Free The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society by Chris Stewart Page A

if it’s someone who is clutching my book, as they register an older and less amiable-looking version of the author than the man on the book jacket. I usually offer a cup of tea, which is what people unaccountably seem to want on a blistering summer afternoon, especially if they’re English.
    Yet this time things seemed different. The visitors didn’t call out at all and their silence unnerved me. Then I picked out whispers, very quiet and urgent, and it occurred to me that this could be the ham baron’s henchmen come to teach me a lesson.
    I nudged Ana awake, raising a finger to my lips. Then I pulled on a pair of shorts and crept carefully to the front door. I peered out… Nothing. Then I caught sight of some figures at the bottom of the steps to the house. With relief, I realised that they weren’t marauding heavies at all, but four young men, all of them just as nervous as I was. A thin youth with dark features and curly, matted hair seemed to be the spokesman. He stepped up to the edge of the terrace and hesitantly, in a hoarse voice, asked for some water. The others waited in the shade of the pomegranate tree to see how I reacted.
    ‘Of course. Come up and I’ll get you some,’ I said, smiling in a manner that I hoped might put them at ease, and beckoned to them to come and sit on the patio. The youth stepped back and seemed to be conducting a mimed conference with the others, with the result that they stepped tentatively up behind him. If it wasn’t already obvious from their features that they were Moroccan immigrants (‘ without papers,’ as they say in Spanish) the shabby sports bags they clutched gave them away. I dredged up the tiny bit of Arabic I knew.
    ‘ Salaam alekum ,’ I said – welcome; ‘ Alekum Salaam ,’ they answered uncertainly. It helped to galvanise the other three who, dusty and dishevelled like the first, moved closer to the table and chairs in the shade of the vine.
    I went into the house to fetch a jug of water. When I returned, they were still standing around uneasily, holding on to their bags. ‘Go on, sit down,’ I said in Spanish, and placed the tray and jug and glasses on the table. Warily they moved to the chairs, perching on the edge as if still unsure.
    The exhausted look on their faces told of a long and arduous journey, doubtless lasting many days. And they were clearly terrified of being reported to the authorities and deported. As well they might be, for, by sitting these destitute young men down and giving them water, I was breaking the law.
    ‘You speak Spanish?’ I asked, anxious to reassure my wary guests. Three of them looked in bafflement at the first, who shrugged apologetically.
    ‘ Aah, parlez vous français ?’ I tried.
    ‘ Oui, un peu …’ he said as he gulped the water. I refilled their glasses.
     ‘ Je m’appelle Christophe ,’ I said, holding out my hand to the French speaker.
    He bowed a little and shook my hand, afterwards placing it over his heart in that warm Moroccan way. ‘I am Hamid, and these are my friends Mustapha, Aziz, and also Hamid.’
    We each shook hands, bowing and touching our respective hearts. Ana emerged then from the darkness of the house. They all stood up and repeated the hand-shaking process. It appeared that it was only the first Hamid who spoke anything but Arabic or Berber, so we communicated in French through him.
    ‘We have come from Algeciras,’ he said.
    ‘How are you travelling?’
    ‘On foot, through the mountains. It is safer from the police.’
    ‘On foot, all the way from Algeciras! That’s halfway across the country! How long have you been walking?’
    Hamid turned to his friends and they exchanged opinions on this in Arabic.
    ‘We have walked for ten days, I think. We are going to El Ejido, monsieur. We know people who work there.’
    ‘That is a hard place,’ I replied. I knew a little of El Ejido and its hothouse fruit and vegetable industry, and wondered if it really would provide a better