by Jo Thomas
‘I know Yannis! I’m working for him!’
‘Yes. I know.’ He replaces his hat carefully.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Of course I’m helping Yannis. I’m working for tips! Why all the secrecy? I really am getting fed up with it. It feels like they’re all protecting Stelios and his whereabouts. I’m frustrated. I’m furious for Demi . . . and I’m furious with myself for never having told her the truth.
I walk towards the mouth of the cave. After all the rain, I can smell the wild thyme and the conifers. It reminds me of the honey, and the smell when I came here with Stelios, when he swore he loved me as much as I loved him. I curl my fingers, squeezing them until my nails dig into my palms. Then I lift my chin to the sky, and as I do, the last of the dark clouds seem to roll away into the distance, letting the light back in, like a curtain swishing back on a clear, brilliant blue sky, with just a few white fluffy clouds to remind us of the turmoil that’s been. The sun pushes through as quickly as the storm clouds rolled in, as if showing that her strength can match theirs.
I can see clearly now, very clearly indeed. There’s something in here, hanging from the ceiling in bunches. Lots and lots of dried bunches. Someone is stashing something away. Could it be the hidden drugs Mitera was talking about? Is this where they’re storing them once they’ve been picked from the mountainside? I snap my head back to Georgios. If he knows this cave as well as he seems to, he knows what’s going on here. The gunshots at night. He must know everything.
His face darkens. ‘I told you not to interfere with things you know nothing about. It would be best for everyone, for the family, if you left. If you like, I will help you, give you a lift to the airport.’
At that moment, something in me snaps. ‘Ever since I arrived, you’ve had it in for me! Is it because I haven’t kept off the mountain? Is that it? Are you worried the locals will discover that you know exactly what’s going on up here? You know who’s drying out whatever it is back there?’
My hackles are rising, like his little dog protecting its pack. I reach out and grab my bag, then, with a quick look outside the mouth of the cave, left and right, for any sign of the bees, I leave as quickly as I can, sitting down on the ledge and shuffling off the side. I have to get back. I have to get to the restaurant.
‘No, wait!’ I hear Georgios shouting after me. I turn and catch a glimpse of him standing in the mouth of the cave. He holds out a hand, but I’m not stopping for anyone. I start to make my way down the rocks, fuelled by the fury I’m feeling, making quick progress back to the path. ‘Wait!’ I hear him shout again, but I keep going, picking up speed, nimbly negotiating my way across the rocks as if I’m an old hand at it.
‘Wait! Nell!’
I stop abruptly. I didn’t even realise he knew my name, but the way he said it, I know for sure now. We’ve met before. I just don’t know where, or what I’ve done to him to make him hate me so much. I turn. He’s right behind me, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling to match mine.
‘If you tell anyone,’ he looks back at the cave, ‘about this – what you’ve seen in here . . .’
I match his stare. I’m not scared any more. I turn away and resume my progress over the rocks. ‘You’ll do what?’ I toss over my shoulder.
‘I will tell them exactly who you are, Elinor.’
I freeze. No one has called me that since I left here, when I left Elinor behind and became Nell.
‘I will tell everyone exactly who you are and why you’re here,’ he says evenly.
He takes two huge steps so that he’s standing right beside me. We glare at each other, both still breathing heavily.
‘Tell them what?’ I narrow my eyes. ‘If I tell everyone that you’re in cahoots with whoever is keeping people off the mountain, you’ll tell them what about me?’ I cross my arms firmly in front of me.
‘I know who you are,’ he says slowly. The wind that has pushed the dark clouds away is swirling round the craggy rocks we’re standing on, lifting my hair, wrapping strands of it around my face, and I try to swish my head this way and that to get it out of my eyes. ‘I knew from the moment you stepped off that plane who you were. That you were back.’
‘So you said. And who exactly am I, Georgios?’ I lift my chin.
‘You are Stelios’s English girlfriend,’ he says like he’s swallowed vinegar. ‘You’re Elinor.’
All my nerve endings are standing to attention. It’s like the electricity from the storm is still bouncing around between us, buzzing, lighting us up, sizzling as if one of us is about to get burned. ‘I am,’ I agree cautiously.
‘And as I say, you being here will only bring upset. You ran away once before and left him; why not stay away?’
‘I never ran away! I gave him time to sort things out . . .’ The words catch in my throat. I know exactly who he is now. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to work it out. I grit my teeth and try and take control. ‘And you were his best friend . . . George.’ Carefree, fun-loving, flirtatious George. Ever the party animal, never without a new girl on his arm. Always a smile and a laugh, always the charmer. You’d never know it now. I think back to when he took his hat off, when he smiled at his dog. It was enough to spark a memory. I stare at him again. Unrecognisable as the George I knew eighteen years ago. The George I thought was going to be best man at my wedding.
He and Stelios had worked the resorts together for years: George and his wing man, like Maverick and Goose. When I came along, at first George was unhappy with me for spoiling his fun, but he eventually accepted that Stelios and I were dating and soon we were like the Three Musketeers, going everywhere together: to the beach on days off; late-night bars after our shifts; beach parties where George would work his charm on the newly arrived holidaymakers, just after he’d waved the last girl off. We tutted, rolled our eyes, but that was George, so different from the man beside me now. I can’t believe he’s known who I am since the day I arrived, and he never said a word.
‘Well if you know who I am, and remember how much Stelios meant to me, you’ll understand why I want to see . . . see for myself whether leaving here that day was the right thing. You’ll understand why I’m back.’ I try to breathe more deeply. ‘I picked this farm knowing it was near Zeus’s Vista. Near Vounoplagia. But I had no idea how close. When I realised I was just up the road from the Wild Thyme, well. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, but I wanted to see him. To know he’s happy. To find out why he never came after me. Is that so bad?’ Hot, angry tears are blurring my vision and threatening to spill. I carry on with difficulty. ‘No one needs to know I’m here, George. Just tell me, was there someone else when I was with him? Is that why he didn’t follow me? Was I just a bit on the side, a summer fling?’
Georgios says nothing; just looks down at the ground as if searching for words.
‘Ooof!’ I puff in exasperation and start off towards the path again, swinging my arms as if they’ll propel me faster down the slope.
‘Wait!’ he calls again, like before, but this time he catches up with me and takes hold of my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. ‘You must promise not to say a word.’ He raises his eyebrows and looks back towards the cave, and I follow his gaze. ‘Not a word,’ he repeats.
I can’t stop myself; the words are out of my mouth on a tidal wave of injustice. ‘What? So that no one finds out what you’re really up to?’ I think back to the bunches of drying herbs hanging from the ceiling, lit up by the sudden burst of sunlight. Drugs!
‘What?’ He frowns deeply, his dark thick eyebrows meeting in the middle. ‘No! It’s complicated. It’s not your concern. It’s better if you just go home now and stop interfering in things you know nothing about!’ He is glaring at me as hard as I’m glaring at him.
‘You know exactly who’s keeping everyone off the mountain, otherwise how would you know about that cave
? You seemed very at home there. Are they giving you a cut for being the lookout? Keeping an eye out and scaring off anyone who comes this way?’ I’m feeling like a ship whose sail has just been filled with wind, catapulting me forwards, unstoppable. ‘You know who’s scaring everyone off, but now the game’s up! Just wait until I tell them all what you’re up to. Stelios will put a stop to this, just as soon as I get to see him.’
I march off down the mountainside, no longer putting out a tentative hand to feel my way. I know exactly where I’m going. It’s time we all found out the truth.
At the gates to the restaurant I straighten up, pull my shoulders back and take a deep breath. I have to get in there. I’m late already. Georgios is beside me. He followed me all the way down the mountain and back to the farm, even driving behind me in his truck as I rode Maria’s moped into town. I’m hot, bothered and grubby but determined to finally see Stelios for myself. There is no way Georgios is going to stop me. I flick my pendant inside the neck of my T-shirt and pat it for luck. I can’t give myself away yet.
I reach out for the gate handle.
‘Nell!’ He grabs my elbow and my racing heart thunders even faster, like a young horse pushing towards the finish line in the most important race of its life.
‘Let go!’ I try and shake him off.
‘This isn’t a good idea,’ he tells me firmly.
‘What bit isn’t a good idea? Me finding out why Stelios never came after me, never got in touch? Why I meant so little to him, me and his daughter?’
I was sure at the time that leaving was the right thing to do. We’d argued. He’d been surprised, confused by my news. He needed time to think things through. What were his family going to say? But I was stubborn as ever, hot-headed, and told him it was now or never. He was either in this with me or we were over. As he stomped off up the mountain to clear his head, to work out how to tell his family I was pregnant, it was his grandmother who encouraged me to leave. I thought it would give him space to work things out. And if he loved me like he said he did, and like I loved him, he would follow me, wouldn’t he?
‘He found out about his grandmother telling you to go.’ Georgios breaks into my thoughts.
‘He knew?’ My blood suddenly boils up. ‘“If you love him, let him go,” she told me. “Let him get on with the life he has here in Crete!” and that’s what I believed I was doing, giving him the choice, not trapping him. That’s why I never tried to contact him. I wanted him to be happy. But he never stood up to his family and told them it was me and the baby he wanted.’ I’m raging now. ‘My gorgeous daughter is not some kind of dirty secret. I have to speak to Stelios and ask him why he never came to find us.’ I reach out and firmly grab the wrought-iron handle with one hand. As I storm through into the courtyard, Georgios turns away, putting his hands over his face in exasperation.
‘Hey! You’re late!’ Yannis is carrying two large jugs of water from behind the bar by the entrance and looking really fed up. He stops in his tracks and looks me up and down. ‘Couldn’t you clean yourself up a bit?’ he says crossly and nods his head in the direction of the ladies’. I glance down at my dusty clothes, still damp in patches, and push a stray lock of hair behind my ear, as if that’s going to make me look any smarter.
I take a big gulp of air and look at the table of guests that Yannis is heading for with the jugs. I haven’t seen any of the family since I’ve been working at the restaurant, what with his mother spending time with her sick sister and his father suffering from arthritis. But here they all are. Stelios’s mother, a big-busted woman in black, wearing lots of gold jewellery. Next to her, her grey-haired husband, a full head of curly hair, with a matching long moustache drooping from either side of his mouth, just as he always had. The round woman about the same age as me, sitting next to him, one arm resting on the back of the chair, is Stelios’s sister, and perhaps that’s her husband juggling a small child on his lap. There are two other children, aged about six and four, and I wonder if either of them are Stelios’s; whether they are my daughter’s half-siblings. Lastly, the elderly lady at the end of the table, her thin grey hair pulled back into a smart bun: Stelios’s grandmother Demetria.
Everyone is there; everyone, that is, except Stelios.
I take another deep breath. ‘Kaló apógevma,’ I say, rubbing my sweating palms down my shorts.
‘Nell, there are plates to come out,’ Yannis snaps, looking at me like I’ve gone mad, and maybe I have. Stelios isn’t here. Maybe he does have a new life, on one of the other islands, or even abroad. Or maybe he’ll be here later. My raging temper calms a little.
‘Is something wrong, Nell?’ Yannis frowns. ‘Are you unwell? You look pale.’
I shake my head, the last of the raindrops flying from the ends of my hair. ‘I’ll just clean up,’ I say hoarsely, but as I turn towards the ladies’, the gate flies open and in storms Georgios, his face dark and furious.
‘So,’ he looks around at the table, ‘has she told you?’
Yannis frowns again. ‘Told us what?’ He looks confused and understandably frustrated.
I glare at Georgios. Is he trying to cover his tracks here? Is he frightened what people are going to say about him? Maybe he’s going to tell them himself, confess to what he’s been up to. I cross my arms again, a habit I seem to have formed around him, defensive and protective, and cock my head to the left.
‘Well?’ I say.
‘Well?’ says Yannis, looking from me back to Georgios. ‘Will somebody please tell me what’s going on? I have my family waiting. Has she told us what?’
Georgios looks at me, rolling his top lip on his bottom one. I nod, waiting for his confession. He turns to the family, looking around at their still, set faces. ‘Has she told you who she is?’ he says slowly.
My jaw drops open. No confession! He’s trying to cause a distraction by throwing me to the lions! ‘Never mind who I am!’ I say.
Stelios’s mother lowers her white napkin and turns to look at me through narrowed eyes. Yannis is shaking his head as if he’s walked into a parallel universe. He puts his hands on his slim hips.
I look at each of them in turn as they wait expectantly. They probably have no idea. I was just a young British girl who passed this way eighteen years ago and lost her heart, and who should never have come back to find out where she left it. They won’t be in the least bit interested in me. It’s Georgios we should be concentrating on!
‘My name is Elinor, but everyone calls me Nell. I came to the island when I was eighteen . . .’ I gabble.
‘So . . .’ Stelios’s mother is the first to speak as she pats down the napkin in her lap. ‘The rumours are true.’ They all turn to look at her. ‘I had heard there was a British woman with bright red hair in the town. It’s you. You’re back.’
‘I . . . I . . .’ I am completely thrown off my stride.
Demetria looks me up and down before turning to her daughter. ‘It’s her?’ she asks in Greek. Stelios’s mother nods and puts her hand over her husband’s; he seems to have slumped into the cushioned bench and the greenery of plants along the ledge behind him.
My mouth is as dry as sandpaper. I turn back to Georgios, hoping he’ll help me out, but he’s looking at the ground and I wish it would open up and swallow me whole. It’s Yannis who breaks the tension.
‘Who is she?’ Yannis throws his hands in the air in frustration.
‘Elinor! The one who broke Stelios’s heart,’ his sister says loudly, and I feel like a knife has been plunged into my own. ‘And you have given her a job?’ They all turn and look angrily at Yannis, whose jaw actually drops as he stares at me.
A burning hot flush travels up and round my neck, filling my cheeks and moving down to my earlobes, making them throb. There is something odd going on round here. It’s not the same place I left eighteen years ago.
‘It’s true? You’re Elinor? Stelios’s Elinor?’ Demetria asks slowly, reaching out a hand in my direction as if to touch me, to check that I’m real. I stand still, rooted to the spot. Much as I want to run, my body’s having none of it.
‘Nell?’ Yannis take a huge gulp, realisation washing over him, and steps backwards, waving a hand across his face in something like horror. ‘You’re not Nell, you’re . . . Elinor?’ His mouth turns down in a grimace. ‘I’ve heard about you, of course . . . I can’t believe I didn’t realise!’
‘You were very young, Yannis. You were only four or five,’ his sister says without taking her eyes off me.
Just wait until I explain myself and tell them what Georgios is actually up to. This is just him trying to throw them off the scent. I have nothing to be ashamed of, I remind myself. I just need to get this over with. I need to tell them about Georgios.
‘Look, I didn’t mean to cause any fuss,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to come back. To remember . . . that’s all.’
No one says a word. You could hear a pin drop. Why is no one saying anything? Most people just look their exes up on Facebook. Why oh why did I decide to come and see mine in the flesh?
‘So,’ I swing my arms back and clap my hands in front of me, ‘how is Stelios?’ I try and push out a wide smile, as if I’m an old friend just popping in to say hi, but the lump rising in my throat says otherwise. ‘Where’s he living?’ I look around at them; no one moves. None of the food has been touched. ‘Is he married? Childr—’ The last word catches in my throat and I try to jolly it out with a laugh that comes out more as a squeak.
Still no one says a word. Finally his mother speaks.
‘No, Stelios never married,’ she says softly, playing with the napkin in her lap.
My heart suddenly soars upwards, whooping with delight, roaring to life as if it’s been resuscitated with paddles by a crash team of doctors. He never married! Maybe, just maybe there’s a happy ending waiting out there for me. I’ve come back to see the only man I ever loved, and I find he’s not married. My face breaks into a smile that reaches from ear to ear. I reach for the pendant and pull it out from inside my T-shirt. Yannis stares at it, his hand touching his own. I grip hold of it tightly, feeling it connecting me to Stelios in some way. If there is the slightest possibility of a second chance, I intend to grab hold of that and never let it go either. I shut my eyes and wonder why I didn’t do this years ago. All this time I’ve been sitting at home, playing darts on a Thursday and having a takeaway on a Saturday with Mike, not letting myself think about this place, or about Stelios. Well, not any more. From now on I’m going to make every day count.
