My Map of You

by Isabelle Broom

  Holly lurched forward and gripped the back of the sofa, her breath coming in ragged pants and cold sweat dappling her back and arms. As she stood there, trying to concentrate her way out of the fog, she stared again at the flowers. They really were very beautiful, and as she looked at them she regained her composure. The feeling that she was intruding here itched at her skin like heat rash, but she focused her mind and made it as far as the back doors, which were glass-fronted and nestled behind thin red curtains.

  The space directly behind the house was mostly paved in large, square, honey- and white-coloured stones, with a few terracotta pots forming a makeshift wall along the right-hand side. Past the end of the paved area was a low wall, similar to the one by the road outside, and beyond that a steep drop obscured by a tangle of lush green plants. Holly could see the tops of trees, which clearly had roots further down the slope. Wandering across the space and enjoying the freedom of being back outside, she mounted the wall and gasped – below her, spread out like an endless inky blue tapestry, was the ocean. It was breathtaking.

  Holly stood on her spot on the wall for what felt like an age, taking comfort from the calming energy of the sea and the gentle hum of insects coming from the surrounding trees.

  She knew she had to go back inside. Face whatever it was waiting for her in the cupboards and under the beds; confront the unmistakable feelings of déjà vu that had been prodding her since she arrived.

  Had she been here before? It hadn’t even occurred to her before now, but perhaps she had. There was definitely a feeling inside her, something unfamiliar but impossible to ignore – an insistent whispering from the very deepest and most forgotten parts of her mind.

  ‘I saw you every day until you were five,’ Sandra had written in her letter. Holly had presumed that her aunt had been referring to time spent in the UK, but perhaps it wasn’t that simple. If her mum had kept the model of this place for so many years, it stood to reason that she’d been here – perhaps even lived here. Perhaps she, Holly, had lived here too.

  Reluctantly stepping down from her viewing platform and sucking in one last lungful of warm evening air, Holly headed stoically back into the house and straight up the stone stairs.

  There were two bedrooms on the first floor, one of which had very obviously been her aunt’s. In here, unlike the rest of the house, clutter and trinkets covered every available surface and the bed was neatly made. The other room, by contrast, was stripped bare save for a small wardrobe and single bed. It reminded Holly of her own room in her rented flat back in London. That, too, was nondescript and sparsely decorated. Both bedrooms contained doors that led out on to a wide balcony and, peering through the dusty glass, Holly could make out a table and chairs.

  She felt horribly uncomfortable in her aunt’s old room. She could detect a faint hint of lavender under the more powerful smell of disinfectant coming from downstairs, but there was an awful sadness to the place. Abandoned heaps of jewellery nestled in clumps of dust on the dressing table and the silk scarves knotted to the framed mirror hung flat and defeated.

  Holly thought about searching through the place there and then, but her uneasiness took over and she backed quickly out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. By the time she got back downstairs, the uneasiness had grown so much that the need to escape was overwhelming. Grabbing her bag from the floor and shoving the key in her pocket, she slammed the front door behind her and practically ran out to the path. What her dry mouth needed now was water – and maybe something a bit stronger, as well.

  ‘Kalispera.’ The Greek man behind the till in the supermarket greeted Holly cheerfully as she walked up the stone steps into his shop. Already feeling better after putting a safe distance between herself and the house, Holly managed a smile and a ‘hello’. She found water, bread, cheese, milk and toilet roll, and then tossed in a few yoghurts. It was a long time since she’d eaten breakfast and her stomach was growling.

  ‘Ti kanis? How are you?’ The Greek man smiled again as he bagged her goods. He looked around fifty, and had a large dark beard speckled with grey and an even larger belly, which he was resting gently on the edge of the counter.

  Realising that she was getting a lesson in how to speak Greek, Holly tentatively repeated ‘ti kanis’ back to him.

  He laughed. ‘I am Kostas,’ he told her, reaching over to shake her hand.

  ‘Holly,’ she smiled.

  ‘This is your first time Zakynthos?’

  Clearly this was a common question. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah, you are a friend of Aidan,’ he declared.

  Holly’s face must have registered confusion, because Kostas peered at her for a second and laughed again. ‘You stay there?’ This time he pointed over her shoulder, towards the road he’d presumably watched her walk down. She didn’t quite know what to tell him. How do you explain to a Greek man you’ve never met before that you’ve inherited a house from a woman you never knew in a country you’ve never visited? She settled for nodding and handing over some money.

  Kostas merely smiled when he gave her back the change, but she got the impression that he would have liked her to be more forthcoming. If he worked here all the time, then it stood to reason that he would have known her aunt; probably known her quite well. She would have to save that conversation for another day.

  A drink: that was what she needed. Thankfully, the place next door was both open and serving a variety of beverages. Pulling out a stool at the bar, Holly dumped her shopping bags on the floor and ordered a large red wine, all the time trying to silence the relentless hammering of her heart inside her chest.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’ The barmaid leaned towards her, her greying bun wobbling precariously on the top of her head. Holly recognised a Yorkshire accent.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, although it came out as more of a choking noise.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ the woman informed her cheerily, and without a hint of irony. Holly agreed with the judgement wholeheartedly, but she merely shook her head.

  ‘Just been a long day,’ she explained, sipping her wine. ‘This is lovely.’

  ‘It’s village wine,’ the woman told her. ‘It’s made here on the island and it’s far better than any of that crap they import from Italy or wherever.’

  Holly nodded politely. ‘It’s very good.’

  ‘I shouldn’t tell you this,’ the woman was whispering now, ‘but you can get a whole litre of the stuff from Kostas next door for three euros.’

  Holly thought back to the twenty-five-pound bottles of Pinot Grigio that Rupert had ordered in the bar the week before and gulped. This stuff tasted much nicer. She was fully aware that she would most definitely wake up the next day with the mother of all hangovers, but at the moment she couldn’t care less.

  ‘Thanks for the tip – but won’t you get in trouble with the boss?’

  This seemed to amuse her new friend. ‘I am the boss, darling,’ she giggled. ‘My name’s Annie.’

  They shook hands, but when Holly told Annie her name the woman frowned.

  ‘You’re Sandra’s Holly?’ she asked, her crinkled eyes immediately full of pity.

  ‘She was my aunt,’ Holly admitted, taking another sip.

  ‘Sandra was such a peach,’ Annie smiled. ‘It was such a shame what happened. She was younger than me, for God’s sake.’

  Holly still had no idea what had actually happened, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

  ‘Did you know her well?’ the wine helped her ask.

  ‘Of course I did.’ Annie seemed surprised by the question. ‘Did she never mention me?’

  Holly was sure that her aunt Sandra would have, had they ever spoken. ‘Yes, she did – I just forgot,’ she lied, adding a ‘Silly me!’ for effect.

  Annie was about to reply, but was interrupted by a group of three older couples who had just made their way to one of the tables at the front. Scooping up some laminated cocktail menus from the back b
ar, she scurried over to turn on the charm. Holly didn’t mind; she was happy to sit and drink her wine, enjoying the feel of the warm night air on her bare legs.

  She tried to imagine her aunt sitting here, gossiping with Annie and talking about her, the niece she had never met. But clearly Sandra hadn’t told Annie the whole truth, either. Was this why Holly found it so hard to be honest with people? Perhaps it was genetic, and she was part of a family of natural-born liars. Her mother had certainly been an expert.

  ‘Same again?’ Annie was holding up her empty wine glass.

  ‘Keep it coming.’ Holly really was feeling rather merry now, and the panic she’d felt while nosing around the house had subsided. In the warmth of the bar, with the music playing and the relative normality of the situation, the whole thing seemed less of a big deal. Tomorrow she would go through all her aunt’s stuff and find what she needed, simple as that. How hard could it really be?

  ‘Have you met Aidan yet?’ asked Annie, who had just returned from delivering a tray full of multi-coloured cocktails.

  ‘No.’ Holly raised a quizzical eyebrow. Who the hell was this Aidan?

  ‘Oh, you will soon – he’s your neighbour,’ Annie told her, with what looked an awful lot like a wink. She picked up a glass from the draining board and started drying it with a cloth that was hanging off her apron. ‘He’s pretty dishy. Aidan, I mean.’

  ‘Oh?’ Holly was careful to keep her tone non-committal.

  ‘He moved here with his girlfriend a few years back – gorgeous thing, she was, looked like a model – but they broke up,’ she continued. ‘I don’t know who ended it, but it was her that left the island. Such a shame, nice-looking couple like that.’

  Holly wondered what this Aidan person would think if he knew that the locals were gossiping about him with total strangers.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll meet someone else,’ she replied, mostly because it sounded like the right thing to say. ‘If he’s as good-looking as you say, he’ll have no trouble.’

  ‘Ah, but Aidan’s a fussy one, see?’ Annie told her conspiratorially, topping up her glass. ‘I’ve seen girls in here throw themselves at him plenty of times and he’s never done anything more than politely turn them down. He must still be hung up on his ex, I reckon. She did look like a model, as I said.’

  ‘Sounds too good to be true,’ Holly said. She could already tell that Aidan was Annie’s favourite subject. Her cheeks were glowing brighter than the neon ‘cocktails’ sign that was hanging up behind the bar.

  ‘Are you, erm, spoken for?’ Annie enquired, staring pointedly at Holly’s left hand.

  ‘I’m not married, if that’s what you mean,’ Holly replied. ‘But I am with someone.’

  Annie tried to hide her relief. ‘Oh. Well, that’s nice. Make sure you say hello to him while you’re here, though. Aidan, I mean. He is only next door after all.’

  Wow. This Aidan guy must need to carry around a fire extinguisher for his ears with Annie going on about him this much. Holly couldn’t believe any man could be as perfect as Annie was making out. What she really wanted to do was ask the older woman to tell her stories about her aunt, but even three glasses of village wine hadn’t given her enough courage. Her stomach rumbled again, loudly this time. ‘I’d better be off,’ she called to Annie, who was busy wiping down tables. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘See you soon, darling,’ came the reply. ‘Pop in any time.’

  It was only as she started walking back up the hill that Holly realised just how drunk she was. The carrier bag containing her now-tepid yoghurts banged against her bare shins as she half-trudged, half-stumbled back towards the house. There was now a jeep parked right next to the path, and Holly careered into it sideways as she attempted to leap over the low wall.

  ‘Bugger,’ she giggled, doing her best to put the wing mirror back in place. Opening the door a few minutes later, she realised she’d not only left all the lights on, but that the window in the kitchen was open too. Cursing herself for not unpacking earlier, she unzipped her case and rifled through her neatly rolled clothes until she found Rupert’s old university T-shirt. He’d slipped it into her suitcase that morning and told her to sleep in it.

  ‘It’s the second-best thing to me being there with you.’

  Rupert! ‘Bugger,’ she swore for the second time. She’d completely forgotten to text him to tell him she’d arrived. She was officially the worst girlfriend in the world. Fishing her phone out of her bag as she scrambled up the stairs, Holly found the screen black. With the wine sloshing about in her empty stomach, the prospect of digging around in her case for her phone charger was akin to tackling the trek to Everest base camp in nothing but a bikini – it would have to wait until the morning.

  Ten minutes later, with a blissfully empty bladder and a scratchy but clean-looking blanket that she’d discovered in one of the cupboards on the landing, Holly clambered on to the sofa and closed her eyes. For a few bleary seconds, she was vaguely aware of a buzzing in her ears. Then she passed out.

  6

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Oh God, someone was trying to break down the door and kill her.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Okay, so maybe they were just knocking. Groaning, Holly stood up and promptly stubbed her toe on the leg of the coffee table.

  ‘Shitting bastard!’ she yelled.

  The knocking stopped.

  Scooping up the blanket to cover her bottom half, Holly stomped over to the front door and flung it open with a loud crash. Standing on the threshold, a set of keys dangling from one finger and a wry grin on his face, stood what could only be described as a tall, dark, handsome stranger.

  ‘Were you talking to me?’ he asked, his Irish accent immediately apparent.

  ‘What? No!’ Holly snapped, feeling indignant.

  ‘So you don’t think I’m a, what was it, “shitting bastard”?’ He was clearly mocking her now, and Holly was horribly aware of her dry mouth and the fact that she hadn’t removed yesterday’s make-up before she’d passed out.

  ‘I stubbed my toe,’ she told him, rather begrudgingly. They both glanced down at the same time, but Holly’s feet were obscured by the blanket.

  ‘You must be Holly?’ He was wearing a red T-shirt with a cluster of holes in the front, a pair of navy shorts and very beaten-up-looking flip-flops.

  ‘That’s right. Are you Aidan?’

  If he was surprised that she knew his name, he didn’t show it, just gave a brief nod. Holly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t like the way this man was looking at her – he was clearly amused by her bedraggled appearance. The fact that he was undeniably good-looking was beside the point.

  ‘The man in the shop mentioned you,’ she added, pulling the blanket tighter.

  Aidan smiled. ‘Kostas?’

  It was Holly’s turn to nod. She decided not to tell him what Annie had said.

  ‘I came round last night,’ he told her now. ‘I thought you were here, given that all the lights were on.’

  Holly brought her hand up to scratch her face, realising as she did so that a cluster of bites had appeared on her cheek.

  ‘The mozzies are attracted to the light at night,’ he continued, raising an eyebrow as she snatched her hand away. God, he was so infuriating. She couldn’t help picturing how awful she must look, with last night’s mascara crusted on her eyelids, mosquito bites all over her face and the slept-in hair of a Highland goat.

  Aidan held out the keys. ‘These are yours. Sandy liked me having a spare set, just in case, but now that you’re here …’ he trailed off. ‘Are you running a bath?’

  ‘What?’ Holly gaped at him. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Can’t you hear that?’ He stepped past her and headed towards the stairs. Holly followed him, limping slightly on her still throbbing toe. They stood there in silence, and sure enough, there was a persistent dripping sound coming from somewhere upstairs. Aidan headed up without asking, leaving Holly to ho
bble indignantly after him.

  ‘Ah …’ his voice filtered out from inside the bathroom. ‘Nobody warned you about the Greek plumbing system, did they?’

  ‘What do you me— Oh.’ Holly recoiled in horror as she took in the scene of devastation on the other side of the door. The toilet, which she’d only used twice since arriving, was full to the brim with the same murky water that was covering the floor, and there were a few sheets of disintegrating toilet paper floating about on the tide.

  ‘You can’t flush toilet paper over here,’ Aidan told her. He managed to keep his voice very matter-of-fact, which was impressive given the circumstances.

  Holly found that she had lost the power of speech, so when he told her that he was nipping back next door to get the tools necessary to unblock her U-bend, she merely nodded at him stupidly. As soon as she heard his feet on the stairs, Holly rushed into the spare bedroom and slammed the door behind her. The mirror on the wall confirmed her worst fears: she really did look like a mountain goat – one that had failed to find its way around the forty-five or so hedges in its path. Then again, Aidan would probably remember the bathroom floor more than he would the state of her face.

  Rooted to the spot by the wet-cement effect of total and utter humiliation, Holly listened as Aidan made his way back into the bathroom, clanking a bit this time with what she assumed must be some sort of toolbox. He definitely had the look of a man that would have a proper toolbox – and one that he would actually use, rather than the smart-looking one wrapped in cellophane that Rupert kept in the cupboard under his kitchen sink.

  ‘Holly?’ Oh God, he was calling for her. With some effort, she unglued her bare feet from the tiled floor and tiptoed back to the bathroom doorway. She was still wearing Rupert’s T-shirt and the blanket, which she snatched up away from the rancid water.

  ‘Do you have a bucket?’ he asked. He was down on all fours now, one gloved hand poised and ready to plunge.

  ‘I … Um … I don’t know,’ Holly stuttered. Why was she behaving like such a moron? ‘I’ll go and check,’ she added quickly, seeing a frown begin to form on his face. Once downstairs, she discovered a bucket, bleach and a whole heap of sponges and cloths stuffed into a cupboard in the kitchen. Pausing at her suitcase to pull on a pair of denim shorts, she took the whole lot up to the bathroom and gingerly placed them on the floor next to where Aidan was now rummaging about in the toilet. He didn’t need any help, he told her, but a cup of tea would be nice.