by Mandy Baggot
‘What is it?’ she asked again.
‘You need to know what this is before you try it?’ he asked. ‘Where is your sense of adventure?’
‘Just tell me if it’s alcoholic before I burn the lining of my throat off.’
‘Alcoholic, yes. It is kumquat,’ Panos answered. ‘In Chinese this means “little orange”. In Corfu this is a traditional product. You will not find this in any other area of Greece.’
‘Traditional,’ Imogen said, smiling at him.
‘I like this one,’ Panos admitted.
‘Ready?’ Imogen asked, raising the glass to her mouth.
‘No, no, stop,’ Panos said, taking hold of her hand. ‘It is not a shot,’ he stated. ‘Take a small sip, slowly… Let the flavour travel over your taste buds and then down your throat.’
Her eyes were on his and that sharp stab of lust was currently on guard and ready to start fencing in his gut. He watched her lips touch the rim, a small amount of the tangerine-coloured liquid spilling out into her mouth. He took a sip of his own drink, all the while watching for her reaction.
She took a healthy swig and her face lit up. ‘That’s gorgeous,’ she announced. She put the cup to her mouth again, sipping more. ‘It’s like liquid sunshine.’
Liquid sunshine. His mother had called it ‘sunshine in a bottle’. She’d loved the drink and had made flagons of it herself. It was a pity Christos had treated it like his own personal store of moonshine near the end. He shook away the memory.
‘I love it,’ Imogen said, smiling at the stallholder. ‘What’s this?’ she asked. ‘Is it jam?’
Panos translated her words to the Greek and the man nodded and said something in reply.
‘He said it is more of a compote. To be served as part of a dessert or simply on bread.’
She dragged the strap of her handbag off her shoulder and began rifling through the contents.
‘This is what Harry’s menu was missing for the desserts,’ she said. ‘This is just what he needs.’
‘What are you doing?’ Panos asked her.
‘Looking for my purse. I know I have it.’
‘How many do you need?’ Panos inquired.
‘I guess it depends how many puddings we’re going to sell.’ She blinked, looking at the jars on the stall. ‘We still have no idea if anyone is actually going to come.’
Panos spoke in Greek to the stallholder, who immediately began collating jars together, chatting excitedly.
‘How many did you say?’ Imogen asked.
‘He said he has just over fifty jars left and about thirty bottles of liqueur,’ Panos said. ‘I said I would buy them all.’
‘What? That’s too many, isn’t it? I mean, what if Harry doesn’t like the idea? I was going to buy a couple and see how it went. I don’t know if I have enough to pay for that much.’
He smiled, enjoying her animation, the flustered talking and the way a few stray strands of blonde hair were flying about her face.
‘Imogen,’ he spoke. ‘I will pay for these.’
She stopped still. ‘And why would you do that? Isn’t it your hope that our restaurant doesn’t do well so you can force Harry to sell?’
He didn’t answer straight away.
‘That isn’t what I want,’ he insisted softly, surprising himself. He recomposed. ‘I thought we were putting our differences aside like eggs.’ He looked directly at her. ‘I want to buy them for you, no hidden agenda.’ He smiled, then turned to the stallholder, speaking in Greek again before handing over a stash of Euro notes to the man.
He then took hold of Imogen’s arm and manoeuvred her away from the stall. ‘Things do not always have to be so clear cut,’ he stated. ‘There is more than right and wrong. There is “not right now” or “not quite yet”.’
‘You’re reconsidering your assault on the seafront?’ Imogen asked tentatively.
‘I am always open to new directions,’ he said, his eyes marking hers.
He watched her swallow, giving away her reaction. He wanted to slip his arms around her waist and pull her against him.
‘Is that why you’ve brought me here? To explore a new direction?’ she asked.
Was she being deliberately provocative? It was certainly having that effect. He was imagining just how a kiss would taste if he stole one now. The tender skin of her lips coupling with the sweetness of the kumquat liqueur.
‘To explore something with you,’ he whispered, his body leaning toward her instinctively. He reached out to touch her cheek.
The blast from a trumpet broke the atmosphere and a trio of musicians appeared in front of them, starting to play a jaunty tune. He put his hand down and stilled, continuing to look into her eyes. Smiling, he took a step forward. ‘Come,’ he encouraged. ‘I can smell gyros.’
38
They wound their way down the long road, stopping at almost every stall to see what was for sale. To Imogen the whole ambience felt like a carnival. She sensed the same feeling of happiness and community spirit she’d experienced as a child. She and Harry had been part of the Amesbury Carnival when they’d lived in Wiltshire. Both on their school float dressed in outfits from the 1950s, their father was home for the weekend and her mum had made the costumes: a teddy-boy suit for Harry and a bright pink top and circular blue skirt with music notes stitched on it for her. She’d loved the way the skirt flared out when she danced. They’d travelled on the back of an Amesbury Transport trailer from the sports centre, jiving to Elvis and Bill Haley. A circuit around the town and they’d ended up at the recreation ground. The lush, green park had been covered in stalls – guess the name of the bear, tombolas, toys to buy, toffee apples and homemade cakes. She had saved her pocket money all year to spend at the carnival. Here, in Arillas’ market, it was like reliving those joyous moments, when her family had been all together.
‘There are candles,’ she said, looking to Panos. ‘I need to get some.’
She stepped across the street to the stall she’d spotted and began to look at what was on offer.
‘Kalimera,’ she greeted the lady behind the counter.
‘Kalimera,’ she replied. ‘English, yes?’
Imogen smiled. ‘Is it that obvious?’
The woman smiled. ‘It is nice you try to speak Greek.’
Imogen picked up a pillar candle and held it to her nose. A heavy waft of mint and lavender hit her senses.
‘That’s nice,’ she remarked, setting it down. ‘What other fragrances do you do?’
‘Cinnamon and apple, gingerbread, olive and camomile, honey and lemon…’
‘Oh, honey and lemon,’ Imogen said excitedly. ‘Could I smell that one?’
‘Of course,’ the lady said. ‘Would you like pillar candles, votives or tea lights?’
‘Tea lights, I think.’
Imogen watched her fetch a box before offering it out to her. She lifted it to her nostrils and the scent filled her mind as well as her nose. It was a fresh hit of citrus coupled with the warm, comforting sweet smell of fresh honey.
‘That’s so…’ Imogen stated. She didn’t have the words for how good it smelled. She turned to Panos and gave the box over to him. ‘Tell me what you think.’
She watched as he took the box and lifted its open flap to his nose. He closed his eyes and inhaled.
* * *
As the combination of honey and lemon hit him he was plunged back to a moment in time. His mother screaming for help, his father lying on the floor of the lounge. Pulled from the honey cake and fresh lemonade he was eating under the shade of the olive tree in their garden by his mother’s cries. He’d dropped his plate and run but there was nothing he could do. It had been too late.
He opened his eyes and passed the box back to Imogen. ‘How about the olive and camomile?’ he suggested. ‘Not too overpowering.’
‘Don’t you like this one?’ she asked.
He shook his head but recovered quickly. ‘It is not to my taste. But, remember, as you keep telli
ng me, it is not my restaurant.’
She smiled then. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t.’ She handed the box back to lady. ‘Thank you. Can we come back a little later?’
‘Of course. No problem.’
Had she caught his reaction to the scent? The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. But that’s what tradition and community did, wasn’t it? Brought back memories. Good and bad. Just like Imogen had said.
‘I think I’m ready for that gyros now,’ she said, looking up at him.
* * *
Gyros was the ultimate kebab. Gorgeous strips of meat stuffed into a pitta bread with fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber drizzled in chilli sauce or tzatziki.
Imogen had plumped for the tzatziki and it was drizzling down her chin as they walked along the promenade. She followed Panos’ lead and stepped down onto the pine-coloured sand. The ocean, rumbling toward shore in hefty waves for a July day, was on their right, skirted by a craggy headland hanging out into the sea. Its crumbling, pale rocks, coated on top by a slice of greenery, reminded Imogen of a cake. Layers and layers of biscuit-coloured stone made up the sponge, topped with spinach-hued shrubbery as the icing. The flat terrain of the beach was the perfect contrast to the rugged rock jutting out across it.
‘This is so good,’ she remarked to Panos, a slight breeze blowing through her hair.
He had been quiet since he’d smelled the candles. She had watched his expression as he breathed in the lemon-and-honey scent and she had seen something shift. The movement of his eyes under heavy lids had been like he was reliving something. He’d calmly said he wasn’t keen on the fragrance but she thought there was probably more to it than that.
‘I miss this,’ he admitted. ‘Corfu still makes the best gyros.’
‘Where do you usually live?’ she asked. ‘The address on that business card of yours?’
‘Yes, Rethymnon, Crete,’ he answered. ‘I have a villa there.’
‘You live alone?’ She grimaced slightly at her own question and felt the need to say more. ‘I mean, Greeks all have big families, right?’
‘I live alone,’ he said.
‘You’ve been married?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘So you don’t have any children or anything?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘Do you? Have children?’
Imogen smiled. ‘Only Harry. He’s quite enough at the moment.’
‘But one day you will,’ Panos said with confidence.
She looked up at him, watching him eat his gyros. The chiselled jaw moving with every chewing motion, his dark hair falling forward a little. There was no denying the fact she found him ridiculously attractive, more attractive than she’d found anyone in… Had it really been years? She swallowed as a remnant of tzatziki soured her throat. This was why she was acting like this – letting a man she didn’t know very well kiss her, coming here, high on the romance and beauty of this island. She was horribly out of practice.
‘Do you think you will have children?’ she asked him. ‘You know, one day, in the future?’ A blush hit her cheeks as she thought about him in the act of making children. With her.
‘Children complicate things,’ he stated.
She’d barely managed to imagine what their children might look like when the bubble burst. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I work hard running my business,’ he reminded. ‘There is no time for children.’
‘But… you won’t work forever. Will you?’
His eyes met hers. ‘You have just bought a restaurant,’ he said. ‘To make this a success you are going to have to spend most of your life running it.’
‘I haven’t bought it,’ she reminded. ‘Harry has.’
‘And you are here with him.’
‘Only for a few weeks,’ she stated. ‘A little less than two actually.’
‘What?’
She willed moisture into her mouth as reality hit. ‘I have a job at home and a house. My mum and Janie wanted me to come here to make sure Harry realised what a mistake he was making and get him to come home,’ she said.
‘And now?’ Panos asked.
‘And now I know I’m going to help him open it up but beyond that… Corfu was never in my life plans.’
‘What job do you have?’
Thoughts of gut-buster breakfasts, Old Joe coughing and Mrs Green’s bag of wool flashed into her mind. ‘I’m in catering.’
‘A restaurant,’ he said. ‘So, it is you that plans a chain. UK, Greece, where next?’
She shook her head, laughing. ‘No, it’s not like that at all.’ It was time to come clean about her food and catering knowledge. ‘I’m just a waitress. I mean I can cook. I used to cook, for fun… for friends… but I haven’t done anything for ages.’
‘Just a waitress,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Imogen, in my experience they are some of the hardest-working people there are.’
‘I do work hard,’ she admitted. ‘And I’m studying for an NVQ, a qualification in hospitality.’ She pulled a piece of meat from her pitta bread and slipped it into her mouth. ‘I hoped a long time ago to get into the hotel business. I applied a few months ago to the Wyatt Hotel Group. For one of their training programmes, you know, starting at the bottom and working my way up.’
‘Hotels,’ Panos breathed, as if the word was dirty.
‘My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur like your father. But all his stories about the places he stayed, the Egyptian cotton and the stargazer lilies, the miniature soaps and room service… I thought working somewhere like that would be the best job in the world.’ She smiled. ‘Plus there’s the pens.’
‘The pens?’ He looked quizzical.
‘My dad used to bring me a hotel pen from every place he stayed. I have hundreds of them,’ Imogen admitted. She scooped her free hand into her yellow handbag and began to filter through the contents. Within seconds she was pulling out ballpoint after ballpoint. ‘This one’s from Tunisia. See, it has the Tunisian flag and the coat of arms.’ She passed it to Panos and delved in for another. ‘This one is one of my favourites. The Metropole Hotel in Brussels, Belgium. It’s chocolate-coloured with gold lettering. It makes me think of truffles,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I can even smell them.’
He smiled, shaking his head as he took the pen from her hand and looked at it.
‘I know they’re just pens and it’s a bit silly to keep them all like trophies but… my dad worked all the time so we could have a better life and really all we wanted was more time with him.’
He nodded, passing back the pens to her. ‘I can relate to that.’
‘Which is why you can’t think about sharing your life with children,’ Imogen guessed. ‘Because you don’t want to put them in the position you were in, missing your father when he was running hotels.’
He sighed. ‘It isn’t about sharing my life with children. It’s sharing anything with anybody.’
‘I see,’ she stated, nodding her head. ‘So you think it would be easier to tear up the town and alienate everyone around you than try and make a reconnection?’
* * *
Panos stepped up onto the concrete groyne that protruded out into the ocean and held out his hand to her. She accepted it and, with a lunge forward, joined him on the structure. There were a few fisherman casting their rods out into the ocean, the sea lapping back and forth against the bricks.
‘Tearing down the town was always on my mind,’ he admitted. ‘But I really came to see my grandmother.’
The fact that he had admitted there was sentiment involved weighed heavy. What was he doing sharing that fact with Imogen when he barely wanted to share it with his own conscience?
He walked on, looking into the water breaking at the base of the jetty. ‘I haven’t been back to Corfu for a while.’ He inhaled the salty air. ‘I did not know she had given up the restaurant.’
‘You didn’t even know it was for sale?’ Imogen asked him.
‘No.’ His eyes went to
the rocky islands out in the sea. ‘But that was my fault, not hers. I am not good at keeping touch.’
‘You’re too busy working,’ Imogen said. ‘I’m sensing a theme here.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
‘So, what about your mother? Do you keep in touch with her at all? Or, what about brothers and sisters?’
It was an innocent question he should have known was coming. He shook his head again. ‘No, no brothers or sisters.’ Was that answer going to be enough for her?
‘But you’re close to Risto?’
‘Yes, he was always like a brother to me.’
‘Was?’
‘I have not kept in touch with anyone, Imogen.’ He sighed. ‘And I should have. Risto has been out of work for a long time. I didn’t realise Corfu was feeling the burn of the desperate times in Greece like on the mainland.’
A silence fell between them as they reached the bench at the end of the breakwater, a chunky wooden seat set into the stone, facing the water.
‘So, when did you leave? How old were you when you started your business?’ Imogen asked, moving to sit down.
‘Twenty,’ he stated. ‘I left Corfu when I was sixteen, determined to make a success of my life.’ He sat next to her, his eyes still directed at the sea and the sunlight making the crests of the waves look like strings of bright diamonds. ‘I moved from Rhodes to Crete, working bars and clubs and going from barman to bookkeeper. Then one day I met a man who changed my life.’
‘Who?’
‘His name was Yiannis and he owned a property business in Crete. He taught me everything I know about business.’
Yiannis had been his mentor and father figure. He had taken Panos under his wing and given him the benefit of all his experience in a working masterclass. The man had opened up his business brain and his home to an eighteen-year-old looking to expand his horizons and make the best of himself.