My Map of You (20 page)

‘Have you got any music?'

Aidan went back inside, and a few minutes later the mournful voice of Johnny Cash filtered out to join them.

‘I hope this is okay?' Aidan said, topping up her glass before he sat down. ‘I've always loved Johnny.'

‘He sounds so haunted,' Holly mused. ‘Like he's being tortured or something.'

‘Yeah.' Aidan listened for a few beats. ‘But I think that's what I like about his music, the rawness of it.'

He was right, the words of the songs and his voice were raw, and as she listened, Holly felt fat, stupid tears welling up in her eyes.

‘She forgave him in the end, you know,' Aidan said. ‘His wife, June Carter. She forgave all the hurt because he was the love of her life.'

Holly sniffed.

‘It took me a long time to forgive my ex for walking out on me,' he went on. ‘I listened to a lot of this fella while I was trying to come to terms with it all.'

‘I can't imagine how hard it must have been,' croaked Holly.

‘Losing someone you love is never going to be easy.' He turned to her. ‘But I don't have to tell you that, do I?'

She shook her head. It was becoming very difficult not to cry. Damn the wine.

‘But, you know, life goes on.' He seemed to be trying to persuade her as much as himself. ‘If you hold on to all those feelings of anger and resentment, you'll never be able to move on with your own life.'

‘I should go.' Holly stood up abruptly, her wine glass wobbling precariously as her legs banged against the table.

‘Hey, I didn't mean to get all maudlin on you.' Aidan was following her across the garden. ‘Stay and help me finish the wine at least, woman.'

‘I can't, I'm sorry.' The tears really were falling now, and Holly broke into a jog as she reached the low hedge separating their gardens. As she was about to step over it, Aidan grabbed her wrist.

‘Hey, what's the matter?' he said, his voice softening as the moonlight illuminated her tears. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled her face against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, his fingers tracing a firm circle in the small of her back. Holly stiffened for a few
seconds, then let herself melt against him. How was he to know that he'd hit the nail on the head with all that talk of forgiveness? How was he to know that she had been trying to forgive her own mum for years, but couldn't ever seem to do it?

She cried a puddle on to his clean T-shirt, finally giving in to the emotions she'd been keeping a tight lid on since she'd arrived. She cried for her mum, for the aunt she'd never meet and for herself, and the mess she was making of everything. Eventually, the sobs subsided. Aidan had moved his hand up and was running it through her hair, all the while whispering that everything would be all right. She closed her eyes briefly and lifted her face up towards his, opening them again to find him staring down at her. For a moment they just looked at each other, then, very slowly, Aidan bent his head down towards her, and when their lips met Holly felt it everywhere. Even the very tips of her fingers tingled. She resisted for a split second, and then parted her own lips to let his tongue slide between them, bringing her own across to meet it. It was tentative and quiet, the only sound the frantic crashing of her heart – then suddenly it was urgent. Aidan scrunched his hand into her hair and kissed her harder, pressing his body against her. Holly heard herself groan and arched her back. She could feel how much he wanted her, and she wanted him. Wanted him like she'd never wanted anyone before.

But when his hand came up to burrow under her vest, Holly knew she had to stop. Closing her mouth and slipping her face away from his, she took a step backwards and slowly but firmly pushed his hands away.

‘What's the matter?' He was almost panting as he stood there, the light from his open back door turning his face darker in the fading light.

‘I've got a boyfriend,' she said. ‘I'm sorry. I should have told you. I just …'

They stared at each other, both full of a separate regret. Aidan looked genuinely shocked and Holly felt in that moment that things would probably never be the same between them again.

She wanted so much to explain why she hadn't told him, but she didn't have any words. Aidan, too, seemed bewildered into silence, and he simply stood and watched as she stepped slowly over the hedge and returned to the house, closing the doors quietly behind her.

When
Holly finally forced herself to crawl out of bed the next morning, Aidan's jeep was nowhere to be seen. After wrestling with her old friend the Insomnia Troll until 5 a.m., she'd given up on sleep, switched the lamp on and spent hours just staring at the photo of her mum, aunt and their mystery Greek friends. Her eyes felt dry and her skin was sore from yesterday's afternoon out in the sun. Every time she thought about kissing Aidan, she felt sick.

Guilt hadn't allowed her to contact Rupert yet, but that didn't stop him from calling her at 9 a.m. to see how she was. By some miracle, Holly managed to assure him that all was well. As he chatted away about work and what he'd been up to in London, Holly could only think about how much her life had changed. How could he not tell that she was a totally different person?

The sky was thick with clouds and when she popped down to the shop to get some fresh bread, Kostas informed her cheerily that they might even get a spot of rain. ‘It is not a good day for swimming,' he laughed. That suited Holly just fine, because she had vowed to spend the entire day packing up the rest of the house. She needed to keep her mind distracted somehow.

She started in the bathroom, chasing away any thoughts of Aidan by crashing perfume bottles and shampoo dregs into a rubbish sack. A thorough search of the bathroom
cabinet elicited no further photos, but she couldn't shake off the inkling that she would find some more if she just kept looking. By midday, the downstairs of the house and the bathroom were sparkling, with every non-essential item either in a bin liner or a box waiting to be collected.

In an attempt to get the place looking as good as possible for potential buyers, Holly also hung more pictures on the bare walls upstairs and refreshed the vase of flowers on the table. Throwing away the ones Aidan had left for her caused a slight pang, but she told herself not to be so stupid. She had half-hoped last night that he would follow her into the house, and had stood trembling by the closed curtains for a full ten minutes after she left him standing by the hedge. She pictured him yanking open the door and taking her in his arms, ignoring her protests and carrying her straight up the stairs. Aidan was no cave man, though, and Holly had eventually given up and headed to bed, where she had lain for hours, twitching with a mixture of longing and self-loathing.

After rifling through every cupboard and drawer and even pulling them out to look down in the gaps behind, Holly had given up on the idea that there were any more secret photos hidden away. Collapsing on to the sofa downstairs with a frustrated groan, she reached for her bag and took out the hand-drawn map.

As far as she could tell, her mum and Sandra's ‘secret beach' was close to a place called Korithi, which wasn't far from where she and Aidan had drunk their beers by the beach a few days before. As she realised this, Holly let out another groan – it had taken a good two hours for her
and Aidan to get all the way up there, and they'd been in the jeep. On her rickety old moped and with very limited local knowledge, Holly guessed it would take a lot longer. Plus, who was to say that she'd even be able to find this beach when she got there? She needed a full day now that using the jeep was out of the equation. If she set off at first light, she might just make it there in time to explore a bit.

The realisation that she wasn't going to spend any more time driving around with Aidan made her feel suddenly deflated. The energy that she'd pumped into herself that morning promptly whooshed out of her like air out of a sad balloon. She was done with tidying. Perhaps a visit to Kalamaki would cheer her up – one of those amazing Greek salads and a chat with Nikos. Yes, that was what she would do.

As she sped off down the hill twenty minutes later, her hair twisting in the wind beneath her helmet, Holly immediately felt better. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Nikos when she reached the beach bar, and none of the other waiters could tell her where he was. Frustrated after driving all this way, she decided against lunch and instead took her bag a little way down the beach, past all the other holidaymakers, and settled down to read her book. The wind had dropped, and the sun was slipping lazily in and out of the drifting clouds, playing a game of hide and seek with the tan-hungry tourists down on the sand. Holly had positioned herself behind some shrubbery and from the beach she was completely hidden. It only took a few chapters in the soft sand and she was asleep, her head resting lightly on the crook of her arm.

‘Mum. Mum, you have to wake up now.'

Holly had finally made her way from the hallway into the living room and was standing a few feet in front of the chair where Jenny Wright was slumped.

‘Mum, I mean it – this isn't funny.'

But Jenny Wright wasn't trying to be funny; Jenny wasn't trying to be anything. Jenny was dead.

An empty bottle of vodka was on the carpet by her feet and Holly could smell stale vomit mixed with something like defrosting meat. Jenny's hair was covering her face, but Holly could see that the skin around her bony chest was grey.

She swallowed and took a step closer. She knew she should reach out and check her mum's pulse, stick her fingers into her throat and clear her airway, but her hands seemed all of a sudden too heavy to move.

There was a crash as the wind blew against one of the open kitchen windows, and Holly jumped as a sob escaped from her mouth. She fell slowly to her knees and started to weep.

‘Please, Mum – don't leave me on my own. Don't you leave me.'

Holly woke with a start just as the first Greek storm of the summer crashed into life overhead. The thunder that had roused her from her nightmare hammered across the sky, providing a rumbling percussion to the fat raindrops that were pelting down on the top of her head.

Thoroughly bewildered, she staggered to her feet just as a jagged stripe of lightning hurtled across the sky. Holly had never seen anything like it, and she gasped in fright. The beach was deserted now save for a few abandoned sun loungers, and the rain was coming down in what felt like solid waves. Her towel was already saturated, and
Holly held it out at arm's length as she scurried along the sand towards the restaurant. Her moped, which she'd parked in the middle of the car park, refused to start.

‘Shit!' she swore, removing her helmet and trying not to hurl it across the stony surface in a rage. Looking in desperation in the direction of the taverna, Holly was greeted by bolted doors and closed shutters. Why the hell would they stay open in this weather? she scolded herself. Her thin vest and shorts were turning translucent under the relentless deluge and her feet slipped precariously around in her sodden flip-flops as she pushed the useless bike under the shelter of a nearby tree.

She had two choices: stay here getting steadily soaked until the rain stopped, then try to get the moped working and drive back to the house, or leave the bike behind and walk back. As she deliberated, there was another clap of thunder that was so loud she felt her teeth rattling inside her head. This could go on for hours – she didn't really have much choice.

Hooking her flip-flops under two fingers and stowing her wet towel under the seat of her bike, Holly hung her helmet across the handlebars and then set off at a jog along the beach towards Laganas. The sea, which was ordinarily as calm as bath water, crashed angrily around her ankles. The shoreline was framed with white foam, as if someone had poured a generous dollop of bubble bath into the waves.

Dodging clumps of driftwood and the sharp edges of pebbles as she ran, Holly panted with the effort of dragging her bare feet through the wet sand. Her hair was plastered to her face and her boobs ached as they bounced
around beneath the flimsy support of her bikini top. She was acutely aware that she must look utterly ridiculous, but there was no one around to see her anyway. It was eerily quiet, in fact, as even the livelier bars at the Laganas end of the beach had pulled down their shutters against the storm.

As Holly's legs and lungs began to tire, her determination to get home started to wane. But she'd come this far – it would only take her twenty minutes or so to get back up the hill and into her hot shower. She couldn't believe how fast the weather had turned – or how aggressively. She thought about her poor, sodden moped, abandoned all the way back in Kalamaki. She would have to walk all the way back tomorrow to retrieve it – that's if she could get the poor old dear to start again.

The rain wasn't showing any sign of relenting, but Holly's weary legs had started to burn with the effort of running, so she slowed to a halt and bent forward, her hands gripping her slippery bare knees as she gulped in lungfuls of air. She had almost reached the mid-point of Laganas beach, where the road came down and joined the sand. She debated the idea of trying to locate a taxi, but she could already see there were none in the usual place by the corner restaurant, and the idea of padding barefoot up the main road was hugely unappealing. She'd been lucky not to bump into anyone this far, but she doubted that would be the case by the time she reached McDonald's.

The canvas beach bag she'd brought with her was no match for the rain, either, and Holly thought forlornly of her mobile phone, which she knew had completely run out of battery. Then again, who could she call to come and
rescue her? Certainly not Aidan – not after she'd made such a fool of herself in front of him. And anyway, she hated the idea of having to be rescued by a man. She'd managed almost thirty years without a knight in shining armour, so she was damned if she was going to plead for one now, just because of a little bit of rain.

Another sky-shattering clap of thunder rang out, as if it was mocking her. ‘A little bit of rain?' she imagined the heavens yelling. ‘I'll show you, Missy!'

Holly had reached the road part of her journey now, but her wet flip-flops had slowed her progress quite considerably. The sheeting downpour made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead, and she kept stumbling from the edge of the tarmac into the grassy verge. When she was about ten minutes away from home, a car came hurtling round the corner at speed, narrowly missing Holly as she threw herself headfirst into the undergrowth with an indignant yelp.

‘Malaka!'
she screamed, putting to good use the Greek word she'd been taught for ‘idiot'. Her knee stung where she'd cut it open on some stones and a stream of blood was running down her leg. Just as she was scrambling back on to her feet, Holly became aware that there was something hidden in the grass beside her. Something small and wet, which was shivering uncontrollably.

Forgetting about her wound, Holly knelt back down and slid her hands gently under the tiny, terrified body of a puppy. It was scrawny and dirty and its little ribs poked out all along its back, but as Holly lifted it closer towards her chest, it slipped out a tiny pink tongue and gave her a very determined lick on the nose.

‘Well then,' she told it, smiling despite the horrendous situation they were both in. ‘I think we'd better take you home, hadn't we?' In answer, the puppy snuggled closer to her and ceased shaking a fraction.

Having never had a dog or known anyone who did until a few days ago, Holly had no idea what sort of state this little creature was in. As the rain flew into her eyes and she felt the puppy's tiny heart bashing away against her own, she realised gloomily that there was only one person who would be able to help.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' Aidan had opened the door on the first knock, almost as if he'd been standing right behind it. His eyes widened as he took in her bedraggled appearance, bloody knee and, last of all, the quivering ball of wet fluff clutched in her arms.

‘Please help it,' Holly thrust the puppy at him. ‘I found it in the bushes down the road. A car. I fell.' She tailed off. It was the first time since she'd met him that he wasn't looking at her in amusement – he looked deadly serious.

Aidan pushed open the door and beckoned her inside, taking the puppy in one of his big hands and putting the other one in the small of her back.

‘Here,' he produced a towel as if from nowhere and handed it to her. ‘Get your wet clothes off and dry yourself. I'll, um, I'll find you something to put on.'

‘I'm fine, really.' The idea of stripping naked in Aidan's house was making her feel uncomfortable for all the wrong sorts of reasons.

As if to show how resolute she was, Holly started
rubbing herself dry through her clothes, defiantly flicking her head over and shaking her wet hair from side to side.

‘Suit yourself.' Aidan glared at her.

Phelan had padded over and chose that moment to stick his nose right into Holly's crotch, earning himself a gentle kick from Aidan.

‘Come on,' Aidan swallowed his laugh. ‘Let's get this little one sorted out.'

Holly followed him into the kitchen area, watching as he spread some newspaper on the table and placed the still-shaking puppy on top. Holly could see now that it was predominantly white, but with one black floppy ear and one brown. Its black nose was upturned and it had big brown eyes, which were now following Aidan's every move as he crashed around from drawer to cupboard, eventually producing a small black holdall and placing it on the table beside the puppy.