Korčula
Lloyd checked his rucksack for water and torches, then flipping his sunglasses firmly over his eyes pulled Dida Krila forwards on her mooring rope and stepped onto Lumbarda quay.
Bloody rakija. He’d forgotten how potent it was, and how essential it was to the Croatian idea of hospitality.
It had always flowed freely at Konoba Pecaros and last night had been no exception.
Only Natali was unscathed this morning, because she’d had the good sense to refuse a second glass, saying she didn’t like the taste.
Ana was yet to do more than crawl into the galley for a coffee, which she’d taken straight back to bed, and he was in no fit state for an adventure, despite the two large mugs of tea and fried egg sandwich he’d struggled to force down.
It had been a wonderful night though, full of laughter and fun.
Krasna and her fiancé had joined them at their table, and it had been a joy seeing Natali and Krasna get on so well.
Sadly, Mirjana had only managed to sit with them between frantic bouts of activity behind the bar.
It was August and the place had been heaving, so the reality was that they’d hardly seen her, but today he and Mirjana would be alone.
Memories of his twenty-one-year-old self fluttered close to the surface: the instant attraction he’d felt when he’d seen her emerge from the kitchen carrying his plate of fish and potatoes, the only meal on the menu he’d been able to afford; the slow realisation of what it might mean when her father offered him a job for the summer; the torture of not knowing if she felt the same.
Was that why his palms were sweating now? Or was it down to this bloody hangover?
Mirjana was waiting for him in the alleyway next to the restaurant where she kept her car.
“How are you this morning?” she called. “The rakija, it was good?”
He laughed. “The rakija was bloody evil, as I suspect you well know.”
A smile dimpled her cheeks. “Nobody forced you to drink it.”
“True enough. But thank you again for a wonderful evening. We all had such a great time and the pizzas were the best I’ve had in Croatia.”
“Of course. Milo’s legacy. But come, we need to get going. It’s already warm and I am not sure the tunnel entrances will be easy to find.”
They headed out of the village, where Mirjana turned left towards the eastern end of the island.
Their route took them through vineyards famous for the island’s Grk and Po?ip wines, which at this time of year were hanging with almost ripe grapes.
Mirjana told him how most of the winemakers had become attractions in themselves, offering tastings and tours.
“I could never have dreamt we would have this scale of tourism on Kor?ula,” she said. “We’re an important destination now, but it’s taken a while.”
Despite the gentle thudding behind his eyes, Lloyd thought it was time to grasp the nettle. “The war must have made things hard,” he said.
Mirjana nodded. “In so many ways. But now, all is good.”
They fell silent as the road took a sharp bend away from the coast and climbed between overhanging trees.
Through the trunks, Lloyd glimpsed olive groves on either side and wondered if Mirjana too was remembering their hideaway above the old olive press.
He doubted it; she would see olives every day. They were only a novelty for him.
Their lives were not only different to their youthful dreams, but they were different to each other’s.
Yes, they both had grown-up daughters, had both lost their lifelong partners to cancer, but there the similarities ended.
He’d gone back to London, followed his childhood ambition of teaching, lived in a nice terraced house with a bustling city around him.
And he’d travelled – just on holidays, but at least he’d seen something of the world, while Mirjana had remained here, right where she’d always been, doing what had always been expected of her instead of spreading her wings as she’d wanted.
No wonder she’d been angry when she’d first seen him on the island, then when she’d found out what Kesten had done.
Eventually they passed a squat, concrete building, ruined now, but which had clearly once been the barracks’ guardhouse.
Beyond it a rusted metal gate the width of the road hung open and Lloyd caught a glimpse of a no entry sign stuck to it.
The wire fences in various stages of disrepair that threaded between the scrubby bushes and trunks of the Aleppo pines only reinforced his increasing doubts about whether they should be here at all.
The road forked in two, and shortly afterwards it became too narrow to continue. Mirjana reversed the car into a sandy layby near where the track split, and turned off the engine, the sound of cicadas immediately filling the air.
“Right,” she said. “We need to figure out where we are. I asked around during the week, and my friend Ivica remembered delivering fish here with his father when the barracks were operational. He said we need to keep the main buildings behind us, then we’d be on the right path to the old gun battery on the headland.
Typical of Kesten to assume I’d know how to find the entrance. ” She rolled her eyes.
“At least the info I picked up online suggested that once we reach the battery we’ll be pretty close, and I tracked down a YouTube video from a couple of years ago that gives at least a bit of an idea of what it looks like.
But the people who filmed it wandered around for ages before actually finding the tunnels. ”
“It’s too hot for that,” said Mirjana firmly, opening the car door. “Come on, let’s get on with it.”
Lloyd drained his first bottle of water and left it in the footwell, putting Mirjana’s in its place in his rucksack.
Thankfully the liquid was beginning to do its work and his headache was receding, but the day still had a slightly otherworldly quality to it.
Whether it was the last of his hangover, the heat, or something entirely different, he couldn’t work out.
Mirjana sprayed herself liberally with insect repellent then handed the cannister to him. “You’re still a magnet for them, I suppose?”
“Not so much. I’m probably a bit more leathery and not as sweet these days. But nevertheless…” He sprayed himself too, then handed it back to her. “Better safe than sorry. Thank you.”
They set off, keeping to the left of a low pile of rubble that had presumably once been a useful part of the barracks. A larger white building still stood, daubed with graffiti, its doors and windows agape like so many open mouths screaming, and it was all Lloyd could do not to shudder.
“Before he was posted to the mainland, Kesten asked me several times to come up here,” Mirjana said, “but I never would. To be honest, I didn’t go anywhere in those months after you left, just worked and slept. Or rather, I tried to.”
“I’m sorry.”
She rounded on him. “You can’t be sorry, because it’s not your fault. I thought at least we’d established that.”
“Yes, but for the longest time I felt so guilty about leaving you here. I watched the war from a distance, especially those first few months when Dubrovnik was under siege. I should have taken you with me, Mirjana, however impractical it was. I should have taken you to safety, but I didn’t.”
“And I wouldn’t have gone. I could never have left with my mother so ill, so you’re off the hook for that one too.”
Lloyd nodded. She’d exonerated him completely, but it would take more than her words to completely erase the guilt.
Had guilt become a habit? Not during his life with Jenny, when he’d been happy and content; he’d had no need for it then.
But when he’d attacked that lad… God yes, the guilt had come back, and since he’d been in Croatia, it had managed to entwine itself with the regrets from his past, not to mention his fears of not being able to grieve properly for Jenny while he was in its clutches.
How come it was so easy to see that now? Guilt was such a pointless, pointless emotion – as if you could change the past. Learn from it, sure, then look to the future. He stopped in the middle of the track. The future. Might it prove to be a different shape entirely?
“What is it?” Mirjana asked.
“Nothing, nothing. A twinge in my leg.”
She rolled her eyes. “A young lad like you? But maybe your leg has a point. We’re not the kids we used to be, and I’m wondering whether coming here at all was a crazy idea.”
Lloyd resumed walking beside her. “Of course it’s crazy, and quite frankly this place is creeping me out, but I think if we don’t try to find your mother’s jewellery we’ll always wonder. And once we reach the right starting point, Kesten’s instructions seem straight forward enough.”
Mirjana nodded. The chirp of the cicadas surrounded them, accompanied by the distant wash of the sea against the rocks. From their position on the path, it sparkled below them on three sides, a pair of white-sailed yachts the only moving points in the expanse of shimmering silver-blue.
“I’ve been thinking about Kesten a great deal this week,” said Mirjana, “despite not wanting to. I’m so angry with him.
As angry as I was with you at the time, perhaps even more so, because he was family to Mama after all, and I hate him all the more because of that.
I know what you said last Friday, but please tell me you’ve come around to feeling at least a little the same. ”
“I think … hatred is too strong a word for me. I don’t think I’ve ever actually hated anyone, although I hated Jenny’s cancer all right.” He grimaced. “But I guess the best part of thirty years of teaching taught me nothing if not tolerance.”
“So you did become a teacher?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head to look up at him. “Then why are you working in a library?”
“I made a stupid mistake and I had to resign.” He told her exactly what had happened, and why.