by Mandy Baggot
‘Yes,’ Lucie answered. ‘I would like that.’
She knew she was blushing, could feel the heat on her cheeks creating a greater warmth than any candles on the table, but she still had enough control to see his reaction to her agreement. Michalis looked surprised, definitely pleased, but absolutely surprised. How could this gorgeous Greek doctor poster guy be almost shocked that she had accepted?
‘OK,’ he answered, taking his hands from the table and not seeming to know what to do with them. He settled them on his hips. ‘OK. Good. I will… think of somewhere for us to go and… I will tell the waiter to get us some more drinks.’
‘OK,’ Lucie said with the biggest smile on her face.
Twenty-Eight
Sidari
‘Gavin, we really don’t have to do this today.’
She wrinkled her toes, enjoying the heat of the sun on her skin and the lapping of the water as it glided up the golden sand of Sidari’s beach. Now this was a holiday resort, nothing like the traditional Greek-ness at Sortilas, but extremely pleasant nonetheless. There were bars all along the beachfront serving beers and gyros to families and couples alike and the vibe was chilled and laidback.
‘Sshh!’ Gavin hissed. ‘You’re shouting again.’
Lucie looked at her best friend prostrate on his purple-bedded sun lounger outside Calypso Bar. He was under a parasol, wearing sunglasses with thick silver frames and a straw hat he had been given last night as a tip, having climbed on a bar to regale the patrons with a drunken version of Cher’s ‘Walking in Memphis’. She was actually surprised he had made it out of bed and into the go-kart car to drive over here. But getting on a banana boat… Lucie couldn’t see how he was going to manage that in the next couple of hours.
‘What time did you book it for?’ Lucie asked, glancing at her watch.
‘Twelve,’ Gavin mumbled.
‘Gav, that’s only half an hour. Do you want me to go and see the guy and change the time?’
‘No! I’m fine!’
‘You’re not fine,’ Lucie stated. ‘You never sit in the shade if there’s a flicker of sunlight to be found and you keep sighing like you’re trying to stop the vomit coming out.’
‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’ Gavin yelled, hurriedly turning onto his side and leaning his head over the edge of the sun lounger.
‘Well, I’m just saying that we might have made a list of things to do, but we don’t have to whip through them all today.’
‘We aren’t whipping through them today. We have the wine tasting later in the week. You have another wedding dress fitting on Thursday. And today it’s the… banana…’
Gavin didn’t even get to say the word ‘boat’ before he was dry-retching over the sand.
‘Gavin, did you say I have another wedding dress fitting?!’ Lucie sat bolt upright.
‘Miltos sent me a text,’ Gavin said, coughing. ‘Said Mary and Ariana were going to come to the villa.’
‘Our villa?’ Lucie exclaimed. ‘Oh God. I mean, I thought… they’re old and I thought being measured and everything was a way of saying thank you for the lovely dinner. I thought they’d forget, you know, be sizing up another tourist for bridalwear the next day.’
‘Elders who aren’t afflicted by dementia remember everything. Or are you forgetting literally every person we care for over eighty on Abbington Ward?’ Gavin let out a burp. ‘That’s better.’ He sat up. ‘Anyway, now you’ve got a date lined up with a Greek god there might actually be a big, fat Greek wedding to wear a dress to!’
‘Oh,’ Lucie said. ‘You remembered what I told you last night.’
She had told Gavin about Michalis asking her on a date just seconds before he face-planted on the rug in the oven bedroom and started snoring.
‘I don’t have dementia either,’ he said, clambering up into a sitting position and picking up his beer. ‘So, tell me more. I remember you saying “he’s so gorgeous” and “do you think he’s too gorgeous for me?” and “I haven’t been on a date since… Gav, when was the last time I went on a date?”.’
Why did Gavin remember everything when he was drunk? It was a total skill.
‘So… where’s he taking you?’ Gavin asked, reaching for his phone on the small table between their loungers.
‘I don’t know,’ Lucie admitted. ‘Should I have asked?’ Just how bad was she at this?
‘No! Absolutely not! He asked you. Let him be in charge. If all goes well, you can take control of the second date.’
Second date? She had almost been outwardly catatonic in accepting the first one…
‘When is it?’ Gavin asked.
‘I… don’t know.’
‘Well, there’s letting him be in charge and then there’s not having a freaking clue about any of it.’ Gavin raised his eyebrow space. ‘Are you sure he really asked you?’
‘The cocktails were strong, Gavin, I admit. But it wasn’t me who fell asleep on my bedroom floor.’
‘OK. OK. No need to get personal about it.’
‘Shall I get us another drink before I cancel the banana?’ Lucie suggested.
‘We are not cancelling!’ Gavin insisted. ‘This holiday is all about embracing new opportunities and being fearless and fierce and… I’ve made a life decision.’
‘Oh, Gavin, I’m not sure making those when you’re hungover is such a good plan.’
Gavin just grinned. ‘I’ve decided, when we get back to England, I’m not going to dance around the issue anymore.’ He seemed to nod in defiance of life itself. ‘I’m going to be as straight as I’ve ever been about anything.’ He grinned. ‘I’m going to ask Simon out.’
Twenty-Nine
Sfakera
This little cafeneon in the heart of the village of Sfakera was a short drive away from Sortilas and somewhere his mother and father used to take Michalis as a young boy. With its plaka stone outside seating area, leading to a larger dining space and well-stocked bar, it immediately gave rise to all the nostalgia. And it had been Dimitri’s idea to come here for a drink. Nyx was at the butcher’s shop and in a few hours it would be time for siesta and that period of rest before work began again and continued long into the evening. It was a reaching out from his father that hadn’t happened since Michalis had got back to the island.
But here they were, the small wooden table between them, two green bottles of Alfa beer glazed with condensation, saying nothing at all. Michalis had earlier made comment on the newly-renovated white-and-grey house across the road, an ancient millstone a feature in the wall, bright pink climbing bougainvillea a beautiful contrast to the whitewash, and Dimitri had given a grunt and a nod. Michalis had thought, after yesterday, there might have been a breakthrough in communication…
‘So, my tests, they are OK?’ Dimitri asked, wrapping his fingers around his bottle of beer and drawing it closer.
‘Well,’ Michalis began. ‘We took the blood this morning. We will have to wait a few days for the hospital to process this but…’
‘But?’ Dimitri’s thick greying eyebrows dipped a little.
‘Papa, I think you are in good health. There was no abnormality I could find.’
Michalis heard the slow hiss of relief leave his father’s lips. Then he watched Dimitri take a large swig of the beer. ‘You are surprised?’ Michalis asked him.
Dimitri shook his head and put his bottle down. ‘No, I am not surprised. I did not think there was anything wrong with me but… a man gets to a certain age and he begins to think about what comes next.’
‘Papa,’ Michalis said with a smile. ‘In Sortilas? Where everyone is living longer than just about anywhere else in the world?’
‘Except your mother,’ Dimitri replied in sober tones.
His father’s comment stung and it was Michalis’s turn to take a drink. He turned his head away from the table, instead focussing his attention on a black-and-white kitten chasing a bright green cricket across the road outside. And Dimitri was right. Of all the residents of Sort
ilas living a long and prosperous life, there was still the rare exception and why had that had to be Lola?
‘She would be proud of what you have achieved, Michalis. You know that, do you not?’
Michalis shrugged. ‘The only thing I do know is that I do not know exactly what I have achieved. What have I really changed? Would the world be any different if I had stayed here and been a butcher?’
Dimitri snorted. ‘You would never have made a good butcher, I know that much. It is a very good thing that you do not often cut people open in your work. And it is good that your sister was born with more skill with knives than I ever had. Have you seen her dissect a goat? It is like a work of artistry.’
Michalis smiled, feeling every ounce of love and affection he held for Nyx jump up as he thought about her behind that counter.
‘She still scares the customers, I know, but I am working on her service techniques.’
Michalis nodded. ‘They do need some work.’
‘And you?’ Dimitri asked. ‘You are feeling that your work in Thessaloniki is somehow inadequate?’
‘I don’t know,’ Michalis breathed. ‘I guess.’
His father had never seen him battle weary from his work on the wards during the pandemic. Drenched in sweat, running on adrenaline, eyes forced open by sheer determination – desperate to close so his body could shut down and rest. A good outcome was always rapidly followed by the worst of ends, before anyone had a second to rejoice over a small victory. And even now, here, away from the hospital, the cases diminishing, there was still his phone resting in his pocket that had the potential to blow his world apart with just one call or message. It was incredibly difficult to live like that.
‘And that is why you are hiding here on Corfu?’
He shook his head quickly. ‘I am not hiding.’
‘You can call it anything you like,’ Dimitri told him. ‘A holiday. A break. It all amounts to “running away”.’
‘I’m… not running away.’ Pinpricks tapped on the back of his neck. Was he that transparent? But also, hadn’t he earned the right to do a little backing off? How much could one person absorb before they were irrevocably broken?
‘I cannot believe that you would give up the wage of a doctor in Thessaloniki for nothing but donation money from the village fund. That you would rather treat eyes and arses and fungal feet than investigate diseases of the lungs.’
‘There has been a pandemic,’ Michalis blurted out. ‘I know that Sortilas was virtually untouched by this, but it happened everywhere else. Being an expert on the lungs was…’
‘Fortunate?’
‘I was going to say “the hardest of responsibilities”. And it’s not about the money… or the fungal feet.’ He put his hands around his beer bottle, shifting the small wooden chair forward with his body weight.
‘Then what is it about?’
Michalis sighed so deeply it made his own ribs ache. ‘It’s about… not being able to save everyone.’ There. It was out. And he felt no better.
‘Michalis,’ Dimitri scolded.
‘What? It is true.’
‘Of course it is true!’ Dimitri answered.
‘There were far too many,’ Michalis continued, feeling his agony taking a hold. ‘Too many people that should still be here now.’
‘Everyone knows this,’ Dimitri stated. ‘We are not blind and deaf in Sortilas. We see the television and the newspapers. And we have the rules of restrictions too.’
‘Yet I should have had the skills to stop it from happening to the extent that it did!’
Michalis hadn’t meant to raise his voice. Even the kitten skittered away from the cafeneon, deciding to go back to the cricket pursuit.
‘Michalis, listen to me,’ Dimitri began in soft tones. ‘You cannot persecute yourself for not being able to eradicate something that the entire globe was at a loss over. You know what your mother would always say when anything went wrong.’
Michalis looked up at his father then and gave another shake of his head.
‘What did she say?’ Dimitri encouraged again.
Michalis sighed. ‘That it was God’s work.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And we are to believe that God wanted so many people to lose their lives?’
‘No,’ Dimitri said, sitting forward and putting a hand on Michalis’s arm. ‘Your mother had faith because she believed God gave her the strength to carry on after bad things had happened.’
‘But if God is meant to be in charge of everything, all seeing, all knowing, then he could stop things from happening at the very start.’
‘Michalis,’ Dimitri said, softer still. ‘No one knows His plan. But surely, not even God can save everyone.’ He squeezed Michalis’s arm. ‘But, I do believe that God has helped to create a doctor with passion and commitment, one who has always worked tirelessly, often to his own detriment so that he can save as many people as he can, no?’
‘I am so tired,’ Michalis breathed, the words making his lips quiver.
‘I know, my son. I see it,’ Dimitri whispered. ‘But you are never on your own, please know that. Your sister and me, we are always here for you. Perhaps we are not as good with the guidance as your mother was but… we love you and… you can come to us and…’
Michalis looked into his father’s eyes as he stopped talking and saw the thick emotion settling there. He knew the tears would not fall here in public, that at any second Dimitri would clear his throat and moisten his lips with beer. But he felt deeply the comforting weight of reassurance and support being passed on.
‘Yassas, Dimitri.’
It was a woman’s voice now breaking the quiet of the cafeneon, where before only the hum of the large refrigerator had been audible. Michalis smiled at her as she stopped at their table. She was perhaps sixty years old with long grey hair, tied into a neat plait at the back of her head. She was wearing a colourful light blue dress covered in bright red and pink flowers.
‘Oh, hello, Amalia. How are you?’ Dimitri answered.
Immediately Michalis sensed something change in his father. Was there a stiffness to his tone? An awkward balance to his shoulders all of a sudden?
‘I am very well,’ Amalia informed. She turned her body towards Michalis and smiled a greeting. ‘Hello. You must be Dimitri’s son.’
‘Amalia,’ Dimitri said. ‘This is Michalis.’
Michalis got to his feet and kissed each of Amalia’s cheeks in turn. ‘It is nice to meet you.’
‘You too,’ Amalia answered. ‘Your father has told me much about you.’
‘Well… I have not shared many details. Just that… you exist and that you do not live here.’
Michalis watched his father’s desperate show of nervousness. Who was this woman? Dimitri was flushed in the face and keen to direct his gaze anywhere other than on this new arrival to the cafeneon.
‘You live here?’ Michalis asked her. ‘In Sfakera?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I have a small house not far from the cafeneon and an even smaller artist’s studio.’
‘And, I am sure, that you must get back there before your paints go dry,’ Dimitri said in a rush.
It sounded so rude, Michalis felt compelled to apologise. ‘I am very sorry for the rudeness of my father. Would you like to join us for a drink?’
‘Oh, thank you very much, but no.’ Amalia smiled at Dimitri. ‘Your father is right. I should get back to my paints.’ She turned her attention to Michalis, smiling again. ‘It was nice to meet you, Michalis.’
‘You too,’ Michalis replied.
‘Dimitri,’ Amalia said in goodbye, nodding her head.
Dimitri waved a hand, turning his body to the roadside and almost knocking the kitten with his foot. It was like his father was shrinking into himself before Michalis’s eyes.
‘Papa—’
‘That woman!’ Dimitri exclaimed, sounding exasperated. ‘Always unhappy with something!’
Michalis frowned. ‘I thoug
ht she seemed nice.’
‘Nice?’ Dimitri snapped back. ‘She is an artist!’
As if that statement answered everything, Dimitri folded his arms across his chest and the conversation was over.
Thirty
Sidari
‘Gavin, are you sure you want to do this? There’s still time to back out.’
‘There’s no time to back out,’ Gavin replied. ‘We have life jackets on and there’s four other people on this double banana thing with us.’
That was true. But the watersports man had said they were just waiting for another couple to arrive and then it would be ‘rumpy bumpy time’. Lucie knew she wasn’t feeling anywhere near as bad as Gavin and her stomach already felt like it was researching the fastest route to her mouth. She was also worrying a little bit because Meg hadn’t picked up when she’d called her before they came to get on board. It wasn’t a day her aunt was scheduled to go to physio and, as far as Lucie remembered, it wasn’t a day for her cribbage lunch or ceramics class. She was trying to tell her brain not to overreact. Wasn’t she always wishing Meg worried a little less about her? She would try her again when this hell-ride was over. If she survived…
‘We go! Rumpy bumpy time everybody!’ The watersports man clapped his hands together and began heading towards the boat that was going to pull them along.
Lucie leaned forward in her ‘seat’, legs astride the inflatable, and put her chin to Gavin’s back. ‘Last chance to change your mind.’
‘No,’ Gavin said decisively. ‘Gavin Gale does not do indecision anymore. I told you. I am ready to commit to what I want and not let anxiety about the outcome of everything get the better of me.’
‘That’s a fantastic life mantra, Gavin and I’m all in with that, but, right now, I’m more worried about my anxiety. I’m literally silently doing a risk assessment as to the likelihood of you spewing up last night’s Flirts and the trajectory of any blowback!’