My Map of You
Page 9
‘I don’t care about a tan; I just want you back. And you didn’t call me last night.’ He was beginning to sound a bit like a grumpy toddler now.
‘You should go, before you’re late for work,’ she said, abandoning all hopes of a lie-in and swinging her legs out from under the sheet.
‘Okay, darling.’ He still sounded sulky. ‘Will you remember to call me later?’
She promised that she would, obediently returning his ‘I love you’ before ending the call.
Holly sat in silence staring at the phone in her hand. Why was she being such a cow to poor Rupert? She’d only been away from London for a few days, but she already felt as if her life had changed. Being here in Zakynthos had awakened something in her – she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was yet, but there had definitely been a shift. She was in an environment that should, by all accounts, feel completely alien to her, but instead she found herself feeling more relaxed here than she could ever remember feeling back in England. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. She must have sunstroke or something – the heat was sending her doolally.
Stretching her arms up over her head and groaning as her muscles creaked into life, Holly let her eyes roam the room. The spare bedroom had little in the way of clutter, but as her gaze reached the wardrobe nestled in the far corner, Holly spotted what looked like a folded piece of paper on the top of it. Intrigued, she fetched the stool from her aunt’s bedroom next door and stood on it to take a closer look. Age had curled the corners of the paper and turned them yellow, but when she unfolded it, she almost fell off the stool in surprise.
‘Jenny and Sandy’s Secret Map’ was written across the top in red biro, and underneath was a very clumsily drawn map of Zakynthos. Whoever had drawn it had labelled a lot of silly landmarks along the scribbled coastline, including ‘field that always smells of poo’, ‘rock that looks like dog face’ and ‘sexy barman’. Some village names had also been added in black pen, clearly by someone else, and next to a place called Porto Limnionas, someone had drawn a large heart. At the northern tip of the drawing, with a big star helpfully drawn next to it, was a place simply labelled ‘our secret beach’.
Holly stepped down from the stool, the map in her hand and her heart racing. Had her aunt left this map here for her to find? She didn’t care, but she did know that she wanted to visit every single place that Jenny and Sandra had marked on it. She wanted to go everywhere – she wanted to swim in the same sea, lay her towel on the same sand and gaze out at the same views. Racing down the stairs, she snatched up her guidebook and flicked through it until she found the map, then ran her finger around the outline of the island, picking out the names that matched those on the drawing.
As far as she could tell, her mum and Sandra’s ‘secret beach’ was close to a place called Korithi, which was a very long way indeed from Lithakia. On her moped and with very limited local knowledge, Holly guessed it would take her hours to get all the way up there. Plus, who was to say that she’d even be able to find this beach when she got there?
For a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet, that was the one place marked on the map that she wanted to see the most, but she would really need a car to get there. Correction, she would need someone who could drive a car. Maybe Annie would run her up there. She decided that she would pop down to the bar later and ask, but for now, it was time to have some breakfast while she took a better look at this new treasure.
By the time Holly opened the back door, a chair awkwardly hooked over one arm and a plate of breakfast and the map in the other hand, it was almost 10 a.m. The patio stones were already beginning to warm beneath her feet, and in the distance she could see the sunlight dancing wildly on the surface of the sea.
Arranging the chair so she was sitting with her back to the house, Holly balanced her plate across her lap and started to devour the slices of tomato that she’d just cut up. They were so much sweeter and juicier here, like an entirely different species to the chalky ones she bought in the supermarkets back home, and Holly had drizzled some honey over the top and seasoned them with black pepper. If anyone could see her, they’d probably think she was disgusting and quite possibly mad, but she loved the way the oozy honey lifted the sweetness of the plump fruit and the sharp pepper kept the whole combination from becoming too much.
Once she’d finished, she put the plate on the floor and tore the lid off her yoghurt. There was a light breeze this morning, which was lifting the ends of her just-washed hair and gently rustling the trees. Lost in her own sleepy thoughts, she didn’t hear Aidan’s back door open, but a few seconds later she was almost knocked sideways by something very hairy and very slobbery.
‘PHELAN! I said WAIT!’
It only took Aidan a few seconds to leap over the small hedge and reach Holly, but he wasn’t in time to save her yoghurt. Phelan, his apparently deaf red setter, was now happily licking it up from where it had exploded down Holly’s leg.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said, hooking his fingers through Phelan’s collar and giving it a determined yank.
Holly, who had spent the past few moments running a full gauntlet of emotions from intense shock to extreme amusement, could only look down at her yoghurt-splattered shins and laugh.
‘It’s okay,’ she finally managed. ‘It wasn’t that nice anyway.’
‘Wait there a sec, will you?’ Aidan had galloped back to his own house, leaving Holly to stare after him in bemusement. Phelan, finding himself released once again, shuffled forward to pinch the upturned yoghurt pot, which he held neatly between his paws and started to lick.
‘Well, aren’t you something?’ Holly told him.
Phelan stopped licking and flashed her a wet, yoghurty grin, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in the manner of a friendly lunatic.
By the time Holly had been into the kitchen to sponge her sticky shins, Aidan had returned – and he’d brought her a gift.
‘It’s just an orange,’ he said, handing it over.
‘Thanks.’ Holly sneaked a look at him. ‘But I know what an orange is.’
‘Smart-arse.’ Aidan squinted at her through his mess of black hair. He was wearing a pale blue shirt today and faded yellow shorts. There were freckles on his lower arms and across his nose, and one of his toenails was black.
‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you yesterday,’ Holly was amazed to hear herself tell him. ‘I had no right to bite your head off like that.’
‘You are a bit prickly, I’ll give you that,’ he grinned. ‘Is that how you got your name, like?’
‘Now who’s being a smart-arse?’
They both looked over to where Phelan, yoghurt completely devoured, was rolling around on his back in the dust.
‘He’s brilliant,’ Holly smiled. ‘How long have you had him?’
‘He’s a naughty little fecker, but I do love the little shite.’ Aidan crouched down so he could rub the dog’s exposed tummy. ‘I found him wandering the streets down in the town about two years ago now. He was in a right old state. It happens here a lot, unfortunately. The Greeks are a bit funny about giving their pets the snip, so they always end up with a load of puppies nobody wants.’
Holly looked over at the floppy, beaming, ridiculous dog. ‘Well, he looks a lot happier than any animal I’ve ever seen – you must be doing a good job.’
‘Nah, he’s just a soppy eejit.’
‘So, you’ve lived here for a while, then?’ Holly asked. She was finding it hard to meet his eyes. There was something deeply unnerving about the way he seemed to look right into her head. If she caught his eye, she was irrationally afraid that he’d be able to read her mind. Instead she let her eyes rest on his lips, which were light pink and smattered with a trace of his characteristic freckles.
‘Oh, a few years, on and off,’ he told her, fiddling with his tatty flip-flop. ‘I used to come here as a teenager too. My mum always loved it over here, so when she moved away I took over the house.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he looked at her sideways. ‘She moved over to Kefalonia, actually. It’s the closest island to this one.’ There was a hint of something cold in his tone, but Holly didn’t feel as if it was directed at her. Clearly the topic of his mum was a sore subject for Aidan.
‘Have you managed to see much of the island yet?’ he asked, neatly changing the subject.
Glad to have an easy question to answer, Holly told him all about her walk down to Kalamaki Beach the previous day, and how she’d befriended Nikos and secured her moped. Aidan laughed as she explained about Nikos’ rickety bike that belched black smoke and was held together with bits of tape.
‘Sounds exactly like one I had,’ he said, smiling at some personal memory. ‘Mum hated me going out on that thing, but it was the best way to pick up chicks down in Laganas.’
Holly pulled a face.
‘Hey! Don’t give me that look – it didn’t take you long to clamber behind that Nikos fella, now did it?’
Holly was about to retort that she already had a boyfriend, thank you very much, but something stopped her. She was aware of a slight charge developing in the air between them and hurriedly crossed her legs in the opposite direction.
‘I’d love to see more of the island,’ she said, shyly unfolding the map she’d found and laying it across her legs so he could see. ‘Although I’m not sure I’d ever get to half these places on that thing parked out front.’
Aidan openly laughed as he read some of the descriptions. It was a lovely, warm sound – and very infectious.
‘Listen,’ he paused for a second. ‘If you can keep the day after tomorrow and the next few days after that free, then I can help you find a few of these places.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean to hint.’ Holly was mortified. ‘I wouldn’t want to eat into your free time.’
‘Nonsense!’ Aidan held up a freckled hand. ‘Shut your trap, woman. I insist.’
Holly ignored the miniature version of herself that had popped up on her shoulder and was wagging a wary finger at her. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ it whispered. ‘What about Rupert? What would he think?’
‘In that case, I’d love to,’ she grinned, sticking a metaphorical finger up at her tiny sensible side.
‘I’d wager that I’m a better driver than Nikos, anyway,’ Aidan said, standing up and clicking his fingers at Phelan. The dog twitched slightly at the sound, and Holly thought she heard him actually sigh, but eventually he clambered up and trotted over, resting his head affectionately on his master’s thigh. Holly was still clutching the orange he’d brought her, and he pointed to it as he turned to leave. ‘Make sure you eat that – I grew it myself.’
‘What are you, a farmer?’ she asked his departing back, digging a thumb through the glossy peel.
‘No,’ he stopped at the corner of her house and grinned at her. ‘I’m a vet. See you the day after tomorrow.’
Holly stayed in her sunny spot on the chair long after he’d gone, chewing chunks of orange and trying to make sense of the peculiar sensation bubbling in her stomach. She felt guilty, that much was undeniable, but there was something far stronger and more alluring that was tugging at her insides. Rupert was her boyfriend, he was the one she loved, the man she wanted to be with, but Aidan was just so … She swallowed the last piece of orange as she searched for the word. He was just so unapologetic, that was it. She liked the fact that he poked fun at her and swore like a sailor and dressed in clothes peppered with holes. He didn’t pretend to be anything other than who he was, and for some reason it was making her feel far more at ease with herself than she normally did. With Rupert, she was always on her best behaviour, terrified that if she said the wrong thing or reacted in the wrong way then he would leave her, but she didn’t feel that way with Aidan. Perhaps it was the security of knowing that she’d only ever spend a couple of weeks with him, and that Rupert was waiting patiently for her back in London. It didn’t matter what Aidan thought of her, in the end, because she wouldn’t be around long enough to disappoint him.
At around three that afternoon, Holly abandoned the clearing out of her aunt’s bedroom and set out in search of Porto Koukla, the little beach that Nikos had recommended. It had taken the majority of the morning to pack up the rest of Sandra’s clothes and wrap all the many thousands – or so it felt – of ornaments in newspaper. Sandra had been a big fan of the local Greek paper, Holly discovered, but she had also been rather fond of a certain British tabloid.
‘Greek economy in tatters!’ one particularly histrionic headline screamed. Holly had scanned the article briefly, before tearing the page out and wrapping it around a china plate decorated with painted flowers. She hadn’t seen any evidence of these so-called ‘tatters’ since arriving on the island. Perhaps it was a different story on the mainland of Greece, but everyone she’d encountered here seemed happy enough.
Much as she enjoyed her life in London, Holly could easily imagine herself living a more simple existence. She couldn’t see anyone here obsessing about what someone posted on Facebook, or who was doing the dirty with whom in EastEnders. Not that she cared about such things much, either, but a lot of the people she knew did. Aliana, for example, spent more time on Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Snapchat, Tinder and God knows what else than she did actually working – and to Holly it all seemed to be a load of nonsense. Her own online profile contained just a few photos of herself and Rupert and details of where she worked – there was nothing about where she’d gone to school or anything.
On the rare occasion that Holly had received a message or a friend request from someone she’d known from her schooldays, she’d deleted them without a second glance. Those times were done, and she had no intention of ever allowing herself or anyone else to stir up those miserable memories. She had been a very different person back then; a person she didn’t like to even think about. In fact, she was mildly surprised that anyone from those awful days would even think to contact her.
Hugely sociable and friendly as a child, Holly had become increasingly withdrawn as her mum had slipped down the slope of alcoholism. The girls with whom she had once been so close had stopped inviting her round to their houses to play after school. She could remember with heartbreaking clarity the day that her best friend, Daisy Davies, had awkwardly told her that they couldn’t be friends any more.
They had been standing in the corner of the playground, not far from where a group of boys were kicking a ball around, and Daisy, her thumb firmly wedged into the corner of her mouth, had said to Holly, ‘My mum says your mum is dirty; she says that she’s a bad person. She said that I might get dirty if I’m friends with you.’
Holly, who had only just turned nine, gawped at her in horror. She knew there was something weird going on with her mum. She no longer walked the fifteen minutes from their flat down to the school gates every afternoon, and she didn’t always make nice dinners like she used to, but she wasn’t ‘dirty’.
‘My mum’s not dirty,’ she’d mumbled. ‘Your mum is probably just confused or something.’
Daisy had shaken her head sadly. She had been wearing a T-shirt with a pink Care Bear on the front, the irony of which would only occur to Holly years later. ‘She said I’m not allowed to talk to you, and if she finds out that I did then she’ll give Bambi away.’
Bambi was the tortoiseshell kitten that the two girls had found wandering in the street outside Daisy’s house, and that Daisy’s mum had wrinkled her nose at in disgust as soon as it was carried into her kitchen. Holly had known then that she was fighting a losing battle. Daisy was obsessed with that kitten. She drew pictures of her all over the back of her hands when they were supposed to be practising their spellings in Miss Patterson’s class.
‘It’s okay,’ she’d told her friend. ‘Bambi needs you. I’ll be fine by myself.’
And that was that. Daisy had shu
ffled off to join the rest of the girls from their class and Holly had kept her distance. From that moment on, right through to when she left the education system for good at eighteen, Holly was always on her own. Making friends was more effort than it was worth – especially when her mum’s fondness for the odd G&T evolved into something more dangerous. Nobody wanted to be associated with a smelly drunk, not even Holly herself, but then she hadn’t had a choice.
‘Yassou, koukla!’ The sound of Kostas’ cheerful bellow pulled Holly abruptly out of her miserable meander down crap-memory lane.
‘Yassou, Kostas,’ she replied, waving as she headed past his shop and onwards down the hill. She had thought about taking the moped, but it was too hot to face wearing the helmet. And, in the end, it only took ten minutes of walking and one encounter with a rather grizzly-looking goat for Holly to find the place she was looking for.
Unlike the beaches at Laganas and Kalamaki, Porto Koukla’s coastline was narrow, with only three or so metres of sand between the steps of the rustic beach bar and the lapping water. The wind was slightly brisker than it had been that morning and Holly could hear the Greek flag flapping wildly at the top of its beachside pole as she threw down her towel and slipped out of her purple sundress.
There were far fewer people here than there had been in the busier resorts of Laganas and Kalamaki, and Holly could feel the residue of tension easing away as she wriggled into a comfortable position and opened her book. Spending too much time in the house had been making her feel edgy – she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched – so she was determined to spend the next few hours experiencing pure escapism.
She’d just read the first sentence of chapter two when a shadow passed across the page.
‘It’s Holly, isn’t it?’
Annie from the bar at the bottom of the hill was standing next to her. Holly stared at the chipped pink varnish on Annie’s toenails for a few seconds and took a deep breath before closing her book.