The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay

by Andrea Gillies

  Afterwards, Paolo delivered Nina back to her room and said he’d be back in two hours precisely. He said she should be ready to go out for a late-afternoon jaunt.

  “What kind of a jaunt?”

  “All will be revealed. Bring a cardigan, hat, suncream, the usual kit. Camera. Don’t forget your camera. I’ve got phone calls to make, but I’ll come back for you.”

  The picnic had made her tired and sweaty, so Nina changed out of trousers and into a loose floral dress, and lay on the bed to rest. She’d just got off to sleep when Dr. Christos came in, wearing jeans and a white shirt, a red embroidered waistcoat, mirrored aviators tucked into his collar. “So here we go: time to go and look at the villa. I ran into Paolo outside and he said he’d have to miss it.” He looked at his watch. “We have one hour forty-five, so we’d better get going. Dr. Argyros is covering. Are you ready? My car’s outside.”

  Dr. Christos’s car was a small silver hatchback, immaculately clean, its interior smell suggestive of air-conditioning and recent valeting. The passenger seat had been moved back to its furthest setting, and he helped Nina maneuver herself into it, pulling the strap of the seat belt across her and fixing the buckle. “We don’t have much time,” he said, “so I’m only going to show you the house that’s in the top village today, but I can send you lots of pictures of another one, which is across the water, and a link to their website.” He reversed the car and turned out of the car park, letting tourist bicycles go by first, cycling raggedly in a bunch. Nina was reminded of her childhood village, the gang on their bikes. There was safety here, and a society and hopefulness.

  “That sounds good,” she said, absentmindedly.

  “I also know of several good places to buy, which I’ll send you details about. You can have a look at them in November when you get back.” They went along the coast road, and as they got to the turnoff he slowed down. “First, do you want to go along to my place and have some coffee there?”

  “Maybe if we have time afterwards.”

  “Okay, let’s get straight to it.” He put his foot down and turned up the hill, taking its initial steep slope at quite a clip. Round two soft bends they went, and then a third, and as they approached the site of the accident Nina could feel the beginnings of panic. Her breath quickened and shortened and she found that she’d clamped both hands onto the dashboard. Dr. Christos glanced at her once, twice, as he was driving. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.” It was interesting; now that they were out of the hospital grounds her first inclination was to lie.

  “You’re finding the hill very interesting.” Nina had her head turned to the right, grateful to be on that side of the car. “Are you okay?”

  “I just want to get past here.”

  The car slowed almost to a halt. “Do you want to stop and take photographs?” He took his hands off the steering wheel, looking out over the valley.

  “No, thanks,” Nina said firmly. “Can we just press on?” They drove around the tight corner and another softer one, and saw the roofline of the hamlet ahead, and then the canopies of trees that lined the small square. “I took photographs there before,” she added, less severely. “I was taking pictures when Andros ran into me.”

  He glanced at the camera in her lap. “That’s right, we picked it up off the road. You’ve used it at the hospital, so it still works.”

  “It does. Amazingly.”

  “Have you looked at the pictures since the accident?” he asked her, slowing for goats.

  “I deleted them all.”

  “Sunsets are difficult things to capture on film.”

  They drove at low speed through the village, circling around a sleeping dog and pausing so that children who were playing soccer could get out of the way. They stopped by the gate into the allotments, and Nina saw, through the loose hedge of fruit trees, that there were long rows of plants, some at ground level, some on canes and wires, a vivid red of peppers and tomatoes, the purple-black of aubergines, racks of foliage and hidden hanging beans, and women bending to the task, in their black patterned dresses and dark headscarves. She felt a surge of optimism. Perhaps she, too, could have a garden. Perhaps there’d be nowhere better in the world to be a woman who lived alone than here. There might not be friendship of a straightforward kind, but that mightn’t be a bad thing. There’d be community, and perhaps that’d be enough. Perhaps it was what she needed, a kind of embracing and protected seclusion, something at once loyal and incurious.

  Dr. Christos drove on, taking the dirt road to the left after the final house, bouncing gently along through the accumulated dust of a long and rainless summer, and Nina saw the side wall of the villa sitting ahead of them. The track curved first to the left, closer to the edge of the cliff, and then curved round to the right so that the front of the building came into view. The afternoon light shone against it, spangling off the glass, and she realized that she’d seen its white face, its blue shutters, many times from down on the shore. They parked to the right, under a high shed with open sides, and came out into a small side garden, in which agave and other succulents rose solidly, architecturally, out of terra-cotta pots. There was a mosaic made of beach pebbles, of a whale encircled by fishes, and above the ground-floor windows a vast red bougainvillea that teemed extravagantly with blooms.

  Dr. Christos led the way round to the front door, to a terrace with a wooden table and chairs, all painted in a peeling gray green. “It’s not completely ugly, is it?” he said.

  “Oh my God, look at this.”

  It was like looking out from the top of the world. The hill descended in bursts, rocky and dotted with tussocks of pale grass and wildflowers; beneath it she could see the pastel colors of the shore, the wide blue of the bay. As she stepped further forward, a narrow strip of the lower village became visible, the houses stretching along the coast road. Main Island seemed huge, close at hand, and smaller, more distant islands appeared as smudges on the horizon line.

  “In fact, you can see my place from here.” He took the crutch from her good side and led her by the hand, further into the garden, past pots of cacti and between stumpy olive trees that had ropes of fairy lights twisted into them.

  Inside the villa, one big, opened-out room was subdivided by open-backed bookcases into a sitting end and a kitchen end, whose units were built of breeze blocks coated in plaster and painted white, its worktops made of colored tiles. The floor was a warm brown ceramic, the chairs big and soft around a blue enamel stove, and there were big, rough baskets brimming with logs.

  “She imported the wood at vast expense, the owner,” Dr. Christos said. “Mostly because she loved the smell.”

  “Whose is it, the house?”

  “It belonged to Doris’s family. Still does, but it isn’t a family home anymore. They keep it for letting now.”

  “It’s Doris’s house?” She glanced nervously around. What if Doris was about to walk through the door? What if — she hadn’t thought of this — she was one of the women at the bus stop, one of the gardeners?

  “It’s her father’s, technically. He did the conversion and put in the en suite bathrooms himself, before he got ill. Doris doesn’t want to live here.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s fallen out with the family up here — it’s mostly one extended family, spread between the houses. Mostly they’re related to me, in fact. You’ll like Olympia’s sister particularly — she’s a cultured and well-traveled person. They’d like you to live up here. You’re a celebrity now. They’d see it as a victory over the other place.”

  Nina went slowly up the stairs and Dr. Christos followed closely behind. They stood in the three bright bedrooms, one after the other, looking at white walls and old beds and reproduction icon paintings, and opened and closed cupboards. They went in and out of tiny but nicely done bathrooms, and looked out from the room that would be hers, out at the spectacular view.

  “So what do you think?” he said eventually. “Can you imagine livin
g here?”

  “This is the kind of place I can imagine writing the book.”

  “Writing one? You’re going to write one?”

  “I’m going to have a go. I always wanted to. This might be the time. I can imagine working here, here and in Norway.”

  “You’ll probably find it’s harder than it looks.” She didn’t have anything to say to that. “Probably best to stick at what you’re good at,” he added. “That’s something I’ve also had to learn. So what do you think — it’s a wonderful house, isn’t it?”

  “It really is. Thank you for showing it to me.”

  “So is the deal done?” He looked and sounded hopeful.

  “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

  “But you’re coming to Greece? That part is for definite, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Oh, come on, Nina.” He put his hands on the sill and leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. “This is just the usual backtracking.” She thought she saw a glimpse of it, the reputed temper, just as it was being reined in.

  “The usual?”

  “You’re afraid of drawing the line and stepping over it. Just do it. Live your life forwards for once. Go forwards! Don’t think about jumping; just jump!”

  She couldn’t look at him. She worked uselessly at the window mechanism. “I can’t get it to open.”

  He was still talking. “Listen to the things you told me in your own words. Have what you want for once. What you want. There is a wonderful life here, laid out and waiting for you. It’s all waiting.” He moved forward and put his hand on her arm. “Stop that a minute. Listen to me. Don’t do it. Please. I understand why you might backtrack; I’ve done it with Doris and I’ve always regretted it.”

  “You don’t really know me,” she said. It was true, despite everything, despite the stories, despite all the disencumbering.

  “Of course I do.”

  “No.” She made a last heroic push and the window opened onto a rush of warmth, the aromas of air and ocean, plant life and heated-up stone. She could see the women at the allotments if she leaned out far enough.

  He was standing right beside her now, trying to meet her gaze, but she wouldn’t look at him. “And this is your way of telling me you are returning to Paolo.”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that when things get fixed, when you say them, they’re not always true for very long. It’s all continually evolving.”

  “Nina. Nina. Look at me.” When she turned to him he put his hands at the sides of her neck and moved them slowly along to the ends of her shoulders. “We need to give this a shot. We do. You know we do. We need to find out one way or another.” He bent and kissed her gently on the lips, and she looked at his mouth and knew it was the wrong one. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a right mouth again; not ever. Was she ever going to acclimatize to the idea? “Can I make a suggestion?” he asked.

  “Suggest away,” she said, but she was ill at ease.

  “Come back to my house, and go to bed with me.”

  “So direct.” It was all she could manage to say. She turned back to the view, leaning out of the window as if compelled, and it occurred to her that she was physically blocking him.

  “I like directness.” He sounded playful; playfulness was an impossibility. He might have thought her cryptic, even coquettish. That wouldn’t do.

  “What is that going to teach us, if sex is just sex?” She seemed to be asking the question of the garden and its miniature orchard. What would it look like here at night?

  “Nina. Please talk to me. Look at me.” She withdrew and turned to face him again. “It would mark the start of things for us, something ready to resume for when you come back. Don’t you think?” He put his fingers over hers. She looked down at them, and registered the feel of them, and knew without any doubt that it was the wrong hand, and had to move hers away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to. I’m sorry.”

  He took a step back. “That isn’t the impression that you’ve given.”

  She frowned at him. “What impression is that?”

  “My turn to be sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply there was any kind of a promise. I was just surprised. You’re not attracted to me?”

  “Things work differently for me than that. Physically.” What was she saying? She had no idea anymore.

  “Oh, I see. Do we have to be engaged first?”

  He smiled at her and she smiled back. This felt easier now. “I may have only had sex with three people, my whole life. But when it’s happened it’s something we’ve arrived at; we’ve arrived at it. It hasn’t been like — like —”

  “Like what?”

  “Like an audition.”

  “All dates are an audition, though, aren’t they, when you come right down to it.” She was struggling to get the window to close properly, and he stepped in and did it for her. “I’m not going to see you for a while and we’ve been granted this small time together. I want to be closer to you.” He bent and kissed her again.

  She said, “I’m meeting Paolo after this.”

  “We have time.” He dipped his chin and looked charmed, as if she were an innocent and her objections endearing.

  “It isn’t that,” she told him.

  “I understand; I’ll take you back to the hospital. Come on.” They went down the stairs together, Dr. Christos going ahead in case Nina stumbled forwards. He said, “You haven’t looked in the kitchen cupboards. You should probably look at the kitchen a bit more closely, if you’re to make a decision from home. I noticed you didn’t try the water pressure in the bathroom.”

  Nina obediently opened doors. “There isn’t a dishwasher; that’s a pity.”

  “It will only be you, though, and me sometimes, I hope, and I’ll do the washing up.”

  Nina followed him out onto the garden. “It is incredibly beautiful.” She could hear in her voice that this was a plus point, being voiced in fairness to a longer list of negatives. There was an audible sense of regret in it, one that she knew he’d also heard.

  They got back into the car and Dr. Christos said, “Can I ask you one thing?”

  “Fire away.” She put her seat belt on.

  “What did you and Paolo talk about at lunch?”

  “What did we talk about?”

  “I wondered if I’d missed part of the story.” He started the car. “Bring me up to speed.”

  “It was just chat.” She found she didn’t want to tell him about the picnic. There’d been something about it that was inexplicably private.

  “What was the chat about?”

  “You want me to tell you what we chatted about.”

  “Please.”

  “When you were married to Doris, were you constantly asking her what she was thinking, and what was said and what texts she’d received?”

  “Of course.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  “I’m not joking. I would never have let her have a close friendship with another man.”

  “Let her? You wouldn’t have let her?”

  “No.”

  “Not all other men are rivals, though.”

  “Of course they are.” They bumped and juddered back down the potholey dust track. “In fact, let’s stop at Olympia’s sister’s house. She would like to meet you and this might be a good time.”

  “Do you mind if we don’t? I’m tired. Lunch was tiring.”

  “Well, never mind. What shall we do instead, with the time we have left? Let’s go to my place. I’d like you to see it.” They came out onto the road. “Don’t worry — you look so worried! I’m not going to corner you there. Tell you what — we won’t even go in. You can sit on the veranda and I’ll make us some tea. What do you say?”

  “If you want to.”

  “If I want to?”

  “That’d be nice, thank you.”

  They drove back through the villa
ge, skirting around the same sleeping dog and slowing for the same soccer game. The same goats were standing at the side of the road.

  “Are you afraid that you’ll grow bored here?” he asked her. “Because I have family over there” — he nodded towards Main Island — “where perhaps you would be happier.”

  “I don’t think my dream of living here was very realistic,” Nina said. “But thank you.”

  “What was unrealistic about it?”

  “I feel a little bit of panic at the idea of living here.”

  “Marooned.”

  “Yes, sort of that.” They went round the sharpest bend and past the accident spot, and Nina made herself look at it, catching a glimpse of the ledge down beneath the new barrier. She said, “Do you think you will move away?” He needed to see it, the obvious thing. She needed to know that he’d understood.

  “I don’t know.” His disappointment in her was obvious. “I feel responsible to the hospital in a way I wish I didn’t. And also, the fact is I wasn’t happy in the States. I seem to have allowed myself to become a man with no country. When I’m away I feel Greek and I’m homesick as hell, and when I come back I hate the place. There doesn’t seem to be an answer.”

  They’d reached the junction and turned right in the direction of Blue Bay.

  “I can see how that might happen,” Nina said. “To be honest I feel a bit the same way myself.”

  They were quiet until they got to the house. “I’m sorry I rushed you,” he said. “I’m just eager to know you. I’m happy to take things slowly. Let’s go and drink tea and sit on my veranda like an old married couple.”