Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
T he words hung in the air between them. She’d done it now; there was no going back. Elena’s hands dropped from Grace’s and back onto the table as if she’d touched fire. The frozen expression on her face scared Grace. This woman had a life growing inside her that she needed to look after, as well as three children who depended on her.
‘I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you. But I thought that you should know. It’s not right that you should be made to think that you’re going mad.’
Elena seemed incapable of speech.
Grace got her phone out of her bag.
‘This is a lot to take in at once. Let me order a taxi to take you home. Anastasia is there? Yes?’
After a few moments’ delay Elena nodded.
‘I’ll come with you and explain that you’re ill. You can leave your car at the school and collect it later. But I think you need an afternoon in bed.’
The plan to get Elena home was easy. What came afterwards was going to be far more complicated.
While they waited for the taxi, Grace coaxed Elena to drink a glass of water from the carafe on the table.
‘You don’t need to make any decisions in a hurry. Just focus on yourself and your health for the time being. You’re a strong, capable woman, and you will do what is best for you and your children.’
Grace wasn’t sure exactly what that would be, but she’d probably done enough suggesting for now. She’d opened this can of worms, or helped Elena to face the facts, as she liked to see it.
Elena was independently wealthy, and she could easily start over again without Giannis. Separating the business was more of an issue. Grace stopped herself racing ahead. That really wasn’t anything to do with her.
The taxi drew up, and Grace helped Elena in, putting gentle pressure on her head to get her to sit down, and then reached over to do up her seatbelt, like a child.
On the short journey back to the house, Elena remained silent. Grace paid the driver and helped the younger woman up the stairs.
Anastasia opened the door before she had a chance to knock. She’d obviously been peering out of the window.
Grace handed her charge over.
‘Mrs Kokkinakis doesn’t feel well. I think it may be a migraine.’
The housekeeper helped her employer inside and shut the door in Grace’s face. She was very obviously surplus to requirements.
* * *
After a restless night and very little sleep, Grace was looking forward to a peaceful afternoon on her balcony and maybe a stroll through town. She’d woken several times before dawn and couldn’t help wondering what was happening at the house up the hill. She hoped that Elena had got some rest, at least. As far as she knew, Giannis wasn’t back until the following day, so hopefully Elena had the opportunity to do some serious thinking before she had to face her husband. Grace knew exactly what she herself would be doing– kicking his sorry arse into touch– but it wasn’t her decision to make.
Before she could even think about grabbing some downtime, she had her Saturday morning class to deal with. The kids were in a lively mood, and she’d had to split them into small groups to get any work done. There were only two weeks to go before the August shutdown, and there was a demob-happy scent in the air. She’d planned a lesson on holidays which would lead naturally into talking about other countries and their languages.
She’d already had to tell off two ten-year-old boys for flicking rolled-up balls of paper at one of the girls, and the girl in question for screaming. She was glad when the lesson came to an end.
All the parents were familiar faces to her by now and one by one they started to leave the playground with their children. Grace became aware of someone standing behind her. She glanced round to see Giannis, no longer looking like an affable Danny Dyer, more like a furious Phil Mitchell.
He spoke under his breath, so quietly that only she could hear.
‘How dare you interfere in my life? My office, nine sharp on Monday.’
He strode past her to Elena’s car, abandoned there the afternoon before, smiling and waving at parents as he went.
Grace shivered in the hot sun.
Upstairs in her room, she lay on the bed and let the thoughts whirl around her head like flies round a rotting carcass.
Was she about to be sacked? She’d never been sacked from a job in her life. Could he even sack her? It was a temporary job in a foreign country, so he very possibly could. But he and Elena owned the language school together. Surely she’d stand up for her. Was Elena going to leave her cheating husband? Should she have given her the evidence? It was too late now to change that anyway. Will’s disapproving face came into her mind. Why had he popped up out of nowhere?
The sun streamed in through the shutters, but Grace didn’t have the energy to get up and close them. They’d reached the hottest part of the day. Maybe a little doze would help her think more clearly.
* * *
A soft knock at the door woke Grace from a deep sleep, and for a moment she struggled to think where she was.
Who could that be? Maybe Elena had come to let her know what was going on. Grace lifted herself off the bed and opened the door. Anna was standing on the other side. What could she possibly want?
The girl looked very different from her usual glamorous self– no red lipstick, for one thing, and her hair sat lank on her shoulders. But it still didn’t dim her beauty.
‘Can I possibly come in for a moment and speak to you?’
The brash confidence had been dialled down too. Her voice was subdued, and the smile that captivated every man within range had disappeared.
Grace pulled the door further open without speaking and indicated for the girl to sit on the bed. It had taken guts for Anna to come to her, so Grace could at least do her the courtesy of hearing her out. They were colleagues, after all. Grace took the chair in front of the desk.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Charlie suggested that I came and spoke to you. I have nowhere else to go, and no one I can turn to…’
So, she had Charlie to blame for whatever this was. Grace knew he and Anna were close; they were both half-Greek, and had roots on the island. She wondered what Sarah thought about it.
The girl– she couldn’t even think of her as a woman– raised her head and looked Grace in the eye. Grace wondered fleetingly what it must be like to be so staggeringly beautiful. Not easy at times, she’d imagine. Men wanted you, as she’d seen with her own eyes, and women didn’t altogether trust you, which she’d been guilty of herself. While she’d gone out of her way to make friends with the other teachers, she’d always avoided Anna to some extent.
‘I know you are aware of everything that has gone on.’
Grace wasn’t going to let the girl off lightly, no matter what she’d come here for.
‘You mean your affair with Giannis?’
‘Yes.’ Anna fiddled with her thumbnail. ‘It’s something I bitterly regret…’
‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me.’
‘No, but it’s important to me that you know I realise I made a mistake.’
‘I’m not here to judge you. Giannis is the one who is married, and a father. He should know better.’
The girl’s eyes started to water.
‘I really thought he loved me.’
She looked so young.
‘How old are you, Anna?’
‘Twenty-three.’ A strangled laugh came out of her mouth. ‘Old enough to know better.’
Grace got up and passed her a box of tissues from the bedside table.
‘Why did Charlie suggest you came to speak to me, particularly?’
‘He said you were kind and wouldn’t judge me.’
That was nice of Charlie, although she still wasn’t quite sure what he’d landed her with.
‘What wouldn’t I judge?’
The girl took a deep breath.
‘I found out a couple of days ago that I am six weeks pregnant.’
So, the affair with Giannis had been going on a while then, since before they’d started working together at the language school.
After she’d got the words out, Anna broke down sobbing, and Grace couldn’t help but move to her side and envelop her in a hug. Anna was still a young woman in trouble.
‘You poor thing. Let it all out.’
Anna’s body shook with the force of her tears, and Grace held her tight until it stopped.
‘I swear it’s all over with Giannis. I was honestly about to end it before I found out about the pregnancy. He told me his marriage was over, but I now know that’s not true, and I also know that he would never leave his wife. We rowed about it many times.’
Grace recalled the scene in the restaurant at the works dinner.
‘That’s a painful lesson to learn.’
Her eldest daughter, Lottie, had had a fling with a married man in her twenties, and been distraught when his promises came to nothing.
‘Does Giannis know you’re pregnant?’
‘I told him yesterday when he returned from his trip.’
Giannis must have had quite a day of it then. Finding Elena in that state, and then hearing the news from Anna about the baby. He deserved everything that was coming. No wonder he’d been so angry earlier. It was like a plot from a Greek soap opera that she’d unwittingly got herself caught up in.
Anna twisted a piece of tissue round and round her finger and stared at the bedspread.
‘I also told him that I don’t want to have the baby.’
Anna met her eye.
‘Are you appalled by that?’
Grace knew it was important how she reacted, but she still wasn’t sure why.
‘No, not appalled, particularly in your situation.’
Grace had also found herself pregnant at twenty-three, with her eldest daughter, Lottie. It wasn’t planned, and she could still remember the shock that went through her body at the positive result. She and Phil had only been teaching for a couple of years and had plans to travel and work abroad. Doing what she was doing now, ironically. She’d ended up doing it for both of them.
But the difference was that she and Phil were married when she got pregnant, they had a home and, most importantly, she loved him. She’d never regretted her decision to have a baby. But it wasn’t the same for this young woman.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘There are places in Athens where it’s easy to arrange an abortion, if you have money.’
Was this girl going to ask her for money? She hated to disappoint her, but she wasn’t a wealthy woman.
‘It’s not the money that’s the problem.’
The girl had obviously read her mind.
‘Giannis will pay. He respects my wish to do this.’
He’s also got another life on the way was on the tip of Grace’s tongue, but that wasn’t her news to impart. Elena might not even have got round to telling him yet.
‘The problem is that I have no one to help me.’
The young woman had gone white. Grace handed her a glass of water.
‘Of course, I cannot tell my parents. They would be scandalised and so disappointed in me. It is a small island, and Giannis and Elena are friends of theirs. Which is how I met him in the first place, and how I came to be working here.’
So, he’d taken advantage of the daughter of friends. It got worse. Grace frowned.
‘Please don’t think he forced me into anything.’
Anna lifted her head.
‘If I’m being honest, I pursued him. He was good-looking, charming, funny, and so much more sophisticated than any man I’d met before.’
Grace thought more of the young woman in front of her for telling the truth. It would have been so easy for her for pretend that it was all Giannis.
‘But I realised I didn’t want to be anyone’s dirty little secret anymore.’
‘I can understand why you feel like that.’
‘I just want this whole thing over with by the time I go back to London to do my Masters in September.’
‘Yes, a fresh start is very appealing.’
After all, it was why she was here on the island.
‘So, I have already booked the procedure for next Saturday.’
Now they were getting to the nub of it.
‘I was just wondering if…’ Anna’s voice faltered. ‘You would please come with me. It’s a very early termination and there shouldn’t be any problems, but I’m supposed to have someone stay with me overnight on the first night.’
‘Me?’ Grace wanted to pinch herself. ‘Why me? Haven’t you got any friends that could go with you?’
Anna shook her head.
‘All my friends live abroad. I lost touch with my schoolfriends here years ago as I went to an international school in Chicago where my dad worked. And I don’t have any brothers and sisters.’
‘What about Charlie?’
‘We’ve grown close since we started working together. But I don’t know him that well. And I’m not sure how happy Sarah would be. We’d have to share a room.’
Not very happy at all would be Grace’s guess.
The first hint of a smile played around Anna’s wide mouth.
‘It will be twin beds for us, of course. I’ll make Giannis pay for the best hotel in Athens, with room service.’
Grace ignored the ‘us’ for now.
‘Does Charlie know who the father is?’
‘No, I said it was a guy I had a one-night stand with. No one else knows, only you.’
It didn’t feel like a privileged position.
Anna put her hands together in prayer.
‘Please help me, Grace, you’re the only one who has all the pieces of the puzzle.’
That was truer than Anna knew. There was Elena’s baby to think about as well. When had she become the keeper of everyone’s secrets? Staying in a posh hotel for the night was like being paid to do Giannis’s dirty work. It didn’t sit well with her.
‘Plus, I trust you. I’m desperate to move past this.’
‘If, and I say if, I agreed to go, how would it work?’
She wasn’t saying she’d do it.
‘We’d go straight after lessons on Saturday to catch the boat and come back Sunday afternoon. The language school classes finish next weekend anyway, and then there are only a few private clients to think about. Giannis has agreed to fill in and take my little ones for the month of August.’
Grace shared a smile with Anna at the thought of Giannis down on the floor playing games. Both he and Elena had started out as teachers before swapping to the business side and Giannis still taught occasionally to keep his hand in.
‘Serves him right. I hope they’re really difficult and bratty.’
‘Me too. After we’re back, I go off on holiday for a month with my family to the island of Paros, where we have a second home.’
Money obviously wasn’t an issue for Anna. She was part of Giannis and Elena’s world of big houses and expensive cars. It hadn’t helped her a lot so far, but at least she had options.
‘It sounds like you’ve got it all mapped out.’
Anna’s big brown eyes with their thick lashes were trained on Grace. She could see how it might be tough for a weak man like Giannis to resist if Anna got you in her sights.
‘There’s just one missing ingredient, and that’s you. I really respect you, Grace, as a teacher and as a woman.’
‘You can cut the flattery. Just give me a moment to think.’
Anna really would go far. She could do so much better than Giannis. Grace conjured up pictures of her daughters at the same age, pregnant and far from home. She really hoped that there would have been someone who would step in and help.
‘OK, and I’ll probably regret this, but I’ll come with you.’
‘Thank you, thank you.’
Anna’s arms were round her and Grace leant into the hug.
What had she involved herself in now?