Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
One glance at Suzie as she got out of the car, and Vicky knew there was something seriously wrong. This was no girly chat. Her friend looked broken somehow. She wouldn’t take her to see Dolly just yet. She didn’t look in the mood for cute dogs or anything much at all.
Their hug went on for far longer than usual.
Suzie was holding onto her for dear life in the clinic courtyard.
There was no doubt that wine and a dark corner would have been a better setting for whatever Suzie had to say, but they’d just have to make do with the tray of coffee and bag of pastries her friend had brought with her.
Vicky gently pulled out of the embrace, picked up the goodies from the ground and linked her free arm through Suzie’s.
‘Let’s go and sit on the beach. It’s a glorious day, there’s no one around, and hopefully neither of us has to be anywhere anytime soon.
‘No, you’re right. Not until tonight, when I’m back in the bar for the first time in a week.’
‘Well then.’
They found a spot under some trees and sipped their coffees in silence.
The wind gently played with Vicky’s skirt and fluttered the canopy of leaves above them, but the rustling sound barely disturbed the peace.
She didn’t want to rush her friend into talking, and staring at the way the sun left silver sparkles on the sea was incredibly calming.
Eventually, the growling of her stomach prompted Vicky to pull open the paper bag, as Suzie seemed to be in some sort of trance.
She couldn’t wait any longer. It revealed some of the bougatsa that Alex had introduced her to, the warm custard filling under the crunchy filo pastry delighting her all over again.
After a couple of the cigar-shaped snacks each, and more coffee, Suzie picked up a stick and started drawing shapes in the sand.
‘I’ll just say it straight.’
Vicky listened intently to the tale of woe.
When she’d left Suzie in Athens after her successful performance only a few nights ago, her friend had been on a total high, full of confidence and joy.
But it was like a different person had come to sit beside her, although it was easy to understand why. She took her friend’s hand.
‘I’m so sorry to hear what you’ve been through. It’s a hell of a lot to deal with at once.’
Vicky had noticed that Suzie’s sons looked nothing like each other but hadn’t given it a second thought.
Her own daughter didn’t look a lot like her; she was Ian’s side of the family through and through, being dark and petite.
Maybe if she’d had another child, it would have been blonde and rangy like her.
But that ship had well and truly sailed, and it was Suzie they were focusing on here.
A sniffle escaped into the still air, and Suzie took up her stick again and poked it into the sand with some force.
‘I’m not going to cry any more. I’m bored of crying. And I’m fed up to the back teeth with saying sorry. I am sorry for the way it happened, but everyone’s acting as if this is solely my mistake, and it’s just me that messed up.’
Vicky kept her response to a slow nod.
‘OK, it is mainly me, but Christian has to take some of the blame.’
Vicky had a few questions about the situation, but they’d have to be asked carefully. Anything too full-on would spook Suzie in the state she was in.
‘That must be very annoying… Have you spoken to your eldest son today?’
‘No, and I’m just going to let him stew for a while. Gianni has always been better left alone until he’s ready to talk. My other son’s with him now. Thank God it was this way round. Kosta would have gone berserk if I’d had to break the same news to him. He’s got a much more volatile nature.’
A seagull flying overhead, squawking away, distracted both of them for a moment.
‘Although…’ Suzie gulped back a tear. ‘In some ways Gianni’s control is worse. I can see he’s suffering and he won’t let me help him.’
‘And your ex-husband – Panos, isn’t it? – knows everything too?’
‘Yes. That’s where I’ve just come from.’
‘And what about this Christian guy, the baby daddy?’
She’d used the term to try and make Suzie laugh. But it had failed miserably by the look on her friend’s face.
‘Oh yes, he’s fully in the picture. I have no idea what he really wants, or how long he’s planning to stay on the island, and that’s what scares me. Even I can see that we have to talk sometime, but I’m being a bit of a coward and waiting for him to make the first move.’
Vicky had to say it.
‘OK, but what if people see him around town and put two and two together? Isn’t it better to get it over with?’
Suzie’s bleak look almost made her wish she hadn’t asked.
‘I’m hoping that people who aren’t looking for it won’t have a clue, but I’m not sure if I’m just kidding myself.’
Answering the final question had taken it out of Suzie, and she slumped forward and sank her head onto her chest.
‘I just want to be able to protect both my sons from the fall-out.’
There was no point giving her friend platitudes promising everything would be all right. Vicky knew only too well that sometimes it wasn’t.
‘It’ll take time for Gianni, in particular, to adjust to this new reality. But he knows deep down that you love him.’
She’d seen Suzie with the boys, so she was on safe ground there. Her friend’s make-up-free face, free of its usual black eyeliner and stained with tears, made her look little more than a child herself.
‘I’m not sure he does know at the moment. Protecting our children from harm is surely a mother’s role. I feel like I’ve failed completely.’
Vicky grabbed her friend’s hand.
‘Now you’re just being silly. From the little I’ve seen of them, your boys are both lovely, well-rounded men, and that’s yours and Panos’s doing.’
Suzie’s head shot up, her dark brown eyes huge in her head.
‘I couldn’t make it work with him either.’
‘Listen. You had twenty-plus years together. That’s a lot more than some people manage. Keeping secrets is exhausting. You allowed the boys to become men, good men, before you walked away. I totally respect and understand that, more than you know.’
Vicky pulled Suzie to her feet. It was time she let her friend into her life a little more.
Suzie had opened up to her on the deepest level, and she wanted to return the favour.
Everyone had their secrets, and sometimes it helped to talk.
She didn’t believe wholeheartedly in the maxim ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’, as her grandmother had been fond of saying, but any fraction was a win.
‘Let’s walk along the beach a little way.’
It was so much easier to talk when you didn’t have to look each other in the eye. Vicky kicked off her shoes without letting go of Suzie’s hand.
‘Let’s go barefoot.’
‘If you like.’
The warm sand cushioned and soothed their feet as they made their way along the bay.
Vicky had been told that later in the summer it would be too hot to walk on the sand, so she was going to make the most of it while she could.
A deep breath helped her find the courage to speak.
Her heart hammered in her chest and beat in her ears. She only hoped her tactic would work.
‘I don’t know if you’ll find this helpful in the least, and if not, just ignore it, but I wanted to tell you my story. The story of why I understand that absolute need to protect your child at all costs.’
Suzie stopped dead and turned to face her.
‘No, let’s carry on, please. I find it easier to speak when I’m moving.’
‘OK.’
A few steps further on, and the words came pouring out of her.
‘There’s no easy way to say this either, but I stayed in an abusive, unhappy marriage for far too long because I was terrified of what my husband might do to us if I tried to leave with our daughter.’
It felt great to say it out loud. She’d never really had a friend she’d been able to confide in about the state of her marriage.
Her parents had guessed some of it, although she’d vehemently denied everything, and Angeliki had definitely had an inkling, but as she lived in a different country by then, she’d been easy to fob off.
‘Like you, I felt I’d failed too, because I’d picked such a prize prat.
There were numerous danger signs before we married, and even a couple of his friends warned me off him.
But I wouldn’t listen. I was a thirty-five-year-old woman who was desperate to have a baby and settle down.
I kidded myself that he was the one. Our hormones have a lot to answer for. ’
Vicky attempted a smile, but she could see the shock etched on her friend’s face. It might seem like a strange gameplan, but she wanted to let Suzie know she wasn’t the only one who could mess up in style.
‘It was all sweetness and light at first. To the outside world, Ian was charming, rather too charming for his own good, charm he was happy to use on other women and men at the drop of a hat. But behind closed doors, he was a different person. It started with little things: questioning where I’d been and who I was with all the time, and not wanting people to come to the house.
Later, it evolved into criticising everything I said and did, until I started to believe what he said about me being a useless nurse, a bad cook, rubbish in bed and unattractive. You name it; the list is endless.’
A hand reached for hers. Suzie’s voice was faint but full of care.
‘But surely you knew deep down it was all nonsense?’
‘In theory, yes, but it’s so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it, the agonisingly slow loss of everything you thought you knew, of your very identity. I’d come from a loving home, and I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.’
Vicky put up her hands.
‘You make yourself as still and small as possible to deflect the hurt and the anger. A day without conflict becomes a day of peace, and peace becomes your only aim. Anything more seems impossible.’
Suzie grabbed her hand again.
‘Did you think about leaving?’