Spanish memory

When I was 13
we went to Salou,
my father, stepmother,
and siblings and I.

Like most holidays back then
it was grim. We weren’t much cop
as family, you’d say;
close to ripping each other’s guts out
and sautéing them,
you’d say if you were being blunt.

We went out once, my father
and eldest brother
and I, passed a school where kids
on seeing us
would say the same word
again and again.
What does it mean, I asked dad.
Rats, he replied.

Later my brother refused to go out
and see the nightclubs,
perhaps find a girl for the night.
He said because of bus shelters,
or one particular, smashed up and sprayed
with F USA.
But we’re not yanks, dad said.
I doubt they care, my brother replied.

Later he’d tell me about
a shopkeeper who’d tried to sell him
pornographic playing cards.

We were, I suppose,
like dim English rats let loose
in Salou.