More Ketchup Than Salsa - Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (13 page)

The show was due to start at ten, but the flood of people had caused a deluge of food orders and we were all too busy to even think about the entertainment. By 10.45 our artistes were growing tetchy. Gaston grabbed Joy’s arm as she was scurrying back to the kitchen with a stack of dirty plates. ‘We need an introduction. At once.’ It was something we had overlooked. Although we had no compere, we couldn’t expect Mystique to suddenly start their act without so much as a ‘
Monsieurs et Madames’
.

‘Wayne, can you introduce them?’ shouted Joy across the terrace.

‘I’m not introducing that poof. You can bog off,’ replied Wayne at the top of his voice. Joy had no option but to dump the plates on the nearest table and jump on-stage. Faith flicked the stage lights on and stopped Van Morrison’s ‘Brown-eyed girl’ in her tracks, swapping the cassette for one provided by Gaston.

‘Ladies and gentlemen… is this working?’ She patted the microphone as is traditional for inexperienced comperes. ‘Welcome to the Smugglers Tavern. Sorry for the late start but I’m sure you’ll find they’re well worth waiting for. Put your hands together for Mystique!’

There was a slight delay before the electronic fanfare of Jean Michel Jarre rolled from the speakers. Gaston swished in from stage left, one hand pointing skywards. Monique swished from behind the other side of the bed sheet with slightly less enthusiasm. Her red and black basque, fishnet stockings and high heels had already stolen the focus. Gaston grabbed her arm and spun her into his body, rolling her away again with equal gusto. David and I had abandoned the washing up and were stood watching in the doorway with Frank. Wayne was still at the front of the crowd, sitting on the floor nursing a pint of beer and openly rolling a spliff.

Even from where I was standing I could hear the crack. Wayne looked up, his tongue still sticking out from licking a Rizla. He leaned forward to bring his eyes level with the stage and raised his eyebrows, then looked over at us with a pained expression.

‘What was that?’ I mouthed but he shook his head dismissively and continued rolling.

The show continued and over the space of an hour, feathers were procured from the most unexpected angles; gold rings were balanced precariously; jewellery was begged, lost and then miraculously found in unlikely places. The audience was mesmerised, with the French contingency particularly vocal in their praise. Frank had trudged back to his bar stool, unimpressed, and was slumped over a Dorada, idly picking pieces of gold label off the bottle. He had no time for such flamboyance.

‘Can’t be doing,’ he murmured to nobody but himself and the bottle.

As the soundtrack changed from a fanfare of blaring trumpets to the ambient swirls of  synthesiser music, the
pièce de résistance
began. A black rectangular box was wheeled from behind the backdrop. After much posturing, Monique climbed inside and waved
au revoir
. Only her head and feet remained visible.

Gaston pushed the box from one side of the stage to the other to show that both Monique’s feet and head were moving. As he did, I thought I heard another loud crack. Wayne was beyond caring at this stage, having smoked himself into oblivion. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes half-closed and a grin plastered across his face.

Gaston began to saw the box in half, pausing occasionally to check if Monique was all right. As the blade was nearly halfway through the box, I noticed the right-hand side of the stage had begun to part company with the left. Unfortunately, Monique was positioned over each half of the separating sections. Gaston began pumping frantically with the saw to keep up with the rapidly widening gap.

The saw broke free at the bottom of the box and Monique, who was oblivious of the external problems, cried out theatrically as if in pain. Gaston stepped back raising his saw in mock horror and stamping a foot behind him for effect. This was as much as the right-hand side of the stage could take and the outer supports collapsed. The two pieces were now only held together by a handful of assorted screws that Wayne had used to unite them. The discrepancy in levels was enough to start Monique’s feet on a slow roll to the right. Gaston stretched out his left leg, jamming a foot under the castors to foil the escape while trying to maintain a smile. The sudden shift in weight caused the screws to release their grip and the left side of the stage kicked free. Monique’s feet trundled right, her upper half began to roll left. Trapped inside her wooden coffin, she could do no more than strain her eyes to see where she was heading. Gaston threw down the saw and made a brave effort to jam his other leg under the other half of his assistant but having adopted the ‘splits’ position, he discovered he was in no shape to sustain it. He toppled backwards with a fit of Gallic expletives, watching Monique’s boxed head gain speed as she edged closer towards the left-hand lip of the stage. Fortunately – although Monique may not have viewed it that way – rather than rolling straight off and toppling over, the first set of castors dropped over the edge, tilting the box just enough to thud Monique’s head firmly against a store cupboard door, wedging her at an unlikely angle but saving her from any further injury.

The audience was in hysterics. Wayne had contracted an almost suffocating bout of giggles. He was now lying on the floor gasping for breath underneath the neatly boxed Monique, whose pleas for help were drowned out by the laughing. Friedhelm sat on his barrel table, tears streaming down his cheeks. His shoulders convulsed up and down with every rasping chuckle.

Needless to say, after releasing his assistant, Gaston was rather less amused. ‘
Merde
,’ was about the only word I could comprehend and there were plenty of those being thrown about.

‘I have never been so embarrassed. What business do you think you run here?’ he ranted, but I was far too amused to pay much heed.

‘I can only apologise for the stage,’ I said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I’ll look into it. Can you come back next week?’ Gaston snatched his money from my hand and waltzed out, hurling more French profanities over his shoulder. We took that as a ‘
non
’.

A post-mortem was held the following morning, the general conclusion being that the night was a complete success financially and the collapsing stage routine was a fitting tribute to a stuck-up Frenchman. Wayne was most apologetic and in true British spirit blamed his poor workmanship on inferior quality materials. We awarded him a sideways promotion into painting duties and for the next few days he was a permanent fixture, applying dabs of paint where unruly children had left their mark.

Our thoughts turned to staff again. On the nights when we clocked off at 10.30 p.m., both Joy and I had taken to going for a nightcap and a bite to eat at the local 24-hour service station. Not the most romantic of settings it has to be agreed, but it was one of the few bars within short driving distance where we could get something decent to eat in peace. The favourite was a plate of rice, bananas and fried eggs, which, if you haven’t tried it is as good as any doner kebab at plugging the phantom hunger that follows late night beers.

The service station bar was beginning to fill up with the usual assortment of moonlight crazies, reminding me of the scene in
Star Wars
where Harrison Ford is in the intergalactic bar with all manner of ill-featured life forms. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly threatening but as a 24/7 hangout for alcoholics and drug-induced insomniacs, it did provide an element of uncertainty.

Two stools away, a gaunt youth with ill-fitting clothes and matching teeth was concentrating on making a sugar pyramid on the stainless steel bar top. He had opened and scattered at least 20 sachets before the barman whisked away the margarine tub in which they were piled. The youth looked over at us and mumbled something in Spanish. His eyes were glazed and his focus appeared to be a couple of inches to our left. I just nodded obligingly and picked at a plate of
pimientos padron
, hot roasted peppers in sea salt, which I had chosen as a starter.

Despite there only being one person working, the actual service was unbelievably fast. We enjoyed just sitting around the bar, marvelling at the haste and efficiency of the barman taking orders. He could heat up tapas, keep tabs on everybody’s bills and simultaneously pour drinks with frightening efficiency.

He was the perfect barman. His white shirt and black trousers would be soaked in sweat yet he managed to maintain an air of collectiveness, never shaken in the face of adversity, such as a drunken local trying to get away without paying or spilling his beer all over the floor.

He moved from task to task seamlessly; pouring two beers, cutting a slab of tortilla, collecting payments and wiping the bar top like it had been perfectly choreographed. He moved with the agility that only someone fuelled by Latino blood could manage, flexing his physical and mental presence like a world-class salsa dancer.

It may be that the UK remains one of the few nations in the developed world where waiting staff are looked down upon, as though they aren’t capable of securing a more ‘worthwhile’ profession. Perhaps it’s our history of the ‘upstairs, downstairs’ world of servant and master that still lingers in the British psyche.

Our only help behind the bar to date, apart from the junior crew, was from a 50-something retired flight attendant who had offered to work for free just for something to do. Unfortunately he turned out to be more of a hindrance than a help. His peripheral vision was non-existent which, combined with an acute deafness, meant that anybody waiting to be served and not standing directly in front of him would be thirsty to the point of dehydration by the time Barry would notice.

If there was one good point about him though, it was his glass washing. He would become totally engrossed, spending so much time with his head down, hands in sink, making sure that every glass was as shiny as the day it was blown, that he quite forgot the principal responsibility of his position – to keep the customers watered. On the sporadic occasions when he would be satisfied with the lustrous sheen on a wine glass, he would raise it to the light like a winner’s trophy and be genuinely surprised to see a gang of thirsty holidaymakers glaring through its shiny curve.

In spite of this, our regular customers loved him. He was a kind man who spent much of his spare time – of which he had plenty – ferrying people about on errands or playing golf with the less industrious. Every now and then we would call him in, but more as an act of friendship than for the actual benefit we gained from his presence.

But we still needed someone who could maximise the profit potential behind the bar. In summer, over 90 per cent of our customers were British holidaymakers whose enjoyment is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed. Every empty glass on a table is a missed opportunity at making the till ring. We needed someone who would not only draw customers to the bar and keep them all night, but who would also make sure that the length of time between one drink finished and another started was kept to the bare minimum. If Barry was the antithesis of what we needed, the service station attendant was our apotheosis. We pondered again over the idea of having a Spanish employee, but the struggle we were having in ordering another drink cemented the realisation that our language downfall would make it impractical.

We had become friendly with Gary, a satellite system installer who had risen to saintly status, having blessed the Smugglers with the gift of live English football – an amenity that was as vital as draught beer in the British holiday pub world. We mentioned that we were looking for part-time staff and it so happened that he and his stunningly beautiful girlfriend, Michelle, were looking for extra work and volunteered to take on a couple of shifts.

Michelle had worked behind a bar before and her visual appeal, though some might consider it a sexist notion, provided a definite draw for custom. Her green eyes, blonde hair, tanned figure eight physique and flirtatious manner were the perfect bargirl CV. To even the score, Gary had equally piercing eyes and the body of an athlete. There were no doubts from all four partners that they would be the ideal stand-ins.

The couple had relocated to Tenerife after Michelle’s aunt opened a hairdressing salon in the South initially employing her niece as a stylist. Michelle, like many, had decided that a new life abroad should also entail a move away from the hairdressing job she had stuck at since leaving school at sixteen, and accepted her aunt’s offer on the understanding that it was temporary.

Bar work wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for a breakaway career, but the couple had their eyes on buying their own restaurant and knew that having temporary responsibility of stock control, cashing up and customer diplomacy at the Smugglers would serve as valuable experience eventually.

We were all more than happy to leave them in charge of running the bar from 10.30 until 2 or 3 a.m. and trusted them in all aspects, from cleaning to cashing up. For several nights they provided the pressure release of a little time off.

‘No problems last night. Usual dickheads and drunks but no spew. Love Shell and Gaz, XX’. Their customary report was stuck to the till with Blue Tak.

CHAPTER
TEN

‘Bar looks good again,’ said Joy, noting the cleanliness. The chairs had all been up-ended onto the tables, a sign that last night’s sweep and mop by Gary and Michelle was not the usual poke between wooden legs that our end of night routine had degenerated into. All the cutlery had been rolled in paper serviettes, the bar top was free from patches of beer and all the bins had been emptied and cleaned.

As usual, Joy checked the till roll to see how busy they had been and what time the last bill was tilled in.

‘Blimey, the bar must have emptied after we left last night. There’s only a handful of entries. They only took 8,000 pesetas
after meals but they didn’t close till 1.30,’ said Joy.

‘Well, you know what it’s like. A lot of regulars only want the four of us there. Having other people on won’t make them stay. It can’t be helped,’ I replied.

Joy wasn’t convinced. ‘Even so, 8,000
is crap, especially in summer. We need to take more than that.’

She was right. Summer was our time for raking it in before the lull in October and November. We needed to put some money aside to cover the mortgage, loan and other payments for those months.

‘We can’t have it both ways. We need time off,’ I argued. ‘Either we lose a bit of money or we lose our sanity.’

We had all been feeling the strain, all showing signs of wear and tear in different ways. Cutting back on our hours was imperative for ourselves and our relationships.

Spending every waking minute with each other is not conducive to sustaining a happy relationship. If all that the both of us did all day and night was work, and at the same place, there was little to talk about out of hours. Added to that, the exhaustion of being on your feet for so long in such hot conditions, putting on the friendly front for long periods of time and working under the pressure of being understaffed was sure to take its toll. The tension was physically visible. Our eyes were red, sunken above stormy shadows, shoulders hunched and knotted.

On the nights when we clocked off at 10.30, Joy and I decided that bar talk was banned. Unfortunately that left a gaping hole in our conversation and we often sat drinking in silence, like the married couples that had outgrown their interest in each other that we observed in the bar.

But the silence was sometimes preferable to the alternative – sniping. The strain had to be released somewhere and firing pot shots at each other was one of the more effective ways.

‘You’re drinking too much.’

‘I’m thirsty, I’m off duty. What’s the problem?’

Or, ‘Have you phoned your mum recently?’

‘No, what’s the point. I’ve nothing to tell her. All we do is work, sleep, work, sleep. I’ll only cry if I speak to her.’

‘You should still phone.’

‘Don’t tell me when I should speak to my own mum.’

The same lack of topics also afflicted David and Faith. When not working in our own bar, they could usually be found in someone else’s, usually comparing notes and complaining about the same things – drunken customers, the latest licence requirements, the interminable questions.

We had begun to notice that Faith was becoming more withdrawn and isolated. Any decisions that we had to make about the bar as partners inevitably saw Faith casting herself in the role of outsider, the underdog, seemingly choosing the contrary line of thinking, whatever the debate. It was as though she was revelling in the minority role, almost to the point of self-pity.

‘You don’t consider me as one of the partners do you?’ she would argue with the rest of us. ‘Whatever I say, you always do what you three want anyway.’

‘It’s called democracy,’ said David, calmly.

‘We have to make the decisions by majority vote. How else can we do it?’ I added.

‘Well, it always seems like you’ve already decided what we’re going to do, whatever I say,’ Faith would counter. ‘You two are brothers and Joy just follows what Joe says anyway. I might as well not be here.’

‘If I follow what Joe says, it’s only because I agree,’ said Joy, ‘not because I’m some obedient lap dog. I do have my own mind you know.’

‘I’m not an equal partner though, am I?’ replied Faith, ‘I mean, come on, at the end of the day we’re never going to do what I want are we?’

‘If we agree on it, yes, we’ll do what you want. But the majority have to agree on it,’ said David, trying to appease her.

With Faith’s argument running out of steam, this usually brought on another apron-de-robing, door-slamming episode.

When Faith had gone, David, as usual, apologised in her absence. ‘She’s missing her mum at the moment and she thinks we’re all ganging up on her. We need to just tread lightly, give her a bit of slack. I think she’s on the verge of a breakdown.’

Faith’s tantrums became more frequent the deeper we ploughed into the busy summer season. A few customers had started to complain to Joy, citing her snappiness and the fact that she looked miserable behind the bar. The truth was, she wasn’t fitting in. She wore her heart on her sleeve – when behind the bar it has to be kept under wraps. Also, due to her paranoia, the slightest inference of hostility from anybody would cause her to bare her claws like a cornered animal.

The first day of reckoning came on a particularly sweltering Saturday in late August. The mercury was loitering around a hundred, the humidity energy-sapping. Joy and I had survived one of the busiest afternoons so far. She had to sprint between bar, kitchen and tables non-stop from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and I had been battling with the seemingly insurmountable list of orders, trying to ignore the teetering mountain of washing up. By the time David and Faith clocked on at 6.30 we had just managed to piece together the bar in time for the evening rush.

Usually, the afternoon shift would complete a few menial tasks like cleaning the bathrooms or emptying out the bar fridges to scrub away the mould. Today we had barely managed to wash all the glasses and polish the glass tabletops.

Kevin and Brian, the two representatives for the British timeshare line, had approached us about hosting their welcome party at the Smugglers instead of the Altamira Hotel lounge. Some of the more pretentious residents of the hotel associated timeshare with con-artists and had made a point of hissing their opinions while walking past on the way to the pool: ‘Don’t do it’, ‘It’s a scam’, ‘Just say no’. Naturally, this made the two reps’ tasks of extracting large deposits all the harder.

Another reason why they thought it better to use our bar was that it meant free drinks for themselves – the single most important reason for doing anything amongst the British expat community. In return for us providing free jugs of sangria and a smattering of peanuts, Kevin and Brian would extol the virtues of the Smugglers Tavern to weekly groups of around twenty to thirty new arrivals. More often than not, several of the timeshare fly-buys would stay after the welcome meeting and order food, enabling us to recoup the cost of our meagre giveaways and showcase our hospitality talents at the same time. However, this extra crowd of customers was in addition to our regular breakfast trade, and once or twice whoever happened to be on shift that morning would be faced with 30 full English breakfasts and 30 coffee orders all at the same time. Understandably, the bar was not looking its best when David and Faith walked in that afternoon.

‘There’s no fizzy water or bottled beer in the fridge,’ said Faith during her habitual inspection. This had become a ritual of Faith’s in another effort to prove to herself that she still retained some authority, and she was always pleased to discover some slight failure in our duties.

‘Don’t start, Faith,’ warned Joy. ‘We’ve done 65 meals this afternoon as well as hosting the timeshare meeting. I’ve not got round to stocking the bar yet.’

But Faith was clearly in offensive mode.

‘It’s not good enough. Now the bottles won’t be cold enough for tonight.’

‘We can put them in the freezer like last time.’

‘Yeh, and they’ll all burst like last time. It’s not a lot to ask…’

Fortunately a family of four walked in, forcing a cessation of hostilities, but the tension still simmered.

The evening turned out to be even busier than the afternoon. By nine o’clock we were running out of food. ‘No half chickens, no pork chops, no gammon,’ shouted David as Joy brought in the 80th order.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’ snapped Joy. ‘I’ve got four pork chop orders here.’ She raced out of the kitchen huffing, her pink T-shirt claret with perspiration. As she left, Faith rushed in with another order.

‘Two pork chops…’

‘No pork,’ I shouted, manically ripping apart a lettuce to make some more garnishes. Faith huffed.

‘For fuck’s sake… well, two half chickens, one…’

‘No half chickens either,’ I interrupted.

‘This is ridiculous. I haven’t got time to go back and explain, I’ve…’

‘I haven’t got time to stand here arguing, Faith,’ I interrupted again. ‘Just go and tell them, no half chickens, no gammon and no pork chops.’

‘Who do you think you are? You’re not my boss. See? You’re at it again. You don’t see me as a partner do you?’

‘Faith,’ intervened David, ‘
Now
is not a good time.’

Faith’s paranoia was rising again. ‘This is what I mean. You three all stick together. I’m nothing here. I’m sick of it.’ Faith threw her pen and pad at the wall, stomped back through the bar and out of the front door.

‘Jesus,’ muttered David and carried on cooking. Anybody, even Jesus, would have been a welcome pair of hands at that stage. We were eight orders behind, all four rings and the hot plate were full and still customers were craning their necks at the door, looking for a vacant table.

‘Do you want to go after her?’ I asked.

‘No, I’ll let her cool down first,’ said David.

Joy panted into the kitchen. ‘Where’s Faith? The bar’s three deep.’

‘Done a runner,’ I said. ‘Buggered off in a huff.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Well one of you two are going to have to help me out here.’

I threw more garnishes on the plates, left them wobbling three-high on the table in the middle of the kitchen and raced out to face a bar full of impatient faces. We had been completely cleared of bottled beers, including those stacked in the freezer. We were also on our last barrel of draught. If that ran out there’d be a riot.

I spent the remaining hour dashing from bar to kitchen. We were all trying to fill the gap left by Faith and by 11 p.m., with the last order out, I was pleased to get back to the barrage of washing-up that had commandeered every flat surface in the kitchen.

David was supposed to clock off at 10.30 but stayed until 11.30 helping with the clearing. ‘So, what’s up with Faith, then?’ I asked.

‘She just needs a break. She’s not good with stress.’

‘It’s not great for any of us,’ I said, ‘especially when she just dumps her workload onto us. We’re going to have to sort it out. We can’t have her throwing in the towel every other night.’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ said David. ‘I think she needs to go home for a while.’

It turned out he was almost right. Faith was threatening to leave Tenerife, but for good.

After she had regained a little composure, she apologised to the rest of us and admitted she needed a break. Although it wasn’t the most convenient time to jump ship, in the middle of the summer season, Faith had decided that she was going back to the UK the following night. She’d spend a fortnight with her mum and then return for the end of the busy period.

That left the problem of who would partner David on his shifts. We needed someone who could work 80 hours during the week, someone who could walk straight into the role without training. Michelle was the obvious choice but she wasn’t available for all those hours. Barry was available but wasn’t anywhere near capable. We had less than 24 hours to find someone. If we didn’t, the alternative was to close during the day and the three of us just manage the evening shift. That meant a substantial drop in income at a time when we had to make sure we banked all that we could. If not, when the season slackened we might not have enough to pay the mortgage, Jack’s loan or one of the dozens of other outgoings for which we’d assigned envelopes.

It was a basic system but one that we all could manage. From just a handful of different envelopes, our financial distribution now had to be apportioned to almost 20 needs that we had to save for including ‘Holidays’, ‘Emergencies’ and ‘Christmas bonus’. Faith’s disappearance was considered an emergency and as such, it was this envelope that was raided to pay for her flight.

The Rum Jug couple were sat at the bar. It was evident from their tired faces that all was not well. The enthusiasm and excitement that they had portrayed in Julie’s office was no longer evident.

‘I didn’t think it would be so hard,’ said the man.

‘We don’t seem to have any time for each other now,’ added his wife. ‘We decided to close for the afternoon. We had to get away. I wish we’d never bought the bar now.’

‘So are you thinking of selling already?’ I asked. At that moment Justin, our clumsiest junior helper, bounded into the bar wearing his T-shirt like a Saharan headdress.

‘D’you want me to do anything?’ he asked. ‘ Everybody’s gone for a sleep. I’m bored.’

‘It’s a bit quiet at the moment,’ said Joy. ‘If you really want to do something you can check if the toilets need more loo rolls and soap.’

‘Okay,’ he chirped, happy to be of use.

The man continued. ‘We’ll stick it out for the summer but I reckon we’ll put it up for sale after that. I came out here for an easy life, not to work my arse off. I’ll try and get my old job back at Marconi.’

‘Trouble is, we sold everything in Britain to buy the bar. We’ve no house, no car. We’ll have to start all over again.’ The woman was watching the bubbles rise in her half-empty glass, sad that hers had burst already.

The man could see she was on the point of tears. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

‘You said that about coming over,’ she snapped, pushing his arm away. ‘I should never have listened to you.’