Solo residentes – residents only – says the little sign at the entrance. It cowers behind an advert for kayak rentals and one doubts that it means what it says. The street is paved – not cobbled – and narrow, but unlike the sign it’s full of its own importance. A bold green line painted down the middle declares it part of the Camino Real, the Royal Road. This only means it´s an extension of the town´s walking route, but the Spanish have a flair for giving grand names to everyday things.
The photos on my wall remember the gravel track and fishermen´s houses of 30 years ago, with their orange grove gardens and boats pulled up on the beach. The oranges are long gone and so are most of the boats. Developers made offers the fishermen couldn´t refuse and turned their gardens into three-story high blocks of flats. Salvador’s wife once told me how they used to play in the stream that runs next to our building. It´s now a cement drainage canal that floods the road every time it rains and we’re waiting for it to be fixed mañana. Salvador’s house looks out onto our swimming pool; at least he still has a view over the water.
My flat looks onto the beach. It’s not a fishing beach anymore; it´s a summer holiday spot. Each year in May a boat drops a yellow buoy a hundred metres out to sea and that kicks off the summer season. Next arrives the lifeguard´s highchair and the portaloo, in front of my lounge window. Not right in front as I´m a floor up and a few metres in, but it still spoils my view. Last to arrive is the lifeguard, a week before the schools shut for the summer.
September is a good month to visit from South Africa because flights are cheaper and the weather is good. We treat our friends to paella on the balcony; we barbecue pork ribs and we grill olive oily eggplant slices. We drink sangria. Our friends take pictures for Facebook, always with the Med in the background and always with that damn toilet in the frame. At night we light candles and spend long evenings on the balcony talking about home and about things that were. We drink wine and we eat tapas. Our friends take pictures for Facebook, always with the moon over the Med in the background and always with the silhouette of that damn toilet in the frame.
Further up the road is our little port and it has a chiringuito – a beach bar. Some of our Spanish neighbours boycott the port because it was apparently built illegally in the sixties and spoils their view. They blame Franco. They don´t spend lazy summer afternoons at the bar gossiping and drinking wine and nibbling chopitos because of a sixty-year-old grudge.
If you want to befriend my neighbours, learn Spanish and walk a dog. If you don´t have a dog, borrow one as I do. I know Salvador because he walks Taca, I know Juan and Begonia because they walk Joplin and I know Whiskey´s dad, Leo’s mum and Peggy´s parents.
A Dutchman on a bicycle passes me every morning. He has a cara de mala leche – a face like bad milk – and never greets as he passes. The other day, we met several of our dog friends all at the same time and there were circlings and bum sniffings. Leads tangled and we blocked the road. The man on the bike had to wait while we undid the knitting and I said hola. He rewarded me with one of those smiles we give best as children: wide-mouthed, eyes-wrinkling and unencumbered with adult worries. It stayed with me, that brief pause during the chaos of too many dogs doing too many things all at once. I´ve seen that man every morning since as he passes me with his face like bad milk, looking the other way.
I´ve named the alleyways that link my street to the rest of the neighbourhood. Stinky Street runs up to the main road and if owners walked their dogs elsewhere, I would call it Steep Street. Oleander Alley runs down to the neighbouring beach and Bollock Boulevard goes up to the supermarket on the main road; two bollards block vehicle traffic. My friend Rita is Danish and a slip of her tongue helped me name it.
Life in my street brims with sunshine and simplicity and I think I will leave it feet first.
