Chapter 14
14
‘I am so sorry. You don’t have to do this. We can call someone in the morning, or let me help you.’
‘You are helping me. You are holding my ouzo,’ Christos answered as he stretched the tarp over the hole in the deck.
Molly looked at the two mismatched glasses in her hand, plucked from the detritus of the floor of the boat along with the aperitif. Ouzo with a little water was apparently what you drank when you had just dropped a dumbbell through the floor of your jointly owned asset and needed to repair it. That was what Christos was insisting on doing, minus his shirt again.
‘Is this going to work?’ she asked, sipping from her glass and feeling her tongue go numb.
‘I do not know,’ he admitted. ‘But, if there is a thunderstorm in the night, it might stop everything getting too saturated. Half-rotting is better than whole-rotting, right?’
‘Shall I say sorry again? How do you say “sorry” in Greek?’
‘ Signomi ,’ he answered. ‘And you do not need to say it.’
‘ Signomi ,’ she said. ‘There, I said it anyway.’
‘Your pronunciation was awful.’
‘Well, I’ve only been here for a day, like you said. And the time before that, I was in nappies.’ She took another sip of the ouzo. ‘But, you have to admit, I did admirably with the way I ate spaghetti tonight.’
He snorted a laugh and, for some reason, she was suddenly all warm and fuzzy about that silly joke landing. What was wrong with her? And she was concentrating way too much on his shirtless form fixing gaffer tape to the edge of the tarp, watching those muscles ebb and flow like the sea. The sea . She should look at that instead. This end of the harbour was quiet now, only a few vehicles left in the car park and foot traffic at a minimum, but she could hear a saxophone playing in the distance, the dull thud of disco bass from one of the lively bars, perhaps even the one Siobhan and her mum were at. She should really be with them. She was the whole reason they were in Greece in the first place, and instead of karaoke and cocktails she was drinking probably decades’ old substitute drain cleaner while admiring a shirtless man she was in an ‘inheritanceship’ with. Was inheritanceship a word?
‘Ouzo, please,’ Christos said, standing up and stretching. ‘It is done.’
She passed him his glass and he slugged the whole lot down in one go. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled and fear for his gut lining.
‘Come on,’ he said, putting the glass down on the side of the boat. ‘I have something else we can look at that you cannot possibly break.’ He picked up his shirt and then a thick-looking book from one of the seats and headed towards the bow.
‘Is that the Bible?’ Molly asked. ‘Because I think the whole twenty-first century has broken bits of that.’ She followed him, still holding her hardly drunk drink.
He leapt off the front of the boat with ease and she was going to do exactly the same. Except the gap between boat and land had a slightly wider expanse of water than she remembered when they had got on. Still, she had made a balcony jump yesterday and… what exactly was she waiting for? She gauged the distance and then jumped but, right away, she knew her foot hadn’t made proper solid contact with the ground and she was falling forwards until…
‘Gah! Ah! It’s burning!’
Molly righted herself quickly but then rapidly realised it was her ouzo she hadn’t been able to control. It was all over Christos’s chest, drizzling down the front like baby oil at a strip show… And she should apologise… again.
‘ Signoti ,’ Molly said, stepping forward. ‘Can I do anything?’
‘It’s signomi ! And no!’ He was already wiping at his front with his shirt. ‘This is Gucci, you know.’
‘At least it will be clean. If it does not disintegrate.’
He dropped the shirt to the iron bench and sat down, putting the book on his lap.
‘So, what is this?’ she asked, sitting down next to him.
‘It is a photo album and… it looks like there are scraps of paper in here too.’ He laughed. ‘Look, there is my mother dressed as a clown.’ He pointed to a picture where there were a group of people all in costumes.
‘This is carnival time. It is every February here in Greece. There are parades through the villages, crazy floats and costumes. There is Vaggelis. Look how his hair is so black! That cannot be real.’
‘It must be real. They are actual photographs on paper.’
‘Argh! There is one of me! Do not look at that,’ Christos said, peeling back the sticky film and taking the photo out.
‘You can’t filter old photos. Let me see. Are you in costume?’
‘Balenciaga.’
‘Liar! Give it to me,’ Molly said, reaching for the picture.
He didn’t fight her and she pinched the photo and observed. ‘The shirt and tie!’
‘Don’t! It was not my own fashion choice. Blame my mother.’
He looked cute though, with a fringe flopping over his forehead and those large eyes the standout. ‘Was this a party?’
‘A christening. One of my school friends. Spiros. I don’t know where he is now.’
She put the photo back under the sticky film and looked at the other pictures on the page. Was that… her mum? She pointed at the photo. ‘Do you know the people in this one?’
‘Yes,’ Christos answered. ‘That is one of our neighbours, this is Mikalis who used to work at a bar near here, by the square, this is Vaggelis and this woman… I do not know.’
‘I know,’ Molly said. ‘That’s my mum. Her hair is blonde not pink.’
She stared at the much younger version of her mum, all smiles and blushed cheeks, tanned skin and lemon-juice-bleached hair.
‘Her hair has been all kinds of colours. It’s definitely her. And this one. This is her too and… yes, she’s in this one.’
She looked at all the photos of her mum looking comfortable like she belonged in this time and place. Then she looked at the images of Vaggelis, really stared into the grainy, sometimes blurry pictures under the lamppost light. Was there anything about her reflecting back? His eyes were a different colour, but what about the shape of them? Or the way he formed his mouth when he smiled? She frowned. ‘There are a lot of photos of my mum. Next to precious family pictures?’
‘You see this place, Vaggelis liked to keep a lot of things, memories, junk, existing side by side.’
‘Turn the page.’
He flicked over the next page and she scanned the faces, looking for more of her mum. There were boats, views, dinners, barbecues and rotating lambs on a spit but no more of her mum.
‘Turn to the next page,’ she demanded.
‘Molly, what are you looking for?’
‘Just turn the page and let’s see if there are any more.’
‘I have to tell you that my godfather was not an organised man. The fact he has a photo album with things stuck inside is highly unusual. I am surprised they are not heaped into carrier bags. And these pictures are random. From many different years and?—’
‘But there aren’t any others that look like a holiday romance, and that’s all he was to my mum, right?’
‘Molly, what are you asking me?’
Yes, what was she asking him? Because if she said very much more she was going to be giving herself away. ‘Nothing. I don’t know. Just not knowing my mum had been here so much and now knowing that I have been here before, it’s all new. And your godfather has left me some of his worldly goods and, well, I can understand why you’re pissed about that.’
‘ Dhen birazi .’
‘I don’t know what that stands for.’
‘It means it does not matter. Here in Greece, we very much respect the wishes of people no matter how we feel about their decisions.’
‘That was not how you felt to begin with. You left the will reading and walked to a castle,’ Molly reminded him.
‘Yes, it was unexpected but, in truth, I should have expected something like that from Vaggelis, whatever his reasoning. He was exactly the kind of person to do unexpected things.’
‘Like keep dumbbells on a boat.’
‘That is not unusual, if you are into fitness.’
‘Was he?’
‘No,’ he responded, laughing. ‘Not near the end but perhaps when he was younger and taking photographs of your mum.’
Molly sighed. Was she looking for connections that weren’t even there? Perhaps Vaggelis was simply a kind man who had liked her mum, thought she was a cute kid and wanted to do something nice for someone…
‘This one… is my father,’ Christos said, pointing at a photo of two men. ‘With Vaggelis.’
Molly looked at the two men dressed in striped T-shirts and jeans. As similar as their clothes, their looks couldn’t have been more different. Vaggelis was instantly recognisable to her now, having seen other pictures. And it was his openness, his roundness, from his dark brown eyes to his barrel-shaped chest and welcoming circular spread of his arms that gave hints to the character she was envisaging. The other man was giving out ‘tight’ and ‘controlled’ from his stance. His arms were folded across his chest, hands tucked under his armpits like he was holding himself together. He was attractive too but in a darker, smouldering way. It was like looking at romance novel ‘nice guy’ versus ‘the one you really want but shouldn’t’.
‘What’s his name? Your father.’
‘Andreas.’
‘And is he… still alive?’
‘Yes… I mean, I think so. I do not know.’ He sighed. ‘It has been twelve years since he left.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since then?’
He shook his head. ‘But, you know, sometimes it is a good thing not to see people.’
That was something Molly couldn’t imagine at all. Christos knew who his father was, that he was probably still alive, while she had nothing except this brand-new possibility that her father might be a Greek man who had a disco ball and dumbbells on a boat.
‘Do you know where he is?’ Molly asked.
‘No,’ he answered.
‘Don’t you care?’
She watched his eyes flash then as he looked directly at her. ‘Do you not care where your father is? This man who worked with oil.’
She swallowed. He had a point. If he believed the backstory she had fed him. Did he? He wasn’t stupid. He had suggested that Vaggelis might be her father. Perhaps he hadn’t believed her alternative. But this reaction had been fierce, it showed her that talking about his father hurt . And then, like he had just realised he had given too much of a reaction he retracted everything. Sat back, dropped his shoulders, eased the tension in his face, back to looking calm, under control.
‘Memories!’ he said, upbeat as he snapped the photo album shut. ‘They drive us crazy, am I right?’
He was as closed now as that book of photographs. ‘I won’t disagree but?—’
‘We should get to bed,’ he interjected.
She knew it definitely wasn’t the intake of ouzo that sent a bolt of electricity up her spine after that sentence. For some reason she felt it necessary to ground her bottom to the bench.
‘I mean, it is late and we have to look at this boat again tomorrow and the apartment and… the tree,’ he said quickly.
She nodded. ‘Yes. And don’t forget the cat.’
‘You make a good point,’ Christos said, getting to his feet. ‘I have yet to see the cat since I have arrived back.’
‘Oh, well, I hope she is OK. It is a she, right?’ She stood too.
‘That is what I have always been told. Do we need to check? For the purposes of inheritance?’
‘I guess not.’
And she didn’t know what else to say. Suddenly, under the moonlight, opposite this very fine, mysterious Greek guy she was feeling light sparkling inside that was usually a prelude to a pivotal point at the end of a date. Would someone inch closer? Her? Him? Were their eyes sending out signals to each other that said the same things were on their minds? What was on her mind? But this was not a date!
‘MOLLY!!!!’
They both jumped as Siobhan’s voice cut through the night, and turning her head, she could see her mum and her friend teetering along the edge of the harbour heading their way.
‘You should go,’ she said to Christos. ‘Like, escape while you can. Nothing good will come from you seeing them now.’
‘Now I am intrigued. I think I should test your theory,’ he countered, a twinkle in his eyes.
‘Trust your co-beneficiary. There will have been the consumption of cherry brandy and not enough food and they will have made friends for life,’ Molly continued as cackles of laughter drifted closer.
‘It sounds fun,’ he answered.
‘Are you a masochist?’
‘I do not know what that means.’
But she knew, from the expression on his face, that he knew exactly what it meant.
‘Please go,’ Molly said, knowing how embarrassing Siobhan and her mum could be when they were drunk. ‘They will get handsy with you, especially as you have no shirt on and?—’
‘Handsy?’
‘Christos, please!’
‘OK, but we should swap numbers, yes? In case we need to text about our property.’
With her mum and Siobhan approaching fast, Molly didn’t hesitate. And then:
‘Molly! You’ll never guess what! We met these guys and, I swear to God, they’re gonna be friends for life!’ Siobhan bellowed.
‘OK, OK, I will leave now,’ Christos answered, laughing. ‘I will see you tomorrow, Molly. Ta leme . Kalinixta .’
She had no idea what any of those words meant but he was backing away now, the photo album under his arm. ‘Goodnight,’ she called.