The Little Christmas Kitchen (12 page)

Maddy had to swallow over the lump rising in her throat. ‘Thanks Mum.’ she said and her voice broke right at the end but she covered it with a cough.

‘Ok honey, oh I’ve got to go, another boat party have arrived. They’re all asking for bloody turkey. Can you imagine? The weather’s apparently about to break so I’d better make the most of it. Ring me when you can. I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’ Maddy mumbled. And as soon as she hung up put her hand over her mouth and silenced a sob.

Maddy, Maddy, Maddy. What are you going to do?

CHAPTER 15

ELLA

A loud thump on the door woke Ella up at – she looked at her phone – ten o’clock the next morning.

A deep voice called, ‘It’s Dimitri.’

Dimitri. She sat up, ran her hands through her wild bed-hair. Dimitri. Why did the name make her feel a bit sick?

Oh shit.

Ella jumped up out of bed, took a couple of strides towards the door but then backed away, screwed her eyes up tight and shook her hands in fists.
What were you thinking last night?
Glancing round she went back to look at the little mirror above the sink in the corner of the room and squinted in horror at her crazy hair and bloodshot eyes.

When he thumped on the door again she opened it a crack, shielding most of her body with the wood, covering up her bare legs and last night’s t-shirt.

‘Hi.’ Dimitri beamed, looking all tanned and fresh and glistening eyed.

Ella tried to force a smile.

‘The forecast says the weather’s about to turn so you have maybe one more good day, two if you’re lucky. I thought you might want to come on my boat.’ He held up a picnic then let his mouth curl up into a wicked grin. ‘But only if you don’t try to seduce me.’

Mortified, Ella covered her face and he laughed, the deep sound bouncing off the walls of the narrow corridor. ‘Let’s go.’

Ella shook her head. ‘I have to get ready.’

Dimitri took her by surprise by poking his head round the door and looking her up and down, then he stood back and said. ‘You have five minutes.’

Ella wrapped her arms tight around her waist, conscious of her near nakedness. ‘I need longer than that.’

‘Five minutes.’ he said, shaking his head. ‘As long as it takes me to smoke this.’ She watched dazed, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, as he lit his cigarette. ‘You are wasting time, no?’ he said, flicking his hand in the direction of the room.

Ella wasted another three minutes wandering round shaking her head at the memory of her drunken proposition. In her head it merged with the time all those years ago when she’d followed him around like a fat little puppy, her shameless adoration clear in her every move.
Hi Dimitri, can I help you with that? Hi Dimitri, could you help me carry my windsurfer? Hi Dimitri I like those shorts, they really suit you. Hi Dimitri, I saw you on your scooter in town, you looked so cool
. His valiant attempts to shake her off had been futile.

It had come to a head when clueless Ella had worn her best dress and stolen her mum’s lipstick which she’d applied really badly and later found she had some on her teeth, and tried to sashay down the jetty in her mum’s high heels to where Dimitri was waxing down his board in the heat of the blazing midday sun.

Oh god, even the memory of that wiggle walk made Ella feel nauseous. She barely needed to remember the fact someone had scrawled
Ella loves Dimitri
on the wooden slats of the jetty in chalk. That she had furiously tried to wipe it off with her stiletto and in doing so tripped, staggered, teetered and then landed with a belly flop into the sea, catching the spike of her heel in the gap of the slats on her way down and twisting her ankle.

Ella went over to the sink. Splashed her face. Mascara trickled down her cheeks. God it was like looking at her fifteen year old self after Dimitri had dived in to yank her out and she’d been unable to walk and had lost one shoe and he’d half carried her, right over the chalk graffiti. Her dress had gone see-through, her hair was plastered down over her face and after mumbling a thank you, she had limped away catching sight of herself in a window, mascara all over her cheeks and lipstick smudged across her chin, and the sound of all the boys sitting on the stone wall – their sniggering ringing in her ears.

Face washed, foundation plastered on, teeth brushed, Ella skimmed through her wardrobe. She needed her cruise outfit – white blazer with gold buttons, navy trousers, red striped shirt – but that was at home. She wanted something that would make her look aloof, thin and rich enough not to care about her humiliating behaviour the night before. Her fingers stopped on a black and turquoise kaftan that Grazia had put on their Holiday Power Dressing page and a pair of gold gladiator sandals.

When she opened the door ten minutes later in her billowy chiffon, Dimitri looked her up and down and said, ‘You’ll be too cold.’

She didn’t have anything else. She didn’t have her polaroids. She had work shirts and shorts, bikinis and cardigans made of thin, puce mesh. She sat back on her heels as she rummaged through her bag realising quite how poorly she had packed.

Twenty minutes later they were walking down the jetty to the boat, Ella wearing her white jeans that were stained from the breakfast shift the day before and some crappy red jumper of Maddy’s that she’d found in a drawer. Feeling hungover and disgusting in her clothes, she took the opportunity to distract herself with emails while she had signal. Dimitri was strolling ahead in army trousers cut off at the knee and a black wooly sweater, carrying a picnic and a canister of petrol, a glowing cigarette dangling from his fingers precariously close to the fuel. The wood of the jetty, warmed by the morning sun, cracked and groaned underneath their feet. A scuba diver broke the calm surface of the sea as he chucked his harpoon and a bag of octopus onto the jetty and then heaved himself out. Dimitri saluted a wave and the diver proudly held up the largest octopus, its pink suckers pulsating as he stretched the tentacles wide.

‘That’s disgusting.’ Ella said with a sneer.

‘It’s his dinner.’ Dimitri raised a condescending brow as he looked back at her.

The diver then held the octopus by its tentacles and thwacked it hard on the wooden post to kill it.

‘Oh Jesus Christ.’ Ella covered her eyes.

Dimitri laughed as he held onto the rope of his boat and jumped on, ‘You need to get out of the city more.’

‘What, so I can watch more animal massacres?’ She grimaced, hands on her hips.

‘Get on the boat.’ he said, shaking his head as he jogged across the hull and started to loosen the anchor.

‘Aren’t you going to help me?’ she asked, looking dubiously down at the bobbing bow, unsure how she was meant to make the jump on her own, especially considering her wedge mules.

‘No.’ he said with a quick shake of his shaggy hair and stayed where he was, watching her, his hand shielding his eyes from the late morning rays.

Slipping her phone into her pocket, Ella took one shoe off and then the next, chucked them forward so they landed in the boat with a bounce, and then lowered herself down tentatively so she was perched on the edge of the jetty, her feet still a foot above the prow of the boat. Still gripping onto the wood she slid herself down until one toe touched solid ground and then the other. Half suspended however, the pressure of her feet started to push the boat away and she found herself caught, hands still holding on, feet moving away underneath her.

‘Let go.’ Dimitri called.

‘No.’ She shook her head. If she let go there was a chance she’d just fall on her bum into the water. Flashbacks of her youthful tumble made her close her eyes.
Please not again
.

‘Just push yourself forward with your hands and let go. It’s bloody cold in there this time of year so you don’t want to fall. Push yourself off! Now, Ella.’

‘No. Why can’t you help me?’

‘Because you don’t need my help.’

‘I do.’

‘You don’t. Just do it.’ he called as he started tapping another cigarette from the pack.

‘You’re having a bloody cigarette while I’m possibly dying?’

Against his will, Dimitri gave a snort of laughter.

‘Help me you bastard!’ she shouted in the end as the boat was drifting further from the jetty and she was almost diagonal.

Tucking the fag behind his ear, Dimitri loped over and stood looking up at her, while she struggled to stay upright. ‘All you had to do was say please.’

‘Piss off.’

He shrugged and started to turn away.

‘Ok, fine. Please. Please help me.’ she huffed, and he bent down and scooped her up with both arms, depositing her with an ungainly thud on the red leather passenger seat.

‘There you go, Princess,’ he laughed, walking back to pull up the anchor while he leant forward to turn the key and start the engine. As two hundred horsepower roared violently to life, Dimitri turned and winked proudly at her. Ella looked away, pulling out her phone, as if it was all beneath her.

Five minutes later, while Dimitri was jumping about like an exuberant dog – untying ropes and pushing the boat off from the mooring, kicking away other boats from either side, wiping sweat off his forehead, Ella started replying to all her emails. She’d put out some petty work fires and sent some off-the-top-of-her-head thoughts about the mobile phone campaign, when she heard Dimitri cough, seemingly to get her attention.

‘What?’ she said, glancing up.

‘Have you seen the view?’ he asked somewhat bemused.

‘Where?’ she asked.

He pointed out along the coastline to where the olive groves ended and into the distance rows and rows of lemon trees took their place; each varnished leaf shiny and glistening in the sunlight.

‘Oh yes, very nice.’ she nodded.

‘Jesus. You and that phone.’ He jumped down to the end of the boat and fiddled with some of the switches and leads. Ella crossed her legs and looked around, wondering if she should help at all. When he didn’t say anything more she refreshed her emails again – there’d been nothing more from Amanda’s husband. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved.

‘What can be that important?’ Dimitri shouted over the sound of the engine.

Ella didn’t look up. ‘Work. You wouldn’t understand.’

‘You’re missing the view.’ Dimitri said as he jogged back up to the steering wheel. When she looked up at him to roll her eyes he was pointing towards the rows of little villas nestled into the olive groves on the hillside. Occasionally a car mirror or motorbike picked up the sun and shot back a beam from between the trees like a satellite.

Her phone buzzed with an email. [email protected]. Her heart thumped like it might break through her ribs. Her fingers hovered over the open button. Was it another pleading request to trust him or was he about to admit the truth? She shocked herself by thinking she barely knew which she’d prefer, which would offer the most relief.

But just as she was about to open it up, before she could answer her own question, long, tanned fingers plucked the Blackberry out of hers and hurled it overboard.

‘What the hell!’

‘Look at the god damn view.’

‘That was my phone.’

He held his arms wide in a shrug that said he didn’t care. Ella scuttled to the edge of the boat and stared down into the sheet of blue beneath them. ‘Go and get it.’

‘Get real.’ He made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh and took the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.

Ella leaned right over, scanning from side to side to see if she could make out the shape of her Blackberry as it sank. ‘That was my phone.’

‘So you’ve said.’ He cut the engine and sauntered back to drop the anchor where they bobbed, fifty metres or so out from the shore, smirking to himself as he tied the knot.

When he turned around she was glaring at him, hands on hips, expression thunderous. He shrugged. ‘It is something to hide behind.’

‘Don’t give me that crap. You don’t even know me.’ Ella sneered and stalked away from him, flopping down cross-legged and angry as far towards the prow of the boat and as far away from him as she could get, the icy spray hitting her face like pinpricks.

She sat there fuming. She could hear Dimitri pottering about but she didn’t turn around. She felt the wind begin to pick up, lapping the water into tiny waves. She thought about her phone lying amongst the seaweed, the email from Max unread.

Just as she was thinking of taking her frustration out in another tirade against Dimitri, a fishing line whipped over her head with a crack making her jolt back with surprise. Then – as the bait bobbed in the water – hairy, tanned legs squatted down next to her. ‘I’m sorry I threw your phone in the water.’

Ella didn’t say anything.

Dimitri looked back at the sea. ‘This is where you say, it doesn’t matter, it’s only a phone. I’m sorry I am sulking and ruining the trip on the boat.’

She tipped her nose up and glared at him. He cocked his head to one side and smiled, ‘My mother used to say that the wind would change and I would stay like that.’

‘Looks like it did.’ She scowled.

‘Ooh Ella. That’s cruel. My poor heart.’ He clutched his chest.

She rolled her eyes. He leaned over and bashed her shoulder with his and then settled down next to her, his legs dangling over the edge of the boat as he leant against the metal guard rail. They stared out at the sea, watching the fishing boats as they bobbed and dipped with the waves.

‘Do you want to tell me about your husband?’ Dimitri asked after a while, his fingers teasing the fishing line as the waves pulled the float back and forth.

‘No.’

An insolent smile spread across Dimitri’s face, making Ella’s defences rise. ‘Why?’ she snapped, ‘Do you want to tell me about your wife?’ As she said it she immediately regretted sounding so shrill.

‘She died.’

Ella reared back. ‘No? She didn’t? Oh god I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me? I’m sorry. God you must have been devastated.’ She thought back to the wedding photograph on Facebook. Her envy at that look.

Dimitri shrugged a shoulder as he tied the fishing line to the metal rail and then turned and smiled at her, perfect white teeth on a dirty tanned face. ‘I was with someone else when I met her – Anya. She came into the bar. She walked in and I knew that I would be with her, just like that.’ He clicked fingers wet with sea water and engine grease. ‘I left my partner, which hurt her very much, but–’ he shrugged, ‘It’s nature. You have to go with your instincts, don’t you?’ He grinned, ‘Like the lion.’