by Mandy Baggot
‘You hadn’t found your inner peace when you were twenty-one.’
‘I don’t think I’ve really got it now,’ Heidi admitted with a sigh. ‘I alternate. You know, like those really faddy diets where you starve yourself one minute and then eat like you’re on a cruise the next.’
‘No, but you’re happy in yourself, aren’t you?’ Beth asked. ‘Happy with who you are. Comfortable in your own skin.’
‘You mean suitably satisfied with being 100 per cent out of the closet and no longer having to take off my Gay Pride wristbands whenever Auntie Doris comes to my mum’s?’
‘Yes,’ Beth replied.
‘I am,’ Heidi stated proudly. ‘I just need someone to share all that comfortable-ness with.’
The tea on Beth’s tongue tasted a little sour. She had had someone to share it all with and he had chosen to start sharing with someone else. But he hadn’t been the right person. She must stop dwelling. She was going to delete Charles’s message and pretend she hadn’t received it. It was rude of him to intrude on her holiday. He didn’t need her take on James Graves’s ethically-minded investments or need for a start-up project. Since the split, whenever she was in doubt about anything in her life Beth tended to watch Ozark and then commit to the exact opposite of whatever Marty Byrd was up to.
‘And how about you?’ Heidi asked, sipping at her water.
‘I need to look again! Very bad problem,’ Stathis announced suddenly, appearing on the terrace, tongue hitting the roof of his mouth.
‘I was actually talking to my friend,’ Heidi replied a little haughtily.
‘This is tea?’ the builder asked, pointing at Beth’s cup on the table.
‘Er, yes,’ Beth replied. ‘Would you…’
Before she could say any more, the man had swiped it up and enclosed his mouth round it, drinking it down with aplomb then smacking his lips together before returning the cup to the wooden table top.
‘I look again,’ he stated, holding up his notepad like it was an official decree. ‘Then I make estimate for the very big, very bad problem.’ The ‘very big’ and ‘very bad’ were emphasised more than a ‘last chance to buy’ advert on Facebook.
‘We really don’t care how much it’s going to cost,’ Heidi told him firmly. ‘It isn’t our house, so we aren’t paying.’
‘Is OK,’ the builder replied, smiling. ‘I find the blame.’ With that said he retreated into the house, tongue slapping another sound.
‘What did he say?’ Heidi asked, wide-eyed.
‘He drank my tea!’ Beth whined, looking at the empty cup.
‘Did he say “blame”, because there is no way we are taking responsibility for the roof caving in.’
‘Good morning.’
Another voice, a more familiar voice, slid softly into the proceedings and Beth stood up, immediately picking up the empty cup so she had a prop to handle. Lex. Dressed in dark trousers, a pristine white shirt and a tie. He looked professional smart, but also, somehow, downright dirty-sexy. Beth focused on the tea cup in her hands. What a pretty pattern it had…
‘Good morning, Mr DJ,’ Heidi greeted. ‘Thank God you’re here.’
‘I came to check that Stathis had arrived,’ Alex replied. ‘He messaged me earlier.’
‘Earlier than this?’ Heidi said, rolling her eyes. ‘I thought Greek time was traditionally always after the fact.’
‘You had a good first night?’ Alex asked.
Beth looked up from reading tea leaves that weren’t there and found herself staring into Alex’s chocolate-coloured eyes. Every erogenous zone she knew about – and possibly all the ones she didn’t – melted. She hadn’t really thought about sex in so long – apart from one lustful DVD night gorging on Bradley Cooper while Heidi admired Lady Gaga in A Star is Born. Since the separation it had been more about peeling off the break-up stigma than anyone’s underwear. But she couldn’t deny, all her hormones still seemed to be in full working order now, flexing to attention.
‘We ate gyros,’ Beth answered. What sort of woman was she? Why hadn’t she said something mature and interesting? Why had it sounded just like, ‘I carried a watermelon’?
Alex laughed, the muscles in his face relaxing, his eyes wrinkling a little at the corners. Beth remembered how much they had laughed together all those years ago. Her face had ached with pleasure back then, for all manner of reasons and yes, some of them smutty.
‘You should try finer food while you are here,’ he told them both. ‘Corfu has many great restaurants. Some traditional, some trying new things.’
‘We are all about trying new things on this holiday,’ Heidi said, winking.
‘Really?’ Beth said, her eyes moving to her seated friend. ‘I thought you wanted this to be a retro break.’
‘I think I said thirty-one was the new twenty-one. I think I didn’t say we had to re-enact exactly everything we did here the last time.’ Heidi grinned, first at Beth then at Alex. ‘So, theoretically, you don’t have to have sex with each other this time but, you know, if fate calls…’
Beth cleared her throat, the temperature suddenly climbing from sauna to crematorium burner. She hit the cup on her wedding ring and it made a loud clink that had her ditching the vessel quickly.
*
Beth was wearing a wedding ring. Now it was all Alex could see. How had he not noticed it yesterday? It was thick and silver-coloured and seemed to shine with expensive. Why was he surprised? It had been ten years. She had another life. She had always had another life. Theirs had been a holiday romance…
‘Do you know where we might hire a car from?’ Beth said quickly.
She had hidden her hands from view now. They were behind her back, clasped together like someone had tied them there. He swallowed, his mind immediately showing him snapshots of her nakedness from the nights they spent on Megali Beach. He was finding it hard to focus.
‘You are looking for a car?’ He hadn’t needed to repeat the question, but it helped him gather his thoughts.
‘Beth wants to take me on a cultural experience,’ Heidi stated. ‘I want to get back to Sidari and either find somewhere that does organic produce… or drink several Screwdrivers.’
‘Do not worry!’ Stathis exclaimed loudly from inside. ‘I have all the screwdrivers!’
‘Stathis is a good builder,’ Alex reassured.
‘That’s excellent to hear,’ Heidi said, standing up. ‘But I’m just going to follow him round for a bit and make sure this “blame” he’s mentioned isn’t going to land at our feet… like the faulty plaster work.’ She picked up Beth’s cup from the table and headed indoors. ‘I’m going to make coffee.’
The atmosphere changed for him the moment Heidi left. Alex could feel it in his bones, electricity, still now. But Beth was married, and he was not someone to ignore that fact. Besides, this attraction he still felt was no doubt one way. She had made a life, had a husband, maybe children too…
‘You are well?’ Alex asked. ‘I mean… you are in good health.’ What was he now? A doctor? He tried again. ‘You look well.’
‘I’m fine,’ Beth answered. ‘And you?’
He nodded. ‘Good. I am good. And I am glad you are too.’
He held her gaze for a moment and then, without warning, they both burst into laughter, still a little nervous, but he at least, was overcome by the need to make this situation less awkward.
‘I’m sorry,’ Beth apologised. ‘I’m talking to you as if you’re a duke who’s come to tea.’
‘You have many dukes coming to tea?’
‘Three,’ Beth answered. ‘And, actually, only one stayed for the scones.’
‘Wow,’ Alex replied.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Beth said softly.
‘Ten years,’ Alex said, nodding. He put a hand into the pocket of his trousers and drew something out. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Last night, after I came here and… you were here, I found this.’
*
Beth looked at the f
lat of his hand and the keyring that lay there. Instinctively she reached out, her fingertips grazing his skin, then quickly she plucked the object from his palm. It was a piece of polished brown glass, instantly recognisable. An oval shape, dots she had pressed into one side with a cocktail stick, to create the illusion of feathers, a small triangle of beak and eyes formed from stones. An owl. An owl she had made him ten years ago from things she had found on the beach.
‘My God,’ she exclaimed, almost giddy with reverie. ‘I can’t believe this.’ She looked closely at it, running a fingertip over its shape.
‘It is still perfect,’ he told her.
A tumult flooded her like someone had lifted the barrier on a dam. She could remember exactly the last piece of her work she had looked at. It was a simple piece of clear glass she had found on Weymouth beach that she had softened the edges of then fashioned into a heart shape. Then, when it was complete, she had pressed it into the palm of her mum’s hand at the funeral home. Suddenly the tears were there, not pausing for even a second.
‘Beth,’ Alex said, instinctively edging forward towards her. ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to make you sad.’
She sniffed, inching back from him, wrists at each eye, doing that British stiff upper lip thing Keeley Hawes seemed to have perfected in every role she played. ‘I’m not sad. It’s the… DEET… you know… in the insect repellent we seem to have to slather all over us to stand a chance against the bug life.’ She offered a laugh she didn’t really feel like. She cleared her throat and looked again at the owl keyring. ‘I can’t believe you kept this.’ That sounded way too sentimental, and she rephrased rapidly. ‘I mean, it hasn’t broken or faded or anything.’
She thumbed the beak of the owl and thought back to the young woman who had crafted the object. She hadn’t been weighed down by life back then. Things had been simple. Her future would be chasing dreams and achieving them. Why wouldn’t it?
‘I never used it,’ Alex admitted. ‘Not because I did not want to.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course I wanted to. I only did not want it to fall apart.’
She caught his eyes then and felt all the heat her twenty-one-year-old self had expressed in his vicinity back in 2009. She handed him back the keyring.
‘So,’ she said, matter-of-factly, as if she were addressing her team at Mountbatten Global. ‘Do you know somewhere we can rent a car from?’
Alex nodded. ‘Sure. I can show you.’
Thirteen
Corfu Motion
‘I was actually thinking about something more like a Jeep,’ Heidi said, looking a little disappointed at the red Volkswagen Up they were standing next to on the dusty ‘forecourt’ of the hire car office. The twin palm trees at the entrance were doing nothing to help shade them from the heat.
Alex was standing back and letting Toula handle the deal for two reasons. One, because he was supposed to be a kumquat king-pin not a part-time, part-owner of a smallholding, a part-time car hire salesman and part-time handyman, and two because he didn’t know how to be with Beth. The evidence was telling him she was married. Everything else was saying this was an opportunity. But for what he didn’t know. Was there a reason she was here now, and her husband wasn’t with her? He wanted to know. He wanted to ask her a thousand questions but where did he start? And once he had started, what happened next?
‘Ha!’ Toula exclaimed, fastening a popping button on her too tight coconut motif blouse as she bustled forward, clipboard in hand. ‘This is what they all say until they find out the price.’ She stood just a little too close to Heidi, forcing the tall blonde to step back. ‘And, it is July. People, they book ahead. We only have one Suzuki Jimny left.’
‘We only need one,’ Heidi said half-sweetly, half with a tinge of psycho.
‘It is green,’ Toula countered.
‘I like green.’
‘Very dark green.’
‘Soft top?’
‘Rigid.’
Alex watched his boss almost bare her teeth. Perhaps his cover needed to be slightly blown here if Corfu Motion was going to get the business and his friends were going to get a car…
‘OK,’ he said, stepping forward as if he might need to separate them. ‘Toula, you know the Jimny is a soft top.’
‘Honestly,’ Beth said. ‘This little red car is fine.’
‘Beth,’ Heidi began. ‘The little red car is fine but we’re not doing fine, are we? We’re doing “not compromising” and “living in the moment”.’
‘I’m confused,’ Beth replied. ‘I thought we were doing twenty-one again.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, when we were twenty-one, we wouldn’t have had the money to hire an SUV. We would barely have had the money to hire the smaller car. We had the Olympic Holidays coach transfer from the airport and we hardly visited anywhere,’ Beth reminded.
‘Unless we hitched,’ Heidi agreed with a grin. ‘Or hopped up onto the back of a moped.’
Alex felt Heidi’s eyes on him then and he took the clipboard from Toula. ‘Toula, why don’t you go into the shade. Put up your feet and take a break.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I will deal with this.’
Toula swung round, dark wavy hair stuck to her cheeks with perspiration. The button of her shirt popped open again. ‘No discounts on the Jimny,’ she said, pointing a finger.
‘Well, that’s a bit mean,’ Heidi retorted. ‘Because we have a lot of friends. Rich friends. Who might all want to come to Corfu and hire a car from you.’
Toula laughed. ‘Ha! If your friends are all rich, they will not be staying in Almyros. They will be having villas and eating with film stars in San Stefanos.’ The woman was still laughing when she reached the entrance of the office.
‘I can give you a small discount on the 4x4,’ Alex stated, ticking boxes on the sheet he was holding.
‘Yay!’ Heidi exclaimed happily. ‘See, Beth, doing twenty-one again but a slightly more middle-class effort.’
‘You work here too?’ Beth asked him.
Crunch time. He had known it was going to come. If he hadn’t told her the white lie about the health products he wouldn’t be in this situation. He nodded. ‘Part-time.’
‘But what about your kumquat business?’ Beth inquired.
It was time for some quick thinking. Except he didn’t know what to say…
‘Come on, Beth,’ Heidi said. ‘Alex is just like Charles. An MD has staff obviously.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Where is the dark green Jimny?’
‘I will show you,’ Alex said, heading away from the small selection of cars at the front of the business toward the rear grass parking.
‘But why would you work here?’ Beth continued. ‘If you have your own business?’
Alex sighed. He should come clean. Why was he embarrassed? Because she seemed successful and she had a successful partner who could afford for her to come to Corfu and hire from their more expensive range? Was he nine years old?
‘Toula is… a friend of my family. Finance is picking up here now, but the past few years it has been tough. I help out when I can.’
‘Oh, that’s so sweet,’ Heidi stated. ‘Like when you helped out at the hospice, Beth. All hands to the pump in difficult circumstances.’
Alex saw the light fade a little from Beth’s expression then. Something had happened to her in the past ten years. Maybe more than one thing. Of course it had. Not a lot might have changed on Corfu but in England, with her, maybe everything.
‘Here is the SUV,’ Alex said, stopping in his tracks.
‘It’s white,’ Heidi remarked.
‘Yes.’
‘The woman said it was green.’
‘She thought you would not like green,’ Alex answered, as if it was really any sort of explanation.
‘I like the white,’ Heidi said, beaming.
‘How much is it?’ Beth asked.
‘You said you want this for two weeks?’ Alex asked.
‘Yes,’ Heidi said.
‘With a discount I can do this for… eight hundred euro.’
*
Beth swallowed, echoes of her life with Charles hitting home. He wouldn’t have baulked at that amount, but that wasn’t how she was going to do things going forward. It seemed very extravagant for a car for a fortnight. It was even more than the amount they had paid to stay at Paralia View – granted the ceiling had fallen down but the sea was less than twenty-five metres away. ‘How much is the little red car?’
‘Beth, imagine it, the top down, the wind through our hair… no offence to Volkswagen but no one ever got excited over a budget car like that.’
‘You’d be excited if we had more euros to spend on health food… or Screwdrivers.’
‘I’ll stick it on my credit card,’ Heidi said, immediately foraging for her purse in her woven beach bag.
‘Heidi,’ Beth said, quietly. ‘The last time you said you’d stick something on your credit card it was a campervan you had to sell on at a knockdown price because it wouldn’t fit on your drive… or anyone’s drive.’
‘It would have fitted on your drive,’ Heidi reminded. ‘Except Charles was worried about the Nordic aesthetic and his bloody bay trees.’
‘I’m just saying,’ Beth began. ‘Have you paid that off yet?’
‘Christ! Who are you now? Martin Lewis?’
‘The red car is only four hundred and fifty euro,’ Alex offered.
‘That sounds more sensible,’ Beth said. And completely un-Mountbatten.
‘Yes!’ Heidi exclaimed. ‘It does! Sensible! Boring! It’s a no from me! Here!’ She brandished a shiny, looking-like-it-had-never-been-swiped-before credit card towards Alex. ‘Take the euros for the Jimny and whatever deposit you need for insurance or fuel or whatever.’
Heidi’s phone began to trill, and she was back to rooting through her bag to find it.
‘So,’ Alex said, putting his clipboard down on the bonnet of the car. ‘You both want to drive?’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as saying “want to” but we both have our licences and I know how Heidi drives at home. It isn’t going to take me long to get scared.’