One Last Greek Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘I’ll pretend I know what that means.’

  ‘Preservatives,’ Alex said, sighing. ‘Making things last, but not by adding something unnatural. It all has to happen organically.’ He swallowed, meeting Beth’s eyes and feeling a little like they weren’t talking about a chemical reaction in the underground cave lab.

  ‘Elektra has worked so hard, but being given the set at The Vault, it’s shifted my focus a little and… my mother is in the middle of everything I try to do and my father… I realise I don’t even know him at all.’

  He hadn’t meant to say anything to Beth about his father, but the situation was weighing him down. He told her what Toula had said, what his mother had finally admitted to, the snippets Elektra had given him…

  ‘Who do I believe?’ Alex asked her. ‘What do I do with everything they have told me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Lex,’ Beth said. ‘I wish I did.’ She sighed. ‘I only got to know about my father when my mother was already dying. She pushed him to the back of her mind because she could only carry on by almost ignoring he had ever existed. She loved him so much. And although that love was special, it was so special it hurt her that it was no longer part her life.’

  ‘My mother tells me now that she sent my father away. Almost like he did not do anything wrong, but she told him to leave.’

  ‘Love is complicated, isn’t it?’ Beth stated.

  ‘I think it can be made complicated,’ Alex answered.

  He watched her smile. He loved it when she smiled like that. It looked like she was truly in the moment, her mind in the here and now, not processing.

  ‘Good answer,’ she replied, taking a sip of her beer. ‘So, how much has Alex Hallas loved in the ten years I’ve not been in Corfu?’

  She wanted to know about his love life? He supposed he knew she had been married. But what was she expecting? Simply the truth, he suspected. What was the point of being anything other than truthful? She had always taken him as he was…

  ‘My longest relationship was four weeks,’ Alex told her. ‘Her name was Vanessa and she was studying sea sediment for her university course.’

  ‘University?’ Beth queried.

  He nodded. ‘We dated… and by dated I mean drank beer and slept together while she was staying here the summer after you left.’

  ‘And that was the longest relationship?’

  ‘What?’ Alex asked, grinning. ‘You would prefer to know that I have been divorced and have three children somewhere?’

  ‘No,’ Beth told him. ‘I mean… not no, or yes… I thought that…’

  ‘There were others, of course,’ Alex continued. ‘After nights at Fuego Bar… or Corfu Town… but one night, maybe two… nothing more.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Beth said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t even know,’ Beth admitted, laughing a little. ‘I’m the one who got married to someone I didn’t even love.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘Perhaps it would have been better if I had stuck to one-night hook-ups.’

  ‘No,’ Alex said sincerely. ‘It would have been better if we had made a promise and tried to keep it.’

  He watched Beth’s gaze match his. They had both agreed goodbye was goodbye back then. A holiday romance never lasted past the final coach transfer to the airport. It was silly to think otherwise. Insane to believe life could be the same as a hedonistic relationship built round partying and thirty-degree weather. They both had lives in different countries. They were young. Life was going to be anything they wanted it to be. Who needed a partner they had known for a fortnight they felt somehow emotionally indebted to simply because they had shared dances to ‘Encore Une Fois’ and downed shots of tsipouro.

  ‘We didn’t know what life would hand us back then,’ Beth told him.

  ‘It gave me a life filled with farm animals, hire cars, building repairs and little sex.’

  ‘It gave me a cancer-stricken mother and a loveless marriage to a millionaire.’

  There was a momentary pause before they both let out a laugh.

  ‘There must be something good to have come out of the past ten years,’ Alex told her, sitting back in his chair, feeling comfortable in sharing these feelings of discontent with Beth. ‘What is the best thing, for you?’

  She spoke right away, without hesitation. ‘My divorce party… and Heidi’s suggestion to come back to Corfu.’

  Her words jumped on his heart like they were using it as a trampoline. Could this be real again? For both of them?

  ‘Alex!’

  The moment of connection was broken, and Alex turned his attention to where Elektra’s voice was coming from.

  ‘It’s your turn on the decks!’ she bellowed. ‘Everyone wants a taste of your set for tomorrow night.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Alex said, shifting himself lower into the chair. ‘I had a fear that this might happen. Elektra has had too much to drink and now she tells everyone about tomorrow night, and they all want me to play now and then they all want to come to The Vault and…’

  ‘I don’t see anything wrong with any of those things,’ Beth said, smiling.

  ‘Everything is wrong with all of those things,’ Alex answered.

  ‘Only if you’re too scared… or too weak… or…’

  He got up and grabbed her chair, picking it up and spinning her round where she sat. ‘That is not fair. To suggest that me, a Greek, would be weak or afraid of anything.’ He dropped the chair, deftly catching Beth’s body in his arms as she squealed.

  ‘Put me down, Lex!’ she screamed. ‘Put me down!’

  He headed off, carrying her, towards the incoming sea, the sand turning from small soft hills to the large damp flat until his shoes were getting wet.

  ‘Lex!’ she screamed, tone pure excitement. ‘Put me down.’

  He dropped her to the ground, her sandals splashing into the surf, another squeal coming from her mouth as she regained her balance. He re-clasped his arms round her waist and looked into her eyes. ‘Beth,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s only one thing I am really afraid of,’ he admitted.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Losing a chance with you for a second time,’ he whispered.

  The moment seemed to still, elongating for the longest time until he realised his body was very slowly moving towards hers and hers to his, each nanosecond they were apart feeling like an eternity. Until, finally, his lips were on hers and everything else was forgotten as they got swept up in each other and the memories of the first time.

  Forty-Eight

  ‘Here,’ Alex said. He leapt up onto the double bed cabana right by the shoreline leading from Pirates Bar and lay down beside her. Beth held out her hand and watched, under the light from strings of golden fairy-lights wound round the thick wooden posts of the four-poster, as half a dozen pieces of sea glass fell into her palm.

  ‘Wow! Lex!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘You found these here? On Roda beach? Just now?’

  Alex smiled and shook his head. She gazed at him, like she had been gazing at him all night. His hair was a little damp, falling forward over his face, the glow from the moon and the romantic lighting beneath the light gauze of the canopy above them. He had given in to Elektra’s slightly drunk demands that he take control of the DJ-ing and performed a set of songs for the beach revellers. It had been like a rewind in time for Beth. She, Heidi and Elektra had danced barefoot, leaping up and down, arms clasped round each other’s shoulders, Elektra singing out of tune, while Alex played songs that had rocked their summer in 2009. It had thrilled the very essence of her. It made her feel all the carefree and abandon and non-grown-upping she and Heidi had been talking about since the moment they touched down on this Greek island.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I found them at other beaches when I delivered hire cars. Since you came back to Corfu, I have stopped and looked for them… for you.’ He reached out and stroked her hair away from her face. ‘I have been carrying them around, remem
bering, perhaps like someone who is twenty, enjoying how they feel and… waiting for the right moment to give them to you.’

  ‘Alex,’ Beth breathed.

  ‘Lex,’ he answered. ‘I like it when you call me Lex.’

  ‘Lex,’ she whispered, edging closer to him, her insides bubbling with excited anticipation.

  He kissed her. Hot, moist lips riding hers, speaking of memories past as well as new horizons. It was a beautiful escape. All the feelings filling the parts of her that had been empty for longer than she had realised. She deserved this time with Alex. Putting herself first. Letting go of the negativity she’d been in the midst of all these years…

  Beth felt a vibration come from underneath her body. She was totally aroused by Alex’s kisses and the way his fingers were deftly palpitating her collarbone, but something didn’t feel right. The buzz got stronger and she parted from him, realising exactly what it was.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, breathless. ‘That’s my phone. I’d better check it. It might be Heidi. She might want me to get a taxi.’ There was definitely no driving to be done tonight. She had drunk far more beer than was permissible for any test of sobriety, although not quite enough to equate to a drink-fuelled university initiation. She shifted her hips a little on the bed and pulled her phone from under her. It wasn’t Heidi. It was Charles. Five text messages and two missed calls.

  A selection of cheeses await, together with a large bottle of a wine called Thymiopoulos Xinomavro.

  Have you broken down? I am concerned I should come and look for you, but I should not drive. The wine is very palatable. Please reply.

  Are you staying at this rustic party? I thought we agreed it was not something you should find appealing.

  I do not know the number for the local police in Greece. Google will only provide me with an emergency number. Please reply and tell me this is not an emergency.

  Beth, please, I want to love you.

  Beth sighed. This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t invited this situation, like she hadn’t invited Charles to Corfu… or back into her life. She busied her fingers over the icons on the screen.

  ‘Everything is OK?’ Alex asked.

  I’m at the party. I’m fine. It’s not your job to worry.

  She wasn’t going to tell Charles any finer details. It wasn’t his business, nor should he be making it so. But she didn’t want him to call the police or to worry. She put the phone down and looked back to Alex. He wasn’t trying to sneak a look at her screen like a lesser person might. He was laying on his side, head being propped up by his hand, elbow on the cushions of this extremely comfortable beach-bed.

  ‘Everything is OK,’ she answered. ‘I’m here with you.’

  He picked up her hand and kissed the tops of her fingers. ‘And I am so glad.’

  ‘Your set tonight was so good,’ Beth continued, looking deep into his eyes. She settled her body into the bed, relaxing into the completely chilled out atmosphere, the music faint, the soft rush of the waves onto sand the only close sound.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘I know,’ Beth reassured him. ‘The atmosphere was amazing. Everyone dancing, singing, stamping to the bassline…’

  ‘But most of the people here I know,’ Alex reminded her. ‘It is a small party.’ He sighed and there was a heaviness to his exhale. ‘It is nothing like it will be tomorrow night.’

  He was still terribly nervous. He had always been a little disbelieving about his talent, and, in a way, that was what had attracted Beth to him in the first place. When he was performing, he definitely had that air of authority over the music, but most of that, she had discovered, was because he tuned out everything else. He was almost actually inside the tune, letting its composition flow through his veins, wrapped up in the notes, the beat hammering in time to his soul. He didn’t experience it in the same way as the dancers in front of him.

  ‘What are you really scared about?’ Beth asked him. She took hold of his hand and turned it palm up.

  ‘Everything,’ he said, a nervous smile on his lips.

  ‘That isn’t an answer,’ Beth said.

  ‘It is the only one I have.’

  She shook her head and picked up one of the pieces of sea glass. This one was a very pale light-green, the colour of the skin of a not-yet-ripe fig. She held it between her fingers, the curves of the pebble-shaped piece smooth on her skin. She touched Alex’s palm, slowly moving the soft glass along the lines of his hand.

  ‘I think there are two main reasons you’re scared,’ Beth whispered to him, the sound of her voice only slightly above that of the gently rolling ocean. ‘You know it’s what you’ve always dreamed of and you want it to be everything you’ve always dreamed of.’

  ‘And the other reason?’ Alex asked, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Taking the chance to do this means, if it goes well, your horizons expand, your choices multiply and your world gets a whole lot bigger.’ She traced the line round his thumb joint, pressing a little firmer, the skin blanching then returning to its normal colour. ‘And although this is what you want, it’s also going to challenge everything that’s been familiar for so long. You’re going to have to make decisions. Exciting ones, but also difficult ones. You’re worried about your mother. There are still so many things you want to know about your father. You’re going to have to decide what comes first and what is most important to you.’

  ‘Wow,’ Alex said. ‘Perhaps you should retrain as a therapist.’

  ‘I know all this, Lex, because I’m feeling all the same things,’ Beth admitted. ‘I want to do something different with my life. I want to start over, with something I feel passion for. But unlike with your music, I don’t have much experience with making jewellery. I don’t know if I can make what people will like or, even if I get that right, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make enough to sustain it as a business.’

  ‘It is the same with music,’ Alex told her. ‘Times have changed and they will continue to change. Most of what I know is old. I am getting older. There are DJs who have been working with new technology for so long. I have more learning to do, learning and listening.’

  ‘You can do it,’ Beth told him, pressing the sea glass into the centre of his hand. ‘It will be hard, running your kumquat business and DJ-ing, but you can do it.’

  ‘You can do it too,’ he said, closing his fingers over the glass until it had disappeared into his hand. He caught Beth’s hand with his other and held it tightly in his.

  ‘I want to believe it,’ Beth said. ‘But what if it all goes wrong? What if I can’t make things like I used to? Or what if I can’t make enough and I can’t afford to pay my bills?’

  ‘What if I press the wrong buttons tomorrow night and the power goes off and I leave The Vault in darkness with no music at all?’

  Beth smiled at him. ‘Are you really worried about doing that?’

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Really I am!’

  She let go of his hand and brushed a few stray strands of dark hair away from his face. ‘Then, if that happens, I will make sure that everyone gets out their mobile phones and switches on their torch and… Heidi and I will start to stamp our feet on the floor and get everyone else in the club to do the same… and we will drum out the beat to “She Wolf” and we will get everyone to sing it until the power is restored and you can play the song for us.’

  Alex laughed out loud. ‘Not “She Wolf”!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘What?!’ Beth responded. ‘I thought it would be a given that you’ve worked it into your set!’

  ‘You know I like Shakira, but this is The Vault. It is 2019.’

  ‘You aren’t just going to play David Guetta, are you?’ She raised her eyes at him.

  ‘You do not trust me,’ Alex said. ‘Were you not saying that “I can do it”?’

  ‘I did but…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But that was when I thought you were going to play Shakira.’

&
nbsp; He laughed at her, then drew her body towards his until they were nestled together, noses almost touching. Beth could feel the heat from his body echoing hers.

  ‘I feel stronger with you here,’ Alex breathed. ‘When you say I can do anything, I almost believe it.’

  ‘Almost believe it?’ Beth asked him.

  ‘Believe it,’ he redefined.

  ‘Me too,’ Beth breathed. It was true. He gave her confidence. His words enhanced her self-belief. They always had. When she had returned home from Corfu the first time, before her mother’s illness bombshell, she had been momentarily filled with drive and determination that knew no bounds. She had been going to take her hopes and dreams and run with them, turning everything into a reality she couldn’t wait to get started on. She wanted to think it was possible to do this now, simply ten years later than planned. Less fearless youthful bravado and more focused determination.

  ‘I love you, Beth,’ Alex said.

  She held her breath, his words like a warm whisper, falling on her heart like petals leaving the sweetest flower.

  ‘I have always loved you,’ he continued, his mouth so close to hers she could feel the heat of his breath. ‘I know, before, I did not tell you, but I felt it then too. I do not know, maybe, I was afraid to say it, because we were so young or because you were on holiday and…’

  ‘I love you too, Alex,’ Beth admitted. ‘You have always been in my heart, for the longest time.’ But the situation was still the same as it had been back then. She was not in a place or time where a new partner was the right thing. She was single but burned by a relationship that still hadn’t been fully terminated despite the divorce. She was ready for new challenges in life, but that involved setting up a new career and downsizing her home, not striking up a commitment with anyone.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ Alex interrupted her thoughts. ‘And, please, Beth, do not say it.’