Book 1:3 Barcelona to Gibraltar

As we journeyed along the Spanish coast from Barcelona to Gibraltar we passed from one bizarre setting to another, always warmly welcomed.  I’d categorise most of these people as the “International Set”. For the first time in my life I experienced the unique social scenes of wealthy foreigners at play and enjoyed the hospitality of a diversity of non-typical Spanish. All were Tom’s friends from past travels and all were worlds away from anything I’d previously experienced.  Our generous hosts usually drove us to the next large town and we made even more friends from the random lifts we got hitching south and west following the coast towards Africa.  Travelling with my husband was never like this. Tom’s spontaneity & lightness of spirit just gave us wings, opened doors.

I won’t be going into the mundane details of this first week on the road, as we have yet to get to my long walks. I can only give you quick snaps, keyhole views of some of our encounters. You’ll have to fill in the colours, the flavours of Spain and the Spanish culture and imagine how two strangers were coming closer as they travelled. The spaces in the postcards I’m giving you here were of course full of little daily necessities, like eating delicious new foods, washing in ever-stranger situations, dealing with weather, language, navigating cities, getting visas and all the business of moving across a new landscape.  It wasn’t like today where you can turn on TV or surf the net and be instantly shown almost any place on the planet.  All this was new, unknown. 

Compounding this, my personal dose of culture shock, know I was also not fully “with it”, externally calm, seemingly in control, but in a state of remove. Inwardly I was dealing with being the battered wife and bereft mother, being ripped apart by a torture of guilt, shame, betrayal, in a state of shattered deep confusion.   Only Tom kept me focussed, safe and reassured that I was doing what had to be done to survive.  I had to find the Truth and each of the social settings we entered as guests opened my eyes to yet another truth about the way things are, the way people lived and the main glue that kept their lives intact, or otherwise.  I felt like an alien anthropologist, a visitor from some other-world civilisation studying human behaviours on Planet Earth. My life might be breaking apart but I was determined my Phoenix would rise.

Our first stop close to Barcelona was an eccentric artist’s bizarre waterfront studio mansion on the Costa Brava, with geodesic domes and eggs in the garden and a tower to meditate in while looking out over the cliffs and coves across the Mediterranean.  The artist himself was away, but we were welcomed by his model and mistress-companion, a rather wild (to me then) Rumanian woman called Petra, who served us zarzuella, a hot and spicy seafood feast, full of confronting marine beasts with hard horny carapaces and claws.  We slept on a pile of cushions in the tower while Petra danced below in the surrealistic garden around the pool, naked in the moonlight, singing rich Rusky folk songs in her rich contralto……. . Ah, Chichonya.......I fell asleep dreaming of my Russian mother, remembering how she sang this song as she danced with me as a tiny tot.  And woke in tears. Tom sensed my distress and reached across, pulling me close, holding me in an empathic warm comforting hug that eased away my pain and we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

In a finca near Valencia we bedded down in the cold sad family home of Juan, a lonely bullfighter who had fallen from grace.  His mother, a senile ancient crone, all decked in black finery overtopped by the traditional mantilla, shuffled from room to room muttering and testing the antique mahogany furniture for dust, ringing a bell loudly to summon an equally ancient maid when she found any.  Our host drank cognac incessantly, morbidly.  But he brightened up when Tom shared a joint with him and he showed us his clever bullfighting moves as Tom played the cheeky teasing bull.  Lithe and proud, dancing.  The heels of his boots clicking on the tiled floor. Flamenco rhythms.  Midnight velvet eyes, flashing electric shafts in the spluttering candlelight with each pass of his swirling cape.  The drama, the passion.  I was enthralled, despite my revulsion for bullfighting.  But the whole place had a darkness that seemed to echo in the soul of the mother and her troubled son. However the hospitality was generous and we were pampered like royalty.

That night our bedroom was ultimate luxury. I slept high on a platform in a canopied four poster on a feather-down mattress under crisp embroidered white sheets.  Tom had a single sleigh bed in an alcove which must have been used by a servant. Beyond the terrace doors a pergola provided a stage for dramatic dancing shadows in the strong winds which drove scudding clouds across the moon.

In Alicante  we happened upon another of Tom’s chance acquaintances, Milo, as we sat enjoying a late lunch of bread and cheese on sunny steps in the Old Town. He invited us back to his place and I was more than astonished as, in the twilight gloaming, we wandered in to a gypsy camp outside the city, He led us through a warren of tents to one with a luxurious silken tassel and jewel hung interior, where dark people in bright clothes reclined in opulence around a hookah.  A magnificent hawk-featured dark stallion of a man in skin-tight black velvet pants and a jewelled satin bolero over his otherwise bare beautiful brown hairy torso played sensual flamenco in a corner, his hooded eyes flashing me invitations.  A richly throaty-voiced gypsy queen, her generous curves clad in velvets and satins, accompanied him in a moaning humming wail, soto dolce, as she snuggled down on the cushions beside me, her heavy scents invading my space, as she let me play with her little velvet bag of precious gems - diamonds and rubies, sapphires and pearls.  Or were they just glass tat?  No matter, to me they were faery stones full of sparkle and magic, just as her glittering eyes, close to mine, seemed afire with charged mysteries and spells.

I fell asleep on the cushions listening to flamenco guitar, watching the firelight flickering in the dark eyes. It was dark when Tom softly tickled my nose and woke me, whispering that Milo was leaving to visit his brothers near Granada and we had a lift if we wanted. I wanted. In a comfy old battered Chevy Yank tank with Milo in the front passenger seat and a stern old man driving, Tom & I in back with 2 chickens and a goat, it was off inland into the dawn-touched mountains, lurching and swaying over dubious dusty roads, stopping here for food and drink, there for rests to enjoy a view.

Late in the day they dropped near us near Granada outside some stone pillared gates of a large spread. After emotional farewells they drove on.  An amiable old large wolf hound ambled out to greet us followed by a posse of noisy kids riding small horses bareback.  Next we were hauled,  baskets and all, up behind them on the horses and I held very tightly to the teen rider as we cantered across a field to the main villa, a large rambling stone pile set in a green valley surrounded by low dry hills.

Here we spent a couple of very happy relaxed days in good company. I felt a lot of my pain lifting away. It was the sort of happy environment I had hoped my own life might become.

Our hosts were a family of Chilean artists.  A happy colourful group of people who spoke six languages all at the same time. Worldly, gregarious, imaginative.  A huge extended family of four generations.  They all resonated love and I felt it to my core. The children were adored and pampered and entertained us all with their wild energies. The affection was physical and everyone openly emotional, touching, kissing, and hugging. Babies were passed around to whoever had a free hand and old people were included in often raucous discussions on any subject that happened to be being sorted, from milking goats to the state of the economy. At least while I was observing. They loved horses and had large stables at the rear of the villa.   Dinner brought them all together around a Rabelaisian feast on a thirty foot table under a grape arbour.  They all talked incessantly, calling to Tom and me to answer in loud crazy Spanglish.

Afterwards we all played music and danced. The older kids practised magic tricks and gave us a mini circus show with acrobatics and disappearing acts, some of which were less than perfect, giving us all huge laughs.  I felt myself opening, felt my love flow, my pain dissipating like poison draining & being replaced by the life elixir as I twirled and clapped and laughed for the first time since I couldn’t remember when. Tom played his harmonica and drums.  I found a mandolin and did my best at keeping up with the rhythms. I had once again found my sense of fun. But I also found a deeper yearning choking me every time I heard a baby cry and knew no matter how I might be enjoying the moment, my own baby held me tight, the unbreakable bond of mother-love. I would keep going, but she would never leave me.

The last stop in Spain was a cliff-perched fortress of a villa outside Marbella on the Costa del Sol with wealthy Manhattan hippy queens.  At the gate we were met by large sinister spade-cat minders, their black shining bare chests under black leather vests hung about with big silver crosses, their arms tattooed with dragons and skulls, eyes impenetrable behind blackout glasses. Dobermans roamed the grounds. We were collected by a zippy golf cart that swiftly dropped us outside the main front doors where our host, Anton, resplendent in a flowing purple silky caftan, came out to embrace his long-lost Brother Thoma and welcomed us both in the mi casa su casa style.

It was such a scene! We lounged back in an almost clinical all-white ultra-modern cool cavern of a room, under high-vaulted ceilings, reclining on huge white deep cushions, looking out into the blinding sun across a tiled terrace over the city to the bay below, waited on by slim nip-arsed Arab houseboys dressed in white with bright Mexican sashes and red Arabic tarbushes on their heads. Our Soho Boho hosts snorted white powders and were so bloody cool, man. 

Anton, was a suave fifty year old dress design mogul with an international clientele, given to the aforesaid shrieking orange or purple silk caftans with lots of rings and silver chains hung with precious stones. He was sensual, warm, open and relaxed, into yoga and eastern mysticism. A likeable generous host who welcomed me into his home, making sure I was comfortable and refreshed.   

Unlike his lover, Precious,  a peroxide crew-cut French-Vietnamese android in painted-on leather pants with lace cut-out insets,   gold glitter eye shadow on his/her cat’s eyes, sardonic thin lips a slash of black lipstick. His little fingernail, gold varnished, was two inches long. The ring-hung hands were claws.  Diamond studs in his nose and penis-head (or so he boasted).  

I remember the cold creepy fear I felt from this creature every time those patronising predatory lidded eyes passed over me, but I returned the look with my mask of gentle sweetness and hoped he wouldn’t come closer.  He was the master of the sneer, the veiled insult, the cruel put-down and made a hissing noise followed by a cruel harsh laugh when he passed me, always too close, threateningly.   His older companion controlled him like a panther on a lead. “Now dharlink, behave.  Be nice to my guests sweetie.  Come and share some candy with daddy”.   They were junkies.  High shit.  Their world was name-dropping of the rich and famous, acquiring ever more opulent symbols of decadence - jewels, cars, art, people.   And white powders to snort, smoke or spike into their veins.

Lunch was served on the terrace under a Tibetan tent canopy on the tiles spread with Mexican rugs. We were about 10 in all, cross legged on cushions as we helped ourselves from a ginormous platter of Middle Eastern type dishes it took 4 men to carry in. hommus, pilaf, tabouli, stuffed vegetables, kebabs, olives, pitta bread and so on.  Huge jugs of pomegranate and orange juice. The platter was taken away by the servants and coffee brought while we stretched out on huge body cushions enjoying the view. I went exploring inside, looking for the bathroom and finding inner rooms where even more people I hadn’t yet met were hanging out, mostly stoned it seemed.

A psychedelic op-art Jimmy Hendrix, a Dali and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn on the walls.  Dylan, the Stones and Cream on the mile high speakers filling the space with a wall of sound. A giant mirror ball throwing patterns of shattered light in giddy flashes across all.  The mating phlegm of fluorescent foetal succubae globules in the gulping lava lamp in one corner.   I looked around the spaced out lounge lizards on the cushions, posed, unmoving and mute, living statues.  Android creatures in exotic maquillage and peacock plumage.   Black leather skin-tight trousers and white pirate silk shirts.   Velvet leopard-print flares.  Full-length Afghan embroidered fur coats.  Elaborate silk caftans. Oriental opulence mixed with pop art, Black Panthers and the rock and roll culture, while Wall Street market prices chattered away on a ticker machine in a small phone room with a large safe.  Ferraris, Jaguars and other pretty toys in the garage. A sixty-foot yacht stood at the ready in the bay crewed by pretty boys who served champagne cocktails and brandy Alexanders at dusk on the canopied aft deck. Midnight moonlit Jacuzzi frolicking on the terrace. Cocaine and Crystal.  

I would never have gained entry to such a high camp ménage if it hadn’t been for Tom.  Met Anton in a disco last time he came through, he said. He wanted to stay a few days as there were hints of a yacht trip next day and maybe they could drop us across the water somewhere on the Moroccan coast. But, despite a warm feeling for Anton,  I was so repulsed by the rest of what I was seeing in the guests and their behaviours, all I wanted was to be gone. Behind the glitz and glamour was an evil corrupt lifestyle. This was not simple living and high thinking but stood for all that seemed wrong in our world I thought.  And I couldn’t cope with Precious. Tom said I was being square. No doubt, I was. I had run against a limit to my tolerance. The walls that protected my Wonderland. This was not a place I would bring my child into if I could help it. That seemed to be the yardstick I was judging these pocket worlds with as we moved towards my dreams of  Atlantis. Where was the love, the goodness, the human kindness?

Anton was the shining exception to my judgemental stance. He must have sensed my feelings because in the late afternoon he put an arm around me and said “ I need a drive – let’s go babe”. So,  in a pink Thunderbird, with Tom & Precious squashed in the small back seats with Lola, a snooty blonde Afghan pooch sporting a diamond collar sitting royally between them, we roared away in a memorably exhilarating exit from this pocket world of chaotic opulence down the coastal highway to Gibraltar.

That night we crossed the straits into Africa. The Big Adventure had begun.