He took a deep breath dampening down the desire to snap back at his father. Now was not the time – he had just set foot in Liakada after an exhausting few days – and here in public was definitely not the place. ‘Where is my mother?’
‘Pfft!’ his father spat. He picked up his ouzo glass and drank back the whole contents in one go. ‘Why do you ask me?’
Why was his father being so infuriating? OK, so Elias hadn’t expected to be hugged and kissed like he was returning alive from a long drawn-out, bloody war, but he had expected to be able to hold a civil conversation.
‘Elia…’ Petros began, taking a rolled-up cigarette from behind his ear and putting it between his lips.
‘Do not answer for him!’ Elias was raising his voice now. Something he didn’t want to do. It showed a lack of control. And he was all about control now. He lightened his tone a notch. ‘Is my mother inside?’
‘How do I know?’ Spiros retorted like a child. ‘Why should I care?’ He took hold of another glass of ouzo and downed that drink too.
Now Elias really was at a loss to know what was going on. His parents had always lived in each other’s pockets. One would not be able to sneeze at the other end of the village without the other one knowing about it instantaneously.
‘You are not making any sense,’ Elias told his father. ‘You have drunk too much.’
‘Oh, you think I have drunk too much.’ Spiros picked up a third glass and waved it under his nose as if breathing in the aroma like it was a fine wine he was trying to distinguish. ‘I only just begin.’ He downed the third glass and there was another audible inhale from the villagers who seemed to have increased in number. There was also another dog – cream-coloured with ringlets of fluffy fur – staring at Elias as if waiting for his reaction. And the truth was, he didn’t know how to react. He looked at his father anew. His shirt was badly creased. There was a stain on the fabric of his trousers. His hair wasn’t greased into place like usual. His father was always well-turned out. His mother always made sure of that…
‘Petros,’ Elias said. ‘Where is my mother?’ Perhaps the only logic he was going to get would come from his father’s friend after all.
‘She is checking on one of the villas she cleans,’ Petros answered.
His mother cleaned villas now? Before, she would always be busy with the shop and café. Had business taken a downturn? Was this why his father had turned to drink?
‘She will be with Leandros.’ This came from his father as he leaned over and snatched another ouzo from in front of his friend, Babis. ‘Or Constantine. Or perhaps,’ he continued, proffering his glass to emphasise his point, ‘perhaps she will be like your wife and start to fall in love with women. Maybe she is in the arms of Areti.’
The crowd didn’t even try to contain their sighs and gasps and there was even a hand clap and a little laughter. Elias’s temper was rising fast and he wanted to grab hold of his father, pull him from the chair, drag him inside the building and shut away the nosy residents in order to get to the root of his behaviour.
‘Enough!’ Elias roared. He had directed the word at his father, but he had made his voice loud enough so that everyone could hear. He was not about to be made a laughing stock here for a second time. ‘Tell me, what is going on?’
It was at that moment his father crumpled. Gone was the ouzo-shotting bravado and in its place was a man falling apart, tears slipping from his eyes, shoulders rolling forward and shaking with emotion. Spiros opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but the words didn’t appear to be able to come out.
‘Your father does not live here anymore,’ Petros spoke up. ‘Your mother threw him out six months ago.’
And now it was Elias who needed the ouzo.
Twenty-Nine
Villa Selino, Kerasia
Becky dipped her head back into the cool, refreshing water of the most relaxing, tranquil pool she had ever had the pleasure of swimming in. To be fair, the only pool she had really spent any time in was at the local leisure centre. And her fear of seeing a damp, used plaster on the floor was always at the back of her mind when she used that facility, so not fully as relaxing as it might be. Megan had been the real swimming enthusiast. Her sister had read that it was the best form of exercise for an all-over workout and as most of Megan’s friends didn’t seem to like getting their hair wet, it had been Becky who had accompanied her. It had been fun. They’d done lengths, occasionally they’d turned up on an inflatable session and braved the enormous floatie taking up most of the pool and they’d chatted about the latest drama in the life of Henry the Bachelor who lived next door to the family home. That was pre-It’s A Wrap when Becky worked at the bank and Megan was toying with the idea of a business course at college. It was before their dad had died. Before either of them knew how much life was going to change…
But here was a world away from everything in Wiltshire. Here it was like she had slipped into someone else’s life for a second. Someone else who was rich and powerful and had other people to butter their bread for them…
Suddenly there was water in her eyes and mouth and she was struggling to maintain her head above the surface. Spluttering, and grabbing onto the wall of the pool, Becky saw that Petra had jumped in, creating the kind of wake a powerboat would have been proud of. It seemed that half-drowning in a cave-lake hadn’t put her off water.
‘This is worth all the scrubbing, isn’t it?’ Petra remarked, arriving at Becky’s side, hair still beautifully in place.
‘Have you finished?’ Becky asked. She had made Petra shoo out the flamingo – goodness knew where it was going to end up, but a quick Google search had told her that flamingos did hang out in Corfu, but usually on the lake at the south of the island and not up here in the north. But no amount of internet searching could tell Becky exactly how far flamingos could walk, or fly. Then, once the villa was free of animals – as far as they could see without opening every cupboard door or wardrobe – they had started a clean-up with every product the large modern kitchen possessed. There was even a literal miracle product called Koh that Becky was going to look into buying when she got back to It’s A Wrap. But, after an hour of scrubbing until her fingers were numb, Petra insisted Becky leave her to finish things while she got in the pool. And Becky hadn’t argued. The pool was what she had been looking forward to the most and it was even better than she could have imagined.
‘All finished,’ Petra said, putting her arms on the stone surround and lying her head on one of them. ‘Shit scrubbed, sanitised and now spotless.’
‘Are you sure?’ Becky asked. ‘Because this place seems to be very high-end. I don’t want any kind of leakage ruining wood imported from Africa or something.’
‘The grumpy Greek woman didn’t mention expensive imports,’ Petra said with a sniff. ‘And if that flooring was imported from Tanzania or somewhere, I’ll… eat my plaits.’
Becky took a breath and leaned a little like Petra was leaning. It wasn’t just the water trickling over her shoulders that was incredible, it was the view too. You could see the sea from the pool and not just the smallest of glimpses over rooftops or through the branches of olive trees, a wide, shimmering blue expanse was stretching out into the distance. Simply watching its movement was making Becky feel a little less tightly wound.