Quintin Jardine: A Coffin For Two

I was reaching into the back of my brain for my High School Spanish when he beat me to it. ‘Francais? Deutsch? Anglais?’ he asked. At once I realised why I hadn’t picked out a language among the hubbub. It was because there were so many of them being spoken at once. I shook my head as I sat down. He looked puzzled until Prim said, ‘Ecossais.’

‘Ah,’ he said, his smile widening. ‘Scottish!’

I know quite a few English people, but I only give this tip to the ones I like. So pay attention. When you’re travelling in France or Spain, always say that you’re a Jock.

‘This your firs’ time in L’Escala?’ the waiter went on, loosened up more than a bit.

We both looked puzzled. So did he, for a moment. ‘You not staying in L’Escala, no? It is the next town,’ he explained, waving loosely towards the south, ’beyond the ruins of Empuries.’

Prim shook her head and gave him her best schoolgirl smile. ‘We’re not staying anywhere yet. We’re still considering where to stop. But right now we’re only thinking about lunch.’

He smiled. ‘Of course. I am sorry. The menu.’ He bowed slightly and presented us with two thick brown folders, with leaves encased in plastic, each page with a wee flag sticking out to denote the language. We headed straight for the Union Jack.

So, on our first day in Spain we sat under the parasols in St Marti, eating salad and pizza, washed down with cold, gold beer. It was mid-afternoon when we paid the waiter and stepped between the tables, now mostly unoccupied, and out into the sun.

Most of the people leaving the restaurant had headed up another gravel path which led round the side of the church, past a two-storey villa with mosaic patterns on its walls, and with an almost flat roof. We followed them slowly in the heat, Prim with her arm wrapped around my waist. As we passed the house, the path took a sudden downward slope and there it was, the Mediterranean, spread before us at last. We stood beside a low wall bounding a crescent-shaped viewpoint, and gazed out dumbstruck.

I love views. All my life my favourite has always been the outlook from my bedroom in my dad’s house in Anstruther, across the Firth of Forth towards the May Island and beyond to the Bass Rock. But the first time that I stood beneath the crest of St Marti d’Empuries and gazed around the great crescent of the Golf de Roses, it took my breath away.

Looking north, Prim and I recognised at once the high-rise apartment blocks of Ampuriabrava, which we had seen close up earlier that day. Beyond, like white pearls set into the side of the mountain which rose steeply from the sea at the distant mouth of the bay, were the villas of the town of Rosas. A strip of golden beach ran round the circumference of the bay, almost from its northern tip, until it was cut by the promontory on which we stood, and from which a long stone pier jutted out three hundred metres into the sea. The water was blue and calm.

We followed it as it curved south, past the remnants of an ancient sea wall, past the Greco-Roman ruins of which, we learned later, St Marti had been the forerunner. The semi-circle of the great bay was completed as the beach ended in another rocky rise. The town of L’Escala stood on its southern tip, no more than two kilometres away from where we stood. Its houses and shops seemed to shine, gleaming white in the sun. We looked for high-rise blocks but saw none. As with St Marti, the bell-tower of its church was the highest point on its skyline.

We must have stood there for five minutes, struck silent by the simple symmetrical beauty of the gulf, watching the motor cruisers as they cut white lines through the blue surface of the mill-pond sea.

At last Prim gave me a squeeze. I looked down at her. She was as lovely and happy as I’d ever seen her. ‘This is it, Oz,’ she said. ‘This is where I’d like to be.’

I laughed. ‘Christ, love, we haven’t been in Spain for half a day yet.’ I protested, but my heart wasn’t in it; because I knew that I felt just as she did.

Logic has nothing to do with it. Places are like people. There are millions of them, and you encounter new ones on a daily basis, but every so often you see one and you fall in love with it. That’s how it was the first time I saw my loft in Edinburgh. That’s how it was the first time I saw Wallace, my iguana, in Pet City. (It didn’t even matter when I found out that he was a bloke.) I looked once again across the bay towards L’Escala, and I thought about all the places and people I loved. Anstruther, Edinburgh, my dad, my poor mum, Ellie, my nephews: the place felt comfortable among them all.

So I wrapped my arms around Primavera, and I kissed her, ignoring the raised eyebrows and half-smile of a fat Germanic type a few yards away. ‘You sure?’ I asked.

‘Sure as I’ve ever been about anything.’

‘For how long?’

She smiled. ‘Who knows? That’s the thing about this trip. Voyage of discovery, remember. Let’s find somewhere to stay tonight, and take a longer look tomorrow.’

I looked back up the hill, towards the Casa Forestals, as the flat-roofed villa seemed to be called from the sign by its door, and St Marti. ‘That’s no more than a hamlet. There may be nothing there.’

Even Prim’s shrugs seem optimistic. ‘We’ll never know until we ask,’ she said, taking charge. ‘Let’s go back up and see our multi-lingual pal. He’ll tell us what there is.’

The square was quiet as we climbed back up to the village. I checked my watch. It was three forty-five; respite for the bars and restaurants before the evening rush, I guessed. Our waiter friend was seated at one of his own tables, at the door of his establishment. For the first time I read the name above the door. ‘Casa Minana — Snack Bar.’

He stood up as we approached, with a smile that struck me as more than simply professionally friendly. He offered us a table. ‘You like to drink? I am afraid that the kitchen is closed for two hours, but maybe a sandwich is possible.’

My partner, now in total command, shook her head. ‘No more food. But two beers, yes please.’ She sat down and I followed. He disappeared into the dark interior of Casa Minana, re-emerging a minute later with two frosted globes of Spanish lager.

‘Thank you,’ said Prim. ‘We were wondering; we’d like to stay around here tonight. Do you know if there are any rooms available?’

He frowned. ‘Normally there are zimmer … sorry’ — he corrected his linguistic lapse — ‘rooms there, and there.’ He nodded towards two other buildings on the square. ‘But is summer, and all is occupied. You try L‘Escala, yes? There are places there. Hostal Garbi, is very good.’

Prim nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He must have read disappointment in her eyes, for his face fell. All at once it brightened up again.

‘Unless you like to stay here for a few days. My family, we have a few apartments we rent in the summer. They are all occupied, but there is another next to them. A Dutch man, he asked me to try to sell his apartment for him, and he say that if anyone want it I can rent it. If you want to stay for maybe a week, I could let you have that.’

My Scottishness surfaced. ‘How much?’

‘The owner say forty thousand pesetas for the week.’ He paused, and my mental arithmetic worked that out as two hundred quid. ‘Is very cheap for St Marti in July.’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘Cheaper than we rent our apartments. Which is why…’

Prim smiled back at him and finished his sentence.’… it’s still empty and you are only telling us about it because yours are full.’

He blushed slightly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Is business,’ he said, disarmingly. ‘Would you like to see it?’

Prim and I nodded spontaneously, and simultaneously. The waiter lobbed the tray on which he had brought our beer, and which he still held, across to a much older man who had appeared in the doorway as we spoke. The veteran caught it deftly, without a word, and took a pace outside.