My Map of You (29 page)

When
Holly was still a child and prone to making up all kinds of stories in her head, her favourite of all these make-believe tales was the one she'd conjured up about her father. In her fantasy, he was always tall and far more handsome than any of the other dads she'd met, with twinkly eyes, a huge cheesy grin and the best cuddles in the world. She would imagine him knocking on the front door after years spent in the foreign places that her mum had told her about, and she would answer it and gaze up at him in wonder. Then he would smile in his wonderful way and reach down to pick her up, telling her over and over again how much he'd missed her and how proud he was. It was a silly story, but Holly thought about it often as she grew up, willing it to be true even though she knew there was no likelihood of that. Her mum moved them around so much that even if her dad did want to track her down, he'd never be able to find them. She'd raised this point a few times when she was still young, but her mum had simply shaken her head and smiled. ‘He'll find us if he wants to,' she would say, leaving Holly to wonder why on earth he wouldn't.

Perhaps it was this romanticised childhood fantasy that made Holly's legs tremble with expectation when she finally saw her father, or maybe it was just the shock of everything that had come to light in the past few
hours – but it was certainly nothing like she'd ever imagined. Dennis wasn't smiling, for a start. His eyes were open and he was looking directly at her, but his face was contorted with misery and what looked to Holly like fear. She noticed the tears all over his face just as her own began to fall.

Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but he seemed too weak to manage it. He looked tormented, and Holly instinctively reached out to take his hand. It felt cold, and she shivered as he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. He tried to speak again, but still she couldn't make out what he was saying because his voice was so hoarse. The machine monitoring his heart rate was bleeping with reassuring regularity, and Holly found herself staring at a tiny red light that was flashing on and off.

‘He says that he is sorry,' Paloma whispered beside her. She'd left her spot next to the door to join Holly by the bed, and was now gesturing that she should bend forward in order to hear what Dennis was saying. Aidan had moved to the window and had his back to them, his hand shaking ever so slightly as he brought it up to move the curtain aside. Holly closed her eyes as she leaned over towards Dennis. She wanted to block out Aidan. If she couldn't see him, then she could pretend he wasn't there at all. If she was being honest, she resented him for being there in the room with them, intruding into her life during such a moment.

‘Sorry,' breathed Dennis again. It was barely a whisper.

Holly moved her hand up just in time to stop her tears from falling all over him, and a sob erupted from somewhere in the depths of her chest. Paloma put a hand in the
small of her back and rubbed a warm circle. It was such an instinctively maternal thing to do that Holly was reminded horribly of her own mother again, and this set off a whole new flood of tears.

‘I'm sorry too,' she managed at last, finally opening her eyes and looking down at the man on the pillows. ‘I'm so sorry.'

And she was sorry. Sorry that she was crying when he was the one in the hospital bed; sorry that she couldn't articulate to him how she was feeling, about how happy she was to have found him; and sorry that they had met each other this way, so very long after they should have.

As her juddering sobs slowed and the room fell silent again, Paloma pushed her gently into the chair by the bed and backed quietly away. Holly felt rather than saw Aidan leave the room too, and for a long time after they left she just rested her forehead against the edge of the mattress, Dennis' cold fingers stroking a timid pattern across her hand.

She wasn't alone any more.

After spending an entire thirty-six hours at the hospital, a good portion of them in the grotty plastic chair outside Dennis' room, Holly was finally persuaded by a concerned nurse to go home and get some sleep. But after four hours spent staring morosely at the ceiling, she admitted defeat at the hands of her old friend the Insomnia Troll and slipped noiselessly out through the front door, pushing her moped down the hill before she started the engine. She didn't think Aidan would dare to show his face, but she didn't want to risk bumping into him.

She still couldn't believe he'd paraded Dennis in front of her and told her nothing. He'd listened while she poured her heart out about her mum, about how she'd spent so many years on her own, and still he'd said nothing. There was no possible way that she would be able to see him without saying something really awful, something that would undoubtedly sever the bond between them for ever. Despite his crimes, the thought of losing Aidan permanently still made Holly feel queasy. She knew she should hate him, but she had been reluctantly comforted during the hours he'd stayed with her at the hospital. But it was still all so hopeless. How could they ever go back to the way things had been just a few days ago? How could she ever trust him? It had taken her so many years to find someone she felt comfortable enough with to let her guard down, and that person had turned out to be lying to her all along. It just wasn't fair.

She drove without really thinking and ended up heading towards Kalamaki, parking the bike by the beach and walking up to the viewing platform she'd noticed on her very first visit. It felt like a lifetime ago now. The sun was yet to rise, but a trail of blue-grey light was just visible on the horizon. Holly took her time climbing up the stony path towards the top of the cliff, where she was greeted by the full splendour of the moon. It seemed so much larger and brighter than it did back in London, but Holly found that she couldn't fully appreciate its beauty. Her head was throbbing with fatigue and her back was sore from all the hours spent sitting on the hard plastic chair. After standing for a few minutes to absorb the view, she sat down on the dusty ground and dangled her feet over the side.

She had a father.

Everyone had a father, of course, but Holly had never had a living, breathing one before. Simon had been a kind of stepdad for the few years that he and Jenny had stayed together, but her mum had never encouraged her to refer to him as ‘Dad', and certainly not to think of him as such. She was adamant that Holly's dad was a hero, someone who had dedicated his life to trying to make the world a better place. Of course, the reality was that Holly's real father was neither a hero nor a random drifter: he was just a man much like any other. A man who had made mistakes that had cost him dearly.

Holly peered down past her toes to where the waves were snaking their way up and across the sand.

‘I have a dad,' she said aloud, waiting to feel absurd. It was all too real, though – too horribly, yet brilliantly, but still mind-screwingly real to laugh about. There was a knot in her stomach like a tightly wound ball of barbed wire. She could feel it now – it felt like it was slowly tearing her insides to pieces.

How could Aidan have just stood there that day at the beach when he knew her father was merely metres away?

Holly stopped staring at the ground and looked up in time to see a thick wedge of sunlight slide across the surface of the sea. For a while, she simply sat and stared at the twinkling crests of the waves through half-closed eyes.

Dennis had been fairly groggy for the first few hours that she spent in his room, but he'd still found the strength to take her hand in his. She'd watched, as if in a daze, as he'd squeezed it gently with his own, his thumb rotating
against her wrist. It was as if he was trying to say in a gesture what he was unable to put into words. Holly had just stared at him mutely, trying her very best not to cry again. When she finally found the courage to meet his eyes, he had smiled, and she had felt some of the pain fall away. There were so many questions she wanted him to answer, but she understood that for now they could wait.

The truth, her truth, the one that she'd been searching for since she arrived in Zakynthos, suddenly scared her. Holly wasn't sure if she was ready to hear the full story of exactly what had happened all those years ago – especially if it meant she would end up back where she'd started: hating her mum. Was there even more left for her to forgive? Holly felt sure that there was, and she didn't have the strength to face it.

‘Penny for them?'

She was lost so deep in her own thoughts that she hadn't heard Aidan coming up the cliff behind her and she swung round in alarm, sending a shoal of stones over the ledge.

Aidan lunged forward to grab her, but she slapped his hands away.

‘Don't touch me.'

‘Holly …' he began, but stopped when he saw the look on her face. ‘Can I sit down?'

She shrugged.

It was difficult for someone of Aidan's size to shrink into a small, unobtrusive ball, but somehow he managed it as he slid down and sat hunched on the platform. He had a large scab on his knee and she could see marks on his ankles from the socks he must have recently discarded.
He was careful not to go within touching distance of Holly, which was wise, given that she was seriously contemplating hurling him over the side on to the wet sand below.

‘How did you know where I was?' she asked him after a time. She'd been so careful to leave the house without making a sound.

‘I followed you.' He risked a half-smile. ‘I was sitting at my window waiting for you to get up. I figured you wouldn't stay cooped up in the house for very long.'

‘What makes you think I want you here?' she asked, not bothering to keep the venom out of her voice. She wasn't about to make this easy for him.

‘I didn't think you would. I just thought someone should keep an eye on you. You've had a big shock.'

‘No thanks to you.'

‘Yes, no thanks to me. Maybe that's why I feel responsible.'

There was a long pause as Holly seethed and Aidan gazed out towards the dark shapes of the mountains. He looked genuinely upset, but this only made her even angrier.

‘This doesn't change anything,' she told him. ‘I'm still going to sell the house.'

Aidan raised his shoulders and let them drop again. Holly knew he was only pretending not to care – there was a bead of sweat working its way down the side of his face.

His silence was starting to grate.

‘Don't you have anything to say to me?' she demanded. Her bottom was going rapidly numb on the hard, stony ground and she shifted irritably.

Aidan looked up at her, waiting until she finally met his eyes before he replied. ‘I had no choice. I made a promise. Sandy made me prom—'

‘Promise what? To sneak me off to see my dad and then not even tell me who he was? To stand by and say nothing when I poured my bloody heart out to you? To stare at a photo of my father and pretend you had no idea who he was?'

Aidan shrugged again and Holly picked up one of the small stones and threw it at him.

‘Don't just sit there and shrug your shoulders at me! I trusted you.' Her voice cracked as she yelled at him. She had trusted him – she hadn't trusted anyone for so many years and she'd let her guard down with him – and he'd thrown it all back in her face.

‘Holly, please,' Aidan looked as though he might actually cry. ‘Try to understand—'

‘No, Aidan. I don't want to understand how someone could do what you've done to me. How someone could lie and cheat and—' She stopped, realising with a fresh stab of guilt that she too had lied and cheated. She was no better than him.

‘I never set out to hurt you,' Aidan said. Holly felt as if someone had taken an ice-cream scoop to her insides and scraped them all out.

‘Sandra was dying. She was my friend and I owed her – how could I say no? I thought it would just be hiding a few things round the house for you to find and pointing you in the right directions …'

‘What did you just say?' Holly glared at him. ‘You hid things in my house?'

‘The map,' Aidan shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Sandra gave it to me not long before … Well, you know.'

Holly clenched her fists and said nothing. She had felt such a surge of excitement when she found that tatty old bit of paper containing so many amazing secrets. It had felt like fate. But no, it had just been Aidan, playing a game with her all along.

‘What else?' she demanded, watching as he visibly shrivelled under the weight of her stare.

‘The photo,' he said quietly. ‘The one of Dennis and Sandra and Socrates and your mum and—'

‘I know who's in it,' she interrupted, ignoring his wince of discomfort.

‘Listen, Holly, I had no idea all this was going to happen. I didn't know how much you'd already been through with your mum dying the way she did. And then I started falling for you and it just became even more difficult to tell you the truth. I was a coward. I wanted that bubble we were in to stay intact. I knew if I told you what I'd done then I would lose you.'