The Island Getaway

Chapter Fifty-Two

Claudia

There was a breathless wait at the hospital for Claudia, Andreas and Lili while Dimitris was examined by the doctors. By then, he had regained consciousness at least– in fact, he briefly came round in the ambulance, where Claudia was holding his hand, and he’d stared at her, bewildered, saying groggily, ‘ Agapi mou ,’ before his eyes rolled back in his head and he was out again. The blood pounded in her ears at the endearment– ‘my love’, it means; ‘my darling’– as the ambulance thundered on towards the hospital. My love. Had he actually seen her as he murmured those words, or was he confusing her with someone else entirely?

The bad news: his left fibula had snapped during the fall and needed surgery, plus he had the most enormous bump on his head, and severe bruising to his face, forearms and knees. The good news: after multiple scans, the doctors were able to confirm that there appeared to be no permanent damage to the brain, nor any bleeding there, as previously suspected. ‘In other words,’ Lili said to Claudia, as they sat beside Dimitris’ bed, watching him sleep, ‘he is the luckiest man on the island.’

Claudia, who’d been valiantly keeping it together until then, nodded, fighting back tears. ‘Ithink we are pretty lucky too,’ she said, gazing at Dimitris’ poor battered face. His eyelids trembled briefly, perhaps with some vivid painkiller dream or other, and she found herself longing to soothe him, wanting to gently place her hand on his arm, murmur soft words of comfort. I’m here. You’re not alone. She gripped her hands in her lap instead, too self-conscious in front of his son and daughter. Keep it together, she told herself.

It was still catching up with her, though, the awful shock of finding him that way, her mind repeatedly slamming back to the moment she’d first seen him on the ground. Imagine if she hadn’t been inspired to seek him out after speaking to Nelly! She could so easily have cycled off home without knowing he had been injured. He could have lain there all night in the cold and dark. Her emotions swelled agonisingly at the image of him alone and in pain, and Lili caught her eye as if reading her mind.

‘Thank you for finding him,’ she said, her brown eyes steady on Claudia’s. She’s in her early twenties, with full lips and long dark hair scraped back from her face. A gold cross glimmered at her throat, a tattoo of a rose adorning her ankle. ‘Iam glad you did.’

‘Why did he even go up the ladder at all?’ Andreas wanted to know. As soon as the consultant had ruled out any significant brain injury, Andreas’ relief had quickly turned to exasperation at his father’s recklessness. ‘Why does he always have to do everything himself?’

Lili had shot her brother a look. ‘Because that’s just Dad, right?’ she’d said. ‘He still thinks he is a superhero,’ she added to Claudia. ‘No problem too big! Except. . . for this roof, perhaps. His downfall.’ She pulled a face at her own unintended pun. ‘Sorry, Papa.’

It had been a strange, dreamlike Saturday night, the three of them at Dimitris’ bedside. Claudia enjoyed getting to know Lili and Andreas though, and picked up that Lili had the same determined, practical nature as her father, while Andreas was more sensitive and emotional. They both adored him, clearly, fussing about him if he muttered or groaned in his sleep, their eyes constantly flicking over to him and back. Eventually the nurse came and told them that visiting hours were over. Someone would update them after his surgery in the morning, she said, but now they had to leave.

Andreas thanked Claudia and hugged his sister before heading off to meet friends, but Lili had lingered at the entrance to the hospital. ‘You and my dad. . .’ she said delicately, with a sidelong glance at Claudia. ‘Is there anything Ishould know about?’

‘No,’ Claudia replied, perhaps a little too vehemently, hoping her face wasn’t betraying her. A heavily pregnant woman accompanied by a terrified-looking man made their way past at that moment, the man shouting urgently for help, and Claudia stepped back, her cheeks still burning from Lili’s question. ‘No, we’re just friends,’ she said. ‘Nothing more than that.’

Lili nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, and they’d gone their separate ways, but as Claudia waited for a taxi to take her home, she had to acknowledge that she had totally downplayed her feelings to the younger woman. When she’d knelt beside Dimitris earlier, desperately trying to find a pulse, she had felt herself becoming swallowed up by a dark terror that she might have lost him. What she felt for him was far stronger than mere friendship, she knew that. But how could she have said as much to his daughter? She was nothing but a cliché, falling in love with her boss. She had to keep a lid on her feelings, try to play it cooler.

By Sunday evening, Dimitris was deemed fit to leave the hospital. The surgery had gone well and he was given a special boot to wear, plus crutches, although he’d been advised to rest as much as possible for the next week or two. His bruising appeared to be travelling through all the shades of the rainbow– currently yellow and green– and his head was tender and sore where it had hit the ground, so he’d been issued with some heavy-duty painkillers from the pharmacy to see him through the coming days. He would stay at Lili’s ground-floor flat for the time being– ‘No arguments,’ she told him sternly. Claudia, Lili and Andreas were going to take it in turns to look after him until he was able to manage himself.

‘Please, don’t feel obliged,’ Lili had said to Claudia privately. ‘We know you have your job, and your own life– and that Dad is your manager! You might not want to look after him, we understand that.’

‘He is also my friend,’ Claudia had replied. There was that blush again. ‘And if Iborrow a laptop from the hotel, Ican work anywhere. If you don’t mind me being in your flat, anyway.’

‘Of course Idon’t! Thank you. And thanks again for being there for him,’ Lili had said, giving her an impulsive hug. ‘It’s a big help for us.’

And so a routine has evolved where Lili sets out for the bakery at five in the morning, leaving her dad still asleep in her spare room. Andreas lets himself in around seven to help Dimitris up, then makes his breakfast, before he hands over to Claudia at nine. Andreas then goes to work, and Claudia keeps Dimitris company until Lili clocks off and comes home at three in the afternoon.

For the first few days, Claudia’s involvement with her patient was pretty minimal. Plagued by headaches, Dimitris would stay in bed most of the morning while she worked quietly at the kitchen table, only stopping if he needed a drink or some lunch. But by Wednesday, he was already feeling much better, the bruising and swelling subsiding, and since then they’ve taken to sitting out in the small courtyard garden together, him hobbling out to sit with his healing leg raised up on a stool. In truth, Claudia enjoys fussing around him, tending to him. She likes rearranging cushions behind his back so that he’s comfortable, she likes the appreciative exhalation he makes when she brings him a coffee. She definitely likes having the weight of his body against hers whenever she helps him get around, although she does her best to think chaste thoughts during those moments. He is usually so capable, so competent, that it feels like a privilege to be able to look after him for a change, especially when he has always been there for her. It’s as if a new, more personal layer is being added to their relationship, a different kind of closeness, that comes from seeing someone you care about very much in new, more vulnerable lights: asleep, in discomfort, less able.

It’s merely an interlude though, a brief bubble in time– and she’s aware that he, for one, is struggling with the enforced limitations. The word ‘patient’ only really applies to him as a noun right now; Lili and Andreas complain frequently that he is dreadfully grumpy, although he seems to save his better behaviour for Claudia. ‘Next time you find my dad unconscious on the ground?’ Andreas growls in exasperation on Thursday morning as Claudia arrives for their handover. ‘Feel free to leave him there. Did you hear that, Papa? I’m telling Claudia not to bother next time you fall off a roof!’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Dimitris tells Claudia as they take up their usual places in the courtyard– him in the sunshine, propped up by cushions, her in a shady corner, her laptop on a small patio table. The courtyard is full of fragrant shrubs in pots, a miniature haven for bees and butterflies. ‘He and his sister like to say Iam a bad patient, always moaning, but it is not true. Ungrateful, Andreas called me this morning. Too bossy, Lili said last night.’ His lips twitch in a smile. ‘Okay, so maybe they are a little bit right,’ he concedes, holding up his thumb and forefinger a tiny distance apart. ‘But it is very boring, waiting for your own body to heal itself. Idon’t like to wait, Ilike to do. ’

‘Yes,’ says Claudia. ‘Iknow. But that’s why you were up on the spa roof, remember? Too much doing– and falling off– and not enough waiting.’ Don’t ever scare me like that again, she thinks, but arches an eyebrow teasingly to mask her true feelings. ‘Do you think, just maybe, that there’s a lesson to learn here?’

He laughs, looking rather shamefaced. ‘Yes, all right,’ he says. ‘Perhaps.’

‘No more roof-mending,’ she tells him. ‘And by the way, Danilo and Antoni finished the job for you. The roof is secure, they’ve dried out the plaster inside and will be repainting the ceiling next month. Jasmine and Lucia have moved back in– everything is just about back to normal.’

He nods, drinking his coffee. ‘I am grateful,’ he says after a moment. ‘Whatever my son might say, however my daughter might scold me. . . Iam grateful.’ He frowns, running a finger round the rim of a large planter nearby, full of bushy lavender. ‘And listen, you don’t have to keep coming here every day. Iknow it is not really that convenient for you. Ican probably manage on my own now, so—’

‘It’s fine,’ she interrupts him, switching on her laptop and angling the screen to avoid the bright sunlight. ‘Honestly. You’re not that demanding, compared to some of the guests we’ve had. Besides, coming here to work. . . Ilike it. I’d miss having Lili’s pastries and bread every day for lunch if Iwas at the hotel.’

He laughs. ‘And that is all that you would miss?’

She stiffens in her seat, busying herself with her computer log-in. Of course she would miss him, she thinks, feeling her face flame. Ordinarily, when both of them are working at the hotel, their conversations tend to be small, businesslike slices, focusing on what needs doing in a particular situation. Spending so much time together in this way, they’ve been able to let conversations unroll at a leisurely pace, and open up about their lives rather than merely talking shop. She didn’t know until yesterday, for instance, that he loves nature documentaries on TV. That he played bass guitar in a punk band that travelled all over Europe in the late nineties. That when he was fourteen, his little brother died in a car accident right beside him. She has also learned every detail of his face; the creases around his eyes, the faint silvery scar on his jaw, the distinct ways his mouth will twitch in amusement or disapproval or pain. It’s like being given special access to a dossier of information about a person, and every single page only makes her like him even more.

Not that she’s about to blurt out anything so personal, obviously. ‘Yes,’ she says, demurely. ‘That is all Iwould miss. Why, have Iforgotten something important?’

He lifts a shoulder, a strange half-smile on his face. Their eyes meet and hold there for a few heady seconds, a peculiar new silence descending. Claudia starts to feel flustered. What’s happening between them? Is she imagining it, or. . . ?

She can’t bear the tension for another second. ‘Anyway, the season’s coming to an end, so the hotel’s pretty quiet,’ she goes on, staring at her laptop and clicking busily between tabs, her heart pounding all the while. What did that smile mean? ‘We’ve got. . . let’s see. . . over thirty checkouts tomorrow, and after that we’re down to minimum numbers. So you timed this little holiday of yours perfectly.’

She can feel his eyes still on her and it makes her skin prickle, but she daren’t look at him again because she’s not sure what she’ll find in his face.

‘Inever thanked you,’ he says after a moment, ‘for finding me that day. What were you doing down there by the beauty shed anyway?’

‘Iwas looking for you,’ she says. My love, she hears him say in the ambulance again, and the memory of that startling moment paints her cheeks an even deeper red. He was probably hallucinating, wasn’t he? He didn’t know what he was saying. Why, then, has she been unable to forget it?

‘Oh yeah?’ he replies. If he’s noticed her blushes, he’s doing a good job of pretending he hasn’t. ‘What for? Was something wrong?’

She sighs, unable to meet his gaze. ‘No, nothing was wrong,’ she says, reaching down and fiddling with the strap of her sandal.

‘Something good, then?’ he prompts. ‘Some news?’

‘Not really news ,’ she says, feeling cornered, uncomfortable. Her heart thumps. Do it, she tells herself. Come on. ‘Um. . .’ she adds, prevaricating desperately. Damn it, she can’t think of a single plausible reason that she was going to find him, other than the truth. ‘If you really must know, Iwanted to ask you something.’

He sets his cup down on the table, suddenly serious. ‘Claudia– are you leaving? You’ve found another job?’

She almost laughs at how wrong he is. ‘No! I’m not going anywhere,’ she splutters. ‘Ilove my job. Ilove– working at the hotel. It’s nothing like that. Iwas actually—’ She breaks off, losing her nerve, then catches his eye and feels that connection between them again. It’s almost as if he’s willing her on to say what she wants to. Run towards the adventure, she remembers Nelly advising.

‘Iwas going to ask if you. . .’ She swallows. Keep going. ‘If you maybe wanted to go for a drink some time.’ Her heart thumps and she types hurriedly on the keyboard, absolute gibberish with spelling mistakes galore, but anything to cover up how awkward she feels.

‘A drink?’ he repeats. ‘With you?’

Oh God. What has she done? Why didn’t she keep her stupid mouth shut? ‘Imean, not like that ,’ she blusters hurriedly, with a little laugh, but he’s already speaking again and doesn’t seem to hear her.

‘You know,’ he says, ‘Lili, she was asking the other week: Papa, why don’t you start dating again? She wanted me to sign up to some terrible app , to put my photo on there, to start meeting random women for drinks and dinner . . .’

He looks so appalled she has to stifle a laugh, but in the next moment she turns cold inside because it’s sounding very much as if he’s about to give her the brush-off, to stamp his great plastic boot on her burgeoning hope. Has he been dating someone all along? ‘Okay, it’s fine if you don’t want to,’ she says quickly, mortified that she could have been so stupid. He’s her boss, after all. What was she thinking?

‘But the problem was, the person Iwould like to go out for drinks and dinner with. . . it’s someone Iwork with,’ he goes on. ‘Which makes everything a lot more complicated.’

A rush of hope fires up inside her but she does her best to extinguish it. For all she knows, he’s talking about someone else entirely. ‘Right,’ she says in a strangled-sounding voice. ‘Isee.’

‘Because Idon’t ever want to be that man who puts a female employee in an uncomfortable position with that kind of attention. Those men who treat their staff like trinkets for them to pick up and put down. . . that is not me!’ He bangs his fist against his chest, possibly on a bruise, because he winces. ‘Ow.’

Still none the wiser, Claudia stares at a pot of white star-shaped flowers nearby, which a couple of bees are bumbling around. Her head is jangling. ‘Right,’ she says again, wishing he would get to the point. Does he mean her? The longer this goes on, the more uncertain she’s becoming.

‘And therefore Iam in this situation where Ihave to hope she feels the same way but Idon’t say anything,’ he goes on. ‘But now. . .’ He gives a sudden laugh and she glances warily at him. ‘Now you ask me, and. . .’ He laughs again. ‘This is a very long way of saying yes, Claudia. Yes, Iwould love to go for a drink with you. Maybe you can buy me a drink, Ican buy you dinner? Then we are fair.’

This is all happening too fast for Claudia to unwind. Did she mishear, or. . . ? ‘Wait– so this woman at the hotel you like. . . that’s me?’ she has to check, reverting to English in case she’s having a severe translation malfunction.

‘But of course!’ he cries, apparently incredulous that she needs to ask. ‘Of course it is you. Who else would it be?’

‘I. . .’ They stare at one another. ‘You like me,’ she says, half-disbelievingly. ‘Is that what you’re saying? You like me?’

‘Yes, Claudia! You! Why are you looking at me like that?’

She laughs too, feeling vaguely hysterical by now. ‘Because you’ve got a head injury?’ she says, joking to cover up her inner turmoil. ‘And because I’m out of practice at. . . well, at this sort of thing,’ she admits. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘For me too! Years. But by the way, Ifelt like this before Ibanged my head. Way before, Claudia.’

She swallows, trying to take in what he’s saying, what this means. It feels as if a filter has swung across her vision, changing everything. ‘Also,’ she hears herself confess, ‘because Ilike you too.’ There. She’s finally told him. Their eyes meet. ‘Ireally like you,’ she repeats, her voice thick with feeling.

The look between them is so intense, it’s as if a whole other conversation is taking place. Iwant this, she tells him with her eyes. She’s pretty sure he’s saying it right back to her.

‘We are both a bit. . . what is the word in English? Rusty, Ithink,’ he goes on. ‘But we can try, can’t we? We can figure this out between us, I’m sure. You, me, a nice bar, and—’

‘Why wait until we’re in a nice bar?’ she interrupts, because suddenly it’s impossible to hold back any more. And they have wasted so much time already! She smiles at him, a giddy recklessness surging through her. ‘I’d hate to take advantage of someone with a broken ankle,’ she goes on, rising from her chair before she can stop herself, ‘but. . .’

‘Take advantage,’ he commands, putting his hands up in surrender as she comes towards him. ‘Right now. Iinsist. Boss’s orders.’

She has never been happier to obey an instruction as she leans over him, her lips meet his and he puts his arms round her.

Making up for lost time, she thinks joyfully, as they begin kissing in earnest– tick, tick, tick.