Hvar had its own small pockets of disorder, but for the most part, it was flawless. Litter was placed in bins, fallen twigs were swept from the streets, and the beaches she had seen were blessedly untainted by trash. London, by comparison, was an assault course of filth and noise, a city that had fallen victim to the general disregard of its residents, so many of whom she watched toss their food wrappers and cigarette butts to the ground. She had lived there all her life, but Kate did not miss the city – not yet anyway. What she missed was the people. Or, she countered internally, the person.
She must not think about James.
Spotting a bountiful heap of driftwood not far from the shore, Kate hopped down off the path and made her way carefully over the rocks towards it, scooping up a few of the split, salt-tarnished logs and stowing them in the tote bag she’d brought along for the purpose. She wondered what Alex would think of her ideas. He had been in situ when she departed that morning, already occupied with building the dormitory vanity units she had mooted as an idea during the eventful day trip to the Blue Lagoon.
‘People need an area to get ready,’ she had pointed out. ‘And with multiple guests, you need to keep the bathrooms free from human traffic. Nobody wants to wait in a queue to dry their hair or put on their mascara.’
‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ Toby had replied. And to Kate’s surprise, it had been as simple as that.
Leaving the beach weighed down by a further collection of stones, shells and some dried remnants of seaweed, she returned to the path and headed on past one of the island’s oldest and grandest beach bars, skirting the corner up ahead before dipping inland again, content for now to follow the undulating shape of the coastline. A painted sign told her she’d reached Amfora Bay, and she looked up to where a splendid hotel rose grandly out from between the trees, its enormous poolside terrace dotted with white plastic loungers. Admittedly, this was the kind of holiday establishment she knew James would favour, but Kate preferred the more rustic wooden sunbeds that were chained up in various spots along the rocky shoreline below. She never understood the point of going somewhere beautiful only to sit by a swimming pool that could be anywhere.
Once past the hotel grounds, Kate hesitated. There was a hill leading up to the right that she felt compelled to take, and deciding to trust her gut, she began to climb up it, removing her straw hat and shaking out her curls as she went. It had been blisteringly hot on the main pathway, but here the street was shaded and cool, the vegetation around her alive with insect life. It was only when she remembered the crickets that she heard them once again, and Kate found herself marvelling, as she often did, at how loud the little creatures could be.
She was out of breath by the time she reached the top of the hill and rested for a moment against the edge of a skip that was blocking the pavement. Behind it was what looked to be another hotel, although this one was far smaller and much sadder than the palace she had passed earlier. The garden area at the front was overgrown while several of the shutters had broken and were dangling precariously from a single hinge. Taking a step back, Kate noticed a crude sign that had been written on cardboard and shoved in the skip.
‘Besplatne Stvari,’ she murmured, taking out her phone and typing the words into the translation app she had downloaded. It meant ‘free stuff’.
Kate stowed her phone and began to examine the contents of the skip more closely, her eyes widening as they fell across a large gilt-framed mirror, its glass centre shattered into thousands of pieces. Bad luck, but for someone other than her for a change, she thought ruefully, moving aside several broken chairs to get a better look. The mirror was beyond repair, but the frame, although scuffed, was definitely salvageable. She could fill the cracks somehow and respray it with gold paint; hang it up on one of the hostel walls and fill the empty space inside it with blackboard paint so that guests had a place to leave messages for each other, or draw pictures, or sign their names. Kate was sure she’d seen something similar on one of the interior design Instagram accounts she followed.
Snapping a photo of the mirror on her phone, she sent it to her brother, allowing him only a moment or two to view it before pressing the call button.
‘What do you think?’ she said, as soon as he answered, not giving him a chance to reply before she barrelled on with her idea. As she talked, she continued to rummage, listing her finds with increased enthusiasm as Toby made noises of interest and approval on the other end of the line.
‘Sounds like you’ve stumbled over a bit of a treasure trove,’ he said, when he could get a word in edgeways. ‘I’ll drive over in the jeep and we’ll see how much we can load up. Just give me ten minutes or so.’
Kate hung up and began rooting through the skip in earnest, soon coming across a pair of footstools that she guessed might be useful for something or other. Pulling the second one out, however, she discovered that it was missing a leg.
‘Bum,’ she said, making herself laugh.
Determined now to find the missing piece and restore the little stool to its former, albeit worn and shabby, glory, she tunnelled further, pushing aside a rotting plank of wood only to yelp as a dart of pain shot across her hand. Blood bloomed from a shallow scratch, and Kate sucked it instinctively, wrinkling her nose at the metallic taste. It must have been a splinter, or a nail, or perhaps a shard of the busted mirror.
With her hand still in her mouth, Kate leant over into the skip until her feet were almost off the ground, trying in vain to find out what it was that had injured her.
A high-pitched snarling growl emerged from the depths of rubbish and Kate froze, her heart hammering. Squinting into the dark space between some banister rails and a mini fridge, she spotted yellow eyes, a small black nose and two oversized pink ears.
‘Oh, you’re a cat.’
At least, it looked like a cat, but this was no average domesticated moggy. As well as its huge, Dumbo-esque ears, the cat had wrinkled grey skin and a long, spindly neck.
‘So, you’re the one who scratched me,’ she went on, doing her best to soothe the creature by making kissy ‘come hither’ noises. The cat did not move; it simply glared at her, as furiously indignant as any feline Kate had ever encountered.
‘Are you lost?’ she asked. The cat was not wearing a collar, but it looked to be one of those expensive breeds, the sort that spend all their time indoors, lounging on a padded cushion that had its name embroidered across the front. When Kate reached forward to try and stroke it, however, the cat hissed, and she quickly withdrew her hand. One injury was more than enough, and who knew what this poor abandoned kitty had picked up on its claws?
Very carefully, Kate eased the mini fridge to one side, thinking that she might be able to scoop the cat up more easily if she had more space in which to manoeuvre. She heard the jeep pull up not far away but didn’t want to risk turning around in case the cat made a lunge for her again.
‘Come on, darling,’ she urged, trying the kissy noise again. ‘You can’t stay in he–– aaargh!’
There was a crash of tumbling banisters as the cat scrambled out, using Kate’s head as a springboard and knocking her glasses off her face. Hearing a shout of ‘whoa’, Kate swung round to find Alex right behind her, the keys to the jeep in one of his hands and a very angry, very dirty and very ridiculous cat in the other.
Chapter 16
‘You’re not Toby.’
Alex looked at her. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Far too hairy.’ Then, nodding towards the cat, ‘This isn’t a mirror.’
‘No,’ said Kate, digging her glasses out of the skip and putting them back on. ‘But it is dangerous, so be on guard.’
‘This thing?’ he replied, as the cat moved from his arm up onto his shoulder. ‘Seems pretty harmless to me.’
‘It savaged me,’ she said defensively, showing him her still-bleeding hand. ‘Although, to be fair to the cat, I did turn up and start rummaging around in its home, so no wonder. Seems to like you, though,’ she added, frowning as the cat
rubbed its head against Alex’s dreadlocks and began to purr. When she reached out once again to stroke it, however, the cat hissed.
‘Do you think it’s lost?’ Kate said, looking on in bemusement as Alex twisted his head to the side in order to examine his new friend in more detail.
‘Smells like a yes,’ he replied. ‘She’s looking a little raggedy, a little thin.’
‘She?’
‘I would say it’s a she, yes, but I’m no expert. You’d have to ask a vet to be sure.’
‘We should take it – her – to one,’ Kate said. ‘I would feel awful just leaving her here. Is there a Croatian RSPCA or something?’
‘There’s a place called Eco-Hvar,’ he told her. ‘You can try them. She might have one of those microchips in her neck if you’re lucky.’
‘She hates me,’ Kate lamented, as a further attempt to touch the cat was met with an angry swipe of the paw.
‘You’re trying too hard,’ Alex said. ‘Cats can sense it, just like people can. You see, I’m not a fan of these things. More of a dog man. There is no way I would ever invite one to sit up on my head, but that’s exactly why she chose me, see? She did it purely to spite me.’
Kate smiled at that. ‘You really don’t like cats? But they’re so fluffy and cute.’
‘Not this one,’ he exclaimed, and they both laughed. ‘This one looks like a bat got too friendly with a tortoise.’
‘How could you say such a thing?’ Kate admonished lightly, although he wasn’t far off. The cat was quite extraordinarily ugly, yet there was something undeniably appealing about it at the same time.
When Alex tried to lift the animal down so he could help Kate with the mirror, it whined loudly and dug its claws into the neck of his paint-splattered T-shirt.
‘Have it your way then,’ he said, and putting a hand on the skip, bounced up and over the side regardless. They got the mirror out first, carefully extracting each broken shard and wrapping the pieces in some discarded newspaper. Alex then helped Kate to clamber over to join him and they both dug around until they located the missing leg of the footstool, plus a set of three chipped and faded garden gnomes.
‘Oh, look at them,’ enthused Kate, using the bottom of her dress to wipe the dust from their faces. ‘Poor little Misters, abandoned in a skip.’
‘You seem fonder of this motley crew than you do the cat,’ Alex pointed out, to which Kate hit back with, ‘Because they didn’t attack me!’
‘Do you really think Toby and Filippo are going to want all this stuff in the hostel?’
Kate sniffed. ‘I hope so. I’m sure between us, we’ll find a place for everything.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong about this,’ Alex said, as he held up a battered side table for her to inspect, ‘but aren’t garden gnomes supposed to sit in your garden?’
‘Yes, but––’
‘And the hostel has no garden.’
‘Yes, but––’
‘So, that being the case, these three chaps, nice as they are, won’t have anywhere to go once you get them there.’
‘Ye of tiny imagination,’ she chided. ‘The first rule of interior design is to have fun with it. Finding things in unexpected places is what it’s all about.’
She was sure she had read that somewhere. It sounded right.
‘All right, all right.’ Alex almost gave in to a smile. ‘You might have a good point there.’
Only when every space inside the jeep was taken up with crooked, crumbling and cracked items did Kate agree to stop digging for buried treasures. Worn out and streaked with dirt, she climbed gratefully into the passenger seat and balanced her bag on her lap, while the cat, which had eventually been coaxed down by a patiently insistent Alex, curled up in the footwell on Filippo’s designer bomber jacket.
‘We just won’t tell him,’ said Kate.
It didn’t take them long to get back to Sul Tetto, and they found Toby waiting for them on the road outside.
‘Bloody hell,’ were his first words, closely followed by, ‘What the hell?’ when the cat leapt out of the jeep and streaked straight through the open hostel door behind him.
‘I might have got a bit happy,’ Kate said sheepishly. ‘But it’s all going to be brilliant, you’ll see. Look at this mirror frame – didn’t I tell you it was beautiful? And there are chairs in here as well and check out this old hat stand.’
‘What was that thing that just ran past me?’ he asked her with a shudder. ‘It looked like a giant rat.’
Filippo chose that moment to emerge and Kate cowered as she took in the thunderous expression on his face.
‘Can one of you please explain why,’ he began, ‘there is a hairless, trunkless, angry little elephant sitting upstairs on our pristine new carpet? And what,’ he added, reaching into the jeep and picking up a gnome, ‘is the meaning of this monstrosity?’
In the end, the cat managed to win over Filippo to such an extent that he insisted on driving with Alex over to the Eco-Hvar animal charity office in Jelsa, on the eastern side of the island, leaving Kate and Toby to sort through all the stuff she had salvaged. When she told her brother rather shyly about her idea for the interior theme, Toby was gratifyingly pleased – especially when she explained that the overall look she was going for would be heavily influenced by Hvar.
‘I want to restrict the colour palette we use, but then slide up and down the spectrum scale,’ she said. ‘I looked up the rules, and if we stick to blue, green, white and pink – on account of all the bougainvillea around here – then we can still have doors painted in the fuchsia or rose, if you want? And we can incorporate dark plants, indigo borders and cream units in the kitchen. Everything I’ve read says that as long as you don’t stray off that basic colour wheel, then whatever decorations you choose and however you place them, the overall look should feel harmonious.’
‘I like it,’ he said. ‘It sounds perfect – exactly what we wanted but had no idea how to articulate properly. You are clever, Nims. How did you even know what to look up?’
‘Oh, you know,’ she said vaguely. ‘I follow a few designers online and I’ve read a few books on the subject. Trawling around IKEA on a Saturday afternoon used to be James’s idea of hell, but I loved it. I could have spent all day in there.’
‘Well, I’m impressed,’ he said.
‘Steady on.’ Kate snuffled out a laugh. ‘We’ve barely even started – it might end up looking dreadful in here.’
‘I didn’t actually mean your surprising amount of interior design knowledge,’ he said, ‘although that is incredible. I’m impressed because you just spoke about old plonker-features James in the past tense, and that, my darling one, is progress.’
‘But I didn’t mean . . . I was just saying––’
‘I know, I know.’ Toby raised both hands in surrender. ‘You still love him. But, you know, just because you love James doesn’t mean you need him. Don’t allow the two things to become confused in your head, because the Kate Nimble I see here now, who is so full of ideas and passion, is a far happier woman than the one I found skulking miserably in her old bedroom a week or so ago. If you want my opinion,’ he went on, talking quickly so Kate could not interrupt, ‘you are very much capable of a life without James in it – and what’s more, it may even be a better one.’
‘You’re sweet to encourage me,’ Kate told him, turning away so he would not see the hurt in her eyes. ‘But I know what’s best for me. I’m thirty now, Tobes – not thirteen. You should trust me more.’
‘I do trust you, sis,’ he said, as Kate stared down at her feet. ‘It’s him I don’t trust.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, deliberately non-committal. ‘So, the gnomes – can we keep them? I can repaint them for you, give them shorts in the colours of the Croatian flag or something?’
‘If you want Filippo on board,’ her brother countered lightly, ‘then it had better be an Italian one.’
‘Are there any flea markets in Hvar?’ she wanted to know. ‘Or
jumble sales, that sort of thing. I know you said there wasn’t much left in the way of budget for extra bits of furniture, but I bet we could pick some pieces up second-hand. There are heaps of upcycling tutorials online that we could follow.’
‘I’m sure there are,’ Toby said, reaching into a box he had just carried through into the reception area. ‘What on earth are all these for?’
Kate snatched back the old curtain tassels defensively. ‘They’re for dressing up doorknobs and window latches,’ she muttered. ‘I know the gold is gross, but I can get some dye.’
‘And these?’ he added, holding up a pair of metal jelly moulds.
‘Will apparently make nice vintage-style lamps. I read a how-to on someone’s Instagram account about them.’
‘Jelly mould light fittings,’ he said warily. ‘I really have heard it all now.’
‘It’s just an idea.’ Kate faltered. ‘I’ll take them back to the skip if you hate them.’
‘Let’s start small, shall we?’ he suggested. ‘What you said about Hvar being the inspiration behind the design, and how we could incorporate natural materials – that feels right. The only real question is, do you think we can get it all done in time?’
If he had asked her that morning, Kate would have said there was not a chance in heaven, but now, buoyed up by his obvious confidence in her, she felt as if anything was possible.
‘We won’t know unless we try,’ she told him. ‘And I say we get started right now.’
They were ferrying the last few items of her haul from the street into the hostel when the jeep reappeared, Filippo’s wide grin dazzling Kate even more than the bold midday sun.
‘What are you so happy about?’ enquired Toby, his voice laced with suspicion. ‘You look like the cat who got the cream.’
The Getaway: A holiday romance for 2021 - perfect summer escapism! Page 9
