Under a Greek Moon

by Carol Kirkwood

  Suddenly, Shauna’s heart skipped a beat as she caught sight of a face she’d hoped never to see again, one that dredged up unwelcome feelings and took her back to a time and a place she’d tried hard to forget. She was older than the last time Shauna had set eyes on her, but there was no question it was Sofía Constantis; she still had that imperious feline air that had led Chantelle to call her ‘the tigress’. Shauna took a sidestep and dropped discreetly behind a pillar to watch as Sofía airily surveyed the room, ignoring the short fat bald man who seemed intent on talking to her. And before the thought was even in her head – that Demetrios might also be in the room – a man appeared at Sofía’s side. Though she only glimpsed his face for a moment before he turned away again, Shauna recognized Demetrios. He still had the same confident bearing, his tanned face was as handsome as ever, his hair now sporting a few annoyingly attractive grey hairs.

  Much as she would have liked to stay in her hiding place to drink in the sight of him, she was afraid if she did she would be unable to resist the magnetic pull he apparently still had over her. Don’t be ridiculous she told herself, it’s just the element of surprise that’s thrown you. When Roxy had gleefully reported that the European tabloids were all claiming the marriage was on the rocks, Shauna had told her she wasn’t the least bit interested. At the time, she’d meant it, yet here she was, unable to take her eyes off him. What was it about Demetrios that always brought out the idiot in her?

  Before she could examine the thought further, Dan appeared at her side.

  ‘Why are you hiding? I thought the whole point of coming here was to be seen.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Here we go, they’re ushering everyone in now.’

  She took Dan’s arm, put on her best smile, and together they crossed the room. If Shauna had allowed herself to glance in their direction – which she didn’t – she would have seen Sofía regard her with stony features and Demetrius knit his brow as they swept past, a questioning and confused look flitting across his face before she disappeared up the red-carpeted staircase.

  Chapter 18

  Demetrios Theodosis looked out over the Hudson River from his office at the top of Manhattan’s Rockefeller Centre. He’d taken the decision to move the company headquarters from Athens to New York four years ago, when his daughter left Greece to attend a boarding school in England. With her gone, he had no reason to stay and every reason to escape. Had Lukas Constantis still been president of the company, he would have vetoed the move, if only for the reason that Demetrios had suggested it. But after Lukas’s death in 1996, Demitrios had finally taken control of Hellenic Ventures – the company formed by the merger of the Theodosis and Constantis family holdings.

  ‘United for posterity!’ Lukas had announced triumphantly, toasting the bride and groom at the wedding which sealed the merger. But there had never been any unity between them, Demetrios thought ruefully as he looked down at the papers in front of him: the Decree Absolute that would put an end to the charade.

  So far, they had manged to keep the divorce out of the tabloids, but Demetrius had long stopped caring what anyone thought about his marriage. He and Sofía had never been suited; they’d argued constantly from the start. She had never understood the nature of the business or the demands on his time, and he … well, he had never loved her. He had hoped that it would come in time, but on that he was mistaken. Their differences only became more exaggerated as the years ticked by. For the sake of the family, they had kept up the pretence and stayed married, though both of them had conducted a series of affairs, discreetly and otherwise – a fortune had been spent on bribes and court injunctions to keep the ensuing scandals out of the newspapers and the long lenses of the paparazzi at bay. Demetrios wouldn’t have bothered suppressing the stories if it weren’t for the fact Ariana’s heart would have been heart-broken if she’d found out how much her parents despised each other.

  He picked up the gold-framed photograph of his daughter that sat on his desk. Ariana was sixteen now. Already she was starting to think about which university she wanted to go to. Demetrios would have liked her to follow in his footsteps and study at Harvard, while her mother wanted her to go to Oxford or Cambridge. He knew that Sofía would be doing everything in her power to make sure Ariana stayed in England, but he wasn’t about to intervene. His greatest wish was that his only child should have the freedom to make her own choices in life.

  He took out his Waterman pen, hesitating only briefly before signing with a flourish. Their lawyers had spent months negotiating the settlement. Sofía had never been interested in the business and, while they couldn’t bear the sight of each other, they both had Ariana’s best interests at heart. That meant safeguarding the legacy that would be handed down to her: the family business, Hellenic Ventures. They’d therefore agreed that the divorce should be as quick and painless as possible. Sofía could now move on to the next stage of her life, probably marry a hedge-fund manager and relocate permanently to London, where she spent most of her time shopping in Bond Street or Harrods.

  As for him … Demetrios stood and took his coffee cup to the window. He had loved New York when he was a young man, but now he longed for the uncomplicated life he’d known on Ithos. New York, well, it was the perfect place for a hungry young man, but what was he hungry for now that he was older … and lonelier?

  He chided himself, When did you start falling victim to pity, old man?

  Returning to his desk, he placed the papers in his out-tray. He would ask his secretary to courier them over to his lawyer that afternoon. His eyes shifted to the copy of Empire magazine he’d purchased from a newsstand the day before.

  On the cover was a picture of the actress Shauna Jackson, her green eyes looking out coolly at him, her blonde highlighted hair hinting at a redness underneath.

  He stared at the picture for a few moments, scrutinizing every detail of the beautiful face underneath the headline:

  Shauna Jackson, Ireland’s Greatest Export – we join her on the set of her new movie

  Demetrios folded his hands and rested his chin on them. How could he have been oblivious all these years? While it was true the only time he had for watching movies was on transatlantic flights, and even then he was liable to be distracted by paperwork or catching up on his sleep, he must have been walking around with blinkers on to have missed her.

  Or could it be that he was mistaken? He looked again at the picture. No, it was definitely her. He’d been certain of it from the moment he almost caught her eye in Cannes last month. That had been the last time he and Sofía had gone anywhere together, and he’d only agreed to it because Ariana had seen the invitation sent to him by a new production company looking for investors and had pleaded to be allowed to attend. After the actress had passed them by, presumably with her husband, he had asked Ariana who she was. With a roll of her eyes, she’d told him, ‘Papa, have you been living under a rock? That’s Shauna Jackson, she’s an A-lister.’

  Since then, he’d bought copies of every film and gossip magazine going, trying to find out more. All he’d learned so far was that both she and her director husband, Dan Jackson, zealously guarded their privacy; she was rarely photographed in LA and her background seemed to be a bit of a mystery. He’d tried to recall some of the detail of what his Shauna had told him about her background. He remembered it was somewhere in the west of Ireland, but where? What had it been called? He cursed himself, realizing how little he had known about the woman he had fallen in love with.

  Those cool green eyes continued to regard him impassively from the cover of the magazine. Was it really his Shauna? His face twisted in a grimace as he reminded himself that she had ceased to be his Shauna … he had let her go and it was too late to make amends or rectify the situation.

  He placed the magazine in the bin beside his desk. There was no point raking over the past after all these years.

  Frankie Martinez tucked her son Alexander into his bed. Their small bedsit in Lincoln Heights was all she could af
ford. It was only six o’clock in the evening, but the nightly symphony of wailing sirens was already seeping through the open window as the cops rounded up teenage gang members after yet another drive-by shooting. The thought of her little boy growing up in this neighbourhood filled her with dread; she’d seen what it had done to her two brothers.

  ‘Mommy has to go out now, honey.’

  ‘Please don’t go, Mama,’ he pleaded, his eyes wide and anxious as he always was when he was left alone.

  ‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

  ‘You promised before and you didn’t come back for a long time.’ His brown eyes looked at her reproachfully.

  ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.’

  Frankie hoped it was true this time. She hated having to leave her young son on his own, but there was no alternative. Since last year he’d been enrolled in a state preschool that took kids from the age of three, which had allowed her to work a seven-hour shift in the local dime store, but her minimum-wage salary wouldn’t stretch to paying for additional childcare. Sometimes the old lady down the hall would help out by having Alex for a couple of hours, but she wasn’t home right now. If Frankie didn’t get to the hospital soon, visiting hours would be over and she wouldn’t be able to see her sister.

  ‘Remember what I told you to do to get to sleep?’

  ‘I have to think of all the llamas up on the mountains and count them jumping over the wall to get to the alfalfa plants.’

  ‘That’s right, sweetie. So hold on to Alfie the Alpaca, start counting, and you’ll fall asleep in no time.’

  A large tear trickled down the boy’s face as he hugged his cuddly alpaca to him.

  ‘That’s right, sweetie, now be brave and settle down and I’ll be back soon, OK?’

  He nodded and Frankie kissed him before slipping her bomber jacket over her black T-shirt and jeans. Then she slipped out of the apartment door, making sure that it was firmly locked. She ran down the dingy hallway, passing other shabby apartments on her way. She could hear the wailing of a baby and a couple arguing in one, and the theme tune of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? blaring from another.

  The 251 bus that would take her to the general hospital was due any minute, so she raced down the street, arriving in the nick of time. She had barely a second to catch her breath before the familiar orange bus pulled up. After paying, she headed for the back, passing a homeless man fast asleep in layers of tatty clothing, and an old woman who sat muttering to herself. Once seated, Frankie tuned everything else out and stared out at the freeway, the cars whizzing past the bus as it trundled along the slow lane for the 25-minute journey to the hospital, her mind a jumble of thoughts and terrors as she thought about what lay ahead.

  Frankie’s parents had been illegal immigrants from Mexico. She had never known her father; he’d walked out soon after she was born, leaving her mother to raise four children alone in a poor district of South Los Angeles. She had struggled to make ends meet with an endless succession of cleaning jobs that took her out of the house for much of the time. Though she’d done her best to instil good values in her children, she was no match for the twin evils of street gangs and the grinding poverty that the gangs exploited to expand their membership.

  Disaster struck when her mother contracted an aggressive form of breast cancer. With no medical insurance or savings, her treatment options had been limited. She died, barely into her forties, leaving Frankie’s big sister, Isabelle, as head of the household. Though Isabelle had done her best to be sister and mother to them all, the boys were beyond saving. The younger boy was killed in a knife fight and the older was currently serving two consecutive life sentences in San Quentin jail.

  Frankie had always been the dreamer of the family. As long as she could remember, she’d wanted to be an actress, but even though the Land of the Free promised riches to those who worked hard enough, success had eluded her. Before she’d had Alex, she’d worked the casting couch as hard as she could, but it had only resulted in bit parts in bad movies. All that seemed set to change when she landed a small speaking part in a film directed by Dan Jackson. As usual she’d played the part of a prostitute – she was invariably cast as a hooker or a waitress – but though she only appeared in a few scenes, in her short leather skirt and low-cut black lace top, she’d made an impact. Or so she thought, until the acting jobs dried up and Frankie had to take a job in a bar to help her sister pay the bills. Then one night, who should walk into the bar but Dan Jackson.

  ‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Jackson,’ she’d said to him as she handed him his neat Scotch.

  ‘Do I know you?’ His English accent sounded incongruous in those surroundings, drawing attention from the lowlifes who frequented the bar. ‘You’d better watch out; you might not get out of here with your wallet if you’re not careful,’ she’d warned him, but he’d paid no heed, steadily getting drunker as the night wore on, while she warded off any sharks who singled him out as easy prey by giving them the evil eye.

  Frankie knew she turned heads with her black hair and black eyes, strawberry red lips and hourglass figure, but she was only interested in men who could give her a way out of poverty. She knew her only chance of a better life depended on putting those God-given gifts to good use.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Dan slurred, his eyes narrowing as he tried to place her through the fog of alcohol that was clouding his vision as well as his memory.

  She introduced herself and reminded him of the picture they’d worked on. ‘Oh, yes – Hooker Number One. As I recall, you made quite an impression.’

  Though wounded that he only remembered her part and not her name, she smiled.

  ‘What are you doing in a dump like this?’

  ‘I have bills to pay, and there are always a hundred more actresses with blonde hair and blue eyes and rich daddies to pay for their apartments in Bel Air. Me, I’m not so lucky. Anyway, I should be asking you the same question. What are you doing here – shouldn’t you be at home with your wife – what’s her name, Shauna Jackson?’

  ‘Ah, yes!’ Dan raised his glass. ‘Here’s to the marvellous, radiant and venerated Shauna Jackson, everybody’s darling.’

  Frankie caught the whiff of a discontented husband. She’d seen enough of them in her time.

  ‘My wife is in Ireland … and I …’ he sank his Scotch and held up his glass for a refill, ‘I am doing whatever the hell I like while she’s perfecting her craft with Richard Gere!’ He sank the next one too, his shoulders shuddering slightly as the golden liquid hit his insides. ‘Anyway, pleased to meet you – you must call me Dan.’

  ‘Hey, Dan, maybe you should slow down a little,’ she told him, but she poured him another refill anyway.

  Where there was misery there was opportunity. Frankie made it her business to please Dan Jackson; she asked him about his life, sounded knowledgeable about his work, and gently drew his attention away from his wife and on to her instead. She’d bundled him into a taxi that night, but to her satisfaction he’d returned the following night and the one after that, seeking her out. Frankie knew she was flattering his ego – the guy was two decades older than her, for God’s sake – but she liked him. He was kind, and despite his obvious unhappiness with his marriage, he didn’t badmouth his wife. He seemed interested in Frankie too, so why not encourage him?

  One night, he’d been drinking even more than usual, and when he returned from a trip to the bathroom Frankie saw telltale traces of white powder around his nose.

  ‘Something getting to you, Dan?’ she asked.

  He told her that his wife had been held up on a movie shoot in Europe and would be away longer than expected. Months longer. Frankie could tell that Dan was lonely, and she was lonely too. All the guys she’d dated were only interested in screwing her, while Dan had a gentle side to him. So she asked one of the other girls to cover her shift, promising to make it up to her, then came around to Dan’s side of the bar.

  ‘Let’s get out of here, Dan. Tonight y
ou need more than booze and cocaine.’

  She took him to a decent motel in a better part of town and made love to him. And as he spent himself inside her, she smiled, certain that Dan Jackson was her ticket to the big time.

  The bus pulled to a halt outside the hospital and Frankie thanked the driver and headed quickly through the lobby and up to the tenth floor.

  After years of doing her best to be a sister and mother to her siblings, hardship had worn Isabelle down until, by a cruel twist of fate, she’d fallen prey to the same cancer that had killed their mother. Thanks to Frankie, she was receiving the best treatment possible.

  A nurse was at her bedside, checking the various monitors and making notes.

  ‘Hi, Ruby,’ Frankie greeted her.

  ‘Oh, Francesca, can I just have a word with you?’ she said kindly. Once they’d stepped out into the hallway, she explained: ‘Isabelle hasn’t had such a great day today – the chemo has been taking its toll. She’s been vomiting a lot, and now she’s exhausted. So don’t stay too long, OK?’

  Frankie nodded, went back in and slipped into the chair by her sister’s bed. Isabelle wore a beanie hat that covered her head, now devoid of hair. Her skin was pallid and looked paper thin, while her lips had an almost blueish tinge. Her eyelids were closed.

  ‘Hola, cariño mío.’ She reached for Isabelle’s hand and her sister’s eyelids fluttered.

  ‘Hola, hermanita,’ Isabelle whispered in return, a small smile playing across her lips.

  ‘Don’t speak, OK,’ Frankie said.