Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
After much back and forth on the topic of itineraries, Harriet and Aiden decide to stay on in Santorini for one more week so she doesn’t have to travel while she’s hacking up a lung. Rupert returns to London for a conference. And I get on the blower with my best mate.
I tell Nat I’m here in Santorini. I tell her everything that’s happened. I tell her that Frank flew back to Athens yesterday, and, for all I know, is probably boarding a plane back to LA right this minute. That we have essentially said goodbye.
And I tell her I’m distraught about it. I should never have let him go. I'm a huge idiot.
Once I let her get a word in edgeways, she says, ‘So when you went off to his room, you never told him that you’d just told Rupert it was over? That you’ve left your marriage?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I’m aghast. ‘I mean, it’s obvious. Obviously.’
‘Of the many things it is, I can promise you it’s far from obvious,’ she says.
My heart quickens a bit. ‘Well, I mean, I was hardly going to knock on his door and say, “Right then. Just gave Rupert his marching papers. Now let me sink my hook into you.”’
‘So right now he is still under the assumption that you’re probably going back to your marriage?’
‘I have no idea what assumption he’s under,’ I say.
She tsks. ‘Insane. But we can analyse you later… Back to the problem at hand. So you don’t know for sure that he’s changed the Athens to LA portion of his flight to go back today? You haven’t been in touch?’
‘No,’ I tell her. We haven’t talked since we said goodbye. Since I sat in my room in a full-on panic, because he was standing outside waiting for his taxi, and there was more I wanted to run downstairs and say to him, but something kept holding me back; something wouldn’t let me do it. Then it was too late.
‘So, for all you know, he might just be hanging out in Athens for his last night? He might just have needed to get the heck off that island.’
‘Possible. I didn’t attach a tracker to his suitcase.’
‘And you’re now flying home directly from Santorini, tomorrow? Correct?’
I tell her that, yes, I spent an insane amount of time on hold with the airline but eventually I cancelled the return portion of my trip to LA and got a credit. Then I booked an easyJet flight from Santorini to London that leaves tomorrow.
‘So what happened to your flight from Santorini back to Athens? Did you cancel that too?’
I realise that in all the booking and cancelling, and getting credits, I actually forgot to cancel my Santorini–Athens flight. ‘Er. No.’
I hear a smile in her voice when she says, ‘Well get your arse to Athens, then. And, please, when you get there, tell him you’ve left your marriage.’
The House of the Rising Sun is not full. I know this because I get my arse to Athens.
They even give me my old room. As soon as I put my suitcase on its little hammock, I text Frank the view from the window. The one of the tree that forms a canopy across the alleyway, and the oddly placed ATM. My heart pounds, not sure what his reaction will be, given we've already said goodbye once. Or if he'll even reply.
But two minutes later, I see the moving dots.
Don’t tell me you checked back into that shithole.
I grin.
Is that “Frank” for Well, hello! Delighted to hear you’re back in town?
Are you really here? he writes after a beat. That’s not an old picture?
I tell him I really am. Which must mean he is still here, too.
There are no more dots.
My heart sinks. Oh my God, he’s annoyed. He was trying to get a million miles away from me, and here I am, legging-it after him. My life is a Julia Roberts movie. Die a thousand deaths and cringe a thousand cringes!
And then I see the dots. I swear I’m holding my breath to bursting point. But then up comes:
I have nine hours before I have to be at the airport. How about we wander dark streets and stumble upon floodlit ancient ruins until morning?
‘Let’s try a new direction.’ I tug his sleeve towards a different alleyway that branches off from Monastiraki Square.
‘I like new directions. Why take the same path because it’s familiar?’
‘If there’s a hidden message there, it stinks, thanks.’
He says, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ Then he holds out his arm for me to link it.
‘Knowing our luck, this one will lead to a dead end.’
‘I don’t really believe in luck, Moira Fitzgerald.’ I feel his arm flex through the thin fabric of his shirt. ‘Like I once told you before. There’s what you make happen, and what you don’t make happen.’
‘Can we just have a normal conversation, not a loaded one?’
He reaches for my hand that’s looped over his arm, massages my knuckles with his thumb. ‘We can. For tonight, we can do anything you say.’
And so we walk and we don’t talk for a while. We just enjoy Athens in the early evening. Wandering without wondering where our steps are going to take us. Same Plaka. Same grey sky. But not same us. As luck, or chance, would have it, we even round a corner and encounter the very same portrait artist who is missing part of his leg. He is sitting on the ground with his sketch pad and pencils. Frank digs in his pockets, pulls out a roll of euros and walks over to him. I hang back and observe them as they engage in conversation. Then Frank waves me over. ‘Afrim says he won’t accept my money unless he draws us.’ He holds up his hands. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger!’
‘Ugh!’ I roll my eyes. The very last thing I want is portraits and last pictures. Too morbid.
‘Afrim insists.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Well, if Afrim insists…’
We perch on a crumbling wall, touch our heads together; my warm temple pressed to his warm temple. I try not to overly focus on the feel of it there. Afrim works swiftly, with broad sweeps of the charcoal. I pretend to be an engaged subject, but all I can think of is the press of Frank’s head against mine, its micromovements as he breathes or speaks, the way my warm ear nestles against his warm ear. The way this cosy little communion doesn’t faze us.
Then Afrim is finished. ‘Look at this work of genius!’ Frank turns it around to show me.
I stare at our charcoal likenesses, my head tilted against Frank’s straight one. Frank’s eyes staring straight at me; mine staring off into a daydream. After we’ve paid Afrim and said goodbye, I say, ‘I look like a bloody wombat, but it’s a good one of you.’
‘I disagree.’ Afrim has rolled it up and placed it in a protective plastic sleeve. Frank has tucked it proudly under his arm. ‘I think it’s just us, exactly as we are.’ Then he nudges me. ‘Besides, the beauty of wombats has long been underrated.’
We walk on and find a place for dinner. ‘Just wanted to say,’ he says, as we roll out of there at 10 p.m. Frank has to be at the airport by 4 a.m. ‘I’m glad they don’t have direct flights to London from Santorini.’
‘But they do,’ I say.
He is smiling before I can finish.
‘You knew that,’ I say.
‘I knew that.’ He nudges me. ‘You just wanted to have one last meander around Athens with me, didn’t you?’
I search for a witty comeback, but at the thought of last meanders, melancholy tugs the corners of my mouth down. ‘Maybe I did,’ I say.
‘If I was a gambling guy, I’d bet you’re going to miss me.’
‘I never said I wouldn’t miss you.’ I stride out a little ahead of him so he can’t see my face. ‘I’m always going to be curious about when you’re going to start writing your new book about a fantastic, enigmatic, impressionistic, sadomasochistic, illogical English woman.’
He laughs. ‘Hey, who says I haven’t already started?’ He catches up to me, snatches my hand. ‘It’s possible that I might need something to get the inspiration flowing, though…’ Before I can say anything, he pulls me in for a kiss. My lips part. My hands find the back of his head. My fingers burrow into his hair. It is deep and long and familiar. As familiar as my childhood. As familiar as summers. As warm as the sun on sand. Knowing this might be the last time I kiss him threatens to bring on a bawl-inducing meltdown, so I try to push the cognitive dissonance away and just inscribe it into the very fabric of me, save it for a rainy day. But then…
It comes out of nowhere. A downpour that bursts through deceptively benign clouds. Merciless drops like daggers on our faces.
‘Oh my God!’ I shriek. We are soaked in seconds. ‘Run!’
‘Where to?’ He pelts after me, giving a disbelieving laugh.
I glance around. Where are all the tavernas and shops when you need them? I can only see houses. Pink houses. Yellow houses. Drab, compared to Santorini houses. Wrought-iron balconies. Plant pots. Shutters at every window and door. Then… a doorway under a narrow awning. A step. I make a leap for it, avoiding an already-oceanic puddle.
‘I knew I’d be punished for wanting one more day with you!’ I say, glad that the shock of this has saved me from my maudlin self.
He springs onto it after me, catches me around the waist again. ‘Careful. You just said something pretty massive, and you can’t take it back.’
And then he is kissing me again. His warm mouth devouring my cool, wet face. The rain, almost biblical, plink-plinks on the small roof above us and rushes in torrents into drains. In the distance, car horns blare, like their team just scored a goal. But I can only concentrate on Frank’s skin between phases of my eyes opening and closing. Frank’s eyelashes, long and fair. His warm hand cupping the back of my head. His urgent lips. I am hot and freezing, shivering and melting. I am alive, and unaware of anything outside of this moment. It’s the longest, most thorough kiss anyone can do in public that travels to all poles of my body, that trickles down my spine and collects in my groin until my knees almost buckle.
When he comes up for air, he says, ‘Damn.’ He closes his eyes, presses his wet forehead to mine like he did that day outside a hotel room door. I can feel his heart hammering. Or maybe that’s my own.
‘No more analysis paralysis,’ I say. ‘Good.’
He plucks a strand of my hair that’s stuck to my cheek, picks it off with almost surgical precision, then cups my face in his hands. I’m certain he’s about to say something monumental, but then he freezes for an instant then pats his chest. ‘Shit,’ he says, looking down at our feet. The rolled-up portrait is lying in a puddle on the ground. ‘Oh no.’ He bends to retrieve it. I watch as he carefully slides off the soggy sheath, then sets about unrolling the paper which sticks where it has buckled quite a bit.
‘Oh dear,’ I say. The rain obviously managed to penetrate the plastic, causing the charcoal to run. He has miraculously got away with just a smudge on his forehead, but my face is streaked with ghoulishly long, black drip marks, like tears.
‘Get rid of it.’ My reaction is over-the-top but for some stupid reason looking at my charcoal likeness makes me remember what he said about his novel. About how it’s only a love story if you cry at the end.
‘Come on! It’s not that bad.’ He blows on it to dry it, but the damage is done. ‘It’s just a few imperfections. I kinda like the raw version of you.’
‘Seriously,’ I say. ‘Can you make it go away, please?’
‘It’s easing up a little,’ he says, after he has rolled it back up and put it back in its sleeve. ‘Let’s make a go of it.’
He’s right. It’s coming down in a glittery, silver shower now, so much quieter, almost poetic. Everything feels like it’s returning to where it left off. Except, perhaps, me.
‘I think that might be a little café across the way. What do you say?’ His hand that was just calling out the curve of my waist, takes my hand.
Next, we are dashing across the road. I’ll remember this, I think. In years to come, I will remember us dashing in the rain, in a way that might have been entirely forgettable if we had just walked.
The café is one of those charmless family-run places that serves the sort of lethal coffee only locals drink, plus slabs of North American-style pizza, and cheese pies that sit on a warming tray all day; one of those places that’s just been there forever, that’s a little bit of this culture, and a little bit of that; a place that has imprinted itself into the fabric of the city. The two outside tables sheltered from the rain by a rusty, retractable awning, are occupied by elderly Greek guys who are smoking roll-ups, drinking ouzo, and putting the world to rights. They stop talking and watch us as we walk in as though we are drowned tourist rats who are of great interest to them. On seeing us, the young guy behind the counter reluctantly stubs out his cigarette and indicates for us to sit anywhere. No one’s inside, so it’s wide open. Frank still has hold of my hand which I am powerfully conscious of not wanting to change.
‘It never rains in Athens. You know that?’ he says. His cheeks are rosy. He looks young – almost like the guy in that photo in Central Park all those years ago.
Looking out at the ground, you’d think a pipe had burst. ‘We definitely won’t forget this, that’s for sure,’ I say.
He looks at me with such plainspoken intensity that I have to steady my breath. ‘Believe me, Moira Fitzgerald, I don’t need any memory trigger.’
No.
‘You’re cold.’ He sees me shiver. ‘We need rakomelo to warm us up,’ he says to the young guy who is wiping down our table with a grubby, oversized cloth. When the glass dries, Frank carefully sets our bedraggled portrait down in the centre.
They are playing English music. The Four Tops’ ‘Can’t Help Myself’ ends and Louis Armstrong’s ‘We Have All The Time In The World’ comes on. Frank cocks me a look. ‘Of all the songs in all the gin joints…’
I love this song. I love this song so much, but right now I think I hate this song. We hold eyes as we listen to Louis sing about the one thing we don’t have: time. The words make me undergo a strange rewiring, until I have to stare hopelessly out of the window at the rain-splattered street. The waiter brings us rakomelo . It is lovely and warm, and I wrap my fingers around the little carafe. Frank sips his, and I’m aware of him observing me as I sip mine, conversation eluding us, until Louis is done torturing us.
And then he says, ‘I’m going to tell you something. And I might be going out on a limb here, but I’m going to say it anyway…’ He gives me a moment – or gives himself one. ‘You can love two people, but you can only be in love with one.’
I focus on his hands that are patiently crossed on the tabletop. Now. Do it. Tell him you told Rupert you’re not going back to him. Don’t be so worried that he’ll think you’re trying to ensnare him. Just do it. Say it.
I stare at those hands for an unseemly amount of time. The words don’t come.
‘I know what I want,’ I say, instead. I slide my hand across the table, not quite touching his. ‘I want to go on wandering dark streets and stumbling upon ancient floodlit ruins – until morning. Can we do that, please?’
‘Okay,’ he says, unreadably.
And that is pretty much what we do. We wander around the streets of Athens for three hours or perhaps more, until it’s time for him to head to the airport. At some point – after more than a little persuasion – I finally convince him to dump that ruined portrait of us in the bin.
It feels more than a little symbolic.