by Mandy Baggot
‘Come on,’ Tess said. ‘Let’s find you both a table and teach Joey all about a proper Greek meze.’
Sonya grinned. ‘I’m afraid we ate all the crisps. Oh, and Hector’s in our garden again. Alex put a box over him.’ She linked arms with Tess. ‘So, did I miss anything here?’
‘Nothing much,’ Tess answered. ‘We had lovely food, wine, a bit of dancing. Oh, and Kira told Isadora I was Andras’s pretend girlfriend.’
‘What?’
‘As I said … not much.’
Sixty-nine
His hair damp with sweat from the Greek dancing, Andras joined with his restaurant clientele in applauding the professional musicians who, like every week here, had put on an amazing show. Tomorrow the restaurant would be closed for the first time ever for a private event: Spiros and Kira’s wedding.
He shook hands with diners and nodded at others as he made his way through the restaurant to begin the task of clearing up. Tess was sitting with Sonya and her boyfriend at table seventeen, coffee grounds burning in a pot next to the candle after the man had been savaged by mosquitos within a few moments of sitting down. Kira was sitting on Spiros’s lap at the family table, brushing back his newly shorn hair, then squeezing his cheeks and laughing at the comical results. It was then he saw his mother, quietly making her way towards the exit, leaning a little more heavily on her stick than usual. He swallowed. Despite the formidable exterior, she was getting older, and they really needed to talk.
‘Mama,’ he called out as he got closer.
She didn’t turn around. ‘I am tired, Andras. It is a busy day tomorrow. I need to get home to bed. Fotis is coming to collect me.’
‘In his truck?’ Andras queried.
‘Yes, in his truck.’
‘But, Mama, how will you …’
‘I have been getting into trucks for years, Andras. Your father had a truck if you remember.’
He did remember. He remembered how much fun it was, clambering up into the lorry with Spiros and going out for the day in this huge wagon with space for everyone, but not at all conducive to the Corfu roads.
‘Mama, please, stop,’ Andras said, taking her arm as she descended the steps to the beach.
‘I said I am tired, Andras.’
‘And disappointed in me, I know,’ he replied, releasing a breath. ‘Please, Mama, sit down with me?’
With his arm, he indicated one of the beachside tables ahead of them, clear of crockery, but with a candle still burning from the previous diners. For a moment he didn’t know if his mother was going to agree, but then she moved, stick leading the way, stabbing at the shingle and sand.
He pulled out a chair for her.
‘Why are you fussing around me, Andras? I am as capable of sitting in a chair as I am climbing into a truck.’
‘I know. I am just …’
‘About to get your heart broken again.’ Isadora let out a furious sigh that somehow turned into a sob and had the Greek woman grabbing at the handbag over her arm and searching its contents.
Andras took a napkin from the holder on the table and passed it to her. She snatched it quickly and covered her nose, letting out a tremendous ‘honk’ as she blew into it.
‘This is all your father’s fault,’ Isadora stated, screwing the napkin up in her fist.
‘What?’
‘You are the same. You have feelings so quickly. You do not think about the long-term consequences.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘With your father it was this place,’ Isadora exclaimed, eyes going to the lit-up exterior of the taverna. ‘This restaurant. He loved it. He wanted it. And it killed him.’
‘Mama, the taverna is a success. I am going to make sure it becomes even more of a success. As my business.’ He sighed. ‘Spiro told me you gave him the money. You didn’t need to do that.’
‘He needed it now. What sort of mother would I be if I did not help him?’
‘I know. But I am arranging a loan with the bank. I will pay you back.’
‘Before you leave for England?’ Isadora snapped.
‘Mama, I am not leaving for England,’ Andras said.
‘No? That is not what comes next after this week of deep and meaningful love that was fake at the beginning, but is now everything you have been waiting for all your life?’
‘Mama,’ he swallowed. ‘What I feel for Tess is real, no matter how it came about.’
‘Like with Elissa? Trying to get you to leave the island with her. Always wanting something bigger, something better, just like your father with this restaurant.’
‘If Elissa had asked me to leave the island with her then I would have,’ Andras informed him.
‘And if Patricia asks you to?’
‘Her name is Tess, Mama,’ he breathed. ‘Just Tess. And she won’t ask me to leave the island.’
‘Why not? Because she will move here, marry you, take half the restaurant and wait for you to die through working too hard?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Then what?’ Isadora demanded to know.
‘Because both of us are too scared to even talk about a future together. Because, a man left her at her own wedding and she never loved again and … because Elissa …’ He stopped talking, emotion burning its way up his throat. Could he really tell his mother the truth about the way his marriage had ended? ‘Because Elissa …’ he began again.
‘Fell in love with Stamatis Alexopoulos and was carrying his baby,’ Isadora stated.
The breath flew from Andras and he crushed his hands together. ‘You knew.’ He swallowed. ‘You knew, all this time.’
Isadora nodded, tears in her eyes. ‘And every day I would see you so broken, so heartbroken, working and working and paying too much attention to holidaymakers and it was breaking my soul into pieces because of what she did.’ Isadora gasped. ‘I did not like the girl. I did not want you to marry the girl. But you made your choice and no matter what I thought about it, I did not want my son to be so … torn apart like that.’ The tears fell from her eyes like the waterfalls at Nymfes, and Andras reached for her hands, shielding them with his.
‘You should have told me,’ he said softly.
‘No, Andras,’ Isadora replied. ‘It was up to you to tell me … but I knew you would not and I do not blame you. I had put up the barriers when I told you how much I disapproved. I just … did not want you to leave. Selfishly, it has always been about not wanting you to leave.’ She took her hands back, wiping at her eyes. ‘Spiro, he needs to leave, to learn, the boy does not have your independent nature. He needs Kira as much as she needs him but you …’
‘You made me independent, Mama. You are independent. Look how you lead the women of the village, look how you have got on with things since Papa died, look how you have planned the whole of this wedding tomorrow.’ Andras squeezed her hands. ‘You are part of who I am, not just Papa.’
His mother did not reply, still sniffing.
‘But you have to know that I will always make my own choices. In life … and in love.’ The sound of the lull of the waves on the beach made him pause. ‘I am no more right for Marietta than she is for me. You must know that. You must see that.’
‘I know that she would do everything she could to make you happy.’
‘But, Mama, that is not the kind of relationship I want, or the type of relationship anybody wants. Where is the partnership? Where is the equality?’
‘Can you see Tess picking the olive harvest and making stifado?’ Isadora asked.
Andras smiled as the image came to mind. Tess dressed simply, plucking ripe olives from trees, shaking the branches, twigs getting caught up in her hair. He shook his head. ‘I can see it, but it would be a terrible idea.’
‘See!’
‘No, it is a good thing, Mama.’ He leant back in his chair, stretching out his legs. ‘Because I don’t want Tess to pick olives or make me dinner. Those are not reasons to have someone in your life. In fact
, they are the least important reasons to have someone in your life.’
‘But …’ Isadora began, leaning forward a little.
‘Was that why Papa married you? For your cooking?’
‘Andras, you know that your father was a far better cook than I am.’
‘So, you married him for his cooking?’
She shook her head, but there was the beginning of a smile at the corner of her mouth. ‘We fell in love,’ she admitted. ‘There was no way I was going to let him be taken in by my cousin Leda’s bottle-blonde hair.’ She tutted. ‘That girl was always such an attention seeker.’
‘Mama, I do not know what will happen with Tess,’ Andras admitted. ‘Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything. But whatever does happen, it will be our choice, because we came together by chance and somewhere along the line, despite all the odds, we fell in love.’
‘Andras,’ Isadora said, her eyes once again full of tears. ‘I just want you to be happy.’
‘I am happy, Mama,’ he answered. ‘Happier than I have ever been.’
Seventy
Andras Georgiou’s home
The moon was full and almost as round and fat as the tortoise Andras had carried up the mountain to his house.
‘How does he get out?’ Tess whispered as they made their way across the lawn to the pen Andras had built.
‘I do not know, but if my mother catches him anywhere near the restaurant …’
He didn’t need to finish the sentence for her. ‘Uncle Dimitri?’
Andras smiled at her. ‘Spiros swears he is going to ask our mother exactly what happened to Uncle Dimitri tomorrow.’
‘You mean no one actually knows?’ Tess asked.
He laughed. ‘No.’ He put Hector back into the wooden home, making sure the latch was secure. Then he moved over to Tess, taking her hands in his. ‘You are sure you want to stay tonight?’
She smiled. He was always so concerned for her feelings, not wanting to push, never expecting anything. She leant forward, lightly brushing her lips with his. ‘Yes, I’m sure. Besides, I could hardly stay in the apartment with a newly engaged couple, playing a very awkward raspberry.’
‘Or blackberry,’ Andras added. ‘Like your clients.’
‘Exactly,’ Tess replied.
‘Then I will make coffee,’ he said, leading the way to the property. ‘Or something stronger?’
‘Still no Dr Pepper I presume?’ Tess asked, hopefully.
‘No,’ Andras answered. ‘But I do have Coke.’
Andras couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He had made coffee and every so often, as he waited for the machine to brew, he had looked through his sparse, unfinished kitchen, just to gaze at Tess, sitting on his sofa, shoes off, bare feet up on the cushions, staring through the full-width windows to the moonlit view of the sea beyond. It seemed surreal. To have someone sharing his space, someone he already cared so deeply about.
‘What?’ Tess asked, smiling as she took the Coke he handed her.
‘Having you here.’ He sat down on the sofa beside her.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘I like it,’ he replied, finding her hand and entwining his fingers with hers.
‘You do?’
He nodded, edging his body closer to hers. ‘I do.’
‘Be careful there, Andras, you’ll be getting very close to repeating Spiros’s wedding vows.’ She gave him a soft smile.
‘The wedding is tomorrow,’ he reminded her.
‘I know. Isn’t the whole village in lock down and a whole Greek armada sailing to the church?’
‘Something like this,’ he agreed. ‘Then the day after …’
Her fingers tensed next to his and she shifted, reaching forward to put her glass on the coffee table.
‘I go home,’ she said.
He swallowed, in reaction to how those words hit out at his heart. He wanted to say so much but part of him was still holding back, not wanting to address the inevitable.
The silence was deafening. She was looking at him, those azure eyes affecting him in so many different ways. What did he want to say?
‘Tess …’
‘Andras …’
‘Please, you speak first.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you can.’
He took a breath, readjusting his position on the sofa, one arm resting on the seatback, fingers closing over the fabric. ‘I know that we do not live in the same place but that should not mean that we cannot be in the same place for some of the time …’ He sighed. ‘I am not making this very clear.’
She shook her head. ‘I know what you’re trying to say.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘You want us to try to see if we can make this … this connection between us … something more than just for this holiday.’
He nodded. ‘I would like to try that, but what do you feel?’
He was almost holding his breath as she released hers. What if she did not feel the same? What if the moments they had shared on Corfu were going to be the only ones they had together?
‘You know everything about me, Andras,’ she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. ‘You are the only one who has ever known everything about me. And there is a reason for that. I just … I don’t … that is, I’m not very good … at making commitments that last longer than six weeks, and …’
‘I know,’ he replied, squeezing her hand. ‘I understand.’
‘When I get home, when you’re here without me, neither of us know how we are going to feel,’ she said. ‘What feels real here, under that perfect sky, with all the cray-cray family stuff going on, it might feel different when there’s some distance between us.’
She was being wholly honest and he valued that. He knew his feelings for her were strong, but she was tapping on the brake, being sensible, and it was entirely the right thing to do.
‘Andras, I’ve given you more than I’ve ever given anyone since my wedding-that-didn’t-happen. That means everything to me.’
‘It means everything to me too,’ he reassured her.
‘I think, what I’m trying to say is, let’s make the most of how we feel now, and let the future take care of itself.’
Had she really said that? It sounded like a TV commercial for over-sixties life insurance and Tess’s heart was drumming like the baseline of a Tinchy Stryder track. She wanted to be all in. She felt all in. She wanted to tell Andras that she was falling in love with him, words to back up her actions on the beach when she had literally hummed with ecstasy. But her psyche, the defence mechanism she had so maintained so beautifully, was still urging caution.
‘Andras …’ It felt like a brush-off and she didn’t want that. She hadn’t said nearly enough.
‘You do not need to say any more,’ he insisted, still holding her hand in his. ‘We have both been through difficult times, both thinking that these feelings could not be for us in the future.’
‘There’s more to it than that.’ She sighed. ‘I need to put some things right at home before I can even think about moving on.’
Moving on. Was she really going to finally be able to do that? It had always seemed so impossible and maybe it still wasn’t clear cut, but the one thing she did know was she was going to speak to her mum. She was going to actually have a conversation with her about the wedding-that-wasn’t, about what happened afterwards, about how sorry she was for the loss of all the money and how she had tried to go some way towards saving to pay it back to her and her dad. Even if it didn’t rescue their relationship, she will have done everything she could.
‘I want to try, Andras,’ she said. ‘To move on.’
‘Me too,’ he responded.
She looked into those chocolate-brown eyes, then shifted her gaze a little lower to rest on those sultry lips. The only moving on she wanted to engage in right at this moment involved her on top of him sans clothes.
‘Show me some more of the house,’ Tess purred.
‘W
hat would you like to see?’ Andras asked, bringing her hand to his mouth and dropping hot kisses on her fingertips.
‘Does your bedroom have a sea view?’ she asked.
Seventy-one
The view from Andras’s bedroom was stunning, but the light streaming through the glass as the sun rose had woken Tess early. Now, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands, she took in the baby-blue sky, small white scudding clouds moving across the horizon, the sea shimmering with sunlight as small fishing boats bobbed and dipped amid its undulating peaks and troughs. And nearer, on Andras’s thick, green lawn, there was Hector, a large paw pushing at the latch of his cage.
‘Kalimera.’
Tess turned away from the window at the sound of Andras’s greeting and held her coffee mug in the air. ‘Morning. I made you coffee. It’s by your side of the bed.’
Your side of the bed. She had slept here one night and had claimed a side? ‘On the bedside table,’ she corrected.
‘Thank you,’ he said, pushing the sheet down off his body and shifting on the mattress.
Tess watched every abdominal muscle tweak with each minute movement. It was like having your own up-close-and-personal Calvin Klein ad.
‘You are wearing my shirt again,’ Andras commented, taking a sip from his mug.
‘You want it back?’ Tess asked, prowling towards him, eyes heavy with seducing intentions she hoped he was taking note of.
‘I think I might,’ he responded, his eyes darkening.
She sprung, catlike, on to the bed and slipped a hand either side of his frame, holding herself above his body, just as she had last night.
‘Then take it back,’ she teased, voice low as her erogenous zones started having a party.
He moved to kiss her and she jerked her face away and out of his reach. ‘Oh no, not fast,’ she mimicked. ‘We are going to do this very, very slowly. What was it? Arga?’
