After meeting Pedro the pedlar in Malle Mercados, I hired a boat to Peccadillo, where we sat and gazed at the señoritas.

But when I issued romantic invitations, they all said ‘Mañana’, yawned and ordered a round of café con leches
(which are coffees, don’t you speak Spanish?).

Then a woman called Dorothea explained she was a physiotherapist,
and I told her about the pain in my calf.

‘Ah,’ she cried, ‘my favourite of all the leg muscles, the gastrocnemius.’

She then gave me a lecture regarding the benefits, after strenuous exercise, of showering or taking a bath.
Despite listening avidly, I was intrigued by the
possibility that we might have had some previous.

Maybe I’d met her in windy Blackpool,
in a pub called The Albert And The Lion,
christened after a monologue by actor Stanley Holloway, who danced fit to bust in the musical My Fair Lady,
anxious to be at the church on time.

But Dorothea was mysterious in her ways,
and after a night of beer and sweet cakes,
I lost her in the alleyways, so confused was I in that old town.

I could hear her singing The Rain In Spain,
from that aforementioned musical, but the pedlar bustled me away.

I next saw him in the ancient Spanish city of Toledo, waving a flag of liberation, while riding a tricycle.
But the city gates looked down in mock wonder at this chap,
pretending to be from a circus.

I met Pedro again, companion to Dorothea, the lady I’d met in Malle Mercados.
He and her were about to be married,
and I chatted volubly about meeting them in that mysterious city,
but they expressed no recognition.

‘Never heard of the place,’ she said, ‘and I’m not a physiotherapist,
so stop trying to muscle in on our engagement.’

Bur then Pedro explained, ‘I’m a pedlar of ideas,’ with a grin,
‘one I’m currently flogging is that all men are equal, unless they’ve got lots of money.’

‘So you work for the CIA?’

‘Correct.’

‘And Dorothea, what’s her story?’

‘She’s a fortune teller from Blackpool, and practised in the art of deception.’

I returned to the beautiful city of Malle Mercados, where the state television channel was showing repeats of My Fair Lady,
and was told by a government official,
‘It’s a critique of the capitalist system, or maybe a triumph for Marxism.’

Then he whispered, ‘We have to run it by Washington, or is it Moscow?’
But my musings were disturbed by posters, declaring, ‘Peddling is against the law, by order of the government’,
and I thought of Pedro,
then asked the barman, ‘Is it a right or left-wing regime in power now?’

‘They haven’t decided yet,’ was his amusing answer, 'the politicos keep saying Mañana, which means...’

‘Yes, I know, tomorrow.’

Then on a whim I visited a familiar looking fortune teller, who was being entertained by a band of señoritas,
singing songs from the state-approved musical, with a crystal ball resting on old copies of The Physiotherapist’s Journal.

The radio was on, playing anti-war song The Eve Of Destruction.
I heard a familiar voice say, ‘I’ll turn that off, we don’t need reminding.’
And I laughed to be reunited with an old acquaintance, the mysterious Dorothea.

‘In other words,’ I quipped, ‘Mañana’.