Summer on the Turquoise Coast

by Summer on the Turquoise Coast (retail) (epub)

  With no children of her own, Flossie was Mabel’s closest relative. It was only right that Alice hosted Mabel’s wake. She’d opted to hold it at their house, rather than a sterile church hall, or the upstairs room in a random pub, and Nina had spent all the previous evening buttering bread for sandwiches and slicing lemon drizzle cake. She’d been up so late preparing for Great-Aunt Mabel’s send-off that she stayed over, sleeping in her old room, and wondering where all the years had gone.

  It was also a good excuse not to go back to her own house.

  She had no such excuse once the wake ended.

  Nina volunteered to take Flossie back to the nursing home first, assuring her for the thousandth time that the old lady wasn’t going to be left there to rot. It was a perfectly nice nursing home, as nursing homes go, Nina thought. And yes, Flossie would return to her own home, and no, they hadn’t sold her house from underneath her nose and were planning on running away to Australia on the proceeds. Nina said for the thousandth time, that first Flossie would need to relearn how to walk again, which was why she was having physio on her weakened leg and arm.

  Once she returned her gran to the expert care of the nursing home, Nina ran out of places to go, and things to do.

  Home it is then, she thought, pulling out of Happy Hills carpark, though she’d promised to check on her gran’s house on the way, and as it delayed doing lesson preparation for the start of term, Nina was more than happy to oblige.

  Post littered the mat behind the front door. One letter carried an imprint of Ben’s size ten footprint; the lazy sod hadn’t bothered to pick any of it up the last time he’d been here. They were supposed to take it in turns to make sure no one had broken in, that the roof hadn’t blown off, and the plants were watered. Nina poked a finger into the nearest pot. Dust dry.

  Post sorted (Nina put anything she thought might be important in her bag – she’d give it to Mum to take to the nursing home), plants watered, and windows opened to let some fresh air blow through the stale house, Nina wandered from room to room.

  She hoped Gran would eventually return home. The old lady was fiercely independent and hated that damn nursing home. Mind you, she’d hate living with Mum even more, Nina thought. Two alpha women in one house – it would drive them both batty.

  She trailed a hand across the worktops in the kitchen, thinking that the next time Gran came home it would probably be to supervise the packing up of her possessions. None of the family had mentioned it to the old lady (they were too scared) but they were all thinking the same thing – assisted living. Bagsy Nina wasn’t the one to have that difficult conversation with her!

  Duty done, and if the said duty left her slightly tearful there was no one around to witness it, Nina drove to her own little house.

  Home; where she felt safe, contented, cocooned. Home, where she enjoyed her own company and binge-watched box sets.

  So why did the place feel so empty and bleak now?

  Chapter 36

  The first day back was often a shock to many teachers, but never to Nina. Oh no, not her, because, ever since she graduated and secured her first teaching post, she’d always popped into the school at least a couple of times a week during the long summer holidays (usually more), so for her the start of term was an anti-climax, merely a continuation of the end of the last academic year.

  It said an awful lot about the state of her personal life.

  She didn’t have one, not unless going to the gym, having the occasional drink with friends, lunch at Mum’s every Sunday, and most nights spent curled up in her favourite chair reading a dry tome on ancient history, passed as a personal life.

  Since she’d returned from Turkey, Nina had been forced to admit she’d been living life one step removed from it. Yes, she loved reading about the Greeks and the Romans, and it wasn’t as if you could go back in time and immerse yourself in their cultures, was it, but she could be on a dig, or working in a museum where she might actually be able to hold one of those fabulous artefacts in her hand, and feel something touched by a person who lived two thousand or more years ago.

  To carry out proper research, to make her own deductions and discoveries was as far removed from reading about it, as hanging thousands of feet in the air and experiencing the thrill of gliding back down to earth was, compared to watching a paraglider on TV.

  And if nothing else, Nina had Leo to thank for opening her eyes. She’d never met anyone with such passion and dedication to what they did to pay the bills, and she wanted a piece of it for herself. She wanted to wake up in the morning thrilled to be going to a job she loved, and not to a job she did because it occupied the time between waking and sleeping, using up the long hours in between. She wanted to feel alive.

  It was with mixed feelings (and heavy eyelids, because she’d spent all of the evening and much of the night trawling through course after course on the internet) Nina unlocked her classroom and stepped inside. Breathing in the familiar smell and staring at the carefully decorated and copiously adorned walls, she wished she was anywhere but here.

  Of course, her house would have to go, maybe her car, definitely the expensive gym membership, the Marks and Spencer ready meals for one (Tesco value for her from now on), and she’d have to resign herself to no more expensive haircuts or nice clothes. She’d be living in a hall of residence with teenagers only a year older than those she taught, eating little more than toast and drinking cheap beer, and wearing whatever happened to still be clean. Welcome to student-land.

  Nina shuddered. It would be as if the last ten years hadn’t happened. Except she didn’t fancy having a skin-full of booze every night, staying up ’til dawn and not washing for days on end, again. Oh wait, she hadn’t done that the first time around either, had she?

  Conscious she was getting ahead of herself, she went through the rest of the day on autopilot, trying to imagine how it would be to have no money, except for the statutory student loan. She’d hardly started paying off the loans for her first degree yet! The way she was going, she’d be in debt until she was as old as her gran.

  At lunch, instead of joining the others in the staffroom as she would have done in the past, she hid in the faculty office, Googling local dig sites, trying to find out if anyone needed volunteers. So far, no luck, but Nina understood that with autumn fast approaching, the dig season was more or less over. Maybe she could put her name forward for a dig in the spring and spend the winter months volunteering at a museum, or offering to do free research. She knew she was being rather vague, but this was all new to her. Excitement fizzed in her veins – she didn’t care what she did, as long as she did something.

  Day two of the pair of training days before the hordes of pupils returned was a repeat of day one, except for the additional excitement of visiting the reprographics room and placing an order for photocopying. Oh, and a phone call from a company who organised school trips.

  ‘Message for you.’ Sue, one of the receptionists, handed her a pink slip of paper. ‘Your email doesn’t work, everything I send you keeps bouncing back,’ she told Nina. ‘I’ve written it down instead.’

  Nina glanced at the paper.

  Man called from a company organising school trips.

  Asked for Nina Clarke.

  Didn’t leave his number.

  ‘Did he say which company?’ Nina asked, not really caring. The last thing she wanted to do was take a load of hormonal teenagers on a school trip.

  ‘No, I didn’t get much out of him at all,’ Sue said, and Nina wondered why the other woman bothered to give her the message in the first place.

  Scrunching it up, and hurling the crumpled paper at the bin, Nina checked her pigeon hole, to find she didn’t even have any post – nothing, nada, zilch. Maybe the god of education was trying to tell her something; email not working, no post, and useless messages. Perhaps the universe was trying to give her a great big hint.

  Sitting at her desk with the intention of familiarising herself with this year’s
pupils, Nina wondered if maybe a change of exam board with a different syllabus would inject some life back into her work. It was too late for this academic year though, she’d have to go with what she had. Damn it, but she was bored!

  She found herself clicking on images of Ephesus on her phone. She hadn’t taken many photos, and to her continuing dismay she didn’t have any of Leo. Smiling, she recalled how he’d tapped his head and said all his memories were in his mind and that he didn’t need a photo to “see” them.

  Funnily enough, neither did she. Every second in Turkey was as clear as if she was still there, especially the days (and night, don’t forget the night) she’d spent with Leo. When she closed her eyes, every inch of him was seared on her mind: the way he scratched his head when he was thinking, making his hair stand on end; the gentle way he had with Flossie; his laugh and how his eyes creased when the smile reached them; the desire on his face when…

  She blinked and sat up straighter. There was a time and a place for those kinds of thoughts and it wasn’t now, so she steered her wayward thoughts into a safer direction.

  He’d had nice hands, she remembered, strong, with a tiny smattering of hair at each wrist. Hands that—

  This time she cleared her throat and got up to make a cup of coffee.

  The strong liquid did nothing to warm her or fill her up. Her insides were hollow, except for an ache where her heart used to be. The dull pain in her chest was almost physical, and until she realised what it was, she’d considered taking an aspirin.

  So this was what it felt like to have a broken heart?

  Goddammit Flossie! Couldn’t you have decided to liven me up in Brighton, or Scarborough, or St Ives – anywhere but Turkey? Anywhere so she wouldn’t have met Leo and fallen in love with a dream. She knew she should have refused to go.

  She Skyped her grandmother, needing to hear her voice. Flossie was her only connection to Turkey. To Leo.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said as soon as Flossie answered the call.

  ‘It always is, you’ll find that out for yourself when you’re a wife and a mother. You’ll never be able to do anything right.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m blaming you for?’

  ‘I already know.’

  ‘Go on then, what is it?’

  ‘That nice young man of yours.’

  ‘He’s not mine.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he called then, or sent me a text?’

  ‘He’ll have his reasons. Did you call me just to have a go at me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nina said sulkily.

  ‘Haven’t you got some kids to bully?’

  ‘It’s a teacher training day.’

  ‘Another one? I wish I had as many training days as you do.’

  ‘Ha, bloody ha.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop arsing about and phone him?’

  ‘I haven’t got his number.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘See?’

  ‘I see.’ Flossie’s tone became less belligerent. Nina wished it hadn’t when she heard the pity in her grandmother’s voice. ‘We all get our hearts broken, dear, sooner or later. The first cut is the deepest.’

  Nina swallowed hard. ‘That’s such a lovely thing to say.’

  ‘Rod Stewart said it first.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A singer from the seventies He’s right though, the first time you get your heart broken you think you’ll never get over it. At least you’re mature enough to deal with it, and not a drama queen of a teenager.’

  ‘Thanks for the words of wisdom, but they don’t help.’

  ‘Nothing will,’ Flossie declared, cheerfully. ‘You have to suck it up and get on with it. Now, have you finished?’

  ‘I still want to shout at you.’

  ‘No, you don’t, you want to shout at Leo. Anyway, you can’t shout at me, I’ve got witnesses.’ Flossie turned her phone around. She was in the nursing home’s day room, which was chockfull of elderly people all staring at her.

  ‘Better than Jeremy Kyle, that was,’ a whiskered old gent in a bobble hat yelled.

  ‘Thanks, Gran, glad I amused somebody today.’ It was only when the call ended, that Nina wished she’d thought to ask why the old bloke was wearing a bobble hat indoors at the beginning of September.

  Bugger, the phone in the office she shared with five other staff was ringing. For a minute, she considered not answering (the way the day was going it wouldn’t be anyone for her, anyway), but a remnant of the old, conscientious Nina raised its head, and she shot out of her chair to pick up the call.

  The receptionist said, ‘There you are. I’d almost given up. I wish people would tell me when they’re expecting visitors, or at least have the courtesy to come to reception so I don’t have to phone all over the school looking for them.’

  Sue was a bad-tempered Rottweiler disguised as a human. No one wanted to get on the bad side of her, least of all the head teacher. Nina, a lowly teacher with no power, had no chance, so she grovelled.

  ‘Sorry Sue, I’m honestly not expecting anyone.’

  ‘How do you explain your visitor then?’

  ‘I don’t?’ Nina grimaced at the phone, not sure why she phrased the statement as a question. Fear, probably.

  ‘Hang on.’ Sue must have put her hand over the receiver, because all Nina heard was muffled mumbling. ‘He says it’s about a school trip.’

  Nina took a deep breath, blew out her cheeks, and took the proverbial bull by its sharp and dangerous horns.

  ‘Sorry, he’s not got an appointment. Can you please tell him I’m about to go into a meeting? With Mr Blake,’ she added for good measure. Maybe mentioning the head teacher’s name would make her lie sound more plausible. ‘Could you also tell him I’m not interested in organising any trips at the moment, but if he wants to leave a phone number I’ll call him if the situation changes.’

  Nina waited for the fallout, an expression of abject terror on her face.

  ‘Hang on, he says, not even a visit to Ephesus?’ Sue sighed dramatically down the phone.

  Nina heart skipped a beat making her cough. ‘A visit to where?’

  ‘Ephesus,’ Sue shouted down the phone. Her voice became marginally quieter as she asked the visitor to spell it. ‘E-P-H—’

  Nina interrupted her. ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s Mr Waters.’

  ‘First name?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Leo. Now do you want to see him or not, because I can’t spend all day on this blasted phone, I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a sec, just give me a minute.’ Nina darted out of the office before being yanked back by the telephone cord. ‘Don’t let him leave, whatever you do!’

  She hung up and pelted into her classroom. Should she brush her hair first, or put some lipstick on? Oh no, she hadn’t worn any make-up this morning, she thought, frantically rifling through her bag. He’s going to think she’s a right gargoyle.

  When the office phone rang again, Nina stared at it as if it was going slither across the floor and bite her. Sue was getting impatient.

  Taking a deep breath, and with her head held high Nina marched off down the corridor to meet her future.

  Chapter 37

  It was him, really him, as large as life and twice as gorgeous. He had his back to her as she strode into the school’s lobby, but she knew that backside anywhere, and what a lovely backside it was too. Firm, and muscular and just the right shape for a bloke’s butt.

  He turned and caught her ogling his arse. Nina blushed.

  His expression was guarded.

  ‘You could have warned me, I’d have…,’ (worn a dress, washed her hair, put mascara on at least, made sure she didn’t have her scratty old bra on – not that Nina intended for him to see her underwear right this minute…) ‘…informed reception you were expected.’

  ‘You didn’t answer your phone,’ he said.

  ‘T
hat’s because you didn’t call,’ she countered.

  Sue pretended to do some filing, but Nina could tell the woman was listening intently.

  ‘Let’s go into the meeting room,’ she suggested, giving the receptionist a pointed glare. ‘It’s more private.’

  Closing the door behind them, she repeated, ‘You didn’t call.’ She didn’t offer him a seat and he didn’t take one.

  ‘Yes, I did.’ He sounded weary. He looked it too, through what was left of his summer tan. ‘I called and I texted. Look.’ He showed her his phone.

  Ninety-four calls.

  ‘That’s not my phone number,’ Nina said.

  Leo looked at the screen in confusion. ‘Whose is it?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not yours?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Oh great. That explains why the last time I dialled it I got a Scottish bloke on the other end, accusing me of stalking him and threatening to call the police. I thought you might have put a friend up to it, to get me to back off.’ He stared at the little black box as if it might burst into flames in his hand.

  Bursting into flames was remarkably what Nina felt like doing. Her heart hammered and her mouth was dry. There was a tremble in her left leg, and something was doing cartwheels in her stomach. She hoped she wasn’t going to throw up.

  The pair of them stood in silence for a couple of seconds. Nina examined the floor; the carpet needed a good clean, she noticed for no apparent reason. She couldn’t believe he was really here. Why? What did he want? Hope and fear took turns to bounce up and down in her chest.

  She shot him a swift glance. He looked good, if she ignored the weariness. Much more than nice (how had she ever thought him just nice?). He’d lost a bit of weight too, like she had. She’d tried her favourite jeans on this morning, to discover she had room in them to grow. She wasn’t complaining though – she might be wearing the most disgusting bra in the world, but her bum was a size smaller.

  The silence grew until both of them spoke at once.