Encounters of the Third Age


The bar was full. Every table occupied and the counter was stacked with munchies and drinks in process. I thought that the final stragglers of the holiday revellers were having the last fling at memories before heading North.Wrong.  A new building crew was having their traditional 10.30 Spanish breakfast.

I used to follow their schedule in summer in my working days. I started cooking at 6.00 am to beat the heat, argue at the market at 8.30am and by brickies's break time I was usually at the same place as they were: having a breather before fighting the sun, the wasps, the cooking and the difficult customers who wants Claridges's canapés for the price of a tub of chips from the big Mac.

I caught Maria's eye and ordered my usual toast of Spanish bread, crushed tomato, olive oil, salt and oregano. I had to squeeze between hefty shoulders. Real workers recognise each other by instinct.



Then something extraordinary happened: The worker on my right got up from his stool and said "siente se".

I nearly fell of the stool I did not have under my backside. I cannot remember when a strange man offered me a seat in a crowded place, opened the car door for me or helped me with obviously heavy shopping. Once, I had broken my right wrist for the third time (those wineglasses can be heavy) and had a puncture on a busy road. The plaster went from my knuckles to my elbow and changing a wheel presented a challenge. It was summer time and my handicap was in view of all the motorists passing by. No one stopped to help.

I gratefully sat down on that stool and he gallantly passed me the local paper which I usually perused every morning in that bar. At precisely 11.00 the gang of workers left as one body and silence descended on the scene.

The incident left me uneasy. What would have passed for everyday male manners decades ago has become the exception; the mummies unexpectedly dug out of the sands of history sometimes startle the old feminist like me. It feels rather nice to be cared for and helped by a chunk of humanity which is by nature more physically powerful, strenghthful and if you allow him, more caring than the old bitches that we have become.

Chris, my husband, who like me is from humble origins and was taught, with the help of hefty handslaps from his mother and three older sisters how to treat women respectfully, is always complaining that when he wants to help a woman he is either abused or feared.
 
What have we done? Is it so difficult to accept civility and help? When you suffer from bad back and the rest because the children you carried years ago left their mark on your spine why not leave some burdens to the male of the species? And with a smile because he also contributed to the process. Test tubes babies and whatever new technology is coming our sorry way will never replace what is created with love, pain, anxiety and compassion. Sometimes, unfortunately with ignorance. But it still takes two to tango.

We have Spanish friends in Madrid we see frequently. Manuel would never sit until he has pulled the chair out for me to sit and does the same for his wife. The men sit and the wine is poured, in the proper order: to himself to test the quality, then to me, then his wife and the rest of the men in order of precedence. I love it. Being pampered is a way of life some women have lost forever.

In the village we lived in for aeons lives a Spanish friend of mine I have known for 30 years. He started as a water trucker delivering dubiously drinkable water in the surrounding villages and the beach. Now, he has made it but will always open the car door for me, always let me go through a bar door before him, always ask me what I would like before ordering for himself and never allows me to pay. One night I was in one of those right pickles where you don't see the end of the tunnel. I rang him on those diabolical mobile phones. "Meet me at 18.45 at the Town Hall" was the reply.  

It took him 10 minutes to sort out my problem. Chris and I invited him for a drink at the bar next door. Some other villagers came in, some of the local Guardias, some strays… He signalled to the owner all the time. Then he left because of pressure of work on the impending village Fiesta organisation. We asked for the bill. "Paid" was the reply. I had invited him and in true feminist fashion I should have thrown a tantrum.

But somehow I felt proud of my Spanish friend. He is a gentleman, an "hidalgo" a "grandee" even if he comes from a peasant family who used to grow melons in the valley.

And then there is the age factor. We were walking through the alleyways of our marvellous town of Antequera. Pavements are narrow and my back was playing up. I was using a walking stick (antique with a sword hidden in the shaft in case you meet an alien of the third kind with a ring in is ear and an elastic band around his brain). A local couple with a child came towards us. The child kept on the pavement forcing me to step on the cobbles. Chris, always the knight in shining armour helped me but I heard the mother scolding the child:"When you see elderly people on the pavement you must give way to them!" This child could be a gentleman of the future. By then I shall be an old woman of the fifth age..

JOCELYNE