Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Charlotte crept out of her room before dawn the next morning and shut the door carefully behind her.
She’d already been awake for a couple of hours, but she couldn’t stay still a moment longer.
She’d had way too much sleep the previous day after decorating the bedroom floor, leaving her friends on their own until well into the afternoon.
The burst of heat that came over her when she remembered Sofia’s shocked face after she’d vomited and Maddie’s soft hands pushing her naked into the shower, halted her in her tracks for a moment, until it passed.
The garden on the level below the hotel’s swimming pool was somewhere she could go and sit and not disturb anyone.
She had a torch on her phone, and a bottle of water, and she would wait for the sun to rise.
The air was already warm, and as she brushed by the pink and white oleander bushes, they released a delicate scent which told her their flowers were getting ready to open themselves up once the sun touched their petals.
The stone seat she chose was decorated with the same grey and white pebbles in star shapes as the pathways, but the padded cushion on top was a tiny touch of comfort.
Not that she deserved it. She was as shocked as Sofia that she’d let herself get in such a state.
Her dreams afterwards had been full of tables groaning with food and wine, with red-faced women drinking straight from bottles and lying in stupors on the ground.
A bit like Hogarth’s scenes of London’s gin drinkers, women careless with their babies, but instead of being in black and white, these were full colour.
She often found herself dreaming in well-known paintings, which would sound incredibly pretentious if she said it out loud. Maddie would be on her in a flash.
She probably worried a bit too much about what other people thought, full stop. For the past thirty years, her life had run along the same tram lines – Charlotte the artist, wife and mother – lines that she was terrified to move out of, lest she get hit by a passing car.
A month ago, a great big car had strayed inside the lines of her tidy life and knocked her off her feet, but she wasn’t ready to inspect her internal injuries quite yet, let alone announce them to the world. She smiled at her own fanciful images.
Maybe she should buy some paper and pencils and try and draw her pain. She deliberately hadn’t brought any art materials in her case like she usually would, as she couldn’t face trying and failing yet again.
As a well-known artist, she’d once been asked to judge a local competition for migraine sufferers painting how it felt while they were in the grip of one.
Never having had a migraine, she’d been astonished by the ferocity of pictures of heads split in two and one of a dagger going into an oversized eye.
There were lots of stars and kaleidoscopes as well as half views to represent one eye not working.
It had given her an understanding of what it must feel like, more than any words ever could. The winner had been a portrait of a woman lying in bed in total darkness, with just a sliver of light penetrating through a gap in the curtains and illuminating her face twisted in agony.
Her sudden inability to paint after all these years was hard for other people to understand. She’d been about to try and explain it to her friends the other evening, but she wasn’t sure what she’d have said without revealing everything, which she was nowhere near ready to do.
Most people assumed that she could just set up her easel, like she was in an office, and paint away on a nine-to-five basis.
Maybe it worked like that for some artists, but not for her.
She needed to feel inspired before she could start a new painting.
She didn’t work to commission, to someone else’s wishes; it had to come from within.
And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, inside her right now.
The images of that fateful night, of planning to surprise Doug at work, flooded her mind yet again. She’d been the one who got the surprise all right. Charlotte closed her eyes to chase the pictures away.
When she opened them again, the sun was just peeping over the edge of the sea, turning the sky around it a pale orange, which deepened into tangerine as the minutes ticked by.
The glow it cast on the water was truly magical, and with her painter’s eye, she started counting all the variations of blue and orange she could see.
A sound behind her caught her attention and she turned to see a door opening at the bottom of the hotel, one of the rooms with only a view of the courtyard, which she assumed were staff accommodation as she’d seen buckets and mops piled up outside.
From her vantage point, she had a clear view of the man who emerged into the early morning light.
She bit back a gasp when she realised it was none other than the hot priest from the monastery.
And standing in the doorway waving and blowing a kiss was Dimitris, who she’d been told by Sofia was the hotel owner’s son, as well as being the pool boy.
At the last moment, the priest turned back and planted a kiss on Dimitris’s lips before he walked away, up the steps at the side of the hotel, and out of sight.
It was a curiously intimate moment to witness.
Charlotte hunkered down further into the bench and just prayed that neither of them had seen her.
When she sat up straight again, Dimitris was standing at her side. She covered her mouth with her hand to stop the scream. He put his finger to his lips and indicated at the bench.
‘May I?’
‘Of course.’
The boy, he’d probably describe himself as a man, but he was around the same age as her youngest son, was shaking. He grabbed her hand and spoke to her in a croaky whisper.
‘Please, please do not tell my mother what you have seen.’
There was real fear in his eyes, and Charlotte put her hand on his to reassure him.
‘Of course I wouldn’t do that. It’s none of my business, and anyway’—she tried out a wink—‘I didn’t see anything.’ Charlotte turned her head in the direction of the garden. ‘I was totally focussed on the cute kittens playing over there.’
The air seemed to settle around them.
‘Thank you.’
One of the kittens chose that moment to dart out onto the path and was ushered back to safety by its watchful mother.
Dimitris pointed over to some empty dishes at the edge of the garden.
‘I feed the mother and leave water out for her. She is very protective of her kittens.’
Charlotte smiled.
‘We mothers tend to be.’
The young man was quiet for a moment, but Charlotte wanted to remove any doubt for him. Her youngest son, Rueben, was gay, and after a few turbulent years in his teens had found a lovely partner, George, who everyone adored.
‘I honestly would never say anything to your mother, but can I just ask why telling her is such a problem?’
‘In Greece, being gay is not so accepted as somewhere like Britain, and while no one would turn a blind eye in Athens or Thessaloniki, on the islands it’s more difficult. Island life is intense; everyone knows everyone, or is related to them. They’re always in each other’s business.’
Charlotte smiled and patted his shoulder.
‘Yes, it’s a little bit like that in the village where I live in Surrey.’
Dimitris took a deep breath.
‘And I have been stupid enough to fall in love with a priest. Although he is thinking of leaving the Church anyway. And please don’t mention that to anyone either.’
‘You’re not stupid. You’re in love. I can see it’s not an ideal situation…’ Charlotte almost laughed at her own understatement. ‘But your mother might surprise you if you can work up the courage to tell her.’
‘Maybe…’
The sad young man next to her didn’t seem convinced. The full light of a new day illuminated his expressive blue eyes, framed against the background of the sea.
She kept her voice low.
‘Sometimes you just need to be brave, rather than live in fear of the consequences of your actions.’
She was talking to herself as much as him.
They both stared out at the ocean as the sun rose higher, turning everything golden.
Dimitris rose slowly from the bench.
‘I must go now; it will soon be time to start work. Thank you for your advice. I’m not sure when or if I’ll be able to take it, but it was good to talk to someone.’
‘You’re welcome. Your secret is safe with me.’
Charlotte took a moment to practise the deep breathing she’d been taught in yoga class.
Who was she to advise him on anything? She could certainly dish it out, but could she take her own advice about being brave?
It wasn’t like she had a clue what she was going to do next about her own relationship.
It was hanging by a thread, that was the only thing she was sure about, but any decisions she made could be life changing.
It had been one strange morning, and it wasn’t even six o’clock. The others wouldn’t be up for hours.