Walking the dog round the block last night we encountered a neighbour we haven’t met before.

“Where are you from?” came the inevitable question.

“We live up there” I say, pointing to our house.

“No, but where are you from, originally?” comes the follow-up refrain.

“I’m from Kenya” I say and “I’m from Switzerland” says my husband. There’s the usual short pause to process that I’m not black and to find the right box for this “estrangeiro” couple.

My mind wanders back thirty-five years ago when I first came to Portugal. I was thirty and still partying. I lived in Lisbon and regularly did the rounds of bars in “Bairo Alto”. They opened after midnight and you’d go to one and then to another with a sort of invisible understanding of where it was at. “It” being the dancing, the cool people, and the drinking if you had a handful of escudos.

The price of my rented room in someone’s house in Saldanha got me an entire apartment in Carcavelos, tiny with no windows. From there I commuted to Lisbon to work. For the first few months I didn’t have enough money to buy an alarm clock, so I drank lots of water before going to bed to be sure I woke up on time.

Monday was the most difficult day to go to work. Sunday afternoon and evening took place in a large wooden empty room above the “bombeiros”. It was the “sambodia” and I never missed one. Brazilian musicians, men, women, children – and me – dancing and laughing like it was our one chance of fun. I met Júlio at the sambodia and we started a relationship. It was easier to learn Portuguese with the Brazilian crowd. No Brazilian entered a full-on panic when I opened my mouth to speak Portuguese. Few foreigners spoke Portuguese back then and few Portuguese spoke English. If you tried to speak (while pointing) in a shop, for example, the anxious shop owner would likely call their 5-year-old son to try and understand you. Brazilians, on the other hand, would smile and laugh and respond regardless of whether they had a clue what you were saying.

Júlio and his friends used to gather round the “quiosque” outside Estoril railway station, drinking small cold beers. I went to work in the morning and they were there. I came back in the evening and they were there. Most had jobs in restaurants or bars. Júlio was from Belo Horizonte, his photos of home showed him from a middle-class family. Through him I learned the Portuguese subjunctive because his complaints about me always started with “Se fosse uma Brazileira”. (“If you were a Brazilian woman”.)

Júlio and his friends, the lucky ones, had a mistress from Lisbon. A wealthy and influential Portuguese woman with a family and husband in Lisbon, but who came to Cascais or along that way for some days or weekends – alone. They would call on their young Brazileiro for entertainment when they showed up. The Brazileiros could be hanging round the quiosque drinking an imperial (beer) when the message would come that “Dona so-and-so” was on her way. The lucky guy would rush home to prepare himself for a busy few days away from the quiosque.

My relationship with Júlio was during a time when his mistress hadn’t been for some time. She did show up after a couple of years and offered to help fund his dream venture, which was to have a snack bar caravan somewhere on the coastline between Cascais and Oeiras. He was sure it would make his fortune. But it came at the price of our relationship.

My friend, Sónia, helped me get over it. Sónia was always smiling. She came from Mozambique and both her attitude and her energy contributed to finding a partner who hung round the quiosque with Júlio. Otherwise, her friends were people who lived in the favela outside Cascais. She easily found work in bars in Cascais because she was great at making people feel good about themselves. I was, however, shocked to see how many men thought it was OK to touch her breasts and bum. Portuguese men like African women, she told me.

One day a mature student of mine (Portuguese living in Mozambique) asked if I would like to pay a nominal rent for her large three-bedroom apartment in Parede. She had rented it out before, but the people had ruined the house, not paid their rent, and she only managed to get them out with threats made by some muscular street guys she knew. In Mozambique she helped child soldiers reintegrate with their families and communities. I took up her offer. There wasn’t a single mirror in the entire apartment and I never had to worry what I looked like.

Then I met Carlos who was a friend of some friends of mine. He lived in Malveira de Serra and I left my big apartment to live with him. I thought I had found my forever home. We had so much fun together, wild camping, tennis, great music nights… He had built his own house. The design was open and minimal with spectacular views. The kitchen door was a design flaw, however, as the wind blew everything in the kitchen – including the trash can – upside down when you opened it.  Still, I had my own “horta” and grew maize and vegetables. Carlos and his brother, who lived next door, were “retornados” – the returned from Angola. He claimed they were spat on when they came to Portugal, being associated with the colonialists. His father had committed suicide. His mother had another relationship. But she was white and her boyfriend black. So she was largely shunned by the whites.

I left Carlos because he went through phases of grandiosity and paranoia and wouldn’t get help. Among other things, he was convinced he was fulfilling an ancient prophecy and would save the world with his wise words. He thought he was about to revolutionise Portuguese culinary habits with “seitan”, an alternative to tofu. Sousa Cintra, the then President of Sporting Football Club, even came over for lunch to try it, with investment in mind. Carlos made the seitan from scratch (you wash flour thoroughly until it becomes 100% gluten). It was delicious but Sousa Cintra wasn’t convinced and Portuguese cuisine stayed the same. You can now buy seitan in the health food section of Pingo Doce. 

I moved to a 60’s apartment in Monte Estoril. It was very simple and very white. I loved living there. I had no furniture except a mattress on the floor.

I started a relationship with Bruno. Bruno was (and still is) twelve years younger than me. Or is it sixteen? He lived with me in Monte Estoril and then we moved to his family house in a village near Alenquer. His parents lived in Lisbon but came to the house at the weekends. His grandparents lived in the small, traditional house on the plot, while we lived in the big, new house built by his parents. Weekends and holidays involved a lot of cooking, eating and drinking. At breakfast we talked about what was for lunch and at lunch we planned “lanche” and dinner. Bruno and I got married and had a big party at the house. It was important for Bruno that people took our relationship seriously. My name changed to “Beverly Trayner Tomaz”.

Bruno’s grandfather, who couldn’t read or write, always referred to me as the “Espanhola”. For him anyone who wasn’t Portuguese was Spanish. When he and Bruno’s grandmother were treated to a coach trip to the Algarve (by Bruno’s parents) they were concerned to get all their documents up to date for when they crossed the border. They were convinced I didn’t feed Bruno enough. Their fears did not alleviate with my enthusiasm for his shopping and cooking skills.

Bruno and I split up. He moved to Lisbon and I carried on living at his family house. They were gracious and kind and never made me feel unwelcome. Bruno’s father helped me find a house in Setúbal, where there was a job I wanted. He was well-connected and helped me get a mortgage with the bank manager he knew in Faralhão. Bruno now works in the Polícia Judiciaria.

I loved my life in Setúbal. For around twenty years I was in my spirit home. Restaurants still cooked their fish on outside barbecues. I felt privileged to be the owner of an apartment with marble floors. During that time I made friends with São from the apartment block opposite mine. We mostly found ourselves walking our dogs at the same time. We both loved cross-country cycling and walking in the Arrábida. There were few women doing that then. She had a relationship with a Swiss nurse who was working for Santa Casa de Misericórdia. It was a noble job and her stories of the conditions some people lived in Setúbal were heart-breaking. I was inspired by the Swiss nurse’s good Portuguese.

My musings about where I’m from are interrupted by the dog-friendly neighbour. She can’t have been more than ten when I arrived in this country. With a broad, friendly smile she is wishing us a warm “Welcome to Portugal”.