Chapter 10
10
Hope
So, are you going to see this Greek god again?
Me
We didn’t discuss that! When he dropped me off, we just said bye
Do you think that’s bad?
If he wanted to see me again, he would have told me, wouldn’t he?
Hope
Don’t be so passive!
I think you played it cool
Leave him wanting more, you know?
Me
So I did it right?
Hope
There is no ‘right’
What are you guys doing today?
Me
Family snorkelling.
We literally just got here, flippers and all!
You?
Hope
Going to bed – it was another all-nighter! I’m watching the Bluey where Bandit gets a mullet.
It’s calming me down
I’ll text later!
Down on the beach, we dump all our rented snorkel stuff on a big blanket.
‘Is this sanitary?’ asks Alex, squinting at it. ‘I mean, I get rented diving gear, but a rented snorkel? Have we hosed all this down with disinfectant?’
Laurie reaches over to ruffle Alex’s hair teasingly and says, ‘It’s salt water out there, isn’t it? That’s a disinfectant.’
‘Hmmm,’ muses Alex, pushing him off. ‘I don’t think you understand how transmission works.’
‘Oh, take a day off,’ pooh-poohs Laurie. ‘We’ll be fine! The guy I got this off said it’s so worth it. We just have to be careful not to go too far out, because apparently the water gets tricky up there around the other bay. Not that any of us are strong enough swimmers to get out that far.’
‘Hey!’ I say. ‘I am PhD-qualified when it comes to the ocean, remember?’
‘Writing about it,’ Laurie points out. ‘Not swimming in it.’
‘Can’t tempt you into a competition then,’ Jamie asks, shielding his eyes from the sun with a big hand and surveying the sea. If I took a picture of him, he could go in a swimwear catalogue. ‘I reckon I could get to that island out there. I’ll bet there’s all sorts around. You can see how it gets deep for a bit, but then shallows out, where the water gets clearer again.’
‘I don’t want any of you going out that far,’ Mum chastises him. ‘You might be grown-ups, but you’re all my babies, and that is too far for a non-Olympian. Got it?’
We all look at each other with suppressed smiles. There’s something about a parent putting their foot down when you’re no longer a child. It’s … quaint.
‘Yes, boss,’ Jamie salutes, and the rest of us grumble, ‘Okay, Mum.’
‘Anyone for sustenance before the grand adventure?’ Dad offers. ‘I brought down sandwiches and crisps, and some fizzy pop?’
It’s largely agreed that nobody wants to eat before swimming in case it makes them sink, as per the old wives’ tale, and so we put on our snorkels and masks and flippers, hooting with laughter at the ridiculousness of it.
‘Oh my god, Michael! Take a picture,’ Mum insists before we all go in.
‘God,’ complains Kate, ‘I don’t know if I can walk on sand to where you are.’ She’s down by the water’s edge, and has to waddle towards us in exaggerated steps because of her flippers, bow-legged and rocking left and right.
‘You look a right muppet!’ Laurie teases, and Jamie hits his arm.
‘Too right,’ nods Kate, acknowledging Jamie’s objection to Laurie’s words. ‘See? Jamie knows you’re sailing close to the wind, calling me a muppet.’
‘Yeah,’ defends Laurie. ‘But you’re my muppet.’ He holds out a hand and steps towards her, pulling her in for a bear hug. ‘My sexy, sexy muppet,’ he nuzzles into her neck, and Alex pushes between them, separating them, as he complains, ‘Okay, that’s enough foreplay here, thank you.’
Jamie slips in next to Alex, leaving me to stand beside him on the end.
‘Closer!’ Mum says, art-directing the shot from Dad’s side. ‘Like you’ve actually met before, darlings …’
I take a small step so I’m closer to Jamie, and then another when Mum insists. And then I feel his palm on my lower back as he snakes his arm around me, and I’m so shocked by the intimacy of it that I squeal.
‘You all right over there?’ asks Kate, leaning forward and talking across everyone’s chests.
‘Yes, yes,’ I sing-song. ‘Sorry. I thought I felt a spider.’
For the next photo, Jamie’s palm loiters away from my bare back, and when we’re done and Mum is satisfied, he mutters, ‘Sorry.’ I murmur something back about it being fine, and we wade out into the water one by one, kicking off into the deep blue sea.
It’s beautiful. The water is so clear that you can see loads, and as we pad out and the water gets deeper, the fish become more colourful: flat ones with stripes, big fat ones in oranges and reds, and shoals of tiny little minnow-type things that travel together like an undulating, shimmering cloud. The water is super-calm, and for a while I open my arms and legs so that I float, letting myself be carried by it as I pretend I’m just another fish, minding her own business.
‘Ouch!’
I’m under the water, so as the shriek leaves my mouth, it makes me swallow a lungful of salt water, which makes me spit and splutter, which makes me take my head out of the water so that I can actually breathe. What the hell?
A dark shadow passes my eye-line and scares the living shit out of me, so I lurch towards the nearest rocks peeking out of the sea, throwing myself on them before I get eaten alive and bashing my elbow so hard that the skin splits and I start bleeding all down myself.
‘Dammit,’ I say, trying to ignore the raging sting in the very same arm that I have to use to pull myself up, out of the water. I’ve ended up right on the very edge of the peninsula that I promised I wouldn’t swim out to.
And so has Jamie.
‘Jesus, Flo!’ he says, bobbing out of the water. ‘Why the hell have you come out this far?’
I dart my eyes across the water and realise the dark shadow was him – it was Jamie.
‘You scared me half to death,’ I yell by way of reply. ‘I thought you were a shark!’
Jamie reaches up to the rock and pulls himself out of the water with a lot more ease and grace than I did. He pulls off his mask and snorkel and drops them onto the flattest bit of earth, and sits there, panting.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask, confused.
‘No, I’m not okay! Flo, do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here? We literally all talked about it twenty minutes ago.’
I squint and look out into the direction we came from.
‘You’ve come out way too far,’ Jamie continues. ‘I kept waiting for you to swim back towards us, but you didn’t; you kept being carried by the current and you didn’t even notice.’
I’ve never seen Jamie like this. He is livid. Absolutely livid.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I was just …’ I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Do I really want to admit to having been pretending I was a fish? I change tack. ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘you didn’t need to follow me.’
‘Well,’ Jamie counters, ‘I did, didn’t I? What if something happened?’
I bat back, ‘Because I can’t look after myself?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he says plainly.
‘It’s what you meant, though, isn’t it?’ I ask.
Jamie squints at me, faintly shaking his head. ‘I came to make sure you were okay, and that makes me the bad guy?’ he asks.
And I throw up my hands, which could mean yes, or I don’t know, or more likely why the hell are we even arguing right now?
I sigh and sit down a few feet from him, dangling my legs over the edge. It’s a bit like hanging off the edge of the world.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Jamie says, looking over at me.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, reaching my arm round to try and get a better look. It’s worse than I thought actually, and it’s throbbing. ‘I did it when you scared me,’ I say, ‘and I was trying to get to safety.’
Jamie rolls his eyes and sighs, getting up to come over for a better look.
‘Can you swim back?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, although I don’t sound very sure. The thought of getting back into that water makes me feel nauseous. The shoreline is in the far distance. I can’t admit out loud that I’m glad he’s here, but … I’m glad he’s here. I didn’t realise how far I’d come, and now I see it, I feel embarrassed. ‘I mean, how far do you think it is?’ I say.
Jamie shrugs. ‘Half a mile, maybe. Laurie did try to warn us about the current.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Okay, Dad ,’ I say. ‘I fucked up. So shoot me.’
‘It’s easier to get you back to shore alive,’ he quips. ‘Dead weight is heavier, and all that.’
‘I don’t need carrying ,’ I specify. ‘It’s fine. I’m going to catch my breath and I’ll be right there. You can go. You don’t have to wait. Honestly.’ Obviously I don’t mean this.
Jamie stands up then and suddenly rips off the net part of his shorts, underneath the fabric. ‘Come here,’ he insists, holding one end between his teeth. ‘Wrap it up in this.’
I’m so shocked that I hold my arm out wordlessly and watch him work. He wraps the fabric around my arm three times and then knots it, his mouth perilously close to my skin as he focuses. He’s careful and gentle, and when he’s done, he delicately lifts my arm back down to my side.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Although isn’t it going to get wet and effectively do … nothing? Not to sound ungrateful.’
Jamie laughs. ‘I thought I was being some big, manly hero,’ he says. ‘But yes, I think you’re right. I just wanted to try and help.’
I look at him.
‘Why?’ I ask. The words fall out of my mouth.
I feel like Jamie understands the meaning behind what I’ve actually said because he looks down, as if he’s embarrassed or ashamed. I’ve got so many questions about why he distanced himself from me, but it feels weak to ask. I don’t want him to know how much it hurt. And yet.
‘Because it’s the right thing to do,’ he says, eventually.
I nod. ‘Let’s go back,’ I say, gesturing my head towards the shore. ‘I’m sorry if I made you worry,’ I add.
‘I’m still worried,’ he says. ‘It’s a long way back, you know. Let’s go slow and steady and pace ourselves.’
‘After a break.’
He nods. ‘You want to rest a bit more first?’
I don’t like having to admit to needing it, but if we’re going to go half a mile, I think it would be sensible to rest first. I really regret not having had some of the food Dad brought down, now.
I sit back down again and Jamie does the same.
‘Can’t complain about the view, can we?’ I say. ‘It’s pretty special.’
‘Agreed,’ Jamie nods. ‘I hear you went to a pretty nice waterfall yesterday? You’re really seeing Greece from all angles.’
I shrug. ‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘I’m trying to embrace Holiday Flo.’
‘Holiday Flo?’
‘Yeah, you know, like … letting loose a bit, having more fun. Going to waterfalls with Greek masseurs.’
Jamie considers this.
‘Sounds like she has fun,’ he decides. ‘Although, for the record, I do like Original Flo.’
‘She sounds like a bag of Doritos,’ I laugh. ‘Original Flo, Holiday Flo.’
‘Is Holiday Flo coconut-flavoured?’
I laugh again.
‘Coconut and regret. You know – for swimming out so far.’
It’s Jamie’s turn to laugh. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That’ll do it.’
I laugh too and it’s not even that funny, but the laughing snowballs. He’s laughing, and I’m laughing, and then we’re looking at each other and laughing. I’m embarrassed that I swam out so far, and he’s shaking his head like he gets it and won’t push the issue, and it’s ridiculous, really, that we’re here and stranded on this little rock, in the middle of the sea, just him and me when … well, him and me when there is ‘us’, if that makes sense. But laughing together, it makes an ‘us’, a team. Jamie’s still an arse, of course. But at least he’s an arse I can laugh with.
‘Look!’ he shouts, pointing, and I follow his finger. ‘It’s Laurie.’
Laurie is, miraculously, in a speedboat. He’s got a face like thunder and is shaking his head, like a cross father. He cuts the engine and lowers an anchor, and when he’s done he turns and yells across the way, ‘Are you two fucking insane? Mum is about having a heart attack back there! You’ve been gone for nearly an hour.’
Jamie looks at me with a grave face, so I have no choice but to fess up.
‘It was my fault,’ I say. ‘Jamie was trying to help me.’
‘I’d have bloody let you drown,’ Laurie shouts. ‘Get down here and swim to the ladder.’
We do as we’re told in the kind of silence school kids fall into outside the headmaster’s office. Jamie reaches up to the small ladder and hoists himself up, turning round to lean over and hold out a hand for me, easily taking most of my weight so that I don’t have to climb much myself.
‘Are you injured?’ asks Laurie, looking at my arm.
I hold it out. ‘Jamie bandaged it,’ I say.
Laurie shakes his head. ‘You’re a liability, Florence, I swear down,’ he says.
‘Hey,’ Jamie replies, hitting Laurie’s arm. ‘It could have happened to any one of us, mate.’
Laurie narrows his eyes, unhappy at being contradicted, but choosing not to say anything about it. He turns on the engine and, as the speedboat powers up, I yell, ‘Where did this even come from?’
Laurie takes a breath. ‘Veronica Greenberg gave a guy further down the beach two beers and the rest of the egg salad in exchange for fifteen minutes’ use,’ he says.
Before I can ask if that’s really true, we speed off back to shore.
I don’t go out that night. I’m tired after all that swimming and my arm hurts, and I need some alone time. I’ve spent days with my family, wishing they’d let me get some peace and quiet – if Alex isn’t bombing into the pool, then Laurie is pontificating about something annoying, or Mum is chatting loudly with Kate, or Dad is whistling as he sorts out the towel on his sun-lounger. It is constant noise. They assume I’m going out to meet Adonis, but I’ve just stayed home, alone. He hasn’t texted me, but I’m kind of relieved about that. If he’d asked me to go out, I’d have gone, but for a few hours I need to be by myself. Although now, wandering through the house alone, I miss everyone already. It’s not a holiday home without them; it’s simply a place where we stay. I should have pulled myself together. This is the second dinner in a row I’ve missed.
I flick on some lamps downstairs to make it cosier, quickly shower and put on my PJs with a cotton dressing gown that I found in the linen cupboard, to preserve my modesty this time. I don’t know where the Bluetooth speaker is, so I can’t put on music, but I hum to fill the silence, rifling through the fridge and picking at leftover pasta, drinking two glasses of water, picking up and putting down Laurie’s book about football, which he’s obviously made no further headway on. I sneak a peek into Jamie’s room to see if it has dried out at all. It smells musty, like wet dog. I don’t think he’ll be moving back in any time soon.
Flopping down at the kitchen table, I text Hope to pass the time.
Me
Snorkelling was good!
Jamie isn’t bugging me today, either
I think we might be heading for some sort of truce …
Nothing. Hope doesn’t text back. She’s probably too busy having a fantastic time, and I can’t fault her for that.
By 9 p.m. I feel pretty shattered. I’m kind of bummed they’re all still out. Part of me assumed they wouldn’t take too long, because they wouldn’t want to be out without me. Apparently that isn’t so. I suppose I’ll go to bed, then, try to fall asleep in the bedroom before Jamie gets home …
I must have drifted off, because it startles me when I hear voices downstairs. They’re back.
‘Flo?’ It’s Kate, in the stairwell. ‘Are you there?’
‘Hello?’ I say, right as there’s an almighty crash. I head down and round the corner to see Dad swaying by the kitchen table, an assortment of fruit at his feet, from the broken fruit bowl that is also there.
‘Ooooops!’ he giggles – yes, giggles – as he catches sight of me.
‘Whoa,’ I say. ‘You guys seem … happy.’
Alex and Laurie are laughing hysterically at Dad’s clumsiness, drunk as he is. My eyes flicker to Jamie: he’s blinking a lot and his eyes are unfocused. He’s pissed as well.
‘They had a competition,’ Kate explains, ducking down to pick up Dad’s mess. ‘They’ve been on every possible after-dinner drink this place has. Tsikoudia, mastika, ouzo, tentura …’
Laurie waves a finger as Kate puts the broken fruit bowl in pieces on the table, and the fruit that’s rolling everywhere in a pile at the side of the sink.
‘And tsipouro,’ Laurie adds cheerfully.
They all look green, and very unsteady on their feet. I don’t know what else to do except make some black coffee and sort out glasses of water. It’s kind of funny that they’ve out-drunk one another in this way – although drunk people aren’t my favourite. In my undergrad years I learned quickly that the people who got most blotto weren’t the fun ones but the ones with sadness underneath their smiles. Happy people generally don’t get arseholed, is my working theory.
‘Drink this,’ I say, handing out various liquids. ‘None of you can go to bed as you are. You need to sober up a bit – you’ll choke on your own sick otherwise.’
Kate snort-laughs, shaking her head like she can’t believe the state of them.
‘You didn’t want to join them?’ I ask.
She tuts. ‘I can’t,’ she replies, and her eyes flicker down to her stomach, where she’s resting a hand. The penny drops for me and Mum at exactly the same moment.
‘You’re pregnant?’ we scream in unison, and she nods.
‘Only eight weeks. We just found out …’
‘I’m going to be an auntie!’ I cry, and Mum and I dance around Kate, laughing and smiling and thrilled.
I genuinely couldn’t be happier for her – and for Laurie, who now has his head resting on his hands on the table, like he might fall asleep. No wonder he’s been acting like a child this holiday; soon he’ll be a dad and he’ll have to start being the grown-up. The thought makes me smile. He has no idea what’s coming. I cannot wait to see it.
Mum – equally sober as Kate – sits beside her and starts gabbling about when she was pregnant with Laurie and what it was like: the cravings, how her body changed, how the last month of it all sent her crazy with the waiting, but she missed being pregnant almost right away.
‘Excuse me,’ Jamie mutters, getting up and spinning round to the kitchen sink, where he promptly throws up with a loud groan – loud enough to jerk Laurie upright.
We watch in horror as he throws up again, and then once more for good measure. I have to look away and will myself not to gag at the sound it makes. I hate vomit – but then I imagine everybody does. I enjoy any opportunity to see Jamie at his less-than-best, but this is a bit too much. He flicks on the tap to wash it away and then runs his face underneath to wash himself. I’m relieved there are no dishes on the drying rack. I’m going to bleach the hell out of that sink in a minute. Small mercies, though – I doubt he’d have made it to the bathroom. This is so gross.
After a little more dry-retching, Jamie’s stomach is empty and he leans against the worktop to catch his breath. I take the opportunity to pull out the bleach and anti-bac spray, de-germing everything that could possibly be germy from stray flecks of vomit.
‘Flo,’ Mum says, ‘take him up. I think he’ll be all right for bed after that. I’ll clean up.’
‘Jamie,’ I say, walking over to him. It’s like he can’t hear me – he doesn’t move. ‘Jamie?’
I reach out a hand to his back, so finally he looks at me.
‘Flo,’ he replies, openly happy to see me, only just realising I’m there. Then a shadow crosses his face, and his tone darkens. ‘You didn’t come to dinner,’ he goes on. ‘You went out with him instead, didn’t you?’
I look at him, at the questions etched into his features, and let his words hit me. But then just as quickly I remember we’re not alone. I make a show of looping his arm over my shoulder and say, ‘Left you? I left everyone! And look what’s happened – you’re all drunk as skunks.’
My voice is bright and cheery. The men in the room might not be compos mentis, but Kate and Mum are, and the last thing I want is them sniffing around the truth. I mean, whatever the truth is. That Jamie is … jealous? When he has no right to be?
‘Say goodnight,’ I instruct Jamie, not meeting anybody’s eye. ‘Let’s get you upstairs.’
He doesn’t say anything else as we manage the two staircases up to the eaves, but as I try to lower him down onto his bed, he pulls me with him so that I’m lying on top of him. He is solid and firm, even in his drunkenness, his skin warm, like the sun we’ve been enjoying every afternoon.
‘Gotcha!’ he says with a slur, maddeningly charming, even like this. He’s grinning.
I study him. ‘What do you want from me?’ I ask, knowing full well never to ask a question you aren’t prepared to hear the answer to. I suppose I’m banking on in vino veritas – that a drunk man will tell the truth.
Jamie smiles with one side of his mouth, and paws the hair away from my face. For a man who was chucking his guts up mere moments ago, he’s recovered handsomely.
‘Hmmm,’ he says, his hand still at the side of my face. ‘Well,’ he goes on. ‘Not to hate me, Flo. I want you not to hate me. I mean, actually I mean, fuck it … I’m drunk, I don’t care. Whatever. I’ll say it. I want you to want me, Flo. Can’t you tell?’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He had the chance for all that, and he blew it!
I go to speak – to say what, I’m not sure – but Jamie carries on, ‘I want you to want me,’ he sings, approximating the Cheap Trick song. ‘I neeeeeeed you to neeeeeeed me.’ He pauses then, unsure. ‘I don’t know the next words,’ he slurs. ‘But it doesn’t matter. You don’t want me …’ His voice tails off, like he’s on the verge of sleep. As if he’s read my mind, he issues a massive yawn and lets his eyes flutter shut. ‘But I think you want the masseur,’ he says, talking more slowly. He yawns again. ‘We saw you. Me and … Jasmine.’ I’m not sure he even realises I’m still there. It’s like he’s talking to himself, getting softer and softer. ‘Adonis. What a stupid name.’
His eyes close properly, as if his main energy source has been turned off at the plug, and I pull back, moving to sit on the edge of his bed in case Jamie comes to again – but he doesn’t.
I get him some water from the bathroom tap and put it on his bedside table. He’s lying on his side, which is good if he wants to be sick again. But I don’t think he will be. His hands are under the side of his face, like he’s play-acting sleep – but I know he isn’t. He inhales deeply and lets out a little snore. I let myself watch him and think of Christmas.