You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘I thought you liked me.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘I really do.’

  ‘Then what?’ Baruch asked, pulling his keys from his pocket and jingling them.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ I said, trying to get a grip on what was really going on and deciding quickly that it was better to lie. ‘Just not here,’ I said, glancing back at the house. ‘What if someone comes?’

  ‘There’s a room . . .’ Baruch said. ‘I don’t want to be . . . you know . . . but there’s a room.’

  ‘A room?’

  ‘In the hotel. There’s an empty room. Actually there are a couple tonight. I could try to get the key. We could hang out there if you want? Take some beers from the shop . . . ?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to imagine the scene and feeling annoyed with myself because I was unable to do so. I’d been dreaming of spending the night with Baruch since I had set eyes on him, but now the opportunity presented itself I found myself almost entirely free of desire. All I wanted right now, the only thing I could really even think about, was getting back to my own unit so I could confront my mother with my newfound knowledge. Even if that turned out to be impossible, sitting quietly so I could think about it all seemed more appealing at that instant than a quickie with Baruch.

  What a complex thing is desire! At least for me it is. Perhaps it’s because we women multitask, so other thoughts can end up taking precedence. In my experience, as far as men are concerned, desire just stamps out every other available thought. I doubt any man in the history of the world ever struggled to concentrate on sex. ‘I can’t tonight,’ I said, having decided once again to lie. ‘I need to get back to Mum. Because of the argument.’

  ‘OK,’ Baruch said, climbing onto the bike and jumping on the kick-starter with even more vigour than usual.

  ‘I’d really like to,’ I shouted above the chugging of the motorbike. ‘Just not tonight. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s fine.’ But I could tell from the lack of eye contact, and I could tell from the speed at which we lurched off, that it wasn’t fine at all.

  It was only eleven when he dropped me back, but Mum was already in bed.

  I whisperingly asked her if she was asleep and she replied with a vague snoring sound that I suspected was thoroughly fake.

  Once I was ready for bed, I peeped back in and tried again, but again she didn’t reply and so, forced to acknowledge that the conversation would have to wait until the morning, I closed the door and sat on my bed.

  I thought about Baruch for a moment and wondered what was wrong with me, wondered why my desire had evaporated at the exact moment he’d tried to seduce me. I managed to perform some complex mental operation whereby I regretted not having accepted his offer, even as I reassured myself that it would have been impossible to do so.

  It was only when I pulled back the top sheet to climb into bed that I found Mum’s note. It was written on the back of a prospectus for boat trips around the island and read, ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a grumpy so-and-so today. Ask me in the morning and I’ll tell you. Love you to bits. Your Mumsy.’

  I almost considered phoning Baruch then. Because the one thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. But using him as a distraction, simply because I couldn’t sleep, just felt too much like, well, using him, I suppose.

  FOURTEEN

  LAURA

  As soon as we had opened the door, Lena had informed us, mop in hand, that she needed us out right now, because she had guests arriving at twelve. So within ten minutes we were back at Leif’s scooter, wondering what to do next.

  ‘So,’ Leif said, still grinning. We didn’t seem to be able to stop smiling at each other that morning.

  ‘So . . .’ I repeated, taking the crash helmet from his outstretched hand.

  ‘Are you ready to face Conor?’ he asked. ‘Or do you want to eat something first?’

  ‘Eat,’ I said without hesitation. The last twelve hours had been utterly magical and I simply couldn’t bear for the moment to end. ‘I really do need to change my things though. This T-shirt is getting a bit smelly.’

  Leif nodded thoughtfully. ‘We could have a picnic on the beach,’ he said. ‘This way we don’t need any clotheses.’

  I laughed at clotheses. ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘let’s do that. We can change our clotheses this evening.’ I didn’t need much convincing.

  We rode to the outskirts of Oia, to the first little shop on the edge of town, but even this felt too close for comfort. I was floating in a bubble of joy and felt pleasantly spacey from lack of sleep. I knew instinctively that Conor, if and when I saw him, would surely pop my bubble.

  But our visit to the shop went by without a hiccup and by twelve we were back on our beach. It looked completely different in the daylight, but no less beautiful. And best of all, we were again the only people there.

  We ate cheese and bread and the sweetest tomatoes I have ever tasted, then we fooled around in the shallows. Later, we sat in the shade at one end of the beach where the rock face met the sea, and sighed with relief when a couple who had appeared on the path above us turned around and went back the way they had come.

  The conversation flowed easily and as I talked about my school years and Abby, and Leif about his studies and life in general in Norway, that same sense of belonging came over me – that feeling of being in the right place at the right time. It somehow enveloped the day.

  I had never realised it before, I don’t think, but that afternoon I understood that I was a fairly highly strung person, that my default state was one of readiness. I had rarely felt completely comfortable in my skin or at ease with my surroundings. I was always in a state of alert, on the lookout for any kind of menace or danger, and events and people had often proved me right because, I suppose, my judgement simply wasn’t that good. I suspect much of this came from my upbringing, which had rarely felt relaxed, or even happy. The fact that my mother had kept me to herself for as long as she could probably hadn’t helped either. But it was only possible to realise this from the perspective provided by being in a different state, a place of utter, childlike relaxation. Of being with someone I trusted totally.

  We swam together; we collected coloured stones and we explored both ends of the beach. We sat side by side and watched as tiny fish nibbled at our toes and felt, I think, like two innocents exploring the world together.

  Two or three times we agreed that we needed to move. There was no doubt that recovering my passport was becoming urgent – that it was time to leave the beach and deal with it all. But each time, it simply didn’t happen. ‘Let’s have one last swim,’ one of us would say, and the swim would become a playful tussle, or a cuddle or a kiss, and that would lead to another sandy snooze on the beach.

  It was gone six by the time we finally got it together to leave. We packed our wet things in Leif’s backpack and, holding hands, crossed ‘our’ beach for the last time.

  The ride back took us past Lena’s Rooms and I wondered who was in the room now, and hoped it would be as wonderful for them as it had been for us. A little further on was the balcony taverna we had visited before and as we passed it, Leif slowed down, and pulled up at the roadside. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, solemnly. ‘We need to agree what we say to Conor.’

  I nodded. I’d been thinking the same thing but, because any discussion about Conor led to a discussion about everything else, just the thought of it made me feel nauseous. But I knew Leif was right.

  The bar, once again, was empty. The same three people were there but this time only the waiter stood to greet us. The cook and the owner seemed far too engrossed in their game of backgammon.

  ‘So, what do we tell him?’ Leif asked.

  I sipped at my drink. I was struggling to make my brain think about Conor or my passport or any of it. All I wanted to do was to lose myself in Leif’s blue eyes. ‘I ask him to give me my stuff back,’ I said. ‘If he’s
there.’

  ‘If he’s there,’ Leif repeated. ‘When is your flight home?’

  The question hit me like a brick. I had been refusing to think about my flight home because the concept of this all ending had become unbearable.

  ‘The fifth,’ I told him. ‘Which is the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?’

  Leif nodded. ‘So it is quite urgent now. We need to fix this today. If he isn’t there, I think we should go to the police.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘They can maybe take his passport from the hotel. And give it back when we have yours.’

  What Leif was saying made sense but getting the police involved shocked me all the same. ‘Do you think there are police on Santorini?’ I asked. ‘I’ve never ever seen one.’

  ‘Me either,’ Leif said.

  ‘Neither,’ I corrected him, taking his hand in mine across the tabletop. Even the separation forced upon us by furniture seemed unbearable, let alone a flight home.

  ‘Huh,’ Leif laughed. ‘I don’t think I will ever be OK with this either/neither.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I told him. ‘Either is fine. Or you can just use neither.’

  ‘And us?’ Leif asked, either ignoring or missing my joke. ‘Do we tell Conor about us?’

  My heart fluttered at his acknowledgement that there was an ‘us’. ‘No,’ I said, squeezing his hand. I did not want our magic to be sullied by Conor’s opinion of it. ‘No, it’s none of his business.’

  ‘No,’ Leif said. ‘Good.’

  ‘How . . . ?’ I started to ask. But I was too terrified at the thought that seeing Leif after we left Greece might turn out to be impossible to finish my question.

  ‘How do we see each other after?’ he asked, in tune as ever with my thoughts.

  I nodded and bit my lip.

  ‘We write,’ Leif said. ‘We phone. And we visit, I guess.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I don’t think,’ Leif said. ‘I know. And I will show you Norway and you will show me England.’

  I wondered for a second how I would ever square this with my mother, but pushed the thought away. Anything that complicated my future with Leif – and let’s face it, it was all pretty complicated – seemed to hurt my brain that evening. It felt like one of those migraines which hovers over one eye, and the only way I could deal with it was to shut out whatever thought was causing the pain. ‘I love it here,’ I said, looking out at the sun, now arcing towards the horizon, delicately preparing the sky for this evening’s light show.

  ‘I know,’ Leif said, taking my hand in both of his. ‘I love it too. But we really have to go and do this.’

  We walked slowly back to the scooter, pausing to look out at the seascape. The sun was now a huge red ball.

  We stood side by side to stare. ‘It moves so fast,’ I commented. ‘You can almost see it moving.’

  ‘Do you think it will make a pshhh noise when it hits the sea?’ Leif asked.

  ‘It looks like it should,’ I said. ‘If it does, it’s going to cook a lot of fish.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Leif said. ‘Fish soup.’

  We turned to face each other and kissed and by the time that kiss was over, the sun was missing a chunk from its base where it had begun to slip beneath the horizon.

  As we approached Oia, a stunning palette of purples and reds streaked horizontally across the sky. One of the most amazing things about Santorini is its constant ability to better itself. Every time you think you have seen the most incredible view you could ever see, a better one is waiting around the corner.

  As we reached the edge of town, I pointed out the sunset to Leif. I didn’t want him to miss this. ‘Have you seen?’ I shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  As we approached the next crossroads, Leif slowed to a halt. ‘It’s that way,’ I said, pointing, stupidly thinking he was lost.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m just wondering . . . Do you think we have time to go north? I’m thinking I want a photo of this. A photo of you in this day.’

  ‘Go for it,’ I said. ‘But be quick.’ The day was nearly over and it seemed a shame to waste its final, most glorious moment.

  Leif revved the scooter and we whizzed off around Oia and onwards towards the north.

  When we neared the northernmost tip of the island, he stopped at a junction. To our left was a potholed dirt track. ‘I think I’ll leave the bike here,’ he said. ‘The road is too bad.’

  I removed my crash helmet and Leif retrieved his camera from the top case and locked my helmet inside. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We need to walk fast.’

  As I reached for his hand, a beach buggy squealed to a halt beside us on the main road. ‘So, here you are!’ a voice shouted, and I turned sharply to see Mike at the wheel. ‘Conor’s been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Um, hi Mike,’ I said, more to explain to Leif who this was than anything else. ‘And no, he hasn’t been looking for me everywhere. I haven’t seen him for days.’

  ‘He’s been worried about you,’ Mike said.

  I laughed sourly at this. ‘He’s got a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘Well, he has,’ Mike insisted.

  ‘Was he worried about Candy and Anthea or whatever her name is, too?’ I asked.

  The muscles around Mike’s mouth twitched at this as if he had a sudden pain in his back teeth. ‘Well, you look like you’ve found a way to pass the time, anyway,’ he said, nodding in Leif’s direction.

  ‘This is Leif,’ I told him. ‘My friend.’

  Leif stepped forward and offered his hand. But Mike just ignored its presence, and glanced down the road instead.

  ‘I need to see him, Mike. He’s got my passport. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Is that right?’ Mike asked disinterestedly. ‘Got your passport, has he? Well, he was at your hotel the last time I looked.’

  ‘When?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘An hour ago. Maybe two.’

  ‘If you see him, can you ask him to stay put?’ I said. ‘Tell him I’m on my way?’

  Mike nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ll tell him I’ve seen you, all right.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Anyway, I’d better get my skates on,’ Mike said. ‘I need to get this buggy back. I’ve got a night boat to catch and if I miss it again, I won’t have a missus at all.’

  Once he was gone, we stood in silence for a moment. ‘You want to go straight back?’ Leif asked after a few seconds.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s take the photo and then go back.’ The fact that I knew Conor was at the hotel had suddenly made me afraid. It had made me even more reluctant to return there. Plus, not being able to leave Leif’s side, because I didn’t have my passport, had started to feel like a positive rather than a negative.

  The track passed by two unfinished houses. The ground floors were entirely built, but without windows or doors. Steel spikes stuck up from the rooftops and Leif explained that these were so a second floor could be built at some point in the future. ‘They don’t pay the tax until it’s finished,’ he told me, ‘so there’s always another floor coming soon.’

  The cliff edge was further than it had at first appeared, and we soon began to regret that we had walked, especially because, once the two buildings-in-progress had been passed, the gravel track improved significantly.

  We walked in silence, our heads craned left so we could look at the incredible sky. ‘Shall I go back and get the bike?’ Leif offered. ‘I think by the time we get there . . .’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘It’s nice.’

  In fact it was far more than nice, but I was too scared to voice what I was feeling in case it spoilt the perfect equilibrium of the moment. Because what I was feeling, for the first time in my life, was pure, unadulterated hope. I felt submerged by the stuff.

  My life up to that point had been pretty rotten, I suppose. These days, my mother would probably be diagnosed with some kind
of mental illness – perhaps even treated for it – but her moods and ever-changing rules, her unpredictable explosions of anger, weren’t something I had ever consciously labelled as abnormal, back then. I considered my upbringing as harsh, perhaps, but not really abusive. Being all I had ever known, it just seemed normal to me. But within that framework, my prospects for happiness had always felt few and far between. And until twenty-four hours earlier, I had found it pretty much impossible to picture any kind of escape for myself, to imagine any kind of desirable future.

  Yet here I was, walking hand in hand with the loveliest man on Earth – a beautiful, gentle, sexy, protective man who, for no reason that I could fathom, also seemed to like little old me.

  There was so much to look forward to suddenly, so much to hope for, that I wanted to scream out loud about it. I wanted to jump for joy. But I restrained myself. I simply gave his hand a squeeze and blinked back tears.

  After another hundred yards or so, Leif said, ‘Do you really have to go home on the fifth?’ He sounded as if he was trying to sound relaxed about the prospect, but there was an urgency in his voice which gave him away.

  ‘I think I do,’ I said.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I have stuff to get back to.’

  ‘Your job?’

  ‘Well, I don’t go back to work till the ninth,’ I admitted. ‘But my flights and everything . . . I don’t know how to change them. Or how much it would cost.’

  ‘I could help you with that, maybe,’ Leif said.

  ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘When’s your flight?’

  ‘It’s a boat,’ Leif informed me. ‘It’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ I exclaimed, horrified at this revelation. ‘What time?’

  ‘In the morning,’ Leif said. ‘At ten. But I don’t think I want to take this boat.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. I think I want to stay longer here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m in love with you,’ Leif said. ‘So, yes. Really.’

  I stopped walking, and took his hands in mine. I looked up at him in the dusky light and thought, for an instant, that I was going to weep. Because no one had ever said that to me before. Or at any rate, not that I could believe.