by Mandy Baggot
‘Hello,’ Beth said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you about James Graves.’
Heidi let out an audible hiss, like someone had shaken up a can of Coke and ripped off the ring-pull. Beth focused on the conversation, her eyes going to the beautiful view in the hope of restoring calm and a little much-needed confidence. She took a breath and carried on. ‘I think you should consider Sprouts Farmers Markets. They have a focus on healthy, fresh and organic foods and they are really hot on conscious consumption. Plus, they doubled revenue over the last few years.’
‘That’s very impressive,’ Charles answered. ‘So, how is Greece? Are you having a marvellous time away?’
She couldn’t let him seep into this break. Heidi was so right in that respect.
‘Other than that,’ she continued, ‘you could try The Gym Group. Not really plants and products ethical, but it’s fitness and well-being at a cheap cost and they’re tipped to grow even bigger next year.’
‘Thank you, Beth,’ Charles said, now sounding completely weakened by her lack of engagement.
She didn’t know what to say next. Why didn’t she know what to say? If she said nothing, he would have the opportunity to speak next and she didn’t want that. Think! Think!
‘I wholeheartedly meant what I said… not said exactly… rather, the words I typed in the message.’ Charles sighed. ‘I am not the best with messages, you know that, I just did not know how else to connect when I thought you would, most probably, not answer my call.’
‘I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say, Charles,’ Beth said, the back of her throat feeling scratchy and raw as emotion began to rise up. ‘Are you expecting some sort of absolute pardon to go along with the divorce papers? Because I thought we had both moved on from that. What’s done is done.’
‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘But even done can be undone, can it not?’
‘Charles, I hereby absolve you from any guilt you might be feeling over the break-up of our marriage,’ Beth said, turning away from the scenery and taking strength from looking at Heidi, who was now fist-punching the air. ‘It’s all settled. You have your house. I have… my mum’s house. Everything has been finalised and… I’m happy you and Kendra seem to still be on the right track and—’
‘Kendra isn’t you.’
Beth tried to shut the words out, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the obvious pain in Charles’s tone. This had gone on long enough. And if he had now taken to sitting in her chair…
‘Charles,’ she said firmly. ‘I was going to wait until I got back to the office but…’ What was she doing? The words were coming and her brain was on catch-up. ‘I’m going to leave Mountbatten Global.’
A lightning sensation shuddered through Beth’s shoulders and she couldn’t decide whether it made her feel elated or scared to death. She also couldn’t decide if the biggest inhalation of breath had come from Heidi or down the phone from Charles. What she did know, however, was that it was completely the right thing to do. So she hadn’t had any success with interviews yet, hadn’t given away that she was even looking… it didn’t change the fact that, while she was hanging on to a job she had never had any passion for, seeing Charles every day, holding on to every element of her old life except the going home and boiling quails’ eggs, she was never going to move forward.
‘No.’
The one word came from Charles and it immediately halted all the get-the-party-poppers-out feelings.
‘What do you mean?’ Beth asked, her voice lacking conviction. ‘I’m telling you that… it’s with regret, but… I’m resigning.’
‘And I am telling you, with no regret at all, that I do not accept that.’ His voice wasn’t so soft and gentle now. It was the Charles that came out in meetings when things weren’t going his way. It was this Charles who had come to the fore a few times at home when she had suggested he closed his laptop during dinner…
‘Charles, I don’t think you can do that.’ Beth looked to Heidi now and mouthed the words ‘Can he stop me?’. Heidi shook her head and mouthed back. ‘No, he fucking can’t.’
‘Well, we will see about that, won’t we?’ The phone in London went crashing down and Beth drew hers away from her ear in shock, looking to Heidi.
‘He says he won’t accept my resignation,’ Beth stated, dumbfounded.
‘I got that. I did say you shouldn’t have picked up,’ Heidi said, slipping an arm round her shoulders. ‘Bloody Scandinavians. It’s all cosy comfort one minute and all dark noir the next.’
‘Well, what do I do?’ Beth asked.
Heidi sighed and squeezed Beth a little closer. ‘I thought we’d been through this yesterday. You’re going to sex your way out of it.’
Her date with Alex. Except the conversation with Charles had completely thrown her now. So much for being in control of her own destiny riding high through the Corfu clouds strapped to a parachute… one chat with her ex-husband and she was floundering again. But then, immediately and instinctively, she knew exactly what she was going to do. Another something she should have done before.
‘He can’t treat me like that!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe I actually felt sorry for him. Well, that’s just… it. That’s it!’
‘Yaaas, Queen!’
‘I’m going to sell my house… my mother’s house…’ She shook her head. ‘The house he insisted on buying even though I said it was too much.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And I’m going to email my resignation as soon as we get back to the cottage. I’m done,’ Beth said. ‘I’m completely done.’
Thirty
Alex and Margalo Hallas’s home, Almyros
‘I am so proud of you!’ Elektra exclaimed, throwing her arms round Alex and squeezing him tight, her curls smothering his face in the already too balmy air of the underground laboratory. He wasn’t sure how long she had been down here, but her eyes had a squinted, dry appearance that said ‘hours’ rather than ‘minutes’. There was also bubbling and fizzing occurring in funnelled glasses all round the room.
‘You really like the name?’ Alex asked, as he was released. ‘And the style Spiros has come up with?’
He was holding his mobile phone, the screen showing the first look at the branding for Kalm Life products. It was simplistic, but it was definitely the contemporary, fresh look he had been hoping for. Muted orange sang out ‘vitality’ and ‘health’ and there was a luxe glow to it too. He was enthused about it after his meeting with Sophia, it was coming together.
‘I love it,’ Elektra told him. ‘I really mean that.’ She sighed. ‘We just need to make it available as quickly as we can. Before Henrietta makes her mark.’ She sighed, tossing her hair back. ‘She is a very intelligent woman and everything she told me at lunch today makes me think she has a lot of contacts.’
‘But we have the hotel in Dassia,’ Alex reminded. ‘I am confident they are going to take our products.’ He needed to work out the price. It was important he pitched that exactly right. He needed to be competitive, but he also needed to be professional, think of the best options that would give him and Elektra what they both needed. Rushing in, looking less than astute could lose them everything. He already knew Sophia might insist on a free trial, but he was going to do his utmost to avoid that. He needed money from the outset, as he had limited funds to cover initial production, and it was up to him to convince the hotel manager that what he was offering her couldn’t currently be sourced anywhere else in this completely natural form. People loved the idea of being first, having something others didn’t. That’s why this Henrietta woman was worrying…
‘We need to keep focused,’ Elektra told him, slipping her safety goggles back on over her glasses. ‘And I need to keep on top of Henrietta.’
‘Oh really!’ Alex said, winking at his cousin. ‘It is like that, is it?’
He watched his cousin’s face turn the colour of the brightest bougainvillea. Even at twenty-five, without any ouzo bravado, she was still a little s
hy over her sexuality. He wished she wouldn’t feel quite so tied up in knots over it, but he knew how it was with their traditional family. Anything slightly altered from the ‘marry a Greek, have lots of Greek children, eat everything, all the time, enough to feed the whole of Greece’, took decades for the older generation to warm to.
‘I cannot like her,’ Elektra said immediately, staring into a pot sizzling with pink liquid. ‘She is trying to steal my dream!’
‘Love does not always happen the way you wish it to,’ Alex told her.
‘And now you are talking about love!’ Elektra exclaimed. ‘What has happened to you today? Has Toula been watching re-runs of Lampsi again?’
His mouth twitched slightly at the mention of his boss’s favourite Greek soap opera.
‘No,’ Alex said, taking a deep breath and remembering his hours with Beth. The feeling of being as light as a gull drifting through the sky above Dassia, how close her still-lithe body had been to his, skin resting together so comfortably, like 2009 was yesterday. And then there was his mother’s talk about him running a new garage for Elektra’s father…
‘Did you know my mother wants me to be a manager of a garage for your father?’
‘My father is the manager of his garage,’ Elektra said, looking up, goggles a little cloudy with condensation.
Alex shook his head. ‘Another premises. Near Corfu Town.’
Elektra clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and shook her head. ‘This will not happen. Do not worry.’
‘This is my mother’s new grand plan for me.’
‘And it will not work,’ Elektra assured. ‘This will be something that has been discussed over too much raki at the cafeneon.’
‘Are you sure?’ He needed to be sure. Because he knew his mother’s persuasion techniques…
‘I am sure that my father is going through a mid-life crisis,’ Elektra admitted. ‘The car-polishing he has always done. The asking me where he should get his first tattoo, he has not.’ She sighed. ‘He talks in the lyrics of Led Zeppelin and his hair is not getting long because he is too lazy to visit the barber… he wants this to look like Mick Jagger.’
‘Oh, Elektra. What does your mother say about it?’
Elektra shrugged. ‘She says it will pass. You know, like the flu. One minute a raging contagion, the next gone like it was never there. She humours him. She lets him play his music and tries not to laugh when he dances like a three-year-old who is trying to stand up on a bouncy castle, and she cooks for him… heavy weights of lamb sometimes I think only to anchor him in one place.’
Alex suddenly froze. From above them it sounded like the barn door was being opened. He waved his hands to Elektra, trying to communicate that she should perhaps lessen the heat on the liquids she was working with. She began taking things off the boil and turning down flames in stealth mode.
Was it just the wind? He was certain he had secured the door. And then he heard the unmistakable voice of his mother. Why hadn’t he at least pulled the rug back over the trapdoor? It might have made it a little harder for them to open to get out, but it would have hidden the location a little. He held his breath and listened harder.
‘I need more, Makis.’
Margalo was standing directly above them, feet pacing over the wooden door, sending dust motes through the air that Elektra began to flick away from her work with a cotton towel. She started to cover everything up with lids and books and whatever else she had to hand.
‘He can do more. I am taking good care of him. And I have been doing some reinvestment, if you know what I mean.’
What was this conversation? It was like his mother was talking in some sort of gangster code. Alex looked to Elektra, but his cousin was desperately trying to get her products to stop emitting sound.
‘This might only be a little extra for you, but it is more than that for me. It is everything and… I will die soon.’ Margalo began to cough like her lungs had been taken over by scorpions, all stinging at once. Was this just her usual pity speech about her advancing years or was this something else? A chill spread over his shoulders.
‘Spread the net,’ Margalo continued, clearing her throat and sounding a little better. ‘I have been researching. I think it is time to look wider than Corfu.’
Just what was his mother organising? Perhaps he should reveal himself, make an excuse that he was looking for something in the cellar. Except, he could see from the boards above him that she was still standing over the trapdoor. It made escape impossible for the moment. And then he looked to Elektra. One of her cotton cloths was on fire, burning up like the driest straw. She was shaking it in the air, trying to get it to extinguish but it was just getting worse.
‘Drop it!’ Alex ordered as urgently yet quietly as he could. ‘Drop it to the floor.’
The rag hit the ground and Alex jumped, stamping his feet up and down, kicking dust all over it until only smoke remained. Smoke that would rise. Up through the barn, drawing attention from his mother…
‘I have to go. I will see you next Saturday,’ Margalo said abruptly.
Elektra seemed to stifle a sneeze and Alex held his breath. He really did not want this underground, under-the-radar laboratory discovered. It was his to control. His and Elektra’s factory of dreams.
‘Aleko!’ Margalo called.
What should he do? Should he reply? Did she know he was beneath her feet? He was lurking. Like he had something unholy to hide.
‘Aleko!’ the shout came again.
He had no choice now. He opened his mouth to answer… but then the blast of a car horn shattered the quiet and all the goats and sheep began making a terrible din, baa-ing and bleating and sounding like each one of them was ready to rampage. He saw his mother’s shadow move, her feet leaving the trapdoor and sliding away out of the barn.
‘I’m so sorry, Alex,’ Elektra whispered.
‘I have to go,’ Alex replied. ‘See what is going on out there. I’ll come back as soon as I can.’
Thirty-One
Paralia View, Almyros Beach
Beth was wearing the shortest summer dress she had brought with her and was currently sitting cross-legged on the beach just outside their holiday home, braiding her hair, a collection of shells she had plucked from the sand in a pile next to her.
Moving her fingers over the un-sleek sections of hair, there was no denying her natural waves now. Therefore, she had decided to really go with it and create even more for tomorrow. The last time she had braided her hair was for an Oktoberfest party she hadn’t really wanted to go to because the client Charles was trying to schmooze had always spent more time looking at her breasts than he had perusing her spreadsheets.
The sun was gloriously renewing on her skin and, with Heidi informed about her date with Alex and a very professional, non-confrontational resignation email sent to Charles, Beth was feeling serenely crazy. If that was a thing. She had even felt determined enough to have another go at removing her wedding ring – in the shower – with half a bottle of Heidi’s expensive clarifying shampoo. The band unfortunately still remained.
‘That was Flo on the phone,’ Heidi said, settling down next to Beth on the sand. ‘They’re coming to do the ceiling over the weekend.’
‘That’s good,’ Beth replied. ‘For Greek time.’
‘It would be,’ Heidi said. ‘If we could actually stay in it while it’s being done.’
‘What? We can’t stay here? But what are we going to do?’
‘You,’ Heidi said, sitting closer and taking ownership of Beth’s braiding, ‘are going to let me worry about that. You’ve had a bit of a day what with soaring through the air with your first crush and having a phone-fight with your ex-husband and… my driving.’ Heidi smiled. ‘And you have a date to be thinking about.’
This was all true. And the thinking about a date was something she should have made a corner of time for today. What did you even do on a date with someone you weren’t married to? What had she do
ne when she and Charles had got together? Apart from worry about her mum being home alone and desperately ill through all seven courses. The initial intimate, candlelit dinners hadn’t lasted much past the first six weeks…
‘I don’t even know where we’re going,’ Beth admitted. ‘And I feel a little bit silly being excited about it.’
‘It’s definitely not silly,’ Heidi assured. ‘I’m excited for you.’
‘Have you heard from Elektra?’
Heidi shook her head and simultaneously inhaled. ‘I’m trying to be cool. Perhaps I read the signals wrong. Although she seemed really, really interested in the kumquat business I don’t have.’ Heidi sighed. ‘Maybe when I tell her I only deal with investments, not cute orange fruits, she’ll drop me like a stone… that kumquats don’t have, by the way. Some of them have seeds though. I’ve done so much research on the bloody things I may as well be running the business!’
‘She’ll call,’ Beth said. ‘Call it an intuitive instinct.’ She moved her head slightly as Heidi continued with the plaiting. ‘But you do need to tell her your real name.’
‘I’m not sure how to explain my way out of that one,’ Heidi admitted.
Beth mused for a second. ‘Say Henrietta is your real name, but everyone really calls you Heidi and you’d like her to do that too. That says you’re wanting her to be more familiar.’
‘And on our wedding day? When she’s wondering why my real name isn’t printed on anything or said by anyone… including the officiator?’
Beth stared at her friend, open-mouthed. ‘I don’t know if I’m more astounded by the fact that you’re thinking “wedding day” or that you’re thinking of continuing the Henrietta pretence until such a time.’
‘Well,’ Heidi said, ‘I know you’ve done the settling down thing and on this holiday we’re doing the single ladies thing but… I haven’t done longevity in anything much and I think it’s time I gave it a try.’
‘I think that’s…’