The grass is always greener

29 August.

Clouds part and the sun shines upon the ancient City of York, picking out insecurities and lost aspirations among the limestone and terracotta.

Visitors drift in from the car park or pause on hotel steps to adopt a defensive formation from which to ogle the past as it has been presented for them.  Who can blame them?  York is a beautiful place to visit on a sunny summer weekend.

I wait in the car in the shade of a tree, hoping to avoid the parking charge – it’s exorbitant.   I’m in front of the sign warning motorists to ensure they have paid and displayed, placed by the poetic sloganeers of traffic management.  I see the warden is busy directing drivers to parking bays.  Good man.

N is at the opticians, where her glasses are being delicately straightened after being delicately bent there a few days ago.  Next she’ll visit the pharmacy for painkillers to reduce the headache brought on by the glasses that the optician bent.  I wind the car window down.

My contacts in Madrid describe the heat there as “terrible”.  In a few more days, I’ll be back.

Terrible and thirty-eight degrees; terrible and grey and wet.

Nobody leaving the car park or hotel foyer will be describing the weather as terrible today.  It will become a classic Bank Holiday in the shared memory, replacing all the cold, wet, windblown days, cloud scudding over chimney-pots and rain streaming down windows.

6 September.

The bus into Callao was full; ladies young and old cooling themselves with paper fans.  The heat had overwhelmed the aircon.  Commuters crowded the aisle.  A mother wiped her forehead and did her best to make her baby’s pram disappear into the space between the priority seats.  An elderly man beside me swayed like a pole-dancer as the driver took on the traffic.  I asked if he wanted to come past and ease someone younger out of a seat.  He muttered something kind from behind his ivory smile and we clung on.

In the space of a month, I managed to lose a plaza.   I thought I knew where it was, but nothing seemed to be in the right place – not where I left it.  I fell, opportunistically, into the music shop on Arenal to pick up some guitar strings.  We chatted in a kind of way about guitars and styles and whatnot.  I think he said the strings will be in a week on Thursday or Friday.  Lots of hand-clasping and on my way again.  We both chuckled when I said “Encantada!”.  I do it all the time: the “o” and “a” endings thing.

The sign for Plaza de Santa Maria Soledad Torres Acosta is fixed on a corner of the long concrete edifice that forms one side of the square and houses the Comisaria de Policia Municipal.  It was here all along.  I sat myself down at an empty table and ordered a Radler.  In a kind of relaxed way, I’m off the booze.   Above the street-sign, policemen drift onto the balcony to chat and smoke beside the grubby flags that hang like game in the stillness.  Their cars are drawn lazily onto the kerb adjacent to the café.  There’s something overwhelmingly human going on.

When the breeze does come along, it’s been dried by Saharan sand.  My skin scorches as though the door of a forge has swung open, even though the sun's long sunk behind the crowding roofs.  At this time it will be streaming across Casa de Campo and in through the self-righteous windows of the Palacio Real.

A tall, strikingly beautiful man asked if the seat next to mine was free.  “Por supuesto!” was the only reasonable reply.  Instead of taking the seat off to another table, he sat down.  I pushed my glasses onto the bridge of my nose and buried myself deeper in Larkin.

Inside, someone knocked at the door and enquired as to why I’d chosen to ignore my visitor and not take the opportunity to engage in conversation.  He'd lit a cigarette and was ordering an espresso in English.  Well, he looked every inch a Spaniard.

I folded my book and laid my glasses on the table.

Roman, it turns out, is on holiday. He's Czech and has been living in London for a year and his English is far more advanced than my Spanish. 

And so three of my strategies – devised over summer – are in play: I’ve spent two solid days locked in the flat, windows closed, studying hard; I’m avoiding the delights of Madrid’s bars, without being overly obsessive; and I’m embracing all opportunities to be more sociable.  I almost wish I had the energy to hit the clubs.  Alas!