Top Secret

The waiter gulped, 'A Poo poo in the prawn'?

We rented bicycles, stone-heavy, cheerful yellow and black-bumblebee frames, perfect for toning buttocks after two weeks eating hotel breakfast banquets, and yes, I have eaten an unrepeatable number of chocolate donuts.

We decided against the hundred and forty kilometre drive to Ronda. I’m sorry we missed it but we couldn’t face the journey. I should have realised it is nearer to Malaga. Some people plan their holidays in advance. Well now I know why! Anyway, we’ll go another day. No stress.

So off we set. We cycled on faded bike lanes following the coast, no plan, or map come to that. I prefer to say, without a care in the world. Cycled round with the wind behind us, luckily, passed the pretty flowers which border each of the old, perfectly maintained public loos, which appear just about every three hundred meters; passing, ‘The Loo’ which had an old wooden table and a large sign on it saying, ‘Old books’, meaning more likely, ‘second-hand book swop’. Really? In a LOO?

After some reflection I now think surely there’s no better place for a book stand than in a public loo? Mmm. Well, for one, I know a lot of people who like to read on the loo, so at least they don’t have to read the same passage twice? Or is it recycling, you know, loo paper with a bit of a story?

Oh please! Cycling on.

We pass large square awnings constructed in the sand with wooden floors, where the elderly sit on their own deck chairs and chat in the shade. Perfect. I’ll be there with them one day I thought. We passed the woman feeding bread to a brutal crowd of seagulls; pass the frigate on the near horizon. It must be near, with its bow appearing twice as tall as any building on the fortified island of Cadiz, right? Amazing how it seemed to dwarf a whole city. Quite poignant too I thought. Battle ships here catch the morning sunrise along their starboard looking annoyingly spectacular in the distance and then, round on up to where razor wire cuts the beach in two, at the border of the huge American naval base.

There’s no more track, no more cycle lane. It stops dead. Fading rubbish sits locked, unreachable between double gates all twisted and tied with wire. On the beach below coils of razor wire sit sandwiched between two barbed wire fences on sand. No signs. No information. It could be a prison boundary or a border between countries. I guess it is of sorts. I jokingly said we could swim up passed the concrete boulders that extend into the sea to see what might happen. Yeah. Stupid idea.

Until then we had hardly noticed any military presence. No really. You’d never guess that five thousand US personnel live in a huge, twenty four kilometre squared, super flat area (and usefully flat, you know, for the runway) behind the town, well, apart from a helicopter checking the port on the hour. Just in case.

In case of what, I’m not sure. It’s intriguing and kind of spooky all at once. Maybe they’re keeping an eye on the cheeky Brits over the border in Gibraltar!? Well, it’s not that far from here. Apparently, Spain did a deal decades ago, after Franco closed all the borders and more or less left Spain out in the cold. They allowed the US the land as a concession. It’s actually joint US-Spanish run now and commanded, according to google, by a Spanish rear admiral….rear as in bottom? No, apparently, as in junior commander. Of the navy.

Of course.

Now this base is considered strategic by NATO as they can police the Gibraltar straight, where no less than a quarter of all world marine traffic passes. The Med is bigger and deeper than many of us think. Up to five kilometres deep in the deepest part somewhere near Greece and the biggest sea in the world. (After that you get oceans?) I had no idea and Rota is the only US Mediterranean base with those amphibious thingies.

No, not frogs.

Similar.

Many of the American soldiers based here are so impressed with the gentle pace of life they end up retiring and living here as pensioners.

I’m not surprised.

We have coffee in the local square by the church only to find ourselves in the middle of a wedding. Sure enough the crowd appears three quarters consonant eating, easily smiling Spanish and one quarter retired, lingo speaking, retired American soldiers, also smiling, all mixed like in a romantic cocktail.

It’s a nice vibe. All very low key and cordial round here. I lock my bike up with the crappy lock it came with, locking the wheel to its frame. No longer in need of a jumper I leave it in the solid iron basket. No one is going to nick it. Really. It feels so safe down here it’s as if we’re in another world. Everyone says hello. Including the American family from Utah, on the next table with their four home-schooled, blue-eyed children. They preferred not to use the school on the base but didn’t say why. (And why should they?) They live off the base too. Apparently you can choose. Their chirpy, almost albino, but for her blue, piercing eyes, little daughter, proudly told me all in a singular sentence, ‘I’m eight and baptised!’. Honoured that she felt relaxed to chat with me, I smiled, unsure what to say. I heard myself say ‘Congratulations!’ well it could have been worse. I could have said ‘Oh really?’ with a smile, of course, or much worse, ‘Oh well, never mind’.

I couldn’t help wonder if they are Mormons, out of ten American states where Mormons live, Utah is the main one, with over two million and they have their own home-schooling programme, and the age of baptism is exactly, you guessed it, eight. So maybe that was why she was so happy about it; she was extra proud to be a very important, grown-up eight. It was a milestone! I’m glad I said congratulations now. They say eight is the key year to give the child the power to righteousness of god in their lives. Hmmm. Or is it simply the best age to spread the word? You know, like babies, can’t talk and teenagers would often rather hide facts. Anyway, it’s none of my business. They seemed happy. Her brother, a bit younger than her, according to his eight year old sis, was a maths genius. He was talking to me at the same time as jumping up and down so fast I could hardly see his smiley face.

We cycled back from the razor wire anyway, chickening out from setting off a perimeter alarm towards the town and found the little municipal market. We were drawn by the old stone arches and high roof and ordered drinks from the smiley Vermouth bar who were busy sharing a down-in-one round of shots ‘chupitos’. Raw olives and figs were on sale and ‘Leaks’ was the (only) ‘dish’ of the day on the chalk board. I read the plaque on the wall behind our rickety table proudly announcing that this tower-like-courtyard had been a slaughterhouse and a Catholic cemetery.

You’d never have guessed. Not sure in which order, thank goodness.

The vermouth helped our silliness along nicely as we tried to decide where to eat.

This is the place!

Ok, if you say so.

We walk in.

Nice face. Tall pale-faced waiter, probably the owner, says with an apologetic, honest smile, ‘I’ve only got fried baby fish today.’

Hmmm, I think, hesitating.

‘Well, that’s good. Fried fish and a simple salad?’

‘No.’ He says looking at us, shaking his head. As he said, he had fried fish or fried fish. Yes, salad was off the menu. That’s a first for Spain. In three decades. What? No salad? They do love their deep-fried fish down here.

So we apologise. We’d rather have a bit of salad too and leave. It’s OK, he understands.

Thankfully.

We find a table in the square.

‘Everyone looks happy here.’ We order and soon enough four small tapas arrive. Still in a giggly mood we munch through lunch until my fork unearths a dead or sleeping (or drunk?) cockroach in the lettuce.

I stop chewing. Look down.

‘What? What is it?’

Lost for words I wrinkle my face (yeah, not a good look, bad enough at twenty, but adding in the wrinkles I’ve accrued? As I said, not good) and point to the salad with my fork.

He grabs the bowl over to him and looks down. ‘Oh god. That’s disgusting.’

We show the waiter who removes the salad with his eyes bulging in shock. He also makes a funny kind of gulping noise. The sort of sound you get on a kids cartoon. Maybe he’s rehearsed this or seen it before. Yeah, the insect I mean.  

‘We won’t charge for the salad’. He says instantly.

I think. You might be right there. And I think, we’ll forget the tip too.

Our giggles kind of evaporate but not for long.

My man has a very strong sense of humour. It’s one of the things I love about him. Lots of ‘Poopoo in the Prawn’ jokes; Ian Dury’s song is forty years old now. His ‘Something’s coming through the plumbing’ revealed the level of an average Englishman’s (and woman’s) knowledge of shellfish and the sand canal. Funny how fish isn’t the thing on the island of the United Kingdom surrounded by sea. I love his lines, ‘I was a hungry fella, defrosted my paella, came down with Salmonella’. Maybe he was most famous for ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll’ in 1977 which was banned from being broadcast by the BBC at the time. I also remember dancing every time to his ‘Hit me with your Rhythm Stick’ which sold a million copies and got to number 1 when I was a young teenager. He was uncompromisingly critical of many things, including the polluted beaches of the UK.

I admire his work for being honest, original, and brilliant with sarcastic rhyme. The punk era was good to him. Getting polio at seven certainly left him with a lot to say. Wish I’d seen him play at Ronnie Scots in Soho.

I guess we could have refused to pay but that would have been stressful and definitely lyric worthy. Ian would have turned it into a song probably.

We cycle home past all those shiny loos, (ah! now I understand) and spend the late afternoon wondering if there will be repercussions, if you know what I mean. As the rear admiral would say, ‘mum’s the word’.

I mean, you know, top secret.

Thank goodness for that I hear you say.

wedding photos and cargo ships at sunset