The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay

by Andrea Gillies

  He was here. He knocked twice and put his head around the door and now he was here. It was very, very strange that he was here. The island didn’t really feel as if it was fully in the world, not the old one of the old life. It felt more like somewhere that had been stepped aside into. To have someone from the past walk into it was like time travel, like past and present being bridged by science in a hitherto impossible manner.

  “There you are,” he said, as if he’d been searching, coming into the room and smiling towards the window. “So how’s the invalid?”

  “I’m okay, I think. Much better in many ways.” She was pleased with this response. It covered everything and gave nothing away.

  “You look very well.” He’d only glanced briefly at her; he went straight to the vertical blind that covered the French window, and pulled it to one side. “Do you mind?”

  “If you like, though my nurse might tell you off, as it’s theoretically still siesta time.”

  “We need light, I think,” he said. She’d never seen him so self-conscious, and it was contagious.

  He stood looking out at the garden.

  “So how are you, how was the journey?” she asked his back, aware that she was beginning to fidget.

  He turned from the window. “So let’s have a look at this troublesome leg,” he said, sounding for all the world like the consultant at Main Hospital. He stood over her shin with his unsteady hand extended. “May I?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He was already folding up her trouser hem. “No cast? I expected a cast.”

  “They don’t do it for this kind of injury. I told you on the phone.”

  He brushed the fabric down again, and pulled the blue chair across. “How’s the brain progressing? Cussed or concussed?”

  “What did Dr. Christos think?”

  “He says you’re more cussed every day.” He looked down at his hands, his thumbs rotating one another. The moment had come, the silence after the pleasantries. But what moment? Was she supposed to embark on explaining herself again? What about his parting words as she’d gone through security?

  Nina wasn’t going to initiate. All she could do was retreat into formality. “You look tired,” she told him. “I’m sure we could rustle up some coffee, if you’d like some. The doctor has an Italian machine.”

  “Coffee would be good.”

  He looked weary, his clothes creased from traveling, their fabric wrinkled at the elbow and behind the knee. There was newsprint on his pale summer jacket and a dribble of coffee on his blue shirt. His hair stood up in a shock; he saw her notice it and smoothed it through. “I’d forgotten how difficult it is to get here. It was a voyage of many parts. Taxi to the airport, flight to Athens, overnight stay —”

  “How was it, the overnighter?” She wanted more detail about unimportant things.

  “Procedural. Then the connecting flight, the bus to the ferry port, the boat across here. Dr. Christos met me at the harbor and walked me over. He said I could stay with him if I wanted and save paying for a hotel. He has a spare room and the evenings are usually solitary, and what did I say.”

  This was alarming. “What did you say?”

  “I said thanks but no thanks. I’m already booked into the taverna. I couldn’t let Vasilios down.”

  “Why did you change your flight and come early?” This had been bothering her.

  “I needed a rest.”

  Perhaps that was really all it was. “You’ll enjoy the weather,” she told him. “The weather’s been faultless.” There was nothing for it but to treat the momentous as trivial and vice versa. Wasn’t that how catastrophe was put in its place? The one-liners had always been reserved for the big things, the non-births, the deaths and betrayals. It was likely as not going to be the only way of managing their new status with one another, the postmarital world.

  Perhaps Paolo saw that they had drifted too far into the banal. “Look,” he said. “I didn’t come here to yell at you. I’m hoping that now we have some distance we can be constructive, and make plans. We need to go through the boring details. I’ve been to a solicitor, as you asked me to. I found a new one so that you can use Graham.” Graham Pye, a friend of her father’s, had always done their legal work.

  “Okay,” she said. He was clear of it all now. He was free. He was recovered. It was, in its own way, devastating. She tried to locate a teasing sort of tone in herself, something frivolous. “You’ve had a long chat with the doctor, I hear. Village spies have been keeping me informed.”

  Paolo deflected in his usual oblique way. “I didn’t want to stay at his house, but I liked him. We had a cup of coffee, so you could sleep.”

  “Although he knows I don’t keep the siesta.”

  “He told me you have grown fond of one another.”

  “What?” He was smiling. “You’re kidding. Tell me you’re joking.”

  “That was the gist of it.”

  She couldn’t help herself. “So what else did you talk about?”

  “We talked about the leg, which I’m assured is going to be better than the other one. We talked about the accident, how you bashed your brain on the road and whether it’s safe for you to fly.”

  “And is it?”

  “It has been for a while, I gather.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “Before we say any more, I’ve something to tell you.”

  “What — what is it?”

  “Mum had a TIA — that’s a small stroke — sorry, I can see that you knew that’s what it means — and she’s been in hospital. She’s going to be fine, but she’s high maintenance and Luca’s not been finding trips into the ward easy. It’s only been six months, no, nearer eight. Christ. Eight months since he lost Francesca. And even though she died at home … you know. It’s still the hospital.”

  Dr. Christos appeared at the door. “Ah, you found her then,” he said, nonsensically. “I hope you’re pleased with how she’s looking.”

  “Better.” Paolo turned to look at him.

  “Indeed, yes. Well. I must be off. Rounds to do, but see you later, I hope.” A moment later his face came around the door. “I’ll send some coffee in.”

  When he’d gone Paolo reached into the top pouch of his rucksack. “I almost forgot; I bring figs, from a stall at the ferry port.” He handed over a brown paper bag, heavy with fruit, its juice staining wet through the paper. “There were more but I thought I should test one. Then I thought I should test four, to be sure.” His mood had noticeably improved.

  Nina peered into the bag. “Look at them. They smell heavenly.”

  She ate one, and she and Paolo looked at one another. She saw his feelings, his indecision, traveling over his face. Evidently he’d seen the same in her. He said, “You look so nervous.”

  She evicted a hard stump of fig stalk onto her cupped palm. “That’s because I am.”

  “It’s okay. We’ve talked it through. Expensive phone calls.”

  “So that’s that.”

  “And now we’re all set for having the friendliest possible dismantling, as long as — a small proviso — we steer clear of certain subjects for the rest of our lives.” There was something prepared-speech about this. Dismantling?

  “Can I say —”

  “No, you can’t.” He cut her off, his voice growing louder, and this made sense to her. He’d been angry all along, and it was like trying to keep something ducked underwater that was determined to breathe. His geniality was a rationed thing that might run out. “Sorry, but there’s no need to keep going over things. Honestly. It’s a beautiful day. It’s raining and blowy at home and I’m on a Greek island. I want to get some sun.” He got to his feet. “We’re over the worst; let’s not keep rehashing it. You were under his spell; you’ve always been under his spell, and he was at a low ebb. We talked again. He’s very clear that he initiated.”

  “But why’s initiating so important?”

  “It was kindness and comfort; it followed on from kindnes
s, he said. I understand that impulse.”

  “You do? You understand that impulse?”

  “Of course.”

  “You — you’re still seeing Karen?”

  “What, since yesterday? Will there be need of daily reports? It’s stuffy in here.” He got up and opened the French door, said, “Whoah, it’s hot,” and closed it again.

  “It’s your life, Paolo.” Her mouth had dried so that she could hardly speak. He must hear it, her cotton mouth.

  He was facing away again. He said, “Luca was such a mess after Francesca died. I’ve never seen anyone so …”

  “Broken.”

  “Yes.” He returned to the chair, sat down heavily in it and stretched his back, arching it and extending his legs, all the while making small animal noises of bodily easing. “Too much sitting.” He sat up straighter and rubbed his face. “It took us all by surprise, how the whole construction, the public Luca, fell apart.”

  “The whole construction?” These weren’t Paolo-style words.

  “It was something Luca said. He talked a bit about the public Luca.”

  “What else did he say?” There it was, the thing she wasn’t ever going to ask.

  Paolo didn’t address the question. He said, “I suppose that what still nags at me is that there was … a second source of grief.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wondered if he’d assumed that you’d step in, in some way. Somehow. After his wife was gone. And was disappointed. He’s not good at living alone.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  Nurse Yannis came in with a tray of coffee and almond thins, set it down and was gone again.

  Paolo handed Nina a cup, and ate one of the biscuits. “Dr. Christos seems a very easy person to confide in, from what little I’ve seen.”

  She felt in need of a bracing thoroughness. “You want to know what I’ve told him? He knows the basics. Not everything. The basics only, of what happened. The material facts.”

  Paolo remained coolheaded. “I’m glad you’ve had someone to talk to. You said when you moved out that you didn’t seem to know yourself very well. It sounded like you were saying that you hadn’t faced up to something, your feelings for someone else.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Having Luca living with us brought those feelings to the fore.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “To be honest I’ve been worried that the falling-out was fake, so as to create an honorable pause before you moved in together.”

  She had to shut her eyes. She found she’d raised her hands. “No. No. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Tell me, then. Make a stab at it. In fact, you can stab it as well. Good idea.”

  This made her smile. They smiled at one another. Dr. Christos had said that when he saw his ex-wife now he thought, How could I ever have been in love with her? Nina wasn’t thinking that. The relief at seeing Paolo, here in this faraway village encircled by the sea, the sense of rescue, was absolute. She felt the full force of it and then its inappropriateness.

  He said, “In any case I’d better go and check in. I’m staying in your old room. In our old room, it turns out, accidentally.” He grinned at a message that had beeped its arrival on his phone.

  “Who was that?” She couldn’t help it.

  “Just Karen, asking if I got here and how many people my Greek has offended so far.”

  “You speak Greek? Since when?”

  “Karen spent time on the mainland in her gap year as an au pair, and picked some up. She taught me a few phrases.” He put his phone away. “I’m going now but I’ll be back.”

  An hour after he’d left Nina’s phone buzzed. Expensive text message! Bouncing to UK satellite and back again! So wil b shrt. Having swim, but back visit u after. P.

  When he came back he was accompanied by Nurse Yannis, who’d brought fresh mint tea and honey cake, the tray that was produced for VIPs. Their flow had been interrupted, so Nina asked more about Maria’s illness and Paolo described it at length, the symptoms, the stroke, the hospital dash, and the hopes of a full recovery.

  “Which reminds me, I need to call Luca and find out if she went home. She was supposed to go home today. He’s taking her to his place to sleep.” He went outside, through the opened door, into the freshness of the early evening, and paced up and down while talking, like he did at home, and came back in again looking the same. Nothing had occurred that was transformative. “As we suspected would happen, she flatly refused. She’s at home and Luca’s there.”

  “Did you say anything to him about what we’ve talked about?”

  “No. Are you going to ask me what was said every time I speak to him?”

  “There is a risk of that, yes. Till it wears off.”

  “When’s that likely to be?”

  “You will tell me, won’t you, if Luca says anything new, or if you have new thoughts. Don’t bury this, not until it’s properly dead.”

  “It isn’t properly dead, then?”

  “I didn’t mean feelings. I meant last talks about feelings. Last feelings about last talks.”

  “I get it.”

  “It’s a slowing ripple effect in a pond.”

  “You left me, Nina. It doesn’t matter. You can love my brother if you want.” No self-pity was evident.

  “Look. Look. Listen to me.” This was becoming exasperating. “You’ve got it all backwards. I’ve fallen out even of like with your brother.”

  “You said when you left that you hated him. Hated him. I have to tell you — that was hard to get my head around. He says it was about territory. Was that all it was — territorial? He needed us, you know. It made a big difference to him, being allowed to take care of us. Why couldn’t you be kind?”

  “I can’t talk to you about this,” she told him.

  “Show me some respect, Nina.” He sounded on the verge of anger again.

  “Respect? What are you talking about?”

  “You and Luca: you’re doing what you always do. You pretend not to be one organism anymore but you’re still behaving like one. I’ve been lied to. I know that. I need to know, right now, the whole truth of what happened.”

  “I was ill, Paolo.”

  “I know you were unwell.” He could be heard restraining his temper. “But what I still don’t understand is how you got from first, resenting him, to second, sleeping with him, and then from there to never wanting to see him again.” He used his hands placed together, cutting through the air to suggest the three stages. “It’s a baffling ABC, that. He says there was a reconciliation, and that it was the reconciliation that led to sleeping together. He can’t explain why you fell out again, after that, except to be clear that it was you who initiated the rift. Was that … It wasn’t anything to do with how he’d behaved?”

  “We were both all over the place.”

  Finally he sat down. “You can see what I’m getting at, though.”

  “Not really.”

  “He can be … I hear things about him.” He’d heard — what had he heard? “It doesn’t matter. It was difficult, when you left, leaving just the two of us. He was cast very low; he was depressed about your having gone, which made it worse. It helped with not wanting you back. I needed you to apologize.”

  “You’ve made me afraid of saying sorry,” she told him. “It makes you so angry.”

  “You shouldn’t be. Say it. But you don’t need to say it. It’s all water under the bridge. You’ve moved on. I’ve moved on. Life goes on. You’re moving to Greece. Your doctor is apparently infatuated with you.”

  “What makes you say that?” She couldn’t help but be flattered.

  “The truth is …” Paolo got back to his feet. “The truth is, I don’t have the energy to be at war with anyone. I never have had the energy. You understand what I’m saying. I just want us to be able to communicate.” He went and opened the door again, stepped outside and took audible breaths. “It’s wonderful o
ut here. We should be out here.”

  “We can go out if you like, and sit at the table by the steps.” She began to get off the bed.

  “In a little while.” He came back into the room. “It’s just as well he’s going to Rome. He knows it and I know it.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s stalemate now, with Luca. Our closeness is pretty much defunct.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s just a fact. We won’t get back to how we were.” He checked his phone again. “Please try and see it from my side.” He scrolled through his messages while talking, while readjusting the collar of his shirt. Couldn’t he have brought T-shirts? “The timing of it — Luca had become free and then you told me you didn’t think we were in love.” He looked up from reading. “What would you have thought, in that situation? What would you have concluded?”

  She wanted to say, Please, for God’s sake, don’t use words like concluded! Instead she said, “I asked if you thought we were still in love and you didn’t say yes. You couldn’t look me in the eye and say yes, or even ‘of course.’ It seemed important. It seemed final.”

  He put his phone away in his bag and rearranged things in there. “Nina. Asking someone if they think the two of you are still in love is the same as announcing that you’re not in love.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to go over this again.”

  “We can make this the last time, if that’s what you want.”

  She knew that she should tell him everything, the whole story, but even if you confessed and were absolved, how did you believe you were really forgiven; how did you avert someone’s secret hatred? Secret hatred was the worst, the thing that scared her most. “I thought it was you who wanted to stop going over it.”

  “You’re right,” Paolo said. And then, “I’ll tell you what it is that I have trouble with. Love as opposed to ‘in love,’ and how time isn’t always taken into account. How friendship and loyalty aren’t taken into account.”

  What could she say to that? He wouldn’t have believed her if she’d agreed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry.”