LUIS

This time last year I moved to Girona. I soon found a flat through an ad in a local café. The price was reasonable and the flat had all mod cons and even a home cinema system. The location was excellent with the roof terrace I’d longed for and a view over Girona cathedral.
The guy I rented from was a businesslike young gent with a smart suit and a folder of documents. Only the semi-mullet he supported gave me any cause for concern. It soon transpired that he had committed many other crimes apart from this hairdressing misdemeanour.
Luis, as he called himself, didn’t come round a few days later as promised with the lease. By then I had grown suspicious. I called him a few times but the phone was always switched off. I went to have a word with the neighbour, who went to turn down The Coral, the Liverpool band were playing loudly in his living room. There was a fake security camera outside my front door that began moving every time I went in or out. I asked Albert, the neighbour, if he had seen Luis recently. Albert looked puzzled, he didn’t know any Luis. But he did know a guy who fitted Luis’ description and had been living in the flat. Albert referred to him as ‘a dog’. By this time I had pretty much pieced the story together for myself. This perro was in debt to the real landlords and thought he would make a little profit before doing a runner. After a number of days of living in hostels I had been naïve and desperate for a place. I paid Luis the rent money in advance before signing any lease.
He had pretty much looked the part and talked the talk, even telling me to take the barbecue stuff in at night and make sure everything was left tidy on the roof terrace. It did worry me a bit that he didn’t bother to count my cash before tucking it into the inside pocket of his waistcoat.
This guy knew all the tricks. Maybe it should have made me feel better when I realised he was also able to con the water and electricity companies. They had cut off the supply for non-payment, but somehow, with a bit of tampering here and there, Luis had everything running smoothly at no charge. Meanwhile, the real owners, a company based in Barcelona, seemed in no hurry to come and sort things out. I could have stayed there for some time. But I dreamt of the Pulp Fiction poster on the sitting room wall, with John Travolta transforming into Luis, and the Easy Rider pin up became Luis riding off into the sunset with my money.
So why am I writing al this a year on when it still makes me angry to think about it? I am flat hunting again and it’s bloody difficult and still a con. Ninety five percent of flats I see are being rented through agencies that charge a hefty commission. A whole month’s rent in fact, meaning that I could lose as much rent to the estate agent as I did to Luis. The difference being that I will be able to stay in the flat for more than a week and that I will have to pay water and electric charges. And if I get a home cinema this time you can be sure I won’t be watching Pulp Fiction or Easy Rider.

Yet another summer in Edinburgh is coming to an end. In a few days time, I will be leaving Caledonia and returning to Catalonia. Before departing I was lucky enough to see one of my favourite performers once again.

Michael Marra’s audience for the night had come to the end of another marathon month of Fringe shows and, the Dundonian musical poet was worried they might be festivaled out. Marra began the concert with his usual warm up number, Dr. John’s Visit to Blairgowrie. Its seems unlikely that Dr John, a famous American blues musician, would visit a remote town in Perthshire, Scotland, but that’s what Marra is all about.

The artists that appeal to me most are the ones that, when you put down their books or CDs, come out of the cinema, concert hall or gallery, make you think ‘I would like to try and do something like that’. Then you have a go and find out it’s going to be a long hard road. How many examples of genuine overnight success have you witnessed? Do you have any evidence of anyone who has learned fluent Spanish in a few months? Have you ever seen anyone whose hair went grey overnight? I digress. The point is I always take phrases like these with a pinch of salt.

But if you have the desire (in the case of grey hair it happens without effort, as Marra and I know to our cost), you keep on going till you get there. Michael Marra didn’t garner such an extraordinary bunch of songs overnight either. He’s been around a bit and heard some great stories along the way. So much so, that, as he freely admits, some of the introductions are longer than the songs themselves. With storytelling among his apparently endless stream of talents, it is no great surprise to discover that an Ebook of his short stories is now available from www.intro2books.co.uk. I wonder if the short stories are anything like the song lyrics. What I find most intriguing about the latter is the juxtaposing of the near mythical in mundane surroundings. Who could imagine that a Hollywood actress would ever go to Dundee to watch a football match and be seen next to an advertising board for a local coal merchant? If you believe Marra it happened… I remember that night it was an evening game/A European tie in the howling rain/Gus Foy pointed to the side of the goal/And said, “There’s Grace Kelly by Taylor Brothers’ Coal”.

Okay, so King Kong didn’t really visit Glasgow and it’s highly unlikely that Frida Kahlo would have to wait in the Taybridge Bar, Dundee, before being accepted into heaven. But Marra’s musical tales are both funny and inspirational.

He has his own view of the world. Before finishing his Edinburgh Fringe set with his version of Robert Burns’ Green Grow the Rashes, he wonders aloud why some people’s names are verbs. Burns, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Jeremy Irons and Nigel Havers (If you don’t get the last one find a Scot to explain it to you). Looking up into the dark Edinburgh sky, I leave Saint Brides wondering if Frida Kahlo ever got this high.