My Map of You (16 page)

‘Probably something predictably Irish, like the
Shamrock
,' he shrugged. ‘I've never really thought about it. What about you?'

‘It would be something Greek,' Holly said. ‘But I haven't learnt enough words yet to pick a good one. Did it take you long to learn?'

Aidan picked up a flat stone and threw it sideways into the water, jumping up and cheering as it skimmed the surface and bounced three times before sinking.

‘Less time than it took me to learn that trick,' he grinned. ‘And I'm a lot better at speaking Greek than I am at skimming stones.'

‘I wouldn't have the first clue how to do either,' she said, squinting up at him through her sunglasses and noticing for the first time that he only had a dimple on one side of his lopsided grin.

‘Come on – I'll teach you!'

It turned out that skimming stones was nowhere near as easy as it looked, and after ten minutes of Holly only managing what Aidan quickly coined ‘drop and plops', she was just deliberately lobbing stones right to the bottom with frustration.

‘I'm sensing that prickly side of you is back,' Aidan taunted as she squinted with concentration and flung out her arm, only for another pebble to sink.

‘This is a stupid game,' she told him. The sun was beating down on her shoulders and she absent-mindedly slipped her vest straps down. For a brief second, so brief that Holly couldn't be sure if she'd imagined it, Aidan's eyes skimmed over the bare flesh.

‘Come on, Missy,' he said, selecting a new stone from the pile he'd made around their feet. Moving right behind her, he picked up her right hand and slotted the warm rock into it.

‘You have to hold it like this, see?' he instructed, turning her hand to the side with his own and gently pushing her index finger up so it hooked over the top of the stone.

‘If you throw it flat, like this, then it should skim,' he added. Despite the heat, Holly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Aidan had slipped his other hand
round her waist, and was explaining how she must lean into the throw. She bit her lip and forced herself to concentrate, imagining her stone hitting the water and flinging back up again through the surface.

Aidan's breath was in her hair and caressing the dip between her collarbones. As he leaned against her and pulled her arm back ready to throw, Holly felt a stirring somewhere deep inside herself that made her hands turn instantly clammy, and just as she was about to release the stone it slipped, hitting the concrete edge of the harbour wall and vanishing beneath the water.

‘I don't think I'm cut out for skimming,' she said, determinedly defusing the strange atmosphere with a laugh.

Aidan stepped back and let go of her hand. There was something in his eyes that made Holly shiver, a sort of animal hunger, but he quickly pulled himself together.

‘Like I said, it takes bloody years to learn. Come on, let's go and get you fed.'

When
Holly was a child, her mum had always encouraged her to try new things. Whether it was scaling the biggest tree in the park, knitting herself a teddy bear or hurtling down a hill in roller skates, Jenny had always been enthusiastic (though perhaps less so about the roller skates after the tenth or so bloody knee). This translated into their meals too. Holly could remember eating Stilton omelettes with tinned anchovies and banana and lettuce sandwiches. Anything she had wanted to try, Jenny would let her have it, even if it must have turned her stomach to prepare it.

When her drinking started, however, Jenny lost the lust she'd always had for life, and for Holly's life, and they'd increasingly end up with oven chips and beans or cheap microwaveable pizzas. Jenny would plonk whatever it was down on the table and tell her to ‘eat up, now, before it gets cold', but then push her own food around on the plate before scraping a good two thirds of it into the bin. It was as if for all those earlier years, Jenny had been wearing a mask – a ‘perfect mother' disguise. After years of watching her mum fall further into addiction and darkness, Holly found it impossible to believe that the warm, loving person she'd grown up with had ever been the real Jenny at all. She'd just been playing at being the mum she had never really wanted to be.

It was only when she started seeing Rupert that Holly rediscovered her appetite for varied cuisine. He liked to eat out as much as possible, and all his working lunches meant that he was an expert when it came to the best new restaurants and hidden gems. After a few months of gentle persuasion from her boyfriend, Holly started devouring things like sushi, Indian tapas and curries that made her sweat. It was one of the things they did together that she enjoyed the most.

Being here in Zakynthos, however, Holly had developed a real taste for more simple food. It was all so fresh and delicious that it didn't need much in the way of accompaniment, and she thought she could live quite happily just eating the same things here for the rest of her life.

Aidan was more of a typical man, and glanced at the menu for only a few seconds before ordering himself a steak.

‘What?' He held his hands up as Holly pulled a face at him. ‘I never get to go out – this is a treat for me.'

‘I wasn't judging, honest,' she grinned, choosing a tomato salad and grilled sardines for herself. The waitress at Ocean View was young and British, and Holly felt a mild stab of jealousy. How wonderful to be living and working in a place like this in your early twenties. When she shared her thoughts with Aidan, however, he laughed and said that the poor girl was probably working seven days a week and getting paid less than minimum wage. For this view, Holly thought privately, gazing out across the sun-dappled water, I'd happily work for free. They had chosen a table out on the terrace by the outer wall, and everything below them was green, blue and golden. It was stunning.

They chatted while they waited for the food to arrive, mostly about Aidan's work and the characters he encountered, but also about Holly's passion for sewing. She was astonished to find herself admitting to Aidan that she actually hadn't done any for over a year. Well, not until coming here.

‘There just never seems to be enough time to do anything in London,' she explained. ‘Everything seems so rushed and hectic all the time.'

Aidan nodded. ‘I'd hate it,' he told her. ‘That's what I love so much about this place; everyone takes their time and there's none of this pressure coming in from all sides.'

‘I love that too,' she agreed, even though she'd never really considered it properly before. She slept better here and ate better and generally felt less stressed. It was hard to feel anxious when it was so warm and everything around you was so beautiful. Since arriving on the island, she felt almost as if some of the air had been let out of her. It was ridiculous, though, given the circumstances and the fact that she'd never been here before.

‘Are you sure this is your first time on the island?' Aidan asked suddenly. Was he actually a mind reader?

‘It's weird.' Holly took a sip of her water. ‘I keep getting these waves of déjà vu, like my body sort of recognises where I am. Does that make me sound mad?'

‘Yes.' Aidan laughed. ‘But perhaps it just means that you feel at home here. I mean, you do own a home here, after all. Do you have a place back in London too?'

‘God, no!' Holly exclaimed. ‘I couldn't even begin to afford to buy somewhere. I've always rented.'

‘Does London feel like home to you?' he asked.

It was a difficult question and Holly fell silent as she considered her answer.

‘I guess it does,' she said eventually. ‘My job is there, my friends, my …' She stopped just before saying ‘my boyfriend'.

Aidan didn't seem to notice, thankfully, instead telling her that Zakynthos had felt like home to him from the first moment he set foot on her, and that he couldn't really explain why, but that it was just a fact.

‘It came as quite a shock to the ex,' he added, sucking on his frappé straw and tapping his fingers on the table. It was the first time he'd mentioned her since they'd been at Smugglers' Cove, and Holly felt a little bit of colour drain from her cheeks.

‘What happened?' she asked. ‘You don't have to tell me, sorry.'

‘It's fine.' Aidan looked up and met her eyes. ‘I came over here to see my mum and brought her with me, but the two of them didn't hit it off, so to speak.'

‘Oh?' Holly thought about the snail she'd flicked down the front of Rupert's mum's blouse and grimaced.

‘We were so good together back in Ireland. I loved the bones of that girl and I thought we were strong enough to take on anything together. I never had any doubt in my mind that she was the girl for me, but I did have doubt in my mind about where I wanted us to live. She had trained as a teacher and wanted to do that back home, and I wanted to try and make a life here. My mum hating her guts for no reason just exacerbated things.'

‘What happened?' Holly asked, watching the muscle
that had started to throb in his cheek. Clearly this was still a sensitive subject for him.

‘She left me,' he said simply, his fingers still tapping away. ‘She kept threatening to do it, but I never believed she would. I thought that love was enough …' He trailed off.

Holly reached across instinctively to touch his hand, but stopped herself at the last second.

‘I think she assumed I would follow her,' he went on. ‘And I did think about it, but in the end it wasn't what I wanted. I would have been settling for a life that wasn't my first choice, and I wasn't prepared to do that. I guess she wasn't either, and that's fair enough.'

‘Do you still speak to her?' Holly asked, wondering why she felt so sick at the thought of it.

‘Only very occasionally,' he shrugged. ‘Learning how not to love someone any more is the hardest thing I think a person can do. It feels wrong in such an inherent way, and I struggled with that for a long time.'

‘When did you break up?' Holly asked again, her need for facts overwhelming the discomfort at hearing them.

‘Ages ago now.' That shrug again. ‘More than three years.'

‘And there hasn't been anyone else since her?'

Aidan glanced at her and grinned. ‘What is this, woman? Are you gonna shine a light in my eyes next?'

‘Sorry,' Holly said, realising what an enormous hypocrite she was being. She wondered if he hadn't asked about her love life because he didn't want to know, or just didn't care. Neither reason was particularly nice to swallow.

‘Yassou!'

The food had arrived, and with it a cheery, red-cheeked Greek man wearing a tight white shirt and even tighter jeans. He looked to be in his forties, Holly guessed, and he was the first Greek man of that age that she'd met who wasn't sporting elaborate facial hair.

Aidan stood up to shake the man's hand, as they clearly knew one another, and then they both turned towards Holly.

‘Holly, this is Alix. He owns this place and knew your aunt well.'

‘Who is she?' Alix interrupted, beaming at Holly as he placed the plates of food in front of them.

‘My aunt was Sandra,' she said carefully.

‘Ah, yes. Sandy!' he announced, still grinning at her. ‘I know her from a very long time ago. Maybe twenty years or more.'

A little spark ignited in Holly's head.

‘So you knew her when she was young?' she asked.

‘Yes!' he clapped his hands. ‘Who is your mother?'

Clearly Alix was one of the more direct Greeks. He reminded her of Nikos and she smiled up at him.

‘My mother was Jenny and—'

‘Jennifer?' Alix interrupted again, his smile fading for the first time.

‘Yes. She died ten years ago, but—'

‘No!' Alix looked so genuinely devastated to hear this news that Aidan stood up again and pulled out a chair for him.

‘What happened?' he asked Holly, making her prickle with discomfort. This man seemed so sweet and she hated
having to lie to him, but she had no choice. Not when she'd told Aidan her standard fabricated version of events.

‘A car crash,' she said quietly, watching Alix's eyes fill up with tears.

‘I cannot believe it,' he said, shaking his head in dismay. ‘I have not seen her for many years, but I still think about her. She was so full of life.'

Holly simply nodded, unsure of what to say. The grilled sardines that had smelled so delicious just a few seconds ago were now making her insides grumble with revulsion.

‘Me and your mother, we were …' Alix paused for a second and looked at Aidan, who nodded. ‘We were close, at one time.'

Holly thought back to the photo she'd discovered. Could Alix be one of the men in that photo? She didn't think he was, but it had been taken a very long time ago.

‘You look like her,' he said now, wiping the back of his hairy hand across his eyes. ‘But you also look a little bit Greek too, eh?'

‘I do?' Now it was Holly's turn to look at Aidan. He didn't say anything, just smiled helplessly and picked up his knife and fork.

‘You have the Greek eyes and the Greek hair,' Alix told her. ‘Who is your father?'

Aidan choked on a piece of steak, causing Alix to leap up and thump him hard in the back. Much coughing and spluttering followed, and Holly took deep breaths to regain her composure.

‘I am sorry to ask all these questions.' Alix did a little bow in Holly's direction. ‘I must leave you to enjoy your
lunch now, but later we can have a drink for your mother, yes?'

Holly managed to smile. ‘That would be nice.'

She was still shaken up an hour later when he returned with a bottle of red wine and three glasses, and as they sat and toasted Jenny Wright, she examined Alix's face in detail. He had been close to her mum, he was Greek … Could he be her father? Could this jolly, lithe man be the one who had been missing from her life all these years?

But surely she would know if he was. Surely some sort of deep-rooted biological phenomenon would occur and her brain would somehow just know that they were related. Nothing like that happened, but Alix did keep gazing at her over the top of his glass, his eyes misty as he told them both stories about the younger Sandra and Jenny.

‘Your mother, she like a drink,' he said at one point, making Holly wince. ‘She could drink me, how you say, under the table?' He roared with laughter at the memory and Holly politely joined in. Again and again she was struck with the same question: why had her mum left Zakynthos if she had been so happy here?

Another hour passed and another bottle was summoned over. Aidan had stopped after just one glass, but Alix had easily drunk over a bottle to himself. Holly, meanwhile, was starting to feel a bit fuzzy around the edges. The intense heat of the day, combined with the wine and the tiny amount of food she'd managed to consume, was assailing her senses.

She kept feeling Aidan's eyes on her, and at one point his bare knee brushed against her own under the table,
sending a glorious tickle of anticipation up her spine. In her bag on the back of her chair, her phone continued to buzz with unanswered calls from Rupert. Holly knew she was straying into dangerous territory, but she didn't want to burst this bubble. She wanted to sit here and listen to stories about her mum and aunt and gaze at the view and feel the sun on her skin. She wanted to shut out the rest of her life and pretend, just for now, that she could stay here in this spot for ever.

Friday, 3 July 1992

Dear Sandy,

It was Holly's seventh birthday last week. Can you believe how fast time has gone? We had a little party for her in the back garden at Simon's – jelly, ice cream, the works. It reminded me so much of the parties we had as kids that I half expected you to come strolling through the back gate at any second. I'm sure Holly would have loved to see you. I won't let her forget her Auntie Sandra, I promise. I'm going to take her to the beach in Brighton soon so she can see the ocean again. She seems to have forgotten that she used to play by one every single day. Do you remember how we used to play? I think about those days all the time. I miss you so much. Please tell us to come and we will.

All my love,

Jen xxx