by Nadia Marks
As the night wore on, her earlier concerns that Paolo might perhaps be made from similar stuff to James vanished, blown away by the night breeze. The more he spoke of his life, the more Calli was reassured that he bore no likeness to her ex.
‘You see, Calli,’ he said, folding his arms behind his head and lying back on the warm sand, ‘when I’m not working, I spend most of my spare time with Anna.’
‘But you are not working now,’ she challenged him, ‘so, why isn’t she with you?’
‘When I come here, it is the time when Serena takes our daughter to see her grandparents in Tuscany. But when I go back to Verona, she will be with me,’ he began to explain, his voice pensive and serious. ‘When we realized Serena was pregnant, we both knew that our lives would change for ever. It was a question of duty and responsibility . . . I believe when there is a child, we must grow up, we are not the children anymore.’ He sat up to look at her. ‘You understand what I am saying, Calli?’ She understood perfectly well, she didn’t need to ask or he to tell her more.
When at last they left the beach, Paolo walked her back to the hotel but neither of them wanted the night to end. They sat on the terrace and continued talking till the first blush of dawn appeared on the horizon.
Paolo seemed to be as taken with Calli as she was with him. This half-Greek, half-English woman was unlike any other he had been involved with. She had the look of a Mediterranean woman – soulful dark eyes, a mass of dark curls which framed a pale face, giving her an air of fragility and vulnerability. Yet her appearance belied her manner of quiet confidence and assurance. He liked that contrast. She was creative, she came from a different world from his, unlike most of the women he had been romantically connected with in the past who had been from his circle, interested in spiritual matters, needing reassurance, searching, looking for the elusive. Calli’s feet seemed firmly connected to the ground, she seemed to know what she wanted from her life, and where she was going.
Earlier in the evening she had been curious about him and had encouraged him to talk about his life; now it was his turn to find out who she was.
‘A child is a precious gift,’ he told her softly after she had finished talking. He moved closer and took her hand. ‘It is a gift that should be cherished,’ he said again, visibly moved by her story, and gave her a tender kiss on the lips.
She woke to the sound of laughter and the insistent ringing of her mobile. Flicking open the handset, she heard her editor’s raspy voice invading the bedroom.
‘Hey, Calli, how’s it going?’ David asked, causing her to wake instantly and snap into action. ‘Got a suntan yet?’ he jested.
‘Yes . . . fine, all good,’ she replied, trying to control her first-thing-in-the-morning voice, hoping it sounded less croaky down the phone than it did in her head.
‘How’s the piece going? Found out some secrets yet?’ he continued cheerfully.
‘Yes, well . . . some,’ she said, trying to sound professional. ‘Should have the piece finished soon.’
‘Cool! No worries, it’s not due till the end of the week. I was just checking how you are,’ he told her. Calli hadn’t been on the island that long, yet London seemed to be a thousand miles away from her physically and mentally.
Looking at the clock on the TV facing her bed, she was shocked to discover that once again it was way past midday. No wonder David had called, thinking she must be up and about and working. Throwing the bedclothes aside she ran to the balcony and stepped outside. A jovial group of people were drinking coffee on the terrace below, evidently it was their laughter that had woken her. Before parting with Paolo she had agreed to meet him for a swim, for which she now realized she was all too late. She scanned the beach in the hope of spotting him but all she saw was a group of elderly men and women in high spirits who were noisily emerging from the sea after completing their daily dip. Calli had been told about this ritual, which was apparently observed without fail by most elderly Ikarians.
‘This island is full of wonder and magic,’ Paolo had told her the night before. ‘Not only does it have in my opinion the most pure beaches in the Mediterranean; some areas are like natural spas which are a cure for many ailments.’
Apparently, Paolo had said, in some places around the coast hot mineral springs flowed into the sea from the shoreline, creating natural therapeutic spas. ‘Another reason why these people all live forever here,’ he laughed.
The enticing aroma of coffee and cheerful chatter wafted up to her room from the hotel terrace, urging Calli to make haste and get dressed. She might have been too late to go swimming with Paolo, but she was still in plenty of time for her next interview, with the local doctor, which Maya had volunteered to arrange for her. ‘Talking to a medic could be interesting for your story,’ she had suggested during dinner, and Dr Demitriou, who was a great believer in herbal medicine, was in her opinion the perfect candidate.
Calli threw on clean clothes, gathered her equipment in record time, and dashed down to the lobby to meet her friend as arranged, anxious not to keep her waiting as well as eager to talk to her about Paolo.
‘Dr Demitriou is a very personable man,’ Maya said as they made their way to see the doctor, ‘and although he is the only physician around for miles, he always has time for everyone.’
They found him waiting by the front door of his surgery-cum-office. The doctor was taller and younger than most of the people Calli had interviewed so far. He had sparkling eyes, a friendly face and a head of unruly brown hair.
‘Welcome! Come in, please!’ He greeted them with a broad smile and ushered them into a large room flooded with sunlight and sound from a host of cicadas that had taken occupancy on every tree and bush in the vicinity of the house, and seemed to have decided at that very moment to start singing in unison. Calli smiled to herself: how unlike this surgery was from any she had ever visited in London. The picture window facing the garden was wide open and let in not only the sounds from outside, but also a warm breeze that drifted in, carrying with it the sweet aroma of jasmine and herbs. Yet, looking around, she observed that it was as well-equipped as any surgery she had ever seen.
‘It is quiet at this hour,’ Dr Demitriou explained, offering the women a couple of chairs under the ceiling fan. ‘It is of course the hottest part of the day and even with the breeze from the window we still need more air,’ he said apologetically. ‘If you had come just a little earlier you would have met some of my patients waiting to see me – not that I have many in any one day.’ He smiled. ‘By now everyone is getting ready for their siesta after their lunch, or perhaps their breakfast if they got up late,’ he chuckled. ‘You might have guessed that nobody is in a hurry here, taking it slow means fewer accidents, fewer falls or broken bones.’ He smiled broadly.
This easy slow pace of life, Dr Demitriou claimed, was a significant reason why people lived such long and healthy lives on Ikaria. Their love of sleep and their diet, he also believed, were the two main causes behind this phenomenon.
‘Everything they eat is organic, and they consume a lot of olive oil, honey and local wine,’ he explained. ‘They grow all their own produce, and above all,’ he said with certainty, ‘I am convinced that this local mountain tea which they drink on a daily basis is a huge factor.’
‘I have always been a strong advocate of this,’ Maya said, glancing at Calli and nodding in agreement.
‘There are many varieties of local mountain tea, or perhaps a better word is infusions,’ the doctor continued, ‘and they all have their particular qualities. What I find amusing is that people drink it and relish it as a delicious beverage without consciously thinking it is medicinal, but then again I believe they do know. They know it instinctively and that is the beauty of it and the reason why, if they are suffering from a certain ailment, they always recognize which herb to use as a remedy. I honestly think this knowledge is in their collective consciousness, passed down to them through the generations.’
‘What did I tell you
?’ Maya said as they left the doctor’s surgery and made their way to the beach bar. ‘He knows the local people better than anyone.’
Calli was in complete agreement that Dr Demitriou’s stories of local life would be an excellent addition to her article. All the same, just now she didn’t want to talk about him. What was topmost in her mind was to ask her friend about Paolo – after all, she seemed to know him better than anyone else there.
‘He is a good man,’ Maya told her with sincerity in her voice. ‘We’ve been friends for many years, and I love him as if he was my brother. He is an old spirit, that one, he’s been on this planet many times before.’ Calli stared at the older woman with perplexity, wondering, as so often since they had met, what she was talking about.
‘Er . . . yes, well . . .’ she murmured, ignoring Maya’s cryptic words and eager to continue with her questions. ‘What I wanted to ask you was . . . you know what you told me the other night?’ She hesitated, her tone tentative. ‘Remember that wish you said I should ask Raphael?’
She reached for her drink and took a sip, her mouth suddenly very dry. ‘Do you think this . . . I mean Paolo might be the answer to my plea?’ she heard herself say – and could hardly believe her own ears as the words came out of her mouth. Could this be the same Calli who had always approached life with firm logic and pragmatism, for whom metaphysical fancies and the supernatural had no place in the world?
Maya swivelled round on her stool and fixed Calli with her eyes before answering.
‘You, my friend, don’t know it yet, but you have been granted a rare gift. What you experienced the other night was a potent and rare thing. Paolo has come into your life for a reason. When I first met you, all I saw was pain and loss in your eyes. Now I see something else, something quite different.’
Calli held her breath and waited for her to continue.
10
Maya inhaled deeply, shifted a little closer and reached for the younger woman’s hand.
‘What I see now, my friend, is a fruitful journey ahead of you, a long and winding road with gain and reward at the end of it.’ Calli sat listening, rooted to the spot, her senses on edge. ‘I am well aware that you are by nature an inquisitive and thoughtful person; it is your trait as an Aquarian.’
Once again, the younger woman stared in disbelief; she did not recall ever mentioning her date of birth or her horoscope to anyone since arriving on Ikaria.
‘Don’t look so amazed, Calli, my dear,’ Maya burst out laughing, ‘I just know these things. But the point I am making is that although by nature you are sceptical you are also able to pick up things quickly and you have an innate curiosity for that which you don’t quite understand, which is a great asset.’ As with so much that Calli had been exposed to since arriving on the island, astrology was of no interest to her and she was at a loss to understand how her date of birth was relevant to the question she had just posed.
‘I suppose what I am saying,’ Maya continued, seeing the impatience in Calli’s eyes, ‘is that given your natural curiosity about people, and Paolo’s good heart, spending time with him will be beneficial and enlightening for you.’
Calli hardly needed to hear more. This was all the validation she had wanted. Her Ikarian oracle had spoken and had just given her, even if a little sketchy, the go-ahead to trust her instinct. Horoscopes, roads ahead and cosmic journeys were other matters that could wait: all she heard was that Paolo was a good man and, what’s more, that he would be good for her. She was a grown woman, but to herself at that moment she felt like a teenage girl about to embark on her first sexual encounter and it was all too thrilling. Lately she had been stuck in the past and apprehensive about the future; it was time for her to start enjoying the here and now.
The two women sat at the beach bar for a little longer until Calli made her way to her hotel room to work, and Maya to an olive grove to help with the picking. Calli had been transcribing each interview and editing photographs each day as she gathered her material. Now the piece was beginning to take shape and she was able to assess that before too long the process would be complete. She had made up her mind that as soon as the article was finished and had been emailed to David, she would have a splendid holiday, the kind she hadn’t had for a long, long, time.
She met Paolo at the beach for their allocated yoga lesson. She had tried to take a siesta after she stopped working but found it impossible to fall asleep or relax. Her mind swirled with unsettling thoughts, not the kind she had been experiencing recently that had made her ache with sadness – no. The thoughts that flashed through her mind now were making her body tingle with what she recognized as sexual desire, fuelled further by images of Paolo’s hands on her body. Eventually she gave up trying to impose sleep on herself and made her way to an empty beach; it was the time for rest, and there were still a couple of hours before she was due to meet Paolo, so she welcomed the opportunity to be alone for a while. For days now Calli had been surrounded by people and although she enjoyed the distraction and relished the company of her new friends, she realized that she also needed a little time alone.
She paced along the deserted shore and plunged into the warm waters of the Aegean. She let herself drift, arms outstretched, eyes closed, surrendering her body to the sea, which in turn evoked a sweet childhood memory. As a child she had had trouble allowing herself to float on the water until her father took it upon himself to teach her. ‘Relax, Calli, trust me,’ Keith’s voice drifted to her ears in the wind. At first her child’s body, tense and afraid, refused to relax and float. ‘I am right here, I’m holding you, don’t be afraid. I would never let you go!’ Keith reassured, banishing her fears. How comforting those words of his had been, and true to his words her father had never let go of her, nor had he ever let her down. Floating now in the calm water, the hot sunlight beating red through her closed eyelids, Calli was filled with a surge of love towards both of her parents; having Keith as a father, she realized, was not only a blessing but also the reason why she had always been able to trust so readily. James might not have been worthy of her trust, but others were, and she would not allow him to change that which was her nature.
That evening’s yoga session was a deeply charged experience. The stretching, relaxing and breathing made her acutely aware of and in tune with her body. She was no stranger to sensuality, having always been a physical sort of woman, and looking back she realized, perhaps all too late, that sex had probably been the strongest bond between her and James, along with their single-mindedness about their work and self-indulgent lifestyle – hardly a basis for building a family life together if that’s all there is.
After yoga was over, Paolo took Calli by the hand and led her away from the beach. ‘Come,’ he whispered, ‘I know another place where we can see the moon rise . . . just you and me.’ She followed in a hypnotic trance, her body tense with anticipation. Holding her hand tightly, he led her up a small hill where a pile of giant stones heaped on top of one another stood in much the same way as the boulders that Calli had found so enthralling a few days earlier.
‘We have a perfect view to the sea from here,’ he said, sitting at the foot of the rocks, pointing to the horizon where the moon would soon be making its appearance. He reached for her and gently pulled her towards him; as she fell, his arms engulfed her, and they rolled onto the soft earth.
Paolo was a gentle and thoughtful lover, all the while they made love murmuring words in Italian, tender, sensual, inaudible words which she wouldn’t have understood even if she could distinguish them, but all adding to her pleasure.
The days that followed were blissful. They spent as much time with each other as they could and when Calli at last concluded that her article was finished, he helped her to choose which photographs she should email to the paper.
‘You are a very talented woman, tesoro,’ he said, kissing her bare shoulder as he sat next to her in the hotel bedroom in front of her laptop. ‘Beautiful and talented, what an intoxicating combinati
on!’ Paolo was doing wonders for restoring Calli’s self-esteem and confidence; she had been badly bruised, and he was like a healing balm to her wounds.
‘Must you go now your work is done?’ he asked, taking her hand. ‘Can you stay with me until I leave?’ his eyes pleaded. When she first met him, she had said that she would be there for as long as it took to complete her assignment; now he was hoping he might entice her to stay longer. He needn’t have worried: Calli had already made up her mind she was not going anywhere just yet.
‘Yes, Paolo. I shall stay until you leave,’ she replied and turned round to kiss him. ‘Besides, my editor has asked for a few amendments to my article so I’m not free of this work just yet, another day or so and I’ll be done and then I’ll be totally free.’
Once her work was completed, Calli was able to focus on having the holiday and pure enjoyment she so badly needed. She continued to stay in the hotel but would spend some nights in Paolo’s tent which made their liaison feel all the more youthful and exciting. The only time she had ever been camping was during the summer when she had finished her A-levels. She had set off with a crowd of friends to a camping site in the Costa del Sol. It was rough and ready, disorganized and chaotic, but it was the best fun she had ever had and the first time she tasted the joys of sex. Steve had been a friend who she quite fancied and who apparently lusted after her, so when they had found themselves in the heady atmosphere of sun, sea and alcohol, seduction and falling in love wasn’t difficult, and Calli decided that by the time she returned home she was not going to be a virgin any longer.
Sex in Paolo’s tent had all the erotic nuances of ‘first love’, and when they wanted a little more space and a soak in a bathtub like grown-ups they would transfer to Calli’s hotel room. The days followed one another effortlessly and the two lovers basked in each other’s proximity. Maya and his other friends often joined them for a swim in the bay and each evening they all had dinner together in Kyria Erini’s taverna.