by Mandy Baggot
Her eyes went to the sparkling aquamarine water and today’s clear vista of the Albanian mountains. Corfu had worked its magic on her from the moment she had opened up enough to let it in. It wasn’t just the blue sky and the effervescent sea, it was the stark contrasts at every turn. From the dark grey of Mount Pantokrator to the bright white pebbles at the edge of the beach through undulating hills of woodland, fields of crops and fragrant flowers – there was a new scene just waiting to be captured at every turn.
‘Look around you, Janie,’ Imogen said softly. ‘It’s breath-taking.’
Janie turned her head, pausing for a few moments before turning back. ‘I have to admit that Panos is pretty eye-catching. Gave me the gift of a divan.’
Imogen sighed. There was no escaping the man. Even when he wasn’t here he was being forced into her mind. She pressed her lime-green pen with the lotus flower motif onto her notepad – Imperial Hotel, Osaka.
‘Don’t forget he’s the local that wants to redevelop everything,’ Imogen said quickly. ‘Looks can be deceiving.’
‘Anyone who buys me and my children a bed can’t be all bad.’
No, he wasn’t all bad, Imogen had to admit. But he was best kept at a distance, where she wouldn’t be tempted to inhale the manly aroma of him. Could sniffing someone be classed as adultery? She shook a mosquito off her arm and refocussed on her sister-in-law.
‘So, how do you feel now you’re here? Seeing all this.’
‘Confused,’ Janie admitted. ‘Because I wanted to hate it. I wanted to see it as a ridiculous notion. One of Harry’s mad whims, like buying that boat he always threatened us with.’
‘And you don’t?’ Imogen asked.
‘Despite what you’ve said about the nightclub proposal next door… I see potential,’ Janie admitted.
Imogen clapped her hands together, excitement filling her up.
‘But it’s still a risky venture to undertake with little experience.’
‘Well,’ Imogen started. ‘I’m brushing off my cooking skills and am going to do my very best to get it up and running. Elpida and Cooky are going to help Harry until he finds someone permanent.’
‘So, what’s left to do? How can I help if boarding it all up again and putting it back on Rightmove really isn’t an option?’ Janie asked.
‘We’ve got to cook food for a folklore festival tomorrow.’
‘Let me have another look at that,’ Janie said, snatching up the menu and staring it down like it was a mortal enemy. ‘I’m no Mary Berry but I’ve cooked for the odd school event. Admittedly it was more rock cakes than… I can’t even pronounce this word.’ Janie narrowed her eyes at the Greek on the page.
‘Spanakopitakia,’ Imogen helped out. ‘It’s cheese and spinach parcels.’
‘And this one?’ Janie pointed at another item.
‘That is stifado,’ Elpida announced, coming up behind the pair.
‘Elpida!’ Imogen announced. ‘Thank goodness you’re here. I was starting to think I was actually going to have to Greek cook alone.’
‘Pfft! I would not let this happen just yet,’ Elpida said, smiling at the two women.
‘Hello,’ Janie greeted.
‘Oh, Janie, this is Elpida Dimitriou. She used to own the restaurant and she’s been such a help to us. And she’s the woman who came to the rescue with sheets and blankets for our beds last night.’ Imogen smiled. ‘Elpida, this is Janie, Harry’s wife.’
‘It is wonderful to meet you at last,’ Elpida said, clasping Janie’s hands in hers. ‘I have heard so much about you and your beautiful children. Where are they? Let me see if they are too thin.’
For a moment Janie looked at Elpida like she was the witch from Hansel and Gretel set on fattening up Olivia and Tristan to serve on the menu. Imogen laughed. ‘Elpida thinks everyone is too thin,’ she reassured her.
‘Hello,’ another voice greeted.
It was only when she spoke that Imogen became aware of Rhea, moving past the palm tree on the road next to the terrace. The very palm Imogen had been flattened against and ravished by Panos only a short time ago. She swallowed. This felt awkward. The woman was dressed so immaculately, in a pale pink all-in-one short suit, her long hair down, her make-up perfect, lips glossed. With dust and dirt marks on her t-shirt and fingers wrinkled from over-wearing of Marigolds, Imogen felt like a vagrant in comparison.
‘Hello,’ Imogen said quickly. ‘It’s Rhea, isn’t it?’
‘Come on, come forward,’ Elpida urged. ‘Imogen doesn’t bite and Janie looks too thin to hurt you.’
‘I can’t remember the last time someone called me thin,’ Janie said, smiling.
‘I ask Rhea to help us in the kitchen today. She tells me her mother teach her traditional Cretan cooking. We can put her to work with this menu,’ Elpida stated, clapping her hands together.
Imogen swallowed. She was about to spend time in the kitchen with Panos’ girlfriend. It had to be a recipe for disaster.
48
Halloumi, Acharavi Beachfront
Elpida made Greek cooking seem as easy as breathing. The woman’s hands flew from pot to bowl to marble slab and back again like a frenzied mime artist. All of it seemed complex compared to just coating cheese with flour and knocking up a saganaki.
‘Are you writing down all this step by step?’ Imogen asked, her eyes searching the worktop for evidence of paper.
‘You need me to write down?’ Elpida queried.
‘Yes! I’m not going to remember all these things. I haven’t made anything like this in years, Elpida.’
‘Is OK,’ Elpida said. ‘I have all this in my recipe book. I bring this here for you.’
‘Is some of it written in English?’
‘Pfft! Of course not.’
‘I can’t read Greek!’
A cloud of flour puffed up out of the bowl as Elpida shot her hands into it again. ‘I am going to be here… whenever you need me.’
‘But that isn’t fair on you,’ Imogen sighed. ‘You sold this restaurant because you didn’t want to own a restaurant anymore.’
‘You let me decide what is fair,’ Elpida answered. ‘Look, Rhea is doing so well.’
Imogen looked at Rhea’s large ball of elastic dough she had just placed on the work surface. The woman was beautiful and a good cook. Even with the dreaded pastry. She was also completely lovely. You couldn’t feel any animosity towards someone who was so friendly and now helping create food for your restaurant. Imogen swallowed. Rhea wouldn’t be so friendly if she knew Imogen had been stealing intimate time with her boyfriend. There was a layer of guilt mixing around in her pastry bowl. She hated herself for getting into that situation.
‘That looks perfect,’ Imogen said to Rhea. ‘You obviously cook a lot.’
Rhea shook her head. ‘Not much anymore. There is no one to really cook for.’
‘Ah,’ Elpida said. ‘There is always someone to cook for. Most people do not know they need cooking for but they will always eat.’
Imogen smiled. ‘We need to send you out to famine-stricken regions.’
‘Like England?’ Elpida joked.
‘We just eat the wrong things because we’re too busy.’
‘That is what Pano does,’ Rhea continued. ‘Or he will not eat at all.’
‘Pfft! His father was the same. Always too busy to find time to sit down. Be still. Relax. Take the moment.’
‘I think we’re all a little guilty of that,’ Imogen admitted.
‘So,’ Elpida began. ‘We are making this new version of spanakopitakia for Halloumi. And it is different because it has an English twist Harry wanted.’
‘It’s the absolutely only thing I’m letting him put an English twist on. I keep reminding him we’re in Corfu, not Benidorm.’
‘So,’ Elpida said. ‘We are going to use shortcrust pastry instead of the traditional filo.’ Elpida smiled. ‘This is good for you, Imogen, because shortcrust pastry is the easiest pastry to make. How are you gettin
g along?’
‘Terribly,’ Imogen answered. ‘It doesn’t seem to be binding very well.’ She lifted her goo-covered hands out of the mixing bowl as evidence.
‘Pfft! I will not have failure in my old kitchen,’ Elpida said. ‘Rhea, let us wrap yours and put it in the fridge to cool. Imogen, keep working it together while I fetch the other ingredients. Come.’ Elpida led Rhea and her perfect board of pastry out of the main room to the pantry area that housed the walk-in fridge behind.
Imogen’s fingers felt like they were glued together. She shook the mixture off them before grappling with the flour, water and fat again, attempting to goad it into a shape… any shape that was solid. She really needed to get competent at this but nothing was transforming. The whole sorry mess looked like something found on the pavement outside a nightclub at four in the morning.
‘How is it going?’
She flicked up her head to greet Panos, leaning on the doorjamb at the exit to the restaurant. He was wearing a business suit, the crisp white shirt open at the neck.
‘Fine,’ she answered stiffly. ‘Pretty perfect actually. Shortcrust pastry Joe Wicks would definitely disapprove of.’ She looked up from the bowl. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for my grandmother,’ he said. ‘So, can I see what you are making?’ He took a step into the kitchen, indicating her work.
‘Definitely not. It’s still a work in progress. It needs complete privacy.’ Couldn’t he take a hint?
‘The pastry needs privacy?’
‘Please don’t look,’ she begged.
It was too late. He was beside her, his lemony scent soaring up her nose, his eyes on the semolina consistency in her bowl.
‘Skatá,’ Panos said.
‘I know what that means,’ Imogen answered. ‘That’s not nice. I’m sure it will taste OK.’
‘If you can get this out of the bowl,’ he said.
‘That isn’t funny. Go away,’ she urged. ‘It’s none of your business how it looks. Don’t you have some demolition to get on with?’
‘I think I know what is wrong,’ he stated.
‘I’m no good with pastry? I could have told you that.’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ Suddenly, he sunk his hands into the mixture, his fingers around hers.
‘What are you doing?’ Imogen breathed.
‘I know why your pastry is like this.’
‘You needed to put your hands in my bowl to tell me.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
His fingers were kneading more of her than the mixture. It felt like she was re-enacting the pottery scene in Ghost with a Greek Patrick Swayze.
‘Your hands are too hot,’ he offered.
A snake of perspiration trickled down her back. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life.’
‘It is true. The best pastry is made with cold hands,’ he answered. His proximity was doing absolutely nothing to bring down the temperature of her hands or any other part of her body.
‘We have herbs and halloumi cheese and… Well, well, well,’ Elpida greeted as she and Rhea returned to the room. ‘I never think this day will come. Cooking, twice in one week!’
Imogen shot her hands out of the bowl, bringing up the whole soggy mess of dough, the porcelain falling to the tiles with a smash.
‘Gosh, I’m sorry,’ Imogen exclaimed. Her cheeks were burning up as she bent down, trying to pick up the pieces of ceramic with her hands caked in mixture.
‘Stop,’ Panos said, bending down too. ‘Remember what you did to yourself with the wine glass.’
He was looking at her intently, seemingly uncaring that his grandmother and girlfriend were witnesses to the scene. She wanted the floor to open up like a sink-hole and suck her into oblivion.
Panos got to his feet. ‘I was just trying to help,’ he explained. ‘Imogen was having trouble with her pastry.’
* * *
Panos was having trouble keeping his cool. Sinking his hands into the moist, wet, dough, slipping his fingers between Imogen’s and almost tasting her unique scent in the air between them had caused a stinging need. But it was wrong to feel that now, here, with Rhea looking on like a crushed mosquito just waiting for the final killer swat.
‘I need to start from scratch,’ Imogen said, getting up. ‘With new mixture. Rhea’s was brilliant. She’s a wonderful cook.’ Imogen faced the woman. ‘You’re so good. I already know that, just by the way you made that pastry… so much better than me.’
‘Come,’ Elpida said to Imogen. ‘Let’s wash off those hands and start from the beginning.’
‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to get the hang of it,’ Imogen admitted.
‘Pfft! You will not fail on my watches,’ Elpida insisted, leading the way out of the room towards the pantry area again.
Panos grabbed the nearest cloth and began wiping his hands with it, all too aware that Rhea was still regarding him.
‘It is her, isn’t it?’
Rhea’s words sent a pinch of hurt to his gut. He closed his eyes, still working the mixture off his hands before he looked up and faced her.
‘No,’ he responded. ‘It is not like you think.’
Rhea shook her head. ‘Liar.’
‘Rhea, when I left Crete…’
‘You don’t have to explain it, Pano. I see it.’ She blinked back tears. ‘I see it with my own eyes. The way you look at her… You have never looked at me that way.’
‘Rhea, don’t,’ he begged. ‘It is not like that.’ What did he mean? What wasn’t it like? And who was he trying to convince?
‘I should have left this morning,’ Rhea said. ‘You told me and I did not listen. I still hoped…’
‘I have behaved badly. I should have known how you felt and been more considerate. This is all down to me.’
‘No,’ Rhea sighed. She shook her head. ‘You told me when we first met you did not want complications.’
‘It was not fair of me to expect you to be the same as I am.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘No one is like I am.’
‘Not even Imogen?’ Rhea asked.
He looked through to the other room. He could just see the back of his grandmother and Imogen, spraying water into the sink and trying to clean the pastry from Imogen’s hands.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘Not even Imogen.’ He wiped at his hands again and threw down the cloth before meeting Rhea’s gaze again. ‘I want you to stay for the folklore festival,’ he stated. ‘If you would like to.’ He paused. ‘It is something special.’
She shook her head again. ‘It is not my place.’
‘Come,’ Panos stated. ‘There is dancing and great food and drink. It is exactly your place.’ He smiled. ‘It is maybe not like my clubs in Crete but…’
‘This whole island is nothing like Crete,’ Rhea answered. ‘Nothing happens here.’
‘You have only been here a day.’
‘I do not know how you have survived all this time.’
He swallowed.
‘And seriously, Pano, if you have no feelings for Imogen, I would be worried about your sudden interest in getting your hands covered in pastry mixture.’
He looked down at his hands, the goo hardening on his fingers. He raised his head. ‘So, will you stay? For the festival day?’
‘On one condition,’ Rhea answered.
‘Go on.’
‘Your private plane to take me back home again?’ She pouted, batting her extensive eyelashes.
‘I am certain that can be arranged.’
‘What can be arranged?’ Elpida asked, marching back into the kitchen with Imogen behind her.
Rhea smiled, bracelets jangling as she wiped her fingers down the front of the apron she was wearing. ‘I am going to stay for the festival tomorrow,’ she stated.
‘Wonderful! Another mouth to feed and another pair of hands to help here!’ Elpida answered excitedly. ‘Isn’t that good news, Imogen?’
Panos looked to Imogen, who hurriedly nodde
d and smiled, all the while keep her eyes firmly away from him.
49
Halloumi, Acharavi Beachfront
Dimitriou Enterprises signs had gone up outside Tomas’ Taverna late that afternoon. At first the villagers had seemed to think the truck and the men with hammers were something to do with the folklore festival, but then the boards bearing the blue-and-white logo had appeared and everyone had begun gossiping, congregating around the side of Halloumi and looking to Imogen with something akin to pity in their eyes.
Panos’ conversion of the beachfront was becoming a harsh reality.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give to you… Halloumi’s Greek biscuits with cream and a kumquat compote.’ Harry pulled the cloth off the plate he was holding and slapped the platter and a small porcelain jug down into the middle of the table.
Imogen, Elpida, Janie, Olivia and Tristan sat in the middle of the restaurant area for a tasting session. It had also been a chance to dress the room in preparation for their opening in a few days. Mrs Pelekas’ tablecloths adorned each table and in the middle of every setting was one of the candles Imogen had got in Arillas. Even though unlit, they were giving off a subtle fragrance that filled the room.
Tristan and Olivia clapped their hands together in applause, as they had done each time Harry, Imogen or Elpida brought out the next dish. Imogen smiled, looking around the room, glad that the essentials were all in place. They had plates, they had cutlery and glasses, they even had strings of fairy lights adorning the bar area. The one hitch had been the delivery of beer barrels. They were going to have to make do with selling bottled beer from the supermarket for a few days until it arrived. Outside, the new pergola was in place over the terrace, just a coat of creosote to go.
‘They smell gorgeous,’ Janie stated, looking at the food. She turned to Imogen. ‘You made this?’
Imogen smiled. ‘I might have… eventually… after several attempts to get them just right.’
‘And these are very simple,’ Elpida stated, toying with an unlit cigarette. ‘Soon, children, your father and your auntie will be making much more complication things.’
