by Mandy Baggot
‘So…’ Gavin responded, pulling a face.
‘Well…’ Lucie continued.
‘Well…’
‘I was just going to have a coffee,’ Simon said. ‘After Gavin’s steering of the moped I think I need something to settle my nerves.’
‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Gavin exclaimed. ‘We are actually in lockdown here. I took Meg back to Perithia first then I went back for Simon and, Lucie, you know, the gap between those rocks is very very small. I was breathing in and channelling my inner Cher in one of her tight corset numbers just so I didn’t snag my leg hairs.’
‘We should maybe get out of the water?’ Michalis suggested.
It was then Lucie realised she was shivering. It might be a balmy night but standing still, half her body out of the water, was still giving her goosebumps.
‘Don’t mind us, Doctor,’ Gavin responded with a giggle.
‘Gavin!’ Lucie yelled. ‘Take Simon inside.’ She thought about that sentence for a second and rephrased. ‘I mean, go into the house and make coffee.’
‘Fine, fine. Are you staying for coffee, Michalis? Or did you… already get what you came for?’
‘What I came for?’ Michalis answered, sounding confused.
‘Do not listen to him! Shoo!’ Lucie ordered, brave enough to brandish a hand into the night air.
‘Come on, Simon,’ Gavin said, turning a one-eighty. ‘But watch out for tortoises. The house seems to be breeding them faster than a David Attenborough documentary.’
Lucie left it a few beats and then let out a breath. ‘I am so sorry.’ She let Michalis go and dipped down into the water again to warm herself up.
‘Why sorry?’ Michalis wanted to know.
‘Gavin and his… ogling and… well, Gavin.’
Michalis laughed. ‘I like Gavin. He is a person who knows who he is.’
Lucie nodded. ‘Yes, he certainly does know who he is.’
‘And he is happy. All of the time.’
‘Yes,’ Lucie agreed. ‘He is generally very upbeat.’ She swallowed, oaring her arms through the water. ‘And, you know, don’t listen to what he said about… getting what you came for. That’s a real Gavin-ism.’
‘You would like me to go now?’ Michalis asked her.
She looked at him, drinking in every nuance of the physique she had smoothed her fingertips over time and time again, his wet hair dripping droplets of water down that chiselled jaw. ‘Do you want to go now?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Then stay,’ Lucie whispered, reaching for him under the water. ‘And let’s see what happens on dry land.’
Fifty
Lucie had opened the shutters, but not the insect nets, and sunlight was now streaming into the bedroom, rays of brightness illuminating the bare boards. Looking out over the thick, lush garden, a lone cypress towering above the dozen or so olive trees, to the sea beyond, she watched a ferry boat slowly and silently cruising its way across the water. Unlike Southampton, where there was the dull hum of traffic pretty much all the time, here the only sound was a cockerel greeting the morning and the trickling of water from the pool. The pool. Lucie smiled as she remembered the first time with Michalis. It had been hot and feverishly passionate, both of them desperately seeking a sexual high. Fingers had explored and mouths had followed and Lucie had really truly let go more than ever before. She’d taken control, then given that control to Michalis and then snatched it back again. And it had felt so good.
She turned away from the window, looking to the bed. And there Michalis was, long legs stretching the length of it, feet dangling over the end, under the gauze of a mosquito net, still very much naked. Lucie smiled. Under that netting, it had been like they were the only ones in the world, secretly ensconced in a special hideaway. The lovemaking here in the bedroom had been different to the pool. It was languid and luxurious, taking time for tenderness and whispered wants.
With her thoughts reliving those moments, Michalis began to stir and she watched him stretch out an arm to the space where she had been. Finding her absent he turned, lifting his torso a little and looking into the room.
‘Good morning,’ she said, stepping away from the window and moving back to the bed.
‘Kalimera,’ he answered.
‘Did you sleep OK?’ Lucie asked, sitting down on the mattress and trailing a hand over his back as he propped his head up under a pillow.
‘We had sleep?’ he queried with half a smile.
‘A little,’ Lucie answered.
‘I do not remember this,’ Michalis said, dragging his body into a sitting position, his eyes meeting hers.
‘No?’ Lucie asked, enjoying the ab display and having a quick regard of his wound. The stitches were still good.
‘But I remember many other things,’ Michalis told her, leaning close and placing his lips on hers.
‘Oh really,’ Lucie breathed as his mouth shifted from her lips to the lobe of her ear, then down her neck, her skin fizzing with each tiny contact.
‘I remember you made a special noise when I touched you… here.’
‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’
Too late! She made a sound she hadn’t even known it was possible to make until last night. It was Michalis’s fingers, gliding over some kind of sweet spot on the back of her hand, not quite her wrist… It felt so good to be touched when touching – even platonic touching – had been outlawed last year. The gloves were off here and it felt wonderful.
‘What time is it?’ Michalis asked, kissing the one exposed shoulder peeking out from under his shirt she was wearing.
‘So now you have what you came for?’ Lucie joked.
‘No, now I am checking if we have more time to come for,’ he answered.
‘Doctor Andino! So forward!’ She looked at her watch. ‘Well, it’s… eight-thirty.’
‘No!’ Michalis exclaimed. ‘It is not. Please tell me it is not.’
‘Well, I could tell you that it wasn’t but… it is.’
He was up and off the bed, eyes scanning the room. ‘I have my surgery this morning. People will be lining up around your house and… the swimming pool and… I do not have my white coat… or…’ He turned back to face her. ‘My shirt.’
Lucie smiled. ‘I can take it off right now.’
‘I would like to watch,’ he stated, stepping towards her again. ‘But if I do that I will most definitely not make it downstairs in time.’
‘Then turn around,’ Lucie told him. ‘I’ll grab a T-shirt and then I’ll make some coffee.’
*
‘Morning! There’s coffee in the pot if you want to rehydrate yourself!’
Gavin was fully dressed when Lucie entered the kitchen, an anomaly of large proportions at eight-thirty in the morning. And he didn’t look hungover at all – another rarity for this holiday and, in fact, most of Gavin’s adult life since she had known him.
‘Morning,’ Lucie answered. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Of course everything’s OK! The sun is shining! The drone is happily charging! The coffee is perfectly percolated! What more could a guy like me want… apart from Sam Smith’s T-shirt on the floor of my bedroom? Actually, scratch that, I’m going to take that off my bucket list.’
‘O-K. Now I know something’s wrong.’ She crossed the striped marble floor and reached for the full pot of simmering dark liquid.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Gavin insisted. ‘But maybe something’s changed.’
‘Is it the tortoises?’ Lucie asked as she filled a cup.
‘No,’ Gavin said, still smiling like he had the time they’d finished watching all six seasons of Glee… twice.
Then Lucie realised the last time she had seen this expression and super-perky morning attitude from Gavin before. It had been when he’d got a parking ticket outside the hospital and burst into tears in front of the warden because they had actually illegally parked to rush into the hospital a boy they had seen knocked off his bike en route
to their shift. Once Gavin had stopped crying, and the warden had cancelled the ticket, there had been a swapping of phone numbers followed by at least four months of heavy dating before Guido had to return to his motherland.
‘Simon stayed the night!’
Gavin’s whisper was full-on rasp but with volume that could raise the dead. Lucie’s eyes bulged and her mind began doing all kinds of expansion akin to creating a loft conversion in her head. She needed more and opened her mouth to say exactly that until…
‘On the sofa,’ Gavin said in more normal tones. Then he pointed skywards. ‘He’s in the upstairs lounge.’
Lucie was still trying to figure out what that meant, if it meant anything. ‘Did you get too drunk to moped him back to wherever he’s staying? Or… is his accommodation not so good? Or—’
‘None of those,’ Gavin answered. He was back to beaming and there was hip movement suggesting some kind of twerking might occur very soon.
‘You’re going to have to give me something else,’ Lucie said as outside the kitchen window she could see that Michalis was right about his patients. There was a small group gathered around the clematis bush.
‘I don’t think you’re ready!’ Gavin half-sang, leaping from one Adidas trainer to the other.
‘I really am!’ Lucie assured swigging back some coffee then reaching into the cupboard for a mug for Michalis.
‘He’s gay!’
Gavin had said the words like he was announcing a Grammy winner and then proceeded to roll his fists in the air while simultaneously hair-flicking and gyrating his hips. It was a total mood.
‘I don’t quite understand,’ Lucie said, filling the second mug with coffee as, outside, a man carrying a bird-filled cage arrived at the studio queue.
‘No, I know,’ Gavin said, calming considerably. ‘And neither does Simon, you know, not quite yet. And I shouldn’t actually have said “he’s gay” because he doesn’t fully understand what he feels yet except that… well… he knows he feels something for me!’
‘Oh, Gavin!’ Lucie exclaimed, hands going to the sides of her face. ‘I’m so excited for you. Is it… OK to be excited for you?’
‘Yes!’ Gavin insisted. ‘We had this gorgeous heart-to-heart on the upper terrace, under the stars, you know, when you and the doctor had got dry, dressed, drank coffee and picked up where you left off... those floorboards are not soundproof by the way.’ He sighed, happily. ‘And he was just so wholesomely honest that my heart turned to butter and almost dripped right out of my chest.’
Lucie winced a little at the vision his words had conjured up, but she could see a very thoughtful, gentler and more considerate Gavin than perhaps she had ever seen before.
‘And he came to Corfu to see me,’ Gavin said, slapping a flat hand against his chest and intaking breath. ‘He said that the thought of me thinking that he didn’t feel something because he’d said he didn’t feel something was eating away at him. And he couldn’t wait until our trip was up to act. He also said he didn’t want me to throw myself into something else – and by “something” I think he definitely meant “someone”. Isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?’
Possibly it wasn’t the most romantic thing Lucie had ever heard but it was pretty impressive. ‘Gavin, that’s so lovely. Honestly, I’m really thrilled for you.’
‘Me too!’ Gavin exclaimed, coming closer and throwing an arm around her shoulders, perhaps squeezing a little too tight for someone with neck and shoulder issues. ‘And I know, I mustn’t get too excited because he’s at this scary junction in his life where everything’s a little bit confusing and judgement is literally everywhere but… I’m going to give him all the time and space he needs to, you know, eventually realise that he wants to fully commit to me!’
Lucie tried to escape the tight cuddle by whipping around to the left in a move she’d once seen Jason Statham do in a film. Once free she smiled again at her best friend. Now was definitely not the right time to suggest that the result of Simon’s soul-searching might not be a happy-forever-after with Gavin. That would have to come later, once his elevator had dropped a few clouds down from nine.
‘There is one little thing we need to discuss before he wakes up though,’ Gavin said, back to whispering.
‘What?’ Lucie asked.
‘Well, as you probably saw at Oscar’s Bar, I was getting a little friendly with Barak and… this!’ Gavin pointed at the mark at the bottom of his neck.
‘O-K,’ Lucie said. ‘But you’re single and on holiday and if you’re going to think about starting a relationship with Simon, or at the very least be his supportive soul as he transitions to a new stage in his life, then you should begin that journey with nothing but the truth.’
‘Hmm, there is that,’ Gavin mused, fingers grazing the mark.
‘But you haven’t gone for the truth, have you, Gavin?’
‘Well…’
Lucie sighed. ‘What have you told him?’
‘I might have said – under intense pressure and those cocktails Meg thought were a second cousin of antifreeze – that you did it.’
‘What?!’ Lucie exploded, coffee sloshing from her mug to the floor. ‘You didn’t! Well, what sort of message is that sending out to someone who isn’t quite sure if they feel one thing, or another, or all the things?!’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Gavin said, flapping a hand. ‘Your cis woman hetero status is intact. I said we were singing Annie Lennox’s “Love Song for a Vampire” and you got a bit carried away.’
Lucie didn’t have time to say anything before Michalis was bounding down the wooden staircase that led from her bedroom to the kitchen, his hair still as tousled as it had been prior to his redressing. As his feet met the pink-and-cream marble, Lucie held out the mug of coffee to him.
‘I do not have time to drink this now,’ he said, tucking his shirt into his jeans, causing a midriff reveal that wasn’t unwelcome. ‘There is a man with birds in a cage waiting to see me like I am a vet.’
‘Well, Doctor,’ Gavin jumped in. ‘I suspect he’s heard how accomplished you are at ruffling a few feathers or… giving good beak or—’
‘Go,’ Lucie said. ‘His jokes will only get worse. But take the coffee with you.’ She pressed the mug into his hands.
‘Efharisto,’ Michalis said. ‘Thank you.’
He leaned in to kiss her lips and Lucie revelled in the display of affection. This might be only for the time she was here in Corfu, but it meant something to both of them.
Michalis waved a hand at Gavin, then seemed to brace himself before opening the front door. The second the light flooded into the space there was a cacophony of sound, each person’s voice fighting for priority over the other.
‘God,’ Gavin stated. ‘It’s like a Tesco car park during a lockdown Click-and-Collect.’
Lucie looked to the window and watched her handsome man friend talking patiently with the waiting crowd on the courtyard, while attempting to get into the studio and close the door on them until their appointment times. Then she was distracted by the lighting up of her phone screen, charging next to the toaster. There were many notifications but the most recent one was from Meg.
Can we meet for lunch? I think it’s time we really talked.
Fifty-One
Andino Butcher’s, Sortilas
‘Whoa! Be careful! I am carrying the livers of calves!’
Nyx braced the large metal tray, containing meat that looked like it was marinating in its own blood, against her midriff. They were in the inner hall at the back of the shop, just before the foot of the stairs. It was where coats were hung on thick old abattoir hooks and shoes were stacked in a rack made from an old pallet. ‘Where is the fire?’ she asked Michalis.
‘You do know that Melina outlawed jokes about fires five years ago because Little Spiros’s one comment in the village square prompted the calling of the spotter planes,’ Michalis answered.
‘I remember,’ Nyx told him.
‘In fact, I told you that! You were not even in Sortilas at the time.’
He smiled at his sister, then reached out, pinching her cheek.
‘Ow! What are you doing?! What is wrong with you today? Rushing around and being weird! Both you and Papa are being strange and I do not like it!’
‘Papa is being strange?’ Michalis queried. He had rushed back here after surgery to tell his father the good news. All his blood tests had come back perfectly normal. Michalis was relieved and he knew his father would be too. Although Dimitri would likely not admit that he had ever been concerned.
‘He has been here in the shop since before five a.m.,’ Nyx informed, stepping back a little to give Michalis an uninterrupted view of behind the counter. ‘He has sliced things he has not sliced in over a year. I realise we have a large order for the Day of the Not Dead festival, but we are not at preparation stage for this yet.’ Nyx took a breath. ‘And we need the road to be open! The meat will not last forever and some of the villagers are stockpiling. Miltos bought five kilos of chicken yesterday. Five. I am going to start making limits soon.’
Michalis watched his father caressing a carcass tenderly, fingers massaging the flesh… then bringing the machete down hard. ‘Maybe there is something else he is preparing for?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like something to do with going off on his moped at night and his mobile phone?’
Michalis watched Nyx mull over this information, studying their father afresh.
‘He told me he was going to Sfakera this afternoon,’ Nyx said. ‘That he would not be home for dinner.’
‘OK,’ Michalis stated.
‘This woman called Amalia,’ Nyx began. ‘You think something is going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Do you think it is possible that Papa could be… dating?’
‘What?!’ Nyx burst out, fingers nearly losing their grip on the large metal tray. ‘Dating?! No! Of course not! He is so old!’
‘Then what do you think is going on?’
‘Well, there are a few things it could be,’ Nyx whispered, huddling into him as tightly as the tray would allow. ‘I worry that maybe this woman is trying to get money from him. I read this article on the internet that spoke about these people creating all kinds of fake social media accounts to lure old men like Papa. First they pretend to be nice and then, suddenly, they have no money to pay for the operation for their sick grandchild or sick dog or sick self. Then hundreds of euro becomes thousands of euro and the next thing that will happen is there will be no butcher shop and I will have nothing!’