A Handful of Pebbles

by Sara Alexi

  ‘You don’t mind if I give her a nudge, do you?’ Sarah sidesteps him and heads to the open staircase.

  ‘No, sure. Make yourself at home. Have you had breakfast, or do you fancy an early lunch?’ Neville sounds just slightly disappointed.

  ‘No I’m fine. Thank you,’ she calls down from the upstairs hall.

  ‘Second door on the right,’ Neville calls up. ‘I’ll pop down to the bakery for bread and milk.’

  ‘Okay.’ Sarah taps gently and pushes the door open. The curtains are pulled closed but they do not keep the light out, so she draws them and marvels at the views. Neville’s hire car pulls out and meanders up the drive to crest the top of the hill before dipping down the other side and out of sight. Down the hill, more than half the village is mapped out before her. She follows the roads from the central kiosk along to the turning that opens into the small, sloping square where the van and his goods usually parks. He is there but only just visible behind a line of palm trees. Then, along from that, there is the roof of their holiday home, and that is Juliet next door, and behind, she can see the top of the fig tree, but the pool is hidden.

  She traces the route back to the village square and along the road towards Helena’s house. Along, along, and there! In the road, behind his sheep, is Nicolaos, his dogs ranging along the side of the herd.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Liz mumbles.

  ‘Morning. You want a cuppa? I’ll get you a coffee. Neville’s gone out for bread.’

  The coffee is brewed. Liz stumbles down the stairs in a satin dressing gown, her hair unbrushed, last night’s makeup now under her eyes.

  ‘Here you go.’ Sarah offers her a mug, which Liz takes to the counter and adds four spoonfuls of sugar.

  ‘What you doing here so early?’

  ‘Charming. Shall I go?’

  Liz has only one eye open, which she closes tightly before she blinks them both open. ‘I think I drank too much again.’

  ‘It’s the "again" that bothers me. What’s going on with all this drinking?’ Sitting on the balcony, Sarah rests her coffee on a low stool.

  ‘He gets to me these days.’ Liz takes her first sip and her face relaxes.

  ‘Who, Neville?’

  ‘Who else?’ Liz sighs. ‘It seems such a long time ago when we first met them, doesn’t it? Then it was them that were so keen; now, the boot’s on the other foot. Back then, it was all a bit of a laugh and a route to an easy life. No heartache involved, no jealousy. Well, not for me of him anyway.’

  ‘What happened to our rule of never discussing each other’s marriages or husbands?’ If they discuss Neville, they may move onto her own marriage and Sarah is not sure she wants to look at that.

  ‘That was before.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before Neville decided to move his ex-wife in with us.’

  ‘Are you jealous of her?’ Sarah’s voice raises dramatically, disbelievingly at the end. ‘For goodness sake Liz, the woman is the same age as Neville and she has cancer.’

  ‘You think that will stop Neville?’

  Sarah can feel the blood draining from her face. All these years when Neville had been manoeuvring for a reason to hug or kiss her, the long, lingering looks behind Liz’s back, the accidental touches whenever he moved past her, she had thought it was her, and, due to the nature of their pact, she has never mentioned it to Liz. But as Liz never seemed to care for him much, she has even kidded herself it didn’t matter.

  ‘When did all this change?’ Sarah puts down her coffee and sits next to Liz, taking her hands.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. We have been married nearly twenty-six years now. You grow to love a person; surely you have grown to love Laurence?’ Liz is looking over Sarah’s shoulder, staring into nothing, and Sarah does not reply. ‘But I know he is a player, always has been in his own quiet, gentlemanly way. For a while, it was a game. I played around, he played around, nothing serious, just flirting. Seeing who could shock the other the most. Birds of a feather, me and him. But this with his ex-wife! I think after waiting on his mother hand and foot all these years, and not having children because the "stress might be too much for her" ...’ She mimics Neville. ‘Years and years of promises and dreams of places we would go, things we would do when the old bat finally died. I think I deserve just a little bit of faithful.’ Liz is shouting and crying.

  ‘Has something happened? I mean, more than saying he is going to take in his ex-wife?’ Sarah realises how ridiculous what she has said is, as if there need be any more.

  Liz calms her crying and lets her head hang forward. ‘No.’ The word comes out breathily.

  ‘So what’s prompted this? I mean specifically, not that his ex-wife Agnes isn’t enough ...’

  ‘Oh it’s just the way he looks at the Greek girls, the flirting over paying the bills, the "I’m just a harmless old man" act that allows him to hold their hands longer than is reasonable. But I know what he’s really doing, his little cheap thrills. Which makes me what?’ The pitch of her voice has risen again. ‘It makes me worth less than a cheap little thrill to him.’

  Back when they all first got together, Liz had all the power in the relationship. She knew it, and Neville doted on her. They took back-to-back holidays those first two, nearly three years before they got married. Liz jetted around the world whilst Sarah was having Joss and then Finn. Sarah hoped her own travels might come later, when the boys had grown a bit perhaps, but it never happened. Then Neville and Liz’s jet-set lifestyle ended abruptly. Four months after they got married, Neville’s mother moved in with them and Liz became her full-time carer.

  Those holidays gave Liz such surety that she wanted to marry him, perhaps assuming the rest of their lives would be a continuation of the travel.

  Sarah puts her arm around Liz.

  She can remember deciding to finish her own affair with Laurence when Liz and Neville packed bags for Australia and Laurence’s excuse as to why they were not going, too was work, again. Besides, he calmly put his point, he just done two trips to America; he needed a rest from flying. It began a whole host of questions that Sarah put to herself about Laurence all that week when he worked and she sat alone in the bedsit. With no Liz around to persuade her otherwise, she decided to tell Laurence it was over the next time they met. He offered to take her out for her nineteenth birthday, and it seemed an appropriate day to cast him off and get on with her life. She put on the dress he had bought for her the previous week, wanting to look nice for him, which her young mind reasoned might soften the blow. She practiced her speech in the mirror, watered down certain phrases to cause least offence, and felt she was ready. They were to meet at a restaurant, which, as it turned out, was pretty full. Sarah was glad of the background chatter. It would stop her voice from echoing out into an empty space.

  The two glasses of wine before they were seated also helped. To tell him over the entrée seemed a bit rushed, so she decided to broach the subject over the dessert. But when the profiteroles came, her words became tangled in her mind and it was natural to decide that the after-dinner brandy would loosen her tongue.

  The brandies came and so did the box, long and gilded. Laurence slid it across to her with a card that said Happy Nineteenth Birthday. It was not so much the pearls that stopped her words, but rather the effort Laurence had put into the evening. It would have been so callous to fling the box back and say something like, ‘Actually this is not working for me.’ So she went along with the play and agreed to meet him the next day, resolving to give him back the gift and break it off cleanly.

  ‘You are in love with Neville?’ Sarah asks, returning to the present.

  ‘Like a crazy teenager,’ Liz sniffs through her tears. ‘There’s karma for you.’ She attempts a laugh. ‘But don’t you love Laurence after all these years? I mean, just a bit?’

  ‘To be honest, Liz I am not sure what I feel for him. I never think about it, we never talk about us. I just live.’

  ‘Well he’s not Neville.
Does he still buy all your clothes for you?’ Liz’s giggle is soft, sympathetic. Sarah finds no reply.

  The following day Laurence asked her to meet him after work, in the airport foyer. When she arrived, an air hostess said he was running late and she took Sarah through to the staff room. As she walked into the crowded room, the chatter stopped and all eyes turned on her. The sudden attention was too much and she spun on her heels to leave, only to encounter Laurence in the doorway. Before she had time to say a word, he dropped to one knee and held out a small, square box containing the biggest diamond ring she had ever seen. What could she say in front of all those people with all those champagne bottles popping?

  She twists the ring on her finger as she breaks her stare, thinking of all decisions Laurence has made from that day till the present. ‘You know, I am not sure I have made any decisions since,’ Sarah wants to say ‘since Torin died,’ but she cannot hang her whole life from that point, she has to take responsibility somewhere. She starts her sentence again. ‘Actually, I am not sure I have really had the courage to make my own decisions—ever.’ It felt overly dramatic, but just in that moment, all she could see was her mum making all her decisions for her till she ran away with Torin. Then Torin made them, then Liz, and now Laurence. Even her boys make all the decisions that affect her. She just goes along to keep the peace.

  ‘I just go along with everyone and keep the peace,’ she summarises her thoughts.

  ‘It’s why we all love you, Sarah.’ Liz sips her coffee.

  ‘It’s sleepwalking through life,’ Sarah says.

  Chapter 18

  Neville returns with fresh bread for Liz’s breakfast.

  ‘I’d better go.’ Sarah stands; it might be a good time to leave Liz to confront Neville. ‘Laurence will be wanting his lunch soon.’ She makes her excuses.

  ‘See you,’ Liz says, lacing her second coffee with Metaxa.

  Sarah avoids Neville’s demonstrative goodbyes and hurries off down the drive and into the shade of the olive trees. Dry twigs snap underfoot; branches catch at her hair.

  ‘Poor Liz.’ Her words are a sigh. ‘No kids, no holidays, no nothing, and now a breaking heart.’

  ‘Who has a breaking heart?’

  Coming to an abrupt halt, she looks around for the source of the voice. ‘Oh, you made me jump,’ Sarah says. The camouflaged goats rustle in the surrounding bushes and Nicolaos is leaning against a tree. ‘How do you decide when to be in this field and when to be in the one over there?’ She points in the vague direction of Helena’s house.

  ‘I wake up and toss a coin.’

  ‘Do you? Do you really?’

  ‘No.’ He pushes off from the tree with his shoulder to lean on his crook instead. ‘I just see which I fancy on the day.’ He chuckles. ‘So who is broken-hearted?’

  ‘Oh, just an unexpected turn of events for someone I know.’ Sarah keeps it vague.

  ‘Not you, then?’

  ‘No, I have a loving husband and two boys I adore. I have more than I deserve.’ As she speaks, Sarah cannot meet his eye.

  ‘Don’t say that. Life might hear you and give you less.’ Nicolaos’s voice has a serious edge even though he is smiling.

  ‘I don’t think life hears anyone.’ Now she looks at him.

  ‘Don’t you? It seems to me that it listens carefully.’ He takes a breath. ‘Back in Oz, I had two friends, each running day-fishing businesses. One sat back in his cockpit of his boat and looked up at the blue sky, drank his martini, and said ‘I have more than I deserve.’ The other friend said, "Wow, look what I’ve got," took photos of his boat, shared it online, printed fliers, and pinned them around town. At the end of the year, the guy who thought he had more than he deserved had a big notice on his boat saying it was for sale. Not enough clients to keep him going.’

  ‘Right, and the other guy was doing such a booming trade, he bought his friend’s boat and had twice the trade the following year,’ Sarah finishes the obvious ending to his story for him.

  ‘Ah so you know them, then?’ Nicolaos says dryly and puts one hand in his pocket. Sarah hears the clicking of beads.

  ‘But that is not "life listening." That is the result of one person making an effort and the other not.’ Sarah starts to walk again, a pause between each step. The shepherd falls in by her side.

  ‘Really? Is it? I have a friend, and this one is for real, who is a psychotherapist. She said, when she felt the number of clients she had was dropping, that she would begin to take action. The first few times she had to go as far as advertising in two different places to gain more clients but, she said, as time passed, she had to do less and less when the numbers dropped off until finally, all she had to do was think the thoughts, have the intention of doing something, and her phone would start ringing.’

  ‘But surely that is just the experience of becoming established?’ Sarah asks.

  ‘Oh is it? You know what we call a "thought" is a connection that goes between a synapse and a neurone. A transfer of energy.’ He stops to pull a grass and chews the end a little before continuing. ‘Everything is energy, isn’t it?’ It sounds like a genuine question, but he does not wait for a reply. ‘That’s what they say. Everything we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Each is made of different wavelengths of energy vibrating at different frequencies. They say our brain picks up these frequencies and interprets them into what we perceive to be our physical reality.’ He stops to look around himself, as if putting into practice the words he is speaking. ‘Same for the goats, I guess. Their brains interpret a set of vibrations and call it a leaf, a thing to taste and chew. We perceive the things around us as physical or solid, but if we break them down to their smallest particles, they’re all just energy.’ The track has narrowed and he walks in front, his crook across his shoulders, his arms hung over either end.

  ‘So I reckon every time we think a thought, we send out that thought’s specific vibration. If a thought makes us feel good, if it’s a positive thought, it is vibrating at a particular frequency. If a thought makes us feel bad, a negative thought, it’s vibrating at a different frequency. My guess is positive will attract positive.’ He turns to face her, letting go of his crook with one hand so it rests only on one shoulder. ‘Like happy, carefree, confident people attract positive things.’ He turns to look at the view, chooses a spot, and sits down.

  Sarah thinks of Juliet and Stella as she lowers herself carefully onto a flat stone a small distance away from him. She watches a beetle navigating its way across the twig-strewn path, avoiding her feet. She says nothing,waits for him to continue.

  ‘I think,’ Nicolaos says after a pause, ‘the more focus you give to a thought, the more thoughts of the same wavelength or vibration, whichever you want to call it, will join it and it grows, it becomes stronger, more stable, more able to attract other, equal frequencies. That’s why my psychotherapist friend needed to advertise the first time but after a while needed only to think.’ He throws a pebble at the feet of a nearby goat. It jumps and frolics away.

  ‘Perhaps the more attention we pay to a subject, the easier it becomes to think about it, and then, of course, we see more evidence in our worlds supporting our thoughts about it. Like if we think the world is a terrible place, we spend a lot of time watching the disasters on the news and reading negative, thrill-seeking papers and spend hours talking to the friends we have chosen because they also think the world is a cesspit, then more stories that support this view will literally find us. If someone is like this, then when they meet someone who thinks the world is a wonderful place, I am sure they will have a choice set of words to describe this annoyingly positive person. Dreamer, delusional, unrealistic optimist. Negative words, because this person will grate on them.’

  He stops talking and becomes very still.

  Sarah has read versions of what he is saying before, heard lunchtime gurus on daytime television spouting this sort of stuff, but it feels different out here in this sleepy, warm country under the d
appled shade of the olive trees. When she is happy back on the Isle of Man, it’s true, she attracts positive people. But sometimes her thoughts, of their own accord, become so dark, she ventures nowhere and meets no one. It’s not like she has a choice.

  ‘It is a very hopeful doctrine,’ she finally says.

  ‘Hope is the life force.’ Without looking at his face, she hears his smile as she continues to gaze at the view. ‘Without hope, we would be dead.’

  ‘Very dramatic,’ Sarah scoffs.

  The goats munch. A car in the distance grates its gears.

  ‘When I still lived with my wife, she had her room and I had mine.’ Nicolaos speaks quietly, as if not wanting to break the peace that has settled over them. Sarah looks up at the sky through the olive branches: endless blue. How lovely to be able to feel assured that every day will be endless blue. Nicolaos clears his throat. ‘I would hear laughter through the walls as she spoke on the phone to her friends. It grew lonely, so I started watching a lot of television with headphones on. Have you ever done that?’

  Sarah shakes her head, she is not that keen on television.

  ‘With the sound going straight into your head, you are sucked into the unreal world completely.’ He looks at his feet and pushes a stone with his heel so he can stretch his leg out. ‘I watched cops and robbers, gangsters, thrill-seeking stuff. Grim stuff because my thoughts were grim, I thought I would never be happy again. But I would get cross at the characters getting into the cars with a gun against their heads or not fighting to stop themselves going into a room where they know the person who wants to kill them sits or walking calmly in front of the firing squad, you know the sort of thing. At that point in these films, I would call it unrealistic and change channels. But then it came to me—as long as the trigger of the gun against his head was not being pulled, there was hope; as long as they were walking into the room and not being carried in as a corpse, there was hope. As long as the soldiers had the butts of their rifles on the floor and not with the barrels pointed at their heads, the people in the firing line had hope. Hope that they would be rescued, hope that their adversaries would change their minds, hope that they had misinterpreted the situation and that their lives were not threatened at all. It all boils down to hope. People continue on, even doing what their enemy asks of them, as long as they have hope. So that is why I say without hope we are dead.’