Wish You Were Here

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘You’re pretty,’ she said.

  Alice choked on a mouthful of pitta bread. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘You’re pretty.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tiana said.

  Milo laughed. ‘You see! You should learn how to accept a compliment, Alice – like Tiana.’

  ‘But she is pretty,’ Alice said.

  ‘And so are you, isn’t she, Tiana?’ Milo said.

  ‘I just said so,’ Tiana said, looking confused.

  Milo laughed. ‘You did and she is and that’s the end of it.’

  Alice shook her head and continued eating – this time, with two pairs of eyes fixed upon her. When she looked up again, she caught Milo’s eye and he grinned at her. She gave him a warning look and he cleared his throat.

  ‘Get on with your dinner, Tiana,’ he said, ‘you’re putting Alice off.’

  They ate the rest of their meal with furtive glances and funny little giggles doing the rounds of the table. Finally, the food was finished and Milo told Tiana to return to her room.

  ‘Can’t I stay and talk to Alice?’ she asked, her eyes big and soulful.

  Milo shook his head. ‘She’s had a long day,’ he told her. ‘You can chat to her in the morning. Go to your room. I’ll come and tuck you in later.’

  With a resigned look on her face, she left the room.

  ‘Night, Tiana,’ Alice called after her. ‘She’s wonderful,’ she told Milo.

  ‘Yes, some of the time,’ he said with a little smile.

  ‘You must adore her.’

  He nodded. ‘I can’t imagine life without her.’

  ‘It must be hard, though, raising her on your own.’

  ‘It’s no more than I can handle,’ he told her and a serious look crossed his face.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice asked, feeling that she had touched a nerve.

  He shrugged. ‘We’ve had a bit of a rough time recently. Family stuff. You don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you all about my family. I’d like to know more about yours.’

  Milo sat down at the table again and poured some more wine for them both and then he told her about Georgio and Sonya and what had happened over the last few days.

  ‘They just took her?’ Alice said in shock.

  ‘It had been building up for some time,’ Milo told her. ‘But I hadn’t realised just how desperate they were to have her.’

  ‘Will they try it again?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think they got a bit of a shock at how unhappy Tiana was about it all, but what did they expect? All she’s known is this island. You can’t just drag a child away from her home and expect her to be happy about it.’

  ‘You must have been so worried.’

  ‘Well, I crashed my bike trying to get to her.’

  ‘Ah,’ Alice said. ‘I didn’t think you’d been tearing round the roads just for the sake of it.’ She looked at the cut on his head. ‘Is that going to scar?’

  His fingers brushed it. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it should as a reminder of what’s important.’

  Alice nodded and then stood up and began clearing the table.

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ Milo said.

  ‘But I’d like to. You’ve gone to all this trouble—’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ he told her. ‘Please, go and sit down.’ He motioned to the sitting room next door and Alice relented, leaving the kitchen and sinking down onto a sofa.

  It felt funny to be in somebody’s house not doing anything. She didn’t even have a book to read. She looked around the room for a moment. There was a row of novels on a little shelf near the television but they were all in Greek. Anyway, she didn’t really feel like reading. She was too tired to concentrate. In fact, her eyelids were feeling very heavy. She’d just close them for a bit.

  ‘Alice?’ a little voice came from a long way away. ‘Alice?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Was I asleep?’

  ‘I think so,’ Milo said, sitting down next to her. ‘Can I get you something? A cup of coffee?’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you. I guess I’d better call it a night.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll show you your room.’

  They walked down the hallway together and Milo opened a door to the right. The bedroom was small and simply furnished with a small double bed, a bedside cabinet on which stood a pottery lamp, and a large wardrobe in the corner. Milo stepped inside to draw the curtains.

  ‘You’ll love the view in the morning,’ he told her. ‘You can see right down to the sea.’

  She nodded and noticed that there was a towel and a brand new toothbrush on the bed together with a T-shirt and a pair of socks.

  ‘Just in case you get cold,’ he said, noticing that she was looking at the socks. ‘Tiana is always complaining about cold feet.’

  Alice smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The bathroom’s along the hall on the left.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is there anything else you need? Anything else I can get you?’

  She looked up at him. He was standing awfully close to her now and she could feel his warm breath on her face. This was the man she had swum naked with in the sea. This was the man whom she had made love with in the ruins of an ancient temple. She swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be next door if you need anything,’ he said, his eyes dark and warm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, watching as he left her room and closed the door.

  What was she doing here? She was sending out all the wrong signals by staying here and yet she didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact, she’d never been made to feel so welcome anywhere in her life.

  She sat down on the bed and picked up the pair of perfect woollen socks. He had a little sister, she thought to herself. That was the big secret he’d been hiding. He hadn’t been married with six children. She had painted him as a total villain when he had, in fact, been – what? The perfect man?

  She shook her head. The perfect man, she thought. She had thrown away her one chance of happiness with the most perfect man she had ever met and, yet, how else could it have ended? Even if he was perfect, their relationship had been nothing more than a holiday romance, hadn’t it? It didn’t have a future.

  Unless…

  Alice switched the little pottery lamp on by the bed and gazed at the warm pool of yellow light it cast, her mind whirling with sudden, unexplored, unanticipated thoughts.

  She’d never thought very much about the future before because she’d been so resolutely stuck in the present with her job and her rented house, but the inheritance from her father might give her the chance to choose a future for herself. It might just allow her to make a decision that would change her life forever, she thought.

  ‘If I have the courage,’ she whispered to herself.

  Chapter 39

  Milo hovered around Alice’s door for a while after having closed it, wondering if she would think of something that she needed. He wished she’d stayed and talked to him a little longer. It seemed too early to say good night.

  Finally, he walked back through to the kitchen and tidied a few things up and prepared Tiana’s packed lunch for the next morning. It was as he was crossing the hall to the sitting room half an hour later that he saw Tiana. She was standing in the doorway to Alice’s room.

  ‘Tiana! Come away. What are you doing?’ he hissed.

  ‘Just watching her,’ Tiana whispered back. ‘She looks so sad. I think she’s been crying.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have opened her door.’

  ‘It just came open,’ she said.

  Milo sighed but couldn’t resist joining Tiana at the bedroom door and looking inside, the hallway light falling softly on Alice’s face as she lay in bed.

  ‘She does look sad,’ he said.

  ‘What’s she so sad about when she’s here with you?’ Tiana asked.

  ‘She has a lot to thin
k about at the moment.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, her father’s just died and there are other things too.’

  ‘And she doesn’t have a big brother to take care of her like I do?’ Tiana asked.

  ‘No, she doesn’t.’

  ‘So you’re looking after her instead?’

  Milo cleared his throat. ‘Something like that. Now, you should be in bed, young lady.’

  ‘Can I kiss her good night?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘Are you going to?’

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said.

  He escorted her back to her bedroom and, once she was tucked up in bed with the promise that she wouldn’t go wandering into Alice’s room in the middle of the night, Milo retraced his steps and popped his head around the door again and gazed at the pale face of Alice asleep in the bed. It was strange to think of her wearing his T-shirt and socks. Strange but rather wonderful.

  ‘Good night, Alice,’ he whispered, and gently closed the door and walked silently to his own room next door.

  Alice awoke in the strange bedroom and looked across at the pale blue curtain through which the sunlight streamed. She had no idea what the time was so leapt out of bed and grabbed her watch. It was after ten. She’d slept for twelve whole hours.

  As she drew back the curtain, she was instantly drenched in sunlight. Milo had been right about the view – it was breathtaking. The land rolled away in gentle hills and, there beyond a silver-bright olive grove, was the sea. Today, it was a deep sapphire-blue that almost hurt the eyes to look at it but Alice couldn’t tear her gaze away from it. It was mesmeric and she could easily imagine becoming obsessed with such a view and spending endless hours staring at it.

  What must it be like to live somewhere like this, she wondered? To be able to look at the sea whenever you wanted to and to observe its changing nature, its myriad colours and its volatile moods swinging from calm and glassy to stormy and savage. No wonder Tiana and, indeed, Milo didn’t want to live anywhere else. Alice could totally understand that. A place like this became part of a person. It was the very breath you took, it was what filled your mind and your heart. It was an emotional anchor that gave you a true sense of who you were and where you belonged. That, Alice thought, must be one of the most satisfying feelings in the world and it was one that she’d never had.

  Nipping quickly into the bathroom, she took a shower and got dressed. There was an old mirror above the sink and Alice glanced at her reflection. Her skin had paled since her last trip to Kethos and her hair had lost the warm highlights that the sun had graced her with, and her eyes were more pink than blue after her crying the night before.

  Walking back through to the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed for a while thinking about all the possibilities that the future held and then she felt incredibly sad because the very thing that was giving her such opportunities had been the death of her beloved father and she wouldn’t have wanted that for the whole world.

  She took a deep breath. She was going to get through this. She was going to sort out this whole Aphrodite business and then she would sort out her father’s estate. Then, she promised, she’d do something wonderful for herself.

  Leaving the bedroom, she ventured through to the kitchen where Milo was making a cup of coffee.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I slept so long. You should’ve woken me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to,’ he said. ‘I guessed you’d be exhausted after yesterday.’

  ‘Where’s Tiana?’

  ‘She’s left for school.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Alice said, realising it was a weekday.

  ‘Did you sleep all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘There’s plenty of breakfast,’ he said and Alice sat at the table and began to eat.

  ‘Don’t you have to go to work?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘The boss is still away and Old Costas is taking some leave so he can’t tell on me and I can catch up with things another time. Lander’s covering for me,’ Milo said.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m causing you so much bother,’ she said.

  Milo shook his head. ‘You’re not,’ he said. ‘I told you I’d help you and I will.’

  ‘So, we’re going back to the sculptor’s house?’

  ‘As soon as you’re ready.’

  Alice nodded and then she suddenly felt nervous which was silly, really, because this was the day she’d been so longing for – the day when everything would be back to normal. No more ridiculous male attention, no more bizarre declarations of love from complete strangers. She was going to return to her true self. The real Alice Archer.

  ‘You okay?’ Milo asked her.

  Alice nodded. ‘I just want to get this all over and done with.’

  ‘And get home again?’

  She looked up at him. ‘I – I guess,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to sort out, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He nodded again. His face was solemn and she couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking. He’d probably be glad to see the back of the strange English girl who kept yo-yoing in and out of his life. She’d done nothing but cause trouble and she wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see her again.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion and his face a perfect blank. ‘Let me know when you’re ready to go.’ He left the room and Alice blinked in surprise. What had just happened there? Had she said something to upset him? She finished her cup of coffee and walked down the hallway to his bedroom and knocked lightly on the door. He appeared a moment later. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said and, like two strangers, they left the house in an uncomfortable silence.

  How she longed to talk to him on the journey back to the sculptor’s house. There was so much she wanted to know about him but she felt as if he’d somehow closed down on her. Maybe it was because she’d said she was going home but what else could she do?

  She looked out of the window at the barren, rock-strewn landscape. The road climbed higher and, for a few moments, the sea was lost to them. She opened her window and breathed in the sweet thyme-scented air. She wanted to say something – to share the moment – but Milo seemed so distanced from her that she remained silent.

  When they reached the home of the sculptor at last, they saw that, once again, the gates were closed and padlocked. Nevertheless, they got out of the car.

  ‘Hello!’ Alice shouted and immediately set off the dog. She noticed that it was on a long lead today and she was thankful that it didn’t get any closer to her than it did. ‘Sound the horn,’ she told Milo.

  He returned to the car and gave three blasts. It sounded so horribly loud in the silence of the countryside and it started the dog off again.

  ‘How are we going to get in?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I don’t think we are.’

  ‘There must be a weak spot somewhere,’ Alice said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean – let’s get in there. It’s obvious we’re not going to be invited in so let’s find our own way in.’

  ‘What – with that enormous dog?’

  ‘He’s tied up.’

  ‘But he might break free!’ Milo pointed out.

  Alice shook her head and started walking around the perimeter of the wall. The ground was dusty and stony and Alice twisted her ankle at one point. Milo rushed forward but she waved him away.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  The wall stretched interminably and it soon became obvious that there was no entrance other than the one that was padlocked and guarded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice,’ Milo said, ‘but it looks like this isn’t going to work out as we’d hoped.’

  Chapter 40

  Alice looked down the long length of wall. She’d come all this way and she wasn’t ready to give up yet. There must be a way inside
. There must. It was then that she saw the tree.

  ‘Milo – look!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The tree.’

  The olive tree looked centuries old and was good and sturdy. Alice ran over to it and Milo gave her a leg-up and she was hoisted into its silvery-green depths. Its bark was ridged and gnarled and felt rough against Alice’s legs and she wished she hadn’t worn a dress but had chosen something more practical to wear.

  ‘You okay?’ Milo said, climbing up the tree after her.

  Alice shimmied her way along a thick branch towards the top of the wall. ‘Nearly there,’ she said, releasing the hem of her dress from where it had caught on a rough bit of bark.

  Finally, she made it to the wall and positioned herself on its top, gazing down at the ground beneath her. She took a few steadying breaths before launching herself into the air and landing with a great thud that she felt sure would start another earthquake. It was much more of a drop than she’d thought and she wondered how on earth they were going to climb back up and get out but she wasn’t going to worry about that just yet.

  A second later, Milo thudded to the ground next to her. ‘Well, we’re in,’ he said, dusting himself down. Alice looked at him and he gave her a little smile and then they began walking towards the villa, careful to go round the side that was furthest away from the dog.

  ‘Gosh, there’s acres,’ Alice said a few minutes later as they surveyed the grounds.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find her,’ Milo said as if reading her mind.

  ‘What if we don’t?’

  He looked at her. ‘You’ll just have to get used to being irresistible to men for the rest of your life.’

  ‘That’s not funny, Milo,’ she said.

  ‘I can think of worse fates.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got to do this.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Look, the sculptor’s bound to have kept the statue close to the house if he was going to try to repair it. There must be a workshop somewhere. She’s probably in one of those.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said hopefully.

  Skirting the villa, they soon found themselves in what was obviously a stonemason’s yard. It was full of pieces of rubble from tiny fragments to great boulders but there weren’t any statues around.