Wanderlust (3 page)

Alex looked at the freshly sanded beam and nodded to himself. For the last few days, he’d worked more than the hours expected for the exchange, but he’d finally finished. He jumped down from the raised floor, looked up at the new storage hut and removed the mask from his face.

He was proud to have been a part of its construction and he’d worked overtime because he’d wanted to see it through to the end. It was the first time he’d ever built anything like this and Philipe had been a great mentor. He’d shown him how to do everything from making windows to fitting the doors and installing the guttering. It had been just the two of them working on it and every day, Alex marvelled at how much they’d done in such a small space of time.

Out of everyone in Colinas Verde, Philipe was the one who interested him the most. Everyone referred to him as The Captain because he’d sailed to Ibiza forty-years ago from western France and never left. He was sixty-eight but looked at least a decade younger, and could do pretty much everything that needed to be done - building a hut, fixing the plumbing, wiring up the solar panels - just to name a few. If he could be like anyone when he got older, Alex hoped to be someone like Philipe.

‘Philipe?’ Alex called over the noise from the small radio. When he didn’t get a reply, he walked around the side of the hut to see him hauling huge planks of wood into a pile.

Philipe looked up at him. ‘All done?’

Alex nodded and lifted the other end of the plank to help. It was rough and warm in his hands. ‘When do we start painting?’

‘Not today. It will rain.’

They put the plank onto the pile and Philipe picked up a small, grubby towel from the ground to wipe his face, slick with sweat. Rain? Alex looked up into the expanse of cloudless sky and frowned. It had been wall-to-wall sunshine ever since he’d arrived and it didn’t look like today would be any different.

'Anyway,' Philipe said, 'I don't think we have enough paint. Maybe you could go to Canderas and get some more?'

'Sure, no problem,' Alex replied. 'I'll go after lunch.'

Sanding was hard work, and his elbow was already sore. After taking the money from Philipe, he waved goodbye and made his way across the meadow, holding his battered Converse trainers as his feet trampled over the dry ground. The brown grass, wild flowers and thistles brushed against his legs as he rubbed his elbow with a frown. The throbbing pain seemed to come right from the bone and it had taken longer to sand the hut than it should have. It was almost two years since he’d the accident that had killed his budding rock-climbing career, and the injury still played up. He tried to ignore the frustration building inside, knowing it would only lead to anger, which was pointless. It was what it was. Shit happened.

When he reached the large section where the vegetables were planted, he stood watching Selina picking tomatoes. Clearly she hadn’t done anything like it before. It was almost as if she was scared of bruising them by handling them too firmly. Either that or she was finding the various insects too much to deal with.

He didn’t know what it was about her that annoyed him so much. It could be her perfectly painted nails, the ridiculous shoes she’d worn yesterday, or the fact that despite being clearly out of her depth, she refused to acknowledge as much. She obviously had a competitive, stubborn streak. When he'd walked into the kitchen that morning at precisely eight a.m., she was sitting at the kitchen table as if she'd been waiting there for ages with bright eyes and a make-up free face. He couldn’t help but notice how much better she looked without it. Alex shook his head. She might have given up the make-up for a day, but she was still out of her depth and if she had any sense, she’d leave and go somewhere else.

It bugged him that after keeping to himself for three months, she’d walked in and the promise he'd made started to feel hollow, at best. No girls. That was what he’d told himself when he’d left Berlin. He didn’t even want to feel attraction to anyone, but then he’d seen Selina receiving a warm welcome from Loki and he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since. The only way he knew how to deal with his frustration at her arrival was to try and get her to leave. He'd already seen how easy it was to wind her up and if she insisted on staying then he intended to have as much fun with it as he could.

He treaded lightly on the ground, intending to sneak up on her but there was no need. Black wires trailed from her ears to her pocket, and she was singing. He put his shoes on the ground and listened to her tuneless voice for a few seconds. He stepped up right behind her and looked at the tantalisingly smooth skin on her bare shoulders before grabbing them.

Selina screamed and dropped the basket as she spun around, ripping the headphones from her ears.

‘You scared the life out of me,’ she hissed. ‘How old are you? Twelve?’

‘Thirteen, actually.’ He couldn’t stop the laugh building inside. There was something about Selina that made him revert to his teenage years and the need for one-upmanship.

‘They’re probably all bruised now, thanks to you.’ She shook her head and bent down to pick up the tomatoes that had scattered onto the floor from the basket.

He crouched down to help collect them. ‘They’re only tomatoes. You should lighten up a bit.’

‘So I can be all Zen like you, walking around barefoot like some kind of new age hippy? No thanks. And I don’t need your help, I can manage just fine.’

She snatched a tomato from him and Alex shook his head. Clearly, she had no sense of humour at all.

‘Fine, have it your way,’ he said. ‘You’ll be on your own soon anyway so you might as well start getting used to it.’

Alex walked away. She'd reacted just as he'd thought she would but instead of feeling triumphant, he wished she'd have laughed back. He didn't want to spend his last few days living with someone who couldn't even take a joke. She might have a pretty face, but Croatia couldn’t come quickly enough.

An hour later, Alex had just finished lunch when Selina came rushing into the kitchen with the basket full of tomatoes. His instinct was to ignore her, until he saw the red streaks on her hand.

‘What happened?’ he asked as she headed straight for the sink.

‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ He joined her, watching as the jet of cold water streamed onto her skin. ‘What happened?’

‘I scratched it on the wire fence.’

‘What wire fence?’ He frowned.

‘The one where the broccolis are. Thanks to your immature stunt, some of the tomatoes had rolled over there.’

‘
Sheisse
.’ Alex grabbed the tea towel from the side. He handed it to her and she leaned against the counter with a defeated look on her face. ‘You should have just left them there instead of cutting yourself like that. One stray tomato wouldn’t be the end of the world.’

He was angry, and not even angry with her. He was angry with himself. How had something so simple as sneaking up on someone resulted in a bleeding wound? Maybe he’d taken things a little too far. She might annoy him but the last thing he wanted was for her to hurt herself.

‘Really,’ he said in a softer tone. ‘You should have just left it.’

‘It’s fine.’ She shrugged and wrapped her hand in the towel.

‘There are some plasters in the bathroom, unless it needs stitches.’

‘It’s fine. Really.’

She kept her eyes pointed straight ahead and he studied her profile. She looked like she might burst into tears at any moment.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you like that badly.’ He looked at the almost overflowing basket on the table. ‘And you didn’t have to kill yourself picking every single tomato either.’

He’d said it with a smile in an effort to apologise. It seemed to work because her shoulders relaxed an inch.

‘It’s my first day.’ She shrugged but Alex saw the hint of a smile she was fighting to keep from her face. ‘I had a point to make.’

He’d been right about her competitive streak then. He hadn’t thought she’d be able to handle it, but he’d never have goaded her like that if he’d have known she’d injure herself over it.

‘Point well and truly made,’ he replied, and she looked down at her towel-bandaged hand.

‘What does
sheisse
mean, anyway? Shit?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’ He laughed a little and picked up the basket. ‘I’ll take the tomatoes to the storage hut. I’ve got to go over to the mainland afterwards for an errand. You can come, if you want.’

Selina eyed him warily. ‘Why?’

Alex shrugged nonchalantly. He didn’t know why he’d asked her. It wasn’t like he needed her help and they’d hardly been getting along well.

‘Maybe you deserve a break.’ He gestured towards her hand. It was unlikely it would need stitches, but he felt bad.

She hesitated and he could see what she was thinking. After her reaction to him sneaking up on her, she might have been thinking that going to Canderas with him would be the worst idea in the world.

‘It’s a nice ride, too,’ he added, suddenly painfully aware of the eagerness that had crept into his voice. What was that about? And why was he holding his breath as he waited for her answer?

Eventually she looked away from him and nodded. ‘Okay. Why not?’

As they crossed the bridge half an hour later, Alex took a deep breath of air. He loved Colinas Verde, but he always looked forward to trips back to the mainland. Being in their little community was like being in a bubble away from the rest of the world and it was nice to have a change of scenery.

He drove the moped slowly. After scaring Selina the way he had, she probably thought he was irresponsible enough without him having to add speeding to it. A car would have been much more comfortable, but without a windscreen in front of him, he could see everything that little bit clearer.

He looked at the trees on the side of the road, the glimpses of an endless deep blue sea, and the birds flying overhead as if he were looking at them with fresh eyes. He’d guessed Selina would have been disappointed by the lack of entertainment up here but as he looked at her in the side mirror, she had a smile on her face for what seemed like the first time since she’d arrived.

He still couldn’t figure out why he’d felt so relieved that she’d agreed to come with him. Maybe it was because she’d clearly already made up her mind about him and he wanted to prove her wrong. It had unexpectedly stung when he’d realised she’d thought something like
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
was above him. He’d masked it with a grin but he’d looked at himself in the bathroom mirror afterwards with critical eyes. What if he’d simply been kidding himself into thinking he’d changed? It was easy to live clean in Colinas Verde, away from the hedonism south of the island, but if Selina could walk in and guess that the Alex she’d met wasn’t the
real
Alex, then what did that mean? Maybe it meant that, despite his best efforts, he’d brought the old him to Ibiza, instead of leaving him behind in Berlin, never to be seen again.

As they neared the outskirts of Canderas, he saw two small children walking by the side of the road ahead. They turned and waved, their wide smiles outshining their grubby clothes and dirty hair, and he smiled back as he slowed down.

‘Alex!’ The oldest one, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, gave him a high five.

When he’d first seen them and stopped, they’d been wary of him but now they knew him by name and there was no way he could ever drive past them.

‘Hey, little man. Canderas?’ he asked, and they nodded back. ‘Climb on.’

He turned to Selina who was looking back with confusion on her face as the eldest child sat behind her and the youngest stood in front of him, where his feet would normally be.

‘Is this safe?’ Selina asked.

He shrugged. ‘Its better than them walking and it’s only for a few minutes.’

So much for seeming responsible. True, it was technically illegal to carry four people on a moped, but he’d yet to see any police around the outskirts of town and he drove even slower than before, just to be careful.

As they neared Canderas, a row of shops came into view and he stopped the bike by the pavement. The children clambered off and he high-fived them before they skipped off down the road, holding hands. Alex got off the moped and ruffled his hair with his hands.

‘Who were they?’ Selina asked as she swung a long leg over the bike to get off.

‘Syrian refugees. They live on a campsite close to the bridge. Their parents can’t work, not legally, anyway. I see them every time I come onto the mainland, walking on the road.’

They walked side by side down the yellow-paved street and he watched them until they disappeared around a corner.

‘Where are they going?’ Selina asked.

‘Into town.’

‘To beg?’

Alex swung open the door to the builder’s merchant and held it open for her to go inside. ‘Maybe.’

‘But they’re so young,’ she said as she passed by him and, for the first time, it seemed as though her hard shell had cracked a bit.

‘Yep, they are.’