by Mandy Baggot
‘I know,’ Beth said, sighing. ‘But for all his faults, he was there for me when I needed him the most.’
And he hadn’t been. He hadn’t pursued her like he hadn’t pursued a career with music. He had let her go. She had gone and not looked back. And here they both were. Both equally struggling with how their lives had turned out and fighting to rise from the ashes.
‘But I need him to really see, firsthand, that he doesn’t really want me back. He only wants what he thinks he can make our relationship in to… what he’s always thought he can make me in to. And I’m not willing to compromise any more.’ She took a breath. ‘Charles isn’t going to be in my future, Lex. Trust me.’
‘I do trust you,’ Alex told her. ‘I’ve always trusted you.’ He drew her towards him until their foreheads were touching together. He whispered, ‘I hated leaving you last night. I wanted to hold you in my arms for the longest time.’ He drew her into his embrace, relishing the way she fitted into his arms like they had really never been apart.
‘Me too,’ Beth whispered back.
‘But you have a lot of new beginnings to start.’ He took a deep breath, knowing exactly what he had to do for her now. He looked deep into her eyes, wanting his words to be accepted into her heart. ‘Let us leave what is between us fluid for now. Like the ocean.’
‘What do you mean?’ Beth asked him, looking back at him.
‘I will not make promises I cannot keep, you remember?’ Alex said.
‘I remember,’ Beth answered.
‘But I will promise that I am here for you, Beth. Whenever you need me. Whatever you need. Always.’
It was something he should have said to her long ago. Before life rolled onwards gathering its own momentum.
She kissed his lips then and his whole body felt her touch. Then she stepped back. ‘I’ll be at The Vault on Saturday. I’m going to be there to listen to you, to watch you wow everyone there, to dance like I’ve never danced before, to say “that DJ, Alex Hallas, he’s my…”’ She seemed to stop herself from ending the sentence until… ‘He’s everything.’
Alex swallowed, his eyes brimming with tears. Somehow this felt as much like goodbye as their parting ten years before.
‘See you Saturday,’ Beth said, turning to the door.
‘See you,’ Alex replied sadly.
Forty
Agni
‘I will not be impressed. I will not be impressed. I will not be impressed.’
Heidi had said the same sentence three times every twenty minutes or so since they had arrived at this very impressive villa overlooking the beautiful, tiny bay of Agni. It seemed the height-of-the-season accommodation drought only applied to those with limited means. Made from sandstone, it was obviously a new-build, but it was absolutely packed full of nearly authentic Greek charm. Bare stone walls, treacle-coloured beams and white walls led through to large bi-fold doors, decked areas and the infinity pool they were laying round. And the pool overlooked the most breathtaking view – a rippling aquamarine sea, the craggy mountains of Albania across the breadth of water and the knots of green shrubs atop Corfu’s own hillside, the house was nestled in like a block of amber-coloured Turkish delight dusted with age-old icing sugar.
‘It is impressive,’ Beth said, looking up from the notepad she was drawing in. ‘It’s Charles. Of course, it’s impressive.’
‘I have to say, when I nipped to the Island on the Beach hut to grab a cold drink, I didn’t think I’d come back to find you packing our stuff to shack up with your ex.’
‘For a few days,’ Beth reminded her. ‘Until the ceilings are repaired.’
‘You’re remarkably calm about all this.’
Beth shrugged. ‘Like I told Alex, I think I knew Charles wasn’t going to give up… yet. But he will. This time he’ll have to.’
‘What did Alex have to say about it all?’
‘Alex has a lot going on in his life,’ Beth said. ‘He’s trying to get a kumquat business off the ground, he needs to practise for his set on Saturday night and, from what little he’s told me, his mother doesn’t want him to do anything but become a manager of a garage.’
‘Kumquat business off the ground?’ Heidi queried. ‘But I thought…’
‘It’s a long story but let’s simply say he thought he needed to be more than he was to impress me.’ Why did men in her life always think that? Did she go round exuding this need for luxury? It really couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone liked nice things, but family and love and friendship had always meant more to her than a… magnetic floating bed or saffron she didn’t know how to cook with.
‘So, there’s no future with the DJ?’ Heidi asked softly.
Beth turned on her side, looking at her friend in her little red bikini that showed off her hard-worked-for, lithe body. ‘There will always, always be a piece of me reserved for Alex. I’ve been in denial about that for… forever. But we love differently, don’t we?’ She took a long, slow breath. ‘With some love affairs the feelings just last somehow, while others – even those that commit to marriage – end up being nothing but superficial. I think it’s about how deeply you love at the time and the strength of that feeling decides what stays in your heart.’ Beth sighed. ‘But what any of that means for after this holiday I have no idea… and maybe that’s a good thing. New starts and everything.’
‘Don’t let Charles coming here change your mind about anything we’ve been talking about while we’ve been here,’ Heidi ordered. ‘Just so you know I’m quite happy hanging out here for the afternoon because it’s glorious and he’s locked up inside doing deals in the air-conned office before his Scandiness melts into a puddle of sweat on the floor. But I do not want to spend tonight with him, eating dinner like nothing has gone before, like I’m OK with this whole scenario, because I’m not.’ Heidi reached out a hand to her. ‘He may still be my boss, but we are here because we had nowhere else and because I think you’re on a mission to flush him out of your life for good. And doing that in these surroundings is OK-ish.’ She sniffed. ‘I will not be impressed. I will not be impressed. I will not be impressed.’
‘No, I agree,’ Beth said. ‘I looked Agni up. Down from here there’s a lovely little cove with tavernas right on the beach. It’s a short walk. Let’s eat there.’
Heidi looked up from her phone. ‘And there’s no texts from Elektra so…’
‘No texting her,’ Beth ordered. ‘We agreed, slow and subtle, and she did say she would ring you after our lunch in Acharavi.’
‘I know,’ Heidi replied. ‘Grrr. I hate waiting.’ She made a grab for Beth’s notebook. ‘What you writing? Ways to poison your ex-husband and get away with it? Ooo, what’s this? You’re drawing jewellery ideas.’
Beth nodded, getting up and moving to sit on the side of Heidi’s lounger. ‘I found so many great pieces on the beach Alex took me to, and being here is really inspiring me to get creative again. And it’s so much easier here, to lie in the sunshine and think about things you want to do rather than things you don’t.’
‘James Graves and his need for ethical aloe vera companies,’ Heidi said with a grimace.
‘Exactly,’ Beth responded.
‘This is really good, Beth,’ Heidi stated, her fingers following the lines Beth had drawn on the page. It was a slim chain, on the end of which was a dolphin, sleek and shiny – or at least she hoped it would be once it was glass. She could envisage it as either one piece of greeny-blue or perhaps made up of smaller pieces on top like a mosaic of colour.
‘Everything starts with an idea,’ Beth said, sighing.
‘Yes, it does,’ Heidi agreed.
‘Right!’ It was Charles’s voice and both women turned to see the head of Mountbatten Global strutting towards them across the marbled stone patio, now wearing cream-coloured shorts that stopped half an inch above the knee and a short-sleeved blue and white seersucker shirt. He was still wearing his leather brogues though, with socks. ‘I have signed off for the
day, so I am all yours.’
‘Fuck,’ Heidi said to Beth. ‘Think of something we can do that he won’t like doing with us. Quick.’
Beth stood up and faced Charles. ‘Actually, Charles, we were going to go on a hike.’
Heidi let out a noise of despair she was now having to conceal with the corner of her beach towel stuffed into her mouth.
‘A hike,’ Charles said, buoyant voice now as flat as week-old open lemonade.
‘Yes,’ Beth continued. ‘We went to some caves when we first arrived here. It was quite craggy and mainly rocks, not a proper pathway, but imagining all those ancient feet treading where we were stepping, it made me feel really in tune with the Earth.’
Heidi whimpered and Beth crushed her toe a little with her bare feet.
‘And I thought being in tune with the Earth was more your thing, Heidi,’ Charles said with a smile.
‘Well,’ Beth continued before her friend could comment. ‘We’ve discovered quite a lot of new things about each other during this holiday. I went parasailing and rode a quadbike and we trekked through olive groves and galloped over fields on horses yesterday.’
‘You never liked watching polo with me,’ Charles said.
‘Polo isn’t being at one with a horse and taking in the beauty of this Greek island with nothing but nature all round you,’ Heidi joined in, standing up from her lounger. ‘Polo’s a bunch of testosterone-fuelled men in tight jodhpurs waving mallets in the air and thundering round a pitch pissed and pretending to be posh.’ She stopped, realising what she’d said. ‘Don’t fire me.’
Charles let out a laugh that seemed to emanate deep from within his tall, lean frame. ‘Oh, Heidi, you do make me laugh. Always so gung-ho but equally still worried about what people think of you.’
Heidi screwed up her face, seemingly lost for words.
‘There’s a trail that starts a few metres away and heads up high onto the mountain.’ Beth looked down at Charles’s leather work-shoes and socks. ‘I’m not sure you have the right footwear for it.’
‘And it is very, very hot,’ Heidi said, fanning her face with Beth’s notebook.
‘Exceedingly hot,’ Beth added. ‘We will have to take a good few litres of water with us.’
‘I see what you are trying to do here,’ Charles said, putting a finger to his chin.
‘I’m not trying to do anything,’ Beth insisted. ‘It’s only that Heidi and I have been here a while already and are acclimatised a little to the heat and you’re—’
‘Nordic,’ Heidi butted in. ‘Pale and adverse to the sunlight like… a…’
‘Vampire?’ Charles suggested for her, raising one eyebrow.
‘I was not going to say that,’ Heidi insisted.
‘It’s quite taxing,’ Beth picked up. ‘Walking up mountains, in the July heat, when you’re not used to it.’
‘I can imagine,’ Charles replied. ‘But I did not come here to stay in my comfort zone.’
‘You didn’t?’ Beth said, warily.
‘If I wanted to stay in my comfort zone, I would have let our divorce be the end and not think of it as a juncture towards something new.’
‘Er, and how about the fact you’re living with Kendra now?’ Heidi chimed. She swallowed. ‘Speaking my mind on holiday can’t be a sackable offence, right?’
‘Charles…’ Beth ignored his comment about their relationship. ‘I’m not sure hiking is for you. Remember the time you signed up for the Three Peaks challenge and had so many nightmares about it you had to pull out.’
‘I told you,’ Charles said, looking disgruntled. ‘I found out I have short hamstrings.’
‘You know they can get longer if you exercise and eat turmeric,’ Heidi informed.
‘Really?’ Charles asked.
Heidi nodded. ‘But not quickly… I mean… you couldn’t just eat some now and be cured before we hike up the mountain.’
‘So, it’s probably best you stay here,’ Beth told him. ‘Relax and get over your jetlag.’
‘It was only a three-hour flight and I came with BA,’ Charles replied. ‘Business class.’
‘But travelling is very tiring no matter how long it actually takes you,’ Beth assured him. ‘It’s always more a case of what it takes out of you, I find. Even business-class passengers.’
‘Yes,’ Heidi said, slipping on her pink sliders and picking up her beach bag. ‘It gave me a dreadful headache when I first got here when I tried to do too much. I think I read it was something to do with getting used to the Greek air.’
‘Well, I do have to get used to it,’ Charles said. ‘I’m here for as long as it takes.’ He smiled. ‘I will go and find some more appropriate shoes.’
Beth smiled but the rest of her body wasn’t feeling optimistic about the rest of the afternoon now. Perhaps this tack was the wrong one. Maybe she had envisaged Charles weaker and fickler than he was. Could she manage him like she had never managed him before? She took a deep breath. Of course she could. Here on new soil, with her new outlook on life. She was more prepared than ever…
‘Fuck!’ Heidi said as soon as Charles was out of earshot and pacing towards the house. ‘We can’t get rid of him! Since when was he such a joiner? I think we could have told him we were going to… start a revolt against… brogue manufacturers or… Yodel or… whoever brings him the expensive, useless shite from across the globe, and he still would have been on board.’
‘It’s OK,’ Beth said calmly.
‘How did we get here?’ Heidi asked. ‘Our girlie holiday being usurped by your ex-husband. OK, he’s given us a temporary roof over our head and it’s wall-to-infinity-pool luxury but that doesn’t mean he gets to run everything like he does at home. I’m not at work. You’ve resigned…’
‘He isn’t going to survive the hike,’ Beth assured her. ‘And he isn’t in control. He just thinks he is. And that’s the best way to handle Charles.’
Heidi looked completely horrified, bag straps falling off her shoulder as they walked towards the villa. ‘You don’t mean we’re actually going to do the hike?! I thought it was all pretend and once he’d cried off, we were going to head down the hill to the taverna and order a carafe of wine and swim with the fish.’
Beth smiled. ‘Oh, Heidi, for all your well-being talk you’d really rather just be laying down, topping up your skin with vitamin D while listening to Sigrid, wouldn’t you?’
‘Everyone knows that light exercise, like swimming, is much better for you all round.’
‘I give Charles half an hour of walking before he needs to head to shade or take a phone call,’ Beth said. ‘Come on. It’s beautiful here. Let’s go and see some of it.’
Forty-One
Alex and Margalo Hallas’s home, Almyros
‘Taste this! Taste it!’
Elektra was bouncing up and down like she had springs for legs, pushing a rectangle of grains towards Alex’s mouth as they convened in the kumquat bunker.
‘OK, OK,’ Alex said. ‘I get that you are excited about this.’
‘It’s done,’ Elektra said, eyes wide under her glasses, face glowing with pleasure. ‘It’s perfect. I have made twenty just like this. I know we need more, and I can do it if I borrow my mother’s oven, until we get our unit with all the equipment…’
‘That will only come with a large investment,’ Alex reminded. ‘We are not there yet.’ And he still had not thought past this one chance with Sophia’s hotel. Because his focus was split more than ever right now.
‘Taste it! Taste it!’ Elektra ordered. ‘If any of Henri’s products are as good as this I will… shave off my hair.’
‘Really?’ Alex exclaimed, taking the health bar from her. ‘That is confidence.’
He looked at what he was holding. It was predominately brown in colour with a tinge of orange that belied what was at the core of its ingredients. It was sticky, but not so much it was difficult to hold or that it shed its gooey goodness over your fingers. He lifted it to his nose first
– scent was as important as taste. Every aesthetic would be scrutinised heavily by potential investors. It had to combine perfect looks, texture, scent and taste and be on a par, if not better than anything on the market already. The bar smelled sweet but not overpowering or sickly, the light fragrance of the kumquats the overriding factor…
‘It smells so good, right?’ Elektra said proudly.
‘It smells good,’ Alex admitted. But what about the taste? If this wasn’t right, if it wasn’t good enough, yes, Elektra could try again, spend more hours perfecting but he could feel, all round, he was running out of time.
He put the bar to his lips, letting the grains hit there. Not too hard. Not too soft. This was really, really promising. He bit into the bar and let the flavour coat his taste buds. He closed his eyes, trying to let nothing else distract him. He chewed, then as different flavours exploded onto his tongue, he found his eyes opening and he looked directly at his cousin.
‘My God, Elektra. This is…’ He almost didn’t have the words and emotion was rocketing through him like a crazy tourist on a jet ski.
‘It is amazing, isn’t it? It’s amazing!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘I am amazing! I am amazing!’ She began dancing round their dusty cave, popping and locking and performing all the dirty isolations worthy of a Magic Mike show.
‘You are amazing,’ Alex told her, finishing his mouthful and passing the other half of the bar to her.
‘I almost want to take one to Henri,’ Elektra began. ‘To show her what I can do…’
‘Elektra, you cannot,’ Alex said. ‘We need this to stay quiet. We need the hotel to take the first batch, for money and for market research, then, when it is a success, we look for real investment to upscale everything. You know the plan.’
‘I know,’ Elektra said with a slightly irritated sigh. ‘I just feel like celebrating, that is all.’
He did too, in some ways, but in other ways there was little to break out the retsina for. He had a set to practise for his slot at The Vault, his mother still wasn’t talking to him, Toula was avoiding saying any more about his father and Beth was currently in Agni with her ex-husband…
