On Wednesday we made sure we didn't go for coffee after dropping the kids off, instead walking straight to the house, so that Steve would have no excuse for not going directly there too. He arrived just after nine, and continued working on the archway, this time hacking away at the side walls.
'God, I've really gone off him,' I said to Adrian. 'I'm losing the will to live. He's like a bloody Dementor out of Harry Potter.'
Thankfully, by the time we returned at lunch-time, there was good news.
'I think I'll have to pack it in for the moment,' he said. 'I can't get my head around it. The thing is it's a bit off-putting with Benjamin and the Romanians here. I'd rather wait until they've done more of their bit and then I can come back. It doesn't really work having too many people on site. I feel like they're looking at me all the time.'
Well, if we did as he suggested and Benjamin worked for us for six months and then he did his part, it would take twice as long as we wanted it to. So, no thanks. The whole idea had been to have one set of builders working on the new structure that would adjoin the house and other builders restoring the old part. He clearly was not the man for the job.
By the time his bit was ‘postponed,' the only thing he'd achieved was raising the height of the doorway a bit. Had we paid one of the Romanian peones to do it, it would have cost ten euros in total. But we heaved a sigh of relief when he went, especially as we hadn't had to sack him; something we still find incredibly difficult to do.
The following weekend we went to Adreimal and Helen presented us with a bill for 220 euros for Steve's time and petrol. We stayed for a few hours, chatting and drinking tea. Steve was happy and relaxed and if anything seemed pleased to have extricated himself from a job he couldn't handle. Helen was more subdued, probably worried what work Steve would now get as we'd all assumed he'd be spending the next six months working for us.
'I'm taking it easy this weekend,' Steve said, smoking on a rolly and necking a beer. 'God I was wasted last week. I worked with Ronny the week before I came to you. Even the Saturday and Sunday. So I didn't get a break at all. And it was really heavy work, a lot of lugging around and wheelbarrowing cement until 6 o'clock every day. I got off my face Sunday night after all that.' And by that he meant, drugs as well as drink.
When we left to head back to La Gloria, I said to Adrian that even if he hadn't been wasted, the job was just too much of a challenge.
'Yeah,' Adrian agreed. 'He might be able to tile a room and fit a bathroom, but he just couldn’t handle a restoration project from start to finish. It's so good to be shot of him, although we've now got the problem of finding someone else.'
Helen had behaved normally towards us, but things changed almost imperceptibly then over the next month or so. Nothing had been said and she'd gone along with the idea of 'postponing' Steve's work, but when I called in at hers one day and she was sitting having a cuppa with her Spanish neighbour, Carmita, she didn't offer me one. I was there for three quarters of an hour and I was gasping, and although she chattered away, there was something in her manner I couldn't put my finger on.
'Uh, I think she's giving you a message,' Adrian said, when I told him later.
She'd thought we would put Steve on a salary of 500 euros a week, regardless of whether he did any work and regardless of the fact that he couldn't hack it. But she couldn't say anything, because 'the job would never come in the way of our friendship.'
'Maybe that's how he got his money "back home",' Adrian said. 'There are plenty of useless workers in Ingalund who do bugger all all week and pick up their wage packet at the end of the month. Maybe they thought that we'd do the same. Everyone seems to think we're made of money and that they're entitled to a cut.'
We'd seen it before amongst expats in Spain – men do up their own house and then make out they're all-round builders. Instead, when they muddle through the work in their own house it makes financial sense; they don’t have to pay for labour and if they’ve got no job prospects, it’s an excellent use of their time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for us, paying by the hour at professional rates and getting an amateur.
So this mistake cost me the only genuine friendship I thought I'd made in Spain... I stopped going to see Helen and she didn't ring and that was that.
(Adrian later rather unkindly pointed out Helen's resemblance to ‘Madge’ off the TV series ‘Benidorm’ - the old, wrinkly and obnoxious woman in the wheelchair (although Helen was in her thirties). But it was only when our friendship had well and truly bitten the dust, that I decided Adrian was right; yes, the resemblance was uncanny.)
To see the end result of all the work on the casa, take a look at the house now:
http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p86636
And also another of our completed projects:
http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p475271