’t one of Dad’s sayings. It’s probably an Athena poster.

†

“Los Boliches por favor,” I announce confidently. A stout, middle-aged man sits implacably smoking behind a tar-stained toughened glass window at the ticket box. He prints out a ticket and points to an LED readout indicating how much I have to pay. I take out a new thousand peseta note from my wallet and hand it over. He retrieves it with an accompanying sigh, presses some keys on his ticket machine and a quantity of coins bullets out of it like a Las Vegas slot machine. Not much in the way of winnings.

“Gracias,” I tell him but his eyes have already locked onto the punter behind me. The sound of a train pulling in prompts me to get a move on and I hustle onto the platform with the other backpackers.

The train lurches into dry, open country, the cloudless brightness reaching into the carriage like an early morning call. We speed along, effortlessly and noiselessly. San Julián, announces an LED display over the doors. No one gets off or on. It couldn’t be more different from the ear-exploding cacophony of the London Underground, that great hissing snake that crawls through the city ferrying wage slaves to their work stations. Los Alamos. Still no one gets either on or off the train. The complete absence of mass movement could fool you into thinking you’re in a different century and not just a foreign country.

Torremolinos. A group of noisy Italians, at least I think they’re Italians, gathers their bags, all talking at once. They seem to be operating in synch like a scrum of rugby players, all working towards a common objective and discussing every detail. As the train rumbles into the station, they reach a full head of steam, roll towards the opening doors and tumble out. The train chugs past them and their banter makes one final stab into the sleepy air and recedes into the distance.

Benalmádena – Arroyo de le Miel. Such exotic place names they have in Spain. Miel is honey, I think. Where’s that dictionary? Mum gave me the small pocket Spanish/English dictionary as a going away present. It’s the perfect present; inexpensive, portable and practical. That’s Mum. Miel certainly does mean honey. I’m pretty good on food. I remember miel and mermelada de fresa – strawberry jam. It’s not easy to get a full English breakfast in Spain as I recall so it’s handy to know how to ask for the right toppings. Everyone thinks the English have a preference for marmalade. Not me. Can’t stand it. Arroyo, arroyo, arroyo. Brook, stream, river. River of honey. That sounds so tranquil. Compare that to some of the place names in London. Catford, Isle of Dogs, Elephant and Castle, Barking. Ugly.

“Buenos Dias señor. El billete por favor. Your ticket please sir.” Placing the tiny dictionary down on the seat, I fumble in my jeans pocket for the ticket. I never was one for remembering where I put things. The young guard has meticulously cropped black hair and a sharp blue shirt that looks to be pressed rather than merely ironed. It’s impossible not to feel a bit of a slob by comparison. As I turn out both pockets, I lock onto his face and speculate on how it might go if I can’t find my ticket. Slung around his waist is a heavily worn ticket clip. It clashes violently with the rest of his immaculate attire. His expression is passive and patient as I retry my back pockets and then shifts a gear into a state of high alertness as his eyes fix on my dictionary.

“Señor,” he gently but firmly rebukes, “mira, mira.” I follow his hand down to the little dictionary, its stiff new spine straining with the pressure of being propped open, and wonder if he isn’t chiding me for its mistreatment. Disrespect for books was something Dad wouldn’t tolerate. Although I’ve never been downright abusive, I take the view that books are fairly sturdy and a dictionary is going to get used. I’m looking at the little book and trying to figure out why my attention is being drawn to it when the guard, his patience exhausted, reaches down and plucks the ticket from between its pages. How he spotted that I’ll never know. He clips it and returns it to me with great self-satisfaction.

“Enjoy your holiday señor.” He concludes his business with a wry smile and a subtle click of his highly polished heels.

Torreblanca. That one I don’t have to look up. Torreblanca means white bull. That Tommy Steele song, Little White Bull starts to jingle around in my head. No, hang about, toro is bull. So what’s torre then? It’s too late to look it up now because Los Boliches is the next stop. It’s my final destination. All the planning, packing, flogging off and giving away is done. Now it’s just me, my backpack, little dictionary and belief that something good will come from all this upheaval.

†

A quick glance at the veteran Breitling suggests I have plenty of time but I haven’t put it forward to take account of the Spanish being an hour ahead so what was ten to one is now ten to two and I’m due at Simon’s office in ten minutes. Clutching the faxed map, I try to match the street names on the signs with the jagged squiggles on the paper. The bar, marked with a distinctive X is between the station and Simon’s office. It seems sensible to stop there first. If it’s a dump, better I find out sooner rather than later. A right turn, a left and another right. I haven’t passed a soul. The streets are deader than Laredo at high noon.

There. That’s it. Bar Rincon. In Spanish it means corner and that’s just what it is; a tiny corner. I knew it was small, and it’s no smaller than I thought it would be. Bit hard to tell from the outside anyway. It’s firmly shuttered and there’s not the barest glimpse of the interior available but you can’t fault the location. The beach is right opposite and, although also deserted, it has a strong allure. So far, so good.

Simon Horan-Smith Inmobiliaria, the reassuring bronze plaque outside an enormous marble-clad building announces. The solidness of the building suggests a degree of establishment.

"Can I help you?" The young Spanish receptionist speaks in easy English.

"Yes. I have an appointment to see Simon. My name's Ben Webster.”

"Ben!” The voice comes booming from an open door at the end of a longish corridor the second I complete my announcement. It sounds like Brian Blessed preparing to take the stage. A huge Englishman hurtles his way towards me, his chubby hand bearing down on me as if propelled from a fisheye lens. My own hand springs to obedience and is gripped and shaken as if it were completely separate from me. The rest of my body takes a few seconds to join in.

"Simon,” he says, "yes Simon.” He's either convincing himself of his own identity or just very happy to be who he is. "And you're Ben, yes Ben.” Oh right. So there goes my first theory. I’ll have to stop making these snap judgements about people. That’s a very Lauren thing to do and I'm no longer doing very Lauren things. “You’ve come straight from the airport.”

“Yes.”

"Excellent, yes excellent. We must get a coffee Ben, come with me.” I fall into step behind him and descend the flight of wide, marble stairs which are momentarily rendered very dark by his enormous presence. At a small café on the corner he orders espresso and brandy for two.

"This is how we do business in Spain, Ben,” he tells me as the drinks arrive. "Have you been to see the bar yet?"

"Yep. Took a look on my way here. Good location.”

"Location, location, location. You'll get plenty of business there in the summer. The previous lessee was making at least 100,000 pesetas a week in the season.”

"How much is that in pounds?"

"About five hundred.”

"A week?"

"Yes indeed, and that's just what he was declaring. He could have been making more. It's a cash economy here. You didn't hear that from me though.”

"Course not.”

You hear about businesses with two sets of books. I’ve never cheated on the Revenue in my life. Lauren felt it was our moral duty to try and evade tax wherever possible and I often found myself glibly reminding her that our taxes pay for our hospital system amongst other things. She responded by going out and signing us both up to BUPA. I let my membership lapse as soon as we split. What would Dad have said? A son of his taking out private health insurance, unthinkable.

"Finish your drink then and we'll motor down to the bar and get you all signed up and ready for action. Did you get the money transferred into a local bank?”

"That wasn't a problem. My best mate's in the banking game.”

"Which bank?"

"It's called Banco Santander.”

"Wonderful, my brother-in-law is the manager there."

He has a funny turn of phrase does Simon. "Yes indeed?" he expounds as he squeezes himself into an improbably small Seat micro car, and drives like a stock car jockey down the Avenida Jesús Santos Rein, the main drag through Fwengy, as he calls it, to Los Boliches. And here we are again at Bar Rincon, the corner, right there at the end of Calle Don Cervantes.

Simon fiddles with the roller shutter for ages. It is, he says, ‘a bit tricky.’ Eventually he gets it open and there's a moment where I can't actually see anything as the light suddenly floods the place. Then all is revealed. It is tiny, but it is beautiful. There's lots of wood for a start, reassuringly dark hardwood and great nautical lamps and tiles everywhere. I'm glad there are tiles on the floor. They're dark, terracotta tiles. Calm down, calm down. I'm so bloody nervous I can't believe it. Talk about reality bites, I think it just leapt up and punched me on the nose.

"Ben?” I haven't said a word for quite a while.

"Yeah!” I nod like a madman. He must think I'm a complete plonker, "It's good. Good!” I am a complete plonker with zero vocabulary. "Good,” I say it again just in case he missed it the first two times.

"Look around,” he says helpfully. I’ve been standing at the very edge of the bar all this time and not moving. Purposefully I shunt forward, unsure of what to look at first. I edge towards the shelves and check out the bottles of spirits all lined up, waiting for a party to start.

"I have the stock list,” says Simon, "spirits there, all sealed of course and wines in racks to your left.” Simon pulls out a folder and we proceed through the list in an orderly fashion, checking off the stock items one by one.

"You’ve all the usual poisons; gins, Gordon’s and the local muck Larios. Quality whiskys and cheap ones. Vodka; Smirnoff and Kirov, like the ballet. No Pissov though. Ha-ha. A selection of wines; no extra for the dust.”

We check each bottle off against a list.

“Everything seems to be in order, wouldn’t you agree?”

I nod and turn my attention to the bar top. There are no beer pumps that I can see. It looks like they've been ripped out.

"What about beer?"

"Beer companies provide you with those, no charge. If I were you, I’d invite them all down and sample everything they’ve got; drink for free for a couple of days. They'll give you fridges as well and other items, umbrellas, glasses, serviettes. It's all very straightforward indeed. We have a manual for all our leaseholders. It tells you how to get the utilities transferred and you have to do an exam to get your hygiene certificate. We can arrange for you to sit the test. All part of the service."

"Thanks.”

"Any questions?” I should have a million but I'm so happy I can't think of a single one. Instead I poke around for a bit hoping a question will present itself. It doesn't. There don’t always have to be questions.

“No. It’s fine.”

"Okay, to the bank then?"

"Sure.”

†

“Here we are. Banco Santander.”

Simon manoeuvres the improbable Seat into a miniscule spot between a skip and a tradesman’s van. The din of building work leaps up and starts banging on my eardrums as soon as I open the car door. On either side of the bank, refitting work is being carried out on shop fronts. As we approach the bank’s doors, workers on both sites stop and greet Simon. He’s a local celebrity by the looks of it. The automatic doors glide aside smoothly as we approach.

A man of equal barrel proportions to Simon wafts towards us on a current of cool air. Both barrels have their arms outstretched.

“Pepé!”

“Simon!”

They collide in a backslapping embrace. I hunt for the cash transfer forms in the many side pockets of my backpack as they conduct a long exchange in Spanish. The introductions are made just as I retrieve the paperwork and my passport, ready to rendezvous with the point of no return.

“Welcome to Spain Ben,” Pepé booms, making an instant mockery of his diminutive name. If anything, his handshake is even more of a shoulder dislocator than Simon’s. The two lead me into an imposing office with outsized furniture. Pepé burbles into an intercom, sits back in his massive maroon leather chair and interlocks his fingers across his vast chest. His mouth opens into a tight grin, exposing a set of perfect white teeth. To establish whether or not they’re real, I’d have to stare closer than would be polite.

A perfectly groomed young woman enters and primly deposits a slim file on Pepé’s desk. She seeks my face as she exits and we exchange a smile. Hers is confident; mine, less so.

Pepé opens the file, extracts some papers and places them in front of me.

“Sign here,” Simon prompts, pointing to a pencil marked cross. I insert my signature and underneath it, the date; 14^th April 1994.