by Mandy Baggot
Margalo was probably wondering what he was making for lunch. He took one last look at the dancefloor below him then made for the stairs and his way out.
Sixteen
B.E.D Bar, Sidari Beach
Forestry or renewable energy. They were the most profitable, ethically sound investments Beth was certain about. She was up to speed on what was hot or definitely not in investments, but she had a quick search anyway. Other than the aforementioned, it was simply the more out-there waste management, or something to do with free-range pork. She couldn’t see James Graves talking about pigs or refuse at one of his dinner parties. She clicked back onto Charles’s text message.
How is Greece? Is it all kebabs and houmous?
‘What are you doing?’ Heidi asked, lowering her sunglasses on the deluxe padded loungers they were resting on under the scorching sun. Heidi had insisted on coming to Sidari for a rest after the caves and had threatened to drive the entire island one-handed if Beth didn’t agree. It was busy here, lots of prostrate people going gently pink, sipping cocktails and having the odd row about the whereabouts of things – sun cream, armbands, earphones, pills for thrush. But it was very much ‘holiday’, the waves lapping the shoreline, the gentle Greek burr from the attentive waiters, someone’s iPhone playing Dua Lipa.
‘I’m browsing,’ Beth said immediately. ‘You know, catching up on… Instagram and stuff.’
‘What photo are you posting?’
‘Well, I haven’t taken one yet. I was just looking at what everyone else was posting.’
‘Are you emailing Tilly because I didn’t answer her calls?’
Beth shook her head. ‘No.’ That guess was a little close to home. And she had planned to call Tilly… when Heidi was asleep.
‘Did you get the hot DJ’s phone number and you’re sexting?’ Heidi asked, sitting up a little on her lounger. ‘Please say it’s that one because you really, really need to get laid.’
‘I thought you were the one whose lady parts are being sold for transplant.’
‘I’ve not quite given up hope yet,’ Heidi admitted. ‘So, what’s the deal?’
‘Deal?’
‘You’re on your phone instead of reading your Kindle.’
She should tell Heidi about Charles’s text… because it meant nothing. He was a business owner checking in about a client. The stuff about houmous and kebabs was a softener… although ordinarily you put the softener before you asked the tricky question. She had learnt that a long time ago. When it came to work and to Charles.
‘I… didn’t know which book to read. I started a thriller but now I’m here, in the sun, I’m thinking rom com.’
‘So, you are sexting Alex,’ Heidi said, eyes wide.
‘No!’
‘Why not? He’s still so hot. Actually, I’d say hotter.’
And he still had the little owl she’d made him. She swallowed. Beth Martin, the jewellery maker… Where had she gone? All spirited and determined and raw. It was almost like that part of her had been buried along with her mum. That was a really horribly sad thought…
‘Charles texted me,’ Beth blurted out.
‘What the fuck!’ Heidi exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and receiving a look of interest from two women on loungers a little to their left. ‘You’re kidding.’
Beth shook her head. ‘It was work. He asked me about investments for James Graves.’
‘Via text.’
‘Yes.’
‘When he knows you’re on holiday.’
‘Well…’
‘What else did he say? “Can you pop back and do my ironing?”’
‘I never did his ironing. Everything was pressed at the dry cleaners.’ Because he thought she couldn’t do it right. He hadn’t actually said that, but it had been implied, subtly, subliminally even. Had she ever admitted that to herself before?
‘Let me see it,’ Heidi ordered, hand out.
‘What for?’ Beth asked. ‘I’m just going to text him back and make a suggestion. For James Graves’s sake, no one else’s.’
‘Like fuck you are. Give the phone to me.’
‘Heidi…’
‘Give the phone to me. If he’s used any fucking emojis or smiley faces or anything remotely “now”, you can guarantee Tilly sent it, not him.’
Why hadn’t Beth thought of that? It stood to reason that that’s what it was… or maybe even Kendra. Perhaps this was absolutely nothing but his new girlfriend testing Charles and putting out feelers to see how or if Beth would respond. And to think she had spent the last hour or so looking at how to make roads out of recycled plastic bottles. But there weren’t any emojis. Just plain text. But proper, full grammar, no slang or numbers thrown in. How did Kendra text? Beth had always imagined she did everything like Kylie Jenner. She could check her Instagram…
Heidi had leaned over and swiped her phone from her hand before she could do anything about it. Beth watched her friend reading the short message as if it were the complete works of Shakespeare – Charles had that, first editions obviously and he’d gone to extraordinary lengths at the auction when someone tried to outbid him. When another minute ticked by Beth couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Do you think it might be Kendra?’
‘I can tell you it’s not Tilly. Even with autocorrect she wouldn’t get “houmous” right. But there are several variations of that word, aren’t there? Depending on whether you’re Moroccan or Turkish or… buying it in Tesco and not really caring as long as it goes nicely with carrot sticks.’ Heidi looked up from the screen. ‘Why would it be Kendra?’
Beth shrugged, feeling a bit stupid she had said that thought out loud. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just get the feeling she could be—’
‘A fucking psycho?’
‘I was going to say—’
‘Little Miss Paranoid?’
‘Well—’
‘You could be right,’ Heidi said, sucking in a breath that made her bikini top ride up slightly. ‘For God’s sake, why does this keep moving?’ She tucked her fingers under the band and pulled it down. ‘I mean you said she freaked out a bit when you told her you weren’t leaving Mountbatten Global. Maybe this is her testing the water.’
Beth sighed, both relieved and frustrated. ‘So, I don’t reply? At all?’
‘Well, we don’t completely know it’s her. We definitely know it isn’t Tilly. And we absolutely know it isn’t Charles so…’
‘Do you really think it isn’t Charles?’ Beth asked, picking up her cocktail glass and taking a swift sip.
‘Do you think it’s Charles?’ Heidi replied, now gazing at Beth as if she were a therapist trying to get to the root of her soul. ‘Because you know him better than anyone in a personal capacity. How did he text when he used to text?’
Charles hadn’t ever texted that much, even when they started dating. He had generally phoned or emailed or just dropped into her office. A couple of times he had bought her pencil-sketched cards with real ribbons or Nordic buttons stuck to them…
‘Or would I be better asking, do you want it to be Charles?’
Beth put her glass back down on the table and got up off the sun lounger, soles hitting warm sand. ‘Let’s go and paddle.’
‘How old am I? Seven?’
‘The water is so lovely, come on.’ Beth tugged at Heidi’s hand. ‘You didn’t hesitate in 2009.’
‘I was never only half a cocktail down at this time of day in 2009… Christ!’ Heidi suddenly exclaimed as Beth pulled her into a sitting position.
‘What?’ Beth asked. ‘Because I can almost guarantee there are no snakes on the beach.’
‘Look. At. Her.’
Heidi had said the three words so slowly and deliberately that Beth was now scanning her friend’s line of vision to see what had caused the change in vocal tempo. There was a line of near-bathers enjoying the heat but cooling off their toes in the water.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Heidi breathed.
‘The redhead
?’ Beth asked.
‘No!’
‘The blonde one with the blue scarf thing on her head?’
‘No! God, Beth, don’t you remember my type?’
‘I thought it was anyone who watched Wentworth Prison but who didn’t actually look like anyone in it.’
‘The dark-haired goddess. There,’ Heidi said, ‘pointing’ with the angle of her head.
Beth looked again to the edge of the sea, and noticed a lithe olive-skinned woman was stretching her arms up to the sky, a bouncing curly mane of hair dipping low down her back. She couldn’t deny, even from a non-lesbian perspective, that the woman had the perfect mix of lean and curvaceous, strong and soft, displayed round a sporty hot-tangerine bikini. She was as glorious facially, with dark eyes and full lips.
‘Is she real?’ Heidi asked. ‘You are seeing her too, aren’t you?’
Beth nodded. ‘I’m seeing her. She’s gorgeous.’
‘Hands off, I saw her first,’ Heidi announced like she was that seven-year-old aching to go paddling. ‘Don’t you go trying a sexuality crisis just because you’re in relationship limbo. That’s not fair.’
‘I didn’t realise I was in relationship limbo,’ Beth responded. ‘Isn’t “single” enough these days?’
‘I don’t know what to do?’ Heidi said. ‘My heart hasn’t raced this much since Season Ten of Will and Grace.’
‘She’s going into the water,’ Beth said. ‘Look.’
Heidi took a deep breath. ‘I can’t let my hair get wet. I mean, her hair looks amazing… I bet it looks amazing wet but mine… it goes all bitty and ends up all over my face like a Highland cow.’ Heidi looked at Beth, all seriousness. ‘Help me, play wing girl. Make sure I don’t say anything that’s all stupid and unintelligent or needy… and don’t let me mention my boring job. In fact, let’s make up a new career, something exotic or organic…’ Heidi’s eyes widened as if the best idea had dropped divinely into her brain. ‘Kumquats! I’ll tell her I’m making face creams… and a juice… and a health bar.’
‘You mean pretend you’re Alex?’
‘It sounds so much more exciting than investment management though, doesn’t it?’
‘It sounds like lying,’ Beth told her.
‘2009,’ Heidi said, closing her eyes and inhaling, bikini top riding up again. ‘We told our fair share of fibs back then.’
‘When we knew we weren’t looking for soulmates!’ Beth declared. ‘I thought you were looking for Miss Happy-Ever-After this time.’
‘God!’ Heidi exclaimed, waving a dismissive hand then using her fingers to tweak at her hair. ‘At this stage I’d just be happy if she breathed on me. Come on!’
Seventeen
Alex and Margalo Hallas’s home, Almyros
Alex had picked up his next vehicle, driven it to the office then headed home. Now he was sitting outside, on the stone terrace that faced their field of goats and sheep, forking around with the salad he had prepared, still trying to fight both the fear and disappointment over his visit to The Vault. He wanted this so much, but how could he take it when he had freaked out just by being near the controls.
Margalo came out from the house, a jug of water in her hands. A second in the humidity and she was growling a cough like she was a large huskie with asthma.
‘Mama, it’s hot out here,’ Alex began, standing up and taking the heavy container from her. ‘You should stay indoors.’
‘The dark is not good for me,’ she answered gruffly, when she had recovered enough air to speak.
‘Where is your headscarf?’ Alex asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Who cares? It cannot save my life.’
‘Please sit in the shade.’
‘The dark? That, I have just told you, is not good for me.’
He didn’t know why he was trying. He could never win. ‘You would like some bread?’ He indicated the fresh loaf, still warm, on the wooden plinth on the table.
‘A little,’ Margalo said, picking up her cutlery and looking into her salad bowl.
Alex began to cut the bread.
‘I said a little,’ Margalo exclaimed. ‘Not something that would barely keep a cicada alive.’
Alex put down the knife and instead pushed his plate with a thick slice of bread on it across the table towards her. ‘Here, have mine.’
‘That is too much.’
‘Mama!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘Can I do no right for you?!’
Margalo frowned, studying him with narrowed eyes, a stare that always made him a little uncomfortable. ‘What is wrong with you these past days? Is it Toula? Because I have heard many things about her wanting a boy for a toy… or something like this. Perhaps she has her sights set on you.’
Was this really a conversation they were going to have? Or was this an unusual opening to allow him to get to the crux of the issue he really had. His need for something more than this. It was either talk about his future, their future, or he tackled the subject of the past and his father…
‘I am tired, Mama,’ Alex admitted finally.
‘You are tired?’ She tutted. ‘Try being the wrong side of sixty when everything you own either aches or needs money spent on it. Wait until you get to my age, Aleko, then you will really have something to complain about.’
‘If I get to your age,’ Alex answered, spearing a cube of feta cheese.
‘What is that supposed to mean? Are you sick? Is that what this mood is? You have been to the hospital and had a terrible diagnosis?’ For a moment she sounded genuinely concerned. Should he say ‘yes’? Was making up a life-limiting disease the only way he had a chance of breaking out of this routine? He didn’t want to lie to her but holding everything in was killing him as much as the fear of letting it all out.
‘No,’ Alex replied. ‘But, Mama… I feel… if I do not do something else soon, I will go mad.’
‘I see,’ Margalo said, sitting up a little in her chair.
‘You do?’
‘You are having the mid-life crisis. Like your father.’
‘Mama, I am not in the middle of my life.’
‘You said “if you get to my age”. You are thirty. I am sixty-five. You are there, we do not have to be precise.’
‘Mama, this is nothing like my father.’
‘How do you know? He left us only a year after you were born.’
‘People still talk about him,’ Alex admitted. And his mother had been the one to bring him up in this conversation. This was highly unusual. Maybe it was his chance to ask all the questions he had. Why had his father left? Where was he? Was he even still alive?
‘Oh, they do, do they?’ Margalo sniffed as if annoyed. ‘Let me guess, it is all, “Spiros, he was so funny and entertaining and wise. The perfect conversationalist.” They always seem to forget that this “perfect” man was a man who left his wife and his son as soon as he found a job that involved his kind of people.’ Margalo tutted again. ‘Nightclubs with their flashing lights and their loud, ugly noise and all those people sucking poppers or Pink Supermans. It is disgusting!’
‘Not everyone who goes to nightclubs is like that,’ Alex tried to defend. Although he didn’t want to stick up for a father who had been so absent, was still absent. He took a breath. ‘I need to have something more than the animals here and the car hire job,’ Alex told her.
‘You have the work for the holiday rental company. The maintenance… and have I not made suggestions for talking to your Uncle Fotis? Have you even read the mechanic books I bought you?’
Not this again. His mother really didn’t understand.
‘I need something for me,’ Alex said, half-wistful, half-desperate.
‘There is a girl!’ Margalo hissed out the words like she was claiming him to be a serial killer.
‘What?’ Alex reacted.
‘This mood and behaviour! It is because there is a girl! I do not know why I did not spot this before.’ She picked up her fork, gripping it like it was a weapon.
Now he was angry. He could feel his heart pulse in his neck. ‘Mama, I do not have time to even find a girl!’
‘That is what your father would say when I make the same accusation. You men are all alike. Looking for things you should not want.’
Alex stood up, rage washing over him in unstoppable waves. He needed to leave, because he was in danger of shouting things at his mother he might not easily be able to take back.
‘I cannot listen to this,’ he stated as calmly as he could manage.
‘Is she a girl from one of those clubs in Sidari? Or… no…’ Margalo’s expression was now one someone might adopt if they were asked to put their hand into a mystery box and had discovered it was dog poo. ‘Not… Kavos.’
‘Mama, Kavos is not hell.’
‘No, it is worse than that. I do not think in hell they have go-kart tracks.’
‘Mama, stop!’ Alex ordered. ‘I can’t do this any more!’
He hadn’t realised quite how loud he had shouted until the goats and sheep silenced. There was not a baa or a bleat to be heard, not even the faint munching on grass. Margalo was looking at him, jawline set to stubborn, but there was a tinge of reticence in her eyes.
‘I am… going out… now,’ Alex said, his voice not sounding quite as powerful as he’d liked it to. ‘And I will not be back to make dinner.’ He picked up his phone and slipping it into the pocket of his trousers, he backed away from the table.
‘What do you mean you are going out? You cannot just decide to go out, Aleko. You have a job and… the animals and… me, you have me!’ Margalo stood now, waving the fork in her hand.
As he moved across their land towards his car, he wanted to call to her, to say that, of course, he would be back later that night. But he knew, if he said anything now to gloss over this stand, she would never take him seriously again. So instead he kept moving and recalled an earlier part of their conversation. Poppers and Pink Supermans. How did his mother seem to know all about drugs?
