by Mandy Baggot
‘You have not seen it?’ Elias asked her.
‘Well, no, I mean, yes. You know, photos.’ Becky shrugged. ‘It looks lovely. But, even if it wasn’t quite as lovely as it looks, it would still be… what I want right now.’
He didn’t say anything else. She had dropped her eyes to her wineglass now, looking thoughtful. What was it she wanted or needed right now? Did it have anything to do with that self-help book she was carrying around? He shouldn’t want to know…
‘I had a row with my sister before I left. It was stupid really. It was really petty when you consider what happened with Petra earlier.’
‘What was the argument about?’ Elias asked her.
‘On the surface it was about a job I wanted to cater for but really… I think it was about everything.’
‘You have not spoken to her since?’
Becky shook her head. ‘I was going to… earlier… at least, I think I would have. But she wasn’t there.’
‘And the longer the not-speaking continues, the worse it makes you feel.’
She nodded and he watched her eyes tear up. Immediately he was reaching for a serviette, passing it across the table to her. ‘Here.’
She took the napkin and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I’m getting like this. Megan probably isn’t thinking about me at all. She has Dean… and the business to run… and apart from my skills in buttering the bread, she doesn’t really need me.’
He raised an eyebrow as he looked over at her. ‘I think she needs you to make the sandwiches memorable, does she not?’ She had talked with such passion about that. He almost wanted to taste something she had made so carefully, with so much thought and attention to detail.
Becky sniffed, dabbing at her nose with the serviette. ‘Well, that’s the other thing,’ she said. ‘Megan doesn’t know I do any of that.’
Before Elias could make a reply, someone was touching his arm and trying to encourage him from his seat. It was a female dancer, one of the professionals, in traditional costume. He shook his head. ‘Ochi.’
‘Those dresses are so beautiful,’ Becky said, eyes a little glazed as she looked at the woman close to their table. There were other dancers amid the dining tables now, who seemed to be creating a ring of people on the dusty ground as the bouzouki and mandolin continued to play.
‘You would like to dance?’ Elias asked her. What was he saying? He hadn’t danced since the last village festival in Liakada. Things had been so different then. For one, he had been married.
Becky waved a hand in the air like she was swatting away a mosquito. ‘I don’t know how to dance like a Greek.’ She spoke again. ‘Is it hard?’
His mind went to inappropriate for a second. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It is very simple.’ He held his hand out to her. ‘Ela. Come.’
Twenty-Four
‘This isn’t my idea of simple,’ Becky said, her breath catching in her throat. It was taxing and it was tiring. The frenetic pace matched with the sticky air was causing perspiration she was praying wouldn’t show through her clothes. She hoped Ms O’Neill’s home had a washing machine because if she kept going through outfits the way she currently was, she’d be buying local or smelling like a stray dog.
Elias laughed. He had a gorgeous laugh too. Deep but light and uplifting somehow. Was there anything that wasn’t nice about him? ‘You do not have to get every step perfect.’
‘Everyone else is!’ Becky moaned. They were still in a circle, their arms around each others’ shoulders, moving left and right, putting one leg forward them moving left and right again.
‘The man with the walking cane is not,’ Elias told her.
‘That’s mean. He can’t help it.’
‘I am just pointing out that not everyone is perfectly in time and no one cares about this.’ He paused, dropping his mouth to her ear. ‘Getting each step perfect… that is not what Greek dancing is about.’
‘No?’ Becky asked.
‘No,’ he insisted. ‘It is about expression. These dances, they tell a story, not just of the traditions of the country or here, of this island of Kefalonia… they are a story from the heart of each and every dancer.’
‘So… OK,’ Becky said, swaying left and lifting up her leg, hanging onto Elias’s shoulder as the tempo increased again. ‘What story is the woman in the yellow dress trying to tell?’
‘I don’t know!’ Elias exclaimed with another laugh. ‘That story will be personal to her.’
‘Come on!’ Becky said. ‘The chances are she’s simply a holidaymaker enjoying the wine and the Greek customs and she’s probably feeling just as challenged as me in the footwork department.’
‘Perhaps,’ Elias said with a shrug. ‘But all I know is that in the village where I am from, when we dance, we dance to show an emotion.’
The sincerity in his words fizzed over her skin and she shivered like a cool breeze had tickled the fine hairs on her arms. ‘What kind of emotion?’
‘All of them,’ Elias said as the line broke apart and everyone clapped for the ending of the song. ‘Greeks, they dance when they are happy. Then they dance when they are sad, or in mourning, or when they are angry. There is a lot of stamping when we are mad.’
The mandolin player struck up a new song, a soft tune, his fingers strumming quickly over the strings to produce that atmospheric sound everyone who had seen Nicolas Cage as that Italian soldier on this very island was familiar with. It made Becky get goose bumps all over. Here she was, gently perspiring in the middle of a makeshift dancefloor, standing under a full moon with the warmth of a Greek night surrounding her, listening to the most beautiful music, on an island she wasn’t meant to be visiting. Suddenly she felt so lucky. She looked at Elias and smiled. ‘So, what you’re saying is that there’s a dance for every occasion.’
‘I’m saying there is an expression of emotion for every occasion. Not always organised steps.’ He clapped his hands and moved his feet, holding out his hand out to her.
‘What are you doing?’ Becky asked.
‘We should dance some more,’ Elias encouraged, taking her hand and leading her into the middle of the space.
‘But no one else is dancing anymore,’ she gasped. ‘The circle has gone. We need the circle.’
‘We don’t need the circle,’ Elias reassured her. ‘In the UK do you need a circle to express your emotions?’
‘Well… I… don’t ever usually express my emotions in public… or ordinarily through the medium of dance.’
Elias laughed. ‘What are you afraid of, Captain Rebecca?’
What was she afraid of? He was holding her hand. Wasn’t this something she had told herself she would be open to on this trip? New experiences. They’d practically toasted to it. Being sensibly cautious, but not so cautious that she could be cast in a TV show entitled Diary of an Introvert.
‘OK,’ she said to him. ‘What emotion are we expressing?’ The look she gave him was bold.
*
The fire and determination in her eyes took him by surprise. He liked it. He was finding there was quite a lot more to his aeroplane companion than first impressions would suggest. And it seemed she was keen to accept this dancing challenge now. Which was good, because the minute his feet had hit the olive tree leaf-spattered dust, he knew he needed to dance to rid himself of the memories of the last time. The last time had not been just an ordinary festival in Liakada, it had been the night after he had married Hestia. So many feelings had come to the fore that night, and so many of them, on reflection, had perhaps meant something entirely different. His parents had been so proud of him back then. A solicitor. A job he had got himself qualified for through hard mental work. The opposite to the hard, physical work his parents had both done to make money. A husband. Married to someone they knew, someone they loved like a daughter, someone who would provide them with grandchildren. And then it had fallen apart. He strengthened his core. He was on a new path now, no matter what anyone else’s opinion was on
it.
‘How do you feel right now?’ Elias asked Becky, now holding both her hands in his. Her skin was warm, her face was a little flushed from the dancing.
‘Ridiculous,’ Becky replied. ‘But not giving in. I feel… free,’ she admitted. ‘I’m going to dance like I am free.’ She let go of his hands and twirled around ever so slowly in time to the lilt of the mandolin.
Elias watched her, caressing the dusty earth with her shoes, sliding a foot back and forth like she might be making a pattern with her soles. She drew her arms up, swirling them around, in rhythm with the music, circling her wrists, fingers moving like she was tickling the night air. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. And now she was encouraging him forward, beckoning him to join her. He stepped closer.
‘You have done this before,’ he whispered, shadowing her movements.
‘I haven’t,’ Becky laughed. ‘I promise you I haven’t. Maybe,’ she mused, ‘I have Greek ancestry no one knows about. Perhaps my mum or dad’s lineage involves some of your gods and goddesses. Maybe I’m not Captain Rebecca Rose, the English rose. Maybe I’m part Greek, the goddess Aphrodite’s great-great-great-great-all-the-rest-of-the-greats niece or something.’
‘Your dancing would suggest this could absolutely be the case,’ he answered.
‘I think it’s the wine,’ she whispered, stepping closer to him. ‘Or the fig liqueur. But don’t tell anyone. Let them think my skills – if they are skills and not just fortunate swaying – come from my fictional heritage. Bring on Ancestry.co.uk.’ She laughed and he felt his insides clench.
God, he liked her. He didn’t just find her attractive. He actually liked her, wanted to get to know her. How did that happen after less than forty-eight hours and a couple of plane rides? He had barriers in place. He didn’t feel like that anymore. He didn’t need it and he did not want it. Except the rest of him, the meant-to-be-broken emotional side of him was fully awake and demanding more interaction. He put one hand on her waist and drew her towards him. Maybe for one brief moment he could let himself feel again. After all, after tonight they would never see each other again…
*
Becky gasped involuntarily as they connected in their dance, their bodies close, the musicians providing all the lento. This was Becky Rose out from behind her wrap-filling station, soaking up all the Greek ambience and being (virtually) unafraid about doing it. This absolutely gorgeous man – seemingly gorgeous inside and out from what she had discovered in the short time she had known him – was holding her hand in his, stunning eyes locked on hers. He smelt so good – something pine woodland mixed with citrus – and this was beginning to turn into a dance like no other. She needed to take this moment. Own it. He was no longer a stranger. She didn’t need to hold back or worry he was going to murder her or defraud her… Was he moving closer still? Those beautiful full lips! What would they taste like? She shut her eyes, shaking with anticipation…
And then the heat disappeared. Sharply. Suddenly his hand left hers and she snapped open her eyes to see Elias departing rapidly from the dance space. What had happened? What did she do? How embarrassing was this? All alone on the dancefloor now, feeling the weight of eyes on her, she moved from foot to foot with a lot less enthusiasm than she had felt before. She would end the song and then she would beat a hasty retreat back to the table.
She tracked Elias’s movements with her eyes. It looked like he was heading to the bar. Waiters were still delivering platters of steaming delicacies, carafes of wine. And suddenly there was Petra, coming into view, bouncing out of the taverna, wearing a bright white dress that barely covered any of her. Smiling, glowing even, looking completely in opposition to the half-dead individual who had to be hauled from the lake earlier. A miraculous recovery, and why did she look so effortlessly good in obviously borrowed clothes?
It was then Becky wished she had looked away, focused on the talented musicians, or stopped dancing and gone back to the table to finish the wine. Because the next thing that happened seemed to occur in slow motion and it wasn’t the good kind of slow motion like running back a scene of a chick flick you wanted to relive in all its detailed glory. No, this was the slow motion of disaster waiting to occur that you had absolutely no control over and definitely did not want to see. Becky still couldn’t look away, even when her gut realised exactly what was going to happen. Her breath tight in her throat, her newly found self-confidence nosediving down to her espadrilles, she watched Petra connect with Elias. Lips to lips. Mouth to mouth. Meeting in a kiss.
Twenty-Five
On board the flight from Kefalonia to Corfu
Becky now knew that figs made into a liqueur were definitely not as good for you as figs ingested in other ways. OK, it was probably the fault of the alcohol content of the liqueur and not the fruit, but she had never known a hangover like this one and she remembered a New Year’s Eve party where she had happily scooped up homemade punch out of a bucket with a cracked The Simpsons mug. That was one of the things she still blamed Dean for.
She had avoided everyone in Argostoli this morning and last night, when Agelos had sped them back to their hotel, she had pretended to be asleep in the back of his truck, so she didn’t have to look/talk/interact with Petra or Elias. It had turned out to be quite hard to feign sleep when every time Agelos hit a pothole – of which there were many – her head had slammed against the window. And it was even harder to pretend she had nodded off when Petra was running her hands through Agelos’s hair as he drove, telling him they should swap numbers and meet up again on her travels, maybe in Corfu. Becky had gritted her teeth hard, the image of Petra and Elias locked together in an embrace still in high definition in her memory bank. Was no man safe with Petra around? Why didn’t Agelos seem bothered Petra was loose with her lips? Or was everyone a lot more unconcerned with everything than she was?
This morning Becky’s thoughts had felt a little clearer, if not the whole of her head thanks to the fug of her hangover. Clarity said that Petra did what Petra wanted. And Becky hadn’t ever voiced that she quite liked Elias herself. Perhaps, because until last night, until they had talked and drank and danced together, she hadn’t really known that she might want to kiss him, dinner party meat daydreams aside. And with that taken into account, she only had herself to blame. She should have acted more quickly. Sod the so-called kiss waiting time as suggested by Hazel’s book! If she had taken charge and kissed Elias herself, he would have been with her on the dancefloor and not near Petra. But, in turn, if Elias had felt anything for her, if he had wanted to kiss her, he wouldn’t have run away in the first place. However, even if second thoughts had made him flee, it wasn’t exactly great etiquette to end up locking lips with someone else within seconds. Still, at least Becky had now discovered that there was something not nice about Elias after all. So much for being Mr Flawless!
As the passengers filed onto the aeroplane Becky took a swig from her bottle of water and prayed both of her original travelling companions would be seated elsewhere on the plane. A few dozen rows back would be ideal. She had hidden at the very rear of the coach from the harbour to the airport and waited for them both to depart before she got off outside departures. Strangely, given their closeness last night, Elias and Petra hadn’t sat next to each other on the transfer. Petra, sitting alone, had loudly told the tale of her cave rescue – with an added man-eating jellyfish as an enhancement – to the two lads with the giant backpacks. Elias had sat at the very front of the coach, eyes glued to his phone.
‘Good morning.’
Oh no! This could not be happening again. Becky had read several articles about how difficult it was to get seats together on a plane if you were travelling with a family, or even as a couple, that prior booking was the only sure way, but it seemed through some twist of fate she and Elias were destined to be paired together on every plane they stepped onto.
‘Hello,’ she answered with a sigh, undoing her seat belt and moving out into the aisle so he could shift in.
‘I did not see you at breakfast,’ he said, popping his case in the overhead locker then moving to his seat.
‘No,’ Becky answered.
She needed to sound less mad. Sounding mad would give the impression that she cared. She needed not to care. Or at least project to Elias that she didn’t care. In her drunken haze last night she had read a few pages of How to Find the Love of Your Life or Die Trying. Confidence was key. No one fell in love with someone who thought little of themselves. Not that falling in love or finding that elusive ‘the one’ was going to be a thing on this housesitting holiday. But she was going to be open to a romantic connection… just not with someone who led her on then snogged someone else. Had Elias actually led her on? Or was that simply her own mind filling in pieces that weren’t really there?
‘No,’ she said again, forcing her mouth into a smile. ‘I took a walk to the harbour to see if I could see the turtles everyone says live here.’
‘Oh,’ Elias said, settling into his seat. ‘I would have liked to have seen them too.’
If he wanted to be asked, he should have not kissed Petra. Grr! She was taking this too seriously again. She did not need someone to couple up with her, nor wear matching tracksuits or cuddle up and gorge on foods covered in humus! Confidence! Love you!
‘There weren’t any there,’ Becky responded. It was true. She had broken two bread rolls into pieces and tossed them into the sea, the early morning sun warming her shoulders. But no turtles arrived and the bread was happily eaten by a shoal of fish.
‘That is unfortunate,’ Elias answered, putting his bag under the seat in front of him.
‘Well, being on this island at all was really already an unexpected treat,’ Becky said.
‘Like our visit to Athens,’ Elias told her.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see he was looking at her. She must not engage with those beautiful eyes. She did not need to be thrown back to thoughts of a lonely mandolin solo and her swaying like a less lithe, less dark-haired version of Penelope Cruz. As for those perfect lips… not so perfect anymore.