Blood Red

Three

I was really looking forward to last summer. Unforeseen events had cast a shadow over the year before, and it had taken me a while to get over them, emotionally, if not physically. One of the positives of the experience had been its demonstration of the strength of the friendships that Tom and I had in the village. The resident population, within its ancient walls and in the area that surrounds them, is just a little short of a hundred, but there are none I don’t know, and none I don’t like.

When you’re shown such goodwill, it has to be returned, and so, in the aftermath of the blip in my tranquillity, I decided to do everything I could to involve myself in the village life and events. But that resolution isn’t as grand as it sounds, since for half of the year the people are devoted full-time to serving, and making money from, the hordes of tourists who descend on L’Escala and on the campsites along the beaches to the north of St Martí, and for the other half they’re devoted full-time to doing not very much.

I looked around, and asked around for ways to help; after much head-scratching, Cisco, who runs Meson del Conde, the restaurant that faces the church across Plaça Major, pointed out that one thing the village lacked was a proper information centre for visitors. I jumped on that one. My house is bang next door to the church, and I have a small garden. . and dog-pound. . in front. With the cooperation of the town’s tourist office. . no Catalan can resist something for nothing. . I had a small booth built, set into the fence on top of the wall, with a frame to hold all sorts of leaflets, and a bell that people who wanted more specific advice could use to call me, or Tom (who’s comfortable with adults, knows as much about the area as I do, and who’s well big enough to see over the top of the booth), or even Father Gerard if he happened to be around.

My new facility was a success; it opened at Easter and within a couple of months I’d been asked to sell tickets for the pleasure boats that cruise along the coast, and tokens for the carrilet, the tractor-drawn train that runs between St Martí and the beach at Montgo, on the far side of L’Escala. I’d even been approached by a golf course twenty kilometres away and asked if I’d handle bookings for them. (I turned them down; I was there to help visitors to my village, not send them away.)

The venture gave me something positive to do, and made me feel good about myself. But it didn’t use up all of my time. The peak tourist season lasts for only six weeks or so, from mid-July to the end of August: I knew I would be busy then, but for the rest of the mid-year months, most of the business is done at weekends. I was still in the market for things to do, and that’s when Ben told me about his wine fair.

Benedict Simmers is an English guy who pitched up in St Martí pretty much as soon as he finished university, so he told me, and never left. He did a few tourist-related jobs, involving, mostly, parties of school kids, before he got ‘repped out’ as he puts it, and went into the wine trade. He sold online for a while, until he saw an opportunity, and opened a bodega, a wine shop at the foot of the street that leads up to Plaça Major.

He’s Tom’s friend as much as mine, thanks to the dogs. We have an intellectually challenged Labrador called Charlie, and Ben has two of the same breed. As I understand it, Cher, the older of his pair, is Charlie’s aunt, which makes Mustard, her whelp, his cousin. When he’s not at school, Tom often helps Ben when the shop is busy, by walking all three of them. This is no problem for him; he seems to speak Labrador as fluently as all his other languages, for they all obey him instantly, even Mustard, who’s lawless with everyone else.

He was doing that, one Saturday in May, and I was in the shop restocking my wine cellar, according to Gerard’s guidance and recommendations. . he’d been drinking a fair bit of it, so I decided that he might as well help me choose. . when I saw what looked like a poster displayed on the shop’s computer monitor.

‘Arrels de vi,’ I read aloud. ‘Means “The roots of wine” in English, doesn’t it?’

I should explain that the St Martí community, even Tom and I sometimes, when there’s nobody else around, speaks a variety of tongues in its daily discourse, but most commonly Catalan, the language on the screen.

‘That’s right,’ Ben replied.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the name of my wine fair. . the fair I’m planning, that is.’

‘What’s a wine fair?’ I asked.

He and Gerard gazed at me, their expressions dangerously close to patronising. ‘A wine fair,’ the priest replied, ‘is a gathering of producers, brought together to display and offer their latest and finest vintages, for an educated public to taste and, hopefully, to buy.’

I looked at the Englishman. ‘Where are you going to hold it?’

Ben waved a hand towards the door. ‘The plan is that it’ll be out there, in Plaça Petita.’

I walked over to the entrance and looked at the small square, gently sloping, but terraced. Four pathways lead into it, two of them rising from the car parks that lie below the village. ‘Will it be big enough?’

He nodded. ‘Should be. I reckon it’ll take at least a dozen stands, and that’s as many as I’d want. . for a first effort, at any rate.’

‘Who’ll be here?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’m approaching all the Emporda wine-makers. So far the response has been good.’

Catalunya contains a number of comercs, or regions; Emporda is ours, and it’s split into two subdivisions, upper and lower. ‘When are you going to have it?’ I asked.

He pointed to a date at the foot of the poster on the screen. ‘First week in September, soon as the August chaos is over. . that’s if I can get everything put together. I’ve still got a hell of a lot to do.’

‘Need any help?’

He grinned. ‘Nice of you to offer, but I have to sell the concept to the exhibitors myself.’

‘There’s more to it than that, surely. There’s marketing, publicity; I could use the information centre to plug it, and to sell advance tickets.’

‘Advance tickets? I plan to sell on the day, that’s all.’

I frowned at him. ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I don’t know a hell of a lot about business, but I do know that if you’ve covered your overheads before the show opens, everything else is profit.’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ he conceded. ‘If you’d do that, I suppose it would be a big help.’

‘I will, and you could sell tickets through the hotels as well,’ I added.

‘That would be good too. I know most of them. Then there are the restaurants I supply; I’m sure they’ll advertise it, at the very least.’

I was well warmed up. ‘I could talk to the people I know in the tourist department in L’Escala; to see if they’d help. They have a website.’

Ben grimaced. ‘You might have a problem with them. There’s one big fly in the ointment; I need the mayor’s cooperation. I called her yesterday and. . let’s just say she didn’t make any encouraging noises.’

‘Why do you need her onside?’

‘Because Plaça Petita is public land, and the mayor has the power to decide whether it can be used or not.’

‘What about the local traders’ association? You’re a member. Can’t they put pressure on her?’

‘I’ve talked to the leaders; they’re scared of upsetting her. A lot of them rely on town hall approvals to run their businesses. Getting on the wrong side of the mayor is never a good idea in L’Escala. Besides. .’ He paused.

‘What?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think there might be a little bit of prejudice.’

‘Are you saying they’re agin it because you’re British?’

‘Could be.’

Beside me, Gerard sighed. By that time, he’d come to know my rising hackles when he saw them.

‘The hell with that,’ I declared. ‘Most of their businesses only survive because of the money that the Brits, the French, the Belgians and the rest of Europe spend in this town. And as for the mayor, L’Escala educates its children and runs its social facilities thanks to the taxes paid by expat property owners. You concentrate on bringing in the wine producers and leave her to me.’

Ben frowned. ‘Are you sure? I can’t afford to pay you, Prim. This will be a shoestring operation.’

‘I don’t want paying,’ I told him. ‘But I’d better have some sort of authority when I go to see her.’

And that is how I became operations manager of Arrels de Vi, the St Martí d’Empúries wine fair.