Desolation
We were pulling over now. We were here. A desolate place with nothing around but traffic.
The only picture I had seen had been of the exterior, reprinted onto a letter, and, like my eyes, was not of very good quality. Just a hard blue sky and white walls. I had been picturing a villa in a hillside village.
But we arrived somewhere else, and I instantly felt like I was making a mistake.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but it was, quite possibly, the least attractive house on the whole of Ibiza. Absolutely no bougainvillea in evidence. Or charm. And it made the bungalow in Lincoln look like a mansion in the Hollywood Hills by comparison. Maybe this was why she didn’t give it to any of her real friends. They didn’t want it.
It was a small white box, existing where it did for no real reason at all. Single-storey. Tiny windows. Standing above the roadside grit and blanched tarmac, with the paint peeling like scabs. Patches of brown cement dotted all over it. Smashed glass from a thrown beer bottle and random pieces of rubbish strewn around the outside on the tarmac. Walking distance to nowhere.
To make things worse there was a billboard across the street for a deluxe hotel. An aerial photograph of swimming pools and impressive buildings situated on a clifftop. Open now. The latest Eighth Wonder Spa Resort Hotel, Cala Llonga, Ibiza. Visualise your dreams and make them reality.
‘Is this it?’ I asked him, as I handed him twenty euros, staring at the small decrepit house.
‘This is the one.’ He smiled a little courteous smile. ‘It was nice to meet you,’ he said. And he had a look you get used to as you get older. Concern.
‘My name is Pau. Like Paul. But without the l.’
‘I’m Grace,’ I said, opening the car door. ‘Also without an l. How do you say “nice to meet you” in Spanish?’
‘Mucho gusto.’
I nodded, as he got my luggage out of the boot. ‘Okay. Mucho gusto.’
‘And buena suerte is good luck.’
‘Oh. I hadn’t asked for that one.’
He nodded. ‘I know. But maybe you will need it …’
Before I had time to ask why, he was back in the taxi.
And then he waited for a gap in the traffic, turned the car around and sped away.
