The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(83)

‘You need taxi?’

I’m encouraged enough by the fact he speaks English to reply.

‘I’m not sure where I want to go,’ I say.

‘You want parties?’

I frown. I don’t know if it’s a general question or a proposition. He looks decent enough, but you never know, do you?

‘Or you need quiet place for reading books?’

Ah, it was a general question.

‘That one,’ I say quickly. ‘Quiet. Reading is good too.’

He looks at his watch. ‘My wife has a room to rent.’

‘She does?’

He nods. ‘In Makarska.’

I’ve no idea where that is.

‘She keeps a restaurant, the room is above. Close to beach.’

‘Is it far?’

He shrugs. ‘A little.’

Again, I’ve no idea how to quantify that.

‘Umm …’ I say, trying to decide if it’s good fortune or I’m about to be murdered and thrown off a cliff. Then something tells me to just go for it. ‘Okay.’

He breaks into a genuine smile and it changes his face. ‘I take you now. Vita will give you chicken for free, on my house.’

I’m guessing Vita must be his wife, unless he’s talking about himself in the third person, which would be weird. He takes my case in one hand and wipes his other on his short-sleeved checked shirt before holding it out to me. I really hope he doesn’t mean a live chicken.

‘Petar,’ he says.

‘Lydia,’ I reply, and I put my hand in his with a tentative smile. He pumps my arm, briefly and quite un-murderously, I’d say.

‘This way,’ he says. I’m relieved when he leads me to a white people carrier in a line of similar cabs, pausing to slap the shoulder of another driver through his open window. I’m bolstered. People know this man here and appear to like him. I’m starting to believe meeting Petar is a stroke of good luck – God knows it must be my turn for some.

Vita is my new favourite person. She looked me over for a few silent seconds when Petar produced me from his taxi, a shepherd with his lost sheep, then she nodded and hugged me. She caught me off guard and I stood there stiff as a board in the middle of their shaded family restaurant, still clutching the pull-along handle of my suitcase. It wasn’t an overenthusiastic, clap-on-the-back kind of hug; it was more of a therapeutic folding of her arms around me, and then she stepped back and looked into my eyes and into my head all at once.

‘You can stay with me.’

She unhooks my heavy flight bag from my shoulder and hangs it over her own as she speaks. ‘Your secrets are your own here.’

It’s such a simple yet profound thing to say. Is my life story written all over my face, there to be read by anyone who takes the time to notice? Or is Vita some kind of mystic, able to read my mind without the need for words? I’m not fanciful enough to believe in all that stuff, but there is something about Vita, about her quiet calmness, that I’m drawn to. She’s a little taller than me and probably a decade or so older, slender and understated in jeans and a faded red apron, her dark hair drawn back from her make-up-free face.

‘Follow me. I’ll show you the room.’

She dismisses her husband with a wave and inclines her head towards the open patio doors.

I do as she’s asked and find myself stepping out on to the restaurant’s beach-front terrace. For a moment, I’m too dazzled to speak. Dazzled by the quality of the morning sunlight, by the warmth, by the glitter of the ocean. I stand amongst the simple wooden tables and chairs, turning my face up to the warmth, and a wash of something like freedom slides over my skin. No one knows me here. No one knows my story. I can just be.

‘This is you,’ she says, calling out. ‘Up here.’

I leave my case at the bottom of the stone staircase running up the side of the restaurant and follow her, waiting behind her when she fishes in her apron pocket for a key. The room is spotless and plain: white walls, a low wooden double bed with clean sheets folded on a red mattress. There’s a monastic simplicity to it that I appreciate as Vita opens the shuttered double doors to reveal a small balcony overlooking the sea. A single wooden deckchair, low slung with a red cushion. There’s no call for art on the walls in here with a view like that.

‘There’s a bathroom through there,’ she says, pointing towards a closed door.

‘It’s just what I was looking for,’ I say, even though I’d had no real idea what I was looking for until now. ‘Thank you.’

She nods as if it’s a given as she explains the weekly cost. ‘Or you can help downstairs, if you’d prefer? Mornings, evenings. It’s our busy time.’

So, I have a room, and now I have a job too if I want one. How easy, I think, to reinvent myself, to be someone else.

‘Okay.’ I smile and laugh a little. ‘I might do that. Can I think about it for a day or two?’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Take a couple of days for yourself first. Get used to the place.’ She hands me the key. ‘It’s yours for as long as you need it.’

I fold my fingers around the key as she leaves. As long as you need it, she said. It’s distinct from as long as you want it; I get the feeling Vita knows the subtle difference perfectly well.