You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  ‘This is Pablo,’ I explained. ‘He was there with Conor and me the other night.’

  ‘Do you know where this Mike guy is staying?’ Leif asked.

  Pablo almost-imperceptibly shook his head. ‘Down that way, somewhere,’ he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction the women had gone at the end of the evening. ‘It’s all I know. He’s not my friend, you know?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, he’s not mine either. Have you seen any of them? Sheila, maybe? His wife?’

  Again Pablo shook his head. ‘They’ve left,’ he said. ‘To Mykonos, I think.’

  ‘But Conor and Mike are still here?’

  Pablo shrugged. ‘They were here last night.’

  I sighed deeply.

  ‘Was anyone else there?’ Leif asked. ‘Anyone we could ask?’

  Pablo cleared his throat. He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. ‘Not really,’ he said.

  ‘Not really?’

  ‘Please,’ Leif said. Like me he had picked up on the fact that something remained unsaid.

  ‘Two . . . women,’ Pablo told us. ‘Two . . . girls.’

  ‘Two girls?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Pablo said.

  ‘Do you know their names?’ I asked. ‘Where they live? Anything?’

  ‘Candy?’ Pablo said, as if it was a question. ‘Candy was the blond one. The other one . . . Althea or Anthea or something like this.’

  I nodded slowly, taking this in.

  ‘I’m sorry but I think they are . . . puta . . .’ Pablo said, glancing at his feet.

  ‘Puta?’ I repeated.

  ‘Prostitutes,’ Leif translated. ‘That is right, yes?’

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ Pablo said. ‘Yes, I’m sorry but, yes, I think so.’

  After we had said goodbye to Pablo, we walked along the main street leading from one end of Fira to the other. It’s a pretty, if touristy, town and there’s plenty to see, but though we walked for a good half an hour, I don’t remember much of it. I was too busy searching for Conor’s face amongst the crowds.

  When we got back to Leif’s bike, I suggested we eat in the taverna in the hope that we’d see Conor there. But Leif quickly pointed out that I wasn’t thinking straight. Because if Conor had been in a fight there the previous night, it was the last place he’d show his face.

  ‘He’s probably holed up somewhere with Candy,’ I said bitterly.

  Leif grimaced but notably didn’t dispute this. Instead, he told me his walking group were meeting in Exo Gonia for lunch and suggested we join them.

  I was about to say ‘no’ – I really wasn’t feeling that sociable – when I realised that it was Leif who wanted to see his friends. I’d been ruining his walking holiday and isolating him from his group. Having lunch with them seemed the least I could do.

  The bike ride wove back and forth up the hillside, and the wind in my face and the stunning views, plus the sensation of hanging on to Leif as he cranked the little scooter around the bends, blew some of the cobwebs from my mind. I started to feel a little better again.

  The town was high up in the hills, with gorgeous views out over green valleys and, in the distance, the blue sea and sky of the horizon. One side was flanked by an even-higher point – Pyrgos, the highest village on the island.

  As we locked my crash helmet in the top case, Leif pointed to Pyrgos and asked, ‘How do you fancy a walk after lunch?’

  ‘Up there?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Yeah,’ Leif said. ‘I bet the view is amazing.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ I laughed, assuming he must be joking. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’

  We wandered through the pretty streets of Exo Gonia for twenty minutes or so. The town was much calmer and far less spoilt by tourism than anywhere else I had been. But though it was small, we failed to find Leif’s group of walkers. So eventually we sat in a taverna to eat.

  Leif had some kind of lamb stew, I think, while I had a pomegranate salad. I remember that clearly because I had never eaten a pomegranate before and I wasn’t entirely impressed by all the pips. For dessert we shared an amazingly sweet dish that tasted like a cheese-stuffed baklava. This came with a fresh batch of pips in the form of pomegranate jam, and by the time we had finished I felt pipped out for life.

  After lunch, we walked back towards the bike. Leif was still scanning the hills for his friends and I felt bad that we hadn’t been able to find them. When we reached the bike, however, Leif didn’t pause. He simply carried on walking.

  ‘Leif!’ I said, pointing. ‘The bike’s there!’

  ‘Um?’ he replied, absent-mindedly. ‘Oh, I know. But we’re going up there first, aren’t we?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, taking in the fact that he hadn’t been joking earlier after all. ‘Isn’t it a bit hot for that sort of thing?’ Though there was quite a breeze blowing, the temperature was in the high twenties.

  ‘No,’ Leif said, increasing his stride. ‘It will be fine.’ And because he’d done so much for me these last few days and because we hadn’t been able to find his friends, I didn’t say a word.

  For the first fifteen minutes I hated it. I really hated it. I was still such a kid in so many ways and one of those was that I still hadn’t realised that any kind of exercise might be pleasurable. If you’re not a sporty kid it can take a very long time to find that out, and as far as I was concerned the only reason to walk anywhere ever was if there was no bus service.

  But as I trotted along beside Leif that day, past farmhouses and goats, past some children playing in a garden and a woman watering her plants, and as the road rose higher and the views became more impressive, I started, just about, to get the point. Because yes, I was sweaty, and yes, walking up here in the heat of the day would not have been my choice. But my mind, which had been obsessing about Conor and my passport almost constantly, began to clear just enough for me to feel vaguely present again. I began to appreciate, albeit momentarily, that I was here at the top of a beautiful Greek island with sporty, easy-going Leif.

  Pyrgos was simply gorgeous – a labyrinth of medieval streets which, when occasionally they opened out, provided breathtaking views over the whole of Santorini.

  There was a beautiful domed church, which we visited, talking in quiet whispers while we looked around, and at the highest point, the ruins of a castle which, Leif informed me, dated from the fifteenth century. We paused in a café, gulped down glasses of Coke, then continued to the top to explore it.

  Afterwards we walked around the outside walls, pausing to take photos of each other in front of the views with Leif’s camera. When he suggested we leave, I found myself strangely reluctant to do so.

  ‘But your passport,’ Leif said. ‘We need to get it, yes?’

  I sighed. Today did not feel like the right day to tackle that particular monster and I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps I was just fed up with trying to get it, or perhaps I had some inkling of what was to come. Maybe I’d just been enjoying thinking about something else for a bit.

  ‘It’s easy,’ Leif said, mistaking my reluctance for laziness. ‘It’s downhill.’

  ‘I can’t bring myself to leave,’ I said. ‘It’s just so peaceful up here.’

  We were standing looking out to a distant island floating on the horizon in a sea of wispy blue. Above our heads, a Greek flag was flapping from a pole.

  ‘Then let’s stay for a while,’ Leif said, sinking down to sit with his back to the castle wall.

  ‘Everything’s so simple with you, isn’t it?’ I said, looking down at his smiling face.

  He pulled a puzzled expression. ‘You think too much,’ he said. ‘You want to stay some more, we stay some more. No?’

  I laughed and, saying, ‘I think you’re right, I do overthink things,’ I sank to the grass beside him.

  After a minute or so, I was suddenly overcome with fatigue. I’d barely slept for two nights, after all. When I shuffled forwards and stretched out across the grass, Leif quickly followed
suit.

  ‘Here,’ he said, pushing his backpack towards me. ‘For a pillow.’

  ‘No, you have it,’ I told him.

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘Please,’ I insisted, and so Leif gave in and pushed it beneath his head.

  ‘You can put your head on me, if you want,’ he said. ‘You can use me as a pillow.’

  ‘No thanks. I’m fine.’

  It took me less than a minute to overcome my shyness about that one. Because I wasn’t fine at all. The ground was rough and stony. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ I asked, as I shuffled around.

  ‘Not at all,’ Leif said. ‘I think I am sleeping, anyway.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I’m shattered.’

  I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the flag flapping in the breeze above us and to the tweeting of a nearby bird and the occasional whistle of the wind around the flagpole until finally, soothed by the rise and fall of Leif’s chest, I fell into a surprisingly deep sleep.

  I woke up with a start. The sun had moved around far enough that we were no longer in the shade but were warmed, instead, by the early-evening sun.

  ‘Are you awake?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Yes,’ Leif said, his voice resonating through his chest to the back of my head.

  I sat up. ‘I think I just realised something in my sleep.’

  ‘In your sleep?’ Leif asked. He was chewing a blade of grass and it bobbed up and down when he spoke. He rolled onto his side to look at me quizzically.

  ‘Is it the first, today, or the second?’ I asked.

  ‘The second,’ Leif said. ‘The second of September. Why?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the second. Why, what’s wrong?’

  I laughed. ‘It’s my birthday,’ I said. ‘And I forgot. How crazy is that?’

  ‘It’s your birthday?’ Leif repeated.

  I nodded. ‘Twenty-six today.’

  ‘Huh,’ Leif said. ‘You caught up with me, then.’

  ‘You’re twenty-six as well?’

  Leif nodded. ‘But twenty-seven soon.’

  ‘I was looking forward to celebrating it here in Santorini,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose Conor has even remembered. He’s too busy with Candy.’

  ‘Huh,’ Leif said, sitting up. ‘Now we have to do something for your birthday.’

  I laughed lightly. ‘No. No we don’t. But for some reason, I really think I’d rather try to deal with Conor tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s probably not there anyway,’ Leif said. ‘So today we do something special. I have an idea. If you agree.’

  ‘If it’s an idea that doesn’t involve Conor,’ I said, ‘then yes, I agree.’

  ‘It doesn’t.’ Leif got to his feet. ‘It really doesn’t.’ He reached out to help me up. ‘Come on. You’ll like this idea. Let’s go.’

  If the walk up had been challenging, the trip back down was pure joy.

  It was effortless of course, but something else had changed, too – something indefinable. Perhaps it was the fact that we’d both had a sleep or maybe it had more to do with the fact I’d decided not to see Conor that day. Whatever it was, my mood lifted and I experienced a rare moment of exaltation, of feeling quite simply happy.

  Leif, who seemed to sense it too, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, first in English and then in Norwegian. ‘You don’t do this?’ he asked afterwards, miming once again The Scream.

  ‘Oh, your voice isn’t that bad,’ I laughed, though in fact it really was.

  Then, presumably because my ears weren’t actually bleeding yet, he attempted not only to sing Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’ but to sing it with an Essex accent.

  ‘It’s followin’,’ I explained, ‘not following. And jungaw, not jungle.’ And so he tried again.

  Once he felt he’d grasped the essentials of Damon Albarn’s accent, we sang it again together. We were passing a woman who was busy pegging out her washing, and when she looked at us as if we were certifiably insane it only made us sing more loudly.

  I remember glancing across at Leif as we walked, laughing and singing, and noticing for the first time just how good-looking he was. He didn’t have the same kind of macho good looks or cocky charm that Conor had. He didn’t turn people’s heads in the street in the same way, and it was perhaps partly for this reason that I hadn’t really noticed before. Rather, there was something warm and wholesome about him, something that seemed to shine out the more you got to know him. Singing badly and laughing loudly, he really looked quite beautiful.

  We had to return to the hotel for our swimming things. That was my first clue to whatever Leif’s surprise entailed. He grabbed a torch, too – one of those little ones you can strap to your forehead. ‘It’s just in case we are late,’ he explained.

  Now we were back at the hotel, the potential proximity of Conor and my passport became too much for me so, with Leif in the role of backup, we steeled ourselves and knocked on Conor’s door. Once again there was no answer, so I let myself inside and checked the interior. Not only was my bag not there but there was no visible sign that Conor had been home at all. The room was in the exact state I had left it in.

  Once our rolled towels had been stuffed into Leif’s top case, he started up the engine again.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked as I strapped on my crash helmet.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said with a wink. ‘Get on!’

  ELEVEN

  BECKY

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I was too excited about seeing beautiful Baruch the next day.

  By the time we’d got back, the minimart was closed, which left me feeling panicky about the next day’s arrangements. Because if for some reason Baruch was not in the shop the next day I had no real way of finding him.

  Mum, who had picked up on the unusual buzz in my mood, asked me a few times if I was all right. Once or twice I was tempted to tell her. But worrying that if it all fell through I’d look a fool, I didn’t, in the end, say a word.

  The next morning, I was up just after eight. Mum, as every morning, was sitting outside drinking tea.

  ‘You’re up early,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Hunger woke me up. I’m starving. I’m just going to nip up to the minimart. Do you want anything?’

  Mum shook her head. ‘We’ve got bread and marmalade, or that muesli stuff you bought.’

  I was trying to think of some other breakfast food I could reasonably need to buy when Mum’s phone started to ring. She lifted it from the table and checked the screen before putting it down again.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked. I was only now remembering that she had called Baruch when we arrived – that she had his number and therefore he had ours, too.

  Mum shrugged. ‘Some foreign number,’ she said. ‘No one I know.’

  ‘Greek?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I lurched for the phone and swiped at the screen. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is this Becky?’ It was Baruch’s voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, doing my best to sound cool.

  ‘Are you still OK to do something together?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. I raised one finger to ask Mum to hold on for a few seconds more. She was on the verge of asking me who was calling.

  ‘So, I’ll meet you at the minimart,’ Baruch said. ‘At eleven, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘That sounds great. Are we—?’ But the line had already gone dead.

  ‘Who the hell was that?’ Mum asked, once I’d handed back her phone.

  ‘That,’ I told her theatrically, ‘was the lovely Baruch. He’s asked me to go to the beach with some friends. Do you mind?’

  Mum rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Would it matter if I did?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum. It’s just for the afternoon. It’s just a bit of time with some people my age. I can find out what real Greek people are like. You’ll be OK for one afternoon, won’t you?’

 
‘Yes,’ Mum said in a resigned voice. ‘Yes, I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But I’ll tell you one thing,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re lucky you got to that phone first.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Would you have said “no” on my behalf?’

  ‘No,’ Mum laughed. ‘No, I’d have said “yes” on my behalf.’

  I laughed. ‘That would have given him a shock. My old mum turning up for a date.’

  ‘Hey,’ Mum said. ‘Less of the old, you! And it’s a date now, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I told her. ‘No, it’s like I said. It’s just a trip to the beach. A beach-date, if you like.’

  ‘Well, just you be careful. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t. And don’t let him drink and drive.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, of course not.’

  It was five to eleven when I got up to street level, and Baruch was already there chatting to his replacement in the minimart. She was a pretty woman in her fifties who desperately needed to re-bleach her dark roots. She gave me a studious once-over and, looking as if she was suppressing a grin, waved us on our way.

  As we crossed the road, I asked Baruch who she was. I was assuming that she was another member of his extended family.

  ‘Cora,’ he replied. ‘She’s just someone who works the days when I am off.’

  Baruch had an old but powerful Yamaha trial bike. He climbed onto it and looked at me questioningly.

  ‘Um, crash helmet?’ I prompted.

  This made him laugh for some reason. ‘Really?’ he said, when he finally realised I was being serious.

  ‘My mum will kill me if she sees me without it,’ I offered by way of excuse. I was apparently, in Greek eyes, being a wimp by wanting to stay alive.

  Baruch shrugged and climbed back off the bike so he could retrieve a crash helmet from the top case. It was a battered, open-face affair that was at least two sizes too big for me and I wondered if I should go all the way downstairs to get the keys for the scooter so I could recover my own. I felt doubtful that this one was going to offer much protection, other than against Mum’s wrath.

  ‘It’s a bit big,’ I said, demonstrating how it wobbled from side to side.