The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay

by Andrea Gillies

  “That’s not good.”

  She’d sit on her bed, having claimed she preferred to work there, her heart beating hard. He’d come in sometimes, without knocking, with a tray, a cup of tea, some fantastic leaf tea he got sent in the post, the specialist items arriving in constant packages. He’d bring leaf tea in on a tray and his warm lavender shortbread.

  “By this time I was ignoring him and it was mutual, so I didn’t thank him anymore for tea trays, which meant I didn’t say thank you for coq au vin or the oven-cleaning, either, and of course Paolo noticed that.” Nina went up onto her elbows so she could see the doctor. “I was the first to crack. I cracked. It was as if Luca was waiting for me to apologize. What was I supposed to be guilty of? I couldn’t take it anymore, the silence in the apartment like fog, this damp and deadening fog. I was beginning to be ill.”

  “And Paolo didn’t see?”

  “Paolo thought my behavior was unaccountable. That was his word. You see, when Paolo appeared, Luca was sweetness and light and talkative. It was just like when we were young, except this time it was Paolo he allied himself with, and me who was ignored. Luca adjusted himself to talk like Paolo likes to talk. The two of them had nice evenings together, sitting for hours over Luca’s elaborate meals, the endless bottles of wine.” She gathered her thoughts. “So, one day I asked Luca if he wanted to walk with me to the park. He didn’t want to — that was his first reaction, to say no, but then something made him change his mind and off we went.” They went down the hill from the city to the Botanics, saying nothing to one another, walking alongside one another and saying nothing at all. They reached the circular pond, and stood looking at the fish and it was now or never. “I was so nervous. I said, ‘I don’t know why you’re being so weird with me, but I just wanted to say that I love you. I love you, you know.’ I didn’t mean it. I was afraid of him, I’d begun to loathe him, and I needed to stop feeling both of those things. He was supposed to say he loved me, too. He was supposed to play the game. He was supposed to explain himself. But he didn’t. He said I was sweet. Sweet: it’s a dagger in the heart.”

  “Is it?”

  “Oh God, yes.”

  He said he was tired and that he was going back, and off he went, leaving Nina behind. When she got home she could hear that he was cooking, singing along to the Rolling Stones, so she went into her bedroom and wrote him an e-mail, one that was quasi-hysterical. What had she done? How did she deserve this treatment? She couldn’t take any more, she said. She was at the end of her tether.

  Five minutes later, a text message arrived. We need to talk.

  Nina didn’t get it. She thought he was saying that they needed a proper talk. They weren’t together, so how could it be the other sort of we need to talk, the one that heralds the breakup? It didn’t even occur to her that Luca was breaking up with her.

  She was heartened. I’d like that very much.

  He texted again. Nina, I’m not in love with you. Please stop this.

  Nina was stunned. What did he mean? When Paolo got home she was still writing the answering e-mail, a long e-mail, and this was the point at which it all got very complicated. Not because she wanted Luca, but because she was offended. She wasn’t having him saying he didn’t love her. She reminded him of how it had been between the two of them since childhood. She quoted him, from their lunch in the spring, when he’d said they should have been together. She cited examples, one after the other; the list of irrefutable things.

  His reply was one line. How much did you have to drink when you wrote this?!

  Nina got into a sitting position. “Francesca had given him advice, in the letter to be opened after she died. Advice for a second marriage. Live somewhere far away from Nina, that was the gist of it. Like it was my fault and he was helpless to resist me. I was so upset by it. He’d always initiated, always always, and at the time, whenever it was happening, our double act, everybody but his mother pretended to be amused. Everybody. Sometimes even Francesca.”

  “Francesca was brave.”

  Nina sat up straighten. “One thing I’ve learned: some men have affairs, intimate friendships, whatever, as a prelude to leaving their wives, and some men do it so they don’t have to.”

  A reception was held that evening, a presentation of medals for service at one of Francesca’s charities. Francesca had been awarded one posthumously. Luca went to accept it on her behalf and wanted the whole family to be there. He made a speech, paying tribute to her and fighting his tears. Nina said to the president of the charity at the drinks afterwards that she didn’t feel she’d achieved anything. She hadn’t had children. She’d worked on not very great novels, nothing particularly great, her whole working life, and would leave no lasting mark. She’d lived a small life. He said that a small life was fine as long as you were happy in it, and didn’t impede or hurt others. Nina thought, Jesus, how smug can you get? But, then that night she couldn’t sleep.

  Everyone went back to Luca’s apartment after the ceremony. Paolo made omelettes, and Nina was reprimanded by Maria for playing hostess. It was as if she’d dishonored Francesca and was flaunting the fact. Paolo was mystified by his mother’s hostility and told her off: what was she talking about? Somebody had to put the plates and glasses out. Luca sat motionlessly at the dining table, resting his chin on his hands, and didn’t seem to know where things were kept. Nina conceded directorship of the laying of the table to Maria, but then of course Maria didn’t know where the plates were kept either. She apologized. She said she was upset and Nina said it was fine. Luca didn’t react to this at all, not to any of it.

  The following morning, once Paolo had gone to the office, Nina went nervously into the kitchen to get breakfast and found that Luca was already there, typing madly and smiling at the screen. He spent his days mooching about in the apartment, in and out of rooms and up and down the hall, and Nina stayed in her bedroom, but it wasn’t possible to stay out of the kitchen entirely. She was standing at the toaster feeling miserable, looking at the bread in the slot as if it mattered, and heard his voice saying “Look,” and then “Nina.” She turned to face him and he said, “I’m really sorry.” He made a sorry face. Nina sat down in the chair across from him and said, “It’s okay.” It had to be okay. It couldn’t be anything but okay, because Francesca had died. Peace had to be made, and quickly.

  He said, “I don’t really know what came over me. It’s not that it wasn’t wonderful sex. I’ll never forget it. I’ll cherish the memory always.” He seemed to be serious, but he must have known it wasn’t wonderful, at least not for Nina. It hadn’t even been something they’d shared. It’d been something done to her. She’d permitted it, his rapid, unromantic release, but she’d barely even participated. If he was prepared to lie so blithely about that, what else might he lie about? The other thing was that he seemed to have forgotten that he’d cut her dead afterwards, after the wonderful and cherished sex. He hadn’t made any reference, since the event in question, to kindness and comfort, the words he was going to use later, in his letter to Nina; the words he’d use when he discussed it with Paolo, as if Paolo should be proud of Nina for having sex with his brother.

  It was all the wrong way round. She wasn’t having this going on the record, not even their own personal record. She said, “Actually it wasn’t wonderful. It wasn’t really even sex. It was more like something that was done to me.”

  Luca took grave and instant exception to this. He jumped up, his eyes bulging, his muscles all clenched. He came storming round to her side of the table, shouting, “What did you say?” roaring like a mad person, like an angry father who’s been disrespected. Nina got out of her chair as quickly as she could, pushing it towards him as a barrier and moving swiftly backwards and away. He kept coming. He pushed her with the flat of his hand.

  He said, “Are you suggesting that you were raped?”

  She was shaken. “Of course not.”

  “Because you need to be very careful with your insinuation
s.” He was literally trembling with rage, his fists all gathered up. He left — he grabbed his coat and his laptop, his phone, and off he went, slamming the door. Then he came rampaging back in, coming intimidatingly close to her again, and pointing at her, jabbing the air. “You should’ve said no. You should’ve refused, the night I came over.”

  “What?” She was absolutely thrown by this. “What?”

  “You fucking slut.”

  She couldn’t believe it. She gasped. “What did you call me?”

  The look on his face was as if he’d eaten something foul and rotten. He said, “I’m wasting my time here,” and off he went.

  Nina didn’t think he’d come back, other than to move out his stuff, but no. It turned out he’d gone straight to the office and announced that he felt ready to resume work.

  Paolo brought Luca home with him at seven o’clock, all smiles, both of them in a notably good mood. They went and ensconced themselves in the kitchen, opening the first bottle and talking through the day’s events, and Luca made dinner, and things continued in that same vein, following the same pattern, for another six days. Luca had long conversations with Paolo deep into the night, ones Nina wasn’t welcome to join. He needed Paolo now. He claimed Paolo back, and of course Paolo couldn’t help but be flattered by that, by being needed; he couldn’t help but be a little bit flattered by being preferred.

  “The night I left, Luca had gone home, but it was only so he could get more of his stuff. That was the last straw. I went and stood in front of Paolo, who was reading, and said, ‘Paolo, do you think you and I are any longer in love?’ Suddenly that seemed to be the point. It seemed like that was the real problem.”

  “Paolo didn’t see that Luca had put himself between you?”

  At first, he thought Nina’s saying she was moving out was just flouncing. He thought it was childish. Luca had been immensely cheered up by looking after them, by being important to them and helping around the house. Luca was doing them a kindness, and it wasn’t possible to object to kindness, not in those circumstances, not without looking like a monster.

  “All Paolo saw was me behaving badly. It even occurred to me that Luca was going to tell Paolo about the sex, in order to get me to move out, so he could have Paolo to himself.”

  “He wouldn’t have done that.”

  “That wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was yet to come.”

  Nina had arrived weeping at her father’s house that night in a taxi. He didn’t take her moving out seriously, either. The two of them had a conversation about Anna, and then Robert went up for an early night. Nina watched television and drank some more of his whisky, and then at about 11:30 p.m. the phone rang. Luca had called her so late because he’d waited till Paolo had gone to bed.

  “Luca was furious. What the hell was I playing at? He’d got back to the apartment and found that I’d gone. I’d yelled at poor Paolo and stormed off. How could I be such a total coward? How could I do that to Paolo?”

  “Understandable. In a way.”

  “He said, ‘Do you want to hear what I really think? I’ve never liked the way you treat my brother.’ I was so upset. I was shaking violently; I could hardly speak. I said, ‘The way you treat him, you mean.’ He said, ‘No, Nina, it wasn’t me who was married to Paolo and who failed to love and cherish him.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. I kept saying, ‘What? What?’ I had chest pain. My breath was short. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die.”

  She said, “I don’t understand,” though that wasn’t true. She understood everything. This narrative of his, now it was spelled out, made recent events make sense. Nonetheless like an idiot she started making more lists. “Why were you constantly trying to be with me, Luca, and touching me; why did you roll me across the floor, and throw me in the sea so you could put your hands under my thighs, and why did you constantly bitch about Francesca?” He said he remembered it differently.

  “Then he said, ‘There’s something else you need to know.’ He’d told Francesca about the sex. It turned out Francesca had known about it since the day after it happened. That was completely shattering. I hadn’t seen her again; I’d kept away. Luca was blanking me so I stayed away. I didn’t know she was going to die. I should have gone to see her, despite Luca. I know that. I’m not proud of that. I missed two family Sunday lunches with an invented flu bug. Francesca knew, all that time, that I’d had sex with her husband. She didn’t call me. She didn’t say anything.”

  “Oh, Nina.”

  There wasn’t even the remotest possibility that Luca had hinted how it really was. He would have painted quite a different picture. Though perhaps no picture was painted. Perhaps the brutal, informative Nina and I had sex last night was enough for his wife. Francesca may well have closed her ears against more details.

  “It had a big impact on me. I was worthless, a worthless person. It still makes me sweat to think how betrayed she must have felt. I’d had sex with her husband and then I’d dropped her.”

  “What a mess.” Dr. Christos was shaking his head.

  “I told Luca I was never going to speak to him again, and he hung up the phone and that was that. I haven’t spoken to him. I haven’t seen him. I sent him a chirpy postcard when I first got here, about the island food; just about the food. It makes me laugh, actually, to think of him receiving it and being puzzled.” She laughed bleakly. “I suppose in time we might have to make our peace, not a real peace, but maybe a token one. I might need to tell him, if he ever brought it up again, that our supposedly golden time, the summer we were eighteen, wasn’t how he remembers it. For most of the time we were both supremely bored.”

  “Yes. You should tell him that.” Dr. Christos had to leave her, to go home and walk his dog, who’d been locked in on his own all day. He said he’d be back later, after Paolo had been to visit, to see how she was. He kissed her on the cheek before he left.

  Once he’d gone she dozed awhile, and had dinner, which was a spinach filo pastry pie with pine nuts and unexpectedly good, and watched Greek television, looking at the pictures but thinking about Luca, and then Paolo was there, cursory in his greeting and fishing a packet out of his bag.

  “Here. I brought more figs. And also, red wine.” He produced the bottle. His expression was grim.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Things on my mind.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Work. Work which has followed me to Greece. And also, Christos. Christos is always here. I swear he has a lookout who warns him I’m walking down the road; he always seems to be leaving your room as I come through the main door.”

  “He doesn’t really have enough to do.”

  “And that’s why he’s hired the locum.”

  “He hasn’t hired anyone. There isn’t any money.”

  “You haven’t met him? Dr. Argyros? He’s Doris’s uncle. He’s come out of retirement temporarily. He seems very nice.”

  “Dr. Argyros? He came in once and looked at the chart, but he didn’t even say hello. You’ve met him?”

  “We had a brief chat earlier. I thought he was very personable.”

  “It must have been for his sake, for Dr. Argyros’s sake, to give him a job before the funding runs out.”

  “Look,” Paolo said. “Speaking of money running out, there’s something you need to know. It’s about the business. It’s being sold. Hence long phone calls, and e-mailing from Vasilios’s bar, and bad nights.”

  “What? Oh no, why?”

  “Hence also, I’m afraid to say, Mum’s stroke.”

  “Paolo, I’m so sorry. This is terrible news. Can’t it be sorted out? Is there still time to sort something out?”

  “It can’t be stopped now, not now the bank’s got wind of the trouble we’re in. It’s started raining so they’ve taken their umbrella back. But there’s a buyer and a good offer — finally the right offer, after a lot of messing us about.”

  “You’re not going to be Romano and Sons
anymore?”

  “They’re keeping the name, the brand, and they’re keeping the sons, at least for now. I told them I wanted to go part-time, maybe become a consultant, depending on the money. I think the time has come to change my life.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  On their last day Paolo texted to say that he’d hired a car from Andros and was going to Main Island for the morning, and did she want to come? Nina didn’t feel up to it, but said she hoped to see him later.

  Back at 1:30 to take you to lunch, he replied. Be ready. Also, at 4:50 precisely we’re going for a drink. A second text followed on its heels: That’s today’s schedule, so rest up and no excuses.

  She was waiting in the foyer when he arrived, roaring up in a tiny car. It was too small for someone with a broken leg, he said, getting out and locking it up, and in any case he didn’t fancy going to the café again. The taverna was out, too. Both tavernas.

  “Because of the eavesdropping?”

  “Because of the world-class eavesdropping; correct.” He held up a bulging carrier bag. “Picnic. I’ve been to the market. The town was hopping and I had trouble parking, but it’s beautiful over there, the main square, the planting, the shopping, the church. I’d live over there if I were you. Anyway. Picnic. Come on — can you walk two hundred yards, along to the next bench? It’s hot but there’s that big tree. I noticed there’s shade creeping over the seat, so it should be good timing.”

  They went slowly, at Nina’s pace, along hot tarmac, past arid verges that smelled of summer, and sat on the bench, and looked at the twin headlands that framed the bay, and at the far shore of Main Island, whose outlines were gauzy and drifting. Nina glanced at her watch. The bus would already have been through on its lunchtime run. She was wearing a big hat and sunglasses, hoping to be incognito, but the crutches were a giveaway and various islanders came over to wish her well. “Here comes another one,” Paolo kept saying, as they were approached again by a concerned and smiling face. “It might be time to learn how to say that you’re feeling much better.” In between halting conversations they ate stuffed vine leaves, an oily aubergine salad, nectarines, and a pale, bitter cheese. They talked about the food and the view and locals they’d met, and what living there in the winter might be like.