Chapter 27
‘Horatio, you are being crazy! You should be in the hospital to get that looked at not in a café.’
‘Stop staring at it, Aki. It will be fine,’ Horatio answered, a wad of napkins pressed to his injured arm. ‘My grandmother always said that the only time to call a doctor is if you cannot lift a cup of coffee to your lips.’ Horatio balanced the napkins on his arm, reached for his cup, held it out in a cheers and swigged some liquid down.
‘You are using your other arm,’ Akis told him.
‘For now,’ Horatio replied. ‘But it will be fine in a few days. Lucky we do not have a show for a few days, right?’
‘Well, I think you need stitches and you don’t know if there is something embedded in there,’ Akis said, still focussed on his friend’s wound.
‘There is nothing embedded in there any more. I pulled out the spiked heel of the shoe that did the damage.’
Akis shook his head. ‘I still do not understand what happened.’
‘Really?’ Horatio asked, keeping pressure on his injury again. ‘Because I told you everything. I was walking past the hotel, I see the woman from the hen party struggling with the suitcase, I go to help and suddenly “bang”.’
Horatio’s rather enthusiastic ‘bang’ had one of the customers jumping to attention.
‘Sorry,’ Horatio said, waving apologetically.
‘But, I still don’t—’ Akis began.
‘Is the woman OK, do you know?’ Horatio asked, mouth to his coffee again.
‘Her name is Margot,’ Akis said. ‘And you know that because you told me her name when you phoned me to call Cara at Cook’s Club. Like you also knew that she was here with Cara.’
‘Did I?’ Horatio asked, shaking his head. ‘I don’t remember. Maybe I got a knock to the head too. It all happened so fast.’ He put down his coffee cup. ‘So, was she OK?’
‘Well, from what I was told, which I then helped translate to Cara before she went in to see her aunt, she is OK. A possible concussion, lacerations to her chest, grazes on her hands, but nothing that rest and time will not heal.’
‘Good,’ Horatio said, nodding. ‘Because, you know, we would not want anything messing up your mother’s seating plan for the wedding, would we?’
Akis sighed. ‘I wish everyone would stop calling it my mother’s seating plan, my mother’s wedding. It is not my mother’s anything. It is Cosmos and Wren’s day.’
‘Anastasia asked me to come to the blessing of the snakes this afternoon,’ Horatio said.
‘Shit, really?’ Akis asked.
‘I think she is trying to invite everyone she knows who is not scared of snakes and the list is very small.’
‘It is a crazy tradition anyway. How is having snakes slither across the wedding venue going to make the union a success?’
‘How is you being a priest going to save the whole Diakos family for generations to come?’ Horatio countered. ‘It is all scripture, yes. But who is to say that in ancient times, all the philosophers and storytellers didn’t just get together, get completely wasted and write a lot of mad shit?’
‘They probably did,’ Akis agreed, sipping his frappe.
‘Then what is the deal?’
‘The deal is my mother believes it all! My grandmother believes some of it and the rest of the village believes enough to think that my decisions could be a risk to them and their families.’ He sighed. ‘It is one thing to have a curse hanging over the Diakos name, but it is another to have the possibility of plagues arriving and affecting more than just us.’
‘So that is the latest tactic, is it?’ Horatio said, shaking his head. ‘What is next? Another old fable saying if you don’t become a priest it will be Armageddon? The end of the world for the whole of humanity?’
Akis nodded. ‘That is a possibility.’
‘Well, you know my philosophy,’ Horatio stated. ‘Live life so fast that consequence will never catch up with you.’
‘Life is wide,’ Akis said quietly, his mind back on Cara.
‘What?’
‘It was something someone said to me and… I like it.’ He swallowed, took another drink of his coffee.
‘Aki,’ Horatio said, a serious note to his voice that wasn’t used very often. ‘You know what this is like, right? This is like when everyone gathered around Cosmos when it was your finger lying on the floor.’
Akis shook his head.
‘Except it wasn’t just your finger that was taken, it was all your plans and your career. And you knew, in that split second when your brother was about to be hurt, what you could end up sacrificing.’
‘Because that is what you do for the people you care about,’ Akis answered, without hesitation.
‘I agree,’ Horatio replied, sitting forward in his seat. ‘But does it not go both ways? You have done this huge thing before. So you are to keep doing these things? Giving up these things? If your family loves you, why are they not understanding that you do not want this? Why is their first thought to follow some insane story instead of protecting you?’
Akis had never thought about it that way before. There was a lot of truth in what Horatio was saying. Cosmos was incapable of doing anything for anyone, just his existence exhausted him. Anastasia was always there for him, his father and grandmother too. But none of them were bold enough to stand up to Sofia.
His phone buzzed in the pocket of his jeans and he put down his coffee cup and took it out.
‘Ask the barista if they have a First Aid box,’ he told Horatio. ‘Or I am taking you to the pharmacy.’
‘Nice change of subject, Diakos.’
Akis looked at the message on his screen. It was Cara. He had made sure they had swapped mobile numbers so she could call him if she needed transport.
Margot insisting on leaving the hospital. Will call a cab to get back to the hotel. Thank you for the ride. See you at the snakes.
She had added two snake emojis at the end.
‘Things are going well with Cara, I see,’ Horatio remarked.
‘What?’
‘Well, by the way your face lit up at that message, I would say you have more going on in your life than just this clerical business.’
‘First Aid box,’ Akis repeated. ‘Or maybe I will take you to my grandmother.’
‘Please,’ Horatio called to the barista, raising his hand. ‘Do you have a bandage?’