A meeting in Andalucia.

Finding myself in southern Spain I emailed Ewan and suggested a meeting. He was agreeable. The actual conjunction occurred in Malaga bus station where they have a policeman on a Segway. Spain is very modern now. After a brief ambulatory period we, myself, Ewan and Mrs. Ewan found ourselves sharing a libation outside a cafe, a clean well-lighted place charmingly situated behind the imposing new railway station on a street much favored by ambulances. Later that day, in a hotel in Tangers, I decided to put the whole episode into words and, after obtaining Ewan’s consent, to post the essential elements here for the edification of fellow ABCtalers.

It was a somewhat curious temporal alignment I thought. But very pleasant. Did we in fact meet in the true sense of the word? Yes I think we did. We certainly enjoyed a few drinks together watching the ambulances hurtle by. The sun was shining. Spain still has ambiance. We found plenty to talk about even though part of my mind kept flashing back periodically to a Finnish girl called Ulla who I’d met in Marrakesh some forty years before. We’d traveled through Morocco together and kept each other safe from Barbary pirates.

The Ewans are charming. Our discussion was very relaxed and we seem to have several things in common. Ewan and I for instance wish we had started writing earlier…but alas circumstances conspired against it. That at least was the excuse we agreed on.

Of course we had our differences too. Ewan uses his real name, I don’t. He is, or was, a military man. I’m more court-martial material myself. In fact I earned a certain distinction at school by being asked not to attend the Cadet Corps. I didn’t mention this to Ewan lest it impede our discourse. His decidedly unmilitary hairstyle having already given me pause to reflect. He doesn’t actually speak like Moffat either so I endeavored not to. We glossed over family matters and talked about writing. An attempt was made to define the compulsion that makes us write. The subject of publishing came up inevitably. Ewan would like to find a ‘real’ publisher. I’ll settle for self-publishing rather than end up on some literary arsehole’s slushpile. The subject is moot anyway since we both consider ourselves outside the mainstream. Not that we wouldn’t like to get published of course but we agreed the process is a pain. Our time, we decided, should ideally be spent writing rather than on self-promotion.

I enquired after the weather. The rain, Mrs. Ewan assured me, stays mainly on the plain and apart from a couple of wintry months Andalucia enjoys a pleasant climate. I mentioned the mini cyclone that had accompanied me down the coast. She said this was not unusual for the season and suggested I not take it personally.

Not having been to Spain for some 40 years I was struck by the changes. The Ewans have been there about 10 years and have watched it happen. The Iberians, the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Moors were there much longer of course but their effect was minimal compared to more recent Visigoth construction activity. The changes were particularly noticeable along the beaches I observed, massive hotels and apartment blocks having been stuck up everywhere to accommodate the seemingly endless hordes of semi-retired English and Russian nouveau-riches and accompanying criminal element. The Moors definitely had better taste in architecture I remarked. Yes, it’s all very naf said Ewan. Which brought us to property values and thence to the state of the world economy. Definitely parlous we decided. The temptation to revert to Dickensian English proved occasionally irresistible.

The time passed all too quickly. I offered to pay the bill. Mrs. Ewan insisted. They took me back to the bus station. It had been a pleasant exchange. We agreed to keep in touch. They left for their villa (hopefully not ransacked by exuberant canines), I took a bus to Algeciras and the ferry. I think we had all been aware of what time does to us all and how difficult it is to condense a lifetime into a few words. We had settled inevitably for sharing approximate versions. You get better at paraphrasing as you get older and it’s good practice for writing synopses.

Later, walking through the Tangers casbah I wondered what had happened to Ulla. We’d strolled these narrow streets together. We’d lived for several months in a farmhouse on Formentera. It had thick stone walls and blackened beams made from local pine trees, or perhaps they were fig. She had gone back to Helsinki with an adopted puppy. I never heard from her again. Many, many things have happened since then. I hope she is well and happy.