Greek Island Fling to Forever

by Annie Claydon

  It turned out to be easier just to motion to the man with the injured arm, as Dimitris’s attempts at translation weren’t all that intelligible. A careful examination showed that the man had a nasty fracture of his forearm, and Ben climbed back onto Arianna’s boat and found an emergency splint and a sling. He’d leave pain relief to Arianna; the labels on all the drugs packages were in Greek and although he was pretty sure of what everything was, he couldn’t be positive.

  Meanwhile, Arianna had called to Georgios and a burns kit was being handed up onto the fishing boat. Not good news. Ben went back to his own patient, carefully inflating the splint around the fracture and positioning the arm in a sling. That should make him more comfortable until they could get him to a hospital, and a thumbs-up and a smile told him that the man was feeling better.

  ‘Anything else?’ Ben hoped that Dimitris would be able to translate that correctly, and looked at a small cut on his patient’s cheek. The blood was already congealing and there was nothing to suggest any further injury.

  ‘No. Entáxei... Okay.’ Dimitris glanced over to where Arianna was kneeling over the other man, rapping out instructions in Greek. ‘Go... Go help.’

  ‘All right. You stay here. Watch him...’ Words and gestures made Ben’s meaning clear and Dimitris nodded, sitting down next to their patient. Finally Ben allowed himself to turn away.

  Arianna glanced up at him. ‘His leg is badly scalded by steam from the engine. We can’t tow the fishing boat back; we’ll have to take him on my boat, straight over to the mainland. I’ve called for an ambulance and they’ll meet us back at the hotel marina.’

  Ben nodded. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m going to get some pain relief for him; will you finish the dressings, please?’ Arianna was carefully applying cooling gel dressings to the angry-looking burns that ran from the man’s ankle to above his knee.

  ‘Will do.’ Ben stripped off his surgical gloves, putting on a new pair from the burns kit. ‘While you’re about it, the other guy has a fractured arm. I haven’t given him anything, and I’ve no idea whether or not he’s taken anything already.’

  Arianna nodded. ‘Okay, leave it with me. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  She spoke to her patient, then got to her feet, stepping back down onto the smaller craft that bobbed in the sea next to the fishing boat. Ben finished applying the dressings, keeping a close eye on his face. The man was clearly in a lot of pain and, although the area covered by the burn wasn’t enough to make hypovolemic shock likely, he was clearly emotionally traumatised by his injury, and that could well provoke a sudden reaction.

  Arianna returned and administered a painkilling injection, then walked over to their other patient to check on how he was doing. Georgios passed a stretcher up to the men on the fishing boat, and then caught a line that was thrown down, pulling the two boats together until they were almost touching.

  They worked together silently, Arianna finishing the dressings while Ben assembled the stretcher. When their patient was lifted onto it, he groaned in pain and Ben set about packing a blanket around his shoulders and body.

  ‘Is that...?’ He nodded towards the men, who were now lashing the boats together. Ben wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work.

  ‘It’ll be fine. These men live on the water; they know how to get a stretcher from one boat to another. Just stay back and do as you’re told.’ She grinned at him suddenly.

  ‘Aye-aye, Captain.’ Ben shot her a smile, the warmth of the afternoon tingling through his body.

  He stood back and did as he was told. Georgios helped the man with the broken arm into a seat and strapped him in, and Arianna secured the stretcher under the sheltered awning at the front of the boat.

  ‘The blood pressure monitor’s in there.’ She pointed to one of the chests that lined the cabin. ‘Will you keep an eye on him, please?’

  Ben nodded. Arianna slid behind the wheel, checking that none of the ropes that secured them to the fishing boat were still in place, and started the engine. They left the stranded fishing boat, the men lined up along the side watching the boat as it headed for the mainland.

  The man on the stretcher groaned and retched. The small cabin didn’t give him space to turn him on his side without compromising the careful protection around his leg, and Ben sat him up. Arianna’s concentration didn’t waver as she carefully navigated the waters that were becoming more and more crowded as they neared the mainland. She manoeuvred into the marina, and Ben saw an ambulance waiting for them.

  The Greek paramedics who met them were part of one of the best health services in Europe. They were well trained and well equipped, lifting the burns victim out of the boat and into the ambulance quickly. Arianna briefed them on his treatment so far, while Ben helped the other man off the boat and to the back doors of the ambulance.

  ‘Efcharistó.’ The man held out his uninjured hand to Ben and he took it.

  ‘You’re welcome. Take care.’ Ben didn’t know how to say that in Greek, although he understood the thank you. It didn’t seem to matter, though, and when one of the ambulance crew came to guide the man into the vehicle, he stopped to shake his hand again.

  ‘Right then.’ Arianna jumped down from the ambulance and the back doors closed. ‘I suppose we should go and see if the fishing boat still needs a tow.’

  There was something brittle about her smile. After her calm efficiency with their patients, the flashed smiles that told him she was happy with the way they’d just fallen into a rhythm of working together, it was slightly odd. When she went to the boat she handed the ignition keys to Georgios, and when the two men made for the cabin, Arianna loitered at the back of the boat, sitting down alone.

  He should leave her. Maybe she did have qualms about being on the water after all, and they’d just been submerged in her wish to get to an injured man as quickly as possible. She seemed to want to be alone with her thoughts for a moment and Ben stood next to Georgios, his gaze fixed on the stranded fishing boat ahead of them.

  But she was always there. Not just as a bright splash of colour on the edge of his vision, but hovering in his thoughts as he helped Georgios secure the towline, and then moved back up to the front of the boat again. Their progress was slower now, and he watched the small harbour of Kantos, which seemed a lot busier than it had been when they’d left, with people gathering on the dock to find out what had happened at sea.

  Arianna was all activity again, jumping off the boat before Georgios had a chance to fix the mooring lines, and making a beeline for a group that was standing together at the end of the quay. She spoke to them intently, and Ben saw her reach for the hands of one of the women. These must be the families of the injured men.

  Willing hands reached to catch the mooring lines from the fishing boat. The men joined their families, and in the noise of conversation and questions that he could neither understand nor answer he caught sight of Arianna, surrounded by people.

  He wanted to make sure she was all right, but he had to wait his turn. Many of the villagers wanted to speak to Arianna and shake her hand, and when he pushed his way through the gathering crowd he could feel people clapping him on the back.

  ‘Let’s get out of here...’ She flashed him a tight smile when she saw him, and Ben wondered whether that was a suggestion or a plea. He cleared a path for her through people who were milling around them and she followed, silent now and without the smiles that had accompanied her conversations with the families of the men on the fishing boat.

  Ben headed for the shaded surgery, knowing that was probably the one place that they could be alone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE NIGHTMARES THAT had been kept at bay for so long had begun to gain focus. As Arianna had begun to relax after the hard work of building her practice they’d become more frequent, and now...

  Now they were starting to leak out into he
r days. Last night they’d been terrifyingly clear and when she’d gone down to the harbour this morning, the sound of the ferry horn had made her jump. The bobbing motion of her own boat had brought tears to her eyes, and then she’d brushed them away, telling herself that she’d see Ben soon.

  His presence, and then the urgency of their mission to the stranded boat, had chased her fears away. But as soon as they’d left the injured men on the mainland and she had time to think again, she’d felt suddenly sick, pointless questions echoing in her head. What if...? What if somehow she could go back through time, and the doctor’s boat could provide willing hands to pull her brother from the water? Her father had built a new dock for the ferry, to make sure that day could never happen again. She’d come here to make sure that there would be medical help available without having to send to the mainland. None of it seemed enough, because nothing could prevent what had already happened.

  Ben walked beside her, back to the surgery, without saying a word. There was something companionable in the silence, as if he understood everything that she was feeling. Even if that was comforting, Arianna desperately needed someone to understand and it felt that Ben, or at least her own fantasy of him, always had understood her.

  She made it to the building that housed the surgery, proud of the way that her hand was steady when she took the keys from her bag and unlocked the door. Good. Fine. She was doing okay. Her footsteps sounded on the tiled floor and she opened the door into the surgery. Light slanted through the blinds, the same way that it had filtered down through the water when she’d found herself sinking beneath the waves...

  ‘Hey, there.’ She felt Ben’s arms around her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut.

  ‘I’m not crying...’

  ‘No. Of course you’re not. Never occurred to me that you were.’

  Okay, so she was crying. And her limbs were shaking too, against the quiet strength of his body.

  ‘I’m fine. Really. Pretend it didn’t happen.’

  She felt his chest heave in a sigh. ‘Pretend what didn’t happen? The whole of the last twenty-five years?’

  That was the glue that held them together. A lifetime that had been spent dealing with the fallout of what had happened that day on the ferry, and Ben’s uncanny ability to understand that. His life had been changed by that day as well.

  ‘I’m just... This is crazy.’ She pulled away from him, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m not going to dwell on the past, Ben. I’ve never done that.’

  He nodded. The smile that hovered at the corners of his mouth had a hint of reproach in it.

  ‘What?’ Whatever it was, he might as well just come out and say it.

  ‘You’ve told me your whole life story, and you’ve not once been sorry for yourself...’

  Arianna frowned at him. ‘There’s a but in there, isn’t there.’

  ‘You want to hear this?’

  No. Something told her that she really, really didn’t want to hear it. But his eyes were mesmerising, and they wouldn’t let her go.

  ‘Probably not. Say it anyway.’

  ‘I think you’ve worked hard and that you’re making a difference, but you can’t enjoy that because you’re still the little girl who’s so bound up with her parents’ grief that she won’t show her own. You’re still trying to prove to everyone that you’re not the second-best child who survived, but you can’t prove it to yourself.’

  The emotion swelled inside her.

  ‘How dare you?’ Before Arianna knew what she was doing she’d raised her hand, ready to slap him. He didn’t even flinch and that somehow made her behaviour even worse. Tears of frustration started to well in her eyes and she brushed them away impatiently.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. This isn’t all about me, I know that.’

  ‘Do it.’ His eyes taunted her. ‘It would be the first really honest thing you’ve done.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’

  ‘Sure you do. Do it.’ He stuck his chin out, pointing at it. ‘Right there.’

  ‘No. I’m not going to hit you.’

  ‘Not even if I tell you to grow up. Face your grief and admit that you’re not second-best, that’s just survivor’s guilt talking...’

  He stepped back as Arianna flung herself at him, catching her flailing arms. Held her while she cried bitter tears and was still there for her when she wiped her face with shaking fingers. For a long time they were both silent, locked in an embrace. Held together by the day they’d met, when they were both children.

  He reached into his pocket, bringing out a handkerchief. Wiping her face gently and carefully was more than just wiping the tears away; it felt as if he were cleaning away the remains of the shell that had kept her imprisoned for so long.

  ‘I didn’t think men carried handkerchiefs these days...’ She took the scrap of cloth from his fingers, blowing her nose. ‘Isn’t it a little old-fashioned, having a hanky in your pocket just in case you come across a woman in distress?’

  ‘A hanky comes in very useful when you have a five-year-old. Scraped knees, dirty face, runny nose. It’s as well that I haven’t been around Jonas too much today, or you wouldn’t want to be blowing your nose on it.’

  Arianna smiled, putting the handkerchief in her pocket. ‘I’ll wash it and give it back to you.’

  He chuckled. ‘Now who’s the old-fashioned one?’

  Ben took her hand, wrapping his fingers around it. ‘I know that my coming here has brought up some very difficult issues for you, Arianna. I’m sorry, and if you’d like me to leave...’

  ‘No.’ She laid her finger across his lips.

  ‘You don’t have to put a brave face on things, or keep up appearances. If I’m making things worse for you, you don’t have to pretend you want me around either.’

  She could ask Ben. She really wanted to ask him. No one had ever been able to see into her heart the way he seemed to, and it was terrifying and yet liberating.

  ‘I’d like you to stay.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay.’ His gaze focused on her face and he tilted her jaw upwards with one finger. ‘How much sleep did you get last night?’

  ‘Is that a nice way of saying I have bags under my eyes?’

  He grinned. ‘I have to look really, really closely to see them. How much?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ Arianna turned the corners of her mouth down. The nightmares had been clearer and more disturbing than ever, and in the end she’d wrapped herself in a blanket and sat outside, watching the sun rise.

  ‘What do you say to my cooking for you tonight, then? You can sit on the veranda and watch the sunset.’

  ‘That sounds good. If you’re sure, though. You’re on holiday, so you should be the one that has the time to sit around watching sunsets.’

  His face creased into a pained expression. ‘I came here to see you, Arianna. I didn’t know what to expect, but if I’d wanted to just laze in the sun then I’d have gone somewhere else.’

  ‘How are you with a barbecue, then?’

  He laid his hand on his chest. ‘If Jonas were here, he’d tell you. You’re looking at the barbecue king.’

  * * *

  Ben shooed Arianna out of her own kitchen and he saw her pick up her phone and take it with her onto the veranda. She sat down, curling her legs up under her, and dialled, speaking in Greek to someone. He heard Lizzie’s name mentioned, and guessed that Arianna must be talking about their hotel transfer. Ben turned away from the window and started to unpack the bags of food they’d brought from the village. Chicken for the barbecue, and salad.

  The barbecue was housed in its own covered area, to one side of the veranda and outside the kitchen. This was outdoor living at its very best. Shaded places to cook and eat, and the beach and the sunshine to enjoy. Ben could get used to this.

  He laid the table on the veranda, and then brough
t out the dishes of food.

  ‘Very nice. You can come back again.’ She smiled at him. Arianna still looked tired, but the light had returned to her dark eyes and she seemed less careworn.

  ‘Thanks. Next time it’s pie and chips.’

  ‘Pie and chips is fine. I used to live in London too, remember? Or do you do sausages and mash?’

  ‘Definitely. With homemade onion gravy.’

  Arianna grinned and sat down at the table. ‘I’m going to need to try that before you go.’

  They spent a lazy hour, talking and eating, as the sun went down. Ben had reminded Arianna not to move while he cleared away the plates and made coffee, and he was stacking the dishwasher when his phone rang.

  ‘That was Lizzie,’ he called to her from the kitchen door after he hung up. ‘She says that the manager of our hotel has arranged for us to move across to the island first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Arianna didn’t seem much surprised by the news.

  ‘Yeah. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with our being upgraded to a suite, did you?’ Ben felt slightly uncomfortable about that.

  ‘It was what they had available. There’s a similar suite in all of my father’s hotels, which is used for family and friends. It’s usually empty. And you’re my friends.’ She said it with a touch of defensiveness and Ben relented. A suite would be nice and Arianna had clearly broken her own rule about expecting no special treatment because of who her father was.

  ‘It’s great. Thank you.’

  The matter was closed. Arianna went into the house, returning with a backgammon set, and he made coffee, taking the two cups out onto the veranda.

  It all felt so natural. So unremarkable, and yet so very delicious. Drinking coffee and playing backgammon to the sound of the sea. Watching Arianna’s face as she pondered her next move.