It was a driving licence: a normal, British plastic card with Dad’s photo on it. He was giving one of those dead-eye stares to the camera like you have to do for those things. You’re not allowed to look human – but anyone would still recognise their own dad.
The problem was that it wasn’t Dad’s name on that licence – it was Alan’s.
Chapter Twelve
THE BEST PASTRIES
Emma: I couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if it was an old licence that actually belonged to Alan – but the issue date was from about six months earlier. By that point, Alan had already been dead for more than eight years. Then there was Dad’s photo. Everything looked new.
When I was fifteen, one of my friends at school said she could get us all fake IDs. There were about ten of us and we all gave her a fiver with a passport photo. She came back after the weekend with an envelope full of fake student cards, with every one making us seem three years older than we were. I had my first drink in a pub using that card. I was thinking of that as I was holding the envelope. It was a fake ID, with Dad’s photo and Alan’s details.
When we were kids, we needed those cards to make us look older – but Dad had this to make him look like Alan… to make him look like a man who’d died nine years before…
It wasn’t just the ID in the envelope. There were a couple of sheets of paper and a small key. I remember ‘Ag Georgios’ being written across the top and thought it was probably a person. There was a separate line that had ‘#133’ on it.
I definitely glanced at the rest but didn’t pay much attention because I was supposed to be finding Mum’s charger. I ended up stuffing everything into the envelope and putting it back where it came from.
It was only then that I saw Mum’s charger on the ledge next to the front door. She’d probably put it down on her way out and forgotten to pick it up. I grabbed that and then opened the door… but I couldn’t leave that envelope where it was. I just couldn’t. I ended up locking it in my cottage before running back to the taxi with Mum’s charger. I thought she might say something about the length of time I took, but she simply said ‘thank you’ – and then she left.
It didn’t even cross my mind to mention the fake ID to her then. Maybe I should have?
All I can say is that you weren’t there. People always read books or watch movies and judge the main character as if it’s them. They say ‘No one would ever act like that!’ – but what they’re really saying is that they wouldn’t. Except it’s not their story and it’s not their circumstances. They haven’t lived a whole life in someone else’s shoes. What those people are really saying isn’t that ‘no one would ever act like that’, it’s: ‘My existence and my thought patterns are so ingrained that I can’t imagine anyone acting in a way differently to me.’
You have to have a real ego to think like that.
Julius: It was quite a bit later when I heard what Emma claimed about that licence. I don’t know what to say about it. Either it existed and she was wrong about the details – or she made the whole thing up. Ask yourself this: If she’d found what she said she did, then where is it? She didn’t take a photo, she didn’t show anyone, she didn’t ask Mum about it.
If it was me, I’d have done all those things. Wouldn’t you?
Emma: After Mum’s taxi left, I was heading back through reception. There was a woman there talking to a man behind the counter. She wasn’t shouting, but she was speaking loudly enough that anyone could hear what she was saying. She was at that point where you’re not sure if you’re upset, angry, or both. Where your voice is wavering as you’re trying to hold yourself together.
The guy behind the counter was trying to make a phone call as she was telling him how someone had been in her room and stolen cash. It was the specifics that stuck with me. She wasn’t just saying ‘money’, she was saying ‘three hundred and sixty euros’ over and over.
If she’d not been there, I don’t think I’d have noticed the map next to the main desk. I glanced across towards her and spotted a large picture of the island on the wall. I don’t remember it being there when we arrived, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention.
I went over to it and stared. It was taller than me, with the entire outline of Galanikos, with the roads and the villages. I don’t think I’d ever looked at the island like that before. I’d always thought of it as this one village with the hotels and the market – but there were other villages, too. A road ran from the south-west corner all along the bottom of the island and then up to the north-east before stopping when it got to the mountain that’s up there. There were intermittent markers the whole way around – and that’s when I saw the dot that read ‘Agios Georgios’ over to the east.
Extract from official guide to Galanikos: The largest village on the island of Galanikos is also named Galanikos, although it is colloquially known as ‘The Village’. The extinct volcano that created the island – and which dominates the north-west corner – is also called Galanikos. Other villages on the island include Ermones, Vatos, Agios Georgios (Saint George) and Kokkini.
Emma: A member of staff must have noticed me next to the map because she came over and asked if there was anything I was looking for. I asked her about ‘Agios Georgios’ and she immediately said ‘Saint George’. She seemed a bit confused about why I was interested, so I asked her what was there. She gave this sort of shrug like you do when you’re not sure what to say. I thought it might be a language issue, but it wasn’t at all. She goes: ‘No tourists.’ I misunderstood and replied: ‘Tourists aren’t allowed?’ She laughed and then said: ‘No reason for tourists to go. There’s nothing there.’
I didn’t get it at first, but then I realised it would be like running into a tourist on their way into Britain. You’d think they were visiting London or Edinburgh – but then they point to somewhere like Grimsby and you’d think, ‘Why are you going there?’ She couldn’t get her head around it.
I asked her if there was a bus that went there and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. She said there was one bus in the morning and one that went later, with nothing during the day. Other than that, anyone could drive.
Someone called her away and she walked off still saying ‘Agios Georgios’ under her breath as if I’d just told her an amazing joke.
Claire: I don’t know what Emma said to the woman in reception, but she found it hilarious. I think she went off to tell her co-worker about it.
Emma: I was about to go back to the cottage when I noticed Claire was standing almost right behind me. It was only then I remembered Victor being dragged off after he punched that guy. Claire had this half grin on her face and she goes…
Claire: ‘How was your night?’
Emma: I didn’t know if she was joking. It felt like she was.
Claire: I can’t remember any more. I told her the manager had been to my room and said that Victor was being held in the police cells for punching a guy in the hotel last night. It was all news to me. We’d had an argument and then I’d gone to bed. He hadn’t come back to the room, but let’s say it wouldn’t have been the first time Victor stayed out all night.