Chapter Fourteen
Evelyn
Evelyn still hasn’t decided exactly where on the island she will scatter Rose’s ashes, but has booked a taxi for tomorrow morning to take her to Fiskardo. She remembers the two of them visiting the sweet little town on their honeymoon, how they’d enjoyed pottering about the harbour, having lunch, seeing some Roman ruins (a cemetery, perhaps?) and wandering along to the old Venetian lighthouse. But is that the right spot to leave her? She wants this final resting place to be somewhere truly fitting, and still isn’t sure where that might be. She’ll figure everything out tomorrow, she tells herself. There’s no rush.
For now, she’s having a pleasant time by the hotel pool. Before her health deteriorated, Evelyn was a busy, active person, but there’s something about the sunnier weather that has always brought out the lizard in her, content to stretch out on a lounger, unmoving, for long periods. Lying there now, she luxuriates in the sensation of warmth sinking into her bones. It’s become decidedly autumnal back in London since her departure, apparently, with misty mornings and cooler nights. Knowing this makes the Greek sunshine against her skin feel even more of a treat.
She’s immersed in her book, tuned out from the other guests on nearby loungers, but nevertheless she can’t help but pick up on the excited twitter that sweeps about the pool all of a sudden. ‘Look, it is her,’ she hears a young blonde woman nearby whisper to a woman Evelyn assumes is her mother. ‘She’s just wearing a dodgy wig, that’s all. But Iswear it’s her. On my life.’
Evelyn gazes around curiously. She can only assume they mean the sulky-faced woman in the big sunhat who has just arrived. Miranda, that’s it, the one who made it quite clear she did not want to chat the other morning, despite Evelyn’s best efforts. Everyone else seems to be looking at her too, with nudges and mutters.
What on earth. . . ? thinks Evelyn, bemused. Is this the hotel for famous people or something? She’s already noticed that celebrity chef and his wife a couple of times at breakfast– him glowering when anyone so much as glances his way, her looking thoroughly miserable, as if this holiday is nothing but an endurance exercise. Now she’s wondering if this Miranda is a Somebody too. It would explain the haughty attitude and the constant wearing of those huge sunglasses and sunhat, she supposes. In her own career, Evelyn never reached a point of success where she could have been considered a Somebody herself, but she met plenty of famous conductors and orchestral soloists along the way. She knows the type.
The young blonde woman is now manoeuvring her phone surreptitiously in Miranda’s direction as if she’s trying to take a photo.
‘Darling, leave her in peace, come on, she’s on holiday,’ the mother chides in a low voice when she notices.
‘Yeah, but this is gold, Mum,’ the blonde replies, watching Miranda, who has taken a seat on the other side of the pool and is currently adjusting her bikini top. ‘Anyway, why be an actress in the first place if you don’t want to be filmed? Part of her job, isn’t it?’
Poor woman, thinks Evelyn in disapproval, her eye flicking from the blonde girl to her prey. It’s not the most flattering angle for Miranda to be recorded at, either– although perhaps that’s the point.
‘Come on, really, Idon’t think you should do this,’ the mum says, reaching over to try to stop her daughter.
Perhaps Miranda has a sixth sense for such things, because suddenly she is peering across the pool at them, her body language rigid. ‘Are you filming me?’ she snaps, her voice carrying through the air like a whip-crack. She stands up, her fists clenched. ‘Seriously? Are you actually fucking filming me? On my holiday ?’
‘Florence, switch it off,’ the mother says unhappily, but the blonde– Florence– merely raises her phone in defiance so as to better capture Miranda’s angry response. And angry it is– she’s now marching round the pool towards them, bristling with rage, which has Florence looking even more delighted. Evelyn tuts, very unhappy about how this is unfolding. Whatever happened to sisterhood? Honestly!
Miranda stalks past Evelyn in a waft of perfume and begins wrestling– actually grappling– to get the phone out of Florence’s hand. But Florence is no match for Miranda’s fury, and yelps, ‘This is assault! Give that back!’ as her phone is ripped away.
Florence leaps up from her lounger but Miranda, holding the phone out of reach, has already jabbed a swift, practised finger at the screen. ‘Deleted. So fuck you,’ she says, then hurls the phone into the pool, where it begins sinking dreamily through the water.
‘What the hell? You maniac!’ Florence yells, aggrieved, and for a second Evelyn thinks she’s about to go for the other woman and there will be an actual fight. But Florence’s priority is to jump into the pool after her phone with a great splash. She dives beneath the surface, then re-emerges, spluttering and (rather pointlessly) holding it up out of the water. ‘If this is damaged. . .’ she shouts at Miranda, who has returned to her lounger and is now furiously gathering up her belongings. ‘If you’ve ruined my phone, I’ll. . .’
‘You’ll what? Write a bitchy little post on Instagram?’ Miranda interrupts, unmoved. She hauls her tote bag up onto her shoulder and turns. ‘People like you make me sick ,’ she goes on, marching away. ‘Have a bit of respect!’
There is a stunned silence as she departs, everyone left agog by the public soap opera. ‘Oh my God, drama !’ someone says with unpleasant glee. ‘What a psycho,’ comments a very sunburnt woman, who really should get in the shade (and keep her nasty thoughts to herself, in Evelyn’s opinion). Several people grab their phones and immediately start typing into them, as if compelled to excitedly report back to their friends what just happened. You’ll never guess what!
A beefy bald man– the manager, Evelyn thinks– comes down the steps to the patio, no doubt having heard the commotion. ‘Is everybody all right?’ he addresses the group at large.
‘Iwouldn’t say so, no,’ the blonde girl growls, ineffectually wiping her sodden phone with her towel.
‘We’re fine,’ her mother answers in the same breath.
The manager says he’ll bring the girl a bowl of rice for her phone, and the moment passes. But even as the atmosphere settles once more, Evelyn still feels jarred by the whole ugly business. Her father was something of a bully to the rest of the family and she’s been left with a lifelong unease around raised voices. Plus she can’t help but feel sympathy towards Miranda, however grumpy she might have been yesterday. It’s one of the few things in life that make her glad to be of an older generation– all of this constant filming and photo-taking of one’s self, the loss of privacy, and the seeming lack of compassion towards others, too. What is wrong with people?
It’s no good. She can’t slide back into the relaxed lull she was enjoying before that little scene erupted. Her swimming costume is still too damp to put her clothes back on, so she stuffs them and her book under one arm. Her trusty Birkenstocks on her feet, she heads up the lavender-edged steps and back to the terrace. Miranda is long gone, and Evelyn hesitates for a moment, catching her breath and wondering what, if anything, she should do now.
She is on the verge of returning to her room to dry off and maybe have a snooze when she catches sight of Miranda on a first-floor balcony nearby, scowling as she puffs on a vape. Aha.
Evelyn walks over so that she is standing within view. ‘Are you all right?’ she calls.
Miranda looks quite different without her sunglasses and sunhat, Evelyn registers, gazing up at her. She seems smaller, somehow. Younger. (And is that a wig she’s wearing? Evelyn wonders, remembering the comment by the pool.)
‘I’ve had better days,’ she says shortly.
‘Do you want to talk about it? Iwas just going to get a cold drink,’ Evelyn improvises. ‘Icould pick one up for you too, if you’d like.’
She’s braced for an outright no, perhaps a Mind Your Own Business, given the fury she witnessed two minutes earlier. Miranda’s anger must have burned itself out though, because after a momentary hesitation she leans a hip against the balcony railing and nods. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she says. There’s a wary note in her voice nonetheless, a guardedness. Maybe she’s wondering why Evelyn is poking her nose in, and is reluctant to trust her. Who can blame her?
Evelyn drops her belongings, puts her hands in the air and turns round slowly as if she’s a criminal under suspicion of carrying a weapon rather than an 82-year-old pensioner clad only in an ancient swimming costume. ‘I’m not filming you,’ she says. ‘And even if Idid, Iwouldn’t have a clue about how to put it on YouTube or anything like that. Ionly use my phone for listening to music, most of the time. I’ll be dead soon anyway. You can trust me.’
Miranda blinks at this needlessly dramatic closing statement, but clearly it piques her interest because her lips suddenly quirk in what could almost be called a smile. ‘Well. . . that’s pretty hard to argue with,’ she remarks, deadpan. ‘Thank you. Just a Diet Coke or something would be lovely, if you don’t mind.’
‘Give me two minutes to put some clothes on, then,’ Evelyn says. ‘Idon’t want to frighten anyone with this bod.’
That’s definitely a smile now. ‘You won’t—’ Miranda begins, then laughs. ‘Okay,’ she goes on. ‘Thanks.’
A short while later, having made herself decent, Evelyn heads to the bar. The burly manager is sitting at one of the restaurant tables nearby, having lunch in a shady spot with a pretty dark-haired woman with a smart white dress and excellent lipstick. His wife? Evelyn wonders with interest. His girlfriend? Or merely a colleague? They like each other, she can tell, but there’s a weird tension about the woman, who is holding herself rigidly in her chair. Interesting. Evelyn prides herself on her ability to spot such things, although Rose would always tease her for it. ‘You and your bloody hunches!’ she’d groan. ‘It’s like living with Miss Marple.’ ‘Yes, and look how often she was right,’ Evelyn would retort.
The barman turns to her. ‘ Kalispera ,’ he says. ‘What can Iget you?’
Evelyn orders a Diet Coke for Miranda and a lime cordial for herself, ‘with lots of ice, please’. Then, because she’s had a stressful few hours, what with it being Rose’s birthday plus all of that drama, she orders two glasses of ouzo as well. What the hell, Miranda looked as if she could do with a pick-me-up, she figures, and Rose would certainly approve. ‘Could Ihave a tray as well, please?’ she asks, suddenly realising that carrying four drinks up the stairs to Miranda’s room might be a recipe for disaster.
‘No need, madam, Ican bring the drinks over for you,’ the barman assures her. ‘Where are you sitting?’
‘Thank you! Actually Iwas going to take this up to another guest’s room but Idon’t know the number, I’m afraid. It’s Miranda though– the famous Miranda?’ She says this low-voiced, as a punt– yes, another of her hunches– and is intrigued to see a tightening around the barman’s eyes at the mention of Miranda’s name, a fleeting expression of. . . well, it’s hard to tell, actually. Dislike? Amusement? Scorn? He didn’t dispute the ‘famous Miranda’ tag, though, she registers. So who is she?
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Iknow the person you mean.’ He is too much of a pro to give anything else away, and merely flashes her a smile and promises to bring the drinks up shortly.
‘ Efcharisto , Konstantinos,’ she says, having peered at his name badge. ‘You’ll probably catch me up, I’m such a slow walker these days,’ she adds, before setting off towards Miranda’s room. The famous Miranda’s room, rather. Evelyn’s more eager than ever to have a proper chat with the woman now.