The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay

by Andrea Gillies

  “What happened?”

  “She had food poisoning, seafood she’d eaten in the port.” George inclined his head towards Main Island. “She was only hospitalized for forty-eight hours, but stayed on afterwards and she and Christos had a big romance. This was when he and Doris were apart the second time. The woman told him all about her past, her alcoholic ex-husband, and she moved into Doris’s house, the house you’ve looked at. Then, a week and a half later the husband turned up. The tavernas were full and so she said he could stay. She swore there wasn’t more to it than that. But that wasn’t good enough. Christos asked her to leave.”

  “I’m not sure the situation was completely his fault,” Nina said.

  “It’s always his fault,” George said. “You’ll find if you live here that most of the island sees things from Doris’s point of view.”

  “Except up at the top village.”

  “Even there, though their blood loyalty decrees otherwise. They remember hearing about the affairs in America when his daughters were small, and Doris’s anguish. They’re good people, but they’re slow to forgive.”

  The light was failing fast as they chugged back around the rocky point. As the harbor came into view, Vasilios switched on the boat lights and the village began to illuminate itself, window by window, as if in reply. The streetlights came on, and mosquito candles began to be lit on verandas, and scooters began to be visible, each as a single firefly light on the coast road. There was a unanimous quiet as they sailed back to the mooring, the sun beginning its setting, deep dun and sepia pink, and nor did Nina and Paolo speak to one another as they made their way back to the hospital, Nina swinging along more slowly than usual on her crutches. She was dog tired. Paolo came into her room and stood by the door with his hands in his pockets, watching as she poured water and drank. She sat on the edge of the bed and longed for quietness, and to be solitary. She was too tired to have feelings, or to practice the avoidance of them, so when Paolo said they had half an hour until dinner she told him that she’d rest for a while, closing her eyes, aware that he was getting his laptop out. It seemed only to be for a minute that she was gone from there, a tiny scoop of sleep, but the next thing she knew he was saying her name and that it’d been half an hour and she needed to wake.

  “I’ll change my dress,” she said, sitting up.

  Paolo said he’d leave her in peace a few minutes, going out into the corridor. Evidently Dr. Christos was there: she heard him ask if he could have a word with Nina alone, and heard Paolo say, “Well, that’s up to Nina, isn’t it?” The doctor knocked on the door and was invited in. He was dressed in a black suit, a black T-shirt, gray and white Converse sneakers. He smelled good when he kissed her on the cheek.

  “Paolo thinks you’re married to Nurse Yannis,” Nina said without hesitation.

  He looked as if he’d expected it. He said, “I am, I’m married to Nurse Yannis.”

  “Dr. Christos.” Words failed her.

  “We don’t share the information because it makes things complicated here, and my wife prefers to be private.”

  “She keeps her maiden name, then. Doris Yannis.”

  “No, it’s my name. I am Yannis also. Christos is a first name in Greek. It is like Christopher. My surname is Yannis.”

  “Why did you pretend to be Dr. Christos?”

  “I don’t pretend. It’s my name.”

  “Why did you keep all this from me, all this time? All those conversations.”

  “At first it was for the children who come to the clinic, and then the old ladies liked it, and so it stuck. Plus Doris wanted us to be separate at work. I think that’s fair enough.” He shrugged.

  “You didn’t tell me. No secrets from one another, you said. Why didn’t you tell me? Your wife told Paolo ten minutes after meeting him.”

  “I have always failed to have control of my wife.”

  “Christos. Can I call you Christos?”

  “Of course.”

  “You were keen for me to be here over the winter.”

  “I still am. I would love it.”

  “You were interested in me.”

  “I am interested in you.” Now he looked as if he’d had a new thought. “But I see what’s happened. You have been subject to island propaganda. I thought this would happen when you went off on the boat trip. These people, Nina, they have small minds.”

  “It’s not that.”

  Christos didn’t seem to have heard. “I’ve told you already that I was unhappy in my marriage.”

  “That isn’t it, though.”

  “I’m sure there are things Andros and Vasilios and George told you that made your hair stand on end, but there are also things they didn’t tell you. They left out the part, I’m sure, in which they were involved in making my romances fail. This island, it’s a very conservative place. Until I’m divorced no one here is going to allow me to find love. Even then, they are going to take a long time to welcome someone new. Even though it was Doris who left, they will always see me as the bad guy.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t think what else to add.

  “I won’t get the chance to talk to you again,” he said. “So I just want to say something to you. Which is this: that no matter what you think, or hear, or decide later, it was real to me, this love.”

  Dinner was held in the hospital courtyard, in candlelight. Nurse Yannis looked pretty, in a black lace cocktail dress and a dark-red shawl and lipstick that matched it. The atmosphere was at first subdued.

  “I’m sorry we have to eat at the hospital,” Christos said, breaking the silence. “Technically we’re on duty. Though it’s a quiet night, or should be, medically speaking.”

  George and Andros, in black trousers and white shirts, served the tomato and feta salad, and then the kakkavi, a seafood stew that Olympia had made, and Paolo began to steer the conversation. “So,” he said. “Is food very different between different islands, and is it markedly different on the mainland?” Nina realized that he’d given some thought to this, to what they might talk about. He had a mental list, and chaired the discussion, leading them from Greek food to Greek tourism, from Greek history into Greek art, and from there, via the controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles, to the museums and expense of London. Luca would have been scornful of him for this, and Luca would have been wrong.

  “That is a lovely evening,” Doris said at the end, squeezing Nina’s wrist. “And I am sorry I am secret.”

  When Nina said goodnight and went to bed, Paolo followed her through the French window and into her room. “Nina.” She turned to face him; only half of his face was illuminated, in the dark-blue light that came in from outside. He came close to her. “When we get back … I think we should live apart and see what happens.”

  “What’s likely to happen?” Her voice matched his for softness.

  “It’ll start with dinner. A restaurant.”

  “You’re asking me out to dinner?”

  “I’m only going to ask if you’re going to say yes. Are you going to say yes?”

  “What are we going to talk about?”

  “All the things.”

  “What things?”

  “All the things we never talk about.”

  “And what about Karen?”

  “I might have exaggerated a bit there. Or invented. One of those. I apologize.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. “But what about the broken teacup?”

  “The what?”

  “Once it’s broken it’s never any use again, no matter what.”

  “Well, that’s crap, isn’t it?” He went and sat on the blue chair.

  “Why is it crap?”

  “Who compares love to a teacup?”

  “It’s just a metaphor.”

  “Who says it’s a teacup? Why isn’t it a rainbow and all a beautiful illusion? Why isn’t it a watch, an old-fashioned watch with tiny gold workings? That’s very fixable.”

  “It’s a metaphor for
fragility.”

  “Whose metaphor? Oh, don’t tell me.” He dipped his head into his hands and rubbed the back of his head as if relieving tension there. “I’ve been talking to someone. A therapist.”

  “A therapist? Really?”

  “It was useful in getting me thinking. One of the obvious decisions was to have a break from the sixty-hour week. Twenty-five years of that is probably enough.” He got to his feet. “Lots to say on that topic and on others, but now I must bid you goodnight. I’m getting too tired to avoid being sentimental. Goodnight, love. I’ll be here in the morning at nine.”

  In fact he was at the hospital by 8:00 a.m., with his pinstripe rucksack and the pale summer jacket that was still soiled from the flight over. They went out into the garden together, to eat bread and jam and drink coffee there, at the table by the steps to the beach, and to feel the early sun on their faces for the last time. Hearing a characteristic tone and pattern of group chatter, Nina went to the furthest corner, with its view of the road, and took pictures of the women at the bus stop. She waited, and saw the minibus arrive, and watched them board. Andros would probably never know that he’d been instrumental in saving her life. If the bus hadn’t been delayed, that night … If she’d taken her bag down the slope, and hadn’t returned for the camera … But it was time to stop thinking about that. She took a last batch of photographs of the view. Out in the bay there was a windsurfer, working the light breeze and having to make do with slow progress.

  Paolo came and stood beside her. “Have you missed me?” he asked her.

  “Truthfully, not at all.”

  “I haven’t missed you, either,” he said. “That’s reassuring.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” she agreed. “It’s good that we feel the same.”

  He picked a sprig of mint and sniffed at it. “I know I haven’t been the most engaged companion, Nina.”

  Nina picked her own sprig and rolled its oils between her palms. “It was both of us.”

  “About you and Luca. Tell me one last time what your thoughts are. What your thoughts are today. I won’t ask again.”

  “Whatever it was, it’s gone, Paolo. It’s gone and over with.”

  “I’ve been afraid to ask you this. Has the texting started again, the e-mailing — has it all started again? Are you in touch? Are the two of you about to build another wall?”

  “It hasn’t and there won’t be any more of any of that. There won’t be e-mailing. There won’t be contact. Not because there mustn’t be; because I don’t want there to be. But I don’t want his name to be a name we can’t ever mention. I hope that you’ll pass along news of him, when there’s news to tell.”

  “Smell this rosemary.” He handed her a sprig of it. He said, “Well.” The pause seemed very long. “Faced with a choice between safety, walking away, or trying again and maybe failing, I’d choose failure. I would.” He rolled another rosemary sprig between his palms and inhaled. “But I do think we should live apart, at least at first.”

  “It’s what I want, too,” she told him. “I’ll rent something, once the cottage is sold. Near the Botanics, as a base. Six months of that, and then we’ll see.”

  “You might come to Greece.”

  “I won’t be in Greece but I might be in Norway.”

  “We can be friends, at the least. Don’t you think? I don’t want my life to be without you, cut off from you. I can’t think of anything I want less. Anything beyond that … It might not work. It’s going to be obvious if it doesn’t.”

  “Is it? Is it going to be obvious?”

  “You’ve got to get past this, Nina. This thing between your parents.”

  “I know. I know. The truth is that I do see it differently. But it’s going to take a little time.”

  “It’s going to be obvious. I promise you. I need you to make the same promise.”

  “Just some paperwork to sign.” They turned to see Dr. Christos holding up a sheet of paper, and followed him back into Nina’s room. “Oh,” he said. “I’ve brought the wrong form; I’ll send Doris in with it.”

  A few minutes later Nurse Yannis came in. “For signing, here and here, and also the address, please.”

  She turned to Paolo. “Can you be in the office? There is the letter for the next doctor. I forget.” Paolo followed her out, and when they’d gone a little way she said to him, “Christos, he comes to the airport.”

  Paolo thanked her and went further down the corridor and walked straight into Dr. Christos’s room without knocking. The doctor stood up so quickly when he saw who’d come in that his chair tipped over.

  “If you have anything to say to Nina, you say it right now,” Paolo told him. “Go to her now and say it and I will wait here.”

  “I will write to her,” the doctor said.

  “You will not write to her. You write to her and there is going to be a fight. I will be back and I will find you.”

  “It isn’t up to you.” Dr. Christos raised his voice. “She is only returning to you because she’s afraid of life. You know this and I know this.”

  “You don’t really know anything at all about us,” Paolo told him.

  “I know more than you think.”

  “You think you do, but really you know nothing.”

  “You’re wrong; I know absolutely everything.”

  “No doubt she’s told you the whole story. It may be the whole story, but it isn’t the real story.”

  “In what way not real?”

  “You have no idea how unbreakable we are. We are unbreakable.”

  “You are separated,” Christos reminded him. “Until a week ago you were all set to divorce. So don’t give me that unbreakable shit.”

  “If she divorced me and married you I’d be closer to her than ever; far closer to her than you could ever be,” Paolo said. “I’d be her Luca, you see. It’d be my turn to be Luca.”

  He saw that Christos had recognized the truth of this. It registered in a changed expression in his eyes.

  They could hear that the taxi had arrived, its engine idling and then coming to a halt. Paolo said, “I wish you well,” and stretched his hand out to shake, and Christos, ignoring the offer, turned his attention once more to his e-mail inbox. He said, “I imagine you can see yourself out.”

  Paolo returned to Nina’s room and was followed in by Andros, his face pink with heat. “You are ready, I hope,” he said.

  “I am, I’m ready,” Nina told him, beginning to gather her things. Paolo picked up the bags, leading the way out into the foyer and through the sliding door, the sun blazing. Nina followed, glancing behind and expecting Christos to appear.

  The car was black, with TAXI painted on both of its front doors in white. Andros stowed the luggage, and Doris came out and kissed Nina on the cheek and said a solemn goodbye, and then she returned to stand in the shade of the porch, waiting to wave them off. As Nina got into the car she saw that Christos had come to the entrance and was looking at them through the glass. Doris turned and said something to him, and he pressed the button for the door to open and came out to stand beside her. He raised his arm in farewell and didn’t seem to want to come closer. Nina looked at him through the car window, frowning at him and enacting little waves, but still he didn’t come closer. He raised his arm again as they drove off, remaining blank-faced, before turning and going back into the building with his wife. Nina tried to turn in her seat, constrained by the seat belt.

  “What’s the matter?” Paolo asked her. “Have you forgotten something?”

  “Christos didn’t say goodbye.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Paolo soothed.

  “What bad thing have I done? To be treated like that?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t do anything.” He half turned from the front seat to look at her. “But you are going home with me. And he was standing next to Doris. So perhaps he couldn’t say what he wanted to. He asked for your e-mail address.” He returned to facing forward.

  “There isn’
t going to be e-mail.”

  “You know, you can have friendships with whomsoever you like,” Paolo said, turning again. “I hope you liked my use of whomsoever. You don’t need my permission to have friends.”

  “I know. But not this one.”

  Andros drove them along the coast road, slowly through the village — last looks, last looks — and into a queue of three cars already waiting for the morning ferry. Once they’d parked, Paolo said, speaking to the windscreen, “So what are you going to do over the winter?”

  “You asked me that. I already told you.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Andros looked at Nina in the driving mirror.

  “I’m going to find a rental near the Botanics,” she said. “I’ll live there until the spring, and then see. I’ve been thinking a lot about Norway. I’d like to spend next summer in Norway, at the lake house.”

  “Those are good ideas.” Paolo reached his hand around and found hers. He said, “Dinner on Saturday, maybe. That is, if you’re free.”

  Nina said she thought she was.

  ANDREA GILLIES won the 2009 Wellcome Prize and the 2010 Orwell Prize for her first book, Keeper: One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer’s. Her first novel, The White Lie, about a landed Scottish family determined to keep a dark secret, was published to critical acclaim in 2012. The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay is her second novel. Find out more about her work at www.andreagillies.com, and follow her on Twitter, @andreagillies.