You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  Mum nodded sadly. ‘I know. It was awful. Anyway, one night he hit me in the face. We were in a taverna and I fell over. He wasn’t sober. He was blind drunk, so . . . I mean, that’s not an excuse of course. I don’t know why I even . . . But anyway, he hit me and I fell over. I cut my elbow and I had a bruise on my cheek. And this Norwegian guy sort of . . . well . . . he saved me, really. He was so lovely, Becky. So kind and gentle. Everything Conor wasn’t.’

  ‘So you ended up sleeping with him too?’

  Mum pulled a pained expression.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything,’ I said. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘It just sounds a bit brutal, put like that,’ Mum said. ‘It happened quite slowly. He just . . . well, he looked after me really. Conor had taken my passport and my money, and Leif helped me get it back. And he gave me the loveliest birthday ever. I was having the most horrible time of it but Leif made everything OK.’

  ‘And this Leif was my father?’

  Mum nodded. ‘You were conceived on my birthday. Well, the morning after.’

  ‘But how do you know? I mean, are you sure? How do you know it wasn’t this Conor guy?’

  Mum shrugged. ‘I didn’t know. Not at first. But when you were born you looked so much like Leif. Blond and blue eyes. Those long limbs of yours. Conor was more of a . . . well, a bulldog shape, really. He was short and stocky and a redhead. Whereas Leif was like a gazelle, if you see what I mean. So as soon as I saw you, I never had any doubt.’

  ‘And this Conor?’ I said. ‘Where did he come from? I mean, how did you meet him?’

  ‘At a party,’ Mum said matter-of-factly. ‘At a big outdoor party in Northampton. I went with your Auntie Abby. She was dating a guy who knew the DJ back then and they dragged me along. And I met Conor there. I was drunk. And other stuff too. My judgement wasn’t that good, I don’t think.’

  ‘You were stoned?’ I asked, now wide-eyed. ‘Is that what you’re saying? You were stoned?’

  ‘Not as such,’ Mum said.

  ‘Not as such?’ I repeated.

  ‘Look . . .’ Mum sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘OK, whatever. Your Aunt Abby made me take this pill, OK? Because I wasn’t enjoying the music.’

  I cupped one hand over my mouth and looked at my mother in amazement. ‘Is this a rave party we’re talking about?’

  Mum nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘And the pill . . . Are we talking ecstasy?’

  Another nod. Mum looked as if her teeth were hurting.

  I shook my head in disbelief. For this was by far the most outrageous story my mother had ever told me, and yet because of that outrageousness it felt as if it might be the most real, too. Despite myself I was finding it hard to not believe her.

  ‘My mother took an E at a rave? And met a drunk called Conor? And came away with him to Greece?’ I said, slowly summing up.

  Mum nodded again.

  ‘And this Leif guy saved you.’

  ‘Yes, that’s pretty much it.’

  ‘So you slept with him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t sleep with him because . . . I slept with him because I’d fallen in love. Because he was gorgeous, inside and out. Because he was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Because he was the only good thing that had ever happened to me.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Mum said. ‘I know how it sounds. That’s why . . .’

  ‘But who went over the cliff? Was it Leif? Or Conor? Or both of them?’

  Mum looked away, towards the door. I waited a moment before prompting her. ‘Mum?’

  When she turned back to face me, I saw that she was crying. Her shoulders were shuddering as if she had hiccups.

  ‘Mum,’ I said softly, sliding to her side and putting one arm around her shoulders. ‘I know this is all very . . . in fact, I can’t even imagine how awful this must all have been. But I need to know what happened to these people. Who went over the cliff?’

  ‘Conor,’ she breathed, through her tears. ‘Conor went over the cliff.’

  This revelation produced a fresh flurry of tears, which forced us to take a break and, to be honest, I didn’t mind. I was feeling emotional and trembly, faint almost, at the thought of what was to come. I was happy to have a few minutes to calm myself.

  But once Mum had removed her blurry make-up and made us each a cup of tea, we moved outside to the deckchairs to continue our conversation.

  ‘I can’t remember where I was up to,’ Mum said, sipping her tea and glancing at me sideways before turning to look back out at the view.

  ‘Conor went over the cliff,’ I said, only hearing the brutality of my words once they were spoken. ‘I’m sorry,’ I added. ‘But that’s where we’d got to.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mum said in a strange, bright voice, as if she was telling me a children’s story. It sounded as if she had done her best to select an appropriate voice but had made a mistake and got the wrong one. ‘Yes, that’s right!’

  ‘Was it drink-driving?’ I asked. ‘Is that why he went off the cliff?’

  Mum nodded. ‘Yes, something like that,’ she said.

  ‘But Leif wasn’t with him?’

  ‘God, no!’ Mum said, as if the suggestion outraged her. ‘Why would Leif have been with him?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. Then, ‘Hang on, can you? I just need . . .’ I jumped up and ran inside for my cigarettes and lighter. I guessed that, for once, Mum wasn’t going to tell me off for smoking, and I was right.

  Once I’d returned, I sat back down and lit up. ‘So, what happened to Leif, Mum? What happened to my father?’

  Mum sighed deeply. ‘I’ve been so worried about telling you this,’ she said. ‘That’s why . . . Well, that’s why it’s taken so long, I suppose.’

  ‘You’ve been worried about telling me what?’

  ‘The thing is . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure how you’ll react, that’s my concern.’

  ‘Just tell me, Mum,’ I said. ‘We’ve got this far. You might as well.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I’d better.’

  I dragged on my cigarette and blew the smoke to my right. ‘So, Leif, Mum. Come on. What happened?’

  When she remained silent, I turned to study her features. She was running her tongue across her teeth and alternately sighing and swallowing. ‘I lost him,’ she finally said. ‘I suppose you could say that I lost him.’

  ‘Lost him to . . . ?’

  ‘To . . . circumstance, really.’

  A shiver ran down my spine because, stupidly, only now was it dawning on me that this was her biggest lie of all. ‘He’s not dead, is he?’ I said tentatively, trying the sound of the words out on my tongue.

  Mum shook her head slowly.

  ‘Is that a “no”?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mum said. ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘How can you not know?’ I asked, struggling against a fresh flare-up of anger brewing on the horizon. ‘Either he’s dead or he isn’t.’

  ‘I lost track of him, sweetheart. That’s what happened.’

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb and repeated her words in a monotone voice. ‘You lost track of him.’

  ‘He . . . Everything went haywire, you see? After the accident. Conor had died. There were all sorts of arrangements to be made. I had to speak to the police. Leif’s boat was a day before my flight. He lived in Norway. I lived in London . . .’

  ‘You didn’t get his address? Is that what you’re telling me? That I don’t have a father because you didn’t bother to get his address?’

  ‘No, I did,’ Mum told me, swiping at a tear that was running down her cheek. ‘I did get it. Of course I did. But they lost my suitcase on the way home. I had to transit in Athens and the case was supposed to follow. And it didn’t. It never turned up. And his address . . . the piece of paper with his address . . . well, it was in the suitcase.’

 
‘You’re winding me up,’ I said, my voice wobbling as I hesitated between fury and tears of my own.

  Mum shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Then he’s alive?’

  ‘Somewhere, probably, he is.’

  ‘Did you even try to find him?’ I asked, my voice rising as the anger won out once again.

  ‘You know I did, sweetheart. Why do you think we went to Bergen?’

  ‘So he’s in Bergen? We know this, do we?’ My mind was racing ahead to Internet searches and Norwegian electoral rolls.

  ‘He was. Twenty years ago . . . He probably isn’t now.’

  ‘And the Internet?’ I said. ‘Have you even googled him?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Mum said.

  ‘Of course you can. Well, you probably can’t. But I can. What with Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mum interrupted. ‘Please don’t be angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m just thinking about how—’

  ‘I don’t know his name,’ Mum said. ‘I’m sorry. But I never knew his surname.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, Mum!’ I exclaimed, covering my eyes with my hands.

  I managed to glean a few more snippets of information from my mother before she retired to her bed for a snooze. But she didn’t seem to know that much and if I’m honest, my heart was no longer in it.

  I was feeling cheated and really quite depressed about the whole thing. I had been given, just for a few seconds, hope that the thing I’d always dreamed of, the thing I’d secretly fantasised about my whole childhood, was possible. But almost as soon as I’d grasped the possibility, Mum had snatched it away from me again. Because without a surname, she was right. It was almost certainly mission impossible.

  For the simple reason that I needed some space to think, or – perhaps even more – the space to be miserable and wallow in self-pity, I took my swim things and the bike key and left Mum to have her snooze. Out of politeness I invited her to join me, but in such a way that it was virtually impossible for her to do anything but refuse.

  I rode around the headlands of Oia wondering if Conor had crashed over here or over there, and when I came to a sign for a beach, I pulled up.

  I rented a sunbed; I swam a few times; I even ordered a sandwich and a beer at a beach bar. But I did all of this without pleasure. I was feeling numb and isolated from my surroundings, as if I’d fallen asleep and woken up in a bubble. The sensation was strangely similar to the misery of a break-up. To the grief I felt when Brian left us, too.

  I thought about Mum’s relationship with Brian. Because if this Leif guy had been the great love of Mum’s life, her half-hearted marriage to Brian suddenly made more sense.

  At five, as I prepared to ride back, I received a text message from Baruch asking if I was free for dinner.

  Thinking about Mum and how upset she’d be, I hesitated for a moment, but then I thought of her losing my father’s address and used the anger that thought provoked to justify doing what I really wanted to do. I texted him back to say ‘yes’.

  His reply came almost immediately.

  When I got back to the hotel, Mum was in a deckchair reading one of her novels. ‘Hello stranger!’ she said, using her fake, chipper voice again. ‘Did you have a nice time?’

  I told her it had been fine and that I had simply been to the beach.

  ‘I went shopping,’ Mum said. ‘I thought we could picnic this evening for a change. I got some lovely ripe tomatoes and—’

  ‘I said I’d have dinner with Baruch,’ I interrupted before she could go any further. ‘Is that OK with you?’

  ‘Oh . . . sure.’ Mum looked like she was being brave and wasn’t thrilled about the news at all. ‘Sure, that’s absolutely fine.’

  ‘You’ll be OK? You’re sure?’

  Mum nodded. ‘I’m really into this,’ she said, flashing the cover of her novel at me. ‘So I’ll be fine. It’s . . . you know . . . taking my mind off things.’

  ‘But we’ll eat together tomorrow, OK? We’ll spend the whole day together for your birthday. Do something nice.’

  ‘Sure, chicken,’ Mum said. ‘Of course. You can ask that Baruch of yours for recommendations.’

  For an hour or so we read side by side until, I think embarrassed by the atmosphere, which remained awkward, Mum headed off down the Dreaded Steps for a swim.

  Baruch was talking to Damon outside the minimart when I got up to street level, so the three of us chatted and smoked cigarettes for a while until Baruch said something in Greek to Damon, something which instantly caused him to vanish.

  ‘He’s like a little brother,’ Baruch told me. ‘If you don’t tell him to buzz away he never goes.’

  ‘Buzz off,’ I corrected him. ‘Though “buzz away” is kind of cute.’

  ‘Buzz off,’ Baruch repeated. ‘So . . . Fira?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. I hadn’t spent any time in Santorini’s main town yet and was still obsessing about my father anyway. I didn’t really care where we went. ‘But only if you let me buy you dinner somewhere,’ I added.

  Baruch pulled a face. ‘This is not the Greek way,’ he said.

  ‘Then it’s lucky I’m not Greek,’ I told him. ‘Go on. It’ll be nice.’

  The ride along the coast was pleasant enough. Baruch rode at a leisurely pace, slowing to point things out to me, but I was still a bit lost inside my head – still churning over what little information I had about my father and finding it hard to live in the moment.

  Once we had parked up, and as we wandered through the lanes of Fira, Baruch picked up on my strange mood. I think I must have been umming and aahing in the wrong places because I was struggling to listen to him. He asked me what was wrong.

  And so I told him pretty much the whole story. I explained that I’d discovered my father wasn’t dead, after all – that he hadn’t gone off a cliff in Oia. I told him about the mysterious vanishing Leif, whose surname, Mum thought, might begin with the letter V, or perhaps even V-I-L, and who had once lived in Bergen, but about whom we knew nothing more.

  The only detail I wilfully concealed was the fact that Conor had also been my mother’s lover, albeit briefly. That was something I was struggling to deal with myself and there was no reason, I decided, to make it public.

  As we arrived at the restaurant Baruch had chosen, a taverna overlooking the caldera called Volcano Blue, I reached the end of my sorry tale. It had been something of a monologue and I worried that I was sounding self-obsessed.

  Baruch made a hmm sound and asked the million-dollar question. ‘Do you believe her?’

  I laughed at this and the laughter, my first that day, felt good – it felt like a form of release. ‘Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘She’s given me so many versions.’

  ‘It’s just the suitcase that seems funny to me,’ Baruch said. ‘I’ve never heard of them losing a suitcase.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Oh, that definitely happens. I’ve heard of it lots of times. Especially when there’s a transfer from one flight to another.’

  ‘Sure, but they always find the suitcase,’ Baruch said. ‘It always gets delivered later, right?’

  ‘Unless you fail to put your address on it. Mum is famously dipsy.’

  ‘Dipsy?’ Baruch queried.

  ‘Dizzy, disorganised. Actually, she’s not that bad. But she could totally forget to attach a label to her suitcase. I didn’t even do mine on the flight out, if I’m being honest.’

  ‘Dipsy,’ Baruch said again, apparently trying the word out for size. ‘I like it. Dipsy.’

  As we entered the restaurant, we were greeted by a waiter who apparently knew Baruch. He led us to the last remaining table, near the bannisters, overlooking the bay.

  ‘Great view, huh?’ Baruch asked once we were sitting down.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. And my question about the view came to mind so, because it was something to say, I asked him about it. His response was, I suppose
, quite predictable in that he said that some days he noticed, and other days he didn’t. That made perfect sense to me, because that very evening I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t noticed the view myself until Baruch had pointed it out.

  The other detail I hadn’t noticed was that Baruch had chosen, horror of horrors, a seafood restaurant.

  ‘Seafood,’ I said, studying the menu in terror and wondering if I could fake knowing how to pull a prawn’s legs off without screaming.

  ‘Yes, I love seafood,’ Baruch said. ‘You?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I lied. ‘Yes, some seafood. Not all.’

  I managed to get through the ordering process without too much embarrassment by telling Baruch that I’d had seafood for lunch and wanted to try something new. I ordered tomato croquettes and fried feta instead.

  It’s a strange one really, because it’s not like me to lie about these things. But there was something in his self-assurance that made me feel as if my own food phobias were a bit childish. I wanted to act like an adult. I wanted to impress him. I was still trying to seduce him, I suppose.

  It all nearly fell apart when he held a peeled king prawn out to me on the end of his fork and said, ‘Taste this. It’s delicious. They cook it in ouzo.’ I looked at his beautiful blue eyes then at the prawn, and I thought, If you did this in Bergen for Mum, you can do it here. And so I smiled and took the fork from his hand. I wasn’t thrilled by the texture, I must say, and I struggled as I crunched into it not to gag. But the taste wasn’t as bad as I remembered. In fact it was really quite sweet.

  As we ate, we discussed how to hunt for a random person called Leif Vil-something-or-other. I pulled out my phone at one point to google Norwegian surnames and even convinced Baruch to put a call in to Granny. But Google, for once, came up empty, and Granny didn’t seem to remember anything other than a car careering off a cliff.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, I became intensely bored with the subject, bored with myself really, and frustrated at my inability to think about anything else. And so I put all my efforts into getting Baruch to talk about himself. He was funny and self-deprecating and, in a pink-and-white-striped shirt and his usual bum-hugging jeans, was looking as sexy as ever. And he was visibly working a charm offensive, doing everything he could think of to seduce me, too. If only I could concentrate on him instead, I thought.