Cat on a Hot Tiled Roof Read Free

cordial terms, but occasionally the sparks fly when historical inter-family squabbles are resurrected.
    Â Â 'Don't worry, Margalida, I'll go and talk to Rafael.'
    Â Â She hunches her shoulders. 'Better to get the senyor to speak with him.'
    Â Â Old macho habits die hard in Spain. To Margalida's generation, it wouldn't be appropriate for a woman of my age group, and a foreigner to boot, to question a male neighbour about his tearaway sheep. This is a job for the man of the house.
    Â Â  'No problema,' I hear myself say, using that all-weather refrain beloved of Mallorcans. I walk with Margalida across the gravelly courtyard, feeling the hot sun on my neck. As we reach the makeshift wooden gate, she pauses to release my arm.
    Â Â 'I can walk back by myself. You go and tidy up before the Senyor gets home.'
    Â Â No way José, but I'm not going to share such a bolshie sentiment with my elderly neighbour. She places her small and delicate hand on mine. Like the dried petal of a poppy, the skin is pale and papery. At nearly ninety years old, Margalida is as close to a Mallorcan grandmother as I could find, and treats me as a wayward granddaughter, indulging me one minute and chiding me the next. She is still feisty and resolute, and aside from the odd lapse of memory, is as sharp as a tack. She can recall life on the island during the Spanish Civil War with searing clarity and, unlike me, has an uncanny ability to remember useful details such as the dates of the annual fiestas and the telephone numbers of the local plumber and electrician.
    Â Â 'This will look splendid when it's all finished,' says Margalida, wafting her stick in the air as if it were a magic wand. If only it were. I look at the gravel in our courtyard, a reminder that we still haven't had it paved and that it will be some time before we accrue the funds to do so.
    Â Â 'There's still a lot more to do,' I mutter.
    Â Â 'Yes, there always is. It never ends.' Margalida eyes me critically. 'Of course, it doesn't help that you're always running back to London.'
    Â Â 'Come on, I'm there less than once a month now. We need the money.'
    Â Â 'What for?'
    Â Â 'To live, Margalida.'
    Â Â She purses her lips, pats my hand and sets off along the track, leaning heavily on her stick whose polished amber surface glints like a shiny penny.
    Â Â For a few moments I scan the front of the house and the courtyard, my eyes resting on the wild sea of jasmine surrounding the porch and the dark green canopy of ivy covering the loggia. In just a few years its tentacles have spread across much of the finca 's facade and the supporting wall of the porch, reaching as far as the old stone pou , our much prized well, which it has all but stifled. To the left of the porch a short path leads to the pond where a band of rowdy frogs are led in daily song by a corpulent toad whom we have christened Johnny. Water trickles from a wide brimmed ledge high above and small geckos dart up the damp and mossy walls seeking dark and shady nooks. Across the bristly lawn, and beyond the crooked old olive tree, a profusion of roses, blushing pink, cling to the wall of a small stone shed, heads lowered modestly under the scrutiny of the sun. The rhythmic chanting of cicadas can be heard from the trees.
    Â Â The garden is a far cry from how it once was. I remember the tangles of rusted wire and broken wood from long abandoned rabbit hutches, and the decrepit chicken coop whose volatile inmates had either all escaped or passed on. Where the pond is today, a crude, cement cisterna to wered over sun-scorched weeds, full of putrid water and scum the colour of bile.
    Â Â My mind takes me back to the day we impetuously made an offer on this finca while on holiday. A chance meeting with a zealous local estate agent at the villa we were renting set off a chain of events which in time found us relinquishing our former hectic London lifestyle for a more simple