by Mandy Baggot
Twenty-One
‘If you keep looking over your shoulder like that you’re going to ruin your neck.’
‘If he’s gay I’ll ruin more than my neck for him. Have you seen him, Luce? I mean, look at him!’
Lucie couldn’t look at Michalis because Michalis was inside the studio with possibly his thirty-fifth patient of the evening. The throng had depleted over the last two hours, was a thinning line last time she looked, but just as she thought that was it, another figure would come out of the shadows and shuffle into place.
‘Perhaps we could check the charcoal again now?’ Lucie asked. They had lit it over an hour ago and Gavin seemed more interested in creating pressure points in his spine than he did on beginning to cook the souvlakia the doctor himself had prepared earlier.
Gavin waved a hand over the coals and shook his head. ‘Not quite ready yet. Shall we get some more crisps?’
Lucie didn’t want more crisps. She wanted something with a whole lot more substance to soak up the delicious beer with the hilarious name – Vergina. Gavin had joked it was giving him reminders of senior school when he had been desperate to fit in…
‘I’ll cook,’ Lucie said, standing up. ‘If it takes ages I’ll finish them off in the microwave or something.’
‘Maybe the good doctor will want a skewer,’ Gavin suggested with a wink. ‘Is there a portion for him?’
Lucie began to unwrap the parcel of meat. They did look delicious and her stomach gave a moan of appreciation even from them in their raw state. ‘I suspect he’ll want to get home having spent all this time seeing patients without a break.’
‘Or,’ Gavin began. ‘He’ll want to have an immediate drink and some sustenance.’
Gavin had said ‘sustenance’ like he meant ‘penis’. Perhaps it would be good if the doctor/butcher was attracted to men. Then maybe she would never have to tell Gavin that Simon wasn’t. Except, selfishly, a tiny part of her was willing Michalis to be interested in women, purely for fantasy purposes obviously. Because holiday romances were purely made up for women’s magazines… or happened long ago to Meg.
Gavin leapt out his chair then. ‘That’s the last patient!’
Lucie turned from placing the souvlakia on the grill. ‘What?’
‘The tiny little lady in grey is sashaying away up the path.’ Gavin grinned. ‘That means the doctor is free! Shall I go and grab him? Suggest he joins us for a meat feast?’
Lucie could see that it didn’t matter what she replied to Gavin, he was going to bound up to the studio door and make the invitation anyway.
Despite Gavin’s insistence that the coals weren’t hot enough to begin cooking anything yet, the chicken was already starting to turn from flesh-coloured to white and a pleasant sizzling sound was accompanying a fragrant steam as she gently moved the kebabs with tongs. It was so gloriously peaceful here looking out over the property’s garden as well as the width of blue sea, the sun beginning to lessen in intensity. In these moments, in this stillness, the everyday tension started to drop away and her mind began to free up. Her thoughts were starting to become hers again, instead of constantly fighting a losing battle with the wants, needs and opinions of others. She was never the biggest personality in the room, but she could admit here and now, if only to herself, that she had let her presence shrink even further this past year, adjusting her focus so much that what she wanted and needed had slid completely out of view. Other people had mattered much more. They had had to matter. Their struggles had been insurmountable, terrifying, bigger and more important than anything else. Perhaps Corfu could help address the balance a little now though.
‘Lucie, crack open another vagina beer for the good doctor!’
Wow. That was quick work by Gavin. Lucie turned her head and there was her beaming best friend together with Michalis, trying to shrug off the white coat like it was a strait jacket.
‘The beer. It is pronounced “ver-gey-na”,’ Michalis said, arriving on the terrace. ‘Gey like key.’
‘Oh,’ Gavin said, words dripping with disappointment. ‘That’s not as fanny.’ He laughed at his own joke and went about plucking up a can and a glass despite having asked Lucie to do it.
‘I hope my patients did not spoil your evening,’ Michalis asked. He was by the barbecue now, close enough that Lucie was worried her chicken-turning skills might be scrutinised.
‘Well,’ Gavin said. ‘We did pay close attention when that man made a noise like a sex-starved owl.’
‘I… did not hear this,’ Michalis said, looking confused.
‘What?!’ Gavin exclaimed. ‘It was so loud, even out here!’ He giggled. ‘Don’t make me do the noises.’ He grinned. ‘Do you want to hear me do the noises?’
‘No,’ Lucie said quickly.
‘I think what you heard might have been an actual owl,’ Michalis told them.
‘No!’ Gavin said, following it up with ridiculous laughter. Her best friend’s yearning for tasting the slow and individual undercurrents of wine obviously didn’t extend to beer.
‘On Corfu we have the scops owl,’ Michalis said. ‘It is a small owl but its noise, it is a deep-throated whistle.’
‘Oh my,’ Gavin said, slapping his hands to his beard while his eyes rested on the doctor. ‘A deep-throated whistle is what most of my dreams are made of.’
‘Am I doing this right?’ Lucie interrupted, moving the skewers of meat over the grill sat across the hot coals with the tongs. ‘Sorry, I really didn’t mean for you to sell me the food then give advice on cooking it.’
‘Really you should not be grilling outside in the summer,’ Michalis said.
‘What?!’ Gavin exclaimed. ‘When else does anyone barbecue?’
‘In the summer the risk of fire is high here in Corfu. There is not to be any open fires outside from May until November,’ Michalis informed.
‘Oh God! Have we broken the law?’ Lucie said, feeling all the stress come rolling back. ‘Should I… put it out?’ She really didn’t want to extinguish it because her stomach was already protesting for making it wait so long for fulfilment. But rules were rules and who knew how the Greek authorities punished people? According to the press they had been heavy handed with Harry Maguire in Mykonos…
‘No,’ Michalis said. ‘We will just be very careful.’ He leaned over the coals. ‘Perhaps the grill is a little too hot in the centre. I do not wish to interfere, but I would move the souvlakia a little to the edge.’
‘Too hot?’ Lucie said, sending Gavin a look that suggested they could have begun cooking a whole lot earlier.
‘Shall I get some wine from the house?’ Gavin asked. ‘Lucie and I bought a flagon of white wine and haven’t had one drop yet.’
‘Please,’ Michalis said. ‘Do not open this for me. If my father stays in his bedroom all day tomorrow I will be needed to work at the butcher’s early in the morning.’
‘I’ll open it for me then,’ Gavin said, grinning. He passed Michalis his beer then proceeded to trot over the terrace towards the steps that led up to the house.
‘Sorry about Gavin,’ Lucie said, the sizzling on the chicken slightly lessening now they weren’t being cooked quite so severely. ‘He can get excitable after a few drinks. I hope you didn’t feel obliged to join us. I mean… it’s nice to have you here and you’re very welcome but… maybe you have somewhere else you would rather be than… helping a law-breaking barbecue virgin with her meat sticks.’
If Lucie’s face wasn’t hot from the charcoal temperatures and the humidity of the night, it was now burning from the sheer ridiculousness of the sentence she had just uttered. Meat sticks! Barbecue virgin! She wanted to disappear down the mountain and hide in an old ruin.
‘You have not had a barbecue before?’ Michalis asked, one eyebrow raising.
‘I’ve eaten barbecue before, and I’ve seen other people cook it. But… no, I’ve never actually taken control of the… apparatus.’
‘You are a nurse, yes?’ Michalis said, put
ting his drink down on the edge of the wall.
‘Yes.’
‘Then all you have to remember is to treat the meat the same way you would treat a patient.’
‘What?’
‘May I show you?’ He got a little closer and offered out a hand. For a second she was blindsided until she realised he simply wanted to take the tongs.
‘Oh, please, be my guest.’ Inwardly she cringed. He was her guest. Their guest. Gavin’s guest actually…
Lucie watched as Michalis wrapped the metal spoons around the flesh of the kebabs and gently lifted and turned in one smooth and gentle motion. She wasn’t sure she had ever been that delicate with any of her patients on Abbington Ward. Most of her work required brute force and clicking all the buttons on the remote control for the beds.
‘You want to look after them,’ Michalis said, beckoning her in with his free hand. ‘But you should know that they will not break.’
‘I beg to differ,’ Lucie answered, watching him shift the next skewer over. ‘One wrong move and we might lose a pepper to the embers. Or, you know, apparently set the whole island alight.’
He turned his head a little, smiling as those dark eyes held an intimate audience with hers. She swallowed, looking back.
‘Lucie,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is OK for food and for patients to fall apart a little. Because they have us to put them back together, no?’
God, she was loving his bedside/grillside manner almost as much as she was loving his muscular forearms skilfully griddling her breasts – chicken breasts. She shook her head then and became painfully aware that her Killing Eve locks were no longer an asset she possessed…
‘And,’ he started again, ‘the breaking always takes a lot more than we realise.’
She shivered. There was something to be said for that nugget of knowledge. She had been through such a great deal and she was still here, still surviving, her pieces mostly together. But perhaps that need for self-preservation was holding her back from asking the tough questions about her mum. Maybe being mostly together was simply an illusion she expertly sold.
He held the tongs out to her again and she shook her head. ‘Honestly, if I do it we probably will burn down Kerkyra.’
‘If you do not try you will never learn.’ He waved the tongs again. ‘If it helps… you can pretend it is a speculum.’
Lucie laughed and took the tools from him. ‘You might regret saying that.’
Twenty-Two
Gavin was asleep. After drinking three large glasses of the flagon wine and eating two full skewers with hardly a pause between them, he’d relaxed into the swinging egg chair on one corner of the terrace and rotated into an open-mouthed slumber. It was only his gentle snoring, the chirping of the crickets and the gentle lapping of the water in the pool amid the quiet. And Michalis was still here with Lucie, underneath a now inky starlit sky…
‘I’m sorry,’ Lucie said. ‘About Gavin. What a poor host, falling asleep in front of a guest.’
Michalis shook his head. ‘There is no need to apologise.’ He checked his watch and Lucie found herself feeling disappointed. He had been good company, telling stories about the mad village and its characters and suggesting places she and Gavin might like to visit. He hadn’t actually told her much about himself though. A mysterious and sexy-looking doctor…
‘One more drink?’ Lucie offered quickly, pulling the flagon of wine towards her across the table.
‘You know there is a reason why that wine is such a good price.’
‘I like it,’ Lucie told him, struggling to lift the flagon. Despite Michalis saying he wouldn’t partake in any wine, Gavin had literally force-fed him a full high-ball glass before he nodded off.
‘Well, in that case, you might have enjoyed the goat urine.’
‘Well,’ Lucie said. ‘If you’re not enjoying it I’m not going to waste another glassful on you.’
Michalis smiled and lifted his glass in the air. ‘I still have some here.’
Lucie put her now full glass to her lips and took a sip. Awful. But highly alcoholic. And, if she wanted to find out more about him, why didn’t she just ask?
‘So, where do you usually practice?’ she began. ‘Did something happen to your usual surgery? A rent hike or… arson… or something.’ The rough wine was now not helping with her thought process. Arson! He was going to start believing she did have plans to scorch the earth here soon!
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. No drama.’
Except there had been drama, and plenty of it. His shoulders moved in reaction to his lie. Michalis had known if he stayed here too long, if he reconnected with life, he would have to talk at some point. Although he hadn’t exhausted all the tales he could recount about Sortilas and the people who lived here yet, he had also been careful to pick out everything that had very little to do with him personally. He was emotional today. Those constant sharp-yet-warming reminders of his mama, coupling with the ever-present fear that what and who he had left on the mainland was going to reappear in his life was a dense mix. But he was the one who had chosen not to quickly rush his drink, to stay, to converse, to, at least, try.
‘I don’t live here,’ he breathed.
‘Wait, I don’t understand,’ Lucie answered, leaning a little forward in her chair as a moth flew over the table. ‘You work at a butcher’s. You’re seeing patients as a doctor. But… you don’t live here?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I live in Thessaloniki. On the mainland. I am… taking a holiday.’
‘And that’s where you practise? You have your surgery there?’
An uncomfortable feeling was already beginning to travel around inside him. ‘No. I work at the hospital.’
‘Oh, really. So, what’s your specialism?’
Of course Lucie was going to ask that. She was a nurse. The hoot of an owl called out into the night before he could make his answer. ‘I am… a pulmonologist.’
‘Shit.’
He nodded as she got the connection. He worked with the lungs. The organs that had been all over the news, under intense scrutiny when it came to research into their function and needing the most help to work properly so they didn’t give up when Covid-19 invaded. ‘I have been busy this past year. Everybody’s lungs were under attack.’
‘Tell me about it.’
He froze. He wasn’t ready to say much more. Where did you even begin? The start of the struggle? The success stories? The ones who weren’t so lucky? He could not go there. Greece, everyone said, had been lucky. But how could any country be lucky under these circumstances? The number of deaths did not tell the full story. Infection rate graphs and hospital admissions for Coronavirus did not talk of the many lives lost because of other conditions. Postponed cancer treatments, people having symptoms of other life-threatening issues but not feeling they should come to the hospital. The whole period and its devastation had been about so much more than one virus.
‘Sorry,’ Lucie said quickly. ‘When I said “tell me about it”, I didn’t mean “tell me about it”. I meant it like…’ She shrugged. ‘I get it. I understand.’ She sighed. ‘Tough times.’
‘Tough times,’ Michalis agreed, nodding slowly.
‘So… tell me, what did you do for fun?’ Lucie asked, sipping at her wine. ‘I mean, we could talk about how horrendous the PPE is. About how after only fifteen minutes or so you’re basted in your own sweat and need windscreen wipers on the inside of your visor.’
A laugh left him then. Unexpected but welcome.
‘But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about what you did to let off steam, to try and be normal for a few hours, before the next shift began.’ She smiled, as if remembering. ‘Gavin and I always went for a walk. We’d get out of the PPE, we’d shower and then we would walk out of that hospital and keep walking until one of us said something. Sometimes neither of us would say anything for ages. We’d just walk, breathe, and try to pretend we could do anything we wanted to.’ She smi
led. ‘Gavin missed karaoke. I missed playing pool and putting cheesy tunes on the pub jukebox. Most of all I missed my Aunt Meg.’ She sighed, looking out into the night. ‘Then we made lists of all the things we wanted to do when life got back to somewhere near normal. And we ate buckets of fried chicken. Some of the takeaways nearest the hospital gave NHS workers free food. And I drank a lot of full-sugar Coke. It was the only thing that seemed to keep me hydrated.’ She took another sip of wine. ‘I’ve probably got diabetes now.’
Michalis smiled. ‘It will be completely reversible if you act now.’
She batted away a mosquito. ‘So, what did you do? To take your mind away from the hospital?’
He took a breath, a deep ache running across his shoulders as if he were still back there, in charge of so many cases with patients and staff looking to him for answers he couldn’t give. Taking on more than he could handle. They never had enough equipment, they had to take cases from the islands whose hospitals’ facilities weren’t adequate to cope with the volume or complexity of the treatment. ‘I… took out my paddleboard.’
He put both hands around the wine glass then and leaned into the table. ‘Like you and Gavin with the walking, I would take my car and head off to the beach and just paddle out into the ocean.’ He took another breath. ‘It was best at night. No one around. Just me in the centre of the sea.’ He inhaled and closed his eyes, feeling the weight lift a little. ‘I liked being the smallest, most insignificant thing compared to the huge expanse of water. There were times when I did not only feel like the only person at Agia Triada.’ He looked across at Lucie then. ‘I felt like the only person in the whole world.’
Lucie swallowed as the air between them seemed to thicken and all she could concentrate on was his eyes, like sexy warm chocolate pieces…
Then suddenly, frighteningly, her vision became disturbed and next her seat began to jolt. And then the entire table moved…
‘What’s happening?’ she exclaimed. ‘Is this just me? Am I having a stroke?’ Lucie got to her feet, swaying and unbalanced, not knowing whether to put her hands to her head or clutch onto something. Everything seemed to be shifting in a way that felt terribly unnatural.