Read Online Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain by Chris Stewart - Free Book Online
Authors: Chris Stewart
Tags: nonfiction
Ads: Link
in an unusual attitude. It was lying on its side at the bottom of the bank. Pepe was scratching his head beside it, Pedro was sniggering, and Domingo was scornfully explaining to Pepe just what he should have done.
‘Get it up on its feet again and start the bank from the top this time.’
‘How in God’s name am I going to get it back on its feet again?’ Pepe’s cockiness was more or less unruffled but I could see that he was shaken by what could have been a horrible accident. ‘With the arm, of course. That’s what the arm’s for.’
‘I don’t know, Domingo – you try.’
‘Me? I’ve never driven a machine.’
Saying which he clambered into the cab and started the engine. As he tried out the controls to see which did what, the machine wriggled about on the ground like one of those one-legged grasshoppers. Then slowly it raised itself on its arm, wobbled about a bit – a clever twitch of the bucket – and bonk, it bounced back onto its rubbers.
‘There,’ said Domingo, climbing from the cab rather pleased with himself. ‘No damage, still works.’
Pepe climbed back in and attacked the bank again rather timidly from the top. The rest of us sat on the grass with our beer and watched. As I looked up from this little earth bank, my eyes scanned the huge expanse of rocky hill that we would have to cut through to get to the old mining road at the top. To be truthful, Pepe and his machine and its wretched rubbers were not the ones for the job.
Next day we headed off in search of another machine-man Domingo knew of – Andreas of Torvizcón. We arrived in the town and were directed to his house, where his wife told us that he was out cutting tracks in the Contraviesa ten kilometres from town. After an hour or so of cruising about on the dusty tracks through the almond groves and vineyards that cloak the hills of the great counterscarp of the Sierra Nevada, we found him. Domingo hailed him and there followed the usual half-hour of unfathomable conversation which, strain as I might, I couldn’t catch a word of. Then the machine-man came over to me and shook hands.
‘I’m the man for your job,’ he said with a grin. ‘Want to see what my machine and I can do?’
‘Alright, go ahead.’
He had already hopped onto his bulldozer, no half-arsed dust-pecker on rubbers this one, but a proper machine with tracks. There followed an astonishing virtuoso performance in which the little red machine, all but invisible in a cloud of sunlit dust, cavorted and pranced on a near vertical hillside. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of Andreas’s face, lit up with a grin as he deftly flicked the levers and sent the machine waltzing gracefully backwards up a terrifying slope. In half an hour this dazzling and improbable ballet came to a close and Andreas was hired to put my road in. Tomorrow he would come to walk the land with Domingo and me.
The road was to be finished by November, and Pedro Romero was engaged to be the impartial arbitrator who would check the hours worked daily and resolve any questions that arose over where or how to put the track. Andreas insisted upon this arrangement so there could be no question of foul play: not that there was any question of foul play, but you know what people are like.
MOVING IN WITH PEDRO
IN THE AUTUMN WE BOUGHT AN OLD LANDROVER AND trailer, loaded it with the carefully chosen remnants of our former life and took the ferry for France. For six days we lumbered south through France and Spain, huddled in the cab. Ana, Beaune and I. The Landrover was slow, the load was heavy, and the hills were long, so there was plenty of time for reflection. We stared morosely through the pathetic little wedges of window cleared by the wipers, not saying much.
It had been very grand to say to everyone at home, ‘Oh we’ve bought this farm in the mountains of Granada – you know the kind of thing, no road, no power, no water, no nothing. Oh yes, we thrive on a bit of adventure, not for us
‘Get it up on its feet again and start the bank from the top this time.’
‘How in God’s name am I going to get it back on its feet again?’ Pepe’s cockiness was more or less unruffled but I could see that he was shaken by what could have been a horrible accident. ‘With the arm, of course. That’s what the arm’s for.’
‘I don’t know, Domingo – you try.’
‘Me? I’ve never driven a machine.’
Saying which he clambered into the cab and started the engine. As he tried out the controls to see which did what, the machine wriggled about on the ground like one of those one-legged grasshoppers. Then slowly it raised itself on its arm, wobbled about a bit – a clever twitch of the bucket – and bonk, it bounced back onto its rubbers.
‘There,’ said Domingo, climbing from the cab rather pleased with himself. ‘No damage, still works.’
Pepe climbed back in and attacked the bank again rather timidly from the top. The rest of us sat on the grass with our beer and watched. As I looked up from this little earth bank, my eyes scanned the huge expanse of rocky hill that we would have to cut through to get to the old mining road at the top. To be truthful, Pepe and his machine and its wretched rubbers were not the ones for the job.
Next day we headed off in search of another machine-man Domingo knew of – Andreas of Torvizcón. We arrived in the town and were directed to his house, where his wife told us that he was out cutting tracks in the Contraviesa ten kilometres from town. After an hour or so of cruising about on the dusty tracks through the almond groves and vineyards that cloak the hills of the great counterscarp of the Sierra Nevada, we found him. Domingo hailed him and there followed the usual half-hour of unfathomable conversation which, strain as I might, I couldn’t catch a word of. Then the machine-man came over to me and shook hands.
‘I’m the man for your job,’ he said with a grin. ‘Want to see what my machine and I can do?’
‘Alright, go ahead.’
He had already hopped onto his bulldozer, no half-arsed dust-pecker on rubbers this one, but a proper machine with tracks. There followed an astonishing virtuoso performance in which the little red machine, all but invisible in a cloud of sunlit dust, cavorted and pranced on a near vertical hillside. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of Andreas’s face, lit up with a grin as he deftly flicked the levers and sent the machine waltzing gracefully backwards up a terrifying slope. In half an hour this dazzling and improbable ballet came to a close and Andreas was hired to put my road in. Tomorrow he would come to walk the land with Domingo and me.
The road was to be finished by November, and Pedro Romero was engaged to be the impartial arbitrator who would check the hours worked daily and resolve any questions that arose over where or how to put the track. Andreas insisted upon this arrangement so there could be no question of foul play: not that there was any question of foul play, but you know what people are like.
MOVING IN WITH PEDRO
IN THE AUTUMN WE BOUGHT AN OLD LANDROVER AND trailer, loaded it with the carefully chosen remnants of our former life and took the ferry for France. For six days we lumbered south through France and Spain, huddled in the cab. Ana, Beaune and I. The Landrover was slow, the load was heavy, and the hills were long, so there was plenty of time for reflection. We stared morosely through the pathetic little wedges of window cleared by the wipers, not saying much.
It had been very grand to say to everyone at home, ‘Oh we’ve bought this farm in the mountains of Granada – you know the kind of thing, no road, no power, no water, no nothing. Oh yes, we thrive on a bit of adventure, not for us
Similar Books
