by Mandy Baggot
‘And it goes very well with this meze of olives and cheese.’ Tess dipped her finger into the terracotta dish on the table, fingers picking up Kalamata olives and chunks of saganaki. The salt and sour hit licked up her tongue.
‘We are naughty,’ Sonya said, giggling. ‘We’re supposed to be at the wedding rehearsal.’
Tess cleared her throat. ‘Actually, we’re meant to be on holiday having fun. The wedding rehearsal is linked to that ridiculous dating farce I got myself into on the very first night. We don’t really owe anyone anything.’
‘But it would be awful if Andras had to marry that Marietta, wouldn’t it?’
‘Sonya, no one has to marry anyone. It isn’t the Dark Ages – no matter how much Isadora’s house was giving off that vibe – and, as I said back in the church, he can look after himself.’
‘Ooo!’
‘Honestly, Sonya, perhaps I made things too easy for him caving into the fake dating thing. Maybe we should have found alternative Wi-Fi and man-guiding. It might have been better for him all round if he had a final big, fat, Greek showdown with his mother.’
‘I’m going to have to go and chase him!’ Sonya jumped out of her chair, swiping up her camera from the tabletop.
‘What?’ Tess blinked, confused. ‘Andras?’
‘No! There’s a sling-tailed agama right over there!’
‘Is that the name of our next cocktail?’ Tess asked, grinning.
‘No, silly, it’s a lizard.’
Tess’s flip-flopped feet came off the ground and up on to her chair. ‘Where?’
‘It’s run off over there. I need to get a photo,’ Sonya said. She turned, pounding over the dry grass in pursuit of the animal.
Tess reached for her cocktail glass and watched her friend creeping up on the unsuspecting reptile. Actually, from what she could see, it had quite interesting patterns. Maybe she could incorporate a little lizard print into her Black Velvet branding.
It was then that her mobile phone erupted. A chill ran down her as her mind quickly produced two names: McKenzie Falconer or her mother. Checking the screen, she saw it was Rachel. Rachel was OK at the moment, she was playing crazy games and posting on Facebook and, as Tess was mildly pissed right now, she’d pick up for once.
‘Hello.’
‘You’re still alive then.’
Rachel’s harsh tone and the comment had Tess closing her eyes and wishing she hadn’t answered.
‘Mum’s been trying to ring you.’
Did she say anything yet? Or just let her sister continue? She eyed the Sultan’s Kiss as if it could provide the answer.
‘She wanted to talk to you before you found out from someone else.’
That sentence propelled Tess into a response. ‘Found out what? Is Mum all right? And Dad?’
‘Dad’s in Canada, beaver watching. Yes, I thought the same as you’re thinking, but it’s not a lap-dancing bar, it’s the actual animals, you know, fat tail, big teeth.’
‘Then what is it I need to know?’ Tess asked.
‘It’s Adam,’ Rachel stated.
Tess sat up a little straighter, adopting the age-old position of someone who was not going to let the next words have any impact on her at all. She was boardroom, tax-office-under-investigation, I’m-sorry-you-have-a-venereal-disease ready.
‘He’s getting married again.’
The words hit her like a shot from a sniper. One hard, full velocity pump to the heart. But she was not going to let it penetrate. She was going to zip up her virtual Kevlar and regroup. No emotion would be shown here.
‘Rachel, someone can’t get married “again” when they haven’t been married at all.’ Had that sounded appropriately cool and detached?
‘That’s splitting hairs, Tess. You know what I mean.’
No, she didn’t. And she really didn’t want to continue the conversation any further.
‘That’s lovely,’ she breathed. ‘How wonderful. Another wedding in the village. Reverend Heather will be so … loudly pleased.’
‘He’s not getting married in the village.’
She wanted her sister to shut up right now. She wanted her to moan on about Philandering Phil or tell her about her new Mudda-Fudda Facebook friend, anything but this.
‘He’s getting married in New York. Some fancy-pants hotel in Manhattan to, get this, an heiress to a diamond-mining company.’
Did heiresses to diamond-mining companies really exist in things other than James Bond films? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to care.
‘Mum bumped into his mum in a charity shop. I mean, he’s marrying some bint who’s an heiress to the Mexican equivalent of De Beers, and his mother’s in a charity shop, and she’s all la-di-da with our mum. Fucking cheek after what he did to you.’
Her mum was in a charity shop. Just like she was, seeking out the best of a bad lot, hoping that no one would guess where it came from. Both scrimping and saving, all because she had believed in true love and happy endings. The guilt invaded her every sense.
‘So she hates me even more now. That’s what you’re saying.’
That Sultan’s Kiss had a lot to answer for.
‘What?’ Rachel asked.
‘Mum. She hates me even more than she did already. Because Adam and the Queen of Diamonds are having an expensive wedding and her nose is being rubbed in it.’ Tess picked up one of the shots of ouzo they had been given with the bowl of Greek delights and downed it in one. ‘She’s listening to all this, amid the Laura Ashley seconds, and she’s remembering how she’s maxed out on loans and all her rainy-day money got spent on morning suits and the vintage car I didn’t even want, and that bloody Madness tribute band I didn’t want either but Adam insisted …’ She picked up Sonya’s ouzo shot and downed that too. ‘D’you know what? I think that was all it ever was to him, a mad, crazy, expensive party to show off to his friends, but I’ll never really know, because he never actually talked to me!’
‘Tess—’ Rachel tried to interrupt.
‘But, I was the great white hope, wasn’t I? And I joined in with that. I was so sure of myself. This was the man for me. He wanted to marry me and it was going to be forever. Not like Mum and Dad. Not like you and Phil. I was going to be the one who got the happy ever after and held on to it. And all I did was fuck everything up. I left Dad with no money. I left Mum with no money and … I left Aunty Gladys without any of the cheese and red onion flans she had been going on about for weeks … and for what?’
What was happening? Tears were building up in her eyes for the second time that day. The alcohol, the potential for sunstroke sat out here, only her legs shaded from the Corfiot heat, the shock of the dog stealing her shoe, the church and the upcoming wedding, the fact she had been single on Facebook for over a week … it was all doing its best to eat away at her resolve.
‘Actually, Aunty Gladys said the food was all paid for anyway so she filled the boot of her car with the flans,’ Rachel responded.
‘Well,’ Tess breathed. ‘Good for her.’
‘Tess, Mum doesn’t hate you. Why would you think that?’
‘Why would I think that?’ She puffed an irritated sigh down the phone. ‘I can see it written all over her face.’
‘When?’ Rachel asked.
‘When what?’
‘When was the last time you’ve seen her face? Because I think it’s been almost six months.’
‘It hasn’t been that long,’ Tess protested. She really had no idea how long it had been.
‘You never come home.’
‘Because everyone hates me.’
‘Tess, that’s mad. No one hates you, except maybe Reverend Heather, because the word is he had a very special sermon planned for your wedding including dance moves that would have put Little Mix to shame.’
She didn’t raise a smile. Couldn’t. ‘Mum and Dad sunk everything they had into my wedding.’
‘I know, and they did the same for me and Phil and look what h
appened there.’
‘At least you actually made it through the wedding day.’
‘I really don’t know if that was better or worse, and that wasn’t meant to be a joke.’
‘I know Mum struggles to make ends meet … and Dad lives out of a suitcase because he doesn’t have a down payment for a house.’
‘Is that what you think? Dad lives out of a suitcase because he wants to. He’s always had a nomadic vibe going on. Hopping from place to place means he can hop from woman to woman. I’m pretty sure there is another beaver connection to that Canada trip he’s not admitting to … but Tess, him travelling has nothing to do with not being able to afford a house. He just likes spending his money and crashing with friends.’
‘Mum has nothing though … they took out loans … and she’s shopping at charity shops, you said so.’
‘Mum’s shopped at those since she divorced Dad. She loves a bargain, you know that. She’s fine. She’s even started doing a salsa class with someone called Ashley. I’m thinking male.’
‘But she can’t go to New Zealand any more and she really wanted to go to New Zealand. She had posters up around the house and a map with pins in.’
‘That was years ago!’ Rachel exclaimed.
Yes, she knew it was ages ago but it had been her mother’s divorcée dream, escaping to the other side of the world on a trip she had wanted to go on since she left university and could never afford to. She’d talked about it, endlessly, making New Zealand seem like the epicentre of the universe. Tess had always wondered how someone could talk so authoritatively and passionately about somewhere they had never even been.
‘It was what got her through the split with Dad,’ Tess added. ‘It was her focus, her goal.’
‘Goals change, Tess.’
‘Because I made them change. Because my wedding wasted her hard-earned savings! Everything she’d worked for her whole life! All gone! Just like that! Spent on vol-au-vents and prosecco and … a Suggs lookalike!’
‘Is that what you think?’ Rachel said.
‘It’s what I know. It’s why she hates me. And I don’t blame her. I hate me too.’
‘Tess!’
‘What?’ She needed another drink. Never mind the Sultan’s Kiss, she fancied going all the way with him.
‘Mum does not hate you. She loves you. She misses you. She wonders what she’s done to make you stop coming home to visit.’
‘What she’s done?’ Tess scoffed. ‘She hasn’t done anything apart from coat everything with a layer of disappointment whenever we’re in touch, but I get that, because I’m disappointed in me too.’
‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ Rachel stated. ‘Adam was the one—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
Tess scanned the table for something, anything else, she could drink. She plumped for picking up a handful of olives and dropping them into her mouth in one go. She didn’t want to relive the moment.
‘It wasn’t your fault, and even if it was, Mum and Dad would do it all over again. For both of us.’ She sighed. ‘Because it was never the money they were upset about, it was the fact we were both let down so badly.’ Rachel sniffed. ‘That our hearts were broken.’
As her sister’s emotions began to get the better of her, Tess realised she was in danger of choking on olive stones. She hurriedly looked for a napkin to spit into.
‘Tess, Mum is always asking me how you are and all I can give her is a rundown on what you’ve been up to on Facebook. Although I’ve had a bit of trouble pinpointing the latest guy to tell her about, as there seems to be quite a succession of them.’
‘I date,’ Tess stated, on the defensive. ‘It’s allowed in 2017.’
‘I wasn’t having a go, I just … I think Mum would really appreciate a catch-up.’
‘I can’t do that yet,’ Tess said, swallowing down the last of the olives in her mouth.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the next time I see her, I want to be handing her a cheque for every single penny of the money she wasted on my wedding.’ She sat up taller as she saw Andras leading the Georgiou family, the donkey, a goat and six chickens out of the church across the road. ‘I’m going to pay off the loans and get her to New Zealand if it’s the last thing I do.’
Fifty-one
Kalami Beach
‘We don’t have to eat here tonight at this family dinner thing if you don’t want to,’ Tess whispered to Sonya as they walked along the wooden pontoon back at Kalami. Andras had driven the boat back from Agios Spyridon and he was now walking just a little behind them, having tied and secured the vessel. Tess could already see the throng of the Georgiou family ahead, arriving back at the restaurant.
‘The thing I don’t get,’ Sonya began. ‘And it might be because I’ve had quite a few kisses from the Sultan …’ She giggled. ‘Is how the goats and chickens can be taken into the church yet the poor tortoise is herded out whenever it appears.’
‘Hector,’ Tess said. ‘His name is Hector.’
‘But what’s the donkey called?’ Sonya asked with a hiccup.
‘I have no idea.’ She linked arms with her friend. ‘So, shall we eat somewhere else tonight? Escape this madness for a bit?’ After her phone call with Rachel, she needed to unwind a little. Work out if she believed what her sister had said. That perhaps, maybe, her mother didn’t still wake up every day reliving the time she threw away her life savings.
‘Patricia!’
Tess’s shoulders prickled at the sound of her fake name being bellowed down the beach. It was Isadora and her first instinct was to turn around and look for Andras.
‘Do not look to Andras! You look to me!’ Isadora yelled again.
‘This doesn’t sound good,’ Sonya stated.
‘I am sorry,’ Andras said.
Tess shivered as Andras stepped up alongside her, slipping his hand into hers so naturally. She swallowed. ‘What does she want?’
‘The dinner for Kira’s family, tonight, on the beach.’
‘She really wants me to go,’ Tess exclaimed.
He let out a sigh. ‘At the church, she says that it is unlucky if you do not go. Kira’s Aunt Melissa is a little sick.’
‘And what does that have to do with me?
He sighed. ‘Everything has to be odd numbers. So you and Sonya—’
‘What? Another Greek custom?’ Tess suggested with a raise of her eyebrow.
‘Dinner on the beach. I think it sounds heavenly, and romantic,’ Sonya said.
‘With my family and Kira’s family?’ Andras asked.
‘It sounds … cosy and homely,’ Sonya offered as alternatives.
‘I really, really have to go?’ Tess asked.
Andras ducked his head a little, his mouth close to her ear as they continued to walk, all the time nearing the restaurant and Isadora’s watchful eye. ‘You do not have to,’ he said. ‘Say the word and I will—’
‘No,’ Tess shook her head. ‘I need your laptop to finish the Black Velvet designs tomorrow.’
‘This isn’t about the laptop any more.’
‘Well, Sonya wants to go to Corfu Town sometime.’
‘We could get a bus,’ Sonya suggested.
‘Have you even seen a bus since we got here?’ Tess asked.
‘Well, a coach trip then.’
‘It is OK. Like we agreed on, I can take you,’ Andras said. ‘Perhaps I can fit it around a visit to the bank.’
‘And this dinner on the beach will be free of charge, won’t it? Because we’re practically family,’ Tess continued.
‘Of course.’
‘Well then, let’s go and see what we have to do.’
Andras had a job to keep hold of her hand as Tess made bold strides up the jetty, pausing before seeming to realise she was wearing flip-flops, then pushing on over the stones of the beach until they reached the waiting Greek matriarch.
‘You will be here tonight,’ Isadora said, as an order rather than
a question. ‘For the dinner on the beach.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting more of Kira’s family,’ Tess said, breezily. ‘I do hope her Aunt Melissa feels better for the wedding.’
‘You both will sit with other women,’ Isadora continued.
‘Other women?’ Tess queried.
‘At this meal, the women will all sit together and the men will all sit together.’ Isadora smiled widely. ‘Apart from Andras and Marietta. As the koumbaro and koumbara they will sit together, as a couple, alone …’ She exhaled. ‘Completely on themselves.’
Andras couldn’t tell if the last phrase was due to his mother’s broken English or deliberate.
‘Mama,’ he stated. ‘This is not necessary and it is not anything to do with Greek custom.’
‘It is Georgiou custom,’ Isadora snapped back. ‘When I was married to your father this happened. When your father’s father was married to your grandmother this happened. When your grandfather’s father was—’
‘OK,’ Tess said. ‘Getting the idea now.’ She smiled. ‘And it’s fine.’ She slipped an arm around his waist. ‘Absence, after all, makes the heart grow fonder.’
‘Abscess? We cannot have infection here. We have a hundred people coming to a wedding in two days’ time. We cannot have quarantine.’
Tess tightened her grip on his waist, pulling him a little closer. God, her fingers were so close to touching skin where his shirt was a little free from his waistband. Why did he want that connection so much? Why was he equally terrified of it?
‘I simply meant,’ Tess began, ‘that gazing at Andras from across the beach, the sweet smell of lavender in the air, the candlelight, the Greek music and Dorothea’s heavenly food, it’s going to make me realise just how lucky I am to be here.’ She let out a light breath, eyes locking with his. ‘To have him.’
The air seemed to still, along with his heart. He needed to wise up to what was going on here: that Tess played a good game and that she was his mother’s equal.
‘That’s so lovely, isn’t it?’ Sonya jumped in. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
‘We will meet here at seven,’ Isadora decreed, banging her stick on the stones. ‘Do not be late.’