Looking for the Durrells

by Melanie Hewitt

  Penny swung her legs off the bed. Yawning, she unlocked the shutters onto the balcony and allowed the warm air to roll into the room. Tonight was the loud and lovable Greek Night, like a favourite maverick uncle, full of undeniable charm. An event which included and embraced everyone with its warmth and light.

  She plucked a pale blue cotton shirt dress from its hanger. Its simplicity complimented her height and tanned skin. But Penny had no such thoughts as she chose it. For her, it was a lucky dress, the first thing she’d bought for herself after her split with Bruce. She’d never worn it, but this evening felt like the perfect time.

  Her mind turned to Tess. It would be a busy night at the Athena. Everyone would be working, with little chance of chatting, except maybe at the very end of the evening. She suddenly recalled her grandmother saying to her, when she’d been trying on dresses as a teenager and felt swamped by their length, ‘Good things come in small packages’.

  ‘I hope so,’ she muttered under her breath as she pulled her dress on over her head.

  Bruce, she couldn’t deny, was a striking-looking man, and she admitted that she’d been flattered by his attention. That said, it was strange that Bruce’s good looks had affected her right from the moment she’d first seen him, as all her life her dad had focused on character being the thing that truly mattered, including having a good heart. She took one last look in the mirror that was still slightly misted over after her shower. This evening it felt as though her appearance mattered more than other days. She gave a tentative smile and moved her head from side to side, immediately pulling a face and laughing at herself.

  ‘Who are you and what have you done with Penny?’ she asked her reflection.

  By 8 p.m. there was a lively mix of old and new patrons at the Athena. Two families who came to St George South every year had arrived that morning and were delighted to find that the Greek Night was happening on their first day. The air that night was full of the promise of what could be, with no shadows of regret or disappointment under the amber light that drew people into the restaurant. The sea below them, as always, took no notice of the proceedings. It had seen it all before, a million times.

  Penny was touched when she arrived to find that they’d put a reserved sign on her little table. The colourful, lively tableau of guests, new friends, and live music comforted rather than daunted her. This place had become part of her luck and her life.

  As soon as she sat down Lily was there with a glass of rosé, followed almost immediately by Rich, who asked if he could join her for a moment.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, if that’s okay?’ he said.

  She had never seen him look so earnest or serious. ‘I like Lily . . . very much,’ he began, with a face that looked like that of a fallen angel about to enter Purgatory. ‘I’m not very good at saying things – words in the right order at the right time don’t always happen. I thought if I watched Guy, some of his charm and confidence might rub off on me, so I could speak to Lily in a way that lets her know I care about her, but doesn’t frighten her off.’ He sighed. ‘She’s just told me that she has a short break later and wants to have a chat, which is great, but also makes me feel pressured to say the right things and not look like a prat.’

  As she looked at him Penny saw her own vulnerability at the same age reflected back at her. ‘Are you worried about what to say?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know the details about why she’s not going back to uni. So, how do I know what she needs to hear?’

  ‘The most important thing you can do for Lily is listen,’ Penny suggested. ‘Forget about what you might, or might not, say; what’s right, or what’s wrong. The words will come if you listen.’

  Rich looked at her as if trying to absorb what she’d said, focusing on every syllable so he’d remember her words like a mantra. He was about to thank her when Guy appeared.

  ‘Hi, Penny, good to see you. How was the trip to the olive mill?’

  She smiled, about to reply, when Guy saw someone at the entrance and shot off with a ‘Back in a minute’.

  ‘Looks like Faith and Dee have turned up. He’ll be pleased about that,’ Rich said, looking at Guy greeting two girls.

  He stood up. ‘Thanks for listening. Catch you later.’

  ‘Good luck,’ she couldn’t help saying as he made his way through the tables to his friends. Talk about physician heal thyself. I could do with a bit of relationship advice myself, she thought.

  After she’d eaten the usual Greek Night fare of mezze, Penny sat back and looked for Tess, who had whispered as she’d passed, ‘Are you up for a drink later at the bar when it quietens down?’ before being swept up in a line of dancers on a mission to pull more diners on to the dance floor. Nic had quietly fetched and carried, supporting Anna in the kitchen tonight rather than being out in the restaurant.

  Signalling to Lily that she was going for a walk on the beach, Penny wandered out of the heaving but happy scene. The moon was up. It always appeared larger and brighter on a hot summer’s night, particularly in Greece, and it shone now, illuminating the wavelets at the edge of the sea.

  Walking beyond the harbour so that she could stroll on the sandy beach at the other side, Penny passed wine bars, tavernas, and rustic cafés, all of them intermingled with larger establishments and supermarkets. Turning away from the busy, brightly lit road, she heard the sea before she saw it.

  She untied her sandals so that she could walk on the wet sand and let the water fall over her feet, then looked back at the harbour.

  Aris’s little fishing boat was there, but she hadn’t seen Dimitris since the morning, when she’d glimpsed him as he went into the Athena. As soon as she saw him, the Kalami trip was going to be the first thing she’d book. Even if she turned out to be the only passenger, she’d pay for the Antiopi for the day, throw caution to the winds, ready to spend more money than she normally would, and push away any reservations she might have about the journey, with potentially just her and Dimitris on board.

  Let me think about this and take a step back, she thought. Dimitris was mysterious, even a little remote, but every time she saw him, she felt a warmth that she couldn’t explain. She needed comfort, a physical presence, but wondered if endowing a man she barely knew with the attributes she want to see, to find, in a man was really a sensible idea. She knew next to nothing much about him. Their conversations had been short, perfunctory, casual. She needed him to be what she needed right now, but even as an object of desire, she couldn’t even commit herself to a little light flirting.

  ‘Penny?’

  She knew his voice before she turned around, wondering if her face was showing any trace of the fact that she’d just been thinking about him.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ He looked at the sea and then up at the moon. ‘When I’m out on the boat the stars are so bright, I can read the sky’

  ‘That must be wonderful, to steer by the stars,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I’ve seen you,’ she continued. ‘I want to make a firm booking for your yacht, for the trip to Kalami, if that’s still okay.’ She stepped out of the water to face him, felt the sand move between her toes, and took a snapshot in her head for her memory bank.

  ‘When would you like to go?’ He stood alongside her now as they both began to walk.

  ‘Well, I’m here for a while longer, but anytime that fits in with your fishing and your other passengers. There’s nothing I have to do on any particular day. Although sometimes I wonder if, even on holiday, that’s a blessing or a curse.’

  ‘You like a routine then?’ he asked.

  ‘Mostly, although as any of my friends will tell you, I can be forgetful, erratic, and a little flaky at times. Although I never miss a deadline – if a book needs to have the illustrations finished by a certain day or time, I’ll make sure it’s delivered.’

  As she finished, she realized she sounded like an advertisement, or worse, how she imagined a character synopsis for a dating website might read.


  ‘I see,’ he said, the tone of his voice giving nothing away. ‘I could take you the day after tomorrow, or is that too early?’ He stopped walking and looked at her. The truth was he wanted her to see the boat as soon as possible.

  ‘That would be great. I wanted the day at Kalami to be near the end of my stay here, but now I realize that doesn’t matter at all. Do you have some people already booked for that day?’

  ‘Just a couple. There may be more, but the Antiopi never feels crowded, so please don’t worry that it will spoil your trip if we’re at full capacity.’

  ‘I’m not worried at all. I can’t wait. Will we be able to stop at Kalami for long? Should I book a place for lunch now? I don’t want to be disappointed if it’s full when we get there.’ She bent to pick up a shell and cleared some of the sand from its corrugated surface, unaware that she was frowning a little, contemplating the thought of arriving at the White House to find the tables all occupied.

  ‘I can make the booking for you. Part of the service.’ Was he laughing at her? Amused by her practical, ‘beans in a row’ mentality?

  ‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’ she said.

  He was standing between her and the sea. Behind him the waves rose and fell in gentle motion. His outline dominated her view.

  Penny realized that her thoughts were taking over. This didn’t feel like when she met Bruce. This felt unreal, as though she wasn’t quite awake . . . and yet she’d never felt more in the moment in her life. All the common sense, all the reason and grown-up advice in the world couldn’t stop her feeling like she wanted to reach out and touch this man. Be held and feel his warmth, smell his skin.

  On impulse, so aware of his physical presence and intense gaze, she blurted out, ‘This trip really matters to me. I’ve imagined it ever since I was a teenager, when my dad gave me My Family and Other Animals. He died last year and it felt like the right time to visit.’ She paused, almost telling him about Bruce, but then thought better of it. Her words were just a diversionary tactic, a lifeline she was throwing herself to stop the ache that was becoming more intense by the second.

  ‘I was pulled here by the world of the Durrells, their lives and writing, the strength of their characters, their way of living, and their attitude to life, especially on Corfu. I wanted to be where they’d been and I think I hoped some of the feelings, the joy they found here, would help me, give me some answers – or a map; a guide to living well.’

  As she shared this, the sea flowed around their feet as though they were newly discovered islands. Dimitris turned away and then back, looking thoughtful and then grave, as though fighting a shadow that had fallen over him.

  ‘Did you know that you were going to lose your father? Did you have the chance to spend time with him before he died?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I did, but the finality of loss was still a shock.’

  He hesitated and then said: ‘It’s good that you could do that . . . be there, say the things you wanted to say.’

  ‘Yes, but however long we have with our parents, with those we love, it’s never enough. It’s never exactly how we imagine either. How can it be? The only time we really have is now, this moment, the one that’s just passed and a promise not to waste any of it, or wait for life to happen.’ Penny paused, looked across at the edge of the harbour they’d just reached, before she continued.

  ‘My dad used to say, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”’

  Dimitris seemed to be thinking out loud, talking to himself rather than Penny. ‘Death too; that happens when you’re so busy you don’t notice, when you’re so focused on your own life you don’t have room for the lives of others, even those who are precious to you.’

  Penny sensed pain in his words and thought carefully before answering. ‘Even when you know what’s coming, there’s still the fear of saying the wrong thing, or saying nothing at all and then regretting it. We make judgements every day and every choice is about making things as easy as we can for the person who’s leaving,’ she said quietly.

  They began to walk away from the sea, back towards the road and the Athena. Then as they drew close to the restaurant she said: ‘So, the day after tomorrow it is. Thanks, Dimitris. Tess asked me earlier if I was free for a drink, so I’d better get back. Though she might have changed her mind now.’

  He smiled and looked at his feet before confessing.

  ‘I was on my way there too, but then I saw you on the beach.’ He stopped, thinking on his feet, with no plan . . . no clever, pre-planned smooth talk. He’d reached a point where he wanted to be in her company and that was all that mattered. ‘Can I buy you a drink? It’s still early and I don’t think Tess will be finished for a while yet. It would be good to have more time to talk. I wanted to speak to you last night, when I saw you at the Rex. I just didn’t want to be rude to the people I’d arranged to meet.’

  She sat on the edge of the harbour wall and brushed the sand off her feet, then started to put her sandals back on, carefully wrapping the leather criss-crossed cords around her ankle and tying them in a bow.

  ‘That would be lovely,’ she said casually, but with a studied, controlled calmness.

  Emotions coursed through her, of a very different kind to the ones that had drained and dogged her, for what seemed like a very long time. Her heart pounded. Her face flushed. The hairs on her arms tingled and stood on end. She hoped none of these things were visible in the darkness.

  ‘Good. I’d like to hear more about you and what you do when you’re not on Corfu,’ he said.

  ‘Fine by me, but only if you promise to tell me more about Corfu, which, trust me, will be far more interesting.’

  As she stood up, she noticed Lily and Rich on the other side of the harbour. Lily seemed to be doing all the talking.

  The Athena was still busy. There seemed to be more children in the restaurant that evening and they were, in turn, dancing around the restaurant or falling asleep on their parents’ laps.

  Sitting at her little table Penny and Dimitris found themselves in the middle yet apart from the merriment around them. Tess had fetched their drinks and told Penny that she thought it might be far too late for a nightcap by the time she was free, so perhaps they could do it tomorrow. Penny suspected that this was more to do with leaving her free to spend time with Dimitris.

  ‘So, tell me Penny, what do you do when you’re not here?’ He opened the conversation, taking some of his wine. His hand rested on the table, cradling the glass.

  Before she answered she made him promise to stop her talking if she went on for more than a minute or two: ‘Because when I talk about painting, I don’t know when to stop’, she admitted.

  He had laughed at that and warned her not to ask him to talk about the Antiopi because, he confessed, she was the love of his life. ‘She costs me more money to keep at sea than I have ever spent on anything – or anyone – else. She has my heart.’

  They discovered that they both loved cinema and had found the end of Cinema Paradiso intensely moving and yes, the music did make the film. One of Dimitris’s favourite parts of Corfu was a small beach which you reached through an olive grove near Kassiopi.

  ‘I’d like to show you it before you go home, if you’re free,’ he’d said and she had smiled, excited at the thought, but also noted the ‘before you go home’ and reminded herself that this was all happening on holiday and that their time together was brief.

  As the Athena slowly began to empty and the carafe of wine on the table emptied, they both stood up, as Dimitris offered to walk with Penny down the lane. He would be up at 4 a.m. as tomorrow was a fishing day.

  They waved their goodnights to Tess and Nic and walked across the street. From the karaoke bar down the road the not-so-dulcet tones of someone singing ‘I will Always Love You’ pierced the air. They both laughed.

  ‘What would you sing? Do you sing?’ He teased her.

  ‘I don’t, but you first. What would you sing?’ s
he countered, with raised eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t sing either, so it wouldn’t really matter, as the results would be so bad people would leave.’

  ‘So, let’s make a pact never to do it.’ She held out her hand for him to shake it, which he did, but he didn’t let go.

  ‘That sounds fair,’ he answered. The look in his eyes was new. Questioning, but glowing with a warmth she hadn’t seen before.

  The effect it had on Penny was immediate and strong. They carried on walking, their hands still interlocked. As they reached the lemon trees halfway down the path she stopped and he turned to her.

  ‘I’m fine from here.’ The need to take back some control overwhelmed her. ‘I’ve had a lovely evening. Thank you. I can’t wait to–’

  But before she had the chance to finish the sentence, he had taken her head in his hands and was kissing her gently. It felt so natural to lift her head to meet his mouth.

  ‘I’ve had a lovely evening too,’ he said, releasing her and tracing his finger over her mouth with the gentlest movement. ‘So, 9 a.m. at the Old Port, the day after tomorrow. Will you be there?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there. I can’t wait.’ she replied and kissed him lightly on the mouth, then with a squeeze of his hand, she let him go and walked the few yards home, feeling more whole than she had for a long, long time.

  Minutes later, sitting on the single bed in her room, Penny glanced across at empty side of the bed that seemed to stare back at her accusingly. How easy it would have been to have invited him up . . . to spend the night together. Really? she thought, as she threw herself back on the bed. Easy?

  Nothing felt easy any more and she wondered when she had become so terrified of living.