Chapter Nineteen
The hospital smelled like any other. Antiseptic and rubber.
Nina sat on a plastic chair, trying not to jig her legs or bite her nails or chew on her lip. Trying not to think the worst. Theo had been rushed away as soon as they’d brought him in, his face pale and covered in a sheen of sweat, his hands pressing over his heart as he gasped for breath.
The doctors and nurses had been professional and calm, switching to English as Nina began garbling her story of finding Theo at the side of the road. They were reassuring and kind, but she noticed that they spoke in soft urgent Greek to each other, their expressions serious.
Nina swallowed. She felt sick.
She replayed the last few days in her mind, going over and over the conversations she’d had with Theo, remembering how angry she’d been with him, how she’d left him on the stairs the last time she’d seen him, knowing he was so upset.
She’d do anything to turn back time, to go back and hug him and tell him everything was okay, tell him that she knew he’d never deliberately hurt her and that losing the bracelet was just an accident.
She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes and willing herself back in time, tears seeping from under her lashes. Please let him be okay, she thought, and I’ll never be angry with him again. Her hand strayed to her empty wrist.
‘Coffee?’ a voice said, and she opened her eyes to see George holding out a plastic cup. ‘Yia-Yia said you like it milky, I’ve done my best but it was a machine so . . .’
Nina smiled shakily and took the cup, the scalding liquid burning her fingers through the thin plastic.
‘Thanks,’ she said, taking a tentative sip.
The coffee wasn’t brilliant, but in that moment it tasted like some kind of godly nectar.
The heat and flavour coursed through her, bringing the world back into focus, and she was grateful to George for being there with her.
Perhaps he wasn’t the person she’d have chosen as company, perhaps she’d really have wanted Eirini with her kind efficiency.
But he was here, and she was grateful for that.
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it looking skew-whiff, and in other circumstances it would have made her smile. He looked like a kid with a bedhead.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ he said. ‘Anything else you need?’
She sighed. She needed a miracle to cure Theo. She needed a time machine to go back and be kinder to him. She needed her mum.
She shook her head, and George sat next to her, stretching his long legs out.
As the doctor approached, they both jumped to their feet, Nina spilling hot coffee on her hand as she did so; she barely noticed the pain. Her heart was beating so fast she thought she might pass out.
The doctor was smiling. That had to be a good sign.
‘Good news,’ the doctor said, her English perfect. ‘Your father will be fine.’
Relief hit Nina like a wave, and she swayed as the room spun. When it settled, she found George’s steadying hand on her elbow. She fought to concentrate on the words the doctor spoke.
‘. . . tests all clear, you’ll be happy to know.
We think it was a panic attack, but he is calm now and you can see him.
’ She began walking, and Nina hurried after, glancing at George.
He smiled, giving a geeky little thumbs up, then sat back down in the corridor, and Nina felt another rush of gratitude that she was not alone for this.
The doctor led her through a door into a ward with several beds, each occupied by an older man.
Nina scanned the room, her eyes quickly finding Theo, sitting propped on pillows in the bed at the far corner.
He looked smaller, somehow, his face pale and eyes puffed.
She swallowed hard. It wouldn’t help him if she broke down.
‘Here,’ the doctor said, smiling as she gestured towards Theo.
‘Just waiting for the last test results, but we have no concerns. You can go home once we have all the information back.’ She smiled at Theo, and continued speaking in English, presumably for Nina’s benefit.
‘You might want to find ways of decreasing his stress levels . . . Not too much coffee, some yoga even.’
Nina smiled, while Theo waited till the doctor had left before huffing, ‘Yoga. This is not my style. And coffee is life!’ He looked at the coffee cup in her hand. ‘You come to taunt your baba?’
He sounded shaken and she could hear the strain in his voice, despite the jovial words.
‘Baba . . .’ Nina expected her voice to sound light and bright, but instead she sounded shaky and scared, even to her own ears.
She reached out her free hand to take Theo’s.
‘You’ve just had a panic attack that put you in hospital; camomile tea is the most exciting thing you’ll be getting.
’ He hiccupped a laugh, squeezing her fingers with one hand, and surreptitiously wiping his eyes with the other.
Nina blinked to keep her own tears at bay.
‘You know, if you wanted attention so badly, you could have just asked me to take you out to dinner or something; you didn’t need to be this dramatic!
’ She tried a laugh. It came out unsteady.
‘Well, I like to be keeping you on your feet.’
‘On your toes, Baba.’
‘This is what I said.’
They smiled, and then they were silent for a moment.
Nina needed a minute to catch up, her body and mind going from the terror of thinking she was losing him, her teen nightmare come to life, to the relief of knowing he was okay and the guilt of wondering what part her own actions had played in putting him here.
‘Baba . . .’ She put her coffee down on the bedside table and wrapped her hands over his.
He looked up at her, heavy pouches under his brown eyes.
‘I’m sorry I was so annoyed about the bracelet.
I was really – I was really horrible to you and I’m just .
. .’ Her voice caught and she couldn’t continue, tears blocking her throat.
He was shaking his head. ‘Ah no, my Antheia, you were upset that’s all.
This –’ He waved at his chest. ‘It’s not your fault.
I was looking for you, I wanted to put things right, and then I got worried you were out late and I was upset I lost the bracelet and it just .
. .’ He threw his hands up in the air. ‘The bracelet matters, it was your mama’s.
You have the right to this upset.’ He nodded, expression serious. ‘We must find it.’
Nina shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said the words tearing at her heart. ‘It’s not like we’d ever forget her.’
He laughed. ‘Oh no. No one will ever forget that woman.’ He smiled and squeezed Nina’s hand. ‘And you are so like her, so brave and beautiful and stubborn and wild.’
‘Tell me more about how Mama was wild,’ she said, squeezing back.
‘Ah.’ He was smiling properly now, his eyes focused far away, lost in memories.
‘Wanting adventure never left her. You remember how she was always out doing something in the evenings, line dancing and pottery and reading poetry, all these crazy things and crazy friends that came with them.’ He gave a little laugh.
‘When we first met, you know, I thought she was . . .’ He traced an arc in the air with his hand. ‘Shooting star.’
‘Oh, Baba, how lovely.’
‘Oh, yes. Turning up here all alone, small girl with big rucksack. Purple hair.’ He chuckled. ‘Nothing could stop her, she went everywhere she was wanting, she had no plans and nowhere to stay but she had no worries about a thing.’
Nina held her breath. Theo had never spoken of her mum like this, even when she’d asked him to.
‘She wanted to try everything, swimming and climbing and diving and snorkelling, all the exploring. This is why she got on so well with Maria. You know Maria is much older, but that woman has the energy of a teenager still. And in those days she could match your mama, no problem. They were doing all the crazy things together and they both loved it. This is where you get it, this is why she loved it when you did all the climbing and everything.’ He smiled, squeezed her hand.
‘I never thought for a second she’d look at a boring boy like me. ’
Tears pricked at Nina’s eyes. ‘Baba, you’ve never been boring.’
He shrugged. ‘Compared to my lady, yes. Lucky man I am.’
‘Mama was lucky too.’
‘She was happy. Such a happy soul. I tried every day to deserve her.’
They were quiet for a little while, each lost in their own memories of the woman who meant so much to them. Nina, full of wonder at her adventurous, free-spirited mother, who’d been there all along underneath the polished woman Nina had known.
She thought, then, of the trip they had taken as a family to Stanage Edge when she was a child, the one where her favourite photo of herself and her mum was taken.
She had scrambled to the top, fearless, Clare running after and laughing, cheering her on.
And they had laughed with sheer joy as they’d reached the top, her mum makeup free and tangle-haired; carefree. Brave and cheerful and full of life.
Memories came drifting back. Of her mum, dressed in jogging bottoms and an old sweatshirt, pushing her on the swings in the local park, higher and higher, until the little Nina had squealed with excitement, chubby legs flying out in front of her as she swept up towards the sky.
Of her dashing out in the evening, off to one of her classes, and in the kitchen of the family home, flour in her hair and smeared over her cheeks, doubled over with laughter as she pulled a burned, sunken attempt at a cake out of the oven, the air tinged with the acrid taint of smoke.
Theo had appeared, his shoulders shaking as he laughed, taking Clare in his arms and commenting that perhaps the cooking should be left to him. It wasn’t her forte.
Nina must have been very young for this one; her memory of it played out from low down, over the lip of the kitchen table, as she stood knee-high to her mum, gazing up at her parents as they towered above her.
She hadn’t thought of The Cake Incident for so long.
‘Remember the cake?’ she asked.
Theo snorted, laughing properly now, cupping his belly as it jiggled. ‘She wasn’t a natural chef.’
Nina grinned. ‘Good job you are.’
There was something freeing in adjusting her idea of who her mum had been.
It wasn’t that her memories were wrong; it was just that there was more to her than Nina had held on to.
She had been glamorous, enjoying dressing up when she and Theo had gone out, balancing on heels and enhancing her curvy figure with wrap dresses.
But she’d been so much more: adventurous and fun and light-hearted and brave.
Nina felt something that she’d carried inside her for so long, something knotted, untangle at last. She had striven so hard to be like her image of her mum, but that had only been part of the truth.
They shared so much more, an adventurous and playful side, and somehow that meant Nina was ready to embrace all of herself, to let those parts free.
She didn’t need to suppress the parts of herself that wanted to climb the mountain face or dive deep in the ocean to see the turtles in their own world.
‘Thank you for talking to me about her, Baba,’ she said softly.
He sighed, his eyes welling up. ‘I should have done it so long ago. I should have done it always, I’m sorry, my Antheia. It was just – it was just hard.’
‘I know. Don’t worry, I understand.’
He smiled up at her. ‘You’re so like her. She would be very proud.’
‘Baba,’ she said as she heard the soft footsteps of the doctor approaching behind her. ‘I need to talk to you about the house.’