by Mandy Baggot
‘A doctor,’ Gavin breathed. ‘Well, if he looks anything like Dr Kashuda from our hospital I’ll be quite happy to make him welcome.’
‘Gavin,’ Lucie said. ‘We don’t know it’s a man and it doesn’t matter what they look like. They’re coming here. To our studio. To the place where you said we had all the space!’
‘But we don’t need all the space, do we?’
Lucie sighed. No, perhaps they didn’t need all the space, but having been handed a gorgeous ancient house with walls of thick rock and olive trees meandering down to the water, she didn’t really want it snatched away again. It felt exciting to be the lady of this Greek manor for a little while. It was less exciting when someone else seemed to be calling the shots over her holiday accommodation.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ Lucie suddenly announced. She needed to breathe. To find out about a hire car. To get something, anything for breakfast.
‘OK,’ Gavin said, stepping back into the house, hammock sarong swaying in the breeze. ‘I’ll shut the door so the grasshoppers don’t get in.’
Seventeen
Andino Butcher’s, Sortilas
Nyx had an appointment in Acharavi, his father was still in bed, so Michalis was in charge of the butcher’s. He wasn’t sure how he felt about managing something he had clearly forgotten almost everything about, if his dismantling of the calf was anything to go by. He also suspected that Nyx’s appointment was simply sitting in Ilo Ilo for coffee…
The bell over the door of the shop tinkled and a woman stepped inside. Slightly wavy dark hair cropped short, wearing denim cut-offs and a light pink T-shirt. He recognised her immediately as the woman whose partner had drunk the goat urine yesterday.
‘Kalimera,’ Michalis greeted, hoping she didn’t want anything that wouldn’t be acceptable rustically carved.
‘Oh, hello,’ she answered. ‘I… you… were at the square yesterday. You sacrificed your coffee for Gavin, so he wasn’t sick.’
Michalis nodded. ‘I did. And once again, I apologise for the village craziness. What must you think of us?’
‘I think,’ she began, stepping a little closer to the counter and surveying the meat goods on display. ‘That I have no idea what half of these things in here are.’ She pointed at the rolls of kokoretsi.
‘You most likely do not want to know what that is,’ he answered.
‘Well now I’m intrigued,’ she said, lifting her eyes to his. ‘I’m looking for something to cook tonight.’
‘This,’ Michalis began, ‘is the intestines of a lamb.’
‘Ugh! God, no. No, I don’t want that.’
Michalis laughed at her shock. ‘I told you we were a little bit crazy here.’
‘Trust me, after you’ve gone to dinner in a fruit van, been literally force-fed something called sofrito and had your measurements taken for a wedding dress, you know all about crazy.’
Michalis nodded. ‘It sounds to me like you have been to Vouni and met with Mary and Ariana.’
‘Oh my God,’ the woman exclaimed. ‘How did you know that?’
Michalis laughed again, enjoying her surprise a little. ‘Everyone knows everyone around here. Plus, Mary is a little obsessed with weddings. My sister has three wedding dresses made by Mary. She was measured for her first one when she was thirteen.’
‘Is she married now?’
‘No,’ Michalis replied with a smile. ‘But she is well prepared.’
‘I don’t need a wedding dress,’ the woman stated. ‘But it seemed rude to decline and—’
‘Ah, there would be no saying no, I understand,’ Michalis admitted. ‘You would have to have eaten all the kataifi before they let you leave.’
She laughed. ‘You really do understand. And, believe me, if I had eaten that, I would never have fitted into any dress ever again.’
He couldn’t stop his eyes from dropping to appraise her body then. She was petite but looked strong. Not someone who could easily be blown over in a storm, his mother might have said. There was energy about her, a liveliness and perhaps a little mystery. But, she was here with her partner and he was definitely not looking for romance. He was still recovering from the last one, a relationship that had ended so badly – and then turned even more tragic. He was still hoping his mobile didn’t ring. Still a little more cautious when night fell. He took a breath.
‘Do you have chicken souvlaki?’ she asked him.
‘Ne,’ he replied with a nod. ‘Would you like just the meat? Or would you like me to prepare it with pepper and onion?’
‘Oh, well, I don’t know. What would you recommend? I’m a bit of a Greek cuisine novice, but my aunt said that chicken souvlaki was one of her favourites so…’
‘Your aunt is here with you?’ Michalis asked, taking skewers of meat from the display and setting them on the board.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘No, she came to this island many years ago and she’s a little excited that I’m here now. Excited and pretty much texting me every second minute to make sure I wear a hat.’ She put a hand to her short hair.
‘Please,’ Michalis said, raising his eyes out of his arrangement of the chicken. ‘Do not tell your aunt that the village president is trying to get tourists to drink the secretions of local animals.’
‘Ah, well,’ she began. ‘I can’t make any promises about that. But, if you make me the souvlakis with the onion and peppers and they’re really as delicious as my aunt says they are then I promise to talk more about the chicken than the goat.’
‘Souvlakia,’ Michalis said.
‘What?’
‘More than one souvlaki, we say souvlakia.’
‘Oh, OK. Well, can I have four souvlakia, please? Gavin’s a pig when it comes to all foods. How do you say “four” in Greek?’
‘Tesera,’ Michalis told her. He washed his hands before changing from handling meat to salad. ‘Pos sas lene?’
‘Oh… was that “will four be enough”?’
Michalis smiled then, deftly cutting thick chunks of yellow and green pepper then moving on to red onion. ‘No, I asked you what is your name.’
She seemed to turn a little bashful then, her gaze falling to his hands as they moved salad onto skewers, alternating with fat pieces of chicken breast.
‘Lucie,’ she answered.
‘I am Michalis,’ he replied.
‘It’s nice to meet you.’
‘Ki ego. You too.’
The bell above the door chimed again and Michalis looked up. It was the customer who had bought the rabbit for stifado just the other day.
‘Kalimera,’ the man greeted quietly, standing beside Lucie at the counter and seeming slightly ill at ease.
Michalis spoke in Greek. ‘Can I help you?’
‘The woman is not here?’ the man whispered.
‘The woman?’
‘Has her hair in two doughnuts and shouts a lot.’
‘Ah, my sister,’ Michalis said, nodding. ‘No, she is not here right now. Do you need me to give her a message?’
The man shook his head vigorously then. ‘No. Not at all. She terrifies me.’
‘O-K.’
‘I would like some steak mince.’
‘No problem. I will just finish the souvlakia for this customer.’
The skewers of meat, peppers and onion were almost done and Michalis felt disappointed for the end of the interaction. Stupidly so. He was not in the right headspace for making any kind of new connection. He looked up at Lucie. ‘You are staying here long?’
‘A few weeks,’ Lucie replied.
Michalis watched her eyes going to a new large poster he hadn’t even noticed was stuck to the inside of the shop window. Oh God! What was that doing there? Nyx must have put it up in between them talking about the oddness of their father, him having a shower and her disappearing to Acharavi. He wanted to leapfrog the counter and tear it down before Lucie could see. But then the already traumatised customer might be terrified of him as well as Nyx.
> ‘Is that you?’ Lucie remarked, stepping towards the window and surveying the billboard. Too late.
He looked like a gladiator with the bulk of Ironman. Who had drawn this cartoonish figure with bulging veins and rippling biceps? It was true he liked to keep himself in shape, but this depiction had pitched him at professional bodybuilder…
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ Lucie said, standing right in front of the poster now. It was obviously double sided. His blown-up body visible from inside the shop as well as from the street.
‘I did not pose for this,’ Michalis told her. He felt himself blush. What else could he say? Damn Melina and her new festival…
‘The Day of the Not Dead,’ Lucie read. ‘Miltos told me about this last night.’
The man in the shop shook his head then spoke in English. ‘Always about health here now.’
‘It sounds like fun,’ Lucie said. ‘Dancing and music.’
‘Overpriced loukoumades and gypsies selling roses,’ the man informed.
‘Your souvlakia is ready,’ Michalis said, carefully wrapping the portions in paper and fastening it all together with a rubber band.
‘Thank you,’ Lucie said. ‘How much is it?’ She came back to the counter and drew out a purse from her bag.
‘Half price,’ Michalis found himself saying. ‘If you come back and tell me what you thought of them. Three euro.’
‘Well, thank you. That sounds very fair. I will.’ She placed the money on the countertop and picked up the parcel.
‘Yassas,’ Michalis said as she made her way to the door again. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Yassas,’ Lucie answered.
The bell rang as she departed and the customer gave a cough. ‘Do I get my mince for half the price if I come back and tell you what I thought of it?’
Eighteen
Woody’s, Acharavi
Despite having successfully purchased that evening’s meal of souvlakia, when Lucie got back to the house Gavin was craving more than the simple bread and ham she had picked up for breakfast from Ajax’s apocalypse-ready mini-market. Gavin had dressed though. Then he had squealed at two large yellow-and-black butterflies and ran around the courtyard as if they were both hunting him down as prey. After that he had demanded sausage and bacon and was on his mobile to Miltos for a lift to one of the nearby towns that catered for hungry Brits in need of something that tasted like home. Despite Lucie’s protests about being knee-deep in apricots again, here they now were, courtesy of another ride in the fruit van, Gavin devouring the big breakfast that did look spectacular. She had ordered what she thought would be the healthy option – a continental – but it was as huge as Gavin’s meal and came with cake… She had thought of sending a photo to Meg, but then decided that cake for breakfast might have tipped her aunt into a message rant about cholesterol.
‘It’s time to really unwind now,’ Gavin mused through a mouthful of sausage.
‘It’s time we got our own transport,’ Lucie told him. She looked out over the white stone beach little more than a few paces away and watched the froth of the waves spraying foam all over the shoreline. The sound was really quite soothing.
‘I know,’ Gavin agreed, slurping at his coffee. ‘I spoke to Miltos while you were moaning on about cherries in your lap.’
Of course Gavin had leapt into the front of the fruit van for their drive down the mountain while she had been consigned to the produce section…
‘What did you say?’ Lucie asked, dipping her spoon into her Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit.
‘I asked him if he knew where we could hire some transport at a good price.’
Lucie shook her head. ‘Oh God.’
‘What?’
‘I hope you made it clear that transport didn’t mean “fruit van” or “donkey”.’
‘He’s going to pop in later this afternoon – after his siesta – and let us know the options.’
‘Or we could just visit one of those little places with actual real cars outside called “rental companies” and get something that hasn’t been organised by someone whose relatives want to dress me up like a bridal collection.’
‘What’s the matter, Luce?’ Gavin asked, putting down his knife and fork. ‘You seem tense.’
She wasn’t tense. Was she? She was enjoying being here. It was lovely. But something inside was telling her she needed it to be perfect. She wanted to gather up all the Greece in the short time they had, experience the whole shebang and not miss a thing. Somehow this felt like a monumental journey rather than a cheap few weeks’ break, and she didn’t exactly know why that was the case. Perhaps it was the fact there had been no real respite from the horrors at the hospital for a year, or maybe it was more deep-rooted than that. Maybe it was about uncovering another part of herself she hadn’t been fully introduced to yet…
‘Well,’ she started. ‘We also have the matter of someone moving into our studio. What are you going to do about that?’
‘The doctor,’ Gavin breathed. He’d said ‘doctor’ like he’d meant ‘potential sex slave’.
‘It’s our place, Gavin. For our holiday. I don’t know if I’m very happy about bumping into someone I don’t know. I mean, the studio doesn’t have a separate toilet. They’ll need the toilet. In our house.’
‘Well,’ Gavin began. ‘Shall we reserve judgement for a bit?’
‘What do you mean? We need to stop them coming. If they come then the decision is made. But if we want to not have them there then we need to say something or do something.’
‘Well… shall we see if it’s a man and, if it is, see what he looks like first?’
Lucie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Gavin!’
‘What?’
‘You can’t say that!’
‘Why not?’ He sighed. ‘I mean, Simon’s not taken the bait yet, so I need to be getting on top of someone else. And I do love a doctor.’
And she still hadn’t had the courage to tell Gavin that the only way he would ever be getting on top of Simon would be if he was intubating him. ‘You work at a hospital,’ Lucie reminded him. ‘There are wards full of doctors you could pick from.’
‘So, I’m not allowed a Greek doctor?’
‘No… well… I…’
‘Put the fruit down and have a sausage,’ Gavin said, winking as he speared one on his fork and offered it over to her. ‘That’s my prescription. And my diagnosis is that the health is making you grumpy.’
Lucie shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. She didn’t want to be grumpy. She wanted to strip off her vest and shorts and run into that rumbling sea, letting the waves crash all over her skin and cover her in salt… And why couldn’t she? What was stopping her from doing just that? She had her bikini on. They were steps away from the beach. A quick dip and then back to finish breakfast. No regrets. No second-guessing. She stood up.
‘What are you doing?’ Gavin wanted to know.
‘I’m going for a swim.’ She wrenched her vest over her head and dropped it to her chair.
‘Now?!’
‘Yes now.’
‘No one else is in the water right now.’
‘So?’ And he was wrong anyway. She had spotted a man in a full rubber diving outfit submerging himself only moments earlier. A small fluorescent flag marked the spot.
‘Don’t leave me on my own,’ Gavin said like a four-year-old. ‘There might be wasps and I’m enjoying this breakfast.’
‘And I am your best friend,’ Lucie said. ‘Not your carer.’
‘I promise if Miltos arrives with a donkey we can head to the very first hire car company.’
‘I’m going swimming, Gavin. I won’t be long.’
She took off her shorts, left them on the chair too and padded across the road to the shoreline of stones. The warmth in the air made the fine hairs on her arms react and she found the rest of her bubbling at the thought of getting into the water. Was this how a young Meg had felt in Corfu all those years ago? Was this maybe how her mu
m might have felt if she had lived to have the opportunity?
That cloaked feeling you got that people described as ‘someone walking over your grave’ crept over Lucie’s bare shoulders and she felt herself shiver. She was thinking about her mum much more here in Greece. Why? Was it this change of pace, this time to think, that was unlocking feelings she’d buried? Or was it because now, away from the pandemonium of the hospital, she was slightly distanced from what she had witnessed, could now truly acknowledge loss with a new, shuddering perspective. She took a deep breath and focussed again on the beauty of the water and the hypnotic sound of the waves. Leaving all her thoughts behind she stepped into the sea and got ready to dive deep.
Nineteen
Villa Psomi, Sortilas
Michalis didn’t feel entirely comfortable about this, but if it was what it took to get his father’s health looked into then it would be worth it. He had forgotten how beautifully rustic this house was. Years ago, when his mother was alive, before Nyx was born, he had run around this courtyard with other children from the village. Wispy branches of olive trees in their hands, swishing and swiping away the mosquitos, pretending they were great warriors as they sprinted over crumbling bricks and tumbled into the garden loudly, letting the snakes know they were there. It was a place for solace now – no war cry of playing children – the only thing unchanged was the age-old olive trees and the panoramic sea view.
Melina wrenched open the heavy wooden door of the studio building opposite the main house, shunting and pulling with a combination of strength and desperate willpower. Wood splintered as the slightly warped bottom of the door met with the cobbles of the terrace, straining at the intrusion.
‘Let me help you,’ Michalis said, worried that the president was going to be his very first patient if she kept this exertion up.
‘It is not used as much as it should be,’ Melina said, wiping a hand over her perspiring forehead. ‘When things are not used they rot. I try to tell this to the community when I talk about breeding.’