Chapter 1
When Matthew told me he was getting fed up of the life we were leading I felt slightly alarmed. Not because I feared he wished to leave me, as after thirty-six years of marriage we were more content in each other’s company than ever, but because I thought he might suggest returning to England. The heat, he said one sultry August evening as we lounged on our veranda overlooking the small oval pool, was becoming too much for him. I smiled. “Oh, it’ll cool down soon, then we’ll have the mild, sunny winter to look forward to.” He sighed. “But it’s not just the infernal summer heat. It’s the life we’re leading too.” “You said. What about it?” He sipped his beer and shrugged. “Just look at us.” I gazed at the tall, plump, bronzed, balding man of sixty-three and he gazed back at the shortish, plump, equally tanned woman of sixty-four who subtly dyed her long hair in a vain attempt to slow the march of time. Although I say it myself, we were a picture of health and apparently enjoying our enviable life in the sun – as seen on daytime TV, countless times – but nearing the end of our second summer in the modest chalet on the outskirts of the sprawling resort of Benalmádena we’d both begun to feel restless. We’d lived there for almost two years and our initial hope of having the best of both worlds hadn’t really gone to plan. By buying a place within walking distance of the original village and the beach we’d intended to improve our Spanish and integrate with the locals to some extent, while also living the expat dream when we felt like taking it easy. The expat part of the deal had been easy enough to achieve, but we’d found the villagers just too accustomed to foreigners to bother listening to us mangling their language for more than a minute at a time. We’d gradually gravitated towards the coast and had succumbed to the convenience of a nearby supermarket rather than doing the rounds of the local shops. We’d become friendly with a few more retired Brits who had little interest in the Spanish language and culture, so our grammar books soon began to gather dust, as we felt like consummate linguists compared to them, despite barely knowing enough to get by. Our ambitious plans to hike all over the nearby Sierra de Mijas and other mountain ranges inland from the coast had gradually faded, as it was terribly hot going during four or five months of the year, as well as being a little too dry and rocky for our liking, us being used to the green, pleasant and often soggy Peak District. On the plus side, we loved the café culture and generally laid-back lifestyle, but after my eyes had flickered between Matthew and the pool for a few moments, I sipped my wine and agreed that our bold resolutions appeared to have come to naught. “That’s right. This is all wrong, Alison.” I laughed. “What, to relax after a long day doing… nothing in particular?” “Yes, and it’s too bloody hot to do anything constructive outside after ten anyway. After our invigorating beach walk we just… hibernate till dusk, unless we’re sunbathing or taking a dip. It’s not right, not for us. There’s no future in it. I foresee more of the same till we shuffle up our mortal coils, looking like desiccated… dormice, dried out by a life of idleness.” “Shuffle off our mortal coils,” I couldn’t help but say, me being a former teacher. His jokey mood came as a relief, because surely it couldn’t precede him proposing such a cowardly act as returning to England. “Shuffle off, yes. You know, these sweltering summers remind me of work in a way.” “How’s that?” I asked the former accountant. “As the day progressed at the office I used to look forward to getting home. Here I look forward to the sun going down. No, life in the south isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He sipped his beer, sighed, and shook his head. “We were seduced by the estate agent and our summer holiday experiences. This is fine for a fortnight’s de-stressing, but it’s no place for two energetic, forward-thinking, middle-aged people like us to live.” “Hmm, you know, I think we ought to make some firm resolutions for the winter months.” “I’ve already got one. Well, more of a wish really, us being a democratic couple.” “Go on.” He turned and pointed past the white house towards the mountains beyond the rather noisy motorway. “We ought to head north, my love, and rekindle our sense of adventure.” “Er, right. How… how far north exactly?” He leant back in his chair and stretched his arms. “North to where the hills are green and a multitude of sheep roam upon them, not just the odd flock of emaciated goats.” I frowned. “Oh, I see. Do you mean…” “Wait, love. North to where those same hills roll down to the sparkling sea in which the icy water thrills you and chills you to the bone.” “Whitby?” I said, as we’d once discussed retiring there or thereabouts. He laughed. “Oh, Whitby! Well, we could do worse, but… but what if we could find a place with Whitby’s undoubted charm.” He performed a little drum roll on the wicker table between us. “But much further south.” “The Côte d’Azur?” “Ha, nice one. No, I’m afraid I didn’t fiddle nearly enough money from the company to buy a place there. (He didn’t fiddle any.) And nor would I want us to go somewhere so… chic and elitist.” He smiled. “Besides, after all the hours we’ve put in learning Spanish, we ought to make use of it.” “Oh, I know.” “So what do you think?” I sighed. “Alec once suggested it,” I said, referring to a colleague at the Sheffield primary school where I’d ended my career. “But you pooh-poohed his idea, if I remember rightly.” “Er, well, I think it was more like one pooh from each of us, as the lure of year-round sunshine was already upon us by then.” “I expect you’re right. That last idyllic holiday on the Algarve tipped us over the edge.” Matthew shook his fist at the still pink sky. “The sun had worked its satanic magic on us, and we just kidded ourselves that we’d immerse ourselves in village life.” “We tried.” “Not very hard.” He chortled. “That old chap in the bar near the ayuntamiento (town hall) finished me off. Do you remember?” “Yes, you’d just strung three Spanish sentences together, thinking that surely he wouldn’t answer you in English and… what was it he said?” He cleared his throat before quoting. “It gud for yous here, yes? Da sun an’ da sea it batter dan you country, no?” I laughed. “Still word for word.” He sighed. “Etched on my mind till my dying day. The straw that broke this budding linguist’s back.” “We gave in too easily.” “Losing battle. They’re mucked up with foreigners down here. Up north, on the other hand, we’ll be welcomed with open arms as a great novelty in their lives.” “I wouldn’t bet on it. Us Brits get everywhere these days and wherever we go the locals soon learn our lingo.” He grinned. “Not where I’ve got in mind.” He tapped the table. “I hope.” I smiled wryly. “So have you been making plans for a while now?” “No, no, only since I woke up from my siesta covered in sweat yet again and realised that the heat was just a great big pain in the neck.” He stood up. “Just a sec.” He soon returned with a large map of Spain, folded to reveal the northern third of the country. “Now, Alison, where do you fancy going?” I surveyed the northern coast from east to west and said that I’d rather like to explore it before deciding where we might wish to live. “As we should have done down here, because we ended up on the most built-up stretch of coast.” “Yes, that estate agent was a canny chap, extolling the merits of the mountains as much as the beaches. We’d be able to hike in the mornings and bathe in the afternoons, he said. One quick trip out here and we’d signed on the dotted line. We were foolish and impulsive recent retirees, but we’re older and wiser now. Right, this bit’s the Basque Country, and although I believe it’s beautiful, we won’t want to go there.” “Why not?” “Because of the language. If we’re finding Spanish hard to learn, I think Euskera, the most singular language in Europe, might be too much for us.” He slid his finger over to the left-hand corner. “In Galicia they speak Gallego. It’s much more similar to Spanish, but I still think it’s a task we’d be wise to avoid. That leaves Asturias and Cantabria. There’s an Asturian language and a Cantabrian dialect which I believe have a lot in common with each other and Spanish. My research suggests that they aren’t spoken nearly as much as Basque and Gallego though, so I think we ought to centre our search on those two regions.” I eyed him suspiciously. “After your recent research, yes.” “I swear it was all carried out this afternoon in a fit of enthusiasm while you were sunning yourself, love.” “And swimming my fifty lengths,” I said, ours being a titchy ten-metre pool. “Would we want a pool up there?” He shrugged. “My recent research suggests that we might be hard-pressed to find an affordable house with one, and if we did, it’d be in an especially touristy sort of place which we don’t want, do we?” I gazed over the expanse of chalets, most containing loafers like us. “Not really. So is what you’re suggesting a completely new start in all respects?” “Hmm, I’d call it a turning back of the clock to when we arrived here, but with the benefit of experience.”
