Chapter 31

"Bloody men!" Luckily Alistair had left for the 'gents' so it was Jill that replied…

"Yes, they are aren't they? Do you mean all of them today or is it one in particular?"

I forcefully began giving Jill my considered opinion of Jean-Luc describing his antics but she interrupted to suggest that until I saw the film I could have no idea of his intentions or how people would interpret the film. That's why on his return to the table Alistair was packed off again to find internet access while I got from Litara the internet link details to find the film.

Back on Blue Horizon an hour later we discussed what we'd seen in the film. A business man at heart Alistair's reaction was "You can't sue him, that's for sure. he told you he'd filmed you and was putting it on the internet and you didn't object and the film is far from offensive. You aren't going to be offered modelling or singing jobs on the basis of that video but it does show you as attractive in a sort of exotic, girl next door with a cleavage way."

"I thought you'd notice the cleavage Alistair," said Jill, unable to resist teasing him. "The outfits were a bit much for a midweek karaoke session down the pub but you got away with it, mostly I think because you were enjoying yourselves in an unselfconscious way. There was something more though and I'm sure it's why Alistair was so riveted."

I had no idea what Jill meant. I'd expected to see a film of me making a fool of myself but that wasn't what I saw at all.…

"For heaven's sake Venus, can't you see it? Your Jean-Luc is a very good cameraman and what he has caught is a moment - the moment of his falling in love with you!"

Plan! Plan and prepare! I re-read the book on the Bilbao Museum and found more information on the internet as well as re-watching the video - (who wouldn't?). There was plenty of cleaning to do on Blue Horizon but Jill and Alistair didn't want me to start the messier jobs before they were to fly back home so I had time to look around the immediate area and other boats including some with live-aboards who sailed from country to country travelling all over the world.

"Hola!" On Monday morning at 8 am there was a call from the dock as we were eating breakfast. "I am sorry to interrupt you but I am looking for Señorita Venus Williams." The man introduced himself as Aarón Martinez who was directing and presenting a documentary called 'Bilbao Reborn'. The Dougan's invited him aboard and, having just finished breakfast, while I poured Señor Martinez coffee, they excused themselves to leave us to business.

"Your friends are very polite as I hope to be but I am confused by my producer's request that I film an introductory interview with you at the museum"

Sometimes you have to put your trust in people and I knew that once I appeared on television in Litara's 'Project', I'd be public property and open to ridicule unless… I gave Señor Martinez the full story without holding anything back - 'The Project', my medical condition and the proposed voyage - then put to him my proposal.

Tuesday I was sent shopping with the director's wardrobe expert who on Wednesday morning pointed me, with specific instructions, toward her hand-picked choice of hairdresser/manicurist. Finally inside the Museum the makeup artist had her way with me before I was launched to 'casually stroll around the exhibition' while being filmed looking casually chic by you know who with his bloody Steadicam'.

In the Atrium I 'met' Aarón Martinez who went into his interview…

"Miss Williams, Venus; you are something of an interloper to this programme from another documentary?"

"Yes we are making a series of programmes following my voyaging and visits to different places as I re-trace under sail the path of Captain James Cook and his ship Endeavour around the world."

"So why Bilbao? I don't think Cook ever came here?"

"Not on that journey certainly but I was chosen to recreate that voyage because like the map of the world which Cook helped re-create by his measurements of the transit of Venus in Tahiti; like this museum and even like the city of Bilboa itself, my body is a mosaic in a state of evolution, always re-creating itself from the inside out."

"So you see the Bilbao Guggenheim as evolving?"

Of course. Think of the Taj Mahal or the Empire State Building . Both are memorable but both are static being designed from the outside in for a purpose: the first as a monument to beauty; the second as a place of office work where land is in short supply and expensive.

The Bilbao Guggenheim Museum though has a different purpose being just one part of the rebirth of the old industrial city of Bilbao into something fresh and ever changing. The very building itself is not memorable from the outside in the sense that you could go home and draw it because the exterior grew around spaces whose uses are expected to change as exhibitions come and go and to cope with the demands of changing use requires strong interconnection of the interior

"Using that analogy any human being can be seen as changing and evolving so why choose you?"

"Because through genetics I represent not only any general human being but also any single individual. My family has come quite recently from many countries but also, although I have the chromosomes of a woman, I have the chromosomes of a man too and of those who are not quite either."

"When I was young I looked and acted like a boy but with my teenage years came the changes you see. Now I find it increasingly difficult to even imagine myself living as a tennis mad boy. Perhaps to the person I become in 50 years, if they watch this interview you are filming today, the person standing here will seem almost a stranger - just like when your grand children will look at today's pictures of Bilbao and this museum in their history books."