by Mandy Baggot
‘Because it should be mine,’ he admitted bluntly.
‘Well, Harry needs it to save his marriage.’
The two statements hung there together, words confronting each other like they were. Imogen’s clear blue eyes were moist and set defiantly on him. This was all too intense.
‘The offer is two hundred thousand Euro,’ Panos repeated.
She didn’t reply, the only sound Cooky’s faint laughter and the buzz of bugs surrounding the property. Panos held his breath, stomach tight, watching her for any sign of response.
‘Please…’ God, he didn’t want to beg, but this was not going as easily as expected. ‘The offer is a good one. All I ask is that you think of it.’
‘Did you not hear what I said?’ she asked.
‘This is business,’ he replied. ‘It should not be about family relationships.’
She toyed with a strand of her hair. ‘And why is it you want to run a restaurant when you have a million-Euro business elsewhere?’
He couldn’t give her an answer.
She took her hands from her hips and took a step forward. ‘I’m going to forget we had this conversation.’
‘Please,’ he said, his hand grabbing her arm. ‘Please, Imogen, you must… You will think about it.’
He knew he had gone too far and removed his hand quickly, watching as her expression hardened.
‘I did think about it – last night and this morning. And then something changed. I saw my brother light up. Every crease and line disappear from his face… because of this restaurant.’ She swallowed. ‘Yes, he might have chosen a ridiculous name for it but he’s fallen for it and I’ll do anything to keep him being this happy.’ She took a breath. ‘I am fiercely protective over my family and I don’t appreciate anyone thinking they can tell me what to do.’
He felt like he’d been punched. There was fire in her words and flashes of defiance in her eyes. She may not have wanted this restaurant to begin with, but she wanted it now. She was loyal and she could fight. He had misjudged this. This was not going to be easy. She was anything but a pushover.
‘Please tell Risto his help won’t be required tomorrow.’ She shifted past him. ‘Excuse me, I think it’s time Harry and I went home.’
He sidestepped out of her path and watched her power towards the house, anger obvious in every single step.
24
Terry’s fish van, en route to Halloumi, Acharavi
‘Can’t you drive a bit faster?’ Imogen asked. She knew the roads were winding but this one looked almost as good as the A36 at home and Harry was barely reaching twenty mph. She just wanted to get back down the mountain.
‘I’m still learning the van technique and what’s the rush?’ he asked. ‘You shouldn’t rush in Greece. It’s against the law I think.’
‘You’re not Greek,’ Imogen reminded him.
‘Not yet,’ Harry said, with a smile.
Imogen let out a breath. This was all Panos. Panos and his bewitching eyes. Panos and his offer to buy the restaurant. She needed to tell Harry.
‘Is it the bites? Aren’t you feeling well?’ Harry asked, crawling around another corner at the speed of an ill slug.
‘Panos Dimitriou wants to buy the restaurant from you.’
There, it was out. If anything, the surprise might kick-start Harry’s driving. She looked out of the window at the undulating mountainside as they navigated their way to lower ground. It was pitch black here, no street lamps, just darkness and the outlines of thick trees, a few pinpricks of light just visible in clusters through the olive groves. She suddenly realised Harry hadn’t said anything and turned towards him. Her brother’s eyes were fixed on the road, his position unmoved, hands still on the large steering wheel.
‘He’s offered two hundred thousand Euro,’ she added, sucking in a breath.
‘I did like what Elpida did with the roast potatoes, didn’t you?’ Harry remarked. ‘Rosemary and garlic, wasn’t it?’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes, Panos Dimitriou wants to buy Halloumi from me for two hundred thousand Euro.’
‘When you showed me the property details… well, if someone had offered us a way out then, I would have said give it to them,’ Imogen stated. ‘I would have said take the money and run and you could have… bought a boat… two boats… in England… or anywhere.’
She pulled her yellow handbag to her body and took comfort in it like it was a favourite cushion. Harry was quiet again and all she could hear was the engine of the van and the soft tone of a bouzouki coming from the radio.
‘And that’s what Mum and Janie want me to do. Get you to sell the restaurant on and go back home.’
‘Is that what you said to Panos?’ Harry asked, eyes still on the road as they rounded another corner.
‘Of course it wasn’t what I said to him!’
‘Well, what did you say to him?’
‘I said it wasn’t my property to sell, it was yours and I said…’ She paused. ‘I said no one tells me what to do. And I told him I had never seen you so happy,’ she concluded.
Harry laughed. ‘Oh, Immy, I knew this would happen.’
She looked at him, saw the smile still on his face. ‘Knew what would happen?’
‘You’d fall in love with Halloumi.’
She was still struggling to know why her brother had named the restaurant after a cheese.
‘I’m not in love with it,’ she said quickly. ‘But I can see how hard you’ve worked to achieve this and what it means to you.’
Harry pulled the van to the kerb outside the restaurant and turned off the engine. He faced Imogen.
‘Immy, I know you weren’t sold on the idea at first but I’m so pleased you’re here with me.’ He sighed. ‘Buying this restaurant, it was about me acknowledging that things were wrong in my life and making steps to make a change. I know the depression isn’t going to completely go away for good. And I’ve come to terms with that. But what I can’t accept is the thought that my life can’t be good again.’
‘No one’s ever said that.’
‘I think it’s why Janie and the children are still living without me and I don’t blame her,’ Harry said. ‘Some days I don’t even like living with me.’
‘Harry…’
‘No, it’s true and that’s OK.’ He nodded. ‘There’s lots of ups and downs. It’s been difficult for all of us.’
Imogen swallowed, trying in vain to hold on to the tears. ‘I know.’
‘So, Immy, when I bought this restaurant it wasn’t a mistake. It was me taking a leap, proving my life’s still my own, investing in my future and my children’s future and achieving something.’ He paused. ‘Not for anyone else, not because I thought it was right… Just because I wanted to make a positive change.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And if Janie sees enough of the man she fell in love with before, well, who knows?’
Imogen nodded as the first tears escaped.
‘But, as much as I love that you’re here, it was wrong of me to expect you to drop everything and come to Corfu with me.’
‘Don’t, Harry,’ Imogen begged, her heart being squeezed by the emotion in the van. ‘I just… this is so alien to me and…’
‘It’s alien to me too.’ He smiled. ‘And I like that. Who would have thought I’d be able to negotiate a deal for tables and chairs in Greek?’
She couldn’t help but smile and reached over to pat his hand.
‘I forced you into it, I know that.’ He swallowed. ‘But this time it wasn’t because I needed your help, Immy. It was because I wanted you to share it with me.’
Of course it was. And she had assumed Harry was being needy. What a disloyal sister she was.
‘Hey, don’t cry,’ Harry said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. ‘I don’t want you to think that I forgot about Mum for a second or Janie and Olivia and Tristan. This is about creating a better life for all of them. Imagine Oliva and Tristan on the beach here,’ Harry said, h
is eyes shifting to the black of the night, the sparkling lights of Albania across the water. ‘And Mum… once she gets over April passing, I’m hoping she’ll come out here.’
He was right. Completely right. He was striking out and forging ahead, not acting without thinking. It was courageous and admirable.
‘If you want to head back home on the next plane, Immy, I totally understand,’ Harry told her.
She gave him a watery smile and squeezed his hand. ‘I have two weeks if you want it, remember?’ she said. ‘And I am a dab hand with a paintbrush and roller.’ She smiled. ‘And I’m really hoping Elpida can help me master some Greek cooking.’
‘Not Greeklish?’ Harry asked.
‘We can do a lot better than chips and taramasalata, Harry.’
‘You know… Panos could have offered me a million Euro for the restaurant… I still wouldn’t have taken it.’
‘I know.’
But she also remembered the fire in the man’s eyes and the heat in her belly. Her body had belied her words. She had wanted to get close to this man whose arrogance oozed from every pore. She shuddered.
‘I’ve fired Risto,’ Imogen stated, pulling at the handle and swinging the van door open. She stepped out onto the road and breathed in the balmy night air.
‘But why?’ Harry slid out of the van too and closed the driver’s door.
‘After Panos Dimitriou’s offer of intention…’ She wet her lips. ‘I just think if we need extra help then we should pay for it.’
‘You’re right,’ Harry agreed. ‘He’s a good worker. I’ll offer to pay him the going rate.’
‘No… I didn’t mean that,’ she said quickly. ‘I just don’t trust Panos,’ Imogen admitted, shivering.
Harry put the key in the door and unlocked it. ‘Well, it’s a shame, because I like Risto.’ He strode into the main room, reaching for the light switch.
Imogen stepped in and her sandals slipped on something on the floor. She regained her balance, looking at the shiny card that had slipped across the tiles. Bending down she plucked it off the floor and looked at it. It was a business card: ‘Dimitriou Enterprises’ and an address in Crete, embossed in gold.
‘What is it?’ Harry asked, leaning closer to get a look.
‘It’s Panos Dimitriou,’ Imogen said. ‘Obviously a reminder of his intention.’
‘Well, a flashy business card doesn’t change anything for me,’ Harry said.
Imogen nodded. ‘No, I know.’ She pocketed the card. Who was the man behind those intense espresso-coloured eyes? She shivered. Only time would tell.
25
Elpida Dimitriou’s home, Agios Martinos
A steaming cafetiere was thumped down on the kitchen table in front of Panos. He was sitting, dressed for business despite the morning heat, a sheet of projections open on his laptop. If only he had actually been reading them. Despite every business distraction he had thrown at himself since he’d woken, his mind was still on Imogen. And not the fact she had rejected his offer for the restaurant, but her long blonde hair shifting in the humid night and how her body had felt pressed against his under a silvery moon. Shifting the computer slightly, he earned another snort from his grandmother.
‘Why would you do this?’
The accusation flew through the air with no foreword or extra information. His hackles raised instinctively.
‘I invite friends for dinner, Pano. I want to have a nice night, to welcome Harry and Imogen to Corfu and you… you…’ Elpida pointed her index finger as she shot out the words like machinegun fire. She halted only for a quick breath. ‘What do you think you are doing offering to buy the restaurant back from them? I thought I made myself very clear on the telephone to you. I do not want to own the restaurant.’
So Imogen had told his grandmother what he had said to her last night. Had she visited in person? Early? Before he was awake? He had to remind himself, he was here for business and business alone. He had had an email from his lawyer this morning about the Tomas’ Taverna deal.
‘And I made it clear you should have sold this to me.’
‘Don’t make me smoke, Pano, I am trying to cut down.’ Elpida toyed with her wedding ring. ‘They are good people, trying to make a living, start a new life…’
‘And what about me, huh? Your grandson. Don’t I deserve to make a living? Begin a new life?’
He had sounded almost sentimental there and sentimentality didn’t win deals.
‘Is that what you want, Pano?’ Elpida asked. ‘A new life? Here? In Acharavi?’ There was hope in her eyes.
Would it be better to play along? Nausea flooded his gut. He wasn’t going to lie to his grandmother. That was something his father would have tried to do.
And straightaway there was one of the images he’d tried to forget. His father, dark hair tousled, swarthy skin creased and reddened, clothes crumpled, smelling of alcohol and filth, stood in this very kitchen spitting venom at Elpida. He’d screamed and shouted until his voice was hoarse and then he’d cried. Through a crack in the doorway Panos had watched his father get on his hands and knees and beg Elpida to give him money.
‘Did she come here?’ The question was out of his lips before he knew it.
‘What?’ Elpida asked. ‘Who?’
‘Imogen.’
‘Pfft!’ Elpida exclaimed, turning around and reaching for her cigarette packet on the worktop. She flipped open the top and gazed at the contents. ‘It would not surprise me if she never comes here again!’
Panos frowned. If Imogen hadn’t been here then how did Elpida know about the offer? He nodded then. Risto. Risto also knew about his plan for the whole Acharavi seafront.
‘What else did Risto tell you?’ Panos asked, getting to his feet and picking his tailored jacket up from the back of the chair.
Elpida narrowed her eyes, pulling a lone cigarette from the pack. ‘What else is there to tell me?’
He nodded then, slipping his arms into the jacket, a smile on his face. ‘You interrogated him.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Elpida snapped.
‘What did you do, yiayia? Tie him to a chair and threaten him with the homemade fig wine from 2001?’
She held the cigarette to her nose and inhaled. ‘I wanted to know why the guests I had invited into my home wanted to run away faster than Pheidippides.’
‘And you assumed this was because of something I’d done?’ He began to collate his papers. ‘Perhaps, as we were sat outside, the mosquitoes were becoming a problem for Imogen. Maybe they were eating the other half of her they hadn’t already feasted on.’
‘Risto told me everything. He tell me you hope to get information about their finances, their strengths and weaknesses, in order to make them sell the restaurant to you. Risto was to be a spy like in James Bond, reporting everything to you and telling them stories about the restaurant’s past hardship and making them want to go home.’
Panos tried not to let anything show on his face. This did not matter. He wasn’t giving up on the offer just yet. He was meeting with two other bar owners on the strip today and once he had convinced them both to sell he might not need the property on the corner anyway.
‘Where is Risto?’ Panos asked, snapping his laptop closed.
‘Risto has gone to apologise and offer his services to Harry and Imogen under my employ.’ Elpida reached for her lighter.
‘Yiayia, please,’ Panos stated. ‘You say you want nothing to do with the restaurant yet you are going to pay Risto to help these people?’ He threw his hands up in exasperation.
‘I never said I do not want anything to do with the restaurant.’ She flicked the lighter at the end of the cigarette and sucked hard. Blowing out a thick cloud of blue–grey smoke she responded, ‘I said I did not want to own it.’
He shook his head hard.
‘And I am disappointed in you, Pano,’ she added.
He tucked his laptop under his arm and picked the car keys off the table. ‘Well then… like father
, like son,’ he stated, his face set.
He waited just long enough to see sadness coat his grandmother’s expression and then, flooded with guilt, he turned and left.
26
Halloumi, Acharavi Beachfront
The sun was already hot. Imogen sat on the sand, listening to the early morning sound of the sea. Here, looking into the water, surf like hundreds of pearl droplets scurrying up the beach towards her, it was peaceful. She watched a large cruise ship appear in the right-hand side of the ocean. Like a floating hotel it was slipping through the waves taking its passengers away from the Greek island to a brand new destination. And here she was, in a brand new location herself, with Harry embracing each morning with gusto.
Sitting here, her fingers stirring up the grains of soft sand, the sea whispering on the shore, she could feel it too. Possibility. The restaurant was a blank canvas. The bare walls, dust and crumbling plaster weren’t devastation, they were just signs that a reinvention was needed. If Harry was willing to try then so was she. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain. Two weeks in the sun, dusting off her cooking skills and supporting her brother. The best of fresh, Greek food and a restaurant full of happy diners just like Panos had described. Her mobile erupted from inside her bag. She slipped her hand inside and drew it out. Janie.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Please tell me you’re packing your bags and Harry’s given up the idea,’ Janie said.
Imogen shut her eyes. ‘Hi, Janie.’
‘Well?’
‘No, not quite yet.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means it’s still a work in progress.’ That wasn’t a lie.
‘I’ve looked at it, you know, the black hole of Calcutta.’
Imogen swallowed. ‘It’s a bit different to the photos now.’
‘It’s still on Rightmove,’ Janie continued. ‘If it’s still on Rightmove there must be a chance it can go back on the market, right?’