by Mandy Baggot
‘Do not look at me like that!’ Dimitri ordered, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘I should leave right now after what that crazy girl has done to me.’
Michalis nodded. ‘Yes,’ he responded. ‘That is what you could do.’
‘Right,’ Dimitri answered. ‘Yes.’ He nodded and began to get to his feet.
‘But you could instead stay,’ Michalis suggested. ‘I could run a few checks and then Nyx will be off your back.’ He sighed. ‘And I will be off your back too.’
Dimitri shook his head. ‘Why do younger people always think they know more than people who have actually lived three quarters of their life already? Do you think we go around with our heads under a bucket, not seeing, not listening?’
Michalis shook his head. ‘I do not think that. But I do think that if there was something going on with your health you would not listen to your body and you would bury your head into a bucket.’
‘That is not true,’ Dimitri responded, his tone set to aggravated.
‘Come on, Papa!’
‘Come on what?’
‘When was the last time you had a check-up?’
‘I do not need a check-up. Everything I own is in perfect working order.’
‘Everything?’ Michalis asked. ‘No aching in your limbs if you stand for too long? No pins and needles in your hands? No rapid heart rate?’
‘Only when your sister is being particularly annoying.’
Michalis shook his head. ‘You are not taking this seriously!’
‘I cannot believe you think, after what happened to your mother, that I would not take care of my health!’
Watching Dimitri drop his head a little, his dark hair lightly speckled with silver catching the sunlight streaming through the open window, Michalis felt his father’s reverie fill the space. They had never discussed their loss, never laid out their grief, they had simply put it to one side and moved forward. Perhaps that was the biggest mistake and one they had both equally contributed to. Michalis had seen so much grief last year he knew categorically that most people reacted with an outpouring of some sort. But the Andinos just battened up the hatches.
‘I still miss her,’ Michalis whispered. He hadn’t meant to speak, to say what he was churning up internally, but there it was, the words spiralling around the room amid the humidity.
Dimitri lifted his head, his eyes moist, and gave a brief nod that seemed to signal his agreement. Then, he used his fingers to touch the corners of his eyes, as if spilling feelings you could clearly see would be a slight on his patriarchy.
‘So,’ Dimitri began. He stopped to clear his throat before continuing. ‘You really think if I let you do a few checks and make a few tests, Nyx will stop behaving like madness is in control of her actions?’
Michalis smiled then. ‘Well, I do not promise that her unique ways will completely disappear. But, I am sure it will give her one less thing to complain to you about.’
Dimitri nodded. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’ Michalis checked, a little taken aback. His fingers were itching to reach for the stethoscope…
‘If it will make you happy, son. And if it will quieten your sister, then let us waste no more time.’
Michalis smiled at his father and put the ends of the stethoscope in his ears. ‘OK, first let me listen to your chest. The blood tests might have to wait until whatever Nyx gave you is out of your system.’ He waited for his father to unbutton his shirt, then placed the metal circle on his chest. ‘Just breathe normally.’
Twenty-Five
Fuego Beach Bar, Acharavi
‘Are you at a nightclub?’
A niggle of annoyance bled into Lucie’s subconscious. Meg had said ‘nightclub’ but it had come across as ‘dangerous fire pit’. She pressed the phone closer to her ear and crunched across the stones on the beach to put a little more space between herself and the music of an amazing bar almost right on the shoreline that Gavin had already declared ‘more lit than an episode of Dynasty’.
‘It’s a bar,’ Lucie answered, eyes going to the now inky sky, then the sea rushing back and forth over the pebbles. ‘A really lovely bar with great music and low lighting, and in Greece they always seem to bring you free snacks whenever you order a drink.’ Despite having a delicious lamb gastra – lamb cooked in a pot with aubergines, courgettes, carrots and potatoes – at a restaurant called Maistro, she had still managed to eat a small bowl of roasted peanuts and some oregano-flavoured crisps.
‘Greece has always led the way with hospitality, exactly like I told you,’ Meg answered. ‘So, is this music real musicians with bouzoukis and mandolins?’
‘Um…’ At the moment it was definitely more The Weeknd and Clean Bandit, just how Gavin liked it. ‘Well, it’s definitely music we can dance to.’
‘Oh, Lucie, make sure you go and see some traditional musicians while you’re there. I remember I went to so many festivals when I was in Greece. Every village has a special night every year.’
The Day of the Not Dead. Immediately that poster with their buff resident doctor was in the forefront of Lucie’s mind. As were the feelings that had rippled through her when Michalis had held onto her during the earth tremor. She really did need to think about putting a tentative foot on the dating carousel before Gavin started pushing potential suitors at her again. It hadn’t been a great success the last time, although she did now have mates’ rates at the Holistic Emporium if she wanted to see Laurence again.
‘We have a doctor staying with us.’ Lucie cringed. Why hadn’t she just told Meg about the donkey sanctuary or the fantastic meal at Maistro? She definitely couldn’t tell her about the half-car that looked like it was held together with fraying string.
‘A doctor? Is everything OK? Has something happened?’ Meg’s anxious tones gathered pace. She might have known that would be her aunt’s first reaction. Lucie kicked a stone towards the sea and watched it disappear under the foaming surf.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she breathed. ‘He’s started a surgery. In the little studio opposite our house.’
‘Goodness,’ Meg said. ‘Greece really hasn’t changed at all. It’s all or nothing. Things either happen lightning fast or after years of tomorrows.’
‘He’s… called Michalis and he’s… you know… quite nice.’ She closed her eyes and willed the tide to her toes. Why was she sharing this? She never shared potential boyfriend talk with Meg anymore, not after the leavers’ dance date with Jason. Poor Jason. Meg had taken the leather jacket he had worn over his tuxedo as a sign that he was going to put Lucie on the back of a motorbike without a helmet and drive like all the highways led to hell. It had killed the mood right off the bat.
‘I like him,’ she finally committed. ‘I mean, I don’t know him very well yet but… I like his exterior very much and, from what I do know about him, well, that’s attractive too. And, you know, I’m saying that… he’s attractive to me.’ Ugh! Why did she sound like she was fresh out of college all over again?
‘Thank God!’ Meg exclaimed. ‘I thought you were only ever going to hold a torch for Cormoran Strike.’
‘Meg!’
‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with a televisual fantasy – I am testament to the delights of that myself – but it’s one thing to put them on the screen for a little daydreaming and it’s another to start avoiding social interaction in favour of them.’
‘I don’t do that,’ Lucie immediately replied.
‘Lucie-Lou!’
‘I don’t do that all the time.’ And some of the reason she had retreated from the romance circle was because she was worried if the relationship progressed past a couple of drinks and a dinner she would feel she had to introduce the guy to Meg, and Meg would find something to disapprove of…
‘Oh, Lucie, is that the sea I can hear in the background?’ Meg asked, her voice thick with excitement now.
Lucie stepped closer to the water. It really was another gorgeous night and here by the sea there was a gentle breez
e to divide the humidity. Lights twinkled from the other tavernas and bars along the beachfront and further away from the neighbouring resort. Loungers had been put neatly back into place, parasols folded down and wrapped up for the night, children, who could only be local as they were dressed in jeans, ran around, trainers crunching over the stones…
‘It is the sea,’ Lucie answered her aunt. ‘And it’s quite wavy tonight. I’m not sure about riding a banana boat in waves like this.’
‘A banana boat!’ Meg exclaimed. ‘What do you mean, a banana boat?’
‘Well, it’s an inflatable, shaped like a banana and…’ Lucie stopped talking. If she said words like ‘throttling across the water’ or ‘being flung into the sky’ this would turn into a warning lecture…
‘And?’
‘And Gavin’s waving at me from the bar. Waving frantically actually. I’d really better go and see what trouble he’s got himself into and—’
‘Lucie Britney Burrows!’
Lucie cringed at the use of her middle name. That was one decision straight from her mum that had stuck with her. She often wondered whether her mum had actually liked the name or if it had been some kind of rebellion, knowing that her parents would have disapproved of a baby being named after a sometimes mentally unstable popstar. It was another question she’d never had the guts to ask Meg about. ‘Got to go now. I’ll call you tomorrow! Bye!’
She pocketed her phone and turned to head back to the bar. But, all of a sudden, a shooting pain in her neck stopped her dead.
Twenty-Six
‘What is in this?’ Michalis asked.
He was looking at a long drink in a tall cocktail glass, the liquid the colour of a Greek sunset under an intense Instagram filter. It was orange and pink with a hint of yellow, with ice cubes, a purple paper umbrella and two neon-coloured straws.
Nyx swayed back down into the beach chair, the straw in her drink already inside her mouth. ‘It’s called “The Flirt”. It is meant to be served in one of those teeny tiny cocktail glasses, but I say to Milo, I will have to come up and down, up and down for more so… just triple the measures.’
Michalis put the straw to his lips and sucked. Wow. It was strong but not unpleasant. He took another drink. He remembered the very last time he’d had a drink like this. It had been with his ex-girlfriend, Thekli. Just thinking about her now brought a whole cocktail of emotions to the fore. They had been together a few weeks when they’d spent the day on the beach, ending up at a bar called Riveria. Things were at that new, exciting, let’s-just-see-how-this-goes stage but it had been good, simple, fun. He’d liked Thekli. He’d liked her a lot, possibly more than he’d liked any girlfriend. But, quite early on, he’d sensed a seriousness about her, a need for some kind of commitment. And it wasn’t something he could give when he needed to be wholly committed to his career. In the end, when the pandemic had hit and there weren’t enough hours in the day to even sleep, he had had to call time on the relationship. And Thekli had taken it badly. The end of their romance had been the beginning of the downfall of everything else.
‘It’s good, right?’ Nyx said with a satisfied grin.
‘I think I asked what was in it,’ Michalis reminded her.
Nyx whisked a hand through the air in dismissal. ‘All the strongest stuff. We are from Sortilas. Nothing can touch us now we have the golden tortoise.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Michalis said, the flavours on his tongue turning sour. And that flippancy was not the health message he had given the village back in March 2020.
‘I was joking! Stop being so serious! We are celebrating,’ Nyx said, putting her drink on the table and toying with the two pigtails she had hanging in tight corkscrew spirals. ‘You wanted Papa to take the tests. He took the tests.’
It was true. Their father had stayed in the studio surgery that afternoon and Michalis had checked everything it was possible to check with the limited equipment he had. He had even agreed to have his blood taken the next day.
‘And, you said, everything looked fine. That he was in good health,’ Nyx continued, raising her glass.
‘I did say that,’ Michalis answered. And, going on what he had deduced from blood pressure, heart rate, reflexes and a urine sample given grumpily from behind a screen made of a semi-transparent shower curtain and a couple of bamboo canes Michalis had found outside the house, everything was fine. But there was still the blood test to go and until he had the results of that in his hands he couldn’t completely rule out this niggling feeling that something was amiss with Dimitri.
‘So, it is time you relaxed,’ Nyx ordered. ‘I have not seen you relaxed since you came back.’
Immediately, Michalis felt a throb in his temple. He tried to settle himself in his seat, all too aware of the tension he was holding, and the facts about his leaving the mainland. But he could never confess any of it to Nyx. He would always try to protect her at all costs. That’s what big brothers did. ‘I have spent a little time on the beach and in the water.’
‘You have spent more time with me in the butcher’s arranging shelves that do not need to be arranged. And now you are back working. That is not a holiday.’
He sighed. ‘I know. But, it is a change.’ And perhaps a change really was as good as a rest.
‘So, tonight we relax,’ Nyx continued. ‘We drink and we dance and we forget about… warts and… Papa’s health and… everyone else and…’
Suddenly Michalis found himself sitting forward on his chair and everything tightened up again. He focussed his attention on the white stone beach and the person trying to walk away from the shoreline. There was something that didn’t look right about their motion.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Nyx snapped crossly.
‘Sorry. I…’ Michalis got to his feet. ‘Just give me a minute.’ He hurried out from behind the table and rushed down onto the beach.
*
Lucie had said all the swear words and some of them she wasn’t even sure were actual swear words. All of them Meg would have definitely disapproved of. Walking was hurting. Even breathing was hurting. And she didn’t know how to make the pain stop. She was not going to cry, but she might have to phone Gavin for help. If he was going to be able to hear his ringtone over all things Charlie Puth and Kygo…
‘Lucie?’
She looked up at the sound of the greeting, then straight away regretted it as her neck reacted with a pulsing that rocked all the way through her core.
‘For-mother-tucking-piss-sake!’ And now she had said some ridiculous cobbled together expletives in front of Michalis.
‘You are in pain?’ he asked, all deep soft tones and concern.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Lucie hummed out, doing a half-nod that ripped through her neck tendons.
‘Here,’ Michalis said. ‘Let me help you.’
Lucie opened her mouth to bleat that she was fine, but another fizz of discomfort took the words away. She wasn’t fine. And here was a doctor talking all calm and controlled and offering her aid. She might be heading for a CT scan if she turned this down.
‘Slowly,’ he whispered, his body leaning into hers, bearing her weight as her arm found its way around his shoulders. ‘There is no hurry.’
‘But… the bar is… that way,’ Lucie said, not daring to turn her head in the opposite direction. Each footstep felt as if a rhino was sitting on each of her shoulders.
‘We are not going to the bar,’ Michalis told her. ‘We are going… just here.’
Lucie felt him move away from her then and watched, without twitching her head, as Michalis began arranging a sun lounger, putting its back flat down, making sure it was secure on the pebbles beneath it. And then he was back by her side again, gently helping her reach the sunbed and encouraging her down onto it.
‘There’s no sun,’ Lucie whispered. ‘And I’m pretty sure… you can’t get a tan from the moon.’
‘You still have humour,’ Michalis answered. ‘This is good. Lie down.’
; ‘Lie down?’ Lucie swallowed, feeling like her own personal humidity had just reached high altitude. ‘It hurts. I don’t know if I can.’ And what was he planning to do? Put his hands on her? She closed her eyes. She had to remember he was a doctor. And she needed to get her telephone conversation with Meg out of her mind. TV boyfriends were absolutely fine. Uncomplicated and everything you wanted them to be…
‘Please,’ Michalis said. ‘Lie on your front. Let me help you.’
‘You should know that… I chickened out of visiting a chiropractor after my… “friend” … that’s “friend” said in the very loosest sense of the word… told me a horror story about never knowing her hip joints could move apart like Tower Bridge when tall ships pass under it until she visited one.’ Lucie took a deep breath, debating between sitting and lying, her bottom on the edge of the sunbed. ‘I really don’t want to move like Tower Bridge.’
‘You do not have to move at all,’ Michalis reassured her. ‘Just lie down and I will… see if I can find out what is going on.’
‘Well, I—’
‘A little less talking and a little more lying still,’ he ordered.
Lucie eased her body around and slowly got into a prostrate position. What was the worst that could happen? Michalis was a professional. Maybe his focus was lungs but it was still highly unlikely that he was going to pull or push something that would sever her spinal cord. It was more possible that he was going to help. She just had to try to relax, not tighten her neck muscles and not get too hot under the cervix about the thought of Michalis’s hands on her…
*
Michalis paused above her. There was that feeling again, the same rise inside of him he’d had when he’d taken Lucie’s hands during the earth tremor. There was no getting away from the fact she was a beautiful woman and here she was, the creamy skin on her shoulders bare to him in the light gauzy sundress she was wearing. He shook himself and refocussed. What was he thinking? She was in pain and he needed to help. He could not let any feelings of attraction override his professional oath.