Chapter Eight
Nelly
Corfu, July 1983
‘Nelly? Is that you? Come here, please.’
Her arms full of warm, just-ironed bed-linen, Nelly tensed as she heard the voice of Annalena, the boss’s daughter at the Aphrodite, calling from the small office. Oh dear. What had she done now? Had there been a complaint from the man in room five? He shouldn’t have tried it on with her like that, she will say to Annalena. The toilet brush was already in her hand; she hadn’t meant to swing round at him so abruptly, practically thrusting the thing in his face, but to be fair he shouldn’t have undone his trousers and grabbed her from behind. What was she supposed to do?
‘Nelly! Ineed to talk to you.’
‘Coming,’ she mumbled, setting the bed-linen back down in the laundry room and tramping unwillingly towards what she thought would probably be her dismissal. She remembered the look of horror on Room-Five-Man’s face when a drop of– well, she’s not sure, exactly, but it came from the toilet brush– splattered across his cheek. Still, he had stopped pawing at her at least, long enough for her to throw the brush at him and skedaddle out of there. Thank God, too, because a scream of shock had frozen in her throat; she hadn’t been able to make a sound. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened next.
‘Hi Annalena,’ she said unhappily, leaning against the office doorway.
Annalena’s jolly outfit, a short turquoise dress with a lace Peter Pan collar, was at odds with her stern expression. ‘So,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘You want to tell me what you have been up to, hmm? Behind my back?’
Nelly gulped. Annalena was in her late twenties and generally a sassy sort of person, giggling on the phone to her boyfriend half the day and ignoring her dad whenever he tried to tell her to do anything, but now she looked distinctly formidable. ‘The thing is. . .’ Nelly began, crossing her fingers.
‘This man who come here looking for you? You are going to tell me about him, eh?’
‘Ican explain,’ Nelly said humbly, staring down at the scuffed lino, no longer able to cope with the terrifying eyebrow-waggling.
‘A very handsome man, Iam thinking,’ Annalena went on, which immediately brought Nelly up short. Wait. . . Handsome? Room-Five-Man was definitely not what she would call handsome, with his greasy hair, podgy belly and pungent body odour. So who was Annalena talking about?
‘Ahh. Now you are interested, yes?’ Annalena chuckled, patting around on the cluttered desk in front of her and eventually retrieving a piece of paper. ‘Here. This is his boat.’
‘His. . .’ Nelly repeated dumbly, before her heart lurched into full gallop. ‘His boat ,
did you say?’ She stared down at the paper, which had MIAOULIS written on it in capital letters. His boat . Oh my God. Was this. . . ? Might this be. . . ?
‘He also say,’ Annalena went on, her brown eyes boring into Nelly’s, ‘that there is a chob on his boat?’
A moment passed when Nelly swallowed– out of excitement, primarily (thank you, Giovanna!) but also because, as the boss’s daughter, they both knew Annalena could make things tricky for Nelly if she wanted.
‘You are looking for a chob , Nelly?’ she asked severely. ‘You don’t like working for my papa, no?’
Nelly bit her lip. ‘Um. . . Well. . .’ she stuttered, only to then notice that Annalena was fluttering her eyelashes teasingly.
‘Iam choking ,’ she said, making Nelly think for a moment she’d have to vault over the desk and attempt the Heimlich manoeuvre, until Annalena burst out laughing. Keep up, brain, Nelly told herself, laughing too. ‘Iam choking, my God, Nelly! Your face!’ Annalena cried, putting a hand to her chest in mirth. Then she tapped her nose and winked. ‘Itell nobody. Go and find your handsome man, Nelly. And good luck!’
Nelly did not need telling twice. Laundry forgotten, she rushed straight down to the marina in search of the Miaoulis . Having started with great optimism at the fancier end, where all the grandest yachts were moored, gleaming and swanky, she gradually moved down the line towards the boats that were smaller and somewhat scruffier. Then she stopped, her breath catching in her lungs. There she was– the Miaoulis , with a white-painted hull and the Greek flag flapping cheerfully from the main mast. A good feeling spread through Nelly as she looked the boat over, from the wood-panelled upper salon to the big canvas sign on the side advertising day trips and longer cruises to Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Lefkada ‘and beyond’. Yes, she thought giddily, she would like to go to all of those places, especially the ‘beyond’.
‘Hello?’ she called as she spotted a sulky-looking dark-haired man, his skinny legs poking out from baggy jean shorts that he wore teamed with a torn mustard T-shirt. He was cleaning one of the salon windows in a half-hearted sort of way, and Nelly’s heart sank a little because he definitely did not fit her criteria of ‘handsome man’, not in the slightest. Still, she told herself, a job was a job, or even a chob. ‘Hello,’ she tried again when he didn’t respond. ‘Ithink maybe you were looking for me? At the Aphrodite?’
This time he glanced round, a sneer on his face, and rattled off something she couldn’t understand. By now, Nelly had picked up a smattering of Greek vocabulary, but she was still very much at the hello, thank you, two beers please stage, rather than anything more advanced. ‘Er. . . Do you. . . speak English?’ she tried, but his response was merely to mutter something and turn his back on her.
Talk about a disappointment! She could almost hear the mocking laughter of everyone who had ever previously teased her for her big dreams, her romantic ideals. Isn’t it time you stopped all of this nonsense and came home again? her mum tutted in her head. But then she heard the sound of footsteps behind her and another man’s voice, deep and commanding, that had old Sulky Mustard suddenly scrubbing with ten times more effort.
Nelly turned and felt a delicious shiver ripple through her. This had to be the handsome man Annalena was talking about: tall, muscular and sexy as hell with his tousled dark hair and big nose (Nelly did love a big nose), wearing a white shirt and jeans, with a gold chain glinting round his neck. It was hard, all of a sudden, to stop herself from beaming. Thank you, Giovanna, thank you, Greek gods (especially you, Eros). Good work, Greece!
The handsome one dispatched Sulky Mustard with a curt phrase, then looked at her. ‘You are Nelly, Ithink?’ he asked in what she would later describe in a letter to Lorraine as ‘the most knicker-loosening sexy accent Ihave ever heard’.
‘Yes,’ she replied faintly, trying not to stare. ‘That’s me.’
‘Alexander,’ he said, thrusting out a great big hand. ‘Good to meet you. And Ihear you are looking for work?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, her hand feeling like a doll’s within his as they shook. Then she pulled herself together, remembering that she needed to make a good impression. ‘I’m a very hard worker.’
‘Come,’ he said, gesturing for her to follow him up the gangplank and on board.
It was on the tip of her tongue to reply Ithink I’m about to, Alexander ,
but she bit back her smutty thoughts and walked after him, stepping down onto the deck.
‘Lovely boat,’ she said brightly, as if she was an expert. There was a sudden swell of water as a speedboat zoomed into the harbour and she staggered momentarily, her hand shooting out to clutch for something but finding nothing there.
‘You think? Iam glad you approve,’ he replied as she straightened up, blushing. His lips twitched briefly as if he was teasing her and she had to look away. Oh no. Did he think she was an idiot already? An idiot with no sea legs? ‘Sit, please,’ he said, much to her relief, indicating the padded seating area.
‘So, Nelly,’ he went on as they both sat down, ‘Ineed someone to help me in many jobs. You can clean good?’
‘Very good,’ she replied promptly. ‘Definitely better than that guy anyway,’ she added, pointing to the smears that Sulky Mustard had left on the nearest windows. She shook her head, purse-lipped, as if such poor cleaning was an affront to her. ‘Iabsolutely love cleaning,’ she went on. ‘Best you’ve ever seen. Ask Annalena if you don’t believe me.’ (This was, admittedly, a high-stakes claim. Just the day before, a guest had complained about finding her asleep in his bedroom after she’d overdone it on the retsina the night before. ‘You are here to clean, not sleep!’ Annalena’s dad had roared, shaking her awake.)
Alexander didn’t have to know that, though. ‘And you can cook good?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied enthusiastically, even though back in London she lived pretty much on cheese on toast. She could learn though, couldn’t she? How hard could cooking be? ‘Ilove to cook,’ she added for good measure, crossing her fingers down by her side where he couldn’t see them.
‘So you love cleaning, you love cooking. . . okay,’ he said, his eyes narrowing as if he could see right through so much hyperbole. ‘And you speak English– yes,’ he said, miming ticking the air. ‘But also Greek?’
‘Um. . . Kalimera !’ she replied hopefully.
‘German? French?’ he asked, before speaking in a language she didn’t recognise.
This, she reflected, would be harder to blag. ‘Er. . . Ican learn,’ she replied, trying not to think about quite how much rapid learning she was committing herself to. ‘And I will learn! Because Iabsolutely l—’
‘Love learning?’ he asked, mouth twitching again, as she said those exact words. ‘How did Iguess?’
She bit her lip, feeling as if her big chance was swinging in the balance. ‘Ijust really want the job,’ she admitted. ‘The sense of freedom– going to new places from one day to the next, Ican’t think of anything more exciting. And Ipromise I’m a hard worker. I’ll cook and clean, I’ll be so polite to your passengers.’ She thought about Room-Five-Man and vowed silently that she definitely wouldn’t thrust toilet brushes into any of their faces. ‘You wouldn’t even have to pay me– well, not much, anyway, and—’
He put his hands up in the air and laughed. ‘Okay! Thank you, Nelly. You have the job.’
‘Ido? Ihave?’ She felt like flinging her arms around him in excitement, and had to pin them to her sides, not least because he was so good-looking that if she did hug him she might not be able to let go again.
‘Yes. Start tomorrow? Come to the dock at eight in the morning. We are taking ten German tourists to Paxos for the day. Don’t be late. And Nelly. . . ?’
‘Yes?’
‘It will be hard work,’ he said. ‘Every day, hard work. Don’t let me down.’
‘Iwon’t, Alexander,’ she assured him, crossing her fingers again, a little tighter. ‘Iswear Iwon’t.’