The Holiday (27 page)

‘And what then? If I behave myself all evening, what will be my prize? A kiss maybe?’

With perfect timing, saving her from giving him an answer, Spiros came across the restaurant to take away their empty plates. He returned shortly with their main course, an extravagant seafood platter for them to share. Its crowning glory was a lobster, which Theo got to work on immediately, skilfully dissecting it and passing Izzy pieces of tender white meat. ‘Now that I am too scared to open my mouth for fear of breaking our agreement,’ he said, ‘tell me about yourself. Where in England did you grow up and what kind of a child were you?’

‘Well, I think it’s fairly safe to say that I was a mistake. My mother didn’t want me, and if she’d thought she could get away with it she would probably have lost me in the hospital where I was born. A large laundry basket would have done the trick.’

‘Is that, as I have learned from Mark, a classic example of one of your famously ironic English jokes?’

‘Actually, no. It’s the truth.’ To her surprise, she found herself telling him about the brother she had never known, whose tragically short life had eclipsed hers and had caused her mother’s breakdown. She skirted briefly over her time in the children’s home and the extent of what her mother had inflicted on her. She spoke with detached composure, as if it were someone else’s story she was telling. Until now, she hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Laura, the details of her childhood. It felt strange lifting the lid after so many years of silence. Part of her had always been afraid to admit what had gone on, as though she would be judged and found wanting in some way. That, maybe, it had been her fault.

‘Ti apésyo!’
Theo said, when she finished speaking.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said, that’s terrible.’

‘You’re right. It was terrible that my mother’s depression wasn’t diagnosed sooner.’

‘I meant it was awful for you.’

She gave a casual shrug, as if this had never occurred to her before. ‘It’s not a perfect world that we live in,’ she said dismissively. ‘All we can do is square our shoulders and put these things behind us.’ It was sound advice, and she had tried hard to follow it all her life, but had never truly achieved it.

‘So, having squared your shoulders in your typically English Dunkirk spirit, what kind of relationship do you have with your mother now?’

A picture of a vindictive Bette Davis serving up a dish of dead rats in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
came into Izzy’s mind. ‘Um ... a difficult one.’

Pouring more wine into their glasses, Theo looked at Izzy thoughtfully. Knowing he was heading into dangerous territory, he said, ‘And your father, how did you get on with him?’ He saw her hesitate, and waited for her to realign her composure.

‘To be honest with you, I never really knew where I stood with him. I spent most of my childhood hoping desperately that he would notice me.’

Theo found it impossible to imagine that any father would not have wanted to hug a younger version of the woman he saw before him and tell her how special she was. ‘He was distant with you?’

‘I think he had to be. He was caught between my mother and me. We were both terrified of upsetting or annoying her.’

‘You paint a picture that is very black. Were there no good times?’

‘Of course there were. I loved school and I was always — ’

‘But nothing happy in your home life?’

‘I suppose to a Greek man this must sound rather strange.’

He nodded. ‘Families are very important to us. Generations live together and all in a degree of domestic harmony.’

‘No arguments at all?’

‘Ah, well, disagreements come naturally to us, but we blow up over them and then we carry on as though nothing has happened. We are used to living in close quarters with those we love and who drive us to distraction. Take Angelos and Sophia, for instance. Under the one roof they have Angelos’ mother living with them, a classic matriarchal figure who makes most of the important decisions for the family. They have two young daughters still at school, and they have Giorgios who is in his early twenties and who is quite happy to remain at home. It probably has not occurred to him that he could leave his parents and find a place of his own. He will stay there until he marries. He might even move his bride in with him. And yet it works. Despite the heated disagreements and differences of opinions, they get along famously.’

‘Goodness! It sounds the perfect recipe for disaster. Could you live like that?’

‘I would prefer not to. But if my parents had nowhere to live, I would gladly have them live with me.’

The thought of her mother moving into Izzy’s neat little flat bringing with her the army of china statues made Izzy shudder.

‘You are cold? Would you like my jacket to keep you warm?’

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘I was picturing the nightmare scene of my mother moving in with me.’

‘Would it be so very bad?’

‘It would be awful. Just one weekend with her is enough to sap the most resilient spirit. Within a month I’d lose what little sanity and self-confidence I’ve scraped together since I left home.’

‘She would criticise you?’

‘Constantly. It would be one snide comment after another. I’m a terrible disappointment to her.’

‘But I, too, am a disappointment to my mother.’

‘You?’

‘Why, yes. All the time I have to listen to my mother asking me when I am going to settle down with a nice girl. She desperately wants a grandchild. She feels aggrieved not to have gained the same status as her friends, that of doting grandmother.’

‘What do you tell her?’

He looked as though he was holding back a smile. ‘I tell her that I’m waiting for the right woman.’ Then, ‘Have you never tried standing up to your mother?’ Izzy snorted. ‘You’re joking!’

‘Why not? Why not be honest with her? Tell her that she has done her best so far to ruin your life but you are not prepared to let her spoil the rest.’

‘You make it sound the most natural thing in the world.’

‘That’s because it is.’

‘You haven’t met Prudence Jordan.’

‘I admit that is a pleasure I have been denied, but one that I would be curious to experience.’

Contemplating the dangerously attractive face before her, Izzy thought that it was something she would pay good money to see as well. Just what effect would Theo Vlamakis, with his dark-eyed charm and good looks, have on her mother? She pictured his broad-shouldered body restrained in her mother’s flower-sprigged sitting room and heard Prudence say, ‘Isobel tells me that you’re
Greek.’
She would make it sound as if he was of an inferior race. Her mother considered foreigners a clumsy mistake on God’s part, a bit of tinkering in his celestial workshop —
Just trying out an idea I had, Mrs Jordan, soon have it put right.
Knitting blankets for the overseas poor was all very well, but perish the thought she should have to entertain them for tea.

Across the valley, the setting sun had almost completed its descent, and as the light drained from the sky, their dessert arrived. Theo explained that it was a speciality of Marika’s called
locamades -
a melt-in-the-mouth concoction of deep-fried batter covered in honey and dusted with cinnamon.

‘You still haven’t told me about the dedication in
Culling The Good,’
Izzy said, eyeing the dish with anticipation. ‘Does it refer to something specific you did for Mark?’

‘Aha, Izzy, you have all the makings of a fine detective. Nothing eludes you. But here, try one of these, they are delicious.’ He held out his fork. She tried to take it from him, but he smiled and said, ‘No innuendo intended, but open wide.’ She did as he said. The warm sweetness melted in her mouth. Watching her lick her lips, he said, ‘You should feel honoured. It is not for everyone that Marika makes this dish.’

When Marika herself had appeared at their table with the unasked-for dessert, he had known it was her way of giving her seal of approval to his dinner guest. She had only ever done it twice before. Would this be third time lucky? Realising he still hadn’t answered Izzy’s question, he speared another honeyed ball of sweetness on his fork, held it across the table for her, and said, ‘Mark and I have a friendship that is unlike most others. Each of us has saved the other from an untimely death. And, no, I’m not exaggerating. Mark really did save my life that night back in Durham when I was a careless student with more money than sense. I made myself an easy target. I should have known better.’

‘And Mark? How did you save his life?’

Theo hesitated. He knew better than anyone that his friend hated his past to be discussed. ‘It is a very personal matter, and one that perhaps only Mark should share with you. But I will say this, what Mark did for me took an immense amount of courage and what I did for him needed no such thing, only patience. Not that he would agree with me. But that is so typical of the man — he likes to disagree with everything I say and do.’

‘With anything in particular?’

‘Ah, well, the list is long and varied, but perhaps my worst crime in his opinion is to be a fat capitalist pig.’

‘And are you?’

‘I like to think not. But who knows? Maybe I am. I enjoy what I do. I hope I don’t sound arrogant if I say that I am proud of my success. I also have no shame in appreciating what money can do for a person. Used wisely it can be a powerful tool against a lot of unnecessary suffering in the world. But enough of me. What would your friends consider your worst crime to be?’

‘Probably my inability to decide what I really want to do with the rest of my life.’

‘A crime indeed, when you consider that you are only given the one. So what is wrong with your current existence that you feel you should be changing it?’

‘I don’t think I’m cut out for teaching.’

‘You don’t like children? You surprise me. I would have thought you would have been very good with them. I see you as being one of the most patient and understanding people I have come across.’ And, with a smile, he added quickly, ‘That is said as a comment on your ability as I see it, a fact, not a reflection of my feelings for you. It was not a compliment.’

‘As a matter of fact I really like children,’ she said, letting his remark pass with a smile of her own. ‘The problem lies in the school I work in and what’s going on there. We’ve got a headmistress who’s on a mission to cleanse the staffroom of faces she doesn’t like.’

‘Does she like yours?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. So far I’ve done my best to keep out of her way, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to get home at the end of the summer and find a redundancy notice on my doormat.’

‘Can she do that?’

‘She can do more or less whatever she wants. She’s been brought in by the school governors to solve the problem of dwindling numbers and escalating costs by a process of reshaping. Which is a nasty word for getting rid of dedicated, hardworking teachers.’

He was surprised at the depth of bitterness in her voice. ‘So, change is in the air?’

She sighed. ‘I guess so. But what exactly? That’s what I should be deciding while I’m here on holiday.’

‘That day we all went to Áyios Stéfanos,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you said you saw yourself growing old with Alan and having children. Is that what you really want to do with your life, marry the man of your dreams and have a family?’

She sat back in her chair, horrified at what he had just said. But it was horribly near the truth. Yet how could she admit, in this intimidating age of women having it all, that if the circumstances were right she would be quite happy to give up work and devote herself to full-time motherhood? And was it fair that she should be made to feel guilty for wanting that, as though she was harbouring some awful subversive secret? When had it become socially unacceptable to be a full-time mother? And just where had the concept of choice gone, now that women always had to be on top?

She stared at Theo in the soft light cast from the glowing lantern on the table, searching his face for signs of cynicism. But, try as she might, she could detect no mockery in him. The reverse seemed to be true: he was gazing at her with such a look of sincerity that it forced her to speak the truth. ‘Perhaps that’s partly what has upset me so much this past year. Mistakenly, I thought I was in a relationship that had a natural progression towards marriage and children, something I’d always thought I would be lucky enough to have, then suddenly — ’

‘Then suddenly all your dreams were snatched away from you?’

She nodded. ‘You know, when I was young I believed that if I wished hard enough my dreams would come true.’

‘And now you don’t believe that?’

She laughed, but it didn’t sound a happy laugh. ‘Dreams are for children. So is wishing.’

‘I disagree. I think that to live without a dream is what causes so much misery in this world. Dreams, hopes, aspirations, those are the things that make each day worth waking up for. Mark had all that taken away from him for a time and it was the worst hell anybody could live through. If you have a dream, Izzy, you should hang on to it, no matter how far-fetched you imagine it to be. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it. Now, shall I order coffee, or would you prefer one later when I invite you in for a night-cap?’

‘Assuming that I’ll accept?’

‘Assuming that you will reward me for having behaved myself ...’ he glanced at his watch ‘... for nearly three whole hours.’

‘Is that a record for you?’

He grinned. ‘I think it is.’

It was eleven o‘clock, and in one of the busy harbourside bars in Kassiópi, Francesca and Sally were just starting their evening. They had arranged to meet Nick and Harry, who were having dinner with their parents beforehand. Nick had described the evening as a command performance: ‘It’s Pa’s fiftieth, so we’ve all got to be there in attendance lying through our back teeth convincing him fifty is the new forty. Some bloody hope!’