Staying Out for the Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘Hi,’ Lucie said quickly, side-stepping Ariana and getting ready to leave the terrace.

  ‘Hi,’ Michalis replied.

  ‘You cannot go anywhere yet!’ Miltos ordered.

  ‘Well, the questions about modern medicine do need answering,’ Lucie informed him as she joined Michalis by the earthenware pots of bright orange chrysanthemum.

  ‘Pah! Modern medicine!’ Miltos scoffed as Ariana and Mary scurried around him and the huge bag. ‘It was not modern medicine we turned to in Sortilas when the Coronavirus hit. Was it Dr Andino?’

  *

  Michalis had been enjoying admiring the beauty of Lucie in the little dress she was wearing. It was light blue, like the jacket he had chosen to wear, but embellished with small white daisies. Its thin straps showed off the curve of her shoulders and that perfect back he had got to help give relief to last night. But now Miltos was talking about last year and expecting him to elaborate. He definitely wasn’t going to.

  ‘I have disturbed something,’ Michalis found himself saying, perhaps a little too loudly. ‘What were you getting started with before I arrived?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Lucie answered. She took hold of his arm and angled her body towards his. ‘Please get me out of here.’

  ‘Lucie,’ he said softly. ‘Is this a fitting for your wedding dress?’ He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He knew all too well how persistent the twins could be.

  ‘With no wedding in my future,’ Lucie reminded. ‘And no firm dates for parties because most people are still worried about the rule of six.’

  Michalis took her hands in his then. ‘When I was thirteen,’ he began, ‘Ariana and Mary made me a costume for a party on Ochi Day.’

  ‘What’s Ochi Day?’

  ‘It is a national holiday in Greece,’ Michalis continued. ‘It means the celebration of “no”. It commemorates the time in our history where our prime minister said “no” and declared that he would not give in to the demands of Mussolini during the Second World War.’

  ‘Greeks do not like to be bullied!’ Miltos called. ‘We are a proud nation.’

  ‘We celebrate this every year, in October, and there are parades in the streets with marching bands and the waving of flags and then there is family time, parties and dancing.’ Michalis lowered his voice then, so Miltos, Ariana and Mary could not hear him. ‘My costume was made up of glue, wire and the wool of sheep.’ He smiled. ‘I would have given anything to be offered a wedding dress.’

  He watched Lucie look over her shoulder at the others. Ariana and Mary were bending over the backpack now, taking out bits and pieces of fabric and there was a thick wad of rope on the ground. Neither of them were taking notice of the swarms of mosquitos congregating under the vines.

  ‘We have time,’ Michalis told her. ‘If you want to make two old ladies very happy.’

  Lucie swallowed. ‘I’m a horrible person and you… aren’t.’

  ‘Well,’ Michalis mused. ‘Perhaps I am being a little selfish wanting to watch them dress you up.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Lucie agreed. ‘But on the condition that you realise I am very, very hungry and very, very thirsty and I see absolutely no driving in my near future.’

  ‘The place we are going is not far and it does the best swordfish.’ He smiled. ‘And my donkey is waiting just around the corner, so neither of us has to drive.’

  He waited for the talk of animal transportation to sink in and then he laughed. ‘Relax, Lucie, I have a car.’

  She let out a sigh of relief and then screamed, fingers plucking at a metal device on her wrist. ‘Oh my God! If I hadn’t remembered that was on there, my hand would have gone black!’ She turned towards Mary and Ariana, squaring her shoulders. ‘OK, I’m ready.’

  Thirty-Three

  Harry’s Taverna, Perithia

  She was in Perithia. The very village Meg had told her she stayed at when she had visited Corfu all those years ago. Lucie sipped at the sweet white wine Michalis had ordered for them and took a moment to gaze through the tumbling flowers that decorated the outside of this traditional taverna. Across the road was a cafeneon-cum-post office, its paved outside area full of wooden tables and chairs occupied mainly by men enjoying a chat or playing some sort of game involving a board and counters. A curly-haired white dog meandered between the cafeneon and the taverna, and cats sought scraps or stray crumbs being brushed from laps. A little further along the road was a glass-fronted restaurant called Jelatis and a mini-market they had passed on the way. Lucie tried to imagine a much younger Meg, long hair blowing in the breeze, tanned skin, holding hands with someone called Petros. It was difficult to envisage that version of the woman who had basically raised her. Meg was, and had always been, this organised and measured adult with the strongest sense of what was right and wrong. Delivering advice and cautionary tales along with money for college and home-cooked meals…

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Michalis asked her.

  Lucie smiled, turning back to face him. ‘Sorry, it’s just, my aunt has talked about this village. She stayed here once and she said it was one of the best times of her life.’

  ‘It is the place I like best apart from Sortilas,’ Michalis admitted. ‘I feel at home here.’ He smiled. ‘That sounds so stupid, does it not? Corfu is my home. Perithia is only ten minutes to drive from my village but—’

  ‘But there’s a difference between familiarity and feeling at home,’ Lucie interrupted. She gave a nod. ‘I understand completely.’

  ‘You do?’

  She nodded again. ‘I haven’t had the most traditional upbringing. That’s why I’m so close to my aunt. She brought me up, her and my grandparents, after…’ The sentiment caught in her throat and she forced a swallow. ‘After my mother passed away.’

  ‘Oh, Lucie,’ Michalis said, reaching for her hands and holding them tight.

  She swallowed again as she felt her eyes begin to well with tears. A first date was not the moment to go blubbing about things she should have grieved for long ago. But when had she really let it come out? Could it be that it was always simmering away, locked in a pressure cooker inside her, ready and waiting for someone to knock off the lid?

  ‘It was a long time ago now,’ she replied, feeling a little more steady in the potential weeping department. ‘But, I do get the sentiment about feeling at home.’ She smiled. ‘Sometimes, even though I had the best, most wonderful loving family, it felt like I was… I don’t know… a bit of a jigsaw puzzle whose edges had been shaped wrong. A piece that didn’t quite fit.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. Just like, I wasn’t exactly the same as my nan or my grandad or my aunt I suppose.’

  ‘I do not think we are always replicas of our family members. Look at my sister,’ Michalis said, smiling.

  ‘I know, but although our feelings for each other were always strong… I wonder if it was more by design than it was by real connection.’ She bit her lip, feeling that this admission was something akin to a betrayal of everything her aunt and grandparents had tried to do for her. It can’t have been easy, especially for her grandparents. Having a toddler suddenly your full responsibility when you saw retirement on your horizon. Losing your daughter so suddenly…

  ‘You are talking about the spirit now,’ Michalis said, letting go of her hands to pick up the wine carafe and add a little to her glass.

  ‘Too deep for an evening of olives, breads and feta cheese dip?’ Lucie asked. And the swordfish was to come…

  ‘No,’ Michalis said, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair a touch. ‘Greece is all about the spirit. Most of our heritage relates to mythology and gods.’ He seemed to pause before his fingers found the rim of his glass. ‘And my mother believed she could tell a great deal about someone by simply laying her hand on theirs and tuning in to their energy.’

  Michalis had used the word ‘believed’. Like his mother wasn’t here anymore either. Should she
ask? Or was he going to tell her? She watched him inhale.

  ‘My mother has passed away too,’ he admitted.

  ‘She has? Oh, Michalis, I am so sorry.’ His hands were now out of reach to her so there was no opportunity to comfort him other than with her condolences.

  ‘In Sortilas,’ he said, sighing. ‘Where people live for almost forever.’

  Michalis shook his head as the anger he still felt about his mother’s passing threatened to be exposed. He took a breath and looked back to Lucie. ‘I am sorry. I should not have said that. I love that everyone lives for a long time.’

  ‘No, I get it,’ Lucie said, nodding. ‘My mum died when she was eighteen. I was really young, so I didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time, but now I’m older I think “how can that be allowed to happen”.’

  He blew out a breath, the wind taken out of his sails by this revelation, his own feelings dropping into an immediate back seat. ‘Eighteen,’ he said. ‘She was so young.’ And how had that happened? Had she been sick? An accident? He wanted to know, to understand a little of Lucie’s history. But perhaps the way to get her to open up was to open up himself…

  ‘Yes,’ Lucie answered, nodding. ‘She was.’

  ‘My mother,’ Michalis began. ‘She had a rare condition. A form of vasculitis that she was not aware of.’ He sighed. ‘She would often have a cough and a bad chest that, sometimes, would develop into a pneumonia. But being Greek and being equally as stubborn as everyone else in my family, she would never rest and she would wave away the idea that she was sick.’

  ‘That’s why you work with the lungs,’ Lucie said in understanding, leaning a little closer into the table.

  Michalis nodded. ‘That is why I work with lungs.’ He took a breath. ‘The last time she had pneumonia she refused to go to the hospital. She was too weak to even make the journey. And that was… the end. Nyx was one year old. I was just ten.’

  ‘You must miss her very much.’

  ‘I miss her for Nyx more,’ Michalis admitted. ‘Like you with your mother, Nyx, she was so very young. She will only know who our mother was from the stories we tell her.’

  ‘But I bet you have some wonderful stories,’ Lucie said.

  ‘We do but, you know how it is, there can never be too many memories made. You always long for another. More time, one more day, another week… another always.’

  ‘Xiphias.’ A voice speaking Greek interrupted their conversation.

  Two large platters containing large steaming swordfish steaks, complete with thick homemade chips and a fresh-looking salad of bright red tomatoes, oblongs of cucumber and red onion rings were delivered to the table.

  Lucie gasped. ‘Gosh, this looks incredible!’

  ‘It really is incredible,’ Michalis said, smiling at her enthusiastic reception to the food.

  ‘I’m so hungry after riding a giant fruit around Sidari.’

  ‘And I want to hear about it,’ Michalis told her.

  Thirty-Four

  Ice Dream, Perithia

  ‘So, what I really want to know now is…’ Lucie deliberately stopped talking and waited for Michalis’s dark eyes to meet hers over the gigantic portion of waffles and ice cream they were sharing. They had devoured the moist and tender swordfish steaks, finished the wine and then Michalis had said she had to indulge in the Ice Dream experience. They left the car in Perithia and took the short walk to the gelateria that was apparently known for having the best ice cream on the island. And there were flavours right the way through the taste spectrum. Taking ten minutes to select a few difference choices had enabled Lucie’s dinner to settle in her stomach and they had eventually opted for the baklava and mint chocolate chip flavours after much debate.

  ‘Yes?’ Michalis replied, spoon poised near his lips. Delectable lips that somehow looked even more delectable when he was eating ice cream. He had taken off the jacket earlier and Lucie was very much enjoying the body contouring shirt…

  ‘Are there any photos of you in this costume made of sheep’s wool?’ She laughed then, but it tailed off as she felt the vibration of her mobile phone. It had been going off periodically for the last twenty minutes or so and after she had checked it in the toilets and seen it was Gavin, she knew exactly what it was about. Gavin was ready to make up. Her best friend never held a grudge for long. Probably the longest falling-out they had ever had was around twelve hours and that had been during a Netflix marathon and had all started with a ‘discussion’ about the hotness of Penn Badgley. But Lucie wasn’t going to let Gavin’s need to move on interrupt her date with Michalis. Her phone was on silent now and that’s how it was going to stay.

  ‘There may be,’ he answered, digging his spoon into the spongy waffles. ‘But I will never allow you to see them.’

  ‘Well,’ Lucie began. ‘The next time I am in the butcher’s I will ask your sister about them.’

  ‘Please do not do that,’ Michalis said with a good-natured groan. ‘I can see the expression on her face now. She lives to find ways to humiliate me.’

  Lucie smiled. ‘You seem to get on well.’

  ‘We do,’ he agreed. ‘And we get on even better when I live in Thessaloniki.’

  ‘Will you go back there soon?’ Lucie asked.

  He looked up. ‘Am I boring you?’ There was an eyebrow raise of epically hot proportions that sent a shot of sauna through her.

  ‘No… not at all. I just… didn’t know what your plans were. Now you have a surgery at my holiday accommodation.’

  ‘That was… not planned but, here, sometimes it is better to give a little when you can. I am meant to be on holiday but—’

  ‘You decided you would carry on treating the sick and needy instead of relaxing by a pool and drinking cocktails. That’s true dedication to your Hippocratic oath. And that’s probably why I’m only a nurse.’

  ‘Only a nurse?’ Michalis queried.

  His eyes were back on her again and Lucie concentrated on spooning up more dessert and shovelling it into her mouth so she didn’t have to respond straight away.

  ‘I believe the job of a nurse is far more complicated than the job of a doctor.’

  Lucie swallowed. ‘You do?’

  ‘Nurses have to make quick and important decisions far more often than doctors. At least, that is the case within my hospital.’ He mused for a moment before carrying on. ‘A patient is struggling to breathe and in pain and there is no doctor. The nurses have to make the choices in those moments and deal with the consequences if things do not work out well.’ He focussed on her again. ‘There must have been times like that this past year. Times when you had to think quickly and make an even more rapid response.’

  He wasn’t wrong. At all. With staff shortages at her and Gavin’s hospital, there had been times when she had made a call that really a consultant should have been there to make. What else could you do when someone was dying right in front of you and their loved ones were waiting for hope that might not ever come.

  ‘You’re right,’ Lucie told him, nodding. ‘And if things do go wrong I’m pretty sure our backs might not be covered like a doctor’s would be.’ There was one time Sharon had almost administered penicillin to a patient with an allergy to it. Lucie put down her spoon and sat back in the neon orange chair. ‘Have you always wanted to be a doctor?’

  ‘You mean, did I dress up in a white coat and line up my sister’s dolls for consultations.’

  Lucie laughed. ‘Well, did you?’

  He smiled, shaking his head. ‘No. But I also didn’t want to be a butcher like my father. In Greece, most people they will stay within a family business if one exists. I did not see my future doing that and, after my mother died, I focussed on my studies and decided to try to see if I could avoid what happened to our family from happening to anyone else.’

  ‘That’s a really great reason,’ Lucie said.

  ‘What was your reason for becoming a nurse?’

  ‘Well,’ Lucie began. ‘I lined up
my nanna’s creepy dolls…’

  ‘Come on,’ Michalis said, laughing. ‘I am being serious. What made you want to care for people?’

  Lucie swallowed, picking up her spoon again and toying with a piece of waffle. ‘Well,’ she began. ‘I’ve always liked helping people. And when I wound a sling around my grandad’s arm when he fell over his cucumber frame, Meg called me Florence Nightingale for a week.’ She took a breath. ‘And, maybe a little selfishly, I wanted a career where I felt needed. Nursing is something I’m good at and it’s also something that makes me feel a part of something. For some reason, I fit there. It might not be life-saving all the time, but it’s definitely life enhancing. And the most important part of what I do, the most vital thing that all nurses do, is care.’ She smiled. ‘Just that. Care.’

  Her phone started rumbling again and this time when it was past the very first set of vibrations it started going again immediately after. Gavin was probably wishing they had more in their Greek cupboards than flagon wine and bread with slices that weren’t exactly Hovis size…

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ Michalis told her softly.

  Their eyes connected and Lucie knew she wasn’t going to look away…

  But next her spoon started to rattle against the plate and the floor began to tremble exactly like it had at the villa.

  ‘Is that—?’ Lucie said. She recognised it. And it wasn’t quite as terrifying as the first time. It would be OK because Michalis said this might happen and he was here with her again.

  ‘Another tremor,’ Michalis concurred, his voice remaining calm. ‘It is unusual to get another one on another day this soon after the first.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ The intensity was wearing off a little now, the ground becoming still.