by Jo Thomas
‘You need more,’ I point out, and she does her usual shrug.
‘With luck the messenger will come soon and leave us some. We just have to send up a plea,’ and she looks briefly to the ceiling, where pots and pans hang from hooks, much like the wooden dryer my nan had at home where we would dry Demi’s babygros overnight above the boiler.
Maria taps out the last of the dittany into a bowl and pours boiling water on it from the big black kettle, then dips a cloth in and puts it to Kostas’s new bee stings, holding it over his eye. I watch him grimace in pain. I wish there was more I could do to help. We all need the bees to come.
‘What can I do, Maria? There must be something.’
‘No, it’s fine. You have already done enough. You have worked so hard for us. I’m fine. I just have to get those greens into town.’ She nods to my basket. ‘A restaurant called earlier. They have a booking. A table for lunch. They need the greens . . .’ she looks up at the clock and pulls a face, ‘now!’
‘Which restaurant?’ I ask cautiously.
She is dabbing Kostas’s angry red swellings.
‘The To Agrio Thymari. How do you say? Um, the . . .’
‘Wild Thyme Restaurant,’ I finish flatly for her, staring at her in disbelief.
‘Exactly! Bravo!’ she exclaims, and then laughs. ‘Your Greek is really coming on . . . but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
And that’s how it feels. My mouth is dry, and I shiver despite the heat of the kitchen. This is my chance. This is how I can get to see him. I have to do this.
‘I can take them,’ I offer.
‘No, you have enough to do with watering the herbs and cleaning the honey factory. I can go.’
‘No, Maria. You stay here with Kostas. I will go to town,’ I tell her.
‘Are you sure? You must hurry. They need them now.’ She grabs the key to the moped from beside the door and hands it to me. My heart is in my mouth and banging so loudly I wonder if she can hear it. ‘Just after the main square, where the church is, take the right turn.’
‘All the way to the bottom, on the right,’ I finish for her.
‘With the courtyard and the big wrought-iron gates. One of the oldest buildings in the town. Venetian,’ she says proudly. ‘One of the few that wasn’t destroyed in the war.’
I nod. ‘Yes, I know it.’ I look down at the key and notice that my hands are shaking. ‘I . . . erm . . .’ I swallow, trying to get my heart to sit back in my chest. ‘I visited . . . years ago.’ I look up at her and try to smile.
‘You look nervous. Is it the moped? It’s easy, no? And the family are good people. Very kind. They could do with some luck too.’
My hands are still shaking, my heart thumping. I am about to come face to face with Stelios. This really is fate. At this rate I may just start believing in the gods’ messenger myself. Part of me wants to rip the helmet off, go back to the honey factory and pick up my scrubbing brush. Run away and hide. But that’s what I’ve been doing for the last eighteen years. Hiding away. I need to see him. I’ve been here for two weeks, waiting to catch sight of him. Now this is my chance. I’m about to finally come face to face with the one man I’ve ever loved. The father of my child. The question is, will he remember me?
I grip the greens in their box firmly between my feet on the running board as I ride down the mountain road, twisting this way and that, the wind making my eyes water and flicking up the ends of my hair beneath my helmet. I pass the supermarket, where Samir is sitting on the counter, looking out with a hopeful smile. I drive past the closed-up school, the church, the little museum telling the town’s history through the war. On the uneven cobbled lane towards the restaurant, I nearly lose the box of greens. Those greens are my ticket back to Stelios. I slow down.
Finally I arrive. I swing off the bike, put down the footrest and slowly remove my helmet, shaking out my unruly hair. I look down at my arms, much browner than when I first arrived. My legs, too. I can feel the muscles burning after climbing the mountain yesterday. I pick up the box of greens and tuck it under my arm. Then I take a deep breath and walk towards the gates, stopping by the menu on the board. Next to it is a small, ornately carved wooden house with a single candle burning in it.
I put my hand on the rusting handle of the black gate and look inside at the courtyard. There are pots of red, white and purple begonias. The courtyard itself is on different levels; up a couple of steps there are tables with white cloths on them, brightly coloured water glasses and pressed napkins. Colourful cushions line the benches against the stone wall. The sun is streaming in on the intricately tiled circle and the small Grecian urn fountain right in the middle. Nothing has changed, I think, my heart leaping with joy. As beautiful now as it was back then.
Beyond the courtyard and a big single potted olive tree, I can see through a series of stone archways in the walls to the inside of the restaurant, where the walls are painted a soft sage green. Excitement is fizzing inside me. All my senses are being seduced. The smell of the bougainvillea and the herbs, the sight of the sunlight pouring in on to the tiled floor and bouncing off the coloured glass, the sound of food preparation in the kitchen. If there is anything more beautiful than this, I wouldn’t believe it.
I find myself wanting to pull up a chair, sit down and let the moment last forever. Just like when I was here with Stelios. He was wearing a white shirt that day. There were tea lights along the long table. It was late in the season, much cooler than it is now. I remember the way his dark face was lit up by the candlelight . . . those green eyes. I remember sitting here with his family, drinking coffee and eating loukoumades – deep-fried, crispy, golden doughnuts drizzled in hot honey syrup with cinnamon – then walking up the mountain for lunch. That day was nothing less than perfection.
My second visit, less so. That was the day I was returning to the UK, when I came to find Stelios before flying home. I needed to speak to him and find out how he felt about me being pregnant, about our baby. I had to tell him. But he was run off his feet. We barely had time to talk things through. We ended up rowing, but I knew he’d come and find me when he was ready. He knew where I’d be. I was stubborn, just like Demi is now.
I should never have left. I should have stayed and fought for him, instead of letting his family persuade him otherwise.
‘Yassou!’
My thoughts are interrupted by a shout, and a figure at the back of the courtyard waves to me. I’ve been seen. There’s no backing out now.
‘Yassou!’ comes the voice again as if the past was just yesterday. The punishing midday sun is beating down on my head. My top lip is damp and my T-shirt is sticking unpleasantly to the small of my back. The figure emerges from the shadows and starts to walk towards me, a dark silhouette with the sun behind him. That figure, that walk, that voice. As familiar now as it was back then.
‘Yassou!’ I say through my tight, strangled throat. And I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or be sick.
Oh God! I can’t do this! I can’t face him yet! I’m not ready. I step back, wishing I’d never come, and find myself dipping into the shadow of a large potted lemon tree there by the gates, sliding in between its branches. He’s speaking Greek, quickly and furiously, holding a phone to his ear, the other hand up now, palm out, and shoulders shrugging. He’s clearly not happy with whoever is on the other end. Stelios always did tell it how it was. I swallow. How on earth is he going to react when he sees me? Will he recognise me straight away?
He’s still speaking animatedly and loudly into the phone, waving one hand in the air, two thin leather bracelets jiggling on his wrist. He turns away just before getting to me, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder, to push two tables together. Finally he finishes his call, snaps the cover on the phone shut and pushes it in his pocket. Then, as my thundering heart is about to explode, he turns to look at me.
‘Kalispera.’ He nods, frowning slightly, a look of confusion on his face. But then it’s not every day you see a red-headed girl hiding in your lemon tree clutching a box of wild horta.
‘Stel—’ The word rushes from my mouth, then catches in my throat. I can see his face clearly now, not a silhouette any more. His frown deepens, and my heart lurches, then plummets like a stone falling from the mountainside. He has all the family features: the same long nose, the dark green eyes, the swept-back hair showing the start of a widow’s peak. But it’s not him. I’m thirty-six now, and Stelios must be thirty-nine. This young man in front of me is closer in age to my daughter. A wave of nausea washes over me.
I take in his wavy dark hair, cut neatly at the sides, and the dimple in his cheek as he gives me a cautious smile, just like Demi’s. The resemblance to Stelios is uncanny. The realisation slowly dawns on me, like the sun rising over the mountain in the mornings . . . If Stelios is married . . . My heart does that quickening thing again, pounding. If he has a family . . . I bite my bottom lip. My eyeballs burn. What if this is Stelios’s son?
I try to digest this painful piece of the jigsaw. Is this why he never came? Did he meet someone else? A good Cretan girl, like his family wanted him to? I grip the box of greens so tightly I can barely breathe. I feel hot with anger. Staring at the young man in front of me, head cocked to one side, I feel fury at Stelios, fury at myself for not realising it before, and fury on my daughter’s behalf for having being abandoned for a new family. I need to know what really happened, and I’ll do whatever it takes to find out.
‘Can I help you?’ The young man frowns again as I step out from the branches of the lemon tree and stand firmly in front of him. I open my mouth to try and form a question, but the words jumble up and my mouth waggles up and down like I’m trying to free it from lockjaw. Where do I start? I try to think how to ask who his father is, when what I really want to know about is his mother. What is her name? What does she look like? Why did he pick her over me?
Then I spot it. The pendant around his neck. It’s exactly the same as the one I’m wearing . . . the one Stelios gave me. My hand instinctively flies to my throat. An outline of half the island in silver, with a tiny ruby heart, on a black leather lace. He told me he’d had them made by a jeweller in the town. On the back was an engraved message: In my heart, forever. He gave one to me and kept the other half for himself.
Jesus! There was me thinking all this time that the necklace was some kind of special love token! Obviously they’re two a penny. I want to leave, but something keeps me here. I quickly flip my necklace inside the neck of my T-shirt, feeling foolish and furious at the same time. I clear my throat and hold out the box of wild – now slightly wilted – greens.
‘I’ve brought the greens,’ I finally manage to say, and I can’t help but feel like Baby from Dirty Dancing: the outsider, the interloper, a frump holding out a watermelon. ‘From Maria and Kostas.’ I try and generate some saliva in my mouth to help the words out, hoping I’ve said enough. I’ve certainly seen enough. ‘Up the mountain,’ I explain, but I still can’t look him in the eye. It’s too confusing. He looks so much like Stelios, the man I loved. I was just another girl, from another summer, to him. I was foolish to imagine there was a good reason he didn’t follow me. Me with my stupid romantic ideas, believing in all those romantic DVDs I watch, thinking we had something special. That love would conquer all.
‘You’re late,’ says the young man in front of me. It suddenly strikes me that if he is about Demi’s age – maybe even a little older – then he was already around when I was pregnant with his half-sister. Stelios was already spoken for! I’m beginning to feel like a boxer in the ring, taking all the hits and finding myself clinging to the ropes for support. ‘I rang Maria and Kostas hours ago.’
‘I’m sorry. Um, Kostas . . . he’s unwell. I came as quickly as I could . . . Sorry.’ I want to slap my forehead. Why am I apologising?
‘Oh. Is he OK?’ the young man asks with what looks like genuine concern, though if he’s as good a faker as his dad clearly was, that doesn’t mean much. He holds out his hands to take the greens from me. For a moment I hang on to the box. He gives a little tug, but I don’t let go. He gives me another curious smile and then tugs the box again, and this time, realising how ridiculous I must look, I let go. He puts the box on the stone wall behind him, then pulls out his wallet and hands me a couple of notes. Blushing at my own awkward behaviour, I take them, fold them in half and stash them safely at the bottom of my bag.
‘Bee stings. The dittany helps,’ I manage to untie my tongue enough to say. I catch another glimpse of the necklace and my fury returns.
The young man shakes his head in shared concern for Kostas. Then we both glance around. Our business transaction is over. I should just go. But I can’t help but look in case Stelios is about to appear, maybe with his wife . . . or other children.
‘Are you OK?’ the young man asks. ‘Do you need some water?’
‘Great!’ I say, grabbing on to this delaying tactic.
I watch him as he goes to the bar in the corner, then look around again for any other signs of life. When he returns, I take the glass and drink the water slowly before thanking him and handing back the glass.
‘Just admiring your beautiful restaurant,’ I say, smiling with huge effort. I need to dig a bit deeper, get a clearer idea of the situation here. ‘It must be hard work running it on your own.’
‘It’s my family’s place.’ He returns the glass to the bar. ‘Me and other members of my family. When they turn up!’ He rolls his eyes as he washes the glass. I can’t help pressing him for more.
‘You and your family?’ I nod and start to move around looking at the place. He’s watching me, I can feel it.
‘Been in the family since my grandparents started it. But I run it now. Well, I would, if we had more customers.’ He looks around and then pulls out his phone. ‘And a waiter! That was who I was talking to.’ He waves the phone. ‘My father.’ He rolls his eyes again, and my cheeks flare up and burn. ‘His arthritis is playing up,’ he tuts. ‘For a town that has always prided itself on longevity and good health, suddenly everyone is getting very sick! My mother is visiting her sister, who is unwell . . .’ He shrugs, as if he’s already said too much.
Stelios has arthritis? I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. He was only a little older than me and was really, very fit. Always on the go. Despite how I feel about what he did to me, and to Demi, that’s still very sad.
‘So, you’re working for Maria and Kostas? You’re the WWOOFer?’ He laughs, reminding me of Gracie and her misunderstanding, and I can’t help laughing too. ‘I heard about you coming.’
‘Yes, I’m a WWOOFer.’ I hold out my hands as if admitting to being an addict of some kind.
‘And you’re from the UK?’ He starts working around the tables he’s pulled together, straightening the tablecloth and laying out knives and forks.
I nod again, relaxing enough to ask the questions I need answers to, starting by getting to know more about this young man. I join him at the table and begin laying up the other side. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘I’m Yannis.’ He straightens up, smiles and holds out a hand for me to shake. Oh that smile! Just like Stelios’s. ‘And this is the Wild Thyme Restaurant. And you are?’
That stops me in my tracks. I know how weird I must look again. First I’m hiding in a lemon tree, then I’m helping to set a table, and now I can’t remember my own name. But I don’t want Stelios to know I’ve been round, snooping and spying on him.
‘Nell,’ I say. When I came to Crete last time, everyone knew me as Elinor. No one ever calls me by my full name these days. No one here would recognise me as Nell.
‘Well, Nell, if you’re looking for a job, I can’t take anyone on full time, but I could use a hand today if you
need to earn a bit of cash. Do you know how to cook these greens?’ He turns round and picks up the box and looks at them. ‘I’m suddenly short-handed,’ he waggles the phone again, ‘and for once I have a table booked in for lunch.’
I shake my head. ‘No idea, sorry.’
And not being able to find any other excuse to stay, I turn to leave. But as I do, a thousand questions are still going round in my head. Was I just an affair? A silly girl taken in by a married man? Is this young man my daughter’s family? And that stubborn streak tells me I can’t leave until I’ve found out the whole truth.
I turn back. ‘I have no idea how to cook wild horta, but I have done some waitressing before . . .’
I think back to when Stelios and I were working together at Zeus’s Vista holiday resort. He was a barman and I started out as a chambermaid but got promoted whilst I was there to the resort restaurant, if you could call it that. Chips, chips and more chips. It was Stelios who got me the job. The waitressing jobs usually went to the local girls. It was better pay and better working hours than chambermaiding. No more early mornings whilst he was on late nights. Now, looking back, I wonder why he went to all that effort if he didn’t love me.
‘Great!’ Yannis smiles. ‘Do you want to . . . clean up a bit?’ He looks down at my dusty legs and points towards the ladies’ loo. ‘We’ll be the talk of the town. Two young people in the same place! Unheard of!’ He laughs and heads off with the box of greens to the kitchen at the back of the building.
Being the talk of the town is the last thing I want. I try to balance one plate in my hand and the other on the heel of my palm, like I remember doing at the resort restaurant. As I hold my arm out in front of me, the plate on top wobbles and they both fall with a clatter to the floor. Yannis pokes his head out from the kitchen and raises an eyebrow, and I wonder what on earth I’ve gone and got myself into now.