Chapter 25
I hadn’t realised the extent of Mum’s reluctance to drive until Dad’s hernia starts playing up, making him too uncomfortable to get behind the wheel. But it’s the Greek Food Festival at Alexandra Palace, and everyone’s desperate to go, so I volunteer to drive.
More accurately, I volunteer to sit in the passenger seat and offer moral support while Mum drives.
‘You’re doing fine,’ I tell her soothingly.
And she is, until we hit the Hanger Lane Gyratory, at which point she slows down to five miles an hour, and the whole of west London starts beeping us.
‘Don’t listen to them,’ says Dad from the back seat.
‘Kind of hard when you’ve got ears,’ mutters Pen, next to him.
Cars whizz past us on both sides, and when Mum eventually puts her foot down, she zooms past our exit.
‘There wasn’t a gap,’ she wails.
Our second time around sees her careening across four streams of traffic and she still doesn’t make the turn.
‘Just take any exit,’ I say, my soothing tones long gone. ‘Then we’ll stop and have a breather.’
She finds her way to a supermarket car park, where we can finally unclench whatever muscles we were straining in the fervent belief it would keep the car upright.
She probably ought to carry on and get past her shaky start, but having four of us in the car has made it harder to drive than usual (she claims), so for the sake of everyone’s pants, I agree to take the wheel.
‘We’ll go out just the two of us another day,’ I tell her once we’re back on the North Circular. ‘We can’t let this turn into a proper phobia.’
‘It’s only for today,’ pipes up Dad from the back seat. ‘I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
‘No, Mum still has to do more driving, and the longer she avoids it, the worse it will get.’
‘Be patient with her,’ says Pen. ‘Facing your fears is hard.’
It’s not the sort of comment I expect from her, and it keeps me quiet for the rest of the journey.
Even though there must be hundreds of people at the fair, we bump into cousin Stav straight away, courtesy of some weird genetic telepathy.
He’s with his new girlfriend Julie, who everyone’s met except me, and he’s halfway through a kebab wrapped in greaseproof paper that’s letting through an alarming amount of oil, most of which is now dribbling onto his shoe.
‘Stav, that’s gross,’ says Pen, knowing he’s unembarrassable.
He looks at his black leather lace-ups and grins. ‘A bit of meat juice will slide right off, thanks to all the candle wax from Easter.’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Julie.
‘You’ve obviously never had to endure a Greek Easter midnight mass,’ says Pen.
Julie looks at Stav for further explanation. ‘The church is always rammed,’ he says. ‘And you have to stand there for ages with a lit candle, so inevitably wax drips on your shoes. But that’s preferable to accidentally setting someone’s hair on fire.’
‘Greeks of a certain generation wear a lot of hair spray,’ I add helpfully.
Mum’s been listening and shaking her head. ‘Eh, you burn a couple of hairs, it’s not the end of the world. And it’s easy to get wax off your shoes with an iron and baking paper. If your mum hasn’t got time, darling, I’ll do it for you.’
Stav looks like he’s about to offer up his shoes there and then, but I intervene.
‘Mum, he’s a grown man. He doesn’t need his mum or you to clean his shoes.’
Stav winks at me. ‘Julie will do it, won’t you, honey?’
I think he’s being ironically sexist, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Dad disappeared after we parked, and Mum announces she’s off to find him.
‘I guarantee he’s gone straight to the patisserie tent. He thinks I won’t notice if he’s covered in sugar. Why does he act like there isn’t a history of heart disease in his family?’
She tuts and hurries away.
‘Right, we’re off to get sloshed at the free wine tasting,’ says Stav.
‘You what?’ asks Pen. ‘I don’t remember seeing that on the website.’
Stav grins. ‘That’s because they sneakily call it a “wine lecture”, but I happen to know it’s a boozy free-for-all.’
Pen turns to me. ‘I wouldn’t mind going to that.’
‘It’s eleven in the morning.’
‘But it’s free!’
‘I’ll buy you a drink after lunch.’
‘How long has Stav been with Julie?’ I ask once we move off again. I’m hoping the reason I haven’t met her is because the relationship is new, and not because I’ve turned down too many nights out with Stav and the rest of my family.
‘A year, I think.’
Wow. Has it been that long since I saw him properly? I wait for Pen to reproach me like Tig would, but she doesn’t.
‘Am I allowed a kebab, Miss Party Pooper?’ Pen asks, as we approach a stand selling souvlaki.
‘Yeah, of course. And don’t call me that.’
Once we have our wraps, I follow Pen’s lead, and we find Tig and Theo sitting on the grass in the sun.
Except Mark is here, too. Of course he is.
The good news is he’s asleep, lying on his back with his knees bent and his hands folded under his head like a pillow.
Making sure I’m as far from him as possible, I sit on the prickly grass with my legs to one side and my knees pressed together.
I wouldn’t have worn such a short dress if I’d known he’d be here.
There’s far too much leg on show, and I’m paranoid that when he wakes he’ll take one look at me and know I’ve been having wild sex with him in my dreams.
Tig and Theo – but mainly Tig – are excitedly chattering about the caterer they just met. He’s got a tent here today and Yan introduced them.
‘Did it go well?’ Pen asks.
‘Really well,’ says Theo. ‘We’ll do a tasting when we get back from Cyprus, but he couldn’t have been more helpful or kind.’
‘You happy, too?’ I ask Tig. ‘Because that’s what really matters.’
‘Blissfully.’
She smiles at Theo, and he smiles back.
The beauty of Alexandra Palace is its position on a hill. Up here, London is laid out below us, the iconic buildings of the Square Mile glinting in the distance. And even though it’s hot, a gentle breeze keeps everything comfortable.
But my gaze keeps sliding from the chimneys and trees and faraway skyscrapers to Mark’s sleeping form. He’s wearing a fitted black T-shirt over loose jeans, a sliver of golden skin peeking over the waistband every time he inhales.
He looks vulnerable asleep, almost child-like, in a way he never does when he’s awake. He’s been such an imposing figure all my life, but he was once a kid, too – a kid with a brutal father. I guess he had to learn to hide his vulnerabilities pretty fast.
Yan told me years ago that he got into weight training out of necessity rather than choice. And the same was true of Mark. Both of them wanted to get better at seeing off physical threats. In Yan’s case, from school bullies, and in Mark’s, from inside his own home.
Mark has mentioned Giovanni’s violence a couple of times now. It doesn’t matter how many years ago he left; for the son he treated so badly, Giovanni will never be ancient history.
Mark could have turned out like him. Instead, he made something of his life. And even I can admit that deserves admiration.
‘Here come the girls!’ Tig yells, as cousins Anna and Maria approach.
She stage-manages everyone into new positions, shooing me and Theo towards Mark so she can seat the cousins close enough to show them pictures of her wedding dress.
Against impressive odds, Mark stays asleep through the shrieks of joy over bridal gowns.
‘Is Mark okay?’ I whisper to Theo. ‘Have you checked he’s not in a coma?’
‘His mum had a bad reaction to a new drug,’ he replies in a low voice. ‘He spent half the night at the nursing home giving her doctors hell.’
‘Poor Anthi. Is she okay?’
‘Yes, no long-term effects. But it gave Mark a scare.’ He pauses. ‘His mum’s the only family he has left.’
‘Doesn’t stop him moving halfway across the world,’ I say, an undertone of judgement in my voice.
‘Ealing doesn’t hold many fond memories for him,’ says Theo kindly. ‘He always said he’d rather chop off his arm than live in London again. No offence,’ he adds hastily.
I force a smile. ‘None taken.’
Mark left when he was eighteen and never looked back. I was never sure if it was by accident or design. Now I guess I have my answer.
Tig’s screeching voice cuts through our conversation. ‘Oh my God, Maz, how can you not have seen this?’
I grimace like I’ve bitten into a lemon. Why does she have to talk so loudly? Maria’s sitting right next to her.
Her shriek wakes Mark, who looks up bleary-eyed. His confused gaze lands on me; there’s heat in it, but not from anger. The eye-contact stretches uncomfortably, before a familiar song makes us both turn our heads.
Tig is playing our tango from the other night, and the other girls are watching her phone, mesmerised.
‘I must have seen this a hundred times,’ she says. ‘It’s so dreamy.’
‘That’s pretty,’ I say, keeping my tone light. ‘What is it?
‘It’s a tango that went viral on TikTok,’ says Pen. ‘It was all over social media a few weeks back.’
Tig turns her phone so I can see.
‘Wow,’ I say. It’s a breathtaking spectacle – a couple dancing in an Italian piazza while bystanders stop and watch in wonder.
I can see why Tig finds it all so dreamy.
But it’s also highlighted a small problem.
This isn’t a ballroom tango – the dance Theo has spent hours trying to learn – it’s an Argentine tango.
The steps are completely different, as is the hold, which is much more intimate – foreheads pressed together, legs wrapped around each other.
Anyone who’s watched five minutes of Strictly would know the two dances are very different.
Theo, I take it, leads a glitterball-free existence.