They towered over us as we crossed the plain around Perpignan, until at last the road began to rise, taking us ever more steeply into their foothills. Just like the mountains, the border would have taken us by surprise too, had we not reached an autoroute pay station a few miles earlier. What did take us by surprise, though, was the big Aztec monument overlooking the vehicle lanes.
It seemed for a while that we had more chance of finding an Aztec than a border guard. If we had been expecting a fond farewell from France or a big hello from Spain, we would have been disappointed. There was no one in sight at the French control point. I drove through slowly towards the Spanish station, where a man in uniform sat, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. He didn’t even look up as Prim waved our passports.
‘Hasta la vista, Jimmy,’ I called as we headed into Spain down another steep incline, away from a pass, the possession of which, I guessed, had been a strategic imperative for centuries, and which was guarded now by a man with a fag and the sports section.
A few miles along the road we came to a service area. ‘Pull in there,’ said Prim. A command, not a request.
I expected her to make for the ‘ladies’ sign, but instead she headed into the shop, emerging a couple of minutes later with a map, and two litres of bottled water. ‘Let’s do some exploring,’ she said.
Her expression was so intense that it made me laugh. ‘There’s more to Spain than this, love,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But one piece at a time, okay? I don’t want to leave those mountains behind just yet.’ She spread out her map, located our position and traced a line with her finger. ‘The next big town’s called Figueras. Let’s go past that, and head for the coast. Here, move over and let me drive.’
There was more than a hint of childish excitement about her enthusiasm. This was a new Prim, not the capable, well-organised woman I knew, whose every decision was weighed carefully and reached logically. I looked at her, and I loved her even more.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Gimme the map.’
She handed it over, and we swapped seats without getting out of the car, clambering awkwardly across each other, managing to avoid the obstacle of the big gear lever. I strapped myself into the passenger seat and we headed off, abandoning the autopista — the more you learn about Spanish drivers, the more appropriate that name seems to be — as the autoroute becomes in Spain, and taking to the punters’ free-of-charge highways.
I spread the map out on my lap and retraced our progress from the border with a finger. ‘This road bypasses Figueras. If you take the first exit south of that, and head east, then …’ She cut me off with a nod and a smile.
Past Figueras, we followed the signs for Roses, but found instead a place called Ampuriabrava. It was a huge marina rather than a town, a modern, concrete Venice, a network of wide canals with houses jammed together along their banks, each with a mooring rather than a garage. Prim pulled the Frontera to a halt and we climbed out, into the rising heat of late morning. We stared down one of the canals. There was a boat moored outside every house. I pointed to one of them, a long, three-masted schooner.
‘See that?’ She nodded, slightly awestruck once more. ‘Well, my lovely, we think we’re rolling in it, but I’ll bet you we couldn’t buy half of that bloody thing.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But only you would think of buying half a boat.’ We headed out of Ampuriabrava in silence and followed the map south.
We found St Marti with our stomachs rather than with any navigational skills. We had driven through a narrow, dull town called San Pedro Pescador, then past kilometres of half-filled campsites, without, in all that time, clapping eyes on the Mediterranean, when all of a sudden a village loomed up before us, standing walled and rugged on a hill, with an ancient church as its crest.
Prim swung the car into an empty space at the roadside. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look.’
‘Thought you wanted to be by the sea.’
She shrugged. ‘Right now I want to be beside a toilet. After that … I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody hungry. Anyway, if that map’s right the sea should be just beyond the village.’
I looked around. There were scores, maybe hundreds of cars by the side of the road and in the official parks. More than a few had wind-surfers on their roofs.
A tarmac path sloped up toward the village. Arm in arm we followed it, under a stone arch that looked a few hundred years old, and into a tiny square with a red monoblock walkway that still looked brand new.
I read the street sign. ‘Placa Petita. Wonder where the big one is?’
It wasn’t far. The red-brick road led us on up a narrow alley, shaded even from the midday sun. All of a sudden we were aware of a buzz of sound. As we reached the mouth of the alley it grew until it was almost a roar.
The pathway stopped as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun. We stood at the mouth of the alley and looked out into the square which was the heart of the tiny village.
It was filled with dozens of round wooden tables, and four times as many cane chairs. They sat out on gravelled earth, under huge parasols. Some were all white, others had a blue stripe. Spread out together they made the place look as if it was covered by a patchwork marquee.
The tables were jammed together tight and almost all of them were in use, by a congregation of the most casually dressed people I had ever seen in my life. All ages, all shapes, all sizes, none of them wearing many clothes. At least a dozen waiters danced nimbly among them, bearing trays of drinks and food. One of them swept past us, swinging three plates of fat, grilled sardines, slaked with garlic and olive oil, under our noses.
The square was bounded on three sides by old stone buildings. Every one of them housed a restaurant and bar, and each one seemed to own its own area of ground on which tables were set out, packed together tightly with just enough room to allow access. Above the parasols rose three young trees, with birds singing in their branches.
The old church stood at the head of the square. Its single great round window seemed to look down on the village like a benevolent eye. I couldn’t help myself; I smiled up at it, and nodded. I stood there for a while, beaming, trying but failing to pick out a dominant language among the noise.
At last Prim squeezed my arm. She grinned too. ‘A bit different from that concrete boatyard, eh? Come on.’ She pulled me up the path, which was gravel now, into the heart of the square, looking around for an empty table. ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to her left, towards a space near the entrance to one of the restaurants, dragging me behind her as she made for it.
The waiter stepped up just as we got there. He was a tallish bloke, about my height, forty-something but with jet-black hair, and a long face which broke into a pleasant smile as he drew back one of the cane chairs for Prim. It didn’t strike me until later that he was less bronzed than I had expected a Spanish waiter to be. In fact it stood to reason, since he spent most of his summer under the parasols.
I was reaching into the back of my brain for my High School Spanish when he beat me to it. ‘Francais? Deutsch? Anglais?’ he asked. At once I realised why I hadn’t picked out a language among the hubbub. It was because there were so many of them being spoken at once. I shook my head as I sat down. He looked puzzled until Prim said, ‘Ecossais.’
‘Ah,’ he said, his smile widening. ‘Scottish!’
I know quite a few English people, but I only give this tip to the ones I like. So pay attention. When you’re travelling in France or Spain, always say that you’re a Jock.