by Mandy Baggot
She looked at Mark then. His eyes were closed and he was slumped sideways in his seat. Alcohol and tiredness had obviously taken over.
‘She needs guidance, Ellie. I thought she might ‘ave got that from you but ...’
‘I’m not her mother.’
She’d blasted out the words far too loudly and regretted it immediately.
For a second, Al looked wounded. The usual reddened glow to his cheeks dulled and he sucked his lips into his mouth like they’d just been tainted by a lemon.
‘I’m well aware of that, Ellie.’
‘Are you?’
What was the matter with her? She really needed to shut her mouth and stop talking, before this became a lot more about her than about Lacey.
‘I think you’ve ‘ad too much to drink.’
‘Why? Because I’m speaking the truth?’ Ellen could feel her expression getting harder.
Al shook his head and averted his eyes. He was dismissing her. He didn’t like what she had to say so he was trying to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t happening.
‘It wasn’t my job to bring Lacey up. But you made it that way.’ She was almost panting now, her body working itself up into a frenzy. ‘I’ve done what I can for so many years, years when I was learning how to do things myself.’ She sighed. ‘She’s not a child any more, she’s a young woman. She’s able to think for herself and know what she wants.’
‘She’s not like you, Ellie.’
Al’s voice was pitched a little lower, his tone a little bit kinder. Was that pride she could detect there? Pride in the way she had turned out? He wouldn’t be so proud if he found out what had happened back home.
‘No, because she’s her own person. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ Ellen sighed. ‘She’s not a little girl anymore, Dad.’
She saw the shift in Al’s body. He deflated before her eyes, dropping his chin to his chest, his shoulders rolling forward. His grief for his failings was evident. He’d lost one wife, the other had left him and he’d had to bring up two daughters on his own. He’d struggled, was still struggling. Life was no longer Irish stew out of a tin and the television as a babysitter, but even after all these years, emotionally he was no further forward.
‘You can’t keep putting out your arms to catch her. She has to learn to take the fall.’
Al looked up. ‘Like when she rolled all the way down the ‘ill at Old Sarum when she was four.’
‘She got up, covered in bramble scratches and screamed about her ice cream.’ Ellen smiled, remembering.
‘Bit different when it’s a weddin’ though,’ Al mused.
‘But it is her wedding, Dad. If she isn’t ready, she isn’t ready. You can’t force her to go through with it just because you think Mark will look after her.’
He nodded, gave a hearty sniff and plucked a paper napkin from the holder on the table.
‘She’s really not ready to get married. I believe she cares for Mark but she’s still young. She has her whole life ahead of her and she doesn’t have to make plans yet.’
Ellen could hardly believe she’d said that. Just a few short months ago making plans was all she’d done. She’d had a career timeline and a five year plan.
Mark gave a snort. His head jerked upwards and he opened his eyes as he came back to consciousness.
‘I’m going to leave you to it,’ Ellen said, standing up.
‘You be all right getting back to your room?’ Al asked her.
‘Yes, Dad.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve never been the one you have to worry about.’ The words resonated but she held on hard to the expression.
* * *
Yan saw Ellen stand, pick up her bag and get ready to leave. She was going somewhere without her family when she had said she would not be able to see him.
‘We have more drinks. You get for us, Yan,’ Dasha said, placing a firm hand on his arm.
He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted to see her, to be with her. She was weaving her away through the tables, heading towards the steps that led back to her suite.
Yan diverted his eyes. Monica was sitting a few tables away from him. She’d latched herself onto a family who had arrived that day. She was talking animatedly but looking to him every now and then, most likely to check he hadn’t run away. In truth, that’s exactly what he had always planned. He stood up.
‘More ouzo, Yan,’ Sergei said.
He left the table but didn’t head for the bar.
* * *
Ellen was so tired and, as she left her dad and Mark, her thoughts turned to Yan. Had he really arranged to meet Monica for a night full of goodness-knows-what?
She stood on the last step before the path to her room and took in the view. The mountains of Albania were nothing more than shadowy outlines pin-pricked with twinkling lights. She could hear the sea, waves breaking. A paradise, a retreat, for anyone relaxed enough to enjoy it.
‘Ellen.’
Yan’s voice coming out of the darkness sent a shiver over her body. She turned towards the sound and there he was, his hands in the pockets of his black jeans, a white t-shirt hugging his torso. All traces of glitter and sparkles were gone from his body.
‘I know you say you need to be with family but …’ he started.
‘I’m really tired. I need to go to bed.’ She tried to keep her voice level but failed.
‘You are mad with me?’
He sounded confused. She should just ask him outright but she wasn’t sure she could take the answer.
‘I just need some sleep. It’s been a bit of a hectic day,’ she said.
‘What is hectic?’
She wished she’d chosen ‘busy’.
She let out a sigh. ‘Are you going to sleep with Monica?’
There it was, out in the open, blunt and to the point, the sort of accusation that couldn’t be ignored.
Yan started shaking his head but no words came from his mouth. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
* * *
He felt sick. Everything was shrinking inside of him. Each single word she’d said was stinging like a mosquito bite. Because he had thought about it. Really thought about it, just for a second.
‘I think your silence says everything I need to know,’ Ellen jumped in. She turned to go and the thought of her leaving like this made him act.
‘No,’ he grabbed her arm. ‘I do not do this.’
‘Six hundred euros. Ring any bells?’
He shook his head again. Monica had spoken to her. Ellen had heard it from the woman herself, who was clearly still holding on to the hope that he would change his mind. In the end, he had said no, but he’d deliberately left her with enough hope that he might change his mind just to get her out of the dressing room.
How could he put this right? How could he make her see?
‘So she didn’t offer you six hundred euros for a night of passion and you didn’t say yes?’
The way Ellen was saying it made it sound like the worst crime imaginable. And it was, here it was. Because he cared for Ellen, truly cared and he didn’t want her to think this of him.
‘I do not say yes. I tell her no.’ He held onto Ellen’s arm, his fingers smoothing the skin. ‘For a very small time I think of this. For the church, for a new life …’
‘You thought about it?’
He saw horror coat her features and his stomach turned. Hearing the tone of her voice now, seeing her reaction, how could he have even thought about it? And how could he have just told her that truth? Because he was an honest person, because the truth was everything. Perhaps she would never have known how close he had come to accepting Monica’s offer, but he would have known and that wasn’t right.
Yan nodded. ‘I have done things I wish to not do again, to survive in life. I am not from your country. We have not the same troubles. I work very hard but sometime working hard, it is not enough.’
The disappointment lay in every inch of Ellen’s expression. He knew that to even think of giving in to Moni
ca was wrong, but Ellen didn’t understand. She had never been in this position. Without hope, without money. She was at an all-inclusive resort on holiday with her good job and her comfortable life to go back to.
‘Why would you do that?’ The words were choked up with emotion and they beat into his heart.
‘I did not do this,’ he reminded.
‘Is money everything to you? Is that what your dream is about? To achieve it as quickly as possible, even if you have to sell yourself to someone?’
‘No, this is not it.’ Yan let go of her arm and put his hands to his head. ‘Why I do not do this … is for you.’
* * *
Ellen caught the emotion in his voice but it felt different. Wrong. What was he saying? Had he turned down the money and Monica because he knew it was wrong or because he knew she would think it was wrong? There was a world of difference between the two.
‘Ellen, it is because I care for you. You come here and show me so much.’
She tightened her core. She would not let his declarations affect her. All he really cared about was himself and his plans for the after-school club. He didn’t care for her. He barely knew her.
‘I warned Lacey about falling for the patter of foreign men the second she started going doe-eyed over Sergei.’ She shook her head. ‘I should have listened to my own advice. Instead I played right into your hands.’
‘I do not understand all of what you say.’
‘I have no money to offer you, Yan. Nothing. So if it’s funding for your project you want, then Monica is the best bet.’
She was going to cry. Despite her valiant attempts to not show emotion she was falling apart on the inside and it was leaking out of every tan line.
‘I do not want your money.’
‘That’s what they all say at the beginning. They take an interest in you even when you’re not looking for anything to happen. They pursue you, they woo you, they don’t stop until you give in and then, when you think you know them, when you think this isn’t maybe a burning passion like the films but something solid, something reliable, they pull the rug out from under you, destroy everything, take it all.’
She knew she was ranting but she couldn’t stop. The tears were rolling, falling out of her eyes and starting to track down her cheeks. This wasn’t just about Yan. This was Ross too. What she had let him do, how he had hurt and betrayed her trust in such a terrible way.
‘I do not do this to you,’ Yan spoke.
‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand that? How could it matter when in a couple of days we’ll never see each other again?’
‘I do not want for this.’
‘What?’ She sniffed.
‘I do not want not to see you again,’ he responded.
‘You don’t care about me. I have no money, didn’t you hear that? I have nothing for you!’
Ellen burst into tears and he held on to her, took her arms and braced her as she cried. She didn’t want the bubble to burst but it well and truly had.
‘I know I am not good for you. You are clever lady and all I do is dance.’
His hands were holding on so tight but his voice was soft, washing over her senses, calming, soothing. She swallowed. She shouldn’t listen. She’d listened to Ross against every instinct she had and look what had happened there.
‘I have never tell anyone about …’ He paused. ‘I never tell anyone about … my brother. About Boyan.’
* * *
Yan needed her to know that she wasn’t just a holidaymaker to him. What they were sharing, physically and emotionally, was as real as it got. It was more real to him than anything he’d ever had before.
‘What?’ The word was a vague whisper on her lips, barely a sound at all.
He took a deep breath. There was so much else he hadn’t told her but telling her about Boyan was more than he had shared with most. It meant something to let that out and share it with her, even if at the time he had brushed over it like it barely registered. It was important. Boyan’s memory was the part of him that kept him driven, gave him strength, urged him on.
‘I share this with you …’ He didn’t know how to explain himself. ‘Of who I am.’
He struggled over the words but hoped the sentiment had been conveyed.
‘I thought I was getting to know who you were but after this …’ Ellen began.
He couldn’t believe this was happening. He was going to lose her here, now, not in two days when he was prepared for it. He had been wrong to trust again, stupid to believe someone could think something of him. She believed what a sex-crazed rich woman had told her. Money doing the talking yet again.
She shook her head and pulled her arms free from his grasp.
‘No,’ he stated roughly. ‘You do not do this.’
‘I’m going back to my room,’ Ellen stated. She started to walk.
‘Yes, go!’ he shouted. ‘You go, Ellen. You go back to where you hide.’
* * *
Ellen stopped moving and turned to face him again. His hands were by his sides, his eyes directed at her, lips formed in a tight line. Did he understand what he had said to her?
‘You judge me very first time that we meet,’ he said. ‘You look at me now and you judge again. What about you?’ he asked. ‘You do not tell me anything of yourself.’
‘What?’ For a second she didn’t think she’d heard correctly.
‘You tell me nothing,’ he repeated.
‘That’s not true,’ Ellen started. ‘You know about my job and you know about my sister.’ She took a breath. ‘You know my mother is dead and my father is here making a drama out of everything.’
She was struggling to think of other things she’d told him. She must have told him something else.
‘You tell me your mother is dead but you do not tell me how this make you feel,’ he bit back. ‘You read books and you work, why do you do these things? What are the things to make you laugh?’ His voice was low and level. ‘What are the things to make you sad?’ He let out a sigh. ‘I tell you all of my dream. What of yours?’
Ellen swallowed. Her dream. Her completely shattered dream of being her own boss and running her own firm. She couldn’t give him details without sharing the very worst things she’d done in her life.
‘I don’t have any dreams,’ she stated.
He nodded, like he was resigned to her answer, like he had almost been expecting it. ‘Then I judge you.’ He sighed. ‘I judge you do not trust enough to tell me.’
‘No, I …’ she started.
‘Goodnight, Ellen.’ He turned then and walked away.
37
Yan watched the barman pour another large measure of Metaxa into his glass. He was alone, sitting outside at the only bar in Agios Spyridon other than Bo’s. A left turn out of the hotel gate, past the beach and it was there, just hidden behind a cluster of lemon trees. The citrus fragrance, the buzz of the gnats and the ocean lapping at the shore were the only things piercing the dark of the night.
He didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to throw the glass at the wall of the bar and watch it smash, the other half wanted to cradle it to his chest and sob. He should never have got involved with a resident. He knew that. Why had he broken the rules? Why had he risked not only his job but his heart again? He had made promises to himself to go things alone, to concentrate on building his better life, away from Bulgaria, to mark out a different future.
But perhaps it was impossible. Maybe, after the summer season, he should just go back to Sofia and live as he had done before Rayna. Bar work, casual labour on construction sites, the meat factory, places that didn’t ask too many questions.
He raised the glass to his mouth and took a swig of the liquid. He didn’t want return to that. He couldn’t even stand the thought of it. The ugliness of the city, the threat of men like Gavril Danchev. Life had to mean more.
Something invaded his line of sight and he turned his head just slightly. Ellen. He swallowed, turn
ing back to the bar. What was she doing here? There was nothing left to say.
* * *
This was the very last place Ellen had looked. He’d told her before there was nothing but the lagoon and the mountains once you got past this bar. For a brief second she’d worried he might have thought again about spending the night with Monica. But she’d known in her heart that he wouldn’t. And now here he was, sitting at the bar, a glass in his hand, his body turned away from her.
Despite the humidity of the night, she was shaking. What she was about to do was going to alter everything. She took a tentative step forward, forcing her body to move.
She wasn’t sure whether he had seen her approach, but if he had, he wasn’t making any reaction to it. Perhaps she was too late. Maybe she should have swallowed her stupid pride and said something sooner.
She arrived at his side and took a breath. ‘Yan.’
The sea breeze blew her hair and she shivered against it. Yan remained stoic.
She tried a second time. ‘Yan.’
This time he turned, slowly tilting his body around on the stool until he was facing her. Those perfect blue eyes looked jaded, lacking in light, showing nothing of their usual vibrancy.
‘Can we talk?’ she asked, her voice disjointed over the words.
‘What is there to talk about?’
His reply was bordering on cold but it was scorching her insides. She had to make this right.
‘Please, Yan.’
She was quaking now, nervously threading her fingers together, waiting, hoping for something. After what felt like an age, he slipped down from the bar stool, moving past her towards the beach. She hurried to follow.
‘Listen, you were honest with me about Monica and I should have accepted that better. You didn’t have to tell me that you’d thought of …’ She paused as she tried to take longer strides to keep up with his pace. ‘You’d thought of taking the money. You could have lied to me or worse still, gone through with it. But you didn’t do either of those things.’ She wet her lips. This wasn’t coming out as well as she’d hoped.