by Mandy Baggot
ONE LAST GREEK SUMMER
one last greek summer
Mandy Baggot
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
First published in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Mandy Baggot, 2019
The moral right of Mandy Baggot to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
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 the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (PB) 9781789544312
ISBN (E) 9781789544275
Cover type © Patrick Knowles Design
Aria
c/o Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.ariafiction.com
ONE LAST GREEK SUMMER
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Epilogue
A Letter to the Reader
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Become an Aria Addict
One
London, UK
‘Where are the penis balloons? You said you were going to get penis balloons!’
‘I thought you meant condoms… are penis balloons even a real thing?’
‘You bought condoms. Really?’
‘I’ll take the condoms off your hands, Mikey.’
‘Ha… the condoms aren’t on my hands, Dave.’
Beth Martin smiled from outside the room, two inches of bent blind allowing her a view. Her Mountbatten Global colleagues were getting all hot and melty in her office, seemingly decorating the space with all kinds of workplace-inappropriate items. She fanned the collar of her corporate blouse away from her skin and pushed a sheaf of her was-perfectly-straight-this-morning, light-brown hair behind her ear. The air-conditioning was broken – for two whole hours now – and everyone was finally finding out what it was like to work in an English heatwave without the state-of-the-art temperature control. Beth guessed she might soon find that out for herself on a more permanent footing, if she went through with leaving her job… like she had finally left her marriage. Only four first interviews in the past eight months, only two going to the second stage and no job offers despite her wealth of experience. Now she was hanging in limbo. Leave? Remain? It was Brexit all over again.
‘Now, I am going to say this just one more time, to be absolutely, 200 per cent, completely, profoundly, all the other words ending in “ly” sure… Charles is in France today, isn’t he? For the whole day. As in, there’s not even the slightest chance he’s going to walk in here, see all this and sack each and every one of us. Especially me, who’s dressed for a party, not a firing.’ It was Heidi, Beth’s best friend making this sweeping statement. Blonde-haired, willowy Heidi, dressed today in a loose and ethically-sourced, statement cotton summer dress with PBA-free non-leather sandals, winding laces travelling halfway up her shin. She was coordinating everyone in the room like a cross between a shepherd and an overprotective mother. This was Heidi looking her best, in Beth’s opinion – genuine, not try-hard, or corporate and stiff. Professional steel was the attire they both usually wore on a daily basis when Charles was around. Charles Mountbatten, CEO of the company and Beth’s ex-husband.
‘South of France,’ Tilly piped up. ‘Ryanair flight from Marseille doesn’t leave until 5.20 p.m.’
‘And what if he gets an earlier flight?’ Heidi asked. ‘You know, change his plans at the last minute like he did last year when he turned up unannounced and caught us cheering on England in the World Cup.’ She took another breath and went wide-eyed. ‘Or drones! Have you allowed for the chance of illegal drone action?’
‘The other flight is at 2.30 p.m.,’ Tilly said, smiling. ‘With the time difference, and a car from Stansted, I calculate it’d be five o’clock before he made it here.’
‘Shall I blow some of these condoms up?’ Dave asked. ‘They’re basically balloons anyway, aren’t they?’
‘The way you use them,’ Mikey remarked. ‘You know, the really, really, super-small ones. The ones they put behind the counter for really, really, tiny, weeny, babies of baby mice…’
‘Boys, boys, penis-envy conversation isn’t going to get this room decorated, is it?’ Heidi asked. She checked her watch. ‘Where’s the bloody cake? Beth is never going to be in with Zara Newton for more than thirty minutes and we have… fifteen minutes left. Shit!’
Beth carried on watching secretary Tilly balancing on a chair on top of a table and looping bunting with ‘Kiss the Mrs Goodbye’ written on it over the cabinets, Dave blowing up condoms and turning the colour of a Comic Relief nose, Mikey putting Kettle Chips into containers she was sure usually housed her paperclips and rubber bands, and Heidi, in the centre, the orchestrator of this… divorce party. An official untying of the knot.
‘Right!’ Heidi announced. ‘I’m going to get the other nibbles from the kitchen and the plastic cups and the expensive champagne – which I’ve charged to Charles’s expense account!’
As a cheer went up, Beth moved, not wanting to be seen. She wasn’t going to spoil a surprise they seemed to have gone to great effort to organise. Sh
e headed towards the toilets.
A divorce party. Apparently, it was a legitimate thing now. Women, and some men, in the articles Beth had read, organised a celebration of being completely shit at keeping a relationship together. It was a gathering to congratulate the divorcee on successfully and, sometimes strategically, negotiating the rocky road of solicitors and animosity and fighting over who kept the box set of Peaky Blinders… and coming out the other side not too tear-stained and with a core of inner strength that would serve the singleton well as they sought out new relationship paths.
Beth looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. A mirror she had looked in a lot over the years. This reflective glass had shown her triumphant reflection when she’d won the Davis contract – her very first after she’d joined the firm. It had also shown her a very pissed face when she’d overindulged on company cocktails while wooing the Miltons, and got concussion from walloping her head on the same basin she was leaning on now. And this very mirror had almost mocked her when she had stood in front of it and sobbed at the end of her marriage. Years of loyal service and she had been discarded. For the next best thing. The woman she had trained to do her job when she’d been given a promotion.
‘Oh, hello, Beth. I didn’t see you there.’
And there she was. The woman who had replaced her in so many ways, strutting out of one of the cubicles and sashaying towards the adjacent sink. Kendra.
‘Kendra,’ Beth answered. There was no love lost, but she had to maintain a degree of professionalism while she was still working here. And she was still working here. Still juggling her options. Plus, if she left the bathroom now, Heidi wouldn’t be finished with her office and she’d have to make small talk with someone by the water cooler. Lately, since the separation, it always seemed to be Pablo from accounts. Her knowledge of his brother’s apprenticeship at a recruitment agency really did know no bounds.
‘It’s all official then,’ Kendra said, simultaneously washing her hands, sucking a breath mint and pouting into the mirror. ‘Your divorce.’
Beth nodded. ‘Yes, all official and absolute.’ She even had the documents to prove it should anyone ask. Was Kendra asking? Maybe she wanted a copy for herself. Perhaps Beth could duplicate an A3-sized version and laminate it for her. Maybe Kendra would frame it and hang it over the marble fireplace in Beth’s ex-living room. She ran the tap, for something to do, and to try and compose herself. This wasn’t really Kendra’s fault. Kendra was simply a file in the divorce cabinet. And, with everything being finalised, all Kendra really should be to Beth was a slightly irritating colleague. Because if someone like Kendra could end her marriage, then the union had obviously been rocking on unstable ground already. And, if she was truthful, it had been. For most of its life span. Possibly since Charles had stopped indulging her love for Midsomer Murders and insisted they watched something high-brow… in Norwegian.
‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ Kendra said, fingers still preening.
‘Nice?’ Was this woman really suggesting divorce was nice? Nothing about it had been nice. It was exhausting. By the end, she was sure Charles had stopped even attempting a decent deceit about the adultery. Just like deleting Neil Dudgeon from her TV repertoire.
‘New beginnings,’ Kendra elaborated. ‘Fresh starts.’
In the linen I chose for the master suite, Beth thought. No, she must not be bitter. She had made this decision, slightly forced or not. She was in control.
‘Where do you think you’ll go?’ Kendra asked, finishing with the hair-fluffing and looking at Beth head-on.
‘Kendra, I moved out of the house last year,’ Beth said. ‘You know that very well.’ The rumour was that Kendra had moved her shoe collection in and it had taken over the dressing area and the utility room. Office gossip had said when Christian Louboutin ran low on stock, they had Kendra on speed dial.
‘No, silly, I meant here. Where are you going to go after Mountbatten Global?’
So, did Kendra know she had been looking for a job since the separation? She had tried to keep that on the downlow. She didn’t love her job here, but it paid well and Heidi was here. Those two things had kept her going when the application rejections had been served. She hadn’t applied for anything new in a few months; the initial pain at having to see Kendra every day and Charles almost acting like nothing between them had changed, had subsided. And no other company seemed to want her. Even now, she was still finding stability with the name Mountbatten.
‘Oh, Kendra, whoever you’ve been speaking to has given you false hope,’ Beth said, stepping just a few inches closer to her. ‘I’m not leaving Mountbatten Global.’ The bitterness was back. Kendra had slithered into her life like a flat-bellied slowworm.
‘What?’ Kendra sputtered like Bear Grylls had given her something alive, slimy and gross to eat. Maybe a slowworm. ‘But… why would you stay?’
‘Because I can,’ Beth stated, eyes fixed on the younger model. ‘And because I want to.’ She sucked in a breath, still eyeballing her nemesis. ‘Besides, I know you would really, really miss me if I left. All that advice I’ve given you over the past couple of years, how to communicate effectively… how to lure my husband.’ She was literally channelling Alexis from Dynasty now.
‘Ex-husband,’ Kendra stated hurriedly.
‘Yes,’ Beth said. ‘Yes, if I were you I’d get used to saying that.’ She gave Kendra one last lingering stare. ‘Because, just in case Charles doesn’t get bored with you before he puts a ring on your finger, next time it will be you having the divorce party.’ She smiled, watching the woman’s face fall. ‘Ciao.’
Beth’s bravado lasted as far as that water cooler, Pablo raising a plastic cup in recognition as she neared. She was still a bundle of crushed futures and upset, facing directionless weeks ahead if she couldn’t get her act together. What exactly was she going to do with her life now everything had changed?
Two
‘Please say it was a good surprise,’ Heidi said, throwing herself down next to Beth on the office sofa Charles had had shipped in from India. Nearly everything Charles bought had to be shipped halfway across the world, Beth remembered. Even some of his groceries. His needs were anything but basic, the delivery costs sometimes being more expensive than the actual product, but his lavish living didn’t stop with himself. One of his best traits was his generosity. That’s how Beth had ended up here in the beginning.
The party was still in half-swing, crisps all but eaten, music a muted Paloma Faith, expensive champagne finished and cheaper plonk opened, Happy Divorce Day cake cut into and sliced up. Tilly was dancing, wearing the penis hoopla headgear they had taken it in turns to don après Bollinger. Beth smiled at her friend. ‘It was a good surprise.’
‘But…’ Heidi said, poking a root vegetable crisp into her mouth and crunching it up.
‘No buts… apart from the ones on those napkins,’ Beth said, indicating the pile of serviettes featuring cartoon men pulling moonies. ‘You do remember it’s a divorce party not a hen party.’
‘And if we were in America, where they have occasion-wear for absolutely every life scenario, you could complain about my lack of due diligence but… Asid’s Party Store was all I had to work with and it could be worse, I could have bought the Grim Reaper funeral bunting.’
‘There’s funeral bunting?! That seems so wrong,’ Beth told her.
‘Doesn’t it? I mean there’s Tin-Star-style black comedy and there’s black comedy.’ Heidi smiled, passing Beth the bowl of snacks. ‘But… you’re looking good today.’
‘Meaning I’ve looked less-than-good prior to today?’ She touched her now slightly frizzy shoulder-length hair as if stroking it would revive any lost lustre. At the height of the break-up she had actually shed hair and worried she would be using caffeine shampoo forever. She’d tried a bit, not enjoyed the smell and decided to drink more coffee.
‘No… well… a bit. But we all have our off days, don’t we?’
‘Thanks, Heidi.’
‘I’m simply saying that today you look composed and together and ready for—’
‘Fresh starts and new beginnings?’ Beth answered on an out-breath. ‘You sound like Kendra. Someone who was confident that I would be leaving Mountbatten Global before my name has been changed on my driving licence.’
‘God! Aren’t you?!’ Heidi exclaimed, almost coughing out a beetroot chip. ‘I thought you had interviews lined up.’
‘I did,’ Beth replied. ‘I didn’t get any of the jobs.’
‘So you’ve given up?’ Heidi doffed her friend on the shoulder. ‘You can’t bear to leave me, can you?’ Heidi said. ‘Well, I want you to know that I will still come to your house with crappy movies and air-fried snacks. Anyway, you hate the job.’
‘I don’t hate the job.’ Did she? Did she hate what she did? Looking after investments and helping people with too much money make the most out of it. Yes, maybe it wasn’t raising funds for the Samaritans or helping to rescue a Thai boys’ football team from a cave, but it was a job… and a job that had paid her when she had needed it most.
‘And it’s not like you need the money,’ Heidi stated, grabbing another crisp. ‘I mean, you made sure of that when you signed the pre-nup, right?’
Beth smiled at her friend, wanting not to answer. She hadn’t been stupid going into her marriage. She had just seen no reason to sign up to anything. What was Charles’s was Charles’s. And she had nothing he could claim. Anyway, it was unromantic to make a marital union about paperwork and their marriage did need to be in some way romantic. Because, as much as Beth had wanted it to be, as much as she had told herself that it would be given time, it had been more about safety and security… and her mum.
‘Beth!’ Heidi exclaimed. ‘Please tell me you didn’t just let him walk away with everything.’
‘Not everything,’ Beth said quickly. ‘I keep the house he bought for my mum. You know, where I’m living now.’ It was perfectly comfortable. Who needed three bathrooms, a walk-in closet and lights that turned on by themselves anyway? Especially now, when the whole house was apparently filled with Kendra’s footwear…
