His job is to guard my beach bar and one other owned by the elusive Jose who also owns two more beach bars and a restaurant. I remember Jose years ago when he used to be just a waiter in one of the restaurants, and since this is a small town and rumours fly around, the version I have is that he married a Scandinavian lady who runs one of the most successful restaurants in town and she bought him the first two beach bars, Jose making enough money from them to buy two more. He spends the day going from bar to bar and can always be spotted by his strange habit of taking beer in a tiny cup and preferring it to be poured as half foam and half beer. So technically in each bar he’s only really having about an eighth of a pint, but if he does that all day long, by the time he gets to me at about 9pm to faff around with the takings, he’s usually a bit merry. Men with money often mistake the attention they get from women to be accounted for by their supposed good looks rather than using their common sense and realizing that its got more to do with their bank balance, so their self confidence with the ladies (especially ones that are half their age) is amusing, if not slightly disturbing. I generally play up to his small talk and nod understandably at his insistence that I wear a mini skirt to work. YUCK. I do manage to negotiate a pay rise though… (I wear shorts most days just to piss him off.)
Anyway, back to batman-he’s earned this prestigious nickname from his disappearing/ reappearing game. There’s a cliff between my beach bar and the other one he looks out for and you often see a dark silhouette, one foot on the dry wall looking down at the various partying shenanigans taking place down here, then you’ll look back and he’s gone, only for him to be standing next to you ten seconds later. This super-hero style movements unnerved me at first, but very quickly became a game between me and my friends; sitting with their back to the cliff, they’d turn around and see him, then turn again and he’s be gone. I’m pretty sure batman indulged in this little party trick, enjoying our screams of horror and admiration. When I asked him what hours he worked, he explained that it changed through the season- he starts at sun down, and finishes at sunrise. My heartbreaks slightly at the thought of not being able to see the sun while living on the coast, but batman’s not too bothered.
He’s a bit of a caffeine addict, and apart from buckets of strong black coffee, his preferred beverage is a disgusting concoction of coca cola and instant coffee, which bubbles up in his glass becoming almost a thick brown paste almost guaranteed to give you a stroke. Red Bull eat your heart out.
For some reason I find myself pouring out my current tale of woe to him one evening- a typical boy meets girl week of holiday romance, then (sadly just as typical) boy goes home and girl adds boy on facebook to find boy has a girlfriend. Pah.
Now I’ve mentioned before batman’s ability to pull weird and wonderful quotes and phrases from out of his hat (or cape) and in response to my pathetic not-even-heartbreak moping around, he pats me on the head and tells me with a serious look;
“When one man goes in the house and cannot find something- he look outside” and shrugs his shoulders at me.
Ok- I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to be the inside or the outside in this little metaphor, but by the time I work out what he means, he’s disappeared off into the dark before I can protest.
I probe him further when he returns for another coffee. He says that this is nature’s way, that marriage is a tradition that we are taught by society from when we are small rather than monogamy being something that nature intended.
“The earth reproduces, and then there is more life.” He says. “Live life with your eyes not from what they tell you.” I understand what he means, but I like to think of marriage and the bonds we build as more than just a tradition, not just something we do because that’s what we think we’re supposed to do. Surely we’ve evolved- men aren’t going against nature by being monogamous. Surely we’ve evolved from animals that follow urges and instincts in to beings that build bonds, make connections with other human beings, feel loyalty and respect. We’re creatures that love- not just mate and reproduce under the pull of mother nature.
Men have this amazing ability; to compartmentalize. They can be in love and yet cheat- they can be a father, but still act on impulse. It seems every day we pick up the news and another footballer has cheated on his wife or girlfriend- its a growing catalogue of infidelity. But no one is surprised. I read in one of the broadsheet newspapers that what do people expect; if you make a young, uneducated male a famous millionaire almost overnight- how can we expect him to live a sensible respectable life. These people don’t live normal lives. Women throw themselves at footballers, even a man with great will-power would have serious trouble. But isn’t that sad that’s what it comes down to: will-power. They have to willfully stop themselves betraying the person they’ve built a life with, had children with. The man that wants to sleep with anything in a skirt seems to be completely separate to the man that plays football, to the man that goes home to his pregnant wife; he plays many roles and they are all completely separate in his conscience until they’re caught, by which point they’re on their knees with apologies (to sponsors as well as spouses.) Would it be biased to say that women have more of a connection between all the roles they play?
Batman also reckons that men can’t say how they feel, but I think of my friends out in Spain (in reference to the ‘my size crew’ here) and I think he’s wrong- that’s too much of a generalization- he’s letting men off the hook as it were by lumping them all together in an Alpha-male-following-natural-urges group. My wonderful boy mates out here are as soppy as hell; they fall in love every weekend and give it 100%. I’ve seen them get destroyed by girls cheating on them.
So its men and women. What kind of creatures are we that we can make a connection so strong with another person we want to declare it forever in front of God and the law, only to break it by sleeping with someone that doesn’t mean anything in comparison. I don’t think it’s that we’re better than animals- it’s just we’re far more complicated, making bonds and commitments we then don’t seem to be able to live up to. Maybe batman’s right. Maybe we’re not supposed to. Maybe that insatiable feeling of love isn’t meant to last forever. “Nada es para siempre.” He tells me. Nothing is forever. I don’t want to believe he’s right.
I realize my indignant moping around its not about Mr holiday fling- his face fades into nothing, it’s not that I want to be his girlfriend, I wanted him not have a girlfriend- because by him disappearing off back home to his long-suffering Mrs it made me feel cheap- his little holiday fling, whereas I wanted to be worth more, and more than that- he had me convinced that he felt more than that.
The boys don’t understand when I try and explain how pissed off I am.
“So did you want to meet up with him again when you got back to England?” they ask.
"No."
“So what does it matter that he has a girlfriend?” They tell me shrugging their shoulders.
I find their reply interesting considering they all, in turn, have been screwed over by members of the female species. These boys live in a town where girls arrive for a summer holiday in skimpy clothes and up for a good time for a week and disappear off back home into oblivion- their world is a playground. But they fall in love so easily it amazes me. I really have had an amazing insight in the male brain this summer- maybe it’s because I’ve never been so close to group of boys as I am out here before-but they’ve really surprised me. I get treated like one of them, which although endearing, needs to put out there that actually, I am a girl- so graphic descriptions of their sexual activities don’t go down too well when I’m eating my dinner.
I’m shocked at actually how much they notice. I listen to them talk about girls- they notice who's put on weight, who's lost weight and I’m outraged as women’s magazine have always sworn that’s our hang up- men don’t stress and obsess about weight the way we do. This is a lie- when my brother’s friends were all out here ‘Men’s Health’ magazine contained enough ‘advice’ to turn any bloke into a neurotic dieting, body building mess. I’d literally say it was more intense than women’s dieting magazines. The men’s magazine where a carved and chiseled figure on the front was interviewed completely shocked me. This man’s entire life literally revolved around what he could and couldn’t eat, eating ridiculous amounts of protein, complicated instructions when it came to carbohydrates and constant exercising. Yes his body looked pretty jaw-dropping, but I wouldn’t have said it was particularly attractive. And what was more unattractive was the fact his life revolved around the maintaining of this body. It’s the type of man you’d go on a date with and all they’d talk about is themselves, their body, and I’d hazard a guess that he is most definitely compensating for something else…
Its comical to think in this new age of dieting and body mania, sitting in a restaurant, it could be the male fussing about what he can and can’t possible eat.
Batman meanwhile turns up again from his prowling around in the dark for another coffee and gives up trying to explain to me the ways of men and the conversation switches to books. He’s used to seeing me with my battered brown notepad down here, and always gets slightly suspicious when I write while we’re talking. “You don’t put my name or my job on the internet” he’s told me several times but I can’t help it, the things he says deserve a blog post, so I scribble away.
I always like to ask people what books they’re in to- it’s my way of reading people if you like, you can tell a lot about a person by the things they read. He lists some of his favourites from when he was a boy- ‘The Three Musketeers,’ ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ to name a few. I get him to write down some authors for me that he’d recommend and he pours out names I’ve never heard of; Cervantes, Che, Sven Hassel, Balzak- he writes in capitals on my notepad, explaining plots and histories in Spanish to me.
He’s read Socrates and Plato and I get a bit geekishly over excited because I love Greek philosophy and literature, and he finds my squeaking and prodding him as we talk quite amusing if not tiring. Here I am, sitting in a beach bar, barefoot, talking about Plato’s republic in Spanish with a Romanian soldier from the French legion. Life is full and interesting and never ceases to amaze me every day.
I tell him about my university, how sad I was to finish, that it was the happiest three years in the most beautiful place and he tells me: “There is time, to see things more beautiful than this.” Two months ago I would have regarded this statement as sacrilege, (fellow Royall Holloway students will understand my indignation) but talking to him; someone so different from my walk of life, someone who has seen so much, so many different things compared to my short life, I realise that maybe he’s right.
My friend nicknamed ‘trimmed’ turns up at the bar (see previous blog if you really want to know where this nickname came from, do so at your own peril.) He always sits on a stool at the end and keeps me occupied when it’s quiet and in return I provide him with beer and mojitos. He’s sweet natured and feels like I do about this little town-I love the way he gets excited about the very smell of the place when he gets off the plane because that’s exactly how I feel. For me that excitement hasn’t faded, but I feel over the last few years I’ve made the most of every drop of sunshine here. This is my favourite place in the world and I got to live here, learn the language, be a part of the people; I have loved every street, and every path, spending hours as a kid wandering around all the little unfinished roads. This is my home on some deeper level but I’m getting closer to getting ready to say goodbye to this place. I have a tattoo on my hip of the Spanish bull, el torro- Spain is somewhere in my blood, the people the culture, the memories I’ve created here. I made a life and history here. This was my first time away from home at eighteen years old here, my first full-time job, my first love.. This place is my story, and if this blog is to be a slice of my life here- it all deserves a mention.
Every love story deserves to be written, no matter how big or small, because it’s the one thing that drives human nature apart from any other species. It’s why I don’t buy that men cheat and ‘plant their seed’ due to some natural instinct that they can’t fight. We’ve evolved from that. And anyone that’s ever been in love- truly, madly in love knows that.
I used to hold my breath every time he left the apartment. He’d only be out for cigarettes but I’d be so sure that he wouldn’t come back, that something would happen to him in the fifteen minutes he was usually gone. In my mind it just was not possible that a human being could be physically this happy. It wasn’t that I felt worried that something could happen, I felt I knew something would happen to him. I was too happy; he’d be taken from me to balance it up if that makes sense. I’d try and visualise him waiting for the lift, stepping in and pressing the button for the ground floor. He’d walk out of the apartment building and I’d imagine him smiling at various neighbours we didn’t know and walk down the hill toward the beach. I don’t think he knew I was watching but I’d stare intently from our balcony window waiting to see his Hawaiian shorts and scruffy t-shirt stride past. He was famous in our town for his horrific dress sense- he loved oranges and purples and had never heard of the word ‘clash’ to the point I thought he must be colour blind.
(When we moved to England I remember being genuinely worried, imagining him stepping out of Romford station in his favourite bright orange shorts and a purple t-shirt. “You’re going to get murdered,” I warned him solemnly- “we have to take you shopping before you enter east London”…)
Of course he’d always return unharmed, multi-coloured clothes intact (sadly) and I’d hold him so tightly for a few seconds at the door that sometimes after pulling away he would hold my head in his hands, looking at me, afraid something had happened while he had gone.
After a summer of working night shifts in bars our body clocks were completely back to front and would wake up at six in the evening. We’d moved from Mil Palmeras to Malaga and in this new apartment in this new town it was just me and him; there was no work in October with the tourist season coming to an end so with no income we’d would fill our evenings by watching movies and Spanish television and going to the beach at 3am. We’d bring sandwiches and sit on the empty beach bar tables listening to the sea on what felt like our private beach. We’d watch early morning cooking programmes before bed which would always make us hungry, but would improvise when it came to food. We managed to survive on pasta and oil for four days once because we had no money. We’d hide cigarettes in different places around the apartment so that when we ran out and had no money to buy more, there would always be one more cigarette that we could share. We drove without car insurance (verrry carefully) for a while because we just couldn’t afford it and one day we ended up at a toll booth for a bridge. “Ahh man,” he said to the toll booth fellow who was looking rather annoyed at our little dilemma, “Sorry, but we forgot our euro.” Our single solitary euro. And we laughed. (The toll booth dude did not.) I felt untouchable. Money was nothing, I had some pretty dodgy jobs (that definitely deserve a separate post at some point..) that to be fair, sometimes I truly hated but I felt like no of it mattered, I was untouchable because nothing on this earth could affect me outside of my little bubble of me and him.
I remember feeling afraid. Afraid when I realized that I would jump in front of a car for that man. I would literally cut my own arm off than let him get hurt. I remember that realization coming to me so calmly, realizing that all the drama of love and sacrifice suddenly was so clear and obvious, it just made so much sense. That frightened me, that I truly loved someone more than myself- my own life.
I’d ask- “Why do you love me?” And he’d say, “Because you love me.” That would drive me to distraction. I wanted to know we were built on something more than that. But really it didn’t matter because that’s when I knew I loved him; because I wasn’t afraid. It didn’t matter whether he laughed in my face, or ran a mile when after one week of us being together I told him I was in love with him; it was irreversible, unchangeable. It didn’t rely on what he felt, how I felt was strong enough to stand on its own, regardless of whether it was reciprocated. It didn’t rely on his love or his affection. I was completely and utterly his, whether he wanted me or not, and I wasn’t even scared.
Even now, I can’t find a fault with that man, I only have good memories of that relationship. He never told a single lie, he never cheated, he only loved and cared for me. And yet it wasn’t enough. Why doesn’t love last? Tell me that. It’s so hard to watch something you were so sure of just fall apart. Something you would have bet your life on just unravel so simply and gracefully that it’s difficult to imagine that not long ago it was hard to breathe without it.
I think that’s what’s scary about marriage- what happens if one day you stop loving your husband? I don’t think it happened overnight to me, and to be fair I was very young. But it’s more scary than infidelity- at least then there would be shouting and yelling, a direction to aim your hurt or loss. But when love fades, the ending of something so important feels unjustified; its deserves a bang, thunder and lightning, not the word fade, and a closing curtain.
If you fall out of love with your husband you’re tied in knots with mortgages, cars, finance, children, social networks, and couples nights: do you wrench your life apart to chase that insatiable feeling where u can’t bear it when they leave the room? Where they are a part of the very oxygen you need to breathe?
I don’t know the answer to that question. I know I made the right decision to break up with my best friend, my first love, because I fell out of love. For no reason other than I just knew I didn’t feel the same anymore and being crazy in love is worth the mess you make. That sounds incredibly selfish but I’ll chase my whole life to feel that way again, where you’re terrified and strong all at once, a lamb and lion in the same body. It’s worth the chase.
I do know I broke his heart. And that kills me. It always will. To think I caused a single tear to run down his cheeks makes me want to scratch my own eyes out. But when its gone its gone and to stay and hold their hand when it doesn’t tingle in your fingertips anymore is more of a crime- Love does not pity.
Sometimes I felt I was a tornado in his life, He was the only thing that made sense to me at eighteen, when everything else was uncertain, in a foreign country on my own, I didn’t know who I was or where the hell I was going in my life, I just knew I was going with him.
He stormed out once during a heated argument, his sudden, inconsequential exit enraging me to tears, far outweighing the argument’s origin. I don’t remember now what it was about. I ran to the balcony window, watching for his stocky figure to come past the communal gardens down the road towards the town centre. I watched too frightened to blink, searching the quiet road for him. When no multi-coloured clothes appeared, I felt as if I was on the border of madness. He returned within twenty minutes, having sat on the bench in the car park behind our building, his natural peace and calm unable to handle impassionate rages. I told him if he ever walked out again, I would leave him.
The next time an argument ensued, a slice of panic cut me as I watched him put on his shoes and head towards the door. I beat him to it, shoving him aside and covering the door.
“You’re not leaving” I said, pointing my finger at him and proceeded to run out of the front door down the four flights of steps to the entrance. I paused when I got outside, unsure of the evening freedom that I had procured for myself. It took approximately twenty seconds for me to realise that I couldn’t get back into the main building without keys and I couldn’t leave the car park as I didn’t have the buzzer to re-enter. I was barefoot.
So I sat on the edge of one of the flower beds, strangely content in the early dark among the bougainvillea, waiting for another resident to pass so I could slip back in, all the while feeling an unhealthy sense of satisfaction at the suffering I hoped I was causing upstairs. To be the person waiting by the window was the worst type of torture I could imagine, although looking back, he was probably relieved to have peace and quiet as I was left to calm down somewhere else.
Out in the flower bed I lasted fifteen minutes until a neighbour suspiciously let a barefoot red-eyed English girl back into the building. On my return he said quietly that if I was to do that again could I please take my mobile phone. He didn’t ask where I had gone as he looked down at my naked feet. He had had his turn sitting at the window sill, and so I felt he could be forgiven. Or maybe it was me who was forgiven.
I’m writing this down thinking about these footballers, and what batman said, and the fact that even though I broke up with my ex last year, I never want to forget how I felt. I’m smiling writing this: I love writing about that time in my life- I’m not sad, I feel lucky that I can say I know what crazy-in-love feels like, but it would be sad to still be together and not feel that way anymore. I’m remembering that time with awe- at myself, and human beings for having the capacity to feel like that that about another human being. That’s why I refuse to let mother nature win this one- about men following some deep-seated old instincts that mother nature planted in them about spreading their seeds. I can’t imagine being in love like that and sleeping with someone else, because how could you hurt them like that if you loved them? And even if temptation lurks after a few drinks, a sticky situation, surely that insatiable feeling, the feeling that there’s only the two of you in the world- surely it’s not even a competition?
When it fades, and eyes wander, let go of their hand before you go reach for another. Because I know if he had of hurt me when I was feeling that way about him, I would have died. I don’t think I would ever ever have trusted anyone again if he had betrayed me. I know he won’t read this, but I’ve always wanted to thank him for taking my heart and giving it back in one piece, letting me love him an insane amount all over Spain, making him move back to England with me, and the dignity he had when I’d exhausted all love out of me.
I think Love is a blind crazy torneado that has you sprawling in all directions, but not into the arms of another. Humans have the ability to love and to hurt, in a way that animals don’t. So don’t tell me it’s nature that make men cheat. We make bonds and connections and have to accept the consequences when those bonds are damaged. Sod mother nature- I’m backing evolution.
Do women love men more that men love their women? Surely that can’t be it. Maybe women are able to respect relationships more than men do, but that seems to much of a generalization. I’m not even saying that women don’t screw up as much as men do. So if were saying we all do it. Then what??
Then its not love. If you love, its stays in your pants boys and girls. End of story.
“Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.”
William Shakespeare.
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