by Mandy Baggot
‘Just a second.’
Slowly, little by little, piece by piece, the image started to appear. Gone was the cheeky blackberry behind the curtain, nowhere to be seen was the animated wine bottle or any of the other images she had put forward for approval. In front of her eyes was nothing that resembled a blackberry at all. In front of her were two indistinguishable fruits and foliage that resembled a penis.
‘Fuck!’
Sonya jumped, knocking an ashtray off the table and on to the floor.
‘Fuck it!’ Tess got to her feet, her whole body flooding with heat. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. What were the clients thinking? What was Russell thinking? Did no one see that this didn’t look like the avatar of an exclusive wine bar-cum-brasserie establishment but a lap-dancing club? Was it just her who saw a penis and a pair of balls, not shrubbery and fruit?
‘What’s wrong?’ Sonya asked. ‘Is it Rachel? Or your parents?’
Tess put the screen towards her friend. ‘Tell me what you see here!’
Sonya squinted, looking at the graphic. ‘I see some … are they grapes?’
‘Allegedly blackberries,’ Tess stated.
‘And is that a banana?’ Sonya added, looking closer.
‘See! I knew it!’ Tess exclaimed, almost triumphant.
‘What is it?’ Sonya asked.
‘A disaster! That’s what it is!’ She looked to her friend. ‘What do I do?’
‘Is this the new client?’ Sonya asked. ‘The chain of wine bars?’
‘Yes! Currently being represented by bits of a man’s anatomy.’
‘I take it that wasn’t the look they were going for.’
‘I need to call Russell.’ Tess started to pace backwards and forwards over the flagstone floor before tapping the screen of her phone.
‘Tess, it’s six o’clock in the morning in England.’
Was it? Instinctively she checked her watch. Sonya was right. There would be no one there and Russell had never answered his mobile before eight on the occasions she had had to avert near-crisis before.
‘Coffee.’
Andras was back. He placed a wooden tray on the table and took off two rather nice contemporary white mugs, setting one in front of Sonya and the other in the space where Tess wasn’t yet sitting. She watched him pour the coffee and push the jug of cream towards her friend. She couldn’t concentrate. All she could see were blackberries that weren’t bloody blackberries.
‘Thank you,’ Sonya said.
What was she going to do? What the fuck was she going to do?
‘You would prefer Coke with three sugars?’
Tess looked up at Andras then. A Dr Pepper substitute was exactly what she needed and somehow her fake boyfriend knew it. She nodded her head and sank down onto the chair. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Parakalo,’ he replied, backing away.
Sonya put a hand over Tess’s and inched her iPhone out of her grip. ‘Wi-Fi is overrated.’
Tess stretched out her pinkie, determined to reconnect with the device.
‘Uh-uh,’ Sonya said, taking a firm hold of the phone. ‘Drinks and a boat tour with our guide man.’ She waggled a finger. ‘No worrying about blackberries. Say, “Yes, Sonya.”’
Tess swallowed. ‘Yes.’ She breathed out, hard and heavy. She felt sick to the stomach but, right now, at 8 a.m. in Greece, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
Nineteen
‘Take off your shoes!’
Tess stopped walking. She had picked her way across the stones and sand, but thankfully the wedges she was wearing weren’t grinding her feet as much as last night’s choice of footwear. She looked across at the boat – a small cream and navy-blue affair that looked like something out of a Bond movie. It was bobbing gently on the water with Sonya already aboard, her friend sitting down on one of the cream-cushioned seating areas and applying suncream. Andras, meanwhile, was standing barefoot on the bow, jeans and a chest-hugging white T-shirt over the rest of him. Earlier, over a coffee and a well-sugared Coke, Tess and Sonya had watched him strip down to trunks smaller than those worn by an Olympic swimmer and dive into the ocean, soaking his olive-skinned body in the surf, before towelling himself dry. It had been like a manly version of burlesque, if there was such a thing.
‘What are you doing?’ Andras called again. ‘Come into the water! Take off your shoes!’
Tess eyed up the shelving beach ahead of her. It wasn’t far, just ten metres or so. She put one foot forward, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker. Why couldn’t he have just tied the boat to the pontoon-thingy instead of dropping the anchor and expecting them to wade to the vessel?
‘Tess! Take off your shoes, parakalo!’
She looked down at her feet, encased in the gold leather straps, safe from the earth she was standing on, untouched by anything. She couldn’t remove them.
There was a crunching sound and she raised her head to see Andras powering up the beach towards her. She struggled forward, one foot then the other, wobbling quickly like she was strutting on a catwalk of hot coals.
‘There is no time for this,’ he stated as he reached her.
‘I’m coming. I just need to—’
The rest of her sentence was lost in the air as Andras swept her up into his arms, again turning to the sea and making his way across the beach, taking her with him.
‘Put me down!’ Tess squealed, kicking her legs.
‘I will,’ he answered. ‘On the boat.’
‘I can walk!’
‘At the speed of a tortoise.’ That reminded him of Hector. He really needed to find a permanent home for the animal. Somewhere that didn’t consider his presence a curse and wasn’t going to make him the prime ingredient of a stew.
‘I’m on holiday,’ Tess remarked. ‘People shouldn’t be rushed on holiday.’ She continued to fight in his arms. ‘Greek time, like you said.’
He had to give her that comment. They reached the boat and he lifted her up until she finally wriggled free from his arms and clambered aboard. He watched her step from seat to floor, her hands brushing down her expensive-looking dress, handbag swinging from her shoulder.
‘You are OK?’ he asked her.
‘Somehow I’m covered in sand,’ she replied.
He smiled. ‘Life is a beach.’ He set about pulling up the anchor.
‘I hope you remember I’m doing you a favour here,’ Tess stated, plumping down next to Sonya.
‘And I am returning this by being your … what did you call this?’
‘A guide man,’ Sonya stated. ‘Like they have in Barbados.’
He watched Tess fold her arms across her chest. ‘This had better be good.’
He started the engine of the boat. ‘This is Corfu,’ he declared over the noise. ‘Everything is good.’ Apart from his life, which was beginning to resemble a Greek tragedy. Still, perhaps a day out on the water would give him some perspective.
Sonya and her Marco Polo map had made suggestions of where to go before they set sail until Andras talked about tides. Apparently, it would be better to head south towards Nissaki and Barbati now, then take a slower cruise back up the coast for the other stops Sonya wanted. And now, as they planed over the ocean, Tess couldn’t keep her eyes off the landscape.
Corfu wasn’t just good like Andras had said, it was beautiful, from each and every angle. From the sparkling ocean they were speeding across, to the rugged, shrubbery-infused rocks that towered up towards the cloudless sky. There was a new view every second. Villas poked their brick-and-glass frontages out of rocky crevices hanging over the sea and small cottages sat dotted amid lush olive groves. Why had she never considered visiting Greece before? She swallowed. Because ever since Adam she hadn’t considered anything except doing exactly what he had done – running away – from everything in her life except work. And work was not her happy place at the moment. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sunny, salty air.
‘Mmm, these crisps ar
e good,’ Sonya announced over the roar of the engine, spray splashing over the sides of the motorboat and hitting the bag of snacks she was holding on to. ‘Oregano. Who would have thought of oregano crisps?’ Sonya shook the bag at Tess. ‘Have some. Try them.’
‘I’m fine,’ Tess answered. She raised her voice a notch. ‘How far is it?’ she called to Andras.
‘How far is what?’ he called back over his shoulder.
She sighed. It wasn’t just the external scenery she had been admiring. Skippering the boat had meant Andras was stood in front of them at the helm, those tight glutes beneath the denim, not to mention the muscular forearms directing the wheel. She didn’t want to be his fake girlfriend for a week, she wanted to have him – literally – not just a snog when his mother was looking. If it hadn’t been for Sonya’s stupid single pledge she could be moulding her hands to that sweet ass and posting their picture on Insta. How ironic was this situation?
‘How long until we stop?’ she called again.
The engine noise lessened slightly and the boat came down from riding the crest of the waves and fell into a more sedate pace across the water.
‘We do not have to go so fast,’ Andras told them. ‘We will soon be there.’
Sonya stared at her map. ‘Are we anywhere near the Rothschild mansion?’
Andras smiled. ‘You English. You are always interested in the people with lots of money.’
‘Prince Charles stays there,’ Sonya said, looking at Tess.
‘If you’d said Shia LaBeouf I might have been more interested.’
‘The Rothschild house is near Agios Stefanos,’ Andras stated. ‘The other way from here.’
‘Oh,’ Sonya said, disappointment in her voice.
‘I will point out this and all the other places of interest on the way back down the coast.’
‘Any good bars soon?’ Tess asked, stretching her arms out behind her.
Andras pointed. ‘Nissaki is just coming up.’
Tess sat up in her seat, following the direction of Andras’s finger. Ahead of them, to the right of the boat, was a large biscuit- and terracotta-coloured hotel springing out of the green mountainside and dominating the immediate landscape. Set just below this was a long stretch of beach, a handful of what looked like tavernas skirting the land side. As their captain slowed the boat and they started a gentle cruise towards shore, the colour of the water began to change. Deep dark blue quickly transformed into bright light greens and turquoise. Tess edged her way across her seat to the side of the boat and looked over into the sea.
‘Can you see the fish?’ Andras called.
‘You can see the fish?!’ Sonya exclaimed, leaping up from her seat and rushing to the side of the boat too.
‘Whoa!’ Andras exclaimed as the boat rocked right. ‘Come back please or you will tip us right over!’
‘Sonya!’ Tess exclaimed.
‘Sorry!’ Sonya said, quickly scrabbling back into the middle of the vessel. ‘Going to the other side.’ She sat down and leaned over on the left, looking into the ocean. ‘Oh my! I can see them! Can you see them, Tess? Fish! There’s tiny little silver ones and ones with stripes and, oh, quite big black ones …’
‘Let me know if you find Dory,’ Tess said, focusing her gaze into the water again.
‘I’ve never seen water this clear! Look how clear it is!’
Tess watched a small shoal of grey fish with blue trims swirl through the water in front of her and she felt Sonya’s excitement. Seeing them so easily, moving right around them, it was something special.
‘Wait until you swim with the fish,’ Andras stated, driving the boat in closer to land where a man was beckoning them in.
‘Swim with them?’ Tess answered. Seeing them from the boat was one thing, getting up close and personal was quite another.
‘Of course,’ Andras answered. ‘That is why visitors come to Corfu.’ He smiled. ‘For man, or woman, to be at one with nature.’
‘I can’t wait!’ Sonya exclaimed, stripping off her top and adjusting the straps of her tankini.
Tess swallowed. She’d been thinking more of having a cooling cocktail and soaking up some sun rather than puckering up to a vertebrate. She had never seen the attraction of a fish spa.
‘But for this you really will have to take off your shoes,’ Andras told her.
She looked up at him, her toes clenching automatically. Sarcastic bastard. Suddenly his attractiveness was losing its shine.
Twenty
Nissaki Beach
Andras stood outside Mikalis’s Taverna taking it all in. With Tess and Sonya settled on sunloungers on the beach, he was going to try to make the most of his day. The taverna looked good, recently refurbished, just like he wanted to do with Georgiou’s. Everything had been painted a bright white – from the wooden ceiling to the struts of the frontage – and there were small pots of lavender everywhere you turned: on each table, hanging from hooks on the roof, by the entranceway. Plus the restaurant was busy, bustling with customers even now, mid-morning.
He stepped up into the building and had gone no more than a couple of paces before …
‘Andras Georgiou!’
He smiled as short, bald, rotund Yiannis Mikalis practically skipped across the tiled floor towards him, hands outstretched.
‘Yiannis.’ He greeted them with a smile as the man embraced him, slapping his back with two meaty hands.
Yiannis drew away, clasping Andras’s hands and squeezing hard, but with affection. ‘What brings you here? Spying on my restaurant?’ He let go of Andras and looked proudly at the interior. ‘It looks a little different from last summer, no?’
He nodded. ‘It looks wonderful, Yiannis.’
The owner nodded. ‘Sometimes you have to forget about what is going on with the finances of Europe and just carry on being Greek.’ Yiannis laughed. ‘This place had not had a facelift since 1990. It was time.’
Andras swallowed. His restaurant was long overdue an upgrade too. He didn’t want to go all sleek and ultra-modern like some of the other restaurants in the area had done, but perhaps a coat of paint and some new furnishings, maybe some cushions for the chairs and then, after that, there might be a chance to dream bigger.
‘So, how are the wedding plans coming along?’ Yiannis asked, beckoning him further into the restaurant and pulling up a chair. ‘Your brother has not been suffocated yet?’
‘You know about the wedding,’ Andras stated, sitting down.
‘Come on! Everyone knows everything on Corfu,’ Yiannis said, sitting opposite.
‘He is completing tasks on a list like he is searching for treasure.’
Yiannis clapped his hands together. ‘We have all been there, my friend.’
He nodded then cleared his throat. ‘Yiannis … I was wondering …’
‘Let me get you a drink. Ouzo?’ He clapped his hands in the air and a waiter headed straight towards them.
He was nervous but he wasn’t sure the alcohol was going to help. He was running out of options for the restaurant. He didn’t want his mother as his partner. He thrived on his independence and he didn’t want to have to compromise.
‘Yiannis, I’m looking for a business partner,’ he stated without prelude.
The other man began to cough. ‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’
‘Spiros is moving away with his new wife. He needs to free up his investment,’ Andras elaborated.
‘Well, I …’
‘I’m asking you, Yiannis, as I know what an astute businessman you are.’ He swallowed. He did respect the man but he was also thin on options closer to home. ‘And I also know you have an eye for potential.’
Yiannis went to speak but Andras continued quickly.
‘The restaurant is doing well, really well, I don’t really have the time to be away from it today but …’ Why had he said that? What was supposed to come next? He had to be here today because someone was pretending to be his girlfriend and in exchange he had taken t
hem out on the boat? That didn’t sound professional at all. ‘It was necessary to … come to see you.’ A little flattery never hurt.
‘Andras—’ Yiannis began.
‘Think about it. You would not have to do a thing more than you are doing here, unless you wanted to, of course. My brother left the running of the restaurant to me and I am happy to continue that way, but I am also happy to change things, if that’s what you would like.’ He stopped talking, his mouth dry. Where was that ouzo, or water?
‘Andras,’ Yiannis started. ‘I am sure your restaurant, as always, is doing well. I just—’
‘I have plans for refurbishment and maybe some marketing. I just need a cash injection and I am certain I can increase profit.’
‘Andras.’ Yiannis placed a hand on his forearm as if to still him. He took a breath, sensing what was coming.
‘Just think of it,’ Andras said. ‘It would be such a great investment.’
‘Andras,’ Yiannis said again. ‘I have nothing to invest.’
He swallowed. He should have known this before he even came here. Greece was still under incredible financial pressures.
‘Everything I had I invested here.’ Yiannis spread out his arms like the restaurant was a choir of performers he was introducing. ‘This season I hope to make a small profit but there is no money for anything else.’
Andras nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘I am sorry, Andras. If there was a way I could help then I would.’
A waiter arrived with a bottle of ouzo, two small tumblers and a carafe of water.
‘There is one other thing,’ Andras stated as the waiter poured them each a drink.
‘Anything,’ Yiannis responded.
‘Do you know where I can get a donkey?’
Twenty-one
Tess’s stomach was filled with a rather rustic white wine and a Greek-style pizza – Kalamata olives, hunks of creamy feta cheese, red onion and tomatoes – that had been as big as an olden-day stagecoach wheel. Now, laying on a lounger on the fine, white stone beach, she was considering a snooze. No amount of prodding at her phone was getting Wi-Fi and Vodafone had texted (how it had got through was anyone’s guess) to tell her her data allowance had been reached and no more would be available until tomorrow unless she wanted to ring a number she was sure was going to cost a month’s wages.