CHAPTER 7
Jenny looked a little surprised at that, and I realised how much of Lil’s problem went both ways. How must a trans woman feel, when so much of the world was shouting that same ‘imposter’ directly into her face? I did a rapid blessings count, giving my wife’s hand a squeeze, before waving in the general direction of our departed arseholes.

“Men, ey? Who’d have’em?”

Jenny stared down at her glass.

“Who’d be one?”

Amina slapped her arm.

“Well, none of us are, so it’s a moot point, eh, girls? Now, I don’t plan on getting blotto tonight, so does anyone have any suggestions for tomorrow?”

Jenny was almost blushing, and she looked across at Lil before taking her hand, with a whispered, “You sure?”

Lil just nodded, then grinned in a more than slightly fragile way.

“Going to take a guess here, cause when we met, she was actually on a birdwatching trip. This idea that all of us can see you have, love, would it involve that?”

A rather hesitant nod was followed by what was clearly a swig of her wine rather than a sip.

“I saw a leaflet at the hotel for a four-wheel drive tour. Goes through some of the weirder bits of landscape, but it’s also aimed at the natural stuff. Cactus, lizards, odd rock stuff”

Amina grinned happily.

“Birds as well?”

“Well, some”

“And when we get back?”

Jenny perked up immediately.

“Um, the various words beginning with S?”

I stuck my oar in.

“Sun, sea, sand and sangria?”

The woman was suddenly blushing like a stop light, and Amina just giggled.

“We’ll leave that one unsaid, then. Now, who else has the munchies? After those three idiots, I rather fancy a nibble on some pork balls…”

I held a hand up.

“Don’t know what they’re called, but they do a sort of crispy crab ball, with the pincher sticking out”

My wife corrected me with a sniff and the word “Pincer, love”, to which I gave the obvious response.

“Never, ever been pinsed, but I HAVE been pinched more than once. Sometimes by bloody patients”

Lil shuddered.

“New Year’s Eve?”

“Yeah, that’s one of the worst times. Same for you?”

“Well, a lot more when I was working in a place for straights. Now, it’s a toss-up. If they’re lucky, it’s a right hook from me. A bit less lucky, and it’s a left from Ox”

Amina did her best expectant face, and Lil grinned.

“Yeah, shit out of luck gets the full Marlene experience. Then again, did you hear about Gemma?”

“Pastries Gemma? Jen and me, we love her stuff”

“Lots of folk do. Some lad got leery in the queue, apparently, usual shit. Young lad that knew her slightly stepped in, and they flattened him. Turned out the rest of the queue was loaded”

We all did our own ‘expectant’ faces, and Lil laughed again, far more freely.

“Well, Rhys and Candice were there for starters”

Jenny looked confused, so Amina cleared things up.

“Two of our regular coppers. Blonde woman, and big, big man”

Lil nodded.

“Yup. The one with the big scar on his face. Bish, bosh, nicked. You know the Bakers, at our quizzes? Deb’s lot? Gemma’s one of theirs. And speaking of food, I see tapas approaching”

It was the owner again, with a collection of little plates. Amina reached for a couple, already up to full speed in grilling him about being a Brummy in the Canaries.

“You met the wife, I saw. Boy’s off at Uni on the mainland, but at least I got him into rugby rather than Villa or the Baggies. Short version is that I was always out here for holidays, met the missus-to-be, decided to stay”

Jenny was looking at her lover, clearly thinking of possible parallels, when Amina asked the obvious question about family, friends and upheaval. Our new friend simply grinned.

“Have you ever been to Brummagem? If you had, you’d understand. Enjoy!”

The next morning’s hangover was barely noticeable, so breakfast was a relief rather than a chore. Jenny’s excursion was due to start at ten, so we had time to sort a day pack each with water and some fruit before our driver was parking up. The vehicle turned out to be a well-used Landrover County, with rather larger tyres than I was used to, the driver looking rather like a walnut of indeterminate age.

“Good morning! I am Felipe! Call me Phil, please. Your first time on the islands?”

I shook my head.

“Not for me and Amina here, but I think it is for these others”

“Which one of you is Jennifer Moore?”

Jenny raised a hand, and Phil produced a little card reader.

“Just need a quick swipe, but first…”

Apparently, we had accident insurance built into the fee, which eased my mind a little. I have been on some alleged ‘off-road’ tours that were no more exciting than a walk on a smooth beach, but once, and only once, Amina and I had done the tour offered by a slate quarry up north. Oh dear.

We loaded our kit, and Phil was off and into his spiel.

“We do a bit of driving first. It takes us by coast to north top of island, where is forest and mirador. Er, place to see views. Then we come through middle to place to eat, traditional Canary Island food, and then we have Teide national park, with rocks and local plantings. Miss Moore has said about her own interest, so we finish at a park above the town, where there is easy birds”

I will admit I fell asleep on the first leg, which was basically motorway-style driving, granted along the edge of a sparkling sea and underneath arid mountains, but still boring as all hell. Things changed after about an hour, when the road turned inland and very, very twistily uphill. Our views were blocked by dense scrub or low forest, until we suddenly emerged at a small car park well away from any foliage, and we started to punish our memory cards while Jenny got down to serious business with a telescope. The views were wide, across hillsides and odd little perched villages to mountains and the sea. Just about worth the drive, I thought, and after Jenny had spent rather a while in silence, we were off again, this time staying with the twistiness until it opened out onto brown, dry slopes, and we pulled into what looked like a species of isolated ‘services’. I realised Jenny was clutching a paperback, and to no surprise on my part, it was called something like ‘Where to Watch Birds in the Canaries’.

“Please tell me this isn’t…”

She blushed, just slightly.

“It is. It’s the bushes around the site”

Phil said we had an hour for lunch, and we settled down under the shade of the usual big, square umbrellas for a meal of local dishes, adequately cooked, and no booze. Jenny spent half her time turned away from the rest of us, until she finally sighed.

“Got one, at last! There, on the little wall”

Lil turned to look.

“I can see two birds”

“Well, one’s a canary. It’s the dark blue one I was after. It’s a Canaries chaffinch. I didn’t want to go hone without seeing THE local bird”

I pointed towards the bus park.

“Is that another couple over there?”

Jenny suddenly grinned, her face really lighting up.

“Yeah, it’s always the way. They’re like London buses. Don’t see one for ages, and then there’s a herd. Like wildebeest, galloping majestically cross the veldt”

“We’ve sort of been ignoring you. What else have you seen?”

“Oh, mostly SBJs— small brown jobs--- but local specials. Even the sparrows are different, here. I’m hoping, if we get somewhere greener, to show you a real treat”

“Such as?”

“Save that until we do, okay? Anyway, let’s get this down us and I believe the next bit will be one of the spectaculars”

She was right on that one, for that was when we finally went off-road. I can’t remember the names of the places Phil took us, but they were both bizarre and spectacular. At one particularly chaotic stretch, Amina turned to me and asked, “Am I the only one thinking ‘fur bikini’ here?”

It took a second, then I twigged.

“Shawshank?”

Lil barked out a laugh.

“Well before that, woman! Raquel Welch, One Million Years BC”

Jenny stared at her.

“Now, why might you remember that, hmmm? Would there be a couple of big reasons?”

Lil tried to bluff it out.

“Good actress, fine performance”

Jenny was having none of it.

“Nope. Bikini. Fur. Well-filled. I rest my case”

Phil called over his shoulder.

“Was film here, and on Lanzarote. But we got no dinosaurs anymore. My father, he liked her. Did driving for Hammer”

He pulled up to point out some particularly striking pinnacle, at which point I realised my wife was in the middle of a well-stifled fit of the giggles. I nudged her with an elbow, and she burst out laughing, before declaring that Lil and Jenny were already acting like an old married couple, and then asking where all the romance had gone, Phil, sensible man, simply held his tongue.

Our next stop was in a small village in the most contorted valley I have ever seen, all towering peaks, jagged pinnacles and precipitous drops. I don’t know how high the peaks were, but they were a long way up, and the ground below our car park was a hell of a long way down. It was delightful!

Eventually, though, we ran out of time, and Phil started the drive back, once more on main roads. We were slumped in our seats, drowsing, when I realised we were turning into the entrance of a golf course, of all things, a golf course.

“Is hopefully a favour for Miss Moore, here, si? If I am right…. Yes!”

He parked up well outside any designated parking spaces, while Jenny sighed happily, passing a couple of spare sets of binoculars around.

“There. By the water trap, pond thing. This is my treat to you”

I have never seen an odder bird. First, it was turning round and round in circles, like a broken compass, stopping every so often to push its beak into the ground like a tired sewing machine. That beak was curved. There was a long crest on the thing’s head which it erected a couple of times, to show something like a Native American feather bonnet, and, to cap it all, the bird was powder pink. Eventually, as golfers approached in an electric buggy, it took off, showing black and white wings and a flight more like that of a butterfly than of a bird. Lil grunted.

“What the hell was that?”

“That, my love, was a hoopoe, and I suggest that there are few better ways to end a tour like this on. Thanks, Phil! You were dead right”

“My wife, Miss Moore, she don’t agree. You write letter to say I am allowed to be right?”

He got a bloody good tip instead, which would probably work better for his credibility.

In, changed, and splash into the pool. A jug of the usual fruity stuff for starters, a meal at the hotel, and then a quieter evening at our Brummy friend’s place. The whole thing was turning into a superb holiday. It was most definitely a cut above Barry.