We have arrived. In the way that a crate of records arrives after a rough sea crossing—battered, a little disoriented, and not entirely sure how we got here. We live somewhere between Cádiz and ‘you’ve gone too far,’ in a house the estate agent assured us had ‘authentic Andalusian charm.’ Which, as I have come to understand, is a poetic way of saying ‘you will need a plumber and a therapist.’
The town is idyllic, if you enjoy the scent of fried fish as a constant companion and appreciate the daily spectacle of old men waging silent, lifelong wars against local wildlife. The main square is precisely what you’d expect—two cafés, a bakery where the bread is insultingly good, and a bar that appears to be staffed exclusively by men who have never once felt the need to hurry. If jazz exists here, it’s doing an excellent job of hiding. The closest approximation was a busker heroically attempting ‘Take Five’ on an accordion that seemed moments away from total mechanical failure.
Our house, precariously balanced at the town’s edge like it might make a break for it at any moment, is an architectural contradiction. It’s beautiful. It’s falling apart. It’s bright and airy. It leaks. The walls are thick, but somehow sound travels through them like they were designed to function as an advanced echo chamber. Our neighbours have adjusted their lives around our existence, mostly by staring at us.
Antonio, next door, is unimpressed by our entire way of life. He has the perpetual expression of a man who has just been served an overcomplicated meal and is considering sending it back. Across from us is The Cat Woman. Not a title I have bestowed lightly—she possesses more cats than is reasonable, and she speaks at such an inhuman speed that I can only assume she is communicating with them directly.
Then there is the matter of volume.
Jazz, as any civilised person knows, is meant to be felt. It is not wallpaper. It is not ‘mood music.’ It demands attention. So when we moved in, I did what any responsible adult would do—I tested the acoustics with Max by Partisans. Five minutes in, Antonio appeared. Not at the door, just… there. Like he had materialized out of sheer disapproval.
‘Is it broken?’ he asked, after a long moment of staring at my speakers as if they might explode at any moment.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s jazz.’
A silence. Then the sigh. The kind of sigh that carries the weight of generations, of wars fought, of fields plowed, of traditions maintained for centuries. He looked at me the way one looks at a man who has chosen a very peculiar hill to die on.
‘Have you considered,’ he said finally, ‘returning to England?’
Liz, ever the diplomat, suggested a compromise. I could listen to my music at a ‘reasonable’ volume, which, as she explained, was ‘somewhere between silent and you sleeping in the shed.’ Antonio seemed satisfied. I, less so.
And so, the records play on—softly, for now. At least until siesta is over. Then, my friends, then the real music begins.
Welcome to our life in Spain. It’s louder than it looks.
