‘This is it,’ he said, unlocking the door with a key from the vast bunch which hung on his belt. He stepped inside and switched on a light. A narrow stone stairway rose in front of us. ‘Is up here, at the top,’ he said, starting to climb. ‘Very nice apartment. All new furniture, new kitchen, almost everything new. The owner and his wife not speak any more. That is why he want to sell.’
The stairway took three turns before we came to the apartment. No other doorways opened off it, but it was lit by three slit windows one above the other on successive levels. There were two keyholes in the brown-stained front door, each concealing a heavy, three-bolted double lock. Finally after much sorting of keys, Miguel unlocked them both, stepped inside and threw a switch. There was a hum as the motorised shutters, which covered every window, rose as one, letting the sunlight spill into the flat.
‘Is very good, the way it faces,’ he said. ‘The sun only comes in the windows at the back, but unless you roll out the blind, you have it on the terrace all day. And this is the highest apartment on this side of the village, so it has no one can see in. You look round. See if you like.’
Both Prim and I had been expecting something old-fashioned. But at some point in the last twenty years or so the place had been gutted and rebuilt. We stepped into a big living area, with cream tiles on the floor and pristine, white-painted walls.
Doors on either side led into two bedrooms, the one on the left, en-suite. The other bathroom, and a spacious fully-fitted kitchen with washer-drier, fridge-freezer, halogen cooker, microwave and even dish-washer were set on either side of the entrance, and had good-sized windows which looked back down towards the square.
The living area was quality furnished, with two wide wood-framed sofas, with big, soft, pale blue cushions, a single chair, a round dining table set, and a sideboard. A television and video sat on a corner table, beside a big open fireplace, with, I noticed, a Sky satellite decoder, minus card. The stuff in the bedroom was of the same style and standard. I guessed that at some point while they were still together, the Dutch couple had gone to the local furniture store and bought the lot en bloc.
The living room and both bedrooms opened out onto a big balcony. In the larger bedroom Prim drew the muslin curtains aside, threw the double doors open and stepped out. ‘Oh!’ she cried out loud. ‘Bloody hell!’ So did I. The terrace was L-shaped, since the smaller bedroom, on the right, was set back from the line of the living room. A quick count of its floor tiles told me that it was around five metres deep and at least twelve wide. It stood above the tops of the trees which lay on the slope to the north of St Marti, giving a panoramic view which stretched from L’Escala on our right, right across the bay and on to the spectacular skyline of the Pyrenees with which Primavera had fallen in love that morning.
Miguel was standing behind us. ‘You like, eh,’ he whispered, with a smile. ‘You know, I think this is the finest view in all of Catalunya.’
I must have looked puzzled. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You think that you are in Spain, yes?’
I must have looked even more puzzled. ‘And so you are,’ he went on. ‘But you are also in Catalunya. Spain is many places, many provinces. Here we are Catalans first, Spanish second. We speak Catalan first, Castellano second … although a few will not speak Castellano at all. We have our own flag, like the Spanish flag, the same colours, but different.’ He laughed. ‘We even have our own taxes … although many people, they don’ pay them!’
Prim tugged his sleeve. ‘You said forty thousand pesetas for the week?’
‘Yes. I can take Visa if you like. At this time of year Catalunya runs on Visa.’
She looked at me. A question. I nodded. An answer.
So we went back to the snack bar, paid the man with one of our shiny gold cards and moved in there and then. In time to catch the last of the evening sun, stretched out in our cossies — initially, at least — on the sun loungers which we had found with the rest of the terrace furniture. In time to discover that Miguel had been right when he said that our balcony, bounded by a low wall topped by a wooden rail, was completely private. There’s nothing on earth quite like sunbathing in the salty air of the Mediterranean with the warmth caressing the length of your body. But don’t just take my word for it. Ask Primavera.
Our voyage might have been over for the moment, but there was still plenty of discovering to do. We spent the next week exploring the region: the incredible detail of the excavated Greek and Roman cities of Empuries, the homely L’Escala with the narrow streets of its old town sloping down to a pocket-sized sandy beach, and its expanding marina where we encountered another expatriate Scot, running a very good restaurant with her Catalan husband, the neighbouring town of Torroella de Montgri, with its baking hot square and its leafy avenues … sorry, ramblas. In the process we found at least a dozen good places to eat, since neither of us was in a hurry to learn about supermarket shopping in Spain.
On our seventh night in St Marti, as on all the others, we brought our evening to an end at a table outside Casa Minana, enjoying the buzz of the people and the cold of the draught Estrella beer. As our friend passed by with a nod and a smile, Prim stopped him with a touch on his arm.
‘Miguel.’ She hesitated, for about half a second. ‘What would it cost to buy the apartment?’
He looked down at her, suddenly solemn. So did I. ‘To buy it?’ he repeated.
She nodded.
He glanced across at me, then back at Prim, all the time scratching his chin. ‘An apartment like that, in this village,’ he said at last, ‘it cost maybe fourteen, maybe fifteen million pesetas.’
I gulped. Millions of anything have that effect on me. I looked across at Prim, watching her concentrate as she converted mentally to sterling.
‘But the Dutchman,’ Miguel went on, ‘he say to me, get me nine million and I will be happy.’ He paused. ‘That is with the furniture, the cups, the saucers, everything.’
We both liked Miguel, he had befriended us, and given us a couple of mines full of useful information about places to go, things to see, and even places to eat — not a hint normally thrown out by a restaurateur. But both of us looked at him as if he was Tommy Cooper at his funniest.
‘Nine million!’ I gasped, when at last I could. ‘For a top quality, furnished two-bed apartment in an exclusive village, with one of the finest views in Europe. Christ, Miguel, that’s forty-five grand in real money. Forgive us, but what’s the catch?’
He smiled and shrugged. ‘Senor Oz, Senora Prim, I assure you there is no catch. Things between the Dutchman and his wife are very bad. She is not a good woman. She run off with another man, but she wants all his money. He say to me that the more he sell the place for the more he will have to give her. So he say to me to find someone I like, someone who will enjoy the place, and who will not tell anyone in the village what they pay for it, and to sell it to them for nine million.
‘You are interested, yes? If you need a hipoteca … Sorry. How you say? Mortgage, I know a man in a bank.’
Prim looked at me and nodded. If I had said no I would have been deeper in the shit than the Dutchman. So instead, I said, ‘Yes, we’re interested. No, we don’t need a mortgage.’
Miguel beamed. ‘Good. That is very good! I will phone the Dutchman now and tell him.’
He disappeared into the bar, leaving us staring at each other, stunned. ‘Can you believe it?’ Prim whispered.
‘Just,’ I replied, ‘but to be on the safe side, we’d better find a lawyer, pronto.’
Miguel reappeared five minutes later, still smiling. ‘Everything is okay. Nine million is okay. He says he hopes you have better luck there than he did. Before he left he gave me power of attorney, so I can go to the notario with you to pass the escritura.’