by Sophie Hayes
There were many times, too, when I sobbed to my mother, ‘I can’t do this. I simply can’t hurt him like this.’ And she would tell me, ‘But you are going to hurt him, whatever happens. How can you be together? Do you not understand what that would involve? How can you make it work? You’d just be giving him false hope, which is far worse than no hope at all.’ I knew she was right, so I cut him off without any explanation. I know I’ll have to live with that guilt and with all the ‘what-ifs’ for the rest of my life.
The one light in all the darkness was that I still had my best friend to talk to. Kas had been phoning me regularly since I told him I’d had to have an operation and, as a consequence, wasn’t going to go to Albania and marry Erion after all. He had been sympathetic and quick to assure me I’d made the right decision. And then, one day a few months later, he phoned me and said, ‘I know how close you are to your mother, but I think you need a break from everything and everyone, even your family. You need to get away for a couple of days and forget about it all. I’m going to be in Spain next week, so why don’t you come out and join me? Just have a weekend with no worries or stress.’
I knew that my mother – and all the other family members and friends who loved me – wanted what was best for me, but suddenly I realised just how much I needed to get away from my ‘normal’ life, even if only for just a few hours.
‘I’ll come,’ I told Kas, and I was touched by how pleased he sounded as he said, quietly, ‘That’s great, Sophie. Book your flight and I’ll pick you up at the airport.’
The two days I spent in Spain were better than I could possibly have imagined. It was like having been out at sea on a little boat during a terrible storm and then suddenly finding yourself safe and protected in the calm, still waters of a harbour. Kas made all the decisions and took care of everything, so that I didn’t have to think at all. Although he was only a year or two older than me, I felt like a child in comparison. He was effortlessly charming, confident and in control; he knew exactly what he wanted in every situation and it seemed to me that there was nothing he wouldn’t be able to do if he set his mind to it.
We had an amazing time together in Spain: we walked by the sea and skimmed stones across the waves, and then we sat on the beach and talked. And later, when we were standing on the promenade listening to a jazz band, Kas suddenly lifted me up into his arms and waltzed with me into the middle of the street while everyone around us laughed and applauded, their eyes misty with their own romantic memories. Then, at night, with our shoulders touching, we sat in perfect harmony, watching the stars and talking as though we’d known each other forever.
Kas told me about his studies, the languages he spoke and his plans and dreams for the future, while I thought how wonderful it must be to be as comfortable in your own skin as he clearly was. And, despite everything, I wondered what it would be like to live for the rest of my life with a man like that – who was the complete opposite of my father in almost every way, who knew where he was going and would sweep me along with him. Then, perhaps inevitably, I began to wonder if my mother had been right and it had been fate that had stepped in to prevent me going to Albania and marrying Erion. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved Erion, but perhaps Kas was the person I was supposed to be with.
Kas talked about how wonderful it would be if we could go travelling together and see the world. He described a life that wasn’t all about going to work every day and being dragged down by the small things, but about really living, and as he drew me into the picture he was painting, I could almost believe that we could do anything together.
For every minute of every hour that I was with him, he was gentle, kind and considerate. I knew how he felt about me, so I was touched by the fact that he never pushed me to be more than just friends or made me feel uncomfortable. But although I still didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him, by the time we said goodbye at the airport after the weekend, I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be rescued by him from all the muddle and unhappiness that seemed to have engulfed my life.
He’d certainly been right when he told me that getting away from everything for a couple of days would do me good, and I returned home feeling, if not exactly optimistic about what lay ahead for me, at least that it might turn out not to be as difficult and as empty as I’d begun to think it would.
I felt as though the time had come to leave the security of living at home and go back to my job in Leeds. My flat-mate had moved out and gone to work in London while I was away, and I hadn’t anticipated how empty and lonely the flat would seem without her. The boost to my optimism and self-confidence that the weekend with Kas had given me didn’t last very long once I was on my own, and I soon began to feel bewildered and mentally disorientated again. I’d come home from work every evening and a million questions would spin around in my head: How did I end up here, lonely and miserable? Will I ever really be happy? What if every time I get the chance of happiness I mess it up? What if I simply don’t have whatever it takes to be contented? How do people know when someone really loves them? How do you know that what you feel for someone really is love? They were questions I could never answer and I began to feel as though I was losing my grip. So, when Kas phoned me a few weeks later and offered me the opportunity to break the cycle of craziness I seemed to be falling into, I was ready and willing to accept.
‘I’m living in Italy now,’ he told me, ‘and I really miss you. Please come and see me again. There are so many wonderful places I want to take you to. Just come for a few days, for a holiday, and let me show you my life.’
It was the prospect of someone else taking charge and making all the decisions that was probably the most appealing aspect of the suggestion. I’d lost confidence in my own abilities and I felt as though I always got things wrong, whereas Kas seemed to know what to do in every situation. Although I’d had to take a lot of sick leave from my job, I still had some holiday owing to me, so I booked a week off work and flew out to Italy full of excited anticipation.
Kas was at the airport to meet me, as he’d promised he would be, and as he swept me up into his arms and squeezed all the air out of me, I thought how wrong I’d been not to have given him a chance four years earlier when he used to smile at me from the side of the dance floor at the club. I was 24 years old and I’d wasted a great deal of time pushing people away because I was unable – or unwilling – to trust anyone. But Erion had loved me and hadn’t let me down. So perhaps it was time to consider the possibility that not all men were like my father and to trust Kas, too.
It was a decision that was to change everything, forever.
Chapter 5
We drove straight from the airport to a beautiful lake, where we sat together outside a café, soaking up the heat of the late-summer sunshine. Kas was exactly the same as he’d been in Spain – just as relaxed and easy to talk to – and I felt immediately comfortable in his company.
We went back to the lake that evening, and as the air was cool once the sun had gone down, we sat inside a restaurant, where we talked and laughed together and the waiter smiled at me and called me ‘La bella signorina’. Everything seemed perfect.
After the meal, we went to a café to meet two of Kas’s friends, who were so nice to me I began to wonder what he’d told them about our relationship. At the café, we ate ice cream and drank brandy and when Kas and I were leaving, the two men stood up, kissed me on both cheeks like benevolent uncles and said ‘Arrivederci, Soffee’.
That night, in Kas’s apartment in an ancient, yellow-brick house a couple of miles from the centre of town, we made love for the first time, and afterwards Kas held me in his arms and I felt safe. I didn’t know whether I was falling in love with him; I certainly didn’t feel the way I used to do when I was with Erion, when a light seemed to shine from somewhere deep inside me, but maybe I’d been wrong and that hadn’t been love, whereas the feeling of security I had with Kas was.
For the rest of the weekend, w
e wandered around the city together, sat outside cafés drinking coffee or glasses of wine and ate our meals in restaurants that were full of the sound of laughter and where everyone seemed to talk at the same time. On the Saturday evening, we went to an elegant nightclub in the centre of town, which was decorated with lavish crystal chandeliers and carved-marble fountains and was quite unlike any nightclub I’d ever been to before. Home, with all its worries, seemed a million miles away.
We spent Sunday by the lake and when we returned to Kas’s flat in the early evening, I had an almost physical sense of contentment. Kas’s arm was resting lightly on my shoulders as he put his key in the lock of the front door, and I reached up to kiss his cheek before walking across the little hallway and into the bathroom.
When I came out again a few minutes later, Kas was in the kitchen. He had his back to the open doorway, but he turned as I stepped through it and looked at me with an expression I didn’t recognise and couldn’t read. Although he didn’t seem to be angry, there was a coldness in his eyes that made the skin on my scalp tingle and my heart began to race.
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked him. ‘Kas? Is something wrong?’ But instead of smiling and reassuring me, as I’d hoped he would do, he nodded his head towards the little wooden table under the window and said, in a voice that filled me with dread, ‘We need to talk.’
I pulled out a chair and sat down, expecting him to sit beside me, but he remained standing, with his back resting against the work surface, as he said, ‘There is a reason you are here.’ I looked up at him and smiled, but when he didn’t smile back at me, I felt my stomach contract sharply.
‘There is a reason,’ he said again, ‘and I am going to tell you what it is. First though, I have to ask you: do you love me?’
‘I think I do,’ I told him, trying to ignore the horrible sense of foreboding that had settled over me like a dark shadow. ‘I don’t know how people know when they love someone, but you’ve been there for me for so long that …’
He interrupted me, raising a hand impatiently and saying, ‘Well, if you love someone, you have to make sacrifices for them. We all have to make sacrifices for the people we love, and that’s why I asked you to come here: because there’s something you can do for me. There’s a sacrifice you can make to show me that you love me.’
He didn’t raise his voice at all, but I could feel his irritation and when he looked at me, his expression seemed to be almost one of disgust. He spoke slowly, as though explaining a very simple concept to a determinedly slow-witted child, and although I nodded to indicate that I understood what he was saying, I didn’t actually understand it at all.
When he spoke again, he sounded angry, in a way I’d never heard him sound before, and he barely glanced at me as he said, ‘As you say, I have always been there for you and now you must repay me by doing something for me.’
‘Okay,’ I told him. ‘You know I’d do anything I can to help you. But, please Kas, don’t look so serious. You’re making me nervous.’ And then I laughed, because I knew I didn’t have to be afraid. This was Kas, who never shouted, who had been my best friend for the last four years and who I knew was the one man I could trust, apart from Erion.
‘I’ve got a debt that has to be paid,’ Kas said. ‘That’s why you are here. You are going to repay this debt for me.’
His eyes had become cold and there was a closed, hard expression on his face. But still I told myself there was nothing to be afraid of. After all, what possible reason could Kas have for being angry with me?
‘Of course I’d help you if I could,’ I told him. ‘But I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I’ve got money. I spend almost everything I earn, so I don’t even have any savings. I don’t know what …’
Again, he interrupted me and I could almost feel his irritation as he snapped, ‘This is what you’re here for. You are here to help me to repay this debt. This is why I asked you to come to Italy. It’s a sacrifice anyone would be happy to make for someone they loved.’
I felt sick. I couldn’t understand what Kas was really saying or why he’d suddenly become so coldly detached. My heart was pounding and tears had begun to spill over on to my cheeks. I wanted to say to him, ‘This isn’t the way we are together. Why are you speaking to me like this?’ But he was watching me with an expression so close to dislike that the words stayed locked inside my head.
‘I’m in trouble,’ he said. ‘I owe a hundred thousand Euros – to Mario in fact, one of the men you met at the bar after dinner the other night and found so charming. I have to pay this debt.’
‘Oh Kas, I’m so sorry!’ I cried, although if I’m being honest, I’d have to admit that my sympathy was mingled with relief at the realisation that he wasn’t angry with me after all. When he’d first mentioned a debt, I’d assumed he meant it figuratively, as he wasn’t at all the sort of person I’d have imagined getting into financial debt. He’d never talked in any detail about his work – only ever referring to it as ‘the import and export business’ – but he seemed to have a comfortable life and I suppose, if I’d thought about it at all, I’d have assumed he earned a fairly good income. But I knew enough about him to know how much he must have hated having to ask for help, so I tried not to sound surprised or pitying as I asked, ‘What happened?’
I don’t know what I expected him to say – perhaps that someone in his family had been ill and had needed expensive medical treatment and that he’d had to send home more money than he had. So I was caught completely off guard when he said, ‘It was a drugs’ deal that went wrong.’
At first I thought he was joking – giving me a ludicrously unlikely explanation in an attempt to make light of a situation that embarrassed him – but his face remained completely serious as he continued, ‘If I don’t pay the money back, it will cause problems for my family. So that’s why I need you to make this sacrifice for love.’ And that’s when my heart began to race and the palms of my hands became damp with sweat.
For a few seconds, I just looked at him, my mind totally blank and uncomprehending, and then I shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. How can I help you? You know I want to, but it would take me a lifetime to earn that sort of money.’
‘I don’t expect you to earn it in your pathetic job in England.’ His sneer was cold and dismissive. ‘You will earn it here. I will find you a place to work – on the streets.’
Again a wave of relief washed over me and I laughed as I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Work on the streets doing what?’ And then I added hastily, ‘But don’t worry, Kas. I will help you. We’ll think of something, I promise.’
‘We don’t need to think of anything,’ he snapped, and the unmistakable sound of anger and dislike in his voice filled me with dread. ‘I have already thought of something, and that is why you are here.’
He took a step towards me and, instinctively, I cowered away from him.
‘What’s your problem?’ he shouted, leaning down so that his face was just a couple of inches away from mine. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? How dare you disrespect me in this way?’
It was as though the temper he’d only just been managing to control had finally erupted, and his face was contorted unrecognisably as he demanded, ‘How dare you answer me back? Do you not know that if you love someone, you have to make sacrifices for them? Are you so selfish that you can’t do this thing for me?’
I felt like an actor who’d walked on to the stage to speak my lines and realised I’d learned the wrong part in the wrong play, so that everything going on around me was completely incomprehensible. And then it suddenly struck me, almost like a physical blow, that the ‘work on the streets’ he was talking about was prostitution.
A wave of nausea washed over me, followed swiftly by embarrassment at the thought that I must have misunderstood. He doesn’t mean it, I told myself. Just keep calm. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. But Kas was clearly in deadly earnest and as I rested my el
bows on the kitchen table, holding my head in my hands with tears streaming down my face, I was afraid. The last man I’d ever been afraid of was my father, and as I looked at Kas, all the old feelings of dread and helpless vulnerability that I’d been so determined never to experience again threatened to overwhelm me once more.
Kas strode backwards and forwards in front of me, sometimes shouting, sometimes speaking in a quiet voice that was even more menacing and frightening than his anger. Then, suddenly, he leaned down towards me again and screamed, ‘Who do you think you are, woman? Do you think that after I’ve waited for you all these years I’m just going to let you go? Well, you’re wrong. I’m not letting you go. Do you understand? I will never let you go. You are mine now. Your life belongs to me, and you will never get away from me.’
And that’s when the thought struck me that perhaps he was actually crazy. No one who was sane could possibly say the things he was saying: men like Kas aren’t pimps – or drug dealers – and girls like me don’t work on the streets. The idea was absurd and, in any case, how could anyone actually make someone else do that? But, whether he was crazy or not, the fact remained that Kas was in a rage – apparently with me, although I didn’t understand why – and I was very frightened.
I kept telling myself he’d be all right again in the morning. We just had to get through the night and he’d have got over whatever had upset him. And if he hadn’t, I’d simply tell him, ‘I’m not going to do it. I thought you knew me. If you did, you’d know I would never do that in a million years. I’m sorry about the money you owe, but I can’t help you in that way.’ Then I’d make some excuse to cut short my visit and go home – to the ‘pathetic’ job I enjoyed, the family I loved and my ‘normal’ life.
