An Accidental Trip with an Anarchist

An Accidental Trip with an Anarchist

"E-mer-ald" said my feisty Italian friend. "Why don't we go on holiday?
To Spain!" It seemed like a class plan for an otherwise homebound
period. It could be done economically, she claimed, and we could make
the money for the petrol by selling handicrafts. It would be a crack, I
thought, calculating the little petrol that my cherished Mini used, as
we set sail for the sun, sea and sand. We diligently planned our route,
selecting the toll-free roads which would lead us over the Basque
border and the stunning verdure of the landscape. A week after our
conversation, and I clutched the ferry ticket in my hand. We loaded up
that Mini to popping point; all kinds of everything found their way
in.

Why is the fool the last to know? Did no one think to warn me of the
personal differences that anyone who befriended Maddelena would
encounter? As my little car trundled down towards Portsmouth, I knew
that I had made a dreadful mistake in coming on holiday with her. Our
conversations through France were a revelation. Maddelena was no
common-or-garden alternative thinker. This wasn't a Save the Whale
type. The hot-blooded harridan was an anarchist who despised society
with venom. She told me how she hated the way the British unemployed
were kept lame with state handouts, so different to the revolutionary
kick of her Southern Italian siblings. And yet she'd left the country
that was so much better than our emotionally-stunted little island, to
live it up courtesy of the British taxpayer.

As I ferried us with confusion through the frantic bustle of the
Barcelona, I wished I'd picked a travelling companion with a sense of
humour, not a sour-face. Every appearance of wealth horrified
Maddelena. I eyed the glitter of a passing Pontiac Trans-Am and wished
that I was at the wheel. "I DON'T!" grumped my companion, making it
quite clear that I shouldn't want to own such a symbol of macho
decadence either. Barcelona during the Olympics was a hotchpotch of
nationalities, notably wealthy Europeans and Americans. Here was the
perfect opportunity to sell our wares along La Rambla, that elegant
Catalan avenue lined with shading trees and caf?s.

Parc Guell was a stone's throw from the huge house we were in - once a
palace on a hill, it had been squatted and was filled with no-fun types
like her. Antoni Gaudi will never know the debt that I owe him. For
that little park was a haven, with it's gingerbread houses and
fairytale towers. My escape! Oh, the happy hours that I spent wandering
lonely as a cloud, chatting broken Spanish to children as I sat and
sketched, watching the lights of the beautiful city houses and
imagining other lives within them. Far away for the moment from
Maddelena...

One evening, we were driven into the town by a young Barcelonan.
Sitting in the back, I was given a first hand example of Southern
European driving. I was chucked roughly from side to side, like a canoe
in rapids. Squeezing into an alley so narrow that only a supermodel
could slip through, we whizzed past pedestrians and pavement caf?s,
forcing oncoming traffic to retreat indignantly as we triumphed
through. In the back of the car, I recoiled with every advancing
headlight. Pablo, unoffended, had simply laughed at my backseat
worries, which melted as soon as we were out of my car. But there was
no empathy from Maddelena. My butterflies were dismissed as an
abhorrent display of British imperialism.

Who made her? It's so hard when you're light years from home and both
your finances are needed to return to the road rage of London. But as
Maddelena's brow remained set in a furrow and her droopy mouth droned
on, I counted the days till the wheels whizzed up the A3 in
anticipation of my ugly little road.

But at last, we were on our way back to greyer climes. The time was set
for our departure and we'd met a girl who perchance wanted a lift to
London. "I theenk that we have to talk about tak-eeng thees per-son"
pouted Maddelena.

"But what's to think?" I asked. "We're going that way and we could use
the extra petrol money." And as a final shot I added, rather bravely,
that the decision was mine, seeing as the car was.

This was a mistake. Maddelena started by asking what I'd meant by
saying that the car was mine, as if she'd missed something in
translation. Her voice rose rapidly to a petrifying crescendo, as she
accused me of harbouring every capitalist sentiment, as if I had
personally introduced the Poll Tax. I had used her, she yelled, to pay
for the petrol to go on holiday, threatening to rip up the ferry ticket
home. Who did I think had been there to help when the car had broken
down? The RAC, I replied.

I ran for cover.

Like it or not, I had to face facts that I had grossly misjudged the
character of Maddelena. She'd seemed so exciting. But her sense of
adventure had hidden an evangelistic fervour that refused to tolerate
the mildest opposition. If you ask me, Bush and Blair are going after
the wrong guy!

I welcomed the sights, smells and sounds of London. A holiday in heaven
had been purgatory, all thanks to one person. Needless to say, our
friendship died as soon as I turned the engine off. Oh well, I guess I
retained my optimism and faith in the education of travel. For one day
I returned to Barcelona, to spend happy hours and pesetas. And en route
to Heathrow, I saw a familiar face. It was Maddelena, going from door
to door with a collecting tin and a pile of magazines. She told me that
she'd become a Jehovah's Witness.

Hell aint a bad place to be!