Barcarès

Following on from the previous piece (4 September: Serenity), this is the article that has appeared in "Talk Of The North", with special thanks to Anne Marie, who isn't actually name-checked at the end of the article, but who was instrumental in getting me to see Barcarès in a rather different way.


Barcarès - Nothing Happened

"Do you know anything about the development of the little port?" She shakes her head. Does her colleague know anything? Not as such. It's in the paper, I say. In the "Diario". They look. Oh yes. Another colleague comes. They all look. How often does Barcarès get mentioned in the local press? Never probably. Except on that day, and now - here. "If you find out anything, let us know." I'll write about it, and am writing about it here - now. Maybe it's because the Hotel More isn't really in Barcarès that no-one knew. It's in Morer Vermell, though where Morer Vermell starts and Barcarès finishes, who knows. Not that it's far. Nothing's far on the little coastline from La Marina to Manresa. Like the Red Rum bar. "Do you know anything about the development of the little port?" He shakes his head. Elaine's not in till the evening. I'm not sure that's the answer I'm looking for. Doesn't matter.

At the little port, the old velas latinas are barely bobbing. The sea is as flat and smooth as bluey-grey silk stretched on a cutting table. In the haven, there is minimal motion. On the harbour walk is Joan, unmistakably Mallorquín, squat, wide, carrying the evidence of many long lunches. "Do you know anything about the development of the little port?" Not as such. It's in the paper, in the "Diario". There are meant to be steps every ten metres, he says. Around the harbour. It's not the answer I'm looking for, nor is the explanation that the lack of steps in the port area of Alcúdia in front of Bodega d'es Port and the tabac is dangerous. "How many years has the port been here?" I ask. He's in his seventies. He used to play around the little port when he was a child. It was here before the one in Bonaire.

In the portakabin office, there is a young official wearing a smart ports authority t-shirt. "Can you tell me something about the development of the little port?" There's a piece in the paper about it, in the "Diario". "Is there?" I can go to the town hall and see the plan, if I want. Oh no, not necessary: the plan is on the table in front of him. There's to be another ramp, like the one that's already there, and a permanent little office, he explains. The residents are unhappy, say I, despite the fact that no-one seems to know about the development. The new ramp will stop them swimming, and the office will be a visual blight apparently, or so they say. He answers but doesn't need to. I step outside. It's a story about nothing. The planned development is hardly a development at all. The new office would just replace the temporary one.

Because nothing happens in Barcarès, the slightest whiff of a story, of some change is bound to excite. If excite is the right word. Excitement and newsworthiness would amount to a headline along the lines of "man gets up in morning". Nothing happens in Barcarès because there is nothing there to happen. The better story, I realise, is that the development of the little port is a story about nothing happening. In Joan's seventy-odd years, the day they come and build the new ramp will probably be the first thing that's happened for more than half a century.

This is a blissful morning in September. The only noises are those of an outboard cutting across the bay of Pollensa, sixties music from speakers in Red Rum, some kids swimming and a dog in the water barking at fish. No-one bothers about dogs by or in the water. Another bounds through the seaweed that has been washed up and has dried on the small and sea-eroded man-made decks that need close observation to appreciate that they are not rocks.

Barcarès is non-resort Alcúdia; backwaters, sideshow Alcúdia. It is perfect in its lack of pretension and ostentation, in its comatose Mediterranean atmosphere and in its compact and understated Mediterranean architecture. The older villas are white-washed, the shutters blue, green, brown or white. The more modern ones have low gates, neat gardens, baby palms, deep-green grass criss-crossed with hoses or with sprinklers supplying the hissing of summer lawns (if I can steal that image). They are toy-town, model village Mediterranean. An orange-walled building has the appearance of a British customs house. It is a complicated structure of angular blocks. It could have been made from Lego, like the rest of Barcarès. Maybe that's why nothing happens; it isn't actually real.

That's probably it. Barcarès is the Alcúdia dream time, an otherworldly world away from the roar of The Mile. Someone once sent me an email about Barcarès. She said that it was her favourite place in the whole world; that it has a "calm enchantment". On a blissful September morning, you can understand why. Barcarès. A story about nothing happening, and nothing does happen. And that's how it should be.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Beach Boys, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXif3HvtpNg.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)