Walking past the taverna entrance, Holly peered down the side of the cliff and gasped. Below her was a boot-shaped cove with rocks either side and the most brilliantly turquoise water she had ever seen. Even from up here, she could tell that the sea below her was beautifully clear. There were darker patches where the water became deeper, and it was into these Prussian blue pools that a group of young Greek boys were taking it in turns to jump from the neighbouring side of the cliff.
While her head was urging her to nip into the taverna and quench the thirst she’d built up on the forty-minute drive over, her heart would not allow her to resist that water. Slinging her bag across one shoulder, she picked her way down the sloping stony path until she reached some steps that had been crudely cut into the side of the cliff. She was glad that she’d chosen her trainers over her flip-flops, because with every step a new shoal of pebbles went scuttling down ahead of her. It was hard to focus on your feet when there was such beauty to take in, and Holly took her time making her way right down to the bottom.
The sun had just reached its highest point and most of the visitors had headed up to the taverna for lunch in the shade. She was glad of the relative quiet, save for the odd yelp from the group of cliff-jumpers, and wasted no time in slipping out of her clothes and stretching out on a flat rock in her bikini. In just the past few days, her skin had turned a darker shade than Holly even knew was possible. She wondered idly what Rupert would think of her tan, then thought about Aidan, his freckly skin burned light pink.
She tried to picture her mum here, naked and giggling as she leapt into the water. Who had Sandra and Jenny been skinny-dipping with? Or had they simply dared each other to strip off? Holly felt a pang of jealousy as she pictured the scene – she’d never had a brother or sister, of course, and barely anyone close to resembling a best friend. If she had, she wouldn’t have been as careless with them as her mum and aunt had been. How could twins allow themselves to become so distant?
She hadn’t really thought about what she’d discover by coming here, distracted as she had been by everything she saw on the drive over. Fields of goats, acres of forest and villages that seemed to erupt from the landscape out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly as she passed through. But she had hoped that she’d feel something when she arrived – a renewed closeness to her mum, perhaps. Holly was loath to admit it, even to herself, but she could still feel a lingering and deep-rooted hatred towards her mother. Both the adults she’d spoken to about it – namely Simon and a grief counsellor named, rather ironically, Joy – had urged her to let all those feelings go. She had nodded and smiled and told them that she would, but she never did.
‘Yassou!’
A menu was plonked down in front of her and she smiled up at the young male waiter. She had stayed down in the glorious cool water until she could see that the taverna was emptying, and then made her way back up the stone steps – which turned out to be far easier than the descent had been.
She gave the list a cursory glance, but she already knew what she wanted: water, frappé and a Greek salad. There were a number of other items that almost tempted her into breaking what had become a serious tomato and feta cheese habit: fresh grilled sardines, octopus in vinegar, village sausage and hearty meatballs, but she resisted for now. There would be plenty of time to try all those things over the next ten days. As she sipped her sweet, cold coffee and waited for the food to arrive, Holly dragged her eyes away from the view and watched the hive of activity going on inside the restaurant.
Having a very old lady in charge of the till seemed to be a commonplace in Zakynthos, but Holly observed that all the people ferrying around food and drinks here were male. There were Greek children of various ages running around and getting under the feet of the waiters, most of whom merely laughed and pretended to scold them.
One little girl of about five, her dark hair in two plaits and with a scrape on one knee, was sitting up on one of the tables eating an enormous chocolate ice cream, an adorable look of utter concentration on her face. Holly smiled. As she watched, an older Greek man with a neatly trimmed beard and a grey shirt stepped across to the little girl and wiped a napkin under her chin. Holly could hear him muttering what sounded like endearments. As he turned to go back into the kitchen, he noticed Holly staring over at them and she looked away quickly, embarrassed to have been caught gawping. When she sneaked a glance back a few seconds later, he was still staring – in fact, he seemed unable to tear his eyes away.
‘Blatant, much?’ she giggled to herself, pulling her vest on over her bikini top and turning her head back to look out across the ocean once again. A wide veranda containing more tables, each one with four wicker-seated chairs and a small vase of wild flowers, ringed the outside of the restaurant. There were vibrant patches of bougainvillea hanging down over the edge of the roof, the pink petals contrasting deliciously with the white painted walls and the light-dappled expanse of sapphire ocean below. Holly’s ears had grown accustomed to the symphony of the crickets, and she could now hear the faint sound of waves pitching up against the rocks.
The Greek salad arrived and she continued to watch the view as she ate, letting her senses savour their own individual moment.
‘Yassou.’
The little Greek girl with the ice cream had sauntered over to Holly’s table and was peering at her shyly. One of her plaits was starting to come loose and she was clutching a pink plastic straw in one hand.
‘Yassou.’ Holly’s limited Greek vocabulary didn’t let her say much more, so the two of them just smiled at one another in companionable silence for a few minutes.
‘England?’ the little girl asked eventually. It came out as barely a whisper.
‘Yes!’ Holly beamed at her. ‘My name is Holly.’ As she said it, she gestured to herself, feeling a bit ridiculous.
‘Holly,’ the girl repeated. She furrowed her brow for a few seconds, chewing on the end of her straw, before touching her own chest and whispering, ‘Maria.’
‘Maria is a beautiful name,’ Holly told her, hoping that at least the sentiment of what she was saying would be understood.
The little girl squirmed a little, still gazing at her, then very carefully placed her chewed straw on the table and skipped off in the direction of the kitchen.
Holly stared after her for a few seconds and then continued to fork up some red onion. What an amazing place to grow up, she thought, looking around at all the other boisterous and contented children who were skipping around. She often found herself feeling sorry for the morose-looking kids she saw trudging around London, the unknown dangers of the city ensuring they were never allowed more than a few feet away from their parents. The children here must have so much more freedom and spend so much more time playing outside, as opposed to being stuck in high-rise blocks of flats or those grotty after-school clubs.
Holly didn’t have much contact with children back in London. None of her and Rupert’s friends had kids yet and, aside from the odd person at work bringing their new baby in for a visit, Holly rarely encountered them. It wasn’t that she disliked children – in truth, she thought they were adorable – she’d just never had any desire to have any of her own. She wondered now whether or not Rupert had thought about the two of them having a baby. They’d never discussed it, and thankfully none of his friends had mentioned it yet. They were all having far too much fun going out socialising most nights to think about kids.
Holly had always thought having a baby would be a bad idea, after what had happened to her mum. Could it have been that the stress of having Holly was what drove her to start drinking in the first place? She’d told Holly many times in those last few dark months that she hated herself, that she was a bad mother, that she’d failed both of them. There was no way that Holly was ever going to risk that happening to another child.
She knew that her mum had got pregnant with her at the age of twenty, which seemed ludicrously young by today’s standards. She was about to turn thirty and
she still didn’t feel like an adult. Perhaps it was because she’d been forced to look after herself from such a young age. Now that she finally had a bit of security again, she was at last beginning to enjoy life.
But are you really happy? a small voice whispered. Is your life in London with Rupert what you really want? For some reason, as soon as she started to think about Rupert, Aidan popped into her head. Aidan, with his tatty clothes, messy hair and singsong Irish accent. Holly wondered what he was doing here. Why had he chosen Zakynthos as his home? He’d mentioned that his mum used to live here, but there must be a deeper reason. Holly vowed to find out on their trip the next day.
The thought of spending so much time with him was starting to make her feel nervous, but it was a nice feeling at the same time. She and Rupert had got into such a routine, and she’d found herself cherishing the predictability of their relationship. Now, however, she was being reminded what it felt like to have that buzz you get when you first meet someone. All the uncertainty and excitement bubbling away whenever you know you’re going to see them. There was something about Aidan that made her feel excited, but it was almost more to do with who she was when she was near him than the man himself. She didn’t feel as if she had to be anything other than herself, and it had been a very long time since she’d allowed that side of her to take over from the cautious, more guarded Holly Wright.
A waiter scurried over and swept up her empty plate, and as she headed to the till to settle the bill, Holly reached into the freezer and grabbed herself a chocolate ice cream. Little Maria wasn’t the only girl in this place with a sweet tooth. Tearing off the wrapper and stepping back out into the sun, Holly headed back down the stone steps towards the sea below. She was in paradise; it was a fact. Whatever had happened to make her mum leave this place behind, it must have been pretty bad.
12
Choosing what to wear for her first day out with Aidan was proving to be far more difficult than it should, Holly decided, as she hurled a dress across the room in frustration.
She was also already feeling irrationally annoyed at the man himself for not telling her what time they were setting off, so she had no idea if he was about to bang on the door and find her standing uselessly in the middle of a heap of clothes.
It was 7.30 a.m., and the sun was still low in the sky. A pleasant morning light was snaking its way slowly across the tiled floor, and Holly forced herself to take three deep breaths as she watched it. During her sessions with Joy the counsellor, she’d been taught about the calming benefits of slow and measured breathing. Apparently most human beings never breathed properly, only taking the air in as far as the level of their shoulders before exhaling, when you were actually supposed to take it right down into your stomach. That was all well and good, the grief-stricken and grumpy Holly had rudely pointed out at the time, but who the hell had time for that?
She remembered her first date with Rupert all those months ago, how nervous she’d been and how many dresses, trousers, blouses, skirts and different sets of underwear she’d tried on in preparation. Of course, it hadn’t mattered what she wore in the end, because he’d taken her straight out to buy a new dress and then insisted she put it on right away. It had been such a perfect day.
Cheered slightly by the reminder that she already had a lovely man in her life and so shouldn’t be worrying this much about a new one, Holly pulled out her cut-off jeans and fed one of Sandra’s old patterned scarves through the belt loops. She fished a plain white vest out of the heap on the bed and pulled it on over her bikini top. That would have to do, she told herself stubbornly. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress Aidan, anyway.
The sound of barking came just before a knock at the front door.
‘Ready to go exploring?’ Aidan said as she opened the door. Today he was wearing black shorts, frayed espadrilles, a navy blue T-shirt and a grin almost as large as Phelan’s, who was sitting panting by his feet.
‘Sure,’ she flashed him a shy smile. ‘I’ll just get my bag.’
Aidan peered over the threshold as she gathered her stuff from the table. Away from her ordered London life, Holly had slipped back into her old untidy ways, and there were ripped up bits of material littering the floor.
‘Been busy?’ Aidan held up the remains of a particularly garish sarong.
Holly flushed an even darker shade of red than the tatters in his hand. ‘I like sewing,’ she told him, wondering why she’d suddenly started speaking like an inarticulate moron.
‘Right.’ He dropped it back on the floor. Phelan had been sniffing around underneath the table and was now happily chewing on the underwire of a very large flesh-coloured bra.
‘Phelan! Drop it! Leave it!’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Holly was whooping with laughter now like a mad hen. ‘It’s not mine.’
Aidan’s eyes flickered straight to her own, far less ample chest, and she folded her arms self-consciously. Was she imagining it, or was he the one blushing now?
‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ he told her, motioning to the new tablecloth. Holly had created it from the remains of Sandra’s cotton dressing gown and some lace doilies she’d found in a kitchen cupboard. She’d also finished the patchwork wall hanging the previous evening and hung it up by the back doors where it did, as she had predicted, look stunning in the daylight.
‘I just thought it would help the place to look more like a home,’ she said. ‘I’m selling it, so I need it to look nice for potential buyers.’
Aidan raised his eyebrows at this, but didn’t comment. Instead, he asked if he could nip to the loo before they set off. ‘Don’t worry,’ he joked as he headed up the stairs. ‘I won’t flush any paper!’
‘Oh, ha ha,’ retorted Holly, but she was smiling.
Phelan leapt around their legs in excitement as they headed out along the path to where Aidan’s jeep was parked. It was covered in a thick coating of dust on the outside, but Holly discovered that it was impressively clean on the inside. A faint smell of antiseptic greeted her as she opened the door, and there was a tartan blanket covered in red-gold dog hair spread across the back seat. Phelan clambered in happily and stuck his glossy head out of the window, dribbling a trail of saliva through the grime on the door.
Holly buckled up and dumped her bag on the floor. She had already switched her phone over to silent in case Rupert called. She’d played the perfect girlfriend yesterday evening and spoken to him for a full hour after she got back from Porto Limnionas. He was missing her like mad, he’d told her. She was never to go away without him again, apparently. He’d actually sounded genuinely interested when she’d told him about what she’d seen on the island, obviously omitting all the stories Annie had told her about her aunt. Talking about Sandra would inevitably lead to the subject of her mum, and Rupert had no idea what had really happened to Jenny Wright. But thankfully, he hadn’t mentioned Sandra at all. She wondered if it was because he could sense that she didn’t want to talk about it, or because he just wasn’t that interested.
‘Have you eaten breakfast?’ Aidan was staring at her, his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Yes. I mean no. I mean yes.’ Holly gave up. Talking coherently was clearly something she was unable to do around this man.
‘Righto,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘I think I know where I’ll take you first, then. We’ll grab a bite and then try to track down a few of those places on Sandy’s map. What was it again, field that smells of shite?’
Holly giggled and wound down the window as he started the engine, breathing in the sweet aroma from the surrounding fig trees. As Aidan wrestled with the gear stick and turned the jeep round to face downhill, his bare knee brushed against Holly’s and she felt a bolt of electricity shoot into her chest. She really needed to get a grip.
They set off in a northerly direction, and for the first ten minutes neither of them spoke. Holly was content just to sit and take in the view and Aidan didn’t seem to be bothered by the silence.
Phelan eventually curled up on the back seat and put his silky head on his paws, looking up at each of them in turn from under his eyelashes.
There were a few more clouds around today, but they simply served to make the skyline look all the more dramatic. After following a coastal road for a few miles, Aidan turned the jeep inland and soon the roads started to get steeper. Holly took advantage of his concentration to study him surreptitiously. She liked the way his hands looked as they gripped the wheel and the way the muscles in his forearms rippled as they rounded a corner. Despite the wind rushing in through the open windows, she felt an overwhelming need to start fanning herself with the folded map.
‘So, Holly,’ he finally turned briefly to face her. ‘What is it that you do, back in … Where are you from?’
‘Well, I live in London,’ she told him. She wasn’t really ‘from’ anywhere. ‘In Dalston, which isn’t far from Hackney – do you know it?’
‘Nah, sorry,’ Aidan grinned at her. ‘I’ve never really fancied London. I grew up in the countryside and then spent years on the go. I think a big city would scare me.’
Holly thought privately that nothing much could possibly scare a man as big and confident as Aidan, but instead she said, ‘I work for a website that sells clothes. It’s called Flash.’
‘Flash?’ Aidan failed to hold in his laugh. ‘Are you for real?’
‘I know,’ she laughed too. ‘It is probably the most naff name in the world, but there are worse places to work.’
‘I always wanted to be a vet, right from when I was a little boy,’ he continued. There was a stooped, ancient-looking man up ahead herding a load of goats across the road, and Aidan stopped to let them pass. ‘I found a lamb once, when I was about six or seven. The poor little thing was tangled up in this barbed wire fence and I couldn’t get him out. He was struggling and bleeding and it was miles from anywhere.’
My Map of You Page 11