My wife’s barter sabotage

For me, one of the joys of going abroad is bargaining with the local sellers. They name an extortionate price; I make an insulting counteroffer; they threaten to walk away; I increase my offer by a fractional amount; they accuse me of not being serious, then name a price that’s fractionally lower than their opening bid, accompanied by elaborate hand gestures to indicate this is their absolute final offer; now it’s my turn to start walking away; and so on, until eventually we arrive at a mutually agreeable price that leaves us both feeling we’ve got the better of one another. In reality, of course, I’ve been ripped off, but I can tell myself I’ve struck a tremendous bargain.

Unfortunately, Caroline takes a different view. She believes the great benefit of foreign travel is that it often involves a transfer of wealth from the haves to the have-nots. A successful holiday means plenty of opportunities to hand over money to hotel owners, taxi drivers, restaurateurs, tour guides and — yes — local vendors. In her eyes, they aren’t grifters and hustlers using every ruse in the book to shake down credulous vacationers, but honest, hardworking folks doing their best to support their families.

She believes that a great benefit of foreign travel is a transfer of wealth from the haves to the have-nots

As you can imagine, this difference of opinion often leads to awkward moments, which is what happened in Spain last week. I’d been invited to give a talk on free speech at the British International School of Marbella and Caroline tagged along, thinking it would make for a pleasant mini-break. And so it was, save for the moment an African gentleman wandered past when we were seated at a beach bar. He was carrying a bushel of Vilebrequin swimshorts, saying: “Buy one, get one free.” As I’d forgotten to pack a costume, I beckoned him over.

“How much?” I asked.

“Sixty euros,” he said, carefully unfolding about two dozen pairs and laying them before us.

“Sixty euros for a pair of fake designer swimming trunks? You’re having a laugh. I’ll give you ten.”

He gave me a look of withering contempt and started folding the shorts back up, supposedly preparing to walk away. Inwardly, I was thrilled – the game was on! All I needed to do was wait for him to name a new price. But then Caroline intervened.

“Ten euros is ridiculous. Don’t be such a meanie. Pay the man what he’s asking. If you bought a pair in the hotel shop they’d cost at least €200.”

He suddenly broke out in a big grin. And no wonder! Caroline was playing the part of the stooge in a game of three-card Monte — an undercover accomplice helping her partner-in-crime bilk unsuspecting patsies.

“OK, twenty,” I said, looking daggers at Caroline in the hope that she’d keep quiet. “I only want one pair, so given that you were offering two for sixty I’m not far off your asking price.”

I thought this was a generous offer — far more than he could have hoped. But before he could accept, Caroline piped up again. “Oh for God’s sake. He didn’t mean that. That was just a lure to get you to show interest. Give him thirty.” The rascal looked at me expectantly. This was the easiest sale he’d ever made.

“Twenty-five,” I said. “Final offer.”

At that point, not wishing to push his luck, his hand shot out and the deal was sealed. Caroline had the envelope full of euros in her handbag, but instead of handing it to me she peeled off three €10 notes and forked them over. He fished in his pocket, pulled out some change and offered it to Caroline, but she waved him away. “Keep it,” she said.

As he trotted off down the beach, presumably to spend his unexpected windfall on rum and reefer, I turned to Caroline in a rage. Didn’t she understand the first thing about negotiation? How was I supposed to get him to drop his price if she was pooh-poohing every offer I made? And what was the point of agreeing a price if she wasn’t going to stick to it? She was having none of it. According to her, it was petty of me to haggle with the poor man over a few coins. Think how much more they meant to him. Thanks to me, his brood of small children wouldn’t go to bed hungry that night.

I tried to explain market forces to her, but she wasn’t interested. I pointed out that the beach in front of the hotel was teeming with Africans hawking their wares. If she was so hellbent on redistributing our wealth, why stop at one? “Why indeed?” she replied, grabbing the envelope and getting up from the table. It took all my diplomatic skills to persuade her to sit back down.

Such are the travails of being married to someone who is, at heart, a Guardian-reading liberal. Remind me never to take her to a Moroccan souk.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.