‘That was Gaia, we should probably leave soon to pick her up.’ We got ourselves ready and left the house to begin my journey towards finding my mother.
*
We all arrived in Karousades. It was a beautiful area; it made me feel bad for never properly exploring the island before. Vibrant and green, with twisting tree trunks birthing fruits and beauty. Dusty roads with mysterious lanes leading to more rugged nature, stunning. All layered against views across the vast sea from its high vantage point.
‘Instead of going home. Shall we go to Taste Me?’ He glanced at Gaia in the mirror.
‘I knew you’d want to show Melodie there,’ she laughed. It was a slightly shouted conversation, with the top down, but every interaction between the pair made me smile. They were full of “in” jokes and phrases you only form with people when you spend real time together. It was a beautiful thing to see in a father and daughter. If anything, I was envious, and hopeful that that might soon be me, with my father.
We parked directly outside the restaurant and I followed Gaia to a table under a vine-filled pergola, overlooking at vast expanse of trees and green. Many of the trees held fruit, including one full of oranges popping up next to our feet. It was so beautiful and strange to have my feet in line with the top of a tree. Being high up on a slope gave the most enchanting views over the sea. Gaia told me that the view was over Astrakeri, where I was staying. It was only a ten-minute drive. Anton came back with menus for us to peruse. It must have been just past midday, or somewhere thereabouts. We all chose different toasted sandwiches, and as he went to order them, I turned to Gaia.
‘I’m not putting you in an awkward position, am I? Wanting to know everything you know? Plus having your dad look after me…’ I put my hands on my face to hide behind.
‘It’s fine. I’ve had him to myself for ten years. He deserves to have a life too. I’d like to be able to leave home one day, free of guilt…’ She paused, looking at her hands. ‘Your mum was always nice to us. I sent my friend, Anna, a message last night. She was the girl I picked fruit with. She still helps your mum out.’
Every time she said “mum” it was like a shard of glass quietly cutting my flesh, so clean it’s invisible until the blood pours out. I sat silently, glad I had my sunglasses on as my eyes started to sting.
‘She would bring us drinks and talk to us. I only helped her out a handful of times. We didn’t do big business or anything. It was something to do in the summer when we had nothing much else to do. We helped a small group of different people and she was one. Honestly, I think she was lonely.’ She was lonely. The words rolled around in my mind. She was lonely. She deserved to be lonely. The anger swelled up in my belly. I twisted my ring around my finger trying to pull some strength from the memory of my grandparents. Luckily Anton came back from chatting to the man behind the bar.
‘They’ll bring it over soon.’ His voice calmed me, but only a little.
‘Do you know her address?’ I managed to keep a tone as breezy as Anton’s, but I didn’t feel it. My stomach felt as tight as my clenched fists under the table.
‘That was one of the reasons I messaged my friend.’ She picked her little orange backpack up off the floor, and pulled out a piece of folded paper. ‘That’s her address. I wasn’t sure, I knew where she lived, from memory, but I didn’t know the address. My friend knew though.’ It was pushed towards me like a loaded gun. To me that’s what it was. A loaded gun. Full of anger and hope, answers and questions. Our toasties arrived as Anton squeezed my knee.
‘If you want me to come with you I will,’ he said. It was a kind offer of course, but not one I could take up. I needed to go alone. We all sat quietly, talking only now and then while we ate. I started to learn more about them. Their relationship was very mature, playful banter, love and respect all muddled together. I had never seen myself with a man who had children, let alone a widower with a thirteen-year-old daughter. The pair of them had brought so much intense emotional upheaval into my life. They were something I had never expected and could never have anticipated. The whole trip had taken a ridiculous turn that only fate could have seen. Mama used to always say, ‘The most ridiculous stories are always the true ones.’ I was starting to think she had been right. I tried to suppress the reality that I would have to go back to England. I would eventually have to sort through Mama and Papa’s things and put my life in some kind of order. But, in that moment, I inhaled their light conversation, the delicious ice cream we ordered as a dessert, the close air and the stunning view.
Anton and Gaia took me back to their home. It was outside of the main village, tucked away off the main road a little way along a dusty track lined with dry grass. It was huge. I’d had no idea. Beautiful stone walls with dark pink window frames and front door to match, with a bougainvillea archway. I’d always delighted in seeing the beautiful pink bougainvillea flowers when abroad.
‘Wow, was it pink when you bought it?’ I grinned at Anton.
‘That’s why we bought it,’ he laughed and so did Gaia. I could see her smug look as we got out of the car. He clearly let her have things the way she wanted: the car, the house. It was no problem to me. I didn’t even know if I was a fixture for longer than my trip, perhaps less than two weeks. It wasn’t as though she came across as spoilt or anything like that, even though it seemed like she was. She always seemed very grounded.
The interior was light, airy with simple lines in amongst more stone. It was open plan with a wall in the centre which had a wide staircase leading up in two directions. To one side of the large wall was a beautiful wood burner facing the living area, the other side had a small loo. We walked towards the long brown leather sofas.
‘I’m going to go to my room, if that’s okay?’ Gaia pointed at the wooden staircase and then took them two at a time when Anton nodded.
‘Your house is incredible.’ It really was, from the coffee table which was basically just a boulder with glass on top, to the sepia family photo with his late wife holding Gaia. She was pretty. Not in the way I expected, I couldn’t remember what I had expected. But she wasn’t it. Short pixie cut hair and a smile that mirrored Gaia’s wide lips. The whole house was fascinating.
‘A few years ago, I thought we must make a fresh start and, eventually, we found this. We wanted to stay in Corfu but didn’t actually care where we ended up; it was about the right property to make a new home.’
‘Gaia mentioned you had done some property development?’
He sat down in a beautiful brown leather arm chair across from me. It looked delightfully soft as he sat, absentmindedly rubbing the leather arms with his fingertips. ‘Did she.’ A smile crossed his lips. ‘Katerina and I developed places here for rentals and flipped a couple in the UK. When she died, I couldn’t bear to do it alone. I tried to continue; I finished the ones we had started. It was something that was ours, I did all the fixing and design, and she did budgets and found the right places to develop. I still have the rentals here on the island and one in the UK.’
‘Wow. Well, this place is stunning. I’m stunned.’ I waved my hands at it all, it seemed too beautiful to be just for him and her. Maybe I was being sexist but I hadn’t thought this would be how a man and a child would live.
‘Do you mind if I quickly shower and change? I’m still in last night’s clothes.’ He looked down as though that were horrendous, but he looked perfectly fine, it’s not as though he were sweating in a suit and tie.
‘Of course, it’s fine!’
He jumped out of his chair and jogged towards the stairs. ‘Great, help yourself to anything!’ He ran up the steps just as Gaia had, only leaping three at a time. I scanned the room, the dark blue patterned rug, the large abstract painting behind the sofa. The styling was distinctive and masculine, a big contrast to the pink and white exterior. I got up and walked towards the back of the house. Past the photo of Anton and Katerina holding the a
dorable baby Gaia, past the wood burner, past the heavy furnishings. There was the kitchen, it went along most of the back wall. I was more interested in the door to the view. It was just as I had anticipated, a wide garden dotted with fruit trees. There was a mosaic patio of reds and blues with a matching mosaic table and eight metal chairs. I chose not to sit there, instead walking deeper into the garden and selecting the shelter of a lemon tree. I pulled a lemon from a low-hanging branch before sitting down. I rolled the leathery fruit in between my hands. A friend at University told me that was how to loosen the fibres of the fruit inside ready to get the juice out. I held it under my nose for a moment. I pressed my thumbnail into its flesh until a fizz of mist burst out. I licked the sweetest sour juice from my thumb. The acid sat on the tip of my tongue, tingling and nibbling. I was tempted to go back for more of a taste, but thought better of it. Instead, I squeezed more juice on to my hands and ruffled it though my hair. It was the sort of thing I would do as a child in an attempt to lighten it before I was allowed to bleach it or do what I wanted with it without asking Mama first.
I had put my mother’s address in my pocket in an attempt to lessen its importance. Carefully tugging it from its hiding place, I sat and stared at it. As though if I looked for long enough, she would appear. I thought perhaps I would ask Anton to take me back to my Airbnb. I would need to prepare myself but equally I wanted to see her soon or I might lose my momentum. Tomorrow, I thought. It had to be. Even in the shade it was clammy at this time of day. The heat was almost unbearable, but I didn’t really mind. The dappled light through the tree was calming like a child’s night light. I inhaled deep breaths of the thick lemony air to fill my lungs with something other than fear.
‘Hey you, I thought you had left!’ Anton appeared, walking towards my resting place. ‘Are you okay?’ He squatted in front of me with a gentle frown on his face. Reaching out I touched one bushy brow and then across his firm cheekbone.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘but I think I should go, if you don’t mind taking me? I have a lot to think about.’
That night was the first one I’d spent alone in the house for two nights. I missed Anton’s warm body next to mine. His size made me feel protected and, in that moment, I needed that. The sensible part of me knew it was much better to be alone. If he had stayed only his body would have been on my mind and I had a million questions to ask my mother. Although, in reality, they all boiled down to one: why? Why did she leave? Why didn’t she return? Why did she live in Corfu? Why? It dawned on me that she might shut the door in my face. She didn’t want me as a baby so perhaps she wouldn’t care to answer as an adult. I needed to get some rest but my mind was a blur of questions. I had even started to panic about what outfit I should wear; what most reflected finding a long-lost mother who didn’t want me? As though it mattered. I had parents who loved me, they just happened to be my grandparents. They brought me up to be their world, I was cherished every single day. I didn’t need this woman’s approval. So why did I crave it, just a little? Eventually I drifted off into a dream-laden sleep, full of giant question marks and dragons eating white buildings with blue window frames and doors. None of which had numbers, they all had question marks.
Eventually my alarm woke me. I got washed. I got dressed. I did my hair. I did my make-up. It was time to leave. At this point I just sat in the Honda hire car. Just sat there. The engine wasn’t even running, so I was starting to boil myself. I got back out feeling my lungs cave in. I pressed my hand on the metal hood of the car and snapped it away as it was already too hot. After taking several deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself, I went back into the house and caught myself in the mirror. She looked like me. I was on this planet and it was her fault I was here. Looking down at myself, at my white kaftan, which apparently was the chosen outfit to meet a biological parent who had no interest in you, I spoke aloud, ‘You can do this, you need to do this.’ Making eye contact with the mirror one last time, I got into the car and left.
Anton and Gaia had previously lived in an area called Kokkini. It was almost an hour’s drive from where I was staying. I put the radio on with extreme volume the whole way. Luckily, her house was very easy to find. The sat nav had taken me right to her door. I parked in the dusty driveway and slowly got out. I felt like suddenly I was the only source of noise. I could hear my heart beating in my ears, my footsteps crunch on the dry dirt, my shallow breaths. I stood in front of the little blue door – how could something so small, so simple, so in need of attention intimidate me so? I wanted to step towards it, to knock. Unfortunately, my feet were glued to the ground beneath them. I started to turn faint, again.
Chapter 10
‘Yassou?’ A voice came from behind me and I instinctively screamed, jumped into the air and snapped around all at once. It was her. It was like looking in a mirror but with a few small wrinkles, lightened hair and a good few inches shorter. It was clearly her. She stood stock still as though staring at a ghost. Which I guess I was. A ghost from her past. One she most likely never thought to see in the flesh after thirty-one years.
‘I’m…’ I started but was soon interrupted.
‘Melodie. My Melodie.’ Her eyes were as wide and as blue as the ocean.
‘Yes, I suppose that’s correct. I heard that you were here, on the island, and I just wanted to know why you left me?’ Everything was coming out a little monotone and clipped in an attempt to suppressing the quiver I could feel building in my voice.
‘Left you?’ Her voice was quiet and engulfed in the hum of the day. Her head shaking, face creased together forming a particularly deep crease between her brows and along her forehead. There was a thick white scar running from her eyebrow into her hairline that formed a cross with her wrinkle. Quite a mark.
She walked around me at a distance, as though I were some kind of predatory cat, and she were my prey trying to sneak away without my knowing. She didn’t take her eyes off of me until she was safely stood in front of her door. We were standing looking at each other, breath and pulse elevated like we had just gone for a brisk walk. I didn’t know if I should ask my question again or just wait. Her mouth started to open, was she going to defend her choices? I should just leave was all I could think. Then she spoke.
‘But I didn’t. I didn’t, I didn’t leave.’ With this announcement she slowly turned, walked through the tatty little door straight into a miniature of a living room and sat down, leaving it wide open for all to see.
‘I think perhaps you should come in,’ she said. Her eyes gave away nothing more than surprise, I couldn’t identify any other emotion. Unaided by the fact my brain was whizzing around in circles like a stupid Scalextric car. I stepped forward into her door way. It was equally hot in her house as it was outside, perhaps more humid in than out. At least outside had a breeze. Watching her stare into oblivion was making my toes curl in my flip-flops. She stared at oblivion as I stared at her. Perhaps oblivion was staring at me and we were in a Mexican stand-off. I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Eventually she turned her attention back to me. I must have been a silhouette to her, in her dark little doorway with the sun behind me. She clearly didn’t want this, didn’t want me there, didn’t want my questions. I couldn’t take it anymore, waiting around. I began to step backwards back into the light and towards the car. She leapt up and lunged at me.
‘Please, please sit down!’ My feet had a mind of their own, doing as they were told, following her back into her home. It was stuffy and tatty, all of the furniture looked well-worn and nothing matched, likely second- or third-hand. There were no knickknacks or paintings, only functional items. ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked politely as though I were an expected acquaintance.
‘No thank you. Only answers,’ I snapped as she pointed me in the direction of an old armchair, I swiftly sat down and started twisting at my opal ring. She looked not just like me, but like Mama and Papa. It was as though they were sat
either side of her, looking back at me. My throat felt so tight.
‘Well, in that case, the answer is, I didn’t. I didn’t leave you. I would never have left you.’ Her eyes were welling up but tears didn’t fall, mine rolled back into my head.
‘Well, that’s interesting, where have you been for the past thirty-one years?’ I wrinkled my nose, irritated with her nonsense. Shifting uncomfortably in her chair, she physically withdrew further from me like a tick burrowing deeper into skin.
‘It’s not as easy or as simple as you’re making out.’
‘Well can you explain to me please? You say you didn’t leave me, well I don’t remember seeing you every day growing up, or at my birthday parties or Christmas! So, where were you? Why did you go?’ My emotions were escaping me, I could feel them disappearing, evaporating into the heat of the room.
‘I, I, I just, I don’t think it’s important. What’s important is you. I can’t believe you’re here. Here in Corfu, in my home. It’s been so long I’d started to fear I dreamt you.’ There was a flutter of a smile on her face. ‘I know you want more from me. I’m sorry I can’t give it. But you must believe me, I didn’t leave you.’
‘Tell me why then?’ Every time I pleaded there was a small, twitch, almost; like someone prodding her lightly in the ribs. An unconscious tick? I came for answers but other than confirming she was in fact my mother, I was more confused than ever. She started shaking her head again.
‘Please, please let me get to know you. Let’s forget about the past, just for a moment and just be us, here, now. Please?’ A tear started scrolling across her cheek with a thousand unsaid words. A large portion of my soul wanted to wrap my arms about her and the other part wanted to shake the truth out of her. I decided just to agree, to nod my head, to just follow the unknown path with no expectations. Nodding was about all I could manage. Apparently, expectations were indeed pointless, as none of this was what I had thought. There was silence hovering over us, sitting on top of the sticky air.
The Little Blue Door Page 9