Kindred Spirits

If Fate had brought us together, what did it mean?

SETH was being a complete idiot. I was furious with him, so furious that I couldn’t exactly remember what had caused the argument in the first place.

But I knew he was being horrible, and I wondered if he’d been drinking.

He’d picked me up in our hire car, and was driving on a foreign road, with foreign police around every corner.

“Just tell me if you’ve been drinking,” I said about four times, and each time he just kept driving.

“For some reason you don’t trust me all of a sudden,” he said. “I’ve been having a good time. I’m ‘drunk’ on atmosphere, Vic. You know I don’t drink and drive, but you’ve decided to assume that’s changed –”

“You never drink and drive back home,” I interrupted. “This is abroad. How do I know what you do on holiday? This is not normal for us.”

He blew air through his nostrils. His eyes were fixed on the road, his jaw clenched.

I looked at his profile and got a flash of why I’d fallen for him in the first place – that bone structure. But now the muscles of his face were tense and he looked pallid in the light from the road, and I just felt annoyed.

“You’ve got that right,” he said. “Not normal.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hadn’t noticed before this trip how sarcastic Seth could be. And that inscrutable look was new.

“Who knows?” he said, thumping his hand hard on the steering wheel.

“Could you just keep your hands on the wheel?” I asked, then sighed. “Look, if you can tell me – hand on heart – that you’ve had one beer, we can drive back to the apartment happy.”

“Do you want my hands on the wheel or on my heart?” he asked.

I turned to face him. “I think it took a trip to Spain for me to see how stupid you are,” I said. “Stop the car.” “What?”

“Stop the car, Seth.” “We’re a mile from the apartment.”

“I’ll walk. I like the beach.”

He braked suddenly and I lurched forward, then grabbed his jacket from the back seat and got out of the car quickly. I needed to look decisive.

In the darkness, the beach looked less inviting than it had from inside the car. I could hear the waves crashing – louder than I recalled, because it was so quiet.

“See you,” I said, and slammed the door shut.

The car screeched off, dust flying, and I made a mental note that if the hire company made a fuss about worn tyres, Seth could pay.

He had money – he never stopped talking about his business going well. Maybe success was going to his head and making him an idiot.

Our apartment complex was at the other end of a long, straight beach, with the town at the other end and a highway between.

We’d been at a club in the town that night, only just opened in a wonderful old building in the ancient part of town.

We’d been enjoying ourselves until Seth had seen fit to monopolise a local woman who just happened to be gorgeous.

Pilar, her name was, with legs up to her armpits, and she also happened to own the

club. I wasn’t sure whether I was more annoyed that he had flirted with her or that he just couldn’t leave work behind.

It was our first holiday together, and he was talking about an order for glassware!

Seth sells bar supplies, and I began to think I should have acquired a dustman for a boyfriend, because at least he’d have left his work at home.

I’d left Seth with Pilar for some mad Eighties disco with other British women on the dance floor.

All the exercise meant that my hydration had suffered, so as I trudged across the sand I felt really thirsty.

I looked up at the road, which would be easier to walk on, but there wasn’t a pavement, and the cars that passed by, passed at speed. Anyway, I wanted to be moody, and being by the sea was ideal for that.

This holiday together was supposed to be idyllic, but Seth was being a pain. I knew that he knew that I knew that he’d brought a ring, but I was beginning to wonder what I’d say when he fished it out of wherever he was hiding it.

The beach hadn’t seemed so long in the daytime. The lights of the apartments seemed miles away on the other side of a headland and the town was now just a bright blur behind me.

During the day the beach cafés were open and joyfully noisy. At night, though, it was surprisingly silent.

My throat began to feel dry and sticky. I hate being thirsty. A gust of warm wind blew a bit of sand right on to my tongue, which made it worse.

I used the sleeve of Seth’s leather jacket to try to wipe my tongue, but it did no good.

I had bought the incredibly trendy jacket for his birthday and he loved it; he took it with him even on hot evenings like this one.

I was glad I’d grabbed it from the car because I could imagine him sitting in the apartment now, trying to work out if he’d left it at the bar, and worrying about it.

I guessed that I was halfway back. My feet were sore in my strappy sandals and I was feeling worryingly thirsty.

From nowhere a figure appeared out of the darkness, alongside me but nearer the water. I shrieked, and the figure and I both stopped suddenly.

I could tell it was a young girl, which was a relief. I decided she must have been going in the same direction, but walking more quickly, so that she’d caught me up.

“Lo siento,” she said, and I saw as she took a step towards me that it wasn’t a girl, but rather a small woman.

She wasn’t a tourist – she wore some kind of uniform. A waitress, maybe, I thought.

She held a carrier bag in one hand and something else in the other that I couldn’t see clearly. Her face shone with sweat, but then I realised that I must look pretty hot, too.

“I don’t speak much Spanish, sorry,” I apologised.

Then I saw what was in her other hand – a two-litre bottle of water, swinging by its crimped metal lid from her fingers. I saw the surface of the water tilt back and forth in the faint light there was on the beach.

She looked down at the bottle, then at me, and held it up with some difficulty.

“I cannot . . .” She frowned, searching for the English words. “I cannot open bottle. I bring from work but I have not a . . .”

She mimed opening a bottle, levering her hand.

“Estoy sedienta,” she said.

I didn’t understand the words, but the way she licked her dry lips, I guessed it meant “thirsty”.

“Me, too,” I said. “So thirsty.”

It was a strange scene – two complete strangers conversing on a beach at one in the morning about an unopenable bottle.

“This is crazy,” I said with a shrug. “Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink.”

She seemed to understand, and smiled.

She was about to walk on, and I was feeling awkward because we’d have to go along in the same direction, silent, until someone finally opened up a lead. Very British embarrassment!

But then the bottom edge of Seth’s four-hundred-quid jacket bumped against my hip, and I felt the weight of his precious Swiss army knife.

I rummaged for it.

“Voilà!” I said.

She blinked. “Sorry. That was French,” I said, which made her smile.

It changed her face a lot, because she had a sad sort of expression, or maybe she was just tired, with dark rings under her eyes and sharp, thin features.

“I can open your bottle for you,” I explained.

Her face lit up and she laughed. It sounded as though she hadn’t laughed for a long time – the sound was so uncontrolled, somehow.

I knew suddenly, in that moment, that I’d found a kindred spirit. Here we were, two women alone, both having a rubbish time, in need of decent companionship.

I had an urge to ask if she had an idiot for a boyfriend, like me, but the Spanish seemed too much of a challenge.

“Can I do that?” I asked instead.

She held up the bottle. “If you can open, we can drink,” she said happily.

We walked 50 metres further to a stack of metal café chairs, and unhooked two, helping each other with the job. Then we sat down like two ladies having a tea party.

I used Seth’s gadget to open the bottle and handed it back. “No, you,” she said. “Thanks.”

I drank. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted – cool and sweet and totally delicious.

“I am Victoria,” I said as I handed it back. “Thank you.”

Her eyes widened as she drank.

“I also am Victoria,” she said when she’d lowered the bottle.

It sounded more exotic in her accent, with the “C” softened until you almost couldn’t hear it.

I laughed and drank again, then asked her age. It turned out that we were both twenty-seven.

“I live there,” she said, pointing to the cluster of low, grey tenements, three hundred yards or so before our apartment complex.

Seth and I had noticed the turning when we’d arrived a few days before.

“Two Victorias,” I said, “both twenty-seven, both obliged to walk miles of beach alone. Hey, you weren’t born in March by any chance?”

It took a bit of effort to make her understand this.

“Diez de Mayo,” she said, and I was proud of myself for understanding.

“I’m the tenth, too,” I exclaimed, “but the tenth of March!”

She slumped back in her chair, looking every bit as tired and despondent as I was.

“We’re sisters,” I said firmly, “or friends in adversity, anyway.”

She smiled, then told me about the job she had in the town.

“Cheap café,” she said, screwing up her face. “Not so good. Late work.”

“You’re walking home from work?” I asked, and she nodded.

The cicadas called. It was still warm, the air smelled of pine needles, and I began to feel better. It was a neat revenge on Seth, who was (I noted) not coming back to find

This holiday together was supposed to be idyllic

his vulnerable girlfriend in the car.

I could tell him later how I’d made a friend and had a little adventure. That would make him sit up.

“I took the water,” Victoria said. “I stole.”

“Oh, well, a café won’t miss one bottle of water.” She nodded.

“Job ends soon, when summer ends. And my money is . . .” She held up a thumb and forefinger close together to indicate a tiny wage.

We set off again. I practised my Spanish as we went, and we drank the water.

I noticed that the strap of her flip-flop was broken, and I wished I had brought a spare pair, because we were off the beach now, on the cement road nearer her home, and her foot was bleeding.

I had three pairs in my case, and I’d bought another pair at the airport, crazy gold ones that were twice the price of other flip-flops, but I was on holiday.

“So you haven’t got a car?” I asked.

“I always walk,” she said. “Carlos has car.”

“My Carlos is called Seth,” I told her, “and, funnily enough, he has car.”

I linked my arm in hers, feeling that I had indeed gained the sister I never had, she with her life-saving bottle of water, me with my life-saving Swiss army knife.

A man came towards us out of the dark hallway of her tenement. He carried a baby whose sharp, tired cries bounced off the concrete walls, and lit a cigarette.

He glanced at me but quickly handed the baby to Victoria with a look of distaste. She dropped her plastic bag and cradled the baby to try to make it stop crying, shushing and kissing.

The man – Carlos, I assumed – began a tirade in Spanish. I looked at Victoria, to see if she’d explain.

“I am late,” she said to me quickly, as if that were a sin.

She looked different – exhausted again. She said something to Carlos about the water; I understood the word agua.

Then he pointed at her carrier bag and talked again, more angrily.

“Si, pizza,” she said.

“Tengo hambre,” he said irritably.

So he was hungry and he wanted his catering service, pronto.

He seized Victoria by the upper arm, rumpling her sleeve, but as she tried to pick up the bag and keep the baby upright at the same time, she turned to me.

“This my daughter, Anna.” She gazed adoringly at the baby.

I smelled a very bad nappy, and wondered why the charming Carlos had not changed it.

“I do not make enough money, Carlos says. And he does not like to look after the baby, but . . .”

She wriggled her arm as he yanked her towards the doorway, and he scowled at me, clearly unwilling that I should stick around.

Someone switched on a light a few floors up. In the flood of yellow light I couldn’t be sure that there weren’t bruises on her arm.

“Vengo, Carlos,” she said, and took a step beside him.

There was a smear of blood on the concrete where her foot had been.

“You OK now?” Victoria asked.

“Me OK?” I didn’t understand the question.

She nodded towards our apartments.

“Walking, alone,” she said.

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

I felt terribly uneasy. The cute story I was planning to tell my grandchildren of tidy coincidence and happy female comradeship was changing. But Victoria was gone, and I had to walk on.

I had only gone a minute further along the road when our sleek red hire car drew up behind me. Seth leapt out.

“Vic!” His face was white. “I couldn’t find you. Where did you go?”

“The beach,” I replied. “You must have been out of sight of the road,” he said, and then he held me, very close. I smelled soap and clean cotton. “It’s two in the morning, Vic!”

I looked into his face. My intention had been to sulk until I decided graciously to forgive him. I had wanted him to know he was an idiot for . . . Well, what was the reason?

I tried to remember. For drink driving? I knew that he never did that. For talking to a possible business contact? For loving the jacket I gave him; for coming to find me; for having an engagement ring in the pocket of his jeans? “I’m sorry, Seth.” “What for?” He held me in his arms. “Let’s get back to the apartment.”

I thought of the apartment – the nicest in the complex. Seth had insisted on the best. I thought of my luxurious holiday and my successful boyfriend who loved me.

I was lucky in a dozen ways – rich, free and happy. I had met a sister that night, and we had shared a laugh over our bottle of water and our bottle opener, but we weren’t kindred spirits.

I didn’t deserve to call myself her comrade because I couldn’t understand what her real life was like.

“I’m going to walk along the beach again tomorrow night,” I said. “How well have you got to know Pilar since we got here?” He frowned.

“Slow down,” he said. “Why another scary night walk? At least let me come with you. And you can’t still think that Pilar and I –”

“No, no. Not that. Her club is brand new?” Seth nodded.

“She’s an ambitious lady. She’s about to open the upper floors as a boutique hotel – it’s hard to keep up with her. But why the walk, Victoria?”

“I met a woman, another Victoria, and I’d like to see if I can find her again.” “OK. And?”

“One of the other Brits in the club said Pilar needs staff – it was Casey, I think. She talked about giving up her admin job and working there because Pilar is offering accommodation,” I explained.

“Casey won’t. She –” “It’s a long story, Seth,” I interrupted.

“It’s been quite a night for you,” Seth said. “Wow.”

“It has. I’ll tell you as we go back.”

“Remember you’re on holiday.”

“I know. It’s such a great holiday.” I smiled at him. “But I am going to help Victoria.”

I had wanted Seth to know he was an idiot