Thirty minuteslater and I was walking through Es Càna, the sun belting down on my head and the patchwork of languages like the sound of birds tweeting. English, German, Spanish and Catalan were common and I knew enough of the last three to hold half a conversation.
The Hippie Market was a regular thing on Ibiza. It started in the sixties, when the island drew painters and artisans with the promise of liberty and light. It still did, Ès Vedra was a magnet for people wanting a hedonistic escape, and lots of them wanted to take a piece of it home.
I’d never felt at home here. Ibiza was where people who didn’t fit in anywhere else could settle, it accepted everyone. It would’ve accepted me, but I didn’t give a fuck about being accepted by anyone. Even after years on the island I was still a stranger, and that was the way I liked it.
The stalls bustled with tourists and locals, the strange polyglot of words just noise. I didn’t browse what was being sold; I knew pretty much every seller by now, every artist. Marielle was the only person I sought here, a painter who lived here all year round, owning a small one-bedroomed house nearPunta Galera. She lived here for the land and stayed for the views, never going back to the east coast of England and never telling me why.
We fucked occasionally, no expectations or strings attached. She’d smoke a cigarette afterwards and wait for me to leave, and never ask to come to my place because she liked being in control of asking me to go.
It wasn’t Marielle I saw first. As the crowd swelled between the stalls, Jameson split between them, her blonde hair long and curled by the saltwater and face freckled from the sun.
I realised I’d stopped walking only after a woman cursed me in German and stepped round me, her glare a lethal weapon in three countries.
Skinny women who were too young for me rarely made me pause. I saw them all, had seen them all. AtBohemi, the models and actresses and heiresses flocked to the bars and the dance-floor and I’d never been interested. Too much polish and too much make-up had never been a turn on, even when hands had slipped to my crotch at the bar, or fingers had danced up my spine with a promise as I’d passed.
Jameson wasn’t polished. It was like she’d scrubbed it all off and was still in the process of deciding what finish she wanted to have, and it was different. She was different. The last few times I’d met her, I’d wanted to ask more questions, but I told myself I wasn’t interested in the answers.
I wasn’t interested in the answers. I could keep telling myself that and hoping that I’d believe it, because it was a load of shit.
She saw me before I had chance to lose myself in the crowd, her smile knowing, as if we shared a secret, and it was ours alone.
Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
We moved out of the way of the crowds, Jameson covering the distance between us quicker than I.
“I keep seeing you everywhere. I’m going to start to wonder if you’re stalking me.” She smiled, the left side of her mouth quirking up slightly more than the right.
“You let yourself think I’m doing that, Lady.”
She pushed her hand through her hair. “Why do you call me ‘Lady?”
“Because that’s what you are.”
She laughed. “Not quite. I’m just a trainee architect.”
“Whose mother just happens to be related to royalty.” I folded my arms. “I’m surprised you don’t have a bodyguard.”
“My father tried that with me and Lala once. Lasted twenty minutes before he quit.” Her eyes danced as she smiled, as if she was daring me to ask why.
I didn’t. This was a different form of danger than what Colm and Ash poised. “How old are you, Jameson?”
“It’s Jay.”
“Jameson is better.”
She didn’t respond, just eyed me with that Mona Lisa smile she hid behind. “Twenty-three. How old are you and didn’t your mother tell you never to ask aladyher age?”
“Thirty-one and no, she told me to ask if I needed to know something because that was how you learned. Where’s your sister?” I folded my arms tighter, hoping she was on her way to meet her, hopefully late.
“Rowing with Carl. Long story. Very droll. What are you shopping for?”
A quick fuckwas not an appropriate answer. “Looking for a friend.”
“Maybe you’ve found one.”
I laughed, trying not to choke. “Maybe. What are you doing here?”
Slim shoulders shrugged. “Just mooching. Don’t you think that’s a great word? Mooch. It should be onomatopoeic, or something.”
