by Mandy Baggot
‘Do I get the piano?’ Heidi asked.
‘What?’ Beth said. ‘I… don’t have the piano any more. No one ever played it. Charles bought it for my mum because she liked the colour. It was crazy. All it ever was was a shelf for photos.’
‘It was a nice shelf for photos though.’ Heidi sniffed. ‘What about the letter opener with the naked lady at the end.’
Beth made an expression she hoped was as incredulous as she had been aiming for. ‘Heidi, do you have an inventory of everything in my mum’s house?’
‘Your house now,’ Heidi reminded. ‘And no… well… it is a bit like visiting a cool antiques fair.’
And, because of that, it still didn’t feel like hers. Why had she kept it? Was it a mistake? Her mother had liked the house, hadn’t she? She’d kept saying she did, but maybe, thinking back to the day Charles had presented it to them, maybe her mum had just said yes to keep everyone happy. Rosa had been well into treatment by that stage, knew how precarious their financial situation was going to be. Perhaps she had gone along with it for Beth’s sake. Which would mean Beth was living in a house with expensive furniture she hated and rooms that were big enough to hold an album launch for Olly Murs, for absolutely no reason. Was she kidding herself that there was sentimentality attached when really that had been wrapped up in the rented house she had made them leave when Charles had bought the new pad…?
‘Stop!’ Heidi suddenly announced, jumping to her feet. ‘Stop here!’ The man driving pulled on the reins to halt the horse.
‘What are you doing?’ Beth asked
‘It’s the DJ,’ Heidi stated. ‘Look! In that bar there!’
Beth leaned a little in the carriage, passers-by already stopping to pet the horse and take photos of the animal and its cart. Heidi was right. There was Alex, sat at a table in a bar, with another man. Wearing jeans and a slim-fitting black T-shirt that highlighted his muscular arms, his fingers curled round a bottle of beer, Beth felt all the raw attraction padding back from somewhere between Jay-Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ and a tune by Flo-Rida.
‘Alex!’ Heidi yelled at the top of her voice.
‘Heidi, no! What are you doing? Why are you calling him?’ Beth ducked down a little, hands going to her cheeks in some attempt to shield herself.
‘I don’t want your assets getting as dusty as the antiques in your home. Alex!’ Heidi called again.
*
Alex turned his head to the street and saw the horse and carriage parked across the road, the animal trying to sniff the corn-on-the-cobs he had been standing by a bit earlier. It was Heidi and Beth.
‘The girl is calling to you,’ Ugo stated.
‘Yes,’ Alex answered, standing up.
‘This is the girl you like?’ Ugo queried.
‘Give me a minute,’ he said, heading out of the bar.
Heidi was getting down from the carriage by the time he had reached them, all flailing arms and flying hair. She enveloped him in a hug and growled in his ear.
‘Here you are, Mr DJ,’ Heidi said, standing back and looking him up and down. ‘Just like old times.’
‘And you too,’ he answered, his eyes going from Heidi to Beth, who was looking a little like she didn’t want to connect. ‘Did you try The Hive?’
‘Oh my God, we did,’ Heidi answered excitedly. ‘It was gorgeous! So, is that your beer on the table?’ Her head hitched towards his space with Ugo.
‘It is,’ he replied.
‘I’ll finish that,’ Heidi said. ‘And talk to your friend. While you have a ride in the carriage.’
‘What? Heidi… wait… I don’t…’
It was a waste of breath to say anything else, Heidi was already marching towards the bar, waving a hand in greeting at Ugo. He looked up at the cart, at Beth. She was shifting on her seat and looked ready to get down.
Alex turned to the driver. ‘Could you go round again?’ he asked.
Twenty-Two
Beth was going to kill Heidi later. OK, maybe not kill but seriously hair pull. She was not going to be duped into this set-up. She was going to get down, quickly. As quickly as a thirty-one-year old body after half a litre of white wine could. Shit! It was too late.
Alex had one foot on the step, looking ready to haul himself up.
‘I was just going to…’ Beth began, standing up.
The horse let out a whinny and trotted forward slightly, sending her shooting back into her seat. In the time it had taken for the carriage to rock backward, Alex had climbed aboard and was sitting next to her.
‘Hey,’ Alex greeted.
‘Hello,’ Beth replied, feeling so terribly British and uptight and awkward all of a sudden. She was going to force-feed Heidi trans-fats for a whole day tomorrow… in a moment when she was completely nutritionally focused.
‘Do you know,’ he began as the cart prepared to move on, snaking behind slow-crawling traffic, ‘I have never been in one of these.’ He was sitting back against the banquette seating, looking exceedingly at home in the old-fashioned trap.
‘No?’ What else was there to say? Why had Heidi left her in this situation?
‘Heidi said you went to The Hive,’ he continued, turning a little, facing her.
‘Oh, yes, we did,’ Beth answered immediately. She was now enthused, as the glorious culinary flavours returned to her mind as well as her taste buds. ‘It was so nice… the little lights and the cushions, and the colours and the food was…’ She stopped as Alex began to laugh. ‘What?’ she asked him.
‘Nothing,’ he said, smiling as he shook his head. ‘I knew you would like it… the icons on the wall, the relaxed vibe, no doubt with the food. Did you have the f—’
‘I had the fish.’
Their sentences merged together like they had read each other’s minds. Beth began to toy with her wedding ring. She had to clear this up about Charles not being deceased.
‘I am sorry,’ Alex began. ‘I did not mean to make you sad again. A place like The Hive, so beautiful, it must bring back all the memories about your husband.’
‘No,’ Beth said quickly, dropping her hold on her ring. ‘No, it doesn’t. Because…’ He was going to think she was a complete idiot now. As misunderstandings went, someone perceiving your husband was dead was right up there. There was one thing for it. ‘Charles isn’t dead, Alex. I’m sorry, you assumed…’ No, it wasn’t his fault, it was all hers. ‘Somehow, I let you assume and I’m sorry but he’s not dead at all.’
‘You are sorry he is not dead?’ Alex asked.
Now he looked more bewildered than ever. Why was she being so rubbish at this?
‘No,’ Beth said. ‘Obviously I’m not sorry he isn’t dead.’ She took a breath. There had been times she’d wanted to cut the crotch out of his underpants, but death seemed a little too far, even in her darkest moments, drinking his vintage champagne like it was tap water.
‘You are still married?’ Alex asked.
‘No,’ Beth said firmly. ‘We’re divorced.’
Alex nodded then, finally seeming to understand. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘This makes you sad. To separate was something you did not want.’
The horse trotted on through the streets alive with lights and music, cars blocking their path a few yards ahead. The aroma of griddled meat, sugary sweet treats and nostalgia seemed to thicken the air between them.
‘No,’ Beth said again. ‘It wasn’t something I planned to happen, but you can’t let someone keep hurting you just because you made a promise to your mother.’
*
Alex could see there were now tears forming in Beth’s eyes and he so wanted to take her hand. He swallowed through the feeling, holding back from contact. She wasn’t his to touch. She hadn’t been his for a long time, if at all in the real world.
‘How is your mother?’ he asked.
It was definitely safer territory than talking about a husband he didn’t really want her to have had. ‘I remember you were very close.’ He smiled but then
his expression turned to one of shock as Beth crumpled, the tears finally falling from her eyes and dropping fast. This time Alex did not hesitate. As the horse and carriage halted behind a Citroen, he took Beth’s hand in his, softly squeezing. ‘Beth,’ he whispered. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s the wine,’ she bawled. ‘I’ve had too much white wine.’
He continued to hold her hand, his thumb gently caressing the skin on the back. Where was her pain coming from? What had happened to her since their times together?
He waited, just sitting quietly, the thrum of Sidari nightlife going on round them, but a deep poignancy in the bubble of the carriage. Finally, Beth took her hand from his, using her fingertips to dab at her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said again, adjusting herself in her seat. ‘I definitely shouldn’t mix talking about family and divorce and death with copious amounts of retsina.’
‘But no one died,’ Alex reminded.
When she didn’t answer right away, he looked a little closer, saw the clouds cross her features. ‘Beth?’
She sighed then, her whole body lifting up then sagging with the effort, as if in defeat. ‘They did,’ she said in barely more than the faintest of whispers. ‘My mum…’ She stopped there, voice cracking and almost fracturing his own heart.
‘No,’ he said at once. ‘How? I mean…’
‘Cancer,’ Beth said, matter-of-fact. ‘Almost as soon as I came back from Corfu she was diagnosed.’ She looked at him. ‘She battled with everything she had, over years, and we tried all there was – medical, spiritual, looking at Lourdes through a webcam – in the end there was nothing left and she had nothing left.’
‘Beth, I do not know what to say.’ How could he make this better? Here he was being so ungrateful about the life he had on this island and her last remaining parent had been taken from her. He wanted to reach for her hand again, hold it tight and convey all he was feeling for her. But she had fitted her hands together now, fingers swirling round her wedding ring.
‘There’s nothing to say,’ Beth answered, as finally the traffic ahead of them began to shift and the driver shook the horse’s reins. ‘It happened and life goes on, doesn’t it?’
He nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. ‘I am glad you had someone with you. That your still-alive husband was there for you.’
She smiled at him. ‘Thanks,’ she answered. ‘For listening to a thirty-something pouring out her retsina-soaked woes on you.’
‘Anytime,’ he replied.
She changed position in her seat a fraction, her thigh touching his, her expression slightly brighter. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing. Your mother must be so proud of your kumquat empire.’
He swallowed the really bitter taste of guilt. This was the moment he told her the truth. That the business was in its most infantile stages. That the reason he was doing all this work with tiny orange fruits was to work towards a business that would allow him the freedom to play his music again, to take a chance on what he really longed to achieve. In those two weeks they had had together in 2009, she had always been so supportive of his dream to be at the top of the DJ-ing tree. She deserved the truth…
‘My mother is very Greek,’ Alex responded.
Beth laughed. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Greek mothers, they are not like any other mothers the world over, so I am told.’ He pushed back his hair. ‘My mother finds being proud difficult when her dreams are not the same as mine.’
‘What are her dreams for you?’ Beth asked, looking at him with interested eyes.
He blew out a breath. ‘She would like me to be a mechanic,’ he admitted. ‘To work with my uncle at his garage. It is family, you know. Here in Greece, family is everything and, as nice as that can be, it can also be…’ Right now, he was choosing between ‘painful’ and ‘oppressive’. ‘It can be hard.’
‘Well,’ Beth began, ‘if I have learned one thing over the past ten years, it’s that the world does not stop turning no matter what you do. And life is short.’ She paused before carrying on. ‘It’s taken me a long time to realise it, but settling for something someone else wants just doesn’t work.’
The pony trotted on, taking them off the main strip. And his chance to confess had gone.
‘You settled for not making your jewellery?’ Alex asked.
‘I haven’t made a piece of jewellery from sea glass since my mum died,’ Beth admitted. ‘And before that, after she was diagnosed, there wasn’t even time to look for it. I fell into investment management, to help with my mum’s medical bills and… all the other bills and, well, everything real life, not dream life.’ She sighed.
‘What you say is right, though,’ Alex told her. ‘It should be possible for everyone to have a little of the life they dream of.’ Like he dreamed of music. Like he did not want to look after his mother until he was as old as she was now. He felt immediate, intense guilt. His mother wasn’t in the best health, she wasn’t living her dream life either…
‘And you’ve done it,’ Beth breathed. ‘With kumquats.’ She elongated her bare legs, stretching her torso, sitting back against the carriage seat, the humid air shifting her hair a little. ‘Didn’t we get drunk on kumquats once?’ Her face lit up with the memory and it made him smile too.
‘I remember you thought kumquat liqueur was the best drink you had ever tasted.’
‘I haven’t had anything like it in ten years,’ Beth said.
Unspoken meanings in that sentence burst through the night air hitting Alex hard. He hadn’t felt like this in ten years, his heart’s engine happily engaged, a lightness in his soul.
‘You said we could try your juice,’ Beth reminded. ‘I think Heidi’s hoping it will clear her colon of gyros.’
‘I cannot promise that,’ Alex said. ‘But I would like for you to try some. To tell me what you think.’
‘Well,’ Beth said. ‘I would be happy to, and if it could magically manage to somehow get me out of parasailing tomorrow morning then I will forever be grateful.’
‘Parasailing!’ Alex exclaimed with a shake of his head. ‘You are crazy.’
‘Heidi is crazy,’ Beth corrected. ‘I’m just going along for the ride. This is one last Greek holiday before we do grown-upping again.’
‘Grown-upping?’ Alex asked.
‘Behaving like an adult. Getting my life back on track.’
‘If you do not die parasailing,’ Alex joked.
Abruptly, the horse halted, and the carriage was jolted, sending Beth sliding into him. Her body collided with his and she squeaked a little in shock, as he put his arms round her, bracing the impact. He was holding her. Like he used to. The heat of her soft skin was flush against him, the thrum of her heart beating so close to his.
‘Many apologies,’ the driver called, turning over his shoulder and looking at them.
Alex held onto her, their eyes locked together. He was certainly in no hurry to straighten up and Beth was looking back at him, as if sensing everything he was feeling, the past flooding into the here and now.
‘Hey, you crazy kids! Good ride?’
Heidi’s voice bellowing through the thickness of the night broke the spell and Beth was scrambling up onto the seat like she’d been caught doing something illegal.
*
Beth’s head and heart were both spinning – if it was possible for your heart to spin without becoming detached from vital components. She stepped over Alex’s feet and made for the steps down from the carriage, the horse still trying to move off despite the owner’s best efforts to settle the animal. She needed to get down and away and back to… perhaps not more wine.
‘Beth,’ Alex called as she almost tripped off the vehicle and descended onto the pavement where Heidi was waiting for her. She closed her eyes, trying to block out his deliciously deep, soft voice.
‘Are you OK?’ Heidi asked as Beth grabbed her arm and pulled her along the strip.
‘No,’ Beth said, walking as quickly as her jel
ly legs would let her. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘I really, really need to get laid.’
Twenty-Three
Alex and Margalo Hallas’s home, Almyros
‘You smell like alcohol.’
It was almost eight in the morning and the sizzling smell of the ham and feta omelette Alex was cooking his mother for breakfast was already making him queasy. Margalo’s voice, loud and accusing all at once, increased the grating experience ten-fold. But he mustn’t react. His mother seemed to thrive on confrontation, especially first thing in the morning.
‘Toula tells me you did not go back to work yesterday afternoon.’
Alex flipped the omelette, trying to keep his shoulders from raising in irritation. Back to normality after last night’s shot of freedom… and seeing Beth again.
‘You need to work,’ Margalo continued as she shuffled into her position at the head of the small wooden table in the even smaller kitchen. ‘The animals, for now, are not making us enough money and soon, if we are not careful and prices are driven down, our local produce might not be needed. Shop owners don’t always have a conscience when it comes to how much euro they want in their pockets.’