Wanderlust (4 page)

After an exchange in pigeon-Spanish, Alex and Selina left the shop with the paint and headed back to the moped. He climbed on and looked at her, waiting for her to get on behind him but she didn’t.

‘What?’ he asked, warily.

‘Why did you give the kids a lift?’

‘Because they’re just kids. It would’ve taken them twenty minutes to walk and it’s only two minutes on the moped.’

Selina nodded but didn’t say anything back as she sat behind him. She didn’t seem impressed, but what else was he supposed to do? It wasn’t the kid’s fault that they’d ended up here and he’d never be able to forgive himself if he’d have just ridden past them.

‘It was a nice thing to do,’ she said, and Alex’s eyebrows shot up. Did she just pay him a compliment?

He hadn’t done it to seem
nice
, but he smiled a little as he put the key in the ignition. It had been a long time since anyone had used that word in connection with him. It felt good to hear it. Maybe things really were changing after all.

Selina thumbed the space on her middle finger where her ring would usually be. After coming back from Canderas, she’d expected to find it by the sink but it was nowhere to be seen. She crossed the field to return to the tomato plants, hoping it was there and looked up at the sky. It had turned a moody shade of grey and the wind had picked up. It reminded her of those few seconds before a downpour back at home, but this was Ibiza. It had never rained on her past holidays here, not once, and she hoped it wouldn’t start now. As she got closer, she saw Penny’s slight frame, crouching by the zucchini plants. She could recognise her anywhere with those green feathers in her hair.

‘Hi, Penny.’

‘Ah, there you are,’ Penny replied as she stood up. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘Sorry. Alex asked if I wanted to go into town with him and -’

Penny waved a hand and smiled. ‘No need to apologise. I just wanted to see if you fancied a cup of tea, that’s all. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk.’

Selina nodded. ‘That would be lovely.’

‘Oh, good. And is this yours?’ Penny held out her hand.

‘Yes, it is. I thought I’d lost it.’ Selina smiled with relief and took the ring, feeling its familiar weight in her hand. It wasn’t even expensive but there was something she loved about the red oval stone, set in aged silver and her finger felt naked without it. As she slipped it on, a low rumble of thunder echoed through the sky.

Penny shivered. ‘It’ll start tipping down any second. Come on, I’ll stick the kettle on.’

By the time they reached Penny’s bungalow, the sky was completely clouded over and the rain had started to fall. Instead of running for the last few metres like Penny had, Selina walked across the clearing, feeling the cool, heavy droplets of rain hitting her skin. After the blazing sun, it was welcome relief and there was something almost dreamlike about rainfall with thick, muggy air.

When she reached Penny’s bungalow, she stood watching the rain fall from the sky. Despite living in London where it often felt like it rained all the time, she’d never stopped to watch it before. Back home, it was always just an inconvenience and she’d pop open her umbrella straight away.

‘It’s a good thing you went to Canderas when you did, otherwise you’d have had to ride back in this,’ Penny said, joining her on the porch.

Selina looked at the rain bouncing up from the ground. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about. I don’t even like being in a car in the rain, let alone on a moped.’

Penny placed a glass teapot full of water and fresh mint leaves on the table and they both sat down.

‘It’s an inconvenience but it’s needed. There’s already been two forest fires this summer.’ Penny leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out, crossing them at the ankle. ‘How was your first day?’

‘Different to what I’m used to, but it was good.’

‘Hm.’ Penny looked at Selina’s bandaged hand. ‘Nothing too difficult, I hope?’

‘This?’ Selina shook her head. ‘It’s just a scratch.’

‘Good. I know Alex works like a horse but I don’t want him to push you too hard, especially not on your first day. This is pretty different to the office life, I’m sure. The corporate world was never for me.’

Colinas Verde was a world away from what she was used to, but Selina couldn’t deny that it beat being stuck in an office all day. Yes, she’d had to pick spider covered tomatoes all morning, and yes, she’d sliced her hand open but she’d also woken up to the sound of birdsong floating through the air, and when she’d sat up in bed and looked out of the window, she was greeted by the unbroken view of the meadow. Back home, her alarm would have violently interrupted her sleep and the view outside of her window was of the Aldi supermarket across the road. Colinas Verde wasn’t a classy beach resort with a long cocktail list and beautiful people parading around in bikinis like she was used to, but it was only for a short while. Once she left here, she’d continue her Flashpacking adventure.

‘I’ve always preferred being surrounded by nature,’ Penny said. ‘This place is like a little slice of heaven.’

‘I always thought of heaven as being somewhere like the Caribbean. White sand, turquoise water…’ Selina sighed wistfully.

‘There’s a quote by a French writer, Jules Renard. It says,
on earth, there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it
.’ Penny smiled. ‘I think its true. If you take the time to look for it, you can find your paradise anywhere.’

Selina looked at the trees surrounding the clearing. The vibrancy of their leaves had turned a dark, earthy green with the rain and the air was filled with the ever-present lingering scent of pine. It wasn’t her idea of paradise but she had to admit, it was beautiful to look at, even with the rain falling in a thick sheet.

‘How long have you been here?’ she asked as Penny poured the tea into two glass cups.

‘Oh, almost ten years now, though I spend a few months of every year in India. It’s one of my favourite places in the world. Have you ever been?’

Selina shook her head and took a cup from Penny. ‘I’ve only been to south Ibiza and Marbella, with friends. We never went on holidays abroad when I was little. Mum and Dad are planning to emigrate to Barbados when they retire and I suppose they think its better to wait instead of globetrotting in the meantime.’

‘And how did they feel about you picking up and leaving?’

‘It was fine,’ Selina replied. ‘It’s not what they’d do, but they know I’m not like them.’

It wasn’t a lie. It was fine that she’d announced she’d be leaving for a few months, but it
wasn’t
fine that she’d had to leave thanks to pictures of her circulating on the Internet. She’d never be able to forget the look on her parents’ faces when they’d found out about that.

Penny might be old enough to be her mother, but there was something about her carefree attitude and girlish smile that made her appear younger. So far, she seemed easy-going, understanding and even though they were still pretty much strangers, someone Selina could confide in, but she wasn’t ready to share the reason she’d left her family and friends for Ibiza.

‘Sometimes the apple does indeed drop far from the tree,’ Penny said. ‘My parents were very conservative and perfectly happy to holiday in the same Cornish town every summer. They weren’t exactly over the moon when I left to travel around Europe instead of going to university.’

‘You did?’

Penny nodded. ‘I didn’t get very far, though. I made it to France, fell pregnant, moved back home and settled down. Well, as much as I
could
settle anyway. Once you catch the travel bug, it’s hard to shake it off again and my daughter, Effie, hated that we moved around so much. I’d hoped she would inherit my inner nomad. I was very wrong.’

‘You have a daughter?’ Selina looked behind them at the bungalow. She hadn’t met anyone called Effie yet. ‘Is she here?’

‘Oh, goodness no, she’d hate this place. She’s a complete city girl. She’s in London, and I’m here. Free to travel to my heart’s content. We don’t see each other all too often. For every slice of heaven, there’s a side serving of hell.’ Penny frowned for a moment before shaking her head as if to shake the thought away.

Selina took another sip of her tea. She was a city girl too, but she was adapting, wasn’t she? She twisted the ring on her finger with her thumb.

‘That’s a lovely ring,’ Penny said, noticing her playing with it. ‘You really shouldn’t wear it when you’re working.’

‘It’s not expensive.’ Selina shrugged. ‘I picked it up at a flea market.’

Penny reached out and took her hand to inspect it more closely. ‘It looks like red amethyst. It’s a great stone for courage and helping with self-esteem. That’s invaluable.’

Selina looked at the red stone. Was it coincidence that she’d bought it just a few days before she’d found out about those photos? God knew she needed all the courage and self-esteem she could get afterwards. They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the rain bouncing off the roof until Penny spoke again.

‘How do you like your bungalow? It’s almost hard to believe we only had tents when we first arrived here.’

‘Oh, it’s lovely.’ Selina smiled. ‘And thank you, for the flowers and the soaps. They’re amazing. I used the orange one this morning.’

‘Lindy makes them. That’s her over there, in the yellow house.’

Selina looked over to see a woman, probably around Penny’s age, lying in a hammock on the porch.

‘I’m sure she’d be happy to show you how to make them. They’re surprisingly easy and so much better for you than buying them in the shops. They put so many nasty chemicals in things these days.’

Penny wrinkled her nose and Selina nodded, but the truth was, she barely paid any attention to chemicals and pesticides. One thing she did know was that Lindy’s soap smelled utterly divine and Selina’s skin hadn’t felt anywhere as dry as it usually did.

‘One of the things I love the most about this place,’ Penny continued, ‘is that everything’s traceable. We know where our food, water and energy come from. We can’t account for everything since we still need to buy some things on the mainland every so often, but in the main, everything here is totally organic and wholesome.’

Across the clearing, the front door of the volunteer bungalow opened and Alex stepped out onto the porch. He was wearing his jeans and, unusually, a plain grey t-shirt. Selina watched as he sat on the wall of the porch, stretching his legs out in front of him. Penny was wrong. Not everything in Colinas Verde was organic and wholesome. Not when Alex was around. The fragrance of mint caught her attention and she looked back at Penny who was pouring more tea.

‘And how are you getting on with Alex?’

‘I don’t know what to make of him yet,’ Selina replied, playing down the attraction that had started to gnaw at her since they’d stood in the kitchen together earlier after she’d hurt herself.

‘I’m really going to miss him when he’s gone,’ Penny said.

Selina tried to shove away the unreasonable feeling of inadequacy creeping over her. He’d clearly made quite an impact during his stay at Colinas Verde. He seemed to know everyone, as well as what needed to be done and how to do it. Meanwhile, she felt as though she’d just walked onto an alien planet. What if she was being delusional about being able to fend for herself over the next few months?

She’d already injured herself. That wasn’t exactly a good omen for what was to come. What if Penny, and everyone else she came across, saw her as a hapless Londoner who didn’t have a clue what to do away from the security of being in a big city? What if they looked at her and saw a fraud?

Selina shook her head. She was being silly. She might have left because she’d had to, but it had taken courage to hand her notice in and jump on a plane alone. What she was feeling was Imposter Syndrome. It was only because of Alex’s apparent ability to do everything that was making her feel this way.

‘Is he the first volunteer you’ve had?’ Selina asked.

‘Oh no. We’ve had people passing through for almost two years now, but it’s taken a while to attract the right kind of people. We want to live in a world of compassion and understanding, and Alex has really taken to this place and what it’s all about.’

Just at that moment, he looked up from his book and straight at them before waving.

‘Mm,’ Selina replied and drank more of her tea, trying to swallow away her self-doubt with it.

The
right kind of people
. Was she one of them? Would she have stopped to pick up those two kids on the way to Canderas if she’d have been in Alex’s position? She felt a flash of guilt as she realised that the answer would probably be
no
. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. When Alex had told her who they were and why they were there, tears had pricked at her eyes. Of course there were refugees back home, but she barely ever noticed them. In London, she barely ever noticed anything. What kind of person did that make her? It was a question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to, but she found herself telling Penny about the unscheduled pit stop on their way into town.

‘If there’s one thing about travelling,’ Penny said once Selina had finished, ‘it’s that it opens your eyes to the world. It’s the greatest gift anyone can ever receive. A few months ago, Alex might not have even noticed those kids. Travelling is a journey, in every sense of the word, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that he’s come a long way since he’s been here.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I had my doubts about him at first. I wasn’t sure he could adapt to somewhere like this, especially when he told me about the way he used to party and everything.’

Selina frowned. Alex, partying? When she’d told him she’d been to Ibiza for clubbing holidays, he’d looked at her as if she’d just admitted to sticking pins in her eyes for fun.

‘I suppose most travellers are either looking for, or running from something in one way or another,’ Penny continued. ‘The great thing about this place, is that it’s perfect for self-reflection.’

Across the clearing, Alex bit into an apple and Selina watched him over the rim of her cup. So Alex might not be everything he appeared to be. He’d seemed genuinely sorry that she’d cut her hand earlier, even if he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say the words. Penny clearly liked him and Selina couldn’t help the curiosity that was growing inside of her. She had her reasons for running away to Colinas Verde, but what were his?