She was named after her grandmother. The notoriously devout Inés from the village of Berga, near Barcelona who had travelled a long way to marry, had died when her granddaughter was three years old, rendering her memory almost impossible if it were not for the scent of almonds. Inés always remembered her abuela's skin smelling of almonds. She had never lived up to the sturdy example set to her and was frequently getting into trouble for climbing trees, ripping her dresses and tracking muddy feet from outside. No amount of scolding would teach the defiant child to act properly. She fidgeted in church and tripped up the choirboys.
'She has her grandmother's eyes' her mother mused, taking her by the chin. 'But not her temperament.' Inés tossed her head and freed herself from the grasp of parental neediness, dashed out of the door to find something else to do.
Those boys started to get interesting once their chests filled out and it wasn't so long before Inés would corner some of them for late night dates to the cinema with a dessert course of feverish fumbling. She studied photos of her abuela and started to try and walk like the actresses in films. She practiced until she nailed it. Inés was nothing if a perfectionist. A trait she'd learned that Inés the elder possessed. So she realised that in order to learn more about her namesake, she'd walk in her footsteps. The next step was to discover something of her world before she married. Fuelled by stories handed down of the festival of La Patum, a unique celebration from her grandmother's town, she made plans to visit. The debauched revelry appealed to her and off she went, to the mountains, through time itself. The town's nooks and crannies were gloriously unsophisticated. The noise, fire, the beat of the tabal and the nightmarish dragons, moors and giants made her dizzy and thrummed through her veins. She felt alive and free. Imagine missing this! She vowed to come again as she immersed herself in the crowd, whooping and cheering as the procession swooped around her. She ended the night by falling off the wall, being caught by a dancer who had been ensconced in a dragon costume and snogging the face off him.
She came back to Palma with a renewed sense of purpose, the need to channel her energy into something worthwhile. Prove her family wrong and learn some discipline. She knew discipline, she just couldn't be bothered with it. Not for the church was she. She looked further afield for her purpose. She joined the police force. Did she get an adrenaline rush from chasing and staking out targets? Oh yes. Did police officers look good in their uniforms? Absolutely. She knew she would impress with her choice of career. She would rise up the ranks and one day she would have her own office because she would be the Chief.
A former choirboy had waltzed into her office, eager to see what had become of that boisterous savage he had grown up with. Chief of the Palma police force. No one could have predicted that.
'Inés. I hardly recognised you' he said admiringly. Gone was that rowdy girl, a sophisticated woman in a tight skirt stood in front of him. He knew it was her because he recognised her eyes. Inés smiled, her transformation complete. He'd only find out how wild she still was if he came home with her but that was never going to happen.
Inés the pious she would never be. But she had made an impact as big as her namesake and that was something given by God. And one should always be grateful for the gifts given to them, shouldn't one?