I write from a beach in Ibiza. To my left, three men are sheltering under my sunshade and frowning out to sea. Their arms are folded across their chests and they are discussing London property prices. ‘Fifteen million,’ one is saying, ‘for a flat in Eaton Square. It’s broken some kind of record, apparently.’ The other two make noises which could indicate awe or disgust, I cannot tell. On my right, two women are picking at their bare feet and comparing primary schools in Notting Hill. Then one lowers her voice — the pitch, not the volume — and announces that a married friend of hers is having an affair.
‘It’s so awful,’ she says, her voice sepulchral, ‘being the only one who knows.’
‘Is this the same one you were telling me about the other night?’ asks her friend, yawning.
‘Did I?’ says the first, discomfited. ‘God I must have been pissed.’
Not all of Ibiza is like this. In the early morning, in groves of almond, fig and olive trees, the rising sun touches the red soil to flare it orange, and flights of partridge quiver from beneath my feet into a silvery dawn sky. I walk through tangled patches of wild fennel, or along paths which wind through shushing pine woods and down steep, blond cliffs to the sea. Scrambling across rocks I find places to slide into the emerald water and float above foot-long fishes, who drift in circles beneath me.
But Ibiza was named by the Phoenicians after their goddess of music and dance, Bes, and despite the best efforts of the most recent government to change its reputation, in August there are parties every night. During my stay there is a party at the home of a banker who is so keen to honour the island’s emblematic goddess that he has built a temple to her in his garden: a private, subterranean nightclub. The Guardia Civil have taken exception to this (deeming it, I suppose, a bit selfish) and have set up camp at the end of his drive, arms folded and blue lights flashing, to tell us — and the other 495 guests — that we must leave our cars here and walk the last kilometre to the house. This task is achieved in remarkably good humour by all, and in fact most (at least those not wearing £500 stilettos) seem to agree that a pleasant walk in the moonlight is just the thing for working up a thirst.
Once in the garden I gulp a glass of champagne, gawp at my surroundings (which include girls on podiums in very small knickers) and say hello to someone I know slightly who tells me he spent the day shooting grouse in Scotland before hopping aboard a private jet (‘Not my own,’ he says hastily, with modestly lowered lashes) and flying in for the party.
It is that kind of day (or the notion that such a day exists for some) which triggers a revolution, I think to myself primly as I hold out my glass for more champagne.
‘This is the sort of party that happens just before the world ends,’ someone says in a glum voice, staring up at a dancing girl’s bottom. ‘That’s what everyone said last year,’ counters his companion, ‘and yet here we all are again.’
One night I make my own gesture of appeasement to the island’s goddess and attempt to go clubbing. We leave the house at ten and drive the length of the island. At 10.30 we walk into a bar, muttering the name ‘Gustavo’ as we pass the security guards, and holding out our wrists, like dogs with sore paws, to be decorated with wristbands. The bar is beside the sea and indoors it has the damp atmosphere and fetid smell of a school sports centre. By 11 o’clock we have made our way across the crowded dance floor and on to the sand where we stand with several hundred others and jiggle about to the music, staring up at the incoming air traffic as it roars overhead. Shamingly, at midnight I am back at home with a cup of tea, having balked in the car park outside Space (a gigantic, terrifying nightclub) like a horse refusing to go into a trailer.
In fact I seem to keep the same hours as the very elderly: out in the dawn are stocky ladies in their eighties who pick figs, sweep their terraces, or squeak down dusty lanes on bicycles. I jog past one who is pushing three times her own weight in a wheelbarrow loaded with plastic canisters of water. She looks at me in amazement, and I feel foolish.
Back on the beach two of the three Englishmen are now comparing their physiques. ‘I don’t know why you won’t just admit,’ says one crossly, ‘that I’m thinner and fitter than you are. I’m in better shape.’
The other man shrugs. ‘It’s a question of build,’ he says. ‘I have a heavier frame, I’ll give you that, but really I’m just a bigger man all over.’
I can practically hear the first man grinding his teeth. I am enjoying this, and I am probably smiling to myself as I pretend to be absorbed in my notebook, but then the first man has an idea.
‘I know,’ he says, gesturing at me. ‘We’ll ask Olivia what she thinks.’ They all three turn in my direction, and thinking rapidly, I put the lid on my pen.
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