Chapter 22
22
LIMANI BAR, KASSIOPI
‘Here she is! Molly! Come and sit down!’
What Molly wanted to do was lie down. In their apartment. On her bed. And perhaps have a nap after everything she had been through today. But, when she had had a chance to check her phone, her mum and Siobhan had sent text after text asking where she was, then, when she didn’t respond, they had told her where they were and she felt compelled to spend time with them. Christos had insisted she leave him where she had parked the truck, squeezed into a space she had no idea she would be able to get out of – but why did she care because the truck was only 50 per cent hers and she had no intentions of driving it anywhere ever again. The two of them were beckoning now, from a whitewashed table in a bar at the edge of the water at the far end of the harbour. She couldn’t deny the fact that a drink would be nice.
‘You OK, sweetheart? You look exhausted. Sit down,’ Janette ordered as Molly arrived.
‘You need to try some fantastic under eye cream I know about,’ Siobhan joked. ‘I think you might be familiar with the brand.’
Her brand. And she had done literally nothing on that since this morning’s pics. Instead she had jumped from another balcony, hiked down a ravine, rescued someone, driven a truck she wasn’t insured to drive and watched someone use honey like normal people used Savlon.
‘Honestly, love, are you sure you’re OK? Here, have some water,’ Janette said, rapidly pouring out a glassful from the large bottle on the table.
‘You’ve been with Christos, haven’t you?!’ Siobhan announced with the volume of a railway announcement. ‘Like been with Christos.’
‘No!’ Molly said quickly. ‘No, nothing like that. We just went to see Vaggelis’s olive tree, that’s all.’
Except they hadn’t actually got to see the olive tree at all. She had no idea where it was nor what it looked like. And she was afraid that was coming next…
‘So, how big is it?’ Janette asked.
‘Are you still talking about the olive tree?’ Siobhan said with a giggle.
‘I… don’t know how you measure it.’
‘With your mouth?’ Siobhan covered her own mouth with a hand. ‘Sorry, you’re talking about the tree and I’m getting carried away.’
Were they drunk again? Molly eyed the table contents for evidence. Water. Coke Light. No alcohol. And she needed to come up with an answer quickly because she had promised Christos she wouldn’t say anything about his accident. Why she had to agree to a pact about it she didn’t know, but here she was…
‘It was… medium-sized, I guess,’ she answered.
‘And did it have a lot of olives on it? Because Greek olive oil is the best. Vaggelis always said so.’
‘I…’ She had no answer because there was not one olive tree here that she could see to compare, apart from ones in small pots. She was also realising that her mum remembered a lot about things Vaggelis had said for something that was allegedly no more than a holiday romance. ‘Didn’t really notice.’
‘What? But you took photos, didn’t you?’ Janette asked.
‘Of the tree,’ Siobhan added.
‘You know, I didn’t. How silly.’ She took a gulp from her water glass. ‘So, did we miss anything with Katerina and Christos’s family?’
‘They talk really quickly,’ Siobhan said. ‘And, when they definitely don’t want you to know something, they speak Greek.’
‘I don’t remember Angeliki being so forceful back in the day,’ Janette admitted.
‘Magdalena is very pretty,’ Siobhan stated.
‘But, did they say anything about the apartment?’ Molly asked. ‘Like, they didn’t mention any hidden damp or… cockroaches or anything that might make it unsaleable or unliveable.’
‘They were talking about holiday lets,’ Janette said. ‘Once Katerina had gone.’
‘They talked slower about that and in English,’ Siobhan added.
‘That’s when we saw eye-to-eye more,’ Janette began. ‘Because it would make a lovely holiday apartment.’
‘Once it’s cleared out of all that old stuff,’ Siobhan said.
‘A lick of paint and a new sofa and some fluffy cushions. We could make it seasidey,’ Janette continued.
‘Do they have anything like Home Bargains in Corfu?’ Siobhan mused. ‘Shall I google it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Molly said with a sigh.
She didn’t know why she wasn’t as upbeat about the idea of holding on to the property as she was earlier. Perhaps it was just tiredness or being surrounded by people with actual roots here – Christos and his Auntie Maria today – her mum revelling in nostalgia Molly didn’t feel, couldn’t understand. Was this somewhere she could consider living? Because it was one thing to become a property owner but another to move thousands of miles away just because it had dropped into her lap. She could take the money and put it towards a property back in Portsmouth. That would be the easiest option after all. Or was there something really tying her to Corfu? Something her mum was keeping under wraps the way she had always kept everything about her parentage secret. Was Janette’s excitement about holding on to the inherited share of the flat because Vaggelis had been more than a brief love affair; he had gifted her a baby?
‘What don’t you know? Because these apartments can be rented out for hundreds of pounds a week. Close to the upper end of hundreds when you take into account the sea view and location, and it has a parking space, doesn’t it?’ Janette continued.
This sounded more sensible, like her mum was considering the financials. Molly thought about the red truck. She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘This could be a whole new venture for us!’ Janette said excitedly. ‘Business partners! I’ve already thought of a name for the place.’ She inhaled and then gave it up. ‘Vaggelis’s View.’
That last sentence had been overloaded with sentiment. Her mum was definitely giving out mixed signals and now Molly didn’t know what to say. Business partners? Vaggelis’s View. This was too much. And she only owned half of the apartment. And what about her dream of her make-up brand? That was where she should be investing her money. Where did that fit in with running a holiday let or moving abroad? This inheritance had her caught up in a whirlwind. She needed to stay grounded. Yet, still playing on her mind were all the photographs of her mum with Vaggelis in that old album…
‘I’m not sure,’ Molly said. ‘It’s a lot to take on and commit to, isn’t it? There’s doing the refurbishments, because it will definitely need a new bathroom. Then there’s getting set up on a website and getting bookings. And then there’s the property management side. Who does the changeovers between customers? If we’re back in England and it’s someone here then we will have to pay them and trust them and?—’
‘It’s all sounding very negative,’ Janette said, scowling. ‘This olive tree must have been disappointing if it’s put you in this mood.’
‘I’m not in any mood,’ Molly insisted. ‘I just don’t know what to do right now and… Vaggelis hasn’t even had his forty-day service yet.’
She swallowed, feeling bad for using the sadly deceased guy for a get-out-of-this-conversation topic. But, as she had always done, Janette was pushing her own agenda and it was making Molly feel uncomfortable.
‘What’s a forty-day service?’ Siobhan asked, sucking her Coke Light through a straw.
‘It’s something they do here,’ Janette stated.
‘Forty days is when Greeks think the soul stops wandering on earth visiting all the places it has connection to and finally heads to Heaven,’ Molly explained.
‘If it’s Heaven he’s destined for,’ Siobhan said.
‘He’s Greek,’ Molly and Janette said at the very same time.
‘Wow,’ Siobhan said, looking at them both like they were crazy. ‘That was wig.’
‘Well, all I know is that Angeliki is pushing the boat out for the service,’ Janette explained, sipping her water. ‘Literally.’
‘What?’ Molly asked.
‘She’s got all these plans about fireworks and getting the boat up together to have all Vaggelis’s friends and family on it and setting sail towards Albania and all kinds of rituals I didn’t understand,’ Janette elaborated.
‘Except the boat now has some kind of hole in the deck,’ Siobhan said.
‘And I’m sure it wasn’t there when we took photos the other day. I’ll have to go back and check, zoom in on them,’ Janette added.
The dumbbell incident . Molly kept quiet.
‘But stranger still, in my opinion,’ Siobhan said. ‘Someone has taped tarp over the hole. So, whoever did it, tried to fix it.’ She pointed a finger like she was a TV detective trying to find the culprit.
‘Angeliki was going to ask the bar with the webcam for footage,’ Janette said.
‘What?’ Molly asked. ‘But, you know, the damage isn’t that bad, is it? And if it’s already halfway fixed then?—’
‘Well, you can ask Angeliki tonight. She’s invited us to a panegyri at Astrakeri.’
‘And,’ Siobhan said, ‘if you know what either of those words are you are a better woman than me. Because they don’t just write with hydro griffins here, they speak with them too.’
‘Right,’ Molly said, now feeling like her evening was as planned for her as everything else.