Staying Out for the Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  Michalis was almost too scared to ask what other thoughts Nyx had on the subject. But he did. ‘What are the other things?’

  ‘That he has an embarrassing hobby,’ Nyx said. ‘Like pilates or hula-hooping. Or that… he is interviewing other people to work in the shop because he thinks I am not good enough to take over when he dies.’

  His heart squeezed for his sister then. She couldn’t really believe that was what Dimitri thought, could she? Nyx had been running the shop alongside their father since she was sixteen. Now she was only a few years older it was obvious that she was the one in day-to-day charge and that Dimitri, experienced as he was, had taken a back step to something more like a figurehead.

  ‘Nyx, I can assure you it is definitely not the last one. Why would Papa need another butcher working here when he has the best one on Corfu?’

  Nyx shrugged, calves’ livers sloshing in their ‘sauce’. ‘Because I am not a boy?’

  ‘Nyx!’

  ‘What?! Do not give me that “everyone is equal now” bullshit. This is Sortilas. I am surprised that women do not have to take an extra kind of driving test to prove they are capable of passing through the village.’

  Michalis shook his head. ‘It was Yiannis trying to get his flock of sheep down the path past the cafeneon that took plaster off the wall, remember, not any woman in a car.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Nyx said. ‘You know how things are.’

  ‘Papa values you, Nyx. So much. Why do you think he criticises you all the time?’

  ‘Because I cannot do anything right? Or as good as him? Or as good as someone with baby nipples and a penis?’

  Michalis shook his head. ‘No. He criticises because he knows you are even better than him. It is… a backward way of giving his approval. Come on, you know how he is. Insults are like medals of honour.’

  ‘So,’ Nyx whispered. ‘You are saying he is not interviewing other butchers. So, that means, this woman from Sfakera must be going to try and get Papa’s money from him. With her sick child and… a fake Facebook account and many different profiles?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Michalis stated.

  ‘Then, that only leaves…’

  He watched Nyx look from him to their father and the meat-slicing and back again.

  ‘Dating,’ Michalis told her.

  His sister shook her head. ‘That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard.’

  How his father having a relationship with someone was worse than Dimitri being embezzled or trying to replace Nyx in the family business, Michalis wasn’t quite sure.

  ‘It has been a long time since Mama passed away,’ Michalis said softly.

  ‘Oh, so, now it is an acceptable time for Papa to get us a new mother?’

  ‘Nyx…’

  ‘What?!’ she asked, her body language suggesting that if she wasn’t holding a tray of meat products she would be throwing her hands in the air. ‘Why cannot he be satisfied with joining a team for darts… or doing what other old men do? You know… drink ouzo and play tavli… and groan about the holes in the road and the broken streetlights?’

  ‘Nyx, Papa is not that old. And perhaps it is his decision how he wants to spend the rest of his life and who with, no?’

  Nyx was already shaking her head. He understood how she felt. She was so much younger than him, already feeling she had dipped out in the mother stakes, being so young when Lola died. She had none of the memories of who Lola had been. If there was someone new in their father’s life, someone Nyx had time to get to know better, then maybe his sister worried she would eradicate Lola completely.

  ‘Listen,’ Michalis began gently. ‘I think maybe one of us should bring up the subject and see what happens. Perhaps Papa is keeping this a secret because he is worried what we might think.’

  ‘He should be worried,’ Nyx stated, shaking the tray. ‘I will not like her.’ And there we had it.

  ‘We don’t know it is the woman from Sfakera,’ Michalis said. At the moment it was just a hunch.

  ‘I will not like any old woman,’ Nyx reasserted.

  ‘Will you do one favour for me?’ Michalis asked, putting a hand on Nyx’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh, not again!’ Nyx said. ‘And where is my moped? I did not hear you come in last night.’

  ‘Will you keep calm with Papa until we find out what’s going on?’

  ‘I am not asking him about partnerships unless they involve making offal into coffin-shaped burgers for the Not Dead festival,’ Nyx stated with a foot stamp.

  ‘You don’t have to ask him,’ Michalis said. ‘I will.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘With caution,’ Michalis told her.

  ‘And my moped?’ Nyx questioned.

  He drew the keys from the pocket of his jeans. ‘Around the back. I am on my way to collect Papa’s now. And the reason you did not hear me come home last night,’ Michalis said with a smile. ‘Was because… I did not.’

  Now Nyx’s eyes popped out of her head. ‘My brother! Spending the whole night with a girl!’ She screwed her nose up then. ‘It was a girl, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Michalis breathed, his brain bringing him all the hot, wet, naked images from the pool with Lucie. ‘It was Lucie.’

  ‘You must be careful, Micha. If Melina finds out she will enrol you in the new Sortilas breeding programme.’ Nyx turned away from him and began walking towards the door leading to the shop.

  ‘That is not a real thing, is it?’ Michalis asked. ‘I thought it was a joke.’

  ‘Ha!’ Nyx said, turning back to face him. ‘Everyone thought Little Spiros’s dream of building a cable car down to Acharavi was a joke. And now look at us. Waiting for more boulders to be removed from the road!’

  Fifty-Two

  Hatzos Taverna, Loutses

  This little taverna, only a short walk away from Sortilas, was as traditional as they came. Up stone steps to a terraced outside sitting area were tables spread with cotton cloths, below fresh paper covers. Wooden chairs were set around circular tables under a fabric canopy. Then, to the right, was another seating area, open to the air and under nothing but curling green vines. Meg was already there, sitting at a table under the pergola, a large bottle of water and a half-full glass in front of her.

  Lucie took a deep breath and put her hands into the pockets of her lemon-coloured trousers. She couldn’t help but remember her mad display the other evening and there was also the fact that instead of talking things out like an adult, she had run away. Still, that’s what this get-together was for, wasn’t it? To talk like grown-ups.

  ‘Lucie!’ Meg greeted, waving a hand.

  Lucie watched her aunt get to her feet, looking a little more unsteady than she had when she was impersonating an Eighties icon at the karaoke session. Maybe Lucie had overreacted in the moment but, on the other hand, she was well aware a reaction had been building for some time. She gave Meg a smile and stepped towards the table.

  ‘The weather is being so wonderful, isn’t it?’ Meg gasped, palms splayed upwards as if she could catch the sunbeams. ‘I haven’t seen a cloud since I got here. Greece is still as super as it always was.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me all about Greece before,’ Lucie stated, slipping down into a chair. ‘Sorry.’ She took a breath as she realised her words had sounded a bit like an accusation. ‘I didn’t mean that quite how it came out. I just meant that—’

  ‘It’s OK, Lucie-Lou,’ Meg said with a sigh. ‘I know what you meant. Would you like a glass of water?’

  ‘What I’d really like is a glass of wine,’ Lucie blurted, knotting her hands together on the paper cloth covering the table. She was nervous here in this situation, under the sun and the vines, a little white-and-tan-coloured dog bounding down the steps from inside the taverna. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this nervous with Meg before. Maybe it was because she knew something was about to change, for better or for worse, there were things that had to be addressed.

  ‘T
hen have one,’ Meg said. ‘I’ll have one too. And I won’t say a thing about it being too early or… well, you know.’ She swallowed. ‘I won’t be how I was the other night.’

  Before Lucie could make any reply, Meg beckoned a lady who was coming out of the building with a plate of meze for another customer.

  ‘Miso litro lefko krasi, parakalo,’ Meg said, sounding almost like a native.

  ‘Amesos,’ the woman answered with a nod.

  ‘I still can’t believe you can speak Greek like that,’ Lucie said.

  ‘I still can’t believe I can remember it after all these years,’ Meg answered, softly smiling.

  The conversation stilled and Lucie waited.

  ‘Oh, Lucie-Lou, this feels so awkward and I don’t want it to feel awkward.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Lucie admitted. ‘And I am sorry for how I behaved at the bar. I shouldn’t have raised my voice to you and I shouldn’t have run off like that. And I probably shouldn’t have drunk those cocktails.’

  Meg was shaking her head before Lucie could even finish the sentence and the quick arrival of the jug of white wine, covered in condensation, plus two short tumblers, was well-timed.

  ‘I’m glad you left,’ Meg said, her voice shaking almost as much as her hands as she began to fill both their glasses with the sweet-smelling amber-coloured liquid. ‘It meant I had to stop talking. That there was no further opportunity for me to keep being… stifling.’

  Lucie swallowed. She wanted to tell Meg that it was OK, to make up and keep this uncomfortable feeling to the bare minimum. But she also knew this was a chance. One they should have both reached out for before now.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that I was speaking to you like you were… a naughty girl who had just been caught eating strawberries straight from the plant at a pick-your-own farm.’

  Lucie took a long, slow sip from her glass of wine.

  ‘I said all the right things on my very first night here, under the influence of alcohol myself, when I said about not being a boxed-up doll, getting out of our confines and living life to the full.’ Meg sighed, fingers wrapping around her glass. ‘And I said all that when one of the purposes of my trip was to… check up on you.’

  Lucie bit her lip. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear but she knew it was the truth.

  ‘I can’t help myself, can I?’ Meg gasped. ‘I told you to have a Greek adventure and then, at home on my own, I was envisaging all the things that might go wrong and before I’d thought it through I’d booked a flight. I kept telling myself this was about me revisiting my youth and not about making sure you were alright, but that wasn’t altogether true. I was worrying more about you here in Corfu than I did all those months you were working fighting the virus.’ She took a breath. ‘But perhaps the worst thing of all…’

  Lucie watched her aunt take a large breath, her bosom rising almost up into her neck and then dropping southwards again.

  ‘Was knowing I was treating you like you are your mum.’ She swallowed. ‘I know, in my heart, that you are completely different people and I also know, although it’s so hard to accept, that my time for steering your course for you is… over.’

  There were tears in Meg’s eyes now and Lucie watched her aunt try to blink them away. Any second now she would blame it on the sunlight or cataracts like she did every other time talk took an emotional turn. Except this time, she didn’t.

  ‘I don’t know why I do it,’ Meg continued, a finger wiping the condensation from her glass. ‘There are just times when I see so much of Rita in you. Physically I mean. I think that’s why seeing you with your shorter hair was such a shock. You look even more like her now than you ever did.’ She smiled. ‘She had that beautiful long hair like you did and then she chopped it all off. Of course your mum cut her hair and had her nose pierced to be rebellious. Whereas you—’

  ‘Don’t know if I cut it or Gavin cut it or if Sharon cut it, but we were all drunk on a coconut-flavoured liqueur,’ Lucie informed with a sigh.

  ‘And that’s the sort of thing you should be doing,’ Meg said. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘No,’ Lucie said, shaking her head. ‘This isn’t about alcohol or not taking painkillers. This is about barriers.’ She took a breath. ‘It’s about constantly feeling that I have to second-guess everything until the choice I have to make isn’t my choice at all.’ She sighed. ‘It was Nan or Grandad’s choice in my head when I was younger, and now it’s your choice. Meg, I don’t feel as if I have any free will. I just have an ongoing battle to take charge of my own thoughts and make my own decisions, and at my age that’s really rather sad.’

  Meg gave a sober nod. ‘And that’s all my fault. I over-swaddled you. If you were a baby you would have been running a temperature and screaming for a window to be opened.’

  ‘Well,’ Lucie said softly. ‘Maybe it’s time to take off a layer or two and let in some air.’

  ‘I should have started doing that a long time ago,’ Meg admitted. ‘Made it much breezier.’

  They both seemed to be on the same page, but this had to go deeper or it would keep being an issue going forward. It was time for Lucie to be really brave. Her eyes went to the little dog, turning circles on the terrace. It was time for her to stop spinning and get some clarity.

  ‘There’s something else we should have started doing a long time ago.’ Lucie paused for a moment. ‘You… you don’t speak about my mum enough.’

  She made sure her eyes met with Meg’s as she delivered the sentence. This statement was years in the making and she had to keep the dialogue going.

  ‘I mean, yes, you talk about how she was when she was growing up. The singing along to the radio and the dressing up, the family picnics and her drawing being displayed in the town hall when she was seven… but there’s never anything else. There’s no substance. There’s nothing about what she did when she hit senior school or who she was as a person. There’s only talk about these “bad decisions” and “unsuitable crowds”. Was she black all the way through, from the moment she hit Year Seven? Surely there were other things in her life then apart from the mistakes?’ She swallowed and braced herself against the solidity of the tabletop. ‘What about… my father?’

  ‘You know about your father,’ Meg said quickly.

  ‘I know nothing about him. I don’t even know who he is.’

  ‘And, I promise you, Lucie, that is all I know too.’ Meg put hands to her face and gasped. ‘Did you think that I knew who he was? That I would keep this from you?’

  Lucie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hoped not.’ She took a deep slow breath. ‘But, you do shield me from things that I really should experience myself, even if they might hurt me a little bit.’

  ‘But, Lucie, I would never have kept your father from you,’ Meg insisted.

  Lucie blew out the breath she had been holding onto and pressed her fingertips into the paper cloth on the table. Had she really thought Meg knew more than she had ever said about her father? Maybe not. But she did find it hard to believe that no one knew.

  ‘Was there no one special in my mum’s life? Someone from school or… I don’t know… someone older?’ Lucie asked. ‘Someone… anyone… who might have made me.’

  ‘Lucie,’ Meg said, reaching for Lucie’s hands now and cupping them gently in her own. ‘Your mum… she got so secretive. And no, it didn’t happen overnight. It crept up on us all over months and weeks, little things at first. She wouldn’t want to watch TV with us anymore, preferring to listen to music in her bedroom. She started to stay up late and she didn’t sleep. She stopped communicating with us in an everyday way and there was just… nothing we could do.’ Meg sighed. ‘Mum and Dad, they tried. They made doctor’s appointments Rita just never turned up for, they got her a private counsellor so she had someone not in the family to unburden to, they talked to the school and later the college. But, it didn’t matter what we tried, Rita just didn’t want to be the person she used to be. She wanted this new version of herself
that was eating her up from the inside out.’

  Lucie nodded. She had heard this before. And that wasn’t what she needed now. She needed to feel she knew her mum as much as everyone else had. Mums were meant to be so close to their daughters, it couldn’t be right that she felt so little.

  ‘If there was a boyfriend, Lucie, I promise we didn’t know about him. A few college people came to the funeral but, I don’t know, even when I tried to speak to them about what class they had been in with Rita, or what things they had in common, it was as if none of them really knew who she was at all. But, she wasn’t actually there much, was she?’

  Lucie bristled as a shaft of sunlight hit her shoulders. ‘I can’t live in her shadow.’ Her voice sounded confident and determined. ‘And that’s what’s happened. Whether you meant that to happen, whether I meant that to happen… that’s how it’s been and… I don’t want to let it hold me back any longer.’

  ‘I understand,’ Meg said. ‘I understand completely. And I know I haven’t helped.’

  ‘Meg,’ Lucie breathed. ‘You’ve been there for me constantly. You brought me up! You fed and clothed me and taught me everything I know about the world. If it wasn’t for you I would have been in care or… worse. I will forever be grateful.’

  ‘It’s been nothing but the greatest pleasure,’ Meg said, her voice wavering. ‘And I know it hasn’t been perfect and I have made many, many mistakes and—’

  ‘Meg,’ Lucie whispered. ‘You were right when you said you needed to start living more and… get your dress dirty. You totally should.’ She gave a wistful smile. ‘And… it’s OK. You can let me go now.’