Chapter 43
43
THE GREEK DYNAMO, KASSIOPI HARBOUR
It was crazy how attached to this boat Molly had become. Her first thought when she needed to seek refuge and take a minute was to come here. And for the first hour after she had got on board she had looked at the vessel through different eyes. This boat belonged to her dad. Her dad was Vaggelis Vlachos. Her name could have been Molly Vlachos. She could have spent a significant portion of her life living in Greece. She could have been bilingual and known what to say to Greek drivers who swore at her…
She’d tidied up the galley. She didn’t know why but standing in amongst Vaggelis’s things she had felt an overwhelming sense of needing to fix, to make good, to give back perhaps. Perhaps it was guilt. Because she did feel guilt. What if Vaggelis had thought she had always known he was her father and that she had never wanted to know him? And he had died thinking that? She wished she could have shared something with him, even if it was never on the cards to be in her whole life so far.
And now she was waiting. She had set the table for drinks – two shot glasses, what was left of that seemingly endless bottle of ouzo and an old citronella candle she hoped was still going to work to keep the mosquitoes at bay. She had had one shot already but she wasn’t going to have anything else. Because she needed to keep calm even amid the three-course feast of anger roasting in her stomach.
‘Molly?’
A deep breath and she headed up the steps to the deck. Her mum was calling from terra firma and Molly walked up the boat to help her on.
‘Here, take my hand,’ Molly said, offering it out.
‘What’s going on?’ Janette asked. ‘Your text was a bit weird.’
‘I asked you to meet me here,’ Molly said, pulling her mum aboard.
‘I know you did, but there were no emojis and you didn’t invite Siobhan so I didn’t know what was going on. Is everything OK?’
No, nothing was OK, but she wasn’t giving that up just yet.
‘Siobhan is meeting with a lady who does the flying dresses later tonight. We’re going to try and see if we can get a collaboration going to promote Mollify,’ Molly said, leading the way.
‘Oh, that’s why she was getting all dressed up. Well, I say that, she’d get dressed up for a picnic, wouldn’t she?’
Molly headed down the stairs, her eyes going straight to the pile of letters next to Vaggelis’s Greek coffee pot on the small worktop. In a few minutes nothing was ever going to be the same again between her and her mum. Because how could it be now?
‘Oh, Molly, you’ve done this place up!’ Janette exclaimed as she came down the last step and stood in the space, taking it all in. ‘It’s like stepping back in time.’
How ironic given the circumstances…
‘I’ve only tidied it a bit. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with it yet, but a bit of cleaning and tidying doesn’t cost anything, does it?’
‘I remember the first time I came aboard,’ Janette said, starry-eyed. ‘That first glitter-ball moment. Vaggelis in that silly captain’s hat he used to wear.’
Molly swallowed. The nostalgia was thick in the air so why, if her mum still thought so much of Vaggelis, had she hidden this from her? She needed that second shot of ouzo after all.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ Molly asked, getting closer to the little table. There was no way she could sit down right now, so much adrenalin was pumping through her body.
‘Are you OK, Molly?’ Janette asked, giving her one of those unmistakable ‘mother’ looks. ‘You seem a bit…’
‘A bit what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Janette said, slipping into the banquette seating. ‘Just a bit like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders suddenly.’
It was time to get this out in the open, to pull off the Band-Aid and start to unravel the whole truth. She could start slowly, lead up to the big question, but she felt she had spent so much of her life doing that already that there was really only one thing she needed to say straight off.
‘Mum, I know Vaggelis is my father.’ She put a hand to her chest as the words left her physically moved. She shivered, moved her hand from her chest to the table edge.
Janette didn’t say anything, was just looking at her, blinking, like Molly hadn’t said a word, let alone a whole sentence that held so much weight. Was she really not going to reply?
‘Mum,’ Molly said, voice shaking. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes,’ Janette said, nodding. ‘I heard you. I just don’t understand why you would say that?’
‘Because it’s the truth! A truth that you’ve never told me! Even when Vaggelis left me half his estate and we came to Corfu! Even when I tried to ask you about it and you shut me down! But even today, on the beach, you said he wasn’t my father but you wish he had been!’
‘And that’s the truth right there!’ Janette answered forcefully. ‘I do wish he had been!’
‘But he is! Why aren’t you admitting it now when I’m telling you I know ?!’
Molly couldn’t help but feel the very deepest of frustrations. What was it that her mum wasn’t getting?
‘What is all this “you know” business?’ Janette asked, getting to her feet and moving out from behind the table again. ‘I’ve told you honestly that Vaggelis is not your father! Who has told you any different?!’
‘No one has told me!’ Molly yelled. ‘Like they should have done! I had to find out by reading it!’
‘Molly, I have no idea what you’re talking about but I certainly didn’t leave a lovely balcony and a peaceful, relaxing glass of wine for whatever this nonsense is.’
She watched her mum begin to head to the stairs leading up to the deck. She couldn’t leave! And why was she leaving? Couldn’t she see that Molly was upset? You didn’t leave when someone was upset! Molly rushed and grabbed her mum’s arm.
‘Aunt Maud told me!’ she said. ‘In letters.’
She needed to make better sense, but it was hard when her heart was pounding and her stomach was in knots. Her mum had turned back around to face her now, looking confused, perhaps a little stunned suddenly?
‘What letters?’ Janette asked, tone definitely wavering, giving ill at ease.
Molly grabbed the stack from the worktop and held them out to her mum. ‘These!’
‘I… don’t understand,’ Janette said, reaching out for the envelopes but then stopping short. ‘But… these are… it’s Aunt Maud’s handwriting.’
‘I know!’ Molly said, still holding the envelopes out. ‘I recognised it instantly when Magdalena showed me. The way she curls her “g’s”, the way it all slants to the right. I didn’t need to see her name signed at the bottom to know.’
‘What are they?’ Janette asked. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘They’re letters from Aunt Maud to Vaggelis,’ Molly filled in the gaps. ‘Years and years’ worth. She told him everything I was doing, gave him updates on my school stuff, and photos, and he must have written back because she thanks him for his letters and tells him he doesn’t need to send her money for me, that she is taking care of us. But, the very first letter, is telling him he’s my dad.’
Janette put her hands across her mouth then, eyes popping in pure shock. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’
Now Molly was actually terrified. She’d never seen her mum look like this before. It was like someone had told her the very worst, most heart-wrenching news and she wasn’t going to survive it. But how could that be when her mum had known the truth all along?
‘I need… air,’ Janette gasped, bolting for the steps now and scrambling up them like she didn’t really know how.
Molly abandoned the letters on the table and hurried after her. ‘Mum, stop, please. What’s going on?’
‘I can’t believe… I can’t believe she’s done this! After everything! After everything! Why would she do that? To me! To you! To Vaggelis!’
Janette was holding on to the rail of the boat now, rocking, swaying, moving like the worst pain was pulsing through her body and nothing was going to make it better.
‘Mum, please talk to me. I don’t understand,’ Molly said, a hand on her mum’s back as they both leaned over the boat, looking into the sea.
‘Oh, Molly, that poor man… that poor poor man!’ A sob left her then. ‘All these years! All this time!’ Janette burst into a torrent of tears then, shaking like she was in the deepest mourning.
‘Mum,’ Molly said, aching not for herself now but for whatever her mum was currently going through. ‘What can I do? Talk to me, let me help.’
‘I… don’t know what to say,’ Janette said through her tears. ‘There is… so much I never wanted to say to you. But now Maud has… taken that out of my hands because what she did to Vaggelis… it’s the most terrible thing.’
Then her mum let go of the rail of the boat and took hold of Molly’s hands. ‘I am so so sorry, my darling, for not giving you the truth when you were old enough to ask for it. But… the trouble with truth is, sometimes it’s not very pretty and I don’t know any mother who would want their child to have something ugly as part of their foundations in life.’ She sniffed.
‘Tell me,’ Molly said, squeezing her mum’s hands as tears leaked from her own eyes. ‘Whatever it is, now is the time to tell me.’
Janette nodded as she continued to weep. ‘OK, my love. OK. So, let me be completely honest. Molly… Vaggelis Vlachos is not your father. But… I do know who your father is. And now, well… I am going to tell you.’