The Boy Who Hugs Trees
Page 16
‘I’d heard from Theresa you were staying at the house. It’s nice to see you Georgia. The news of your mother’s passing was a shock to us all. She was a good friend.’ Pandelios bows his head and crosses himself solemnly.
‘She loved coming here, the house, the village; they were all special to her. She always regretted that she didn’t come more often.’
Georgia remembers this was her mother’s favourite place to eat. It reminds her of the summers they spent at the house. She feels an effervescence run through her body.
Pandelios shrugs. ‘That is life, getting in the way of the things we enjoy.’
‘This is Adam; he is giving school lessons to Dylan.’
Pandelios shakes Adam by the hand. ‘Ah, the teacher, I’ve seen you at the Kafenion. Father Nikolaos speaks highly of you but not of your chess.’ Pandelios grins and Adam shakes his head, enjoying the old man’s humour.
‘What will you have?’ Pandelios asks, licking the lead of his pencil before it is poised to take their order.
‘Two coffees, two bottles of water and… I think I’ll have a Baklava.’
‘Your favourite.’ Pandelios smiles.
‘You remembered.’
‘How could I forget? It’s all you ever asked for, but you had to promise your mother you would eat all your main course first.’
By his expression, Georgia realises Adam hasn’t a clue what they are speaking about.
‘A Baklava is a dessert. I love it. It’s crisp pastry layered with a filling of walnuts and drenched in aromatic honey syrup.’
‘One or two? ’
‘We’ll share. Could you bring two forks?’
‘Share! Georgia! Your mother had to always steal a piece.’ Pandelios shakes his head in amusement.
‘My daughter, Christina is getting married next Saturday.’
‘That’s wonderful. How old is she now?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Gosh, it’s incredible how time flies, she’s a woman already. I still remember her as a young girl. I’ve not seen her for years.’
‘It would please me if you came to the reception; we are having it in the square after the church service.’
‘But that’s just for family and friends.’
‘You are the daughter of Emily, which makes you family. Bring your husband and Dylan. Adam, you come too. Theresa will be there also.’
‘Well, if you’re sure, I’d be delighted.’
‘Good, that’s settled then.’ Pandelios turns to head towards the counter where a young woman is cleaning glasses.
That morning, Dylan awoke with a pasty face and a film of perspiration over his body. He complained that his arms and legs were sore and returned to bed. Georgia made him drink a glass of water and tucked him into bed. It was a Saturday, so there were no lessons. Georgia had planned to pack a lunch and take Dylan to the beach. She had been looking forward to it, but now turned her attention to domestic matters.
When Theresa arrived at the house, she insisted she would watch Dylan and encouraged Georgia to take time to herself, there was nothing she could do that would change how Dylan was feeling and he had slept most of the morning, anyway. Georgia accepted Theresa’s offer.
She met Adam as he finished his game of chess with Nikolaos. Adam saw Georgia walking towards the Kafenion and joined her, accepting her invitation of a coffee.
As they walked, a smile twitched at Georgia’s lips. ‘Don’t worry; we’ve been the topic of conversation since the day you arrived. Let’s give the chattering classes something else to talk about.’
Pandelios arrives with their coffee and pastry. ‘Kali Orexi.’ He smiles and shuffles towards another table.
Adam wonders why the old man continues to work at his age. Pandelios’ face lights up; enervated by an explanation or a set of directions he has just given, as he chats to a family. Adam overhears they are staying at a hotel in Paleokastritsa.
Pandelios is active, his mind is alert, he converses with his customers, his life has meaning. In fact, that’s it, Adam decides; he probably feels liberated from old age by the life he leads. Adam smiles as he feels Georgia watching him.
‘Have you any plans for the rest of the day?’ Georgia asks.
‘No, not really. I thought I might go for a walk later on.’
‘I was on my way to the beach for a swim, I love the sea compared to our pool; it’s too restrictive. The beach is never busy, tucked away and hidden, that’s why I like it. Would you like to join me?’
‘I’d like that, sure.’
He smiles to himself; a euphoria of joy tickles his stomach, he feels a desperate elation. Her presence strains his capacity for self-control. He wants to subside to the urge of tracing every part of her delicate skin; it seems a natural response that delights him with its possibilities. The intelligent side of him errs on the side of caution but he can’t drag his eyes from her.
Georgia reaches into her leather lattice bag and retrieves her purse. ‘I’ll pay for these. My treat.’
The thought of being rational could easily evaporate from him. He knows she has not reciprocated in words or gestures the way he feels about her, but that is not to say she does not harbour a purity of feeling for him, beyond mere friendship. Something is developing, he is sure of it. There is a palpable acceptance on her part that Adam is now more than just the employee hired for the purpose of teaching her son. Would he jeopardise that? What if he kissed her, would she yield to him, be embarrassed, or worse still, recoil in shock and find him weak and vulgar? The loss of dignity would be inflicted upon them both. The thought is insufferable. He could not put her through that. Yet, he is constantly in a state of riotous passion, absorbing her every detail. He draws his breath in tightly, to deny his desire is to deny who he is. For now, he exists in a moral no man’s land.
The heat is intense and subsiding occasionally by a tepid breeze that seems to evaporate too soon on the sizzling sand. The only means of cooling off is to swim or lie where the sea meets the sand. The beach is sparsely populated and sits in a bay sheltered by wooded hills and terraced groves.
Adam is sitting on a towel, watching Georgia. They have bought a bottle of wine and drink it from polystyrene cups. Her inhibitions are melting, he tells himself, as she steps out of her shorts and unbuttons her blouse, revealing a bathing costume. She has climbed onto a large rock where she stands poised. She bends her knees and then with a spring, she dives, like an arrow and enters the sea. Adam is impressed by how majestic and seamless the dive looks, but then the sensation fades as Georgia doesn’t surface as he expects. His eyes widen, he leans forward and cranes his neck, casting worried glances over the calm surface. Just as he is about to get to his feet, Georgia emerges a considerable distance from where she entered the water. Her hair is flat against her head, shining in the sun and she is smiling broadly.
‘Come on in Adam, it's lovely and warm.’
Adam gestures towards his shorts and shrugs.
‘They’ll dry in no time,’ Georgia says reassuringly.
He is warm and the thought of cooling off is tempting.
‘Ok then, but I’m just coming in as far as my knees.’
He draws his t-shirt over his head and walks to meet the sea, the sand hot underfoot. Consciously, he pulls his stomach in.
The surf ripples softly and reminds Adam of the contours of a tortoise shell; flecks of sunlight, snow white in the pellucid surf, dance around his feet. The water is just below his knees and swells against him dampening his shorts. He cups water and lets it fall between his fingers. Georgia has slipped under the surface and emerges a few feet from him. A sense of wanting to be near her flushes him in anticipatory pleasure, pushing him into a dive, and he is submerged into the warm water.
‘See, I told you it was warm,’ she says, with a grin.
‘It’s like a bath,’ Adam says.
Georgia moves a piece of hair from her face. It is the first time Adam has seen her like this, as if she has just
stepped from the shower. As he draws near her, his hand brushes her arm. It is not deliberate, but it sends an accomplished feeling through him. He wonders if Georgia feels the same.
‘That was an amazing dive.’
‘I use to do competitions when I was younger; I stopped when I was fifteen, but it’s like riding a bike, the skill never leaves you.’
‘How do you stay underwater for so long?’
‘I hold my breath,’ she says, grinning sarcastically.
They are the only bodies in the water. The beach, too, is almost deserted, apart from a couple and a family of four, the mother reading a novel while the father helps his two children, a boy and a girl, build sand castles and a network of roads in the sand with plastic spades and buckets.
From the water, the bay looks different; the tree covered hills seem magnified and stretch into the distance, touching the sky, a blue so intense, sharp and crystal that Adam feels he is looking at it for the first time.
Once they dry themselves with towels, Georgia slips into her shorts and applies sun cream to herself.
‘You haven’t always been a mother. What did you do before you were married?’ Adam asks.
‘I was a lawyer.’
‘Really?’
‘Does that surprise you?’ She takes a drink of wine.
‘No, not at all.’
‘I worked for a law firm in Edinburgh, specialising in property deals, real estate, that kind of thing.’
‘When you interviewed me, you had a professional air about you. I can see now that was your professional side. You didn’t come over as being a mother if I’m to be honest. Don’t take that the wrong way. What I mean is, it was like a real job interview.’
‘My background helped. I slotted into the role quite easily.’
‘You did.’
‘I wasn’t too harsh I hope. Did I come over as being clinical, uncaring?’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Good, it was quite nerve racking. It’s different when it’s your job; you have an identity, a professional role, there’s not that personal bond involved.’
‘Is that how you met Stephen, through work? ’ Stephen would be furious if he knew about this: the coffee, the beach and the swim, Adam thinks.
She nods. ‘It was. He was a client. I worked for him in London, several contracts,’ she pauses. Adam notices she doesn’t say his name.
‘He offered me a job. I was based in Edinburgh and he had a place in London. When we married, I went part time and when Dylan was born, I just did enough to keep myself up to date and registered. Then, when I realised Dylan had his difficulties, I gave him all my time. I couldn’t work, anyway. I wanted to give him the best I could. By the way, being a full-time mum is the hardest job in the world.’
She thinks of her own mother, and the diary, and imagines, what it must have been like bringing up a child on her own. Sometimes Georgia feels like a single mother, Stephen is always away on business. She wonders if it affects Dylan.
‘I found a diary in the attic the other day,’ Georgia informs Adam.
‘That sounds exciting, whose was it?’
‘My mum’s. She wrote it in the early seventies when she stayed here in Corfu with my dad. I’ve not read it all, but it’s really detailed and personal.’
‘That must feel weird, but good at the same time.’
‘It’s strange. I’m intrigued to find out what she’s written, but I’m conscious I’m prying into something that’s personal, that wasn’t meant to be read.’
She sighs. ‘It’s not just that. It’s stirred a lot of things from the past… when she died. I kept a memory box, jewellery, a bracelet, a brooch, that kind of thing. I’ve got her reading glasses as well. If they were not on her head, she was always walking about with them in her hand. They were forever being waved in the air when she spoke, like a conductor’s baton.’
There is a hint of reticence visible and then Georgia gives a small resigned smile. ‘I miss her terribly. It’s been thirteen years; it feels like thirteen weeks. I wish I’d given her more of my time. I regret that now. It eats away at me. I remember the important things. It’s the small mundane details I’ve forgotten or didn’t even notice. It catches me, like a cramp. There’s still times when I wonder what mum would have thought about this or that, just silly things. I wish I could ask her, just listen to her voice once again. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.’
‘It’s ok, I don’t mind. It sounds as if you need to talk about it.’
Georgia nods. ‘Yes, It still helps… to talk about her. I feel quite comfortable talking like this with you. I don’t know why. You’ve grown on me, Adam.’
His eyes linger on her longer than they should.
‘I’ve thought about this and on the surface, it probably seems obvious, but there’s a deeper current to it and it bothers me. What I’ve learnt, and to my own cost, is that the time we share with those we love is a gift, it’s precious, yet it slips from us unnoticed and we can’t stop it; it has a life of its own. If I’d known that my mother’s death was imminent, that we were hurtling towards our last days together, then every second, every tiny detail would be logged in my head, encased in my memory.’ She taps her head with a finger.
‘Instead, those little details have melted from me. Nothing is permanent, time doesn’t stop. Don’t you think time distances you from people? When Mum died, I thought about her every day, but now it’s different; she feels distant from me and I feel this incredible guilt.’ Georgia looks away. ‘My memories of her are not just the images I have in my mind… they evoke profound emotions, and the trouble is, I’m left with the guilt. I feel I didn’t do enough for her. She suffered so much and kept it to herself until that suffering became physically visible and the choice was taken from her. There are things I should have said.’ Her words make her feel ashamed. A silence follows.
‘She said she didn’t want to worry me, burden me, or as she put it, “infest my every thought with her cancer.” She once said, it was like a computer virus, once planted in your conscience, it spreads, and there’s not a second of every day that its presence isn’t felt, it hijacks every thought and decision. She didn’t want me to go through that; she wanted to delay it for as long as she could.’
‘She was just protecting you. It was her instinct. She was your mother, Georgia.’
Tears well up and glisten in Georgia’s eyes. She rubs them away. ‘God, I didn’t realise I felt so emotional, I’m sorry, I’m being stupid.’
‘No, you’re not; you’ll only start to feel better if you talk about it. Call it D.I.Y. therapy; it's good counselling, part of the healing process. Think of it as going on a journey, but one you don’t have to experience on your own, it can be shared. You have to travel along that road before you can reach the end, a conclusion.’
‘And what would my conclusion be?’
‘Acceptance.’
She recoils a little. ‘Will you travel with me… on my journey?’
‘For as long as you want me to.’
Georgia reaches out touching Adam’s hand. ‘Thank you.’
He wasn’t expecting the physical contact, her hand is warm. He takes a deep breath.
‘I use to dream about my dad, not a lot now. They were recurring dreams. Some were different, but he’s always alive and, in my dream, I know he should be dead, and it’s like he came back to visit me. In each one, I hug him as tight as I can, and he cups my face in his hands and kisses my forehead and whispers, “Love you to your bones.”
‘It was something he never did when he was alive. He wasn’t that kind of man, he didn’t do emotion. And then there were other dreams where the roles reversed and it was me who held his face and whispered “Love you to your bones.”
‘That kind of affection never passed between us. I often thought he was emotionally barren as a parent when I looked back to when I was younger. He was cold. There’s a phrase, ‘refrigerator parenting’ that describes him to a tee
. I didn’t really know him; I feared him in a strange way. Maybe those dreams helped me come to terms with the guilt that always seemed to be teetering on the edge. I was carrying it about, like a jacket I wore every day. I think in some way, subconsciously, I was trying to atone for all the things I’d never said to him when he was alive; I was breaking down the emotional barriers that were always there between us. Life’s too short to have regrets Georgia.’
‘Since we’re both being honest with each other, apart from your father, what regrets do you have Adam?’
‘I’ve had some.’ No words pass between them for what seems like an eternity. Georgia worries that she may have upset him.
‘I was married,’ Adam says, eventually. Georgia looks at Adam as if he has just revealed some great secret.
‘I wondered about that when we first met. It crossed my mind during the interview when you said you weren’t married and I thought, does he mean, not now or has never been, but obviously it would’ve been wholly inappropriate to ask.’
Adam thinks back to the interview. That Georgia is someone from a different time, not this woman in front of him that he has grown more than fond of.
‘If you don’t mind me asking, what’s her name?
‘Katherine.’
‘Were you married long?’
Should he tell her? He suddenly feels cold, an unnatural feeling in the heat.
‘We were; five years in fact.’
‘Where did you meet? How did you meet?’ Georgia says, enthusiastically. She smiles vivaciously. She’s starting to feel tipsy, that initial numbness that frees inhabitation.
‘We were both at the same university. I literally bumped into her.’ He remembers with a smile.
Georgia registers affection in his tone. ‘Do you still love her?’