by Mandy Baggot
‘Well, I have actually come to tell you something,’ Lucie admitted, plucking a piece of grass from the ground and twirling it around between finger and thumb.
‘Oh?’ Meg said. Straight away, her aunt’s hand went to the locket around her neck that Lucie knew held photos of her, Rita, Sheila and David. ‘Should I be worried?’
Meg always worried, even more so now she was older. If it was icy in the winter Meg would text Lucie and tell her to drive with extreme caution and message as soon as she arrived safely at the hospital. If it was a heatwave there would be a discussion about drinking plenty of water and staying in the shade. And when it came to meeting new people, Meg would feel happier if Lucie knew their surname as well as their first name so she could settle herself with finding them on Facebook and be content that, from the information available, they weren’t running a people-smuggling ring…
‘No,’ Lucie said quickly. ‘Of course not. Anyway, when have you ever really had to worry about me?’
‘Well, where do I start?’ Meg asked, sighing. ‘There was one time when you were six. You got four Maltesers stuck up your nose and we had to take you to the hospital to be “flushed”. Then, when you were eighteen, you walked into a field containing a prize bull and had to be rescued by me, the farmer and half a turnip. And then there was—’
‘OK, OK, stop,’ Lucie begged, inwardly cringing. Perhaps the hair mishap with Gavin wasn’t so bad when put in the context of her youthful misadventures. ‘I should have clarified. You haven’t had to worry about me since I became a nurse.’
Meg seemed to muse on that statement a little, fingers going from the locket to the few strands of hair that framed her face and were always left purposefully out of her bun. ‘Yes,’ Meg finally answered. ‘I suppose you’re right. Although, after this past year, I have worried about you being safe doing what you do.’
Lucie swallowed and her back gave a twinge as she remembered all those weeks and weeks of not being able to see Meg at all. They had had to rely on FaceTime, then doorstep conversations from two metres away, until finally they’d been able to share a few glasses of gin and tonic a little closer – with wipes. Until it had all be taken away again, tiers had been set up and they’d counted down to Christmas. And then Christmas had been all but cancelled, plans had to change and Lucie had had to pay ridiculous amounts of cash she didn’t have to get her hands on anything that contained turkey… while working double shifts as Covid case numbers rose again.
‘Well,’ Lucie said, biting back the unpleasant memories. ‘You can stop worrying. Because… I’m taking some time off.’ She drew in a breath as if the air would somehow validate the decision she had made. Why did agreeing to a holiday feel so momentous? Because it was momentous. This past year she’d had a fully formed rigid routine that barely changed unless Boris Johnson said so. People relied on her. In the back of her mind she was still worried that if she went away, something would get missed, or someone would be lost and that her not being there would somehow cause an avalanche of unfortunate events. Her sensible side knew she wasn’t a modern day Nostradamus, but she did believe in cause and effect and she didn’t want to be the catalyst.
‘Time off?’ Meg asked.
‘A holiday,’ Lucie elaborated. ‘Greece.’
Meg’s eyes lit up then. ‘Greece,’ she purred, like she’d suddenly been hit with a shot of nostalgia, plus all the golden sand and sunset nights.
‘Yes… have you been?’ Lucie asked.
Meg gave a slow nod, her eyes looking towards the begonias swaying gently in the sunshine. ‘I have.’
There was a distant look in her aunt’s eyes Lucie hadn’t ever seen before, but it didn’t appear that Meg was going to elaborate unless she was directly pushed.
‘Well,’ Lucie said. ‘I don’t remember you telling me about it. What’s it like?’
Her aunt had told her many stories over the years of her adventures. Before marriage, it had been grabbing rucksack, passport and simply taking off. Then during marriage it was slotting in two weeks’ holiday from her office job and visiting caravan sites in the UK in her and ex-husband John’s campervan. After that she had hung up her wanderlust in the back of the cupboard with glitzy shoes she kept but never wore anymore. But Meg had never mentioned Greece, Lucie was sure of it.
‘It was…’ Meg stopped talking and gave a visible shiver. ‘A long time ago.’
Lucie smiled, edging closer to her aunt’s chair. ‘Was there a man?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Meg protested, waving a hand as if she was swatting a fly. Her expression told a different story, though.
‘There was a man, wasn’t there?’ Lucie said again. ‘What was his name?’
Meg sniffed. ‘You do know that all the best stories don’t have to begin and end with a man, don’t you? Haven’t I taught you that much?’
‘Of course,’ Lucie said firmly. ‘You bought me a T-shirt that said almost exactly that when I was twelve.’
Meg nodded, as if wholly satisfied. And then she answered the question:
‘His name was Petros.’
Lucie put a hand to her chest in mock shock. ‘Aunt Meg! There was a man!’
A small smile started to spread across her aunt’s lips while Meg attempted to tighten her mouth as if she didn’t want to let her expression give her away. ‘As I said, it was a long time ago.’
‘But you still remember it,’ Lucie said, edging closer still. ‘Still remember Petros after all this time.’
Meg shook her head, but she was smiling even wider now and seemed unable to do anything to stop it. ‘Don’t be silly. It was just a crush. I was eighteen. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I was—’
‘Wild?’ Lucie suggested with a wink.
‘Lucie, you know I was never the wild Burrows sister.’ Meg’s voice almost sounded a warning and Lucie swallowed, remembering every cautionary word Meg had delivered to her as soon as she had hit secondary school. Given what had happened to her mother she understood why. Meg and her grandparents had been desperately determined not to let history repeat itself. And if providing advisories at every opportunity helped them as well as her, then it couldn’t ever be a bad thing. Could it? Except there were times, still, when the re-enactment her nan had done with three of her creepy dolls to underpin the importance of stranger danger precautions came to her in her nightmares…
‘I’m sorry,’ Meg said quickly then. ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s OK,’ Lucie insisted, putting a hand on Meg’s knee and squeezing gently. ‘I know what you meant.’
‘I was silly to get all starry-eyed at the mention of a European country,’ Meg continued. ‘I suppose it reminded me of endless sunshine days and that feeling of complete calm and tranquillity. It really is like another world. Well, it was, all those years ago. It might have changed.’
‘I hope not,’ Lucie said, letting go of a sigh. ‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for.’ She leaned her head against her aunt’s knee, resting it there and instinctively knowing Meg was going to caress what was left of her hair. She smiled to herself as she felt her aunt’s hand on her scalp, fingers gently massaging like she had when Lucie was much younger and sporting pigtails.
‘Where exactly are you going?’ Meg asked. ‘And when? Does your hair have any time to grow?’
‘One of the islands,’ Lucie breathed. ‘That’s the only detail Gavin’s giving up. I’ve left everything up to him. It’s a long story but he needed a nice focus and—’
‘Oh, Lucie,’ Meg said. ‘You’ve left organising a much-needed break to a man who would happily spend two weeks covered in glitter and doing TikTok routines.’
Lucie laughed. ‘What do you know about TikTok?’
‘Occasionally we do them at physiotherapy when there’s a group of us,’ Meg said. ‘My favourite is The Renegade.’
Lucie looked up then, to check if her aunt was serious or not. It appeared from the twinkle in her eye that she was… ‘Wow.�
��
‘You must want some input into where you’re going though, surely.’
And Meg would be itching for a full itinerary. Lucie had had to give her all the details of one training day in Portsmouth because she had read Cosham crime rates were on the rise. ‘Well,’ Lucie started. ‘I didn’t know that I really wanted to go anywhere to begin with but…’
‘But?’ Meg asked, stroking Lucie’s head again.
‘But now I think… maybe I need to get away,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, I’ve barely ever left Southampton.’
‘We’ve had some lovely excursions to the Isle of Wight,’ Meg countered.
They had. By hydrofoil, ferry and once on the hovercraft from Southsea. But no matter how nice fish and chips and a train ride up the pier was, a few miles across the Solent wasn’t really abroad. And Lucie’s heart, when she turned off the worry button, told her she wanted more. Even just for a couple of weeks. She wanted to be something different to Lucie Burrows, Staff Nurse. She wanted to try to redefine herself and, most of all, she wanted to be more than the tragic girl whose mum chose partying over motherhood.
‘We have,’ Lucie answered. ‘I just need to see what else is out there. A little further away. Just for a bit.’
She felt Meg’s hand brush her hair a touch more tenderly. ‘You do work so hard, Lucie-Lou.’
Lucie nodded and closed her eyes, letting the evening sunshine warm her cheeks and wind its way through her body. Work had always been her focus. And she knew having that career stability pleased Meg. Her aunt had often told her that Rita’s lack of a plan had most probably contributed towards her undoing as much as anything else.
‘Well,’ Meg began. ‘I want you to have the most fabulous time. But please, let me know when you get there and let me know what island it is and the name of your hotel and I’ll check I still have Gavin’s mobile number. And you’ll need insect repellent and factor thirty sun cream and… I’ll probably still worry when I have all of that.’
‘I will let you know where I am,’ Lucie said. ‘Of course I will.’ She turned her head, looking up into her aunt’s face like she had so many times from this exact position over the years.
‘And I want to see all the photos of the fabulous mountain backdrops, the turquoise water and the—’
‘Men called Petros?’ Lucie jumped in. ‘What island was he from?’
‘Ah,’ Meg said, putting a finger to her nose. ‘There will be plenty of time for talking about Petros on another occasion. When do you leave for this Greek odyssey?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Lucie announced, bracing herself for what she knew was coming.
‘Well, what are you doing here?! Haven’t you got packing to do? You need to be organised. You’ll need to print off boarding passes and photocopy your passport in case it gets lost.’ Meg shooed her off her leg, wriggling her knees until Lucie had no choice but to stand up.
‘I do have a million things to do, and Gavin’s coming over to stay because we have to head for the airport at two a.m. or some other equally mad time. And even though we swore no alcohol, he’s already messaged me a photo of a bottle of retsina with the caption “so we’re acclimatised”.’ Lucie took a breath before it ran out.
‘Then go, my Lucie-Lou, go and get ready for your Greek adventure,’ Meg urged. ‘And don’t forget aftersun… and travel sickness bands.’
‘I don’t get travel sick.’
‘No, but someone else on the plane might and it’s always good to be prepared.’ She smiled. ‘You will be careful though, Lucie, won’t you?’
She nodded. ‘I promise.’
It was real! She was going away tomorrow! To Greece. And Greece was going to be Greek-tastic!
Seven
Ioannis Kapodistrias Airport, Corfu
The Greek island location had been revealed. Corfu. Or, as Gavin had kept saying, Kerkyra. That was Corfu’s Greek name and Gavin said it sounded more mysterious and sexy. Kerkyra had a surprisingly smart and obviously recently-updated airport terminal. Everything was grey, with a touch of muted turquoise on the signage, and the toilets were modern and clean. Meg had sent her a text about Greek toilets late last night, after Gavin had drunk most of the retsina and started up a rendition of ‘Super Trouper’ like he was a member of an ABBA tribute act. Meg had told Lucie: ‘Hover at all costs, as a lot of the toilets I remember were no more than holes in the ground’. Apparently the ones that weren’t holes in the ground never had any seats. Meg had also suggested adding nappy sacks to her luggage. The following note about having to put your soiled toilet paper in a bin rather than down the loo had actually been true.
‘Feel that heat!’ Gavin exclaimed, tilting his face to the sky. ‘I reckon it’s enough to singe off your eyebrows.’ He faced Lucie. ‘Lucky I still don’t have any.’
Lucie smiled and drew in a breath of the sweet humid air as she let herself take in the buzz that surrounded Corfu’s airport. There were travel representatives sweating a little in their uniforms, clipboards at the ready to check passenger names, cleaners with their trolleys and mops, endless amounts of Greek men with mobile phones clamped to their ears, coaches with engines idling adding to the heat of the atmosphere and a row of dark blue Mercedes taxis, yellow signs on their roofs. It wasn’t anything like standing outside the hospital in Southampton not knowing what they were going to be faced with when they went through the front doors. This was uncharted territory, yes, but the anticipation was giving her all the good tingles.
‘Right!’ Gavin announced, dipping fingers into his neon orange flight bag. ‘Let me check the name we’re looking for here for our transfer.’
‘Aren’t we looking for our names?’ Lucie queried, shielding her eyes from the sun and wondering which compartment of her trolley case she had put her sunglasses in. It was hot and she also needed to remember that she didn’t have copious amounts of hair on her head to barricade her scalp from the UV rays. She looked to Gavin. ‘That’s what they do, isn’t it? Write our names on a board, spelt wrong if you believe the films, and—’
‘And then we get kidnapped by guerrilla drag queens. And then after a tough few weeks of wig envy and a lack of tea, we get rescued by Gerard Butler.’ Gavin giggled and then snorted. It had to be the Aperol Spritz. Gavin didn’t seem to have any nervous hesitation about leaving work for a few weeks like she did.
‘Gav, do you have paperwork or just… stuff that might one day make a good screenplay?’
‘I have paperwork!’
He was making a real meal out of finding anything in the neon bag though. For someone whose trolley case was on the larger size of easyJet dimensions, he’d definitely made the most of all the available space. Was that golf balls he had in a zip-lock bag? Since when had Gavin been into golf? She watched as Gavin returned the packet to his bag and finally pulled out a cardboard folder.
‘Here we are! Sortilas is what we’re looking for.’
Lucie wasn’t sure if ‘sortilas’ was the name of a Greek food, a Greek man or the Greek word for ‘luxury transfer’. Right now, any one of those would have done.
‘There should be a man, or a woman, greeting us with a sign saying “Sortilas”,’ Gavin said.
Perhaps ‘sortilas’ was the Greek word for welcome. Lucie pulled her trolley case a little closer to her and squeaked as she ran over her own bare toes. They might be freshly coated in an Avon shade called Pink Obsession, which The Other Sharon Osbourne had palmed onto her because apparently the hue clashed with Sharon’s spider veins, but they were only just getting over the near-frostbite from very early morning temperatures waiting for a transfer bus at Luton Airport. She should have asked Meg a few Greek words to get her started. Lucie imagined even a young Meg would have been highly organised in her adventuring.
‘There!’ Gavin announced, pointing across the road and a yellow zebra crossing to who-knew-what. ‘Sortilas.’
‘Gavin,’ Lucie began as her friend started to tear off, striding forward as if he was the founding father of po
wer-walking. ‘Is Sortilas the name of our hotel?’ That’s what it had to be, didn’t it?
‘Hotel?’
Why had Gavin said the word ‘hotel’ like it wasn’t a full member of the English language and could not ever be used as such in Scrabble? Lucie was beginning to worry that the faith she had in Gavin choosing somewhere relaxing and away-from-it-all might have been ill-placed. As much as Lucie wanted chill time, she had absolutely thought that would involve a hotel, be it an apartment to cater for themselves or an all-inclusive free-for-all. Granted she hadn’t paid out all-inclusive prices but…
‘Yes,’ Lucie said, still trying to catch up to him. ‘You know, the place we’re staying.’
Gavin laughed then, one hand going from the strap of his bag to his mouth, eyes alive with surprise. ‘I keep forgetting I’ve kept the whole trip under wraps!’ He giggled. ‘Let’s keep that going.’ He grinned at her. ‘There’s no hotel, by the way.’
Lucie’s stomach plummeted like the plane had during a bump of turbulence on their final descent. There was no hotel. Oh, God. The only thing coming to mind now was the memory that Gavin had once taken part in a weekend in deepest, darkest North Wales where he’d had to make a shelter out of sticks, leaves and crisp packets made into triangles for waterproofing. No, it couldn’t be anything like that. Gavin had cried for a week after that experience and said he was never going to pursue a relationship with anyone whose Grindr profile said they liked communing with nature. Gavin had translated that as ‘might indulge in al fresco relations’ when really it had meant ‘possibly Ant Middleton’s twin brother’.