Lopud
Ana read the message for a second time, but the words remained the same.
Moved into my new apartment. Quite a step up for me – not like my old bachelor pads. You’re going to love it! Come and take a look.
Pajo had gone quiet over the last few weeks, and now, five years to the day since they’d split up, this. Given his wording, the timing had to be deliberate. He’d remembered all right. Remembered that stupid, stupid promise. Why had she ever agreed to it?
Because at the time it had felt like an insurance policy, that’s why. And even now, perhaps it still was. She put her hand on her stomach; her biological clock was ticking all right.
She and Pajo had known each other forever.
Their mothers were friends, and Pajo’s father owned the restaurant in Ston where her father sold huge numbers of his oysters.
Always a tomboy, Ana had hung out with Pajo and his mates not only through childhood, but into their teenage years.
Then Pajo had discovered girls and they’d drifted apart.
She’d gone to university and he’d found work in telesales in Split, and before very long he was travelling Croatia as business development manager for a green technology company.
It was when he’d been visiting a customer in Dubrovnik that he’d come across her with Meri outside the jazz café. Knowing it was the closest thing the city had to a gay bar, he’d put two and two together to make about a hundred and fifty, and Ana and Meri had found it amusing not to disabuse him.
The strange thing was, shortly afterwards he’d asked her out.
And once he’d got over the jokes – at least, she hoped they were jokes – about wanting to watch her and her girlfriend in bed, they’d rubbed along just fine.
They’d had so much in common, mutual interests and friends, and the sex had been off the scale.
Their families had been delighted, and after a couple of years there’d been more than just talk of wedding bells in the village – there’d practically been preparations.
Which is what had given Ana such very cold feet.
She’d been overwhelmed by guilt, uncertain what to do, and had been mightily relieved when a little while later Pajo had voiced the same misgivings.
They were too young to settle down; he wanted to play the field, see the world.
He’d been offered a promotion that meant he’d be travelling throughout Europe.
They’d got wildly drunk together to celebrate, then in the morning had gone their separate ways.
But not before making the promise. The stupid promise that it now seemed Pajo remembered.
The promise that if they were both still single after five years then they’d marry anyway and start a family before they got too old.
The problem was, now it came to it, she had no idea how she would feel if Pajo tried to hold her to her word.
Oh, promises could be broken, especially drunken ones, but was Pajo in fact her best bet if she wanted a family?
At least there’d be no false starts, and none of the hassle of a drawn-out courtship.
If she wanted children, she didn’t have time for that.
If. One small word with very big implications.
She stood and stretched, picking up her coffee cup from the table in Dida Krila’s indoor-outdoor salon.
Natali was a creature of habit and would want to clean here next, and Ana was really struggling to think what to say to her.
Lloyd had become adept at coaxing a few words, but Ana was almost at her wits’ end.
Yet having begun to watch her closely, she’d seen nothing to indicate that Natali was actually unhappy.
Maybe her tata was right, and the youngster was an unnaturally quiet person.
Maybe Meri was right and it was no big deal.
In which case she needed to get over herself.
In many ways, Lopud was the best of their moorings, tucked in the sheltered harbour below the old monastery.
The dark green leaves of the trees which shaded the shallow steps to its door at least offered the catamaran’s deck some welcome protection from the morning sun.
The day was almost completely airless, the flags on the boats around her hanging listless. Surely a storm had to break soon?
Ana hopped from Dida Krila’s bow onto the quayside and strolled under the palm trees until she came to the library beneath the enormous holm oak.
Lloyd was leaning against the trunk, reading from his Kindle, but frequently glancing at the books set out on the table in front of him.
He’d become rather more wary since the purse had been stolen on Kolo?ep, and who could blame him?
“Quiet this morning?” Ana asked.
He looked up at her and nodded. “Worrying, isn’t it.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s only our third week. Still plenty of time for things to pick up.” Ana hoped he wouldn’t detect the hollowness of her words, so she delivered them with a broad smile.
He returned to the table, setting his Kindle down. “Perhaps we should try to make it busier, not just leave it to fate.”
“How do you mean?”
“If we could discover where the local parents hang out, we could at least do something to remind them of our existence. Word of mouth’s beginning to work on ?ipan and Kolo?ep, so maybe we just need to kick-start it here and on Mljet.”
Ana nodded. It did make sense, and she was kicking herself she hadn’t thought of it.
As skipper, she should be taking the lead, but she felt so out of her depth.
She had no experience of this sort of thing, but she shouldn’t be leaving it to Lloyd to state the obvious.
On the other hand, he was older and apparently wiser, so could she not learn from him?
Or would that destroy her credibility as skipper and project manager?
After all, she’d had enough trouble from charter guests who didn’t respect her.
Lloyd wasn’t like that though. He was genuine, courteous and kind. And more to the point, his idea was a good one and it would be churlish not to swallow her pride and run with it.
“Good call. I’ll see what I can find out,” she told him, then set off along the promenade towards the long commercial strip of the village, hoping inspiration would strike.
Damn it. Nice as he was, Lloyd was part of her problems too.
Something was going on with him, she was sure.
Not his grief for his wife, as she had first assumed, but something that had started since he’d been here.
Maybe around the time the purse had been stolen, or maybe a little before?
Although on the surface he gave every appearance of being just fine, he seemed to retreat a little more inside himself with every passing day, almost as if he were hiding something.
Or at the very least, not saying something he wanted to.
Perhaps he’d just said it. Perhaps he thought she’d been slow at being proactive to make the library more successful.
Well even if she had, she’d damn well put that right. But how?
Ana hopped down onto the narrow beach and eased off her flip-flops, allowing the unfamiliar feel of sand to ooze between her toes.
God, it was hot. Hot to the point of burning, so she headed for the shoreline to dip her feet in the water.
Nearby, a mother and toddler, both wearing floppy sunhats, were making sand pies, while a baby slept in the shade of a beach umbrella.
The scene looked so idyllic, so peaceful, especially compared to the turmoil in her own mind, but was motherhood what she wanted for herself?
No, she mustn’t let herself get distracted.
Back to the task in hand. How could she find those local parents?
Maybe the village had a Facebook group? She whipped out her phone and almost punched the air when she was right, then instantly deflated when she realised the group was private with a string of membership questions she couldn’t answer.
Oh, she wished she knew more about this stuff. But then it struck her: Meri did. Meri worked in PR. Surely she’d have an idea or two?
Quickly, she typed, Can you talk?
The blue ticks appeared. Give me five. I’m due a cigarette break.
But you gave up years ago!
Why should smokers have all the fun ;-)
Ana wandered back towards the promenade, where she sat in the shade of a konoba wall, dangling her feet over the sand.
She didn’t have long to wait for Meri to call, and she quickly explained Lloyd’s idea of trying to reach local parents. “I guess the best way is just to ask around where they hang out, but the trouble is even then, what would we do? We’re not here for long enough to talk to them all individually.”
“You don’t need to. I can help you dream up some eye-catching leaflets or posters, but you do need to know where to put them so people will see them.”
“I guess I could head back from the seafront and see if there are any shops or bars tucked away from the tourists. And I’m sure I’ve seen a chemist’s. Local people would have to use that. Maybe they’d help us.”
“We make a truly awesome team.” Ana could hear the smile in Meri’s voice. “You find out whether posters or leaflets would be more useful, and I’ll get onto it this evening.”
“Meri, you’re bloody amazing.”
“Oh, I know. Lucky old you that I’m your bestest friend.”
Ana was humming to herself as she headed for the pharmacy, her spirits buoyed even further, not only by their promise to hand out leaflets if she could bring some next week, but also having been told the whereabouts of a community hall, which would doubtless do the same.
Her next job was to find it. That would be a far better use of her time than beating herself up about her own inadequacies and worrying about how to reply to Pajo.
And it should be a whole lot easier too.