Chapter 13
13
KASSIOPI HARBOUR
‘Is this allowed?’ Molly whispered into the night. ‘Don’t we have to wait until something official tomorrow?’
‘Why are you talking like you do not want anyone to hear you?’ Christos asked her.
He had had slightly too much wine. Not enough to impair walking or thinking, but just enough to take that edge off, to change perception from strict normality to potential for fun. And that was what he was planning now. After a delicious meal of fresh bread, beetroot yoghurt dip, spaghettada and a complimentary frozen limoncello to finish, he had suggested they take a closer look at Vaggelis’s boat. Except Molly was whispering about legalities. This was Greece. They owned 50 per cent of it each, just prior to signing the paperwork, and what did paperwork matter after a shared litre of wine?
‘I don’t want anyone to hear me,’ she answered. ‘Because this feels wrong. Hiding in the shadows of… fishing nets… about to board a boat that isn’t ours.’
‘But it is ours,’ Christos countered. ‘We were told this only today.’
‘And we are being shown the assets tomorrow.’
‘We should not always wait for avrio . Sometimes avrio does not come. Like for my godfather.’
‘Don’t do that,’ Molly responded, skirting around a lobster pot.
‘Do what?’
‘Make this into a “life is too short” escapade. I have enough of those with Siobhan in my ear.’
‘And I am currently keeping you from karaoke in your ear too.’ He leapt onto the boat, then turned around, offering out his hand to Molly. ‘ Ela . Come.’
She was staring at him like he was crazy. And she also looked beautiful with the moonlight behind her, her light hair gently moving with the breeze.
‘Why are we always jumping onto things when we’re together?’ she asked him.
That comment punched his libido and he had to take a breath before he replied. ‘The sea is a much softer landing than plants in pots and the ground. Come on, take my hand.’
This wine had a lot of answer for. Take my hand? He didn’t do hand-holding, ever. He remembered the last time he had taken a woman he had ‘met’ online to dinner. They had shared a companionable time, the usual small talk – favourite colour, favourite music, star signs – then they had left to make the short walk to the hotel room he had booked. But as soon as the night air had hit them she had slipped her hand into his, entwining their fingers, and he had frozen, with white hot shock, if that was possible. He had bolted – in as suave and casual a way as he could, for her sake and his own – but it had scarred him. Holding someone’s hand was intimate. As intimate as it got in his opinion. A touch could sometimes say so much more than words.
He cleared his throat. ‘Here, grab the rope and?—’
He didn’t need to say anything else because she had already made a leap of faith and had deftly landed on the deck next to him like she was some kind of superhero ninja.
‘I do not believe all this “what are we doing, Christo”, “this is very illegal”. You move like you do this kind of thing all of the time.’
‘I’ve moved house a lot,’ Molly said, like it was some kind of answer.
‘O-K.’
‘Sometimes you have to move quick.’
This was interesting. She was interesting. But was it all genuine? She had made quite the reaction when he’d suggested Vaggelis could be her father despite her confident follow-up. Nervousness? The wine? Or… a hidden agenda? He shook himself. He was thinking too deeply… Right now he just wanted to see what kind of state his godfather’s boat was really in.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said as Molly began to make her way down the side of the craft towards the stern.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘I thought you said it was ours to do what we want with, minus the boring paperwork.’
‘Yes, but I cannot guarantee pieces of it will not break from one light touch.’
‘What is this boat exactly?’ Molly asked, taking slightly more tentative steps towards the end of it.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, there are bits and pieces to suggest it was used for fishing but there are wine bottles in crates and… is this glitter?’ She put her hand to the rail, cautiously, like it might still be wet.
He smiled. ‘You think these things cannot co-exist? That it has to be one thing or another?’
‘That’s how things usually work.’
‘Not in Greece,’ he replied. ‘Bread to eat, also a tool to remove souvlaki from sticks at festivals. Ouzo to drink, also good to clean drains with.’
‘Is there a downstairs?’ Molly asked, moving around the back of the boat and looking towards the hatch.
‘ Ne . Yes,’ he answered. ‘But I would not advise going in there now.’
‘Why?’ Molly said, already moving towards the door.
‘Because it is dark and, like I said, things will not have been taken care of and it will be locked and?—’
As he said the last sentence she had already pulled the door and it had opened, the door swinging half off its hinges. And there she went, barrelling through before he could say, ‘Wait! Mind the top step!’
The thump sounded hard and he rushed forward, minding the slightly too deep top step while flicking on the light. It flashed on long enough for him to see Molly in a heap on the floor, surrounded by footballs, a dumbbell, newspapers, empty jars and, thankfully, a heap of cushions he hoped had broken her fall.
‘ Esai endaksi ? Are you OK?’
She scrambled to her feet and put a hand to her head. ‘Is that a disco ball up there?’
He didn’t need to look. He knew exactly where it was. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘A relic.’
‘Does it attract fish?’ she asked, brushing her dress down with her hands.
‘What?’
‘For the fishing part of this multi-purpose vehicle. Do the revolving mirrors somehow hypnotise the fish into coming nearer to the boat to be caught?’
‘I think,’ Christos began, standing next to her now and looking at the orb above them, ‘it was more to do with hypnotising the female tourists so they would be caught.’
‘Eeww!’
‘Not in a creepy kind of way,’ Christos reassured. ‘Vaggelis was a very respectful man. But he enjoyed the company of ladies and he loved to dance.’
‘And what did he like to do with this?’ Molly asked, picking the dumbbell up from the floor.
‘I have no idea,’ Christos said. ‘Perhaps kill fish with it? Because it looks like something from a bad gym in the seventies. I can almost see the shiny shorts and sweatbands.’
‘I’m sure if we look hard enough we could find those here too.’ She rotated, her sandal hitting the edge of a… was that a photo album?
‘I did not realise there were quite so many things here. It is exactly like his apartment.’
Molly span back around. ‘You’ve been in his apartment already?’
That had sounded accusatory. ‘Er, yes, he was my godfather. Preparations had to be made for his funeral.’
‘Sorry,’ Molly said. ‘I didn’t mean to?—’
‘Do not worry, I have not taken all the finest antiques and sold them already.’
‘No, I wasn’t?—’
‘And you could have come too. If you had jumped another balcony along.’
‘What?’ she asked, the dumbbell still in her hands.
‘That is where Vaggelis’s place is. Two places along from where you are apparently staying.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Molly stated.
‘The village is small,’ he replied. ‘Like this boat.’
‘I don’t think it’s small,’ Molly said. ‘It’s just too full. I can imagine it stripped back. Seating around the outside, a dance floor, a bar at one end. Like a party boat.’
A party boat . There were party boats he had seen in Piraeus, Athens. Open to the public to buy tickets for special nights in the summer, or hired by companies as a treat for their staff, both serving cocktails, sunsets and a DJ set. He tried to look at the space with fresh eyes but all he could see was clutter and the end of a length of cord he knew Vaggelis had hung his swimming trunks from.
‘It is too old,’ he answered her. ‘It would take a lot to make it somewhere young, cool partygoers would want to be.’
‘But if it was for older partygoers? With a retro vibe?’
‘Older partygoers are here for cheap drinks and bad music. Younger people will pay more for tickets, more for speciality cocktails.’
‘And you will be paying more for a great mixologist and a DJ.’
‘Trust me, Molly, I know business.’
‘Really? Well, give me your evidence.’
‘Evidence?’ He scoffed, turning away from her and going back up the steps to the deck. ‘We are in a courtroom now?’
‘No, but this boat is big, down here and up here,’ she said, following his lead up the stairs. ‘If it was cleared out and painted and refreshed, it could be anything we wanted it to be.’
He baulked. ‘We?’
‘Well, it is half yours and half mine so if we turned it into a business the business would be half yours and half mine so?—’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ Christos said when they were both out in the night air, the crickets’ call breaking the humidity. ‘You have been here only a day and you want to go into business with me?’
‘Perhaps “want” is a little strong after only a day, but these unique circumstances have gifted us possibilities that should be explored.’
‘And I have shown you a half-rotting boat that has all the ambience of an old Greek slipper,’ he responded.
She moved a little closer to him, and the hairs on the back of his neck responded.
‘Where you see an old Greek slipper,’ she whispered, ‘I see…’
He waited with bated breath as she dropped her head close to his, her mouth moving next to his ear. It wasn’t just the hairs on the back of his neck responding now.
‘Potential,’ she purred.
He turned his head, his eyes meeting hers. ‘You know what is really crazy?’
‘No,’ she answered.
‘You are still holding that dumb dumbbell.’
‘Oh!’ Molly exclaimed, as if she hadn’t even realised.
Then she dropped it. And right away the deck of the boat cracked and half the weight disappeared into the resulting hole.
‘ Skata !’ Christos remarked.
‘I’m guessing that’s not the Greek word for “potential”,’ Molly said.