by Jenny Oliver
Dinner was as awkward as Maddy had thought it would be. Her mum had laid the big table in the kitchen – covered it in candles and white china and sprigs of olive in vases. In the centre of the table was a big, bubbling moussaka and a ceramic bowl of Greek salad, the olives from the grove on the hillside, the feta from Dimitri’s goats.
Ella had changed into a long sleeved blue and white striped top, loafers and skinny white jeans with a thin red belt. Maddy thought she looked like she’d just stepped out of the pages of a J Crew catalogue.
‘So how’s work, Eleanor?’ her grandmother asked after they’d all be served and Ella had asked for a much smaller portion so hers had been passed round to her grandfather.
‘Great, the company’s not doing quite as well as it could but if we can land this new account we’ll be sorted for the fiscal year. It’s a mobile phone company.’
Her grandmother made a face as if to show she thought that all sounded very clever and important.
‘I’ll work on it while I’m out here.’ Ella added as her phone rang, almost on cue, and she nipped outside to answer it.
‘Bloody phones,’ her grandfather muttered.
‘You all right, Mum?’ Maddy asked when Ella was out the room. She’d noticed she was just pushing the moussaka around her plate and seemed restless, on high alert trying to do everything to please Ella. The kitchen, Maddy noticed, was spotless. Not that it was usually dirty, but it was gleaming. And on the side board her mum had put out the nativity set they’d had as kids and a tacky plastic angel with fibre optic wings that Maddy hadn’t seen for years twinkled in the low lighting. They always did a kind of haphazard Christmas. Her mum would throw a big party at the taverna on Christmas Eve and do a mix of Greek and English food and all the locals would come, but on Christmas Day it was just their family and they’d have lobsters and fresh fish, and her mum would decorate the place with lights and glass bowls of pomegranates, she’d scatter olive branches and hellebore flowers along the mantle piece and string mussel shells that she’d gilded with gold leaf along the windows and glass hearts, almost too delicate to touch, in front of the mirror.
The nativity set though, Maddy didn’t even know her mum had kept that. It was only seeing it now that she realised how much their Christmas trimmings had changed. Or perhaps, she thought, watching her mum watch Ella as she talked quietly into her phone outside, her mum had consciously created new traditions.
‘Fine, honey.’ her mum said, ‘It’s nice isn’t it? To have all the family around.’ Maddy watched her take a breath in through her nose and almost reset herself before reaching forward and tucking Maddy’s hair behind her ear.
CHAPTER 9
ELLA
What was with all the hair touching?
Ella was in a foul mood when she walked back into the kitchen.
The phone call had been from Amanda’s husband. He’d wanted to know how she was going to proceed. He was filing for divorce.
‘You know they’re together now?’ he’d said, his cut-glass accent splitting through her, and she’d hung up.
Inside she noticed the nativity set for the first time and it made her feel even worse. The idea of Maddy and her mum laying it out every Christmas together, the little sheep with one broken leg and the horse that she’d etched her name in the bottom with a safety pin and the Jesus that Maddy had drawn a moustache on with felt tip pen and that she’d tried to wash off with Mr Muscle before her mum saw it. She wanted to box it all up and carry it upstairs and stuff it in her suitcase.
As she sat down she felt all eyes on her. Her mum watching expectantly. ‘Everything all right, Ella? Can I get you anything? I can heat up the moussaka if it’s gone cold, if you want?’ she asked, and her polite willingness to please her made Ella even more annoyed and defensive. She didn’t want to be the guest.
But why would she expect any different? It had always been like that. Ella being picked up from the airport, sitting in the back while Maddy tuned the radio to songs her and her mum knew the words to and Ella had never heard. Never knowing where anything was kept in the cupboards, unsure who the locals were, no idea what was happening in the programmes they watched on TV. She always felt like the guest.
‘So Maddy, what was the cash flow problem?’ Ella asked as she shook her head at her mum’s offer to reheat the pasta and played with a slice of aubergine with her fork.
‘She smashed a boat onto some rocks in the storm earlier in the week. Blew her life savings.’ her granddad said without looking up from where he was hoovering up his moussaka. ‘Fabulous food, Sophie, as always, just fabulous.’
‘It’s for the best,’ her mum cut in as she leant over and picked up the salad bowl, passing it round the table. ‘London wouldn’t suit Maddy at all.’
‘I am here.’ Maddy said, arms outstretched. ‘I am at the table you know? And I think I could handle it. I’m not nine any more.’
Her grandmother looked up warily at her mother, gave her the kind of look that suggested that Maddy was right and her mum was wrong. Ella watched the dynamics round the table like she did a boardroom meeting, sussing out allegiances. Her grandfather just gave a snort and went back to his food, pouring himself more wine and offering top ups which were declined by everyone but Ella.
She sat back, arms crossed in front of her, wine glass dangling from between her fingers and surveyed the frown on Maddy’s face. Noticed how the lines in her forehead were just starting to stay even when she relaxed and her cheeks were more chiseled, less babyish. It almost surprised Ella that Maddy wasn’t nine any more.
Glancing to her right she noted just how much her grandmother looked like her dad. She wondered if they’d told her mum that they’d had dinner with him and Veronica last time they were in England. Her mum looked tired. Her tan faded. Her food, though, from the small forkfuls Ella had tasted, was just as beautiful as always. Her mum was glancing over at Maddy as if trying to tie her where she was with just a look. But Maddy looked like a bird, too big for its nest.
The feeling that her mum had never looked at her like that was as unexpectedly sharp as Amanda’s husband’s comments on the phone. And it made her say, ‘I’ll lend you the money’, without really even thinking about it. Then she added as casual a shrug as she could manage.
Her mum’s head whipped round. Maddy’s eyes flicked up. Her grandmother’s eyes closed for a second too long. Her grandfather kept eating.
‘You won’t.’ her mum said, quickly.
‘Oh my god that would be amazing.’ Maddy visibly jumped from her seat but then sat down again because her and Ella didn’t ever hug or exchange physical contact in any way.
‘Why can’t she go, Sophie?’ her granddad asked through a mouthful of salad.
Pushing her hair back behind her ear and then leaning forward to serve herself some salad, seemingly buying herself some time, her mum said, ‘London would swallow her up.’
Maddy huffed out a breath as though that was preposterous.
Her grandmother leant forward, elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her hands. ‘You can’t keep her here forever, Soph.’
‘Again people, I am here.’ Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘And again, I’m not nine any more.’
‘You don’t have anywhere to stay,’ her mum said.
Ella took a sip of her wine, watched Maddy flounder as she considered her lack of lodgings. Saw her grandmother raise a brow but go back to her food, as if she’d already got more involved than she might usually. Then Ella dabbed a spot of wine from her mouth with her finger and said, ‘She can stay at my flat. Max isn’t there.’
‘Really?’ Maddy had to roll her lips together to contain her smile.
Ella shrugged as if it was nothing. She wanted to think of herself as a selfless, successful big sister who could come in and save the day. Not someone who just wanted to get her younger sister out the way so that just for once, she could have her mum all to herself and see what happened.
The fact that her mum was sh
ooting her a fierce look at that moment would have to be ignored for now.
As Maddy was topping up her wine and toasting with her granddad – who then reached over and touched the top of Ella’s glass with his, saying, ‘Good on you,’ – another male voice cut across the room.
‘What are we celebrating?’
Ella turned in her seat to see who it was and saw a guy lounging against the doorway in cargo shorts and a light blue shirt, his sleeves rolled up seemingly to purposely reveal a tattoo of a compass that traced halfway up his right forearm. Hair shaggy, dark and wet, either recently washed or he’d just come out of the sea. Stubble not quite obscuring a razor sharp jaw. Nose like a horse’s. Long and aquiline with a small hook, a nose like that and you had to either stand proud and tall or wither and die. Eyes too dark to see from this distance but clearly looking her way.
No way could it be, she decided.
If it was, then this could be really embarrassing.
I hope it’s not him, Ella thought.
An image of herself at fifteen. Puppy dog eyes and a plump little waist.
Cocky, bad-tempered Dimitri who would click his fingers sullenly for the ropes of their boats and Maddy would ask him if he wanted her lemonade, giggling, while Ella crossed her arms over her waist where she was sitting in her bikini and try and look at him from under her eyelashes like she’d seen Princess Diana do in her interview. He would sneer at them and stalk away, hanging around watching with his gang of friends, whispering and laughing as they scurried past.
As he sauntered into the kitchen, all louche and relaxed, she realised young, moody Dimitri with his condescending looks and smug smiles was neither young and skinny any more nor had he stayed in Athens where she had hoped he was happily settled – never to be seen again. She pursed her lips and put her shoulders back as he came closer, dark and handsome and butterscotch tanned.
‘Dimitri, you remember Ella don’t you?’ Maddy said. She had the wine glass up to her lips so Ella couldn’t see if she was smiling.
Dimitri sat himself down in the seat her mum had just vacated like he owned the place, flipped it round backwards and leant against the frame. Then he cocked his head to one side and seemed to study her.
Green.
His eyes were the colour of freshly cut grass.
‘Eleanor?’ he nodded. ‘Goodness me. Haven’t you changed?’
Ella found her mouth would only stretch into the slightest of smiles and thanked God it was dark in there because her cheeks had unexpectedly turned luminous red. ‘I think I remember you…’ she said vaguely and as soon as she did she saw his lips quirk up and she knew immediately that he knew she was lying.
‘Of course, why would I think you would remember. Stupid me. Dimitri.’ He held out a hand, green eyes dancing like imps.
‘Yes of course.’ Ella took a sip of water because her throat was suddenly really dry, and then reached forward to shake his hand.
His skin was rough and dry, and his hold on her was completely different to being touched by Max. While her hand was in his it was like she couldn’t speak. Like her brain had been momentarily switched off and she was paralysed, like one of those spiders who injects their mate with poison, except nicer than that. And more stressful at the same time.
‘Are you hot, Ella?’ her granddad asked.
‘No not at all.’ she said, pulling her hand back and sitting on it. ‘It’s…’ she rubbed her cheek with her other hand and felt the warmth radiating from it, but couldn’t think of any reasonable excuse.
If there was one thing she didn’t need to be reminded of, it was her fifteen year old self.
Dimitri leant forward, seemingly completely unabashed by the whole previous thirty seconds, and scooped up some moussaka with a spare fork. ‘So…’ he said with his mouth full. ‘What are you celebrating?’
‘I’m going to London.’
‘Ahh.’ He nodded. ‘I should have guessed. I suppose you have something to do with this?’ He turned again to look at Ella and she found herself having to look away.
‘I erm–’ she stumbled.
‘Ella is paying for Maddy to go.’ Sophie said, coming over to the table with bowls full of creamy, white yoghurt and dried figs like squashed bruises and setting them down with a smack on the centre of the table. ‘And in doing so taking my best waitress.’ She went on as if it was that rather than just little Maddy leaving that was the problem. She picked up the remains of the moussaka as Dimitri reached up for a last scoopful, her lips tight, her eyes a little red. ‘Which no one seems to have thought through at all.’
‘Agatha could do it.’ Maddy said, her hand stilled on her wine glass, clearly afraid it was all about to fall through.
‘Agatha couldn’t do it, Maddy. She can’t be front of house. You know that. She scares all the customers away and if there’s one thing I need at the moment, it’s customers.’
There was a pause.
‘Yes.’ Her mum nodded. ‘Thank you for thinking of me through all this.’
Maddy looked down at the table. Dimitri raised a brow like he’d just walked into a storm and was trying not to giggle in the face of the tension.
The white cat trotted into the kitchen and Ella, keen to avoid being a part of the conversation, leant down to stroke it but it darted away, pausing in the far corner of the room where it winked one eye before jumping up on the windowsill to settle down to sleep.
Her mum seemed to be taking her annoyance out on the yoghurt, scooping big dollops of it into little blue and white painted bowls, thrusting them at Maddy who passed them on like a pass-the-parcel.
‘Well it’s obvious.’ her grandfather said, reaching forward to spoon some figs into his bowl, his lip turned up at the corner as if they were all stupid. ‘Ella’ll do it. Won’t she? Won’t you? You’re here. May as well make yourself useful.’
‘Waitressing?’ Ella said with horror before she could stop herself.
There was a pause.
The only noise was the hum of the motor that made the fibre optic angel wings glow.
‘Yes Ella, waitressing. If that’s not beneath you.’ her mum said without looking at Ella at all. And for the first time Ella realised that perhaps alienating her mother wasn’t the best way to get her to notice her.
CHAPTER 10
MADDY
The plane had to circle three times before it could land. Snow was causing havoc at the airport and the runway needed to be cleared. No more planes were taking off. The wind was shaking the aircraft, juddering the wings.
Maddy closed her eyes and held onto her armrests. She’d been in a plane three times before and they had all been to visit her da, seemingly a lifetime ago. She’d had Ella with her to hold her hand.
She forced herself to open her eyes and look out the window. To marvel at the sight of London below her, like a map speckled with white. Take it all in, Maddy.
She glanced at the person next to her and gave them a little smile. The woman turned her lips up but then looked away, as if embarrassed that they’d had any contact.
Maddy went back to looking out the window.
When they finally landed, the captain wished them happy holidays and the flight attendants had Santa’s elf hats on and big tins of Quality Street. Maddy paused at the entrance of the tunnel that led them out of the plane and into Arrivals, cramming an orange cream into her mouth and wishing she’d paused over her selection more carefully and got that big purple one with the hazelnut in the middle of caramel. The taste of the chocolate mingled with the residue of fear in her mouth and she rested her hand on the side of the plane just to catch her breath.
‘Please keep moving, there’s a place to pause as you exit the tunnel.’ The flight attendant ushered her forward. But Maddy just moved to the side, let the people in suits and the guys with big Beats headphones and relatives with bags of presents push past her. She took a deep breath and inhaled the stale smell of airplane food, harsh chemical cleaner and the sharp tang of fuel, she
felt the icy blast of air around the edge of the tunnel and the engulfing heat of the airport and she thought, this is it, I’m here. I’ve made it.
Someone pushed into her back and she stumbled forward, catching her arm on the sharp metal edge and nicking her jumper. The person didn’t apologise, they just kept on walking, their iPhone pressed up to their ear.
‘Hey, thanks a lot.’ she shouted, pulling up her sleeve to inspect the damage to her skin. Someone else sighed when they couldn’t get past her and muttered, ‘Jesus woman, get a move on.’
She glanced over her shoulder to look at who’d said it, and a small guy with a red sports jacket and a crime novel under his arm stared back at her, eyes wide, ‘Come on!’ he chivvied again. ‘Jesus H Christ.’
Maddy made a face. ‘It’s Christmas. Be nice.’
He pushed past her.
She shook her head in disgust but made herself forget about it. Some idiot shouting at her couldn’t put a dent in her excitement. Ditto her throbbing arm.
The airport was stark but to Maddy it was stunning. Exotic. Romantic. Beautifully monochrome. Outside the sun-flecked grey sky shimmered like granite. Planes on the runway were wrapped in wisps of cotton wool fog. It was no longer snowing but the ground was covered with white, crisscrossed with tyre tracks of black slush.
Inside it smelt like stale air and possibility. Coke machines buzzed bright. Maddy stood on the travelator, flattening herself against the edge so that people could march past with their wheely bags, her hand pressing on her scratched arm, wondering why everyone was in such a hurry, why they weren’t pausing to drink it all in. The travelator rumbled on at a snail’s pace, allowing her to absorb all the posters advertising perfumes and Scotch whisky, then one came up for the Michael Buble Christmas album, and then another for carols at the Royal Albert Hall complete with fanfare trumpeters, and then there was an advert for Harrods, presents wrapped up in their sludge green and gold, and then Chanel, white snowflakes falling on some really stunning celebrity whose name was on the tip of her tongue. A poster for Christmas markets along the Southbank showed people all wrapped up in scarves and gloves pointing at treasures on stalls in little wooden huts. Maddy could feel the Christmassiness rising up inside her. It was going to be amazing.
