Julius: It felt a bit theatrical, if I’m honest. Emma was gripping a door frame like she was trying to hold herself up. I’ve seen better performances on daytime soap operas.
Emma: Mum couldn’t meet my eye when I mentioned Alan – but I can’t have been the only one thinking how strange it was.
Julius: I was more worried about whether Dad was going to survive.
Emma: Mum said: ‘You weren’t in your room’ – and I remember feeling like I’d been caught sneaking out of the house as a kid. All I could manage was a simple ‘No’, but then she asked where I was.
Julius: I’m not sure Emma ever said where she was that night. Not at that time. I found out later.
Emma: I probably mumbled about being ‘out’, or something like that. It’s not like I was ashamed of being with Paul, but I hardly wanted to talk about it in front of my mum or brother.
It’s not as if I had a curfew. I’m a grown woman and don’t have to ask for permission to go out. It was none of their business.
Julius: Emma was being evasive about where she was, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. It’s only later when you look back and wonder.
As for me, Chloe and Amy had been tired from the long day, the flight, and too much ice cream at dinner. I put them to bed and had fallen asleep with the TV on. It was sometime after that when Mum knocked on the door to say we had to get to the hospital. One of the deputy managers said she’d look after the girls. They were asleep anyway and I didn’t want to wake them.
Emma: I’d probably only been there for a minute when the doctor came through. He said that Dad was critical but stable. He needed a machine to breathe for him and that, for now, there was little that could be done.
Julius: Critical but stable.
Emma: I have no idea what that means. If someone’s critical, doesn’t that indicate things are actually critical? I don’t know how you can be stable if there’s a crisis going on. If there’s a burning building, you’re either inside or out. There’s no middle ground where it’s a crisis but it’s not.
Julius: Mum asked if she could see Dad and the doctor thought about it for a moment. He looked at Emma and then nodded towards Mum before saying: ‘Only you.’
Emma: He said that Dad needed space and time in his condition.
Mum stood up and said she’d see us later. It was like she was asking us to leave, as if she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. I would have stayed but it didn’t feel like an option. She asked me to look into flight times in case we were able to get him home, and that was it. I was only there for a few minutes. I reminded Mum that she was supposed to be resting too, but she shrugged and turned to go into the room. I think she’d forgotten that she had to look after herself.
Julius: As soon as we got into a taxi outside, Emma brought up Alan again.
Emma: We were being driven back to the hotel, but I think I was still in shock. I asked Julius why he wasn’t more surprised about everything. The fact that Dad’s business partner had gone off a cliff and then, nine years on, the same thing had happened to Dad. It was the whole reason we stopped visiting Galanikos and then here we were.
Julius: I didn’t understand why she was so concerned about what happened nine years before, instead of worrying about how Dad was doing at that moment. We’d just been told he was critical – but she didn’t want to talk about that.
Emma: Is it me? Am I the mad one here?
Julius: I stopped replying after a while and we sat in silence for the rest of the journey. Good job it wasn’t a long one.
Emma: Julius paid the driver in cash when we got back to the hotel. I offered to pay, but he told me that Dad had given him some money at the airport, telling him to spend it on the girls while we were here. He said something about Dad throwing money around since Mum got her diagnosis, which I presumed was him talking about the fact that Dad had paid for Daniel, Liz, Victor and Claire to come along with us.
Julius: The manager was waiting for us when we got into reception.
Emma: I found out that the man who’d greeted me in reception was the night manager. This guy was the full manager and he knew who we both were. He asked how Dad was and, when we said he was alive, the manager put his hands together and said he’d been praying for us.
Julius: It was weird.
Emma: I thought it was really kind. He said we were now his honoured guests and that there was a pair of cottages at the back of the property we could have. There would be a lot more privacy and shade back there, so he’d already arranged to have Mum and Dad’s things moved to one of the cottages. He was asking what we wanted to do with the other.
Julius: I knew Emma wanted that second cottage. Not only that, she’d sulk if she didn’t get it. She was always like that as a kid. I once got this big Lego set for Christmas, where you could build a car. Emma started crying because she decided that’s what she wanted. She’d already had loads of presents, but Mum ended up buying her the same set as mine as soon as the shops opened again.
When the manager mentioned two cottages, I didn’t think it was worth arguing.
Emma: I don’t know why Julius turned down that cottage. I told him that the girls would love it, but he insisted he wanted to stay in the main hotel. There was something about the girls liking the view of the pool, but I thought it was probably more about him than them. He said that Mum was going to need someone nearby and that it might as well be me. That was probably closer to the truth: he didn’t want to deal with any potential hassle from Mum.
I certainly wasn’t going to let Daniel and Liz take it, so I said I’d move my things down. The manager started waving his hands, saying there were bellboys who would help, but I told him I only had one bag that I hadn’t unpacked.
Julius: Emma got her way. There’s a surprise.
Emma: When I got back downstairs with my bag, the manager took me out to the back of the hotel. I couldn’t believe it at first. I’d pictured some sort of run-down staff quarters – but the cottages were beautiful. There was a perfect green lawn at the front, with neat flower beds on both sides. The two buildings were symmetrical, with a red door in the centre of each and a window on the side. They were hidden away behind a hedge and I assumed that was where the property line sat. They were so shiny that it was almost as if they’d been painted the day before.
The manager showed me to the door of the one he said was mine and it was so lovely that I felt embarrassed to be walking in there when it was just me and my bag. Everything was sparkling, like a whole team had gone in and scrubbed everything until it was impossible to be any cleaner. There were thick marble counters and big sliding doors at the back. It’s definitely the nicest place I’ve ever slept.
Julius: Did she tell you about the marble counters? She told everyone else.
Emma: I felt so overwhelmed by it all. It didn’t feel right that Dad had almost died and I was benefitting because of it. Then I had to gulp away tears because the walls of my cell suddenly felt so close. Anyone who’s been in prison will tell you that it never really goes away. It might be a clang that reminds you of the doors closing, or a squeak that makes you think of someone moving in the bunk above or below. The screech of cutlery is the worst for me. If I ever hear a knife scrape on a plate, I’m back at mealtimes.