Chapter Thirteen
Claudia You stupid pathetic Bitch. I’ve been looking at your website. ‘Get away from it all,’ you say. ‘Leave your cares behind at The Ionian Escape’. HOW FUCKING IRONIC, wouldn’t you say??? Is that supposed to be funny? Shame on you. You have destroyed my life, Bitch, and I’ll never rest until Iget my revenge. Wouldn’t it be a shame if your precious hotel burned to the ground? If everything was destroyed, including you? Iwould love to see that. Maybe Iwill? Ares
Claudia still hasn’t replied to the aggressive email that appeared in her inbox on Monday, but it’s been impossible to ignore. She’s no expert on Greek mythology but she knows that Ares was the god of war, and a cold terror sweeps through her body whenever she thinks about the last person who called her a stupid pathetic bitch. What’s more, she’s certain that this message is merely the opening shot fired. She once saw Marcus tearing the legs off a spider, one by one, for amusement. That’s nothing compared to what he’ll do to an ex-wife.
With her system flooded by adrenalin, she has barely been able to think about anything else since reading the email. But she must, because this is how she copes: busying herself with her tick-list, working through her jobs, keeping on top of everything. This is how she originally rebuilt the broken walls around herself, she remembers, valiantly checking over the upcoming staffing rotas (tick) and replying to the new reviews on the StarMyStay travel website (tick). This is how she will continue functioning as a human being.
It’s no good though. She can’t help returning to the vile email and what it might mean. Even the scandalous news this morning about Frank Neale can’t distract her. Iam heartbroken, livid and deeply disappointed. Those poor women!!! Barb WhatsApped her, along with a crying emoji, an angry face emoji and a knife emoji. No wonder he and his wife Leonora have been looking so strained and unhappy; they must have known this was on the horizon. The stories that have been leaked in advance of a BBC documentary are damning, to say the least. At least a dozen women have come forward with historical allegations of abuse, bullying and assault. Social media is awash with videos of women setting fire to their Frank Neale cookbooks in revulsion. His upcoming UK TV show Frank’s Family Favourites has been shelved. His management team are, apparently, ‘taking these allegations very seriously’, which presumably means they’re drawing up severance papers right now. Bye-bye, Frank, you dirty old scuzzball.
Normally Claudia would be gripped by the unfolding saga, especially with the key player currently under the hotel roof, but she’s still so consumed by her own fears it’s hard to engage with much else. She’s so worked up, in fact, imagining scenarios where Marcus appears at the hotel, bent on vengeance, that when Dimitris knocks at her office door around one o’clock that day she gives a startled cry and finds herself grabbing the nearest implement– a stapler– on instinct. Then there’s a moment where they both freeze, staring at one another, and Claudia puts a hand to her chest, her heart thumping like that of a frightened rabbit. How has Marcus found her? Who would have told him?
‘Sorry,’ she says, embarrassed, putting the stapler back on the desk. Dimitris’ eyes are hooded with concern as they follow the movement, then return to her face. ‘I’m a bit jumpy today.’
She tends to speak Greek at work, like the other staff members, but she’s so agitated now that the words come out in English. Luckily he’s fluent himself, having spent a year studying in the US as part of his degree, and he follows suit. ‘Is everything okay, Claudia?’ he asks, glancing at the computer, and she hesitates, embarrassed that she has brought her tawdry mistakes to this beautiful calm place. Dimitris is in his mid-forties, only eight years older than her, but right now she feels like a teenager, still floundering about in screw-ups, compared to him.
‘Well. . .’ she stalls, but he has walked over to the desk before she can think up a convincing lie, and is peering at her screen. He squints, leaning closer to it, before looking up and gesturing to her reading glasses, currently perched on the end of her nose. ‘Can I?’
‘Sure.’ She passes them over, hoping he won’t notice how her hands are trembling. Marcus’s face flashes into her mind and she is transported back to the final months of their marriage; how terrified she’d been of stepping out of line. ‘Must be some random lunatic, Iguess,’ she adds, reflecting miserably that she’s covering for him even now. But what choice does she have?
Dimitris shakes his head as he reads the message. Even with her jags of adrenalin, it does amuse her to see her delicate purple-framed glasses balanced on his considerably larger nose. ‘Ares, eh?’ His lip curls. ‘This is a bad person, not any kind of god,’ he says scornfully. ‘A coward too, hiding behind the computer rather than coming here and taking action, Ithink. If he was really going to burn this place down, he would just do that, yes? Not try to scare you– us– with his. . . how do you say it? Threats.’ He passes the glasses back to her and straightens up, folding his arms across his chest. ‘What do you want me to do about him?’ he asks, before picking up the stapler and brandishing it in the air. ‘Staple him to death, yes?’
She’s so grateful for the chance to laugh at his joke that in the same minute she almost wants to cry. Thank goodness she has him as an ally, she thinks, imagining him drawing back his fist and smacking Marcus in the face. She hates violence, but it’s a pretty satisfying image. ‘That’s one option,’ she replies with a small smile, then glances back at the screen, only for the words ‘stupid pathetic Bitch’ to leap out at her again.
She must have inadvertently shuddered, because Dimitris is eyeing her strangely, as if he can tell there’s more to the story. ‘Iwill ask my son to help,’ he announces. ‘He will tell us the place where this message was sent. The IP address, Ithink? If it comes from somewhere in Greece– okay, we can take action, we will go to the police, we report this person. But if the message is from another country, somewhere far from here. . .’ He makes shooing motions with his hands. ‘Then we know this man is weak. He is all talking and not wearing the trousers, or whatever you say. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ she says faintly, appreciating his practical suggestion, the fact that he is taking her seriously rather than dismissing her fearful response as an over-reaction. When she agreed to her Uncle Kostas’ suggestion of leaving Australia, she had begged him not to blab to Dimitris– or anyone– what a mess she had ended up in. Dimitris is no idiot, he probably figured out the broader brushstrokes himself long ago, but she has always been glad of him respecting her privacy and not trying to weasel out any details. ‘Thank you.’
‘He won’t hurt you, this. . . this kakos anthropos ,’ Dimitris goes on contemptuously.
‘Okay? Nobody will, while you are here. This so-called Ares, he is probably a sad ugly little person with a tiny penis, angry at all the women who won’t sleep with him.’
She bursts out laughing despite herself, and his eyes twinkle at her. ‘And now Iam saying to you, it is time to take a break, that this computer must go off, because you are going to have lunch with me, yes? We can sit outside with a cold drink and something delicious to eat, and we will talk about so many other important things, you will not be able to think about this person. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ she says, grateful for the intervention. ‘Thanks.’
She powers down the computer, switches off the light and locks the office door behind her (tick, tick, tick), then follows him out into the sunshine. He’s right, it’s good to step away, she thinks gladly as they take up a table on the patio and Zoe, the waitress, comes to take their lunch order. Despite the warmth of the day and the holiday buzz in the air though, a tension remains in her body. She loves the life she has built for herself here, but how strong are the foundations, really, if Marcus wants to smash it all to pieces? She bites her lip as she watches Dimitris animatedly discussing today’s menu with Zoe, and it feels as if her heart is cracking at the thought of her boss finding out the truth about her. He’ll think she’s such a loser, won’t he? Every bit the stupid pathetic bitch of the email.
‘And Claudia? What would you like?’ he asks her now, and she has to paste a quick smile on her face and rattle off an answer before he can see the terror lurking inside. Keep it together, she orders herself fiercely. Whatever problems she has, she’ll deal with them alone, and that’s just the way it has to be.