Chapter 15 – THE FORTUNE TELLING GYPSY WOMAN ©

I really do not know how to start this chapter.
Perhaps the best way is from the beginning.

November 1967
La Linea - Bar "El Jockey" ... now the "OKAY" in the middle of the Calle Real.
It was a Sunday afternoon.
Our young gang (la panda) of guys and girls had spent the day in Campamento, swimming on the beach (long before it was polluted), horse riding and then at "El Jockey" for final drinks and tapas before returning home. 

Those were carefree days, quality times we never appreciate until now that they have gone. It would be my birthday few days after this as we sat there laughing, joking, having a "biberon" of Cruz Campo with tapas of boquerones and tortilla de patata. A Gypsy woman approached our table selling balloons.

Now we may have been young, but we were well past the age of balloons, but maybe because we were so happy, laughing and gay (oh whatever happened to the meaning of that word!) she saw us as easy targets. I asked her if she would read our fortunes (la buena aventura) i
nstead of selling us the balloons, I would pay for that. She could read the Magna Carta backwards for the sake of a few pesetas! I am not sure we ever fully appreciated in those times the harsh realities of life that the people of La Linea had to go through. We have always been very privileged in comparison and privilege can blind you to the needs of others.

OK I have put my violin away, let's get on with the story.

She went from one open palm to another saying the usual:
" I can see a tall, dark, handsome stranger who will sweep you off your feet....." …obviously to the girls...

"You will win the lottery and will be very rich and have a huge house and a beautiful wife...."
 ….to the guys...

When she reached me, I was the last there, she looked at my palm went very serious and look me straight in the eye.

"You have suffered two deaths in your family and before the year is out you will suffer the third one"

Talk about a bucket of cold water!

She had taken a few pesetas from each of us, but from me she refused to take any money. She went along to other tables selling her balloons and did not look back.

It was quite true. One of my favourite aunts, Tita Orita, passed away suddenly when I was 15. Later, at 18, my mother's maiden aunt, Tita Rachel, who lived with us all my life and was virtually a grandmother to me, she passed away. Those were the two deaths.

How could she have known?

But youth does not hold on to such questions for long. Instead I chose to forget it and carry on having a lovely time with my friends.

Fast forward.

I celebrated my 21st birthday at the end of that month and it was a great event, made even more so with the nostalgia of time. All the men were dressed in dinner suits. All the ladies in gorgeous evening dresses. all very posh. This was held in the swimming pool Lounge of The Bristol Hotel. I even designed the invitation cards myself. I remember being very proud of that when they came from the printers. I look at one now and think:
"Oh David, what the hell were you thinking of?"

Some of the younger one of the adults in my family were there, as well as my cousins and friends. But two days prior to this I was sitting at the old Copacabana, when this young woman passed by and took my breath away! As an asthmatic and incorrigible romantic, that was not too difficult a reaction.  
I really thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

I would suffer from similar reactions several times in my life. Still do….only with bifocals I think I miss a few of them ! LOL
I do not know whether I regret it or not …… but it's too late for regrets at my age now.

Anyway, I went up to her and said:
"Here is your invitation for my 21st birthday I hope to see you there."

With that, cool as a cucumber on the outside but shaking with emotion at my own daring on the inside, I sat back to finish my coffee. She gave me a weird look no doubt thinking;
"This guy is mad ...or perhaps not?" .... and walked away saying not a word to me.

Later I found out her name, Penelope Jane Kennard -Penny.
She was a hairdresser, contracted by the then very famous Vincent's Hairdressers and this was her first day in Gibraltar. I never expected to see her and in the excitement of organising the party forgot all about it.

On the day, at the Bristol Hotel Garden Lounge we were all enjoying the party, music was from a pickup, with the latest records, and alcohol was plenty so everyone was having a good time dancing and chatting, eating and drinking.

Halfway through the evening the door opens …… and Penny walks in.

WOW!
(I'm recording things as best I remember them. We tend to look through rose coloured lenses at all these good times, I know, but I really think she made a great entrance and looked faaaaantastic!)

Long white silk dress, white fur stole and sparkling bling to match. Needless to say, her black hair was perfectly coiffed, and the makeup totally elegant.

Despite the many wonderful gifts I received on that day, her presence was the greatest gift of all.

I wonder whether such romanticism still exists.
I took her in my arms and danced and danced and danced until my older family members there, (including my own Dad!), kept cutting in, even under the eagle eyes of their wives.

Fast forward again, I'm sure you don't want to know all the details and in any case isn't the mystery sweeter than the fact?

We became good friends, Penny and I, though unfortunately not much more. She was around 5 years older than I, and I was just a handy distraction. But to me, she to me was a wonderful attraction...
Definitely not a match made in Heaven, but equally definitely a wonderful person to enjoy quality time with. She shared a flat at 269 Main Street with one Suzie (I think), a teacher in Gib.
Now Suzie's Uncle had something of a villa in Torreguadiaro, up the hill, opposite the Hotel Patricia.

He had invited Suzie and Penny, and their boyfriends, to spend New Year with him there.
I was sure I was on to a winner.

And then, without any warning, my uncle Pepe Balensi died.

The warning from that Gypsy Woman hit me like a lightning bolt.
“…. Y antes que pase el año tendrás la tercera muerte en tu familia”
(Before the year is out you will suffer a third death in your family)

It was very traumatic, the death of a family member, and one I was quite close to, makes it so. But when the funeral was over, when the tears run dry, when Real Life open the curtains to itself once again, we all think of what needs to be done and have to carry on with our lives.

I had to go to Torreguadiaro!

So, the next day I packed my bags, crossed the Frontier and took a taxi from La Linea.

When I arrived, it was early morning and though I called out, no one answered ... but the gate and the actual front door was open, so I walked in.

"Ahh ... you must be David!" Suzies Uncle ... I think his name was Jock ... or it will be from now on.

" Yes, good morning... Jock"

" Had breakfast yet?"

" Just a coffee"

" Scrambled eggs on toast?"

" Lovely, thank you"!

"Well, make yourself at home" And with that, Jock walked back into the kitchen.
I looked around and just there, beside the dining room, past the kitchen, was an empty bedroom. Jock said make yourself at home so I did, depositing my suitcase on the bed and taking off my coat, I went back for my scrambled eggs.

For reasons that will become obvious, I need to explain to you about the bedroom. A rectangle with a window on the north narrower side and one in the middle of the east, longer wall. The west wall consisted of a built-in cupboard and the south wall had the door to enter and exit the room. The bed was in the corner with the north window next the head of the bed and the east window was at the foot of the bed.
I hung up the clothes I brought and took out a bottle of whiskey as a gift for Jock.

"Where are the girls?"

"Suzie and Penny are downstairs, where the bedrooms are. They're still probably sleeping... you have taken …. that bedroom?"

"Well yes, it was empty and I thought it would be ok..."
I was a bit embarrassed. He had said: ' make yourself at home'....

"Oh well, never mind that's no problem "

We chatted over some very peppery scrambled eggs and piping hot coffee. Jack was a nice guy, somewhere in his late 60s, and have moved to Spain some years before. He had bought the villa from another Englishman who had passed away and had made it a very cosy home.

After a while the girls came out a bit bleary-eyed.
We all enjoyed one of those wonderful Spanish winter days, crispy, sunny and "mucho vino".

We went horse riding on the beach, I remember that, and the rest of the day relaxing and then getting the place ready for New Year dinner.

I must admit that between Jock and the girls, they laid out a magnificent table complete with paper hats, crackers, music and "mucho mas vino".

We did all the silly things we always do in New Year. We danced a lot; we laughed a lot and we cuddled a lot. But by about 3 a.m. We were all flaked out. I thought this would be my chance to swap bedrooms with Susie but disappointingly enough, Jock would have none of that under his roof. So, I went to my bedroom changed and crashed on a bed which still had those old wool-filled mattresses.

Lights out and straight to sleep.

At about 5 a.m. I was awakened by a strange sound in my room.
Can you imagine the tinkling sound of a glass ashtray on a tiled floor? That was the sound. I was thinking whether to get up or shout when I felt that whoever was making the sounds, walk to the head of my bed.

With the courage of cowardice, I thought:

"If this is a thief, he may have a weapon, better let him take whatever he wants and leave!"

Brave of me, huh?

I made believe I was fast asleep and waited in silent prayer.
(Fear does have a way of making one more religious, right?)

From the tinkering sounds he made as he walked, I could tell he had moved to the foot of my bed.

Then... total silence for a few minutes.

Just when I thought he would leave or had left, he walked back to the head of my bed!
Somehow, I felt that he was looking at me intently.... And me? I was holding back a panic attack and trying to breathe slow and easy as if I was sleeping.

This happened three times ….. from the foot to the head of the bed…. from the foot to the head of the bed. Each time he would pause and I felt him looking intently at me even though my eyes were soldered shut with fear.

Finally, he walked to the foot of the bed, stepped on the bed, one foot, then the other, and out of the window!

As soon as he did that I fumbled for the bedside light, locked the window shut and closed the curtains immediately.

SHIT! ....

What should I do?

Should I wake everybody up?

For what?

Nothing had been taken that I could see, so why wake anybody up?

I went back to bed after fluffing up that one mattress that still bore the indentations of the intruder’s feet.

No sooner had I put out the light then I heard something outside the window.

LIGHTS!

As soon as the light was on the footsteps faded away.

I waited fifteen or twenty minutes, then lights out and back to sleep....
Yeah, right!

The scratching on the window started all over again!

I left the light on and picking up a book from the shelf above started to read. What else was there to do?

The book was actually Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.
Actually, quite an amazing and fantastic book which I believe today would be very dated. But it kept me company till about 7:30a.m. By which time any self-respecting and burglar would have called it a night.

I managed to get some sleep for couple of hours. I got up from the bed thinking, what kind of shoes was this man wearing that did this tinkling sound of the floor tiles?

But there were no floor tiles; the whole room was carpeted!

I pulled pulled back the curtains to open the window........but immediately past the window was both a mosquito net nailed fully to the frame ….and past that, a roller blind with the sash inside the room.

How did this man get in and out?

It was then that the.... laxatives syndrome... took hold!

After showering and dressing I went to the dining room.
Jock was there and I told him what had happened.

" Have some champagne Dave, you must have drunk too much last night"!

But I had not.
I am not really a drinker anyway and I hadn't wanted to make a fool of myself in front of Penny.
Champagne for breakfast, more scrambled eggs, and Jock telling me it was all in my imagination.....
Nah! No way.

Instead of waiting for the girls to come up, I went down to the bedrooms with a need to share my nighttime event that way at least!

"You look like shit warmed up!"

"Thank you, Suzie"

"Are you ok?" asked Penny ......

And like an uncorked bottle of Casera, the story of the terrible night flowed out, gushed out, while the two girls watched me in silence.

They looked at each other.

They looked at me.

"What?"

"Has Jock not told you?"

"Told me what?"

"Jock bought this house for a song. The previous owner, an Englishman, was found dead two weeks after he had actually passed away. He lived alone and was a rabid atheist. Because of this the local priest refused to bury him in the cemetery here. Instead he was buried without sacraments in a common grave where paupers and the derelicts are thrown in. He has no headstone and no one has ever gone to visit the grave."

" so .... what are you telling me, Suzie?"

" Well …. not always, but this is not the first time that strange things happen when someone sleeps there."

" It seems pretty obvious to me" said Penny. "The ghost comes back to his last resting place when living. He cannot understand why it is not his body sleeping on that bed, the bed he was found dead in."

"Is that why Jock was reticent about my using that particular bedroom?"

"Yes"

"Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't you tell me? I could have taken another bedroom next to yours over here"

"He told us not to mention this. He told us nothing really ever happened in that room.....  But no one has ever slept there….. except you".

Would it surprise you to know that no matter how much champagne I had for breakfast, no matter how much Jock tried to belittle the incident, I called for a taxi and headed back to Gib.

What happened to Penny?
Did we ever make it together?
No way .....
She stayed in Gib for about two more years then returned to UK.

Me?
Do I ever remember her?
Certainly not!
Not half!