Chapter 9
9
Hot. I am very, very hot. My eyelids feel glued shut by sleep, my skin sticky with slumber. The thin bedsheet is twisted in a ball at my ankles, and something is on my head. I squint open my eyes: it’s the pillow. I’m on my stomach, legs and arms splayed, head pushed under the pillow, like I’m trying to freefall out of a moving aeroplane and am blocked by the bother of my single bed. Crawling upright, I can tell it’s mid-morning by the way the light hits and how warm it is. I tried to sleep on the tiny sofa last night because I couldn’t bear to see Jamie, after that look he gave me in the cave. But it was so uncomfortable that at 3 a.m. I crept back into the eaves and slipped into my own bed. Jamie had been fast asleep. He’s not here now. With one eye gingerly open, I take in his made-up bed. Judging by the light, I reckon it’s about 10 a.m. already.
I finally make it down for breakfast.
‘Good morning, sleepy-head,’ Dad says, as I emerge into the unblinking sun. He’s at the table, reading the same book of poetry that Alex gave me to read the other day.
‘Morning, Dad,’ I say groggily, and he pours me a coffee, because he knows me and loves me and wants me to be happy.
I take it with a smile. ‘You’re my favourite, Dad, do you know that?’ I tell him, and he laughs.
‘Best job in the world,’ he replies.
I lift the mug to my lips as I check out what everyone is up to. Jamie is doing laps. Was he doing those when I first came down? I don’t remember seeing him in the pool five seconds ago. I track him until he passes everyone else at the side of the pool, their legs in the water, sun reflecting onto them in waves of light. Mum sits next to Alex, who sits next to Laurie, who sits next to Kate, who is next to …
Adonis?
‘Flo!’ he says, clocking me as I clock him. ‘Good morning!’ He unfolds himself and everyone watches him pad over to me, and I swear my brothers are smirking. This is the line they cross that takes them from lovable rogues to freaking annoying. Adonis opens his arms, apparently for a hug, and as my arms go behind his back, I give Alex and Laurie the finger. I see my mother scowl. Kate says something to everyone and they all look away.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘I wanted to see you,’ he says. ‘To see if I can take you to lunch?’
I feel the eyes of my family turn towards us again with vested interest. They were only pretending not to listen.
‘Oh!’ I start to say, and I’m aware that Jamie has stopped swimming and is sitting with the others now, too, watching. ‘I was going to grab something here …’
I don’t know why I stumble. Last night was perfectly fine – we went back to the dance floor and hugged goodnight, and Adonis texted before bed to tell me to sleep well.
But then Laurie yells, ‘Go on the adventure, Florence!’
Laurie is encouraging this? Now there ’s a plot twist.
Adonis grins, pleased to have familial support. All the words I could possibly say next stick in my throat. I want to hang out with him, I want to have a nice time. It’s just … well, I don’t know. A date in the middle of the day? I’ve never done that before! This is a lot of firsts happening.
‘Urm …’
‘Go on, Flo!’ shouts Alex.
My mother adds, ‘For god’s sake, Florence, it’s only lunch.’
I feel like I catch Jamie’s eye, but between my sunglasses and his, I can’t be sure. He gives an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulder, which feels very much like I’m not bothered what you do . He had a fun night, too, no doubt, exploring the caves himself with that girl. Not that it bothers me, of course. And it’s not like I need him to care.
‘Okay,’ I say, because why not? The whole family cheers – except Jamie, who slips wordlessly back into the water.
I don’t even put on shoes. I just grab my tote bag and climb onto Adonis’s motorbike behind him.
‘We’re going to have fun!’ he says, over the thrum of his engine starting.
I tell myself it’s true: we are. But, oddly, I find myself looking back to the house as we pull away, half hoping Jamie has re-emerged to see this ‘fun’.
We travel down the winding road that takes us to the main coastal path, and once we’re away from the prying eyes of my family it’s much easier to relax: the wind in my hair, my arms around a man who is determined to buy me lunch – I will myself to do as Laurie jeered when he yelled, Go on the adventure. It is pretty cool. I feel badass. The tension I’ve felt in my head since waking up melts away with reassuring effortlessness.
Adonis asks over his shoulder if I’m okay, the breeze carrying his words. I tell him I’m great and I mean it. I’m trying to be Holiday Flo. Holiday Flo meets fit men and hops on their motorbike, and doesn’t get stuck in her head. By the time he pulls into a small patch of tarmac at a shack of a restaurant, I’m smiling and I can’t stop. I think it might be a physical impossibility for anybody to ride down a path on the back of a motorbike without it being life-affirming.
Adonis takes my hand with not a scratch of self-consciousness and is welcomed in the restaurant like a son, arms opened and cheek-kisses freely given. He talks in rapid-fire Greek, breaking only to tell me, ‘Flo, we are in the home of the best gyros on the island. I’m glad you are hungry.’
‘I can tell from the smell,’ I reply, rubbing my stomach for the benefit of the staff in case they don’t speak English. A woman with ruddy cheeks and an apron chuckles, understanding my meaning.
Adonis seems pleased that my humour translates. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘They’ll bring it to us.’
We cross over the small road that we arrived on, to the sand of the beach, where there’s a handful of tables set up under sun-brollies, all the seats facing the water. We sit, and the food comes quickly: meat seasoned to perfection, stuffed into fresh and fluffy pitta bread. It’s served with tomatoes, onions, fried potatoes and the zingiest tzatziki I’ve ever tasted. We have tiny thimbles of chilled white wine, and I’ve got no idea what we talk about. We don’t, really. Adonis alternates between watching the boats out on the sea-line and watching me eat, which I do with abandon. It’s in my blood not to care about eating daintily or withholding my enthusiasm: I go for it, deep-throating the deliciousness with unladylike gusto. I suppose I should be trying a bit harder to be good company, but I can tell Adonis doesn’t need that from me. It’s funny how little we say to each other – how neither of us feels the need to fill the silence.
I lick sauce from my fingers and use a napkin to get at some runaway oil down my elbow. Side-by-side we sit, and if there’s one thing I keep coming back to on the trip, it’s how consistently amazing I feel by the water. This is holiday: great food, a great view, a little lunchtime wine. And yes, a handsome man (with a man-bun … I still can’t fully get past that).
When we’re done and our plates are cleared, Adonis asks if I want to go to the waterfall, and I’m so chilled, so sated, so happy , that there’s only one response.
‘Hell, yeah!’ I tell him, in the style I imagine Holiday Flo most suits, and this time it’s me who takes his hand.
The waterfall is even further down the coastal path, and it is beautiful – magical, even – hidden through a jumble of forest that suddenly gives way to a huge clearing, with a waterfall that’s about ten feet high and seems to come from the sky somehow, surrounded by bundles of rock that have been smoothed by the passage of time. There’s nobody else there. We are alone.
‘Here,’ says Adonis, steering me towards a rock big enough and flat enough for two people to spread out comfortably, where he pulls out the wine left over from lunch and two plastic cups, and we ‘Cheers’ and settle into the show that Mother Nature is putting on.
‘I can’t believe you get to live here,’ I tell him. ‘This is so peaceful.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But of course nobody enjoys where they are from.’
‘They don’t?’ I reply, before I recognise the truth in what he says.
‘I’d like to leave here,’ he tells me. ‘Work in Athens, or maybe Lisbon. I have heard many good things about Lisbon from my cousin who is there.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want, I am sure you’ll make it happen,’ I tell him. ‘May the odds be ever in your favour.’
He smiles. ‘And what do you want, Flo?’ he asks, leaning in slightly.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Inner peace?’
‘You don’t have inner peace?’
‘Absolutely zero,’ I say, and then, ‘Whoa. Actually, that’s the most honest thing I’ve said out loud in ages. You make it easy to tell the truth.’
He nods. ‘You don’t have people to tell the truth to?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘I had a … thing, a while back. A breakdown, really. And once you lose it like that, people are always looking for signs that you’re going to lose it again. So you kind of … stop saying things that are too honest. Don’t want to scare anyone.’
‘What happened?’ he asks, and the way he looks at me – the way I am here, now – I suddenly yearn to unburden myself, to say everything that’s been building up in me, so that I don’t have to be weighed down by it any more.
‘Everything?’ I offer, after a beat. ‘I was doing my PhD, and by the second year I was … paralysed with dread, totally overwhelmed. And one morning I just couldn’t go into the library. I couldn’t physically get my feet to move, it was like a net blocking me from getting to the door and … I had to go home. And I got back to my flat and locked myself in my room, and I cried and cried and cried. And once that happened, I couldn’t stop. I was on the verge of tears at every moment of every day. I lived and breathed inferiority. I felt ugly – I covered my mirror in my room with a scarf, so I didn’t have to see myself. I was convinced people were talking about me, gossiping whenever I left the room about what a terrible person I am, so I stopped going out, to spare people the drama of having to be near me. And it all made me feel so stupid and immature. I kept thinking: why can’t I be like everyone else – all those girls who were more like grown women, sophisticated and moving through life with such certainty and ease.
‘I just got so defeated by … life. I stopped being able to meet deadlines or appointments. Time stopped being normal: minutes felt like hours, but whole days could go by and I wouldn’t even have realised. By the time the uni called my parents, I was already pretty bad. They took me to the doctor and he diagnosed burnout, but it wasn’t that. I kept getting worse and eventually I had to be hospitalised, where they sedated me and let me rest, and then I was allowed back to uni under the supervision of a therapist, who helped me remember how to put one foot in front of the other, you know? Take it one day at a time?’
‘And what about now?’ Adonis asks. ‘How are you now?’
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s so funny,’ I say. ‘In England we’re always asking people how they are, but I don’t think anyone ever answers honestly.’
‘You can be honest with me,’ Adonis says.
‘I’m … better. I spend a lot of time reading, because things feel safe in books. I don’t feel very brave. My family teases me for going back to university to teach, but I have no idea how to branch out and do anything different, you know? I have this sort of … good-girl syndrome, where I want to be liked and approved of. And I know it’s a fruitless endeavour, but I still try. And if I can’t be a good girl, I just do nothing. Because I don’t want to fuck up. And rejection – oh my god, rejection is a big thing for me. If I get even a whiff of it, I struggle so much. I mean, I’m better than I was, but … it takes a lot for me not to spiral. I feel like I have to work twenty times harder than the average person to keep neutral, if that makes sense.’
‘I think you’re brave,’ Adonis says. ‘It sounds like you won’t believe me, but … you are not alone.’
‘Thank you,’ I tell him. I can’t believe I’ve given him such a monologue. I’m grateful to be able to put all these feelings somewhere. I’ve been carrying them for so long that I’m tired. They’re heavy. And boring, too. I’m sick of being so selfish, so concerned with my own self. ‘You’re a good listener,’ I say. ‘Thank you. I’m sure you thought I might be better company than this.’
‘You are wonderful company,’ he tells me. ‘Please, don’t worry.’
I decide to believe him. At the very least, maybe I’m making him feel better about his life.
‘Do you bring many girls here?’ I ask him. I don’t know where it comes from – but the way he’s drinking his wine, laid out on the rock, he looks so very much at ease, like he’s here all the time.
He grins at me. ‘One or two,’ he tells me. ‘If we’re telling each other the truth.’
‘I appreciate that,’ I nod, noting how little I’m bothered. I don’t feel jealous. It’s almost a relief – confirmation that this doesn’t have to mean anything except practice at having a good time.
We’re interrupted by the ringing of my phone.
‘Mum,’ I say, answering. ‘Hey. How are you?’
‘Darling! Are you having a lovely time?’
I look at Adonis, laid out on the rock like a merman.
‘Yeah,’ I say, and he gives me a smile. ‘Thanks. What’s up?’
‘I wondered if you were coming out to dinner with us tonight? No pressure or anything, darling – don’t rush home. It’s just if you’ll be back late, we’ll already have left, you see. I don’t want you to feel abandoned.’
‘That’s kind of you to check,’ I say. I pull the phone away from my ear to see the time. It’s already 3 p.m. ‘I had a big lunch actually, Mum,’ I go on. ‘And we’re at a waterfall. Exploring. Leave me a key under the mat at the front door?’
‘Done,’ she says. ‘See you later.’ She pauses. ‘Or not,’ she adds, and I could die.
‘I’ll be back, Mum,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘Thanks for the encouragement, though.’
I hang up, and Adonis asks if everything is okay. And it’s so annoying, but as is my way, hot tears prick at my eyes, so I can’t speak, only nod. And then he looks at me all full of sympathy, and one tear falls over my waterline, a solitary escapee running straight down to my chin before I wipe it away, uttering, ‘Sorry. It’s just, she’s like, the best person I know. And I suppose from everything I told you, I wish I was stronger, you know? To be more like her? It’s a bit embarrassing to be a less amazing version of her. Like when you trace a picture at school and make a faint copy of the original. It’s like that.’
‘You feel,’ Adonis supplies, ‘not good enough because you are not like her?’
I nod again. ‘I suppose that’s about it, yeah,’ I say. ‘That feeling of inferiority is never far from the surface. Erupts without notice.’
He considers this and, after a beat, says, ‘I think Veronica is a very good woman. But so is Flo. I think you should think about being a very good Flo, instead of a not-so-good Veronica.’
I blink at him, shocked.
‘I’ve had a therapist for two years,’ I say, ‘and she’s never summed it up as well as that.’
Adonis pulls me in for a hug, holding me tight. I can feel, from the placement of his arms and the way he rubs my back, like Mum does when we’re sad, that it isn’t sexual. It’s fraternal. Reassuring, asking nothing in return.
‘Better?’ he asks, when I’ve let a few more tears pass.
‘Better,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘Adonis, you’re a very kind man.’ He smiles, gives a little shrug. ‘I’m sorry I’m a hot mess.’
Adonis tells me not to worry and suggests that I get in the water, let this magical place wash away my tears. So I do. I slide into the water and push off a rock to go down deep, holding my breath to see if I can touch the floor. I can’t, and I bob back up to the surface for more air. I swim to underneath the waterfall, letting the water hit my head, and tip my chin up like I’m in any other shower, except I’m not. I’m here, in a cove set back from the road, in Greece, with a man with a topknot who is called, implausibly, Adonis – and the freedom of it, the newness of it, lets me see life from a new angle. What if all I have to do is be the best Florence, instead of imitating Mum? What would that look like?
I’m not sure, in this moment, but asking the question is heady.
I let the waterfall wash away everything that I have ever let hold me back, baptising myself anew.
I’m okay , I tell my heart, and she swells in my chest in agreement, beating hard and steady and full of life. It feels good. It feels so, so good to be finally letting go.