by Mandy Baggot
‘Oh, we won’t,’ Tess said, her eyes still connected to his. ‘I’ve got a new dress I’ve been dying to show you.’
‘You have?’ he answered quickly. ‘I cannot wait to see it.’
Tess smiled, bringing her face closer to his. ‘If I’m honest, there isn’t really much of it to see.’
Her lips met his then, and that almost familiar taste of lipgloss coupled with raisins and a sweet cream filled his senses.
‘Andras has much work to do now,’ Isadora stated with another bang of her stick.
Tess withdrew. ‘See you at seven.’
‘Ta leme sindoma.’
He watched them walk up through the restaurant, acknowledging Spiros and Kira and the other members of the family they had met before, until his mother drew his attention back to her with another hearty thump of her stick.
‘Tonight your focus will be with Marietta,’ Isadora said sternly. ‘She has worked so hard for this wedding. She deserves better treatment from you. More respect.’
‘Mama, we have talked about this.’
‘You need to give things a chance, Andras. Perhaps spending a little more time with someone who is going to be here forever rather than just for a few weeks will make you see.’
‘Make me see?’
‘The right path.’ Isadora sniffed. ‘I have been speaking to Papa Yiannis. He thinks it would be good for you to sit down with him and talk about the future.’
He couldn’t do this again. He wouldn’t go through this again.
‘I have to go,’ he said, already moving away from his mother. ‘I need to prepare for tonight.’
‘Andras!’
‘I will be the koumbaro Spiros deserves,’ he said. ‘But, Mama, as I have told you before, with regard to Marietta, that is all.’
Fifty-two
The beach looked beautiful. The subtle glow of candles on the long trestle tables, coupled with strings of fairy lights interwoven around plants and potted trees outside Taverna Georgiou and glass lanterns set up along the jetty, all created a relaxed, warm, inviting atmosphere as Tess and Sonya made their way down on to the pebbles and sand.
‘I could cry,’ Sonya remarked, an obvious lump in her throat as she spoke. ‘It’s so picture-perfect-holiday-brochure-of-dreams.’ She sighed. ‘The cicadas’ song, the soft, gentle lull of the water, the glowing sun low in the sky, the intense heat dulling to a spicy humidity that promises cold white wine, succulent Greek meze and a night of music and dance.’
Right now, Sonya sounded like an audio travel guide set to make anyone rush online and book with Thomson. And her words were working their magic on Tess too. This place, the little bay on this gorgeous island, was charming her day by day. The relaxed pace, the wall-to-wall sunshine, the amazing vistas … it was a little piece of heaven on Earth. And, unlike any other break from work before, she was enjoying it with a vigour she’d never known. It was then it hit her. Apart from the phone call with her sister, she hadn’t checked her mobile once today. She hadn’t looked for emails. She hadn’t even thought about Facebook. She hadn’t Instagrammed since a bikini selfie at the apartments and she hadn’t Tweeted or even Snapchatted since she arrived in Greece. Her fingers moved to the clasp of the clutch bag she was holding. Did she need to make contact? Did she need to do all these things right now? She took a deep breath and withdrew her hand.
‘Is that Spiros with a plate on his face?’ Sonya queried as they drew nearer to the tables.
‘I think it is,’ Tess agreed.
‘These Greek customs are a little bit out there, aren’t they?’ Sonya said. Then she grinned. ‘But I like it.’
‘Even the all women eating together, all men eating together thing?’ Tess asked.
‘I suppose it’s a bit like a combined hen and stag party. Food, drink, dancing …’
‘I can’t see any tequila shots or L-plates on the bride.’
‘But the groom is balancing a plate on his face,’ Sonya reminded her.
Andras turned from where he was bringing baskets of thick slices of bread down to the tables on the beach the moment he heard Tess laugh. She didn’t laugh often, he’d realised, but when she did, it was a sound like no other. Such a release of energy and enthusiasm, a sweet, relaxing, full-hearted babble he’d recognise anywhere now.
Tess and Sonya, arms linked, were crunching over the pebbled shore towards the tables he’d helped lay earlier and, as he looked at them, he saw that Tess had been right. The dress she was wearing left little to the imagination, his imagination, and, as he looked to his male relatives, drinking, smoking and shooting the breeze as Spiros span around with a plate on his face, all eyes were turning to the woman dressed in virginal white but looking anything but.
He watched Nikos nudge Vasilis and Vasilis then nudge Panos and a gut-churning feeling of jealousy began to mix like ouzo and water. All that was once clear was now becoming cloudy. He put down the bread and made his way towards the women before his relatives could undress Tess with their eyes any further.
‘You are here,’ he breathed. He didn’t hesitate. He stepped straight forward and kissed Tess full on the lips then hurriedly moved back, kissing Sonya first on one cheek and then the other.
‘It’s two minutes past seven now,’ Tess remarked. ‘I’m surprised your mother hasn’t sent a goat to fetch us.’
‘Hector ended up here again,’ Andras informed her. ‘She had to call Fotis to put him in his truck and take him back to my house.’
‘That tortoise is remarkable,’ Sonya said. ‘I really need to take some photos of him before we leave.’
Leave. Yes, they were leaving. He didn’t even know when. It didn’t even matter. After the wedding he would be caught up with the restaurant, hopefully with Spiros paid off and a small cash injection to make some improvements. He wouldn’t have time for anything else; he didn’t need time for anything else.
‘Come,’ he said, offering out an arm in the direction of the long table at which some of the women were already sat.
‘Oh, there’s some of that gorgeous bread already.’ Sonya smiled at him. ‘I could basically just eat that all day long, if I didn’t have a slight coeliac thing going on.’ She stepped ahead.
‘So,’ Tess said softly. ‘Where’s your lovers’ table with Marietta?’
‘Don’t say that,’ Andras said.
‘Why not? That’s what your mother thinks it is.’ Tess grinned. ‘She will have laced your food with some Greek-style aphrodisiac.’
‘And there are scallops to start.’
He watched as Tess’s face visibly paled before his eyes, her bright expression dimming like a candle on the verge of running out of wax.
‘Tess,’ he whispered. ‘Is something wrong?’
And then she recovered, oh so quickly, too quickly, and smiled. ‘No scallops for me, thank you. I find them a bit gritty.’
He took her hand in his. ‘I have a meeting with the bank tomorrow.’
‘You do? That’s great.’
‘Maybe later we can talk about the best things to say.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded.
‘So, I’ll be sitting just over there tonight, but I also must work, so I will come and rescue you from my crazy family any time you need me to.’
He watched Tess’s eyes go to the intimate table his mother had had set up yards away from anyone else, next to the jetty, almost in the water, fresh stems of bougainvillea in a vase next to the lit candle. The whole scenario was ridiculous but it was all about keeping the family peace now it was so close to the wedding. Once the nuptials were done then things could go back to normal.
‘It looks lovely,’ she commented somewhat wistfully.
‘It is just for show,’ Andras said. ‘I am doing this only for Spiros and Kira.’
‘It doesn’t matter really, does it?’ Tess said. ‘I mean, it’s a little sad in a way that your mother is doing this to break us up, and in reality we’re not together.’
He swallowed then nod
ded. ‘I know. But—’
‘So, I guess I’m sitting over here, yes?’ Tess said, striding forward in pursuit of Sonya.
He watched her go, the eyes of his cousins still admiring her form, those long, tanned legs, moving with ease over the beach in the shoes he had bought for her.
‘Nikos!’ he called across to his fisherman cousin. ‘Some things tonight are not on the menu!’
Nikos laughed, waving a hand at him. ‘Relax, Andras, tonight is about welcoming the joining of our two families, no? We will all be celebrating our getting closer a little later.’
Andras watched Tess smooth her hands down the short, fluted skirt that stopped mid-thigh and settle herself into a chair opposite Kira. He didn’t want to be spending the evening with Marietta. He wanted to be … with Tess. He swallowed that realisation down. What was he thinking? Was his mother right? Was he continually to be attracted to strong, independent women who were only interested in him for the length of their holiday … or the length of a marriage until they got bored?
‘She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?’
It was his mother’s voice in his ear but his eyes were firmly fixed on Tess, the way the candlelight brought out the gold and bronze in her hair, how the dress – a different, softer style to what he had seen her in before – complemented her body. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘She does.’
The bang of a stick broke the moment and he turned to his mother then.
‘I am talking about Marietta! Look!’
He had no choice but to turn his head and there was his cousin, dressed in a ground-sweeping pale blue dress, her dark hair wrapped and coiled into plaits that sat on top of her head. She was undeniably pretty. But he felt nothing apart from platonic affection. They were cousins. That was all they were going to be.
‘Beautiful,’ Isadora repeated, both hands clasping the top of her stick.
‘I need to get back to the restaurant,’ Andras said.
‘But …’
‘I need to work, Mama. I will be with Marietta as soon as I can.’
Fifty-three
‘Patricia!’ Kira called across the table. ‘You need to sign these!’
‘Please,’ Tess said, leaning forward in her chair a little. ‘Call me Tess.’
‘Tess!’ Kira shouted again. ‘You need to sign these!’ All the women around them began to laugh out loud as a pair of shoes were launched across the table towards her.
Like an England goalkeeper, Tess blocked one shoe from hitting a bottle of white wine and the other fell down into her lap. She looked at Sonya in the hope of some explanation, then picked up both the delicate silver beaded shoes and examined them. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘In Greek weddings, we have many traditions,’ a lady who had been introduced earlier as Juno said.
‘We are getting accustomed to that,’ Sonya replied with a giggle. ‘See what I did there? Customs … accustomed.’
‘You must sign the sole of the shoe,’ Juno ordered. She took one shoe from Tess, turned it over and pointed at the bottom of it. On the plain, taupe-coloured underbelly of the decorative footwear there were signatures in pen.
‘It is for good luck,’ Kira elaborated. ‘If the unmarried women at my wedding do not sign my wedding shoes, then my love for Spiro might die.’ She clutched at her chest, her elbow almost upsetting a jug of water she might have benefitted from drinking. ‘You do not want my love for Spiro to die, do you?’ She batted her eyelids at Tess and adopted a sad face that was quite amusing. She hadn’t yet seen Kira look anything but completely placid and in control. After copious amounts of alcohol, the bride was loosening up, even her usually immaculate hair was looking a little banshee.
‘Your love won’t die,’ Sonya said, hand rising up to her chest.
Tess caught her friend’s hand before it could reach the place where her necklace should be.
‘True love never dies,’ Sonya continued.
‘You are married?’ Kira asked Sonya.
Sonya shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Not yet,’ Tess added. ‘But she’s going to be.’
‘And then there will be babies,’ Juno stated, drawing on her cigarette. ‘Lots and lots of babies.’
‘Well,’ Tess jumped in. ‘Not everyone wants babies.’
The gasp that went up from the table almost blew out all the candles. At any second Tess expected someone to come and eject her from the party. Why didn’t she ever learn to just not say anything? It wasn’t her job to change the Greeks’ views on family matters, just because she might not be zen with marriage and babies and till death us do part.
‘I love babies!’ Sonya declared. ‘I would love nothing more than to have lots and lots of babies but—’
‘Sonya lives in a very small house,’ Tess leapt in. She could sense her friend’s fragility. Now was not the time for sharing her secret. On a Greek beach with lots of goddesses of fertility sat around them.
‘A small house?’ Kira queried. ‘You are not allowed to have babies if you live in a small house?’ She furrowed her perfect, no-need-for-threading-here eyebrows. ‘Is this an English law?’
‘No, it isn’t that,’ Sonya continued, her lips wobbling. ‘I can’t have them.’ She sighed, eyes glassy. ‘I can’t have babies.’
Tess picked up her glass of wine and sucked down the contents.
‘Because of your small house?’ Juno guessed.
‘No … because of my ovaries,’ Sonya blurted out.
‘Because you are overseas?’ Kira’s frown deepened. ‘I do not understand this UK thinking. They do not let you have babies?’
‘I would like nothing more than to fill my entire house with babies,’ Sonya continued. ‘Lots and lots of gorgeous, icky, sticky, sweet as syrup, lickle babies …’
Had she said ‘lickle’? She didn’t want Sonya to live through this again here, in such a public arena. She had to do something, say something and quickly.
‘Well, I don’t want babies!’
The words were out of her mouth before she had thought too much about it. And there was that gasp again but this time louder. Loud enough that conversation on the male relatives table stopped too.
‘But you must have them!’ Kira exclaimed, rising from her chair. ‘You have to have them!’
‘I don’t think I do,’ Tess stated. ‘I mean, no offence, but I don’t really have time for babies in my life. I work really hard and that takes up all the time.’ She laughed. ‘I mean, I don’t even have time for a relationship.’
She got to the ‘p’ of ‘relationship’ and realised just what she had said. She opened her mouth to backtrack but Banshee Kira was already on it.
‘But what about Andras?’
All female eyes were on her and she felt the prickling on her bare skin like a whole team of mosquitos were Greek dancing across her shoulders.
‘Except for Andras, obviously,’ Tess responded.
‘But, Andras wants children,’ Kira continued, leaning ever closer over the table. ‘Andras has always wanted children.’
She was now realising that it may have been better to let Sonya carry on with her true-life heartache. She had opened up a can of … she was going to think worms but it actually might be Corfiot snakes and lizards. She shuddered and then noticed that everyone was still looking at her.
‘Well, we haven’t really been going out that long,’ she began.
‘But you are in love,’ Juno said. ‘You travelled all the way from England to visit him.’
‘I know but—’
‘You need to talk about this with him,’ Kira interrupted, pouring some more wine into her glass. ‘It is very important.’
‘Well, I expect, we will talk about it, if we need to,’ Tess replied, picking up the glass of wine Kira had filled.
‘You need to,’ Juno stated.
‘Yes, you really need to,’ Kira agreed.
‘Why does she need to?’ Sonya asked, coming back into the conversation. ‘You’re making it soun
d like if she doesn’t talk to him about it then the world might … explode or something.’
Juno looked to Kira. Kira looked back at Juno and the other women at the table suddenly found their dinner plates/laps/children/the air away from Tess ridiculously interesting.
‘You tell her.’ Juno directed the order at Kira.
‘It is not my place.’
‘It is your place more than anyone else here,’ Juno insisted.
Kira said something in Greek Tess wasn’t sure she really needed translated to get the gist of.
‘For God’s sake, just tell me,’ Tess begged.
Kira shook her head. ‘Because Tess,’ she began, ‘that is why Andras and Elissa broke up.’
Before she could even swallow that piece of information the women were talking again.
‘You only had to look at that girl to see she was never going to have children.’
‘Always eating like a bird. Always the dresses from boutiques. And her fancy job.’ There was a unified tutting.
‘Well,’ Tess started. ‘I’m sure we can …’ She wasn’t sure why she was so desperate to explain a fictional future.
‘I will be having a job,’ Kira stated.
There was another collective gasp but Tess clung on to Kira’s words and pressed the conversation onwards. ‘Oh, what are you going to do?’
‘I want to start my own business when we are settled on the mainland. I have experience in cooking for rich people, mainly rich English people.’ She looked at Tess. ‘I am going to set up on my own, with some staff in the future.’
‘But, Kira, you won’t have time for all that,’ Juno said.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, Spiros will be beginning his new job and you will need to be there for him. And we have just talked about the babies,’ Juno continued.
‘I am a little young to start having babies yet,’ Kira announced.
Another gasp went up and all the men turned their attention to the table of women again, the only sounds the faint lilt of the lute and bouzouki, the clink of china and glass from Taverna Georgiou and the slow, soft waves of the sea.
‘Does Spiros know this is your plan?’ Juno questioned. ‘Or Isadora?’