‘Wait!’ I was screaming knocking my legs into the table as I stood, leaving me hopping around rubbing my thighs as I danced towards him. ‘Please wait!’ Luckily the restaurant wasn’t too busy, but the people that were there were getting quite the show. He didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. He just got into his van and left. I sat back down feeling utterly foolish for thinking he could ever forgive me. Firstly, for ignoring him, secondly for the Nico mix-up.
As the taxi took me through the beautiful views of Corfu, I was relieved to be leaving it all behind. The weeks I’d spent there had been exhausting. I almost felt as though I needed a holiday to get over my holiday. I got to the airport, squeaky stilettos and mask ready for the journey. The journey to take me back to my two empty homes.
*
It had been just over a month since leaving Corfu. Cambridge had seen a lot of dry weather but that day it had rained. Heavy at first, then a light drizzle that left the air smelling of steamed grass and tarmac. I had managed to get a lot done since being back, helped by keeping a sober head. Singlehandedly I had emptied Mama and Papa’s house and put it on the market. I didn’t think about it too much. I didn’t think about anything too much. When I wasn’t working, I had been there, filling boxes. Some to bin, some to keep and some to ponder over for hours. One of the days I had sat holding a half full perfume bottle of Mama’s, dwelling on its muddle of peonies and white musk. In the end I kept it. Every time I went near it, I felt like she was coming in for a hug.
My next project would be to decide what to do with my mum’s house in Corfu. I’d paid a company to box her things and send them over in the coming weeks, but I still didn’t know what to do with the house itself. Finding her and losing her so quickly felt like having a punctured lung. The only positive was the decision to amend my ways, as best I could. I was working more and gaining more from it and I had accepted a date with a man from an Instagram account I had been working on. My life had to be lived.
I was at Mama’s and Papa’s moving the last few items into the clean white hire van. It was permeated with pine fresh, nothing like Anton’s coffee and air con. I was muttering and swearing under my breath trying to navigate a long bar speaker out of the front door. My leg was outstretched trying to push the door open so that I could escape without damaging the speaker or scraping a wall. I needed to move quickly as the rain had picked up its step. The van door had blown shut and I was trying to carefully prise it open with the end of the speaker.
‘Do you need a hand with that?’ The voice made me release a high-pitched gasp as I sharply turned, momentarily making the speaker into a joust. I only just missed him. Anton.
‘How on earth did you find me?’ I’m not sure that’s what I had meant to say. It came out all in a fluster, almost aggressively, barked out like a startled puppy. I was still aiming the speaker at his abdomen. I couldn’t believe it; I’d avoided thinking about him directly. He would appear most nights in my dreams, every morning that was where I would leave him. Then there he was.
‘Can I come in?’ He was wet, the tanned flesh of his forearms were covered in goosebumps. His pale blue t-shirt clung to his body showing his muscular frame, making my chest tighten to the memory of everything I’d tried so hard to forget.
‘I guess so.’
He silently helped to place the speaker into the van and followed me into the house. ‘Sorry, there’s nothing to sit on. I’ve just finished clearing the place out.’ His face had been very blank, even when I nearly speared him. His eyes sunk below his brows and the little line between them had been sat there the whole time. I felt a little bit like my legs had become slinkies, wobbling about beneath me.
‘What’s going on, why are you here?’ I pursed my lips and folded my arms.
‘Is there somewhere warmer we could talk?’ he said through a tense jaw. His whole body was tense in fact, with random shivers as his big hands clasped his own biceps for warmth. I looked around searching for an answer. It was all blank magnolia walls, with faded outlines where furniture once lived.
‘I know, go upstairs to the bathroom, it’s on the left, I’ll meet you there.’ There was a hand towel I had left in the downstairs bathroom; it was all I could think of. When I walked in, he was wringing out his top into the roll-top bath. He looked down at me, letting me have the smallest of half smiles. I gripped the yellow towel close to my body, a little rough and not all that dry itself.
‘The quickest way to get warm is to have a shower. It’s electric, so instant heat.’ I pointed the towel to the corner of the room. My grandparents had a level access shower fitted behind a ceiling to floor pane of glass. It wasn’t exactly a wet room, but one end wasn’t far off.
‘Thank you,’ he said and his face relaxed, the frown line lifting at last. His fingers moved to the zip of his jeans. I spluttered and turned to look at the smooth white tiles on the wall, sadly reminiscent of his sheets. Unable to stand the resemblance, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, pressed the towel almost under my chin, inhaling its damp soapy scent. I could feel my flesh glow under my paint-stained denim shirt.
‘Can you please tell me why you are here?’
He turned the shower on and didn’t answer. I turned my head slightly to try to gauge if he had even heard me.
‘Anton?’ I called over the crashing of the water. He ignored me again. My fingers dug into the poor little towel. I clicked the towel rack on and placed the rough yellow fabric carefully over it. I then stood gripping it before turning to face him. I could see he was leaning his forearms on the shower wall, with his head bowed beneath them. Just leaning, letting the water create pathways over every muscle, between every hair. I twisted at my ring; round and round it went like my mind, desperate to know what was going on.
‘Please Anton I’m starting to really worry,’ I called out to him again, fingers now scrubbing my forehead. He turned off the shower and stepped out in front of me. His wet body called to me. I managed to maintain his eye contact as I took in a juddered breath, pulled the towel off the rack, and threw the little rectangle at him.
‘Please, talk to me, this isn’t fair.’
Patting at his face, then his hairy legs. He didn’t shy away, he didn’t hide from me.
‘I’m sorry,’ he started, at last, ‘I’m sorry for everything.’ His voice trailed and his eyes were on my feet. The thick black lashes framing his eyes made them almost look closed. The yellow towel balanced about his middle, his hand pressing to him.
‘What do you mean?’ I nodded towards the towel rack and we sat down in front of it.
‘I bumped into Maria a couple of weeks ago. She mentioned how awful it was, what happened to your mother. I had no idea. I hadn’t been to Agios Stefanos for a while.’ He rubbed at his stubbly chin, I noticed he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring anymore. ‘I also spoke to Gaia about it. She has more idea than me about losing a parent, and losing one in a, you know, a hard way. That sounded stupid.’ He muttered in Greek and crossed himself, looked to the ceiling but when he looked back at me, I was smiling then he did too. ‘She told me not to be too hard on you. That I couldn’t imagine what you were feeling. She turned fourteen last week, Gaia.’
‘I know. I text her.’
‘What?’
‘We both know she doesn’t tell you everything. Clearly she doesn’t tell me everything either or I’d be wearing more make-up.’
His chest gave a low vibration in an almost laugh then he gentle touched my cheek with his thumb. ‘She’s right of course. Maria also said you had had your mother’s body sent back and that the funeral was next week. I was hoping I could be with you?’
I gently tugged on my necklace. It was my mum’s, a beautiful green-blue opal, just like my ring.
‘I know how I feel about you. It hasn’t changed. I should have spoken to you then. I’ve been one thing for so long, a “father,” nothing more. I’m used to being told what�
��s going on or, so I thought, being the one in charge, being the carer. Alone, no help. Having Gaia ignore me and then you, I didn’t handle it well. Uncertainty was too much for me. Plus, Nico in his pants – Maria explained that too.’ We had started to hold hands as he spoke. I’m not sure at what point it happened, at what point his fingers crawled into mine, or maybe mine into his.
‘It’s funny, I’m the opposite. Losing my grandparents had made me act like a petulant child. Even before that, living alone for so long, not having anyone but my parents to answer to, and even then, as a grown woman, I obviously didn’t tell them everything. I’m used to processing things alone. I wanted so desperately to talk to you, for you to hold me and make me feel better but, well, firstly I needed to sort myself out, find me again. And, honestly, I was afraid of dragging you down or losing you, it was just easier to push you away. Or let you push me away from Gaia. I just wanted to protect you and her from all the negativity I felt.’ Watching his face as I spoke, he couldn’t stop himself smiling at the mention of Gaia.
‘The fact you’re worrying about how you might affect my daughter, says you’re a good person. One we would cherish in our life. Gaia has said she misses the way I smile when I say your name. We can’t have these misunderstandings. I want you, I don’t want to be without you again. Having someone I love taken away from me again made me feel like a shadow. It was, in many ways, worse than when my wife died.’
‘Love?’ My cheekbones sat up on my face as I watched his thumb lightly rub the back of my hand.
‘I agapi eine agapi, den exei exigisi.’ He had said this to me once before, he repeated it again, quietly and slowly as he brought me into his arms to lie next to him across the cold tiles. ‘Love is just love,’ he repeated in English, ‘it can never be explained.’
About the Author
Francesca Catlow loves to travel. Born and raised in the heart of Suffolk, Catlow has travelled extensively in Europe with her French husband and, more recently, their two young children. Of all the places she’s been it is the Greek islands that have captured her heart. She visits as often as family commitments allow.
The Little Blue Door is Catlow’s first novel – written during the lockdown of 2020 while feeding her baby in the early hours. She has previously written plays alongside being a lyricist and performer.
This book is the first in a series. To stay up to date please visit www.francescacatlow.co.uk.
Acknowledgements
I dedicate this book to my husband and my mum and dad. Without your endless time and support this would not have been possible. I would also like to dedicate this book to Corfu. Its memory filled my dreams and helped me to get through the 2020 lockdown.
I would also like to acknowledge Lesley. Thank you for your help, both on holidays and on the book.
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Copyright Notice
Published in 2021 by SilverWood Books
SilverWood Books Ltd
14 Small Street, Bristol, BS1 1DE, United Kingdom
www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Francesca Catlow 2021
The right of Francesca Catlow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Sections 77 and 78.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-80042-095-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-80042-096-0 (ebook)
The Little Blue Door Page 19