The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society by Chris Stewart Page A

not to trust us. I hoped that they would maintain the same wariness in their dealings with the agricultural mob at the other end.

    The next morning I woke early and, seeing Jesús Carrasco with his goats in the valley, went down to join him. He hadn’t noticed any Moroccans passing but listened with interest to my account of their stay. ‘They’re young. What can they know of all these things they’ll have to face?’ he said, in an unusually compassionate tone. He told me that many of the farmers in the remote cortijos will do what they can to relieve the misery of migrants who come their way – not much, of course, for they haven’t much to give, but they will give them bread and olives and a safe place to rest. ‘Some of the old people have seen their children walk away to find work,’ he explained. ‘Maybe not quite so desperate – but people here know about poverty and what it drives you to.’
     It was strange to be talking with such seriousness with Jesús. It threw me back to a conversation I’d had once with Domingo, where he mentioned that he’d gone to Barcelona as a young man to work in a bottle factory. It was muy mal , he had said, and then sharply changed the subject as if unwilling to linger. I realised that, although he often speaks of Catalunya, he’d never again made the slightest reference to having lived there himself. But my musing was interrupted. Jesús nudged me and pointed to the bend at the top of the cliff. ‘Guardia Civil,’ he muttered. ‘I wonder what they want.’
    Jesús’s skill in picking out moving objects on the horizon has been honed by years of watching goats. It took another few minutes before I could make out the distant car and then the tell tale police light, but I watched with dismay as it drew closer, forded the river and came bumping up the track to arrive by the side of the fence between the alfalfa and the eucalyptus grove. Now, the Guardia don’t like to get their cars wet and would only ford our river for the most serious of purposes. They had come to make an arrest.
    Manolo, who had arrived on his motorbike just a few minutes earlier, ambled towards the car in his usual open manner – he had no knowledge of the Moroccans’ visit and was treating the arrival of the police as a slice of daily soap opera. The officers were indeed following a tip-off – though this denunciation, it transpired, had nothing to do with our guests of last night. No, they were seeking a ‘furtive hunter’ (I translate literally here) who had been seen staking out the alfalfa fields down by the river, waiting to pot a jabali , or wild boar.
    Now, it’s illegal to hunt the jabali unless you have a licence for caza mayor – big game – and, besides, the policemen had heard that this character was acting suspiciously. Perhaps the most suspicious aspect of his behaviour was the fact that he had remained in exactly the same position for eleven months and stank of Zotal .
    Manolo found the civiles shuffling around beside the car looking embarrassed. ‘Come to arrest our scarecrow?’ he asked.
    The worthy officials muttered to each other and cast around for something with which to lambast Manolo and save face.
    ‘We hear there have been hunters on your land. Is that true?’ they demanded.
    ‘No – at least – not the flesh-and-blood ones,’ he chortled .
    I arrived at this moment. ‘Well, make sure you let us know if you see any,’ said the older officer, sternly. Then, barely missing a beat, he turned on me and demanded brusquely, ‘What’s that car doing there?’
    He was pointing to a bamboo grove where a rusting old wreck had weeds curling out through the windscreen.
    ‘That’s where we keep the sheep feed – so the rats can’t get it,’ I answered.  
    ‘That one, then. What about that one?’ He indicated another forsaken old banger at the end of the alfalfa field.  
    ‘That one works,’ chipped in Manolo, enjoying the exchange enormously. ‘It’s for