Chapter 1 #2
“Rain check,” she confirms, her hug as warm as ever, although I can tell by her eyes that she’s worried about me.
I’m used to people worrying about me, though.
And coming back here was supposed to be a way to escape that; a fresh start, of sorts, even though I can’t help feeling like I’m going backwards to go forwards.
So I plaster on my brightest, fakest smile, and tell Angel I’ll definitely get drunk with her tomorrow, before wandering the short distance across the soft white sand to where the beach house sits waiting for me, a single light shining out from one of the windows, as if it’s beckoning me home.
Although the front of the house faces onto the street, the back door — which is the one we always used — opens straight onto the beach, with just a little wooden deck separating the house from the sand.
Unlike the taverna, the villa hasn’t had much in the way of TLC over the last few years, but the white-painted exterior and blue shutters are comfortingly familiar, and the spray of purple bougainvillea trailing down from the upstairs balcony brings an unexpected lump to my throat; as does the ‘for sale’ board sticking out of the sand.
(At least, I’m assuming that’s what the Greek words on the board say: it was Angel’s Uncle Costas who put it there, though, so there’s every chance it actually says something like ‘Bite me’ or ‘Your Mom’, or whatever English/American insult is Costas’s current favorite.
Note to self: double-check that tomorrow…)
Inside, my suitcase sits in the middle of the living room, where I left it when I arrived, and the house still has its distinctive scent of salt air and sunscreen.
I know in a couple of days I’ll stop noticing the smell, but for now it turns the house into a time-capsule, transporting me back through the years until I’m ten years old, stepping through the door for the first time; then 19, and leaving for what I was sure would be the last.
But now I’m back.
Which feels all kinds of strange, really, even without all of the memories, as Angel would have it.
It’s weird being here on my own, when I’ve only ever stayed here with Mum, Dad, and Eden.
I don’t like feeling like I’m the responsible adult in this situation, when, in my head, I’m still only about 14, and up past my bedtime.
I distract myself from that thought by dragging my suitcase up to the bedroom that used to be mine, which is at the front of the house, with white painted walls and a colorful patchwork quilt on the little single bed.
We only used to come here in the school holidays, so there are no posters on the walls or clothes draped around to make me feel like I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom again.
All the same, though, I still find myself glancing over my shoulder, almost as if the ghost of my younger self is about to come marching in to throw herself on the bed and complain about how mean everyone is to her.
Which, to be honest, I still feel like doing sometimes.
I move around the room, methodically unpacking my stuff, and doing my best to ignore the painful little pangs of memory that keep poking me in the chest every time I find something from Back Then.
Like the pile of books on the bedside table, which I quickly flick through, part of me hoping my song book will be among them — that I somehow just left it behind, as opposed to having it snatched out of my fingers and carried off before my eyes — or the little carved wooden statue of Eros I bought from Costas’s short-lived market stall one year, and which makes the God of Love look a lot like Jabba the Hut.
Right at the back of one of the drawers, though, my fingers close around something soft and slippery, and I pull it out to reveal a tiny red bikini, which I drop as if I’ve been stung by it.
Not just a bikini: the bikini — the one I was wearing that last day.
But I’m not going to think about that, am I?
Well, not any more than I have been almost every second since I got here, anyway.
I stuff the offending swimwear back into the drawer, then finally, with nothing else left to do, I pour myself a glass of wine to calm the nerves that started jangling at the sight of that triangle top and side-tie bottoms, and wander out onto the balcony, where the soft breeze lifts my long hair off my neck, and the sound of an acoustic guitar floats through the air from the direction of the house next door, making me cross my fingers and hope I’m not going to be forced to listen to Bikini again.
For the love of Eros, anything but that…
The house in question is the one Leo and his band mates stayed in, that last summer, before anyone knew how big they were about to become.
It was the island’s main claim to fame, actually; there was even some talk of erecting a plaque outside, declaring it to be the birthplace of Bikini at one point, but then, a few years ago, someone bought it, and knocked the whole place down, before putting up a glossy, glass-fronted cube in the place where the traditional, stone-built cottage used to stand.
Take that, Leo Wilde and your stupid plaque.
The guitarist is still strumming away, and I sip my wine, allowing my soul to be soothed by the sound. Then he switches to a different tune, and it’s like that moment when the needle scratches on a record.
No.
Please let me be imagining this. Please let me have fallen asleep on the plane, and be dreaming right now.
Or… or dead, maybe? Because being dead would be preferable to this, too.
It’s not Bikini, but I know this song, too.
Pretty damn well, in fact. I know this song because I wrote this song; or a fragment of it, at least. It was one of the many little tunes I’d scribbled down in my notebook, having painstakingly picked out the notes on my piano back home, going over them again and again, until the melody was more or less imprinted on my brain.
I wrote this song.
I know I did. I remember it as clearly as if it just happened; as if I’ve only just closed the book and placed it on top of the piano, pen carefully tucked inside it, ready for the next time inspiration hit; which, in this case, it never did.
So the melody was incomplete (as most of them were, back then) … but it was mine.
And now here it is, being played by some random rich guy with a big house and a guitar.
This can’t be happening.
Not again.
It must be the ouzo. Or the jet-lag. Yes, that’ll be it; I just need some sleep to make all of this go away.
But as the notes of the song come floating through the still-warm air of the Mediterranean night, louder now, as the singer gains confidence, I know that not even Angel’s extra-strong ouzo has the power to make me think some stranger on a beach can be playing my song.
Which means there’s only one person in the world this so-called ‘stranger’ can be — and he’s the very last man I expected to see here.
It’s Leo Wilde.
Find out what happens on