Nineteen
‘Take off your shoes!’
Tess stopped walking. She had picked her way across the stones and sand, but thankfully the wedges she was wearing weren’t grinding her feet as much as last night’s choice of footwear. She looked across at the boat – a small cream and navy-blue affair that looked like something out of a Bond movie. It was bobbing gently on the water with Sonya already aboard, her friend sitting down on one of the cream-cushioned seating areas and applying suncream. Andras, meanwhile, was standing barefoot on the bow, jeans and a chest-hugging white T-shirt over the rest of him. Earlier, over a coffee and a well-sugared Coke, Tess and Sonya had watched him strip down to trunks smaller than those worn by an Olympic swimmer and dive into the ocean, soaking his olive-skinned body in the surf, before towelling himself dry. It had been like a manly version of burlesque, if there was such a thing.
‘What are you doing?’ Andras called again. ‘Come into the water! Take off your shoes!’
Tess eyed up the shelving beach ahead of her. It wasn’t far, just ten metres or so. She put one foot forward, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker. Why couldn’t he have just tied the boat to the pontoon-thingy instead of dropping the anchor and expecting them to wade to the vessel?
‘Tess! Take off your shoes, parakalo!’
She looked down at her feet, encased in the gold leather straps, safe from the earth she was standing on, untouched by anything. She couldn’t remove them.
There was a crunching sound and she raised her head to see Andras powering up the beach towards her. She struggled forward, one foot then the other, wobbling quickly like she was strutting on a catwalk of hot coals.
‘There is no time for this,’ he stated as he reached her.
‘I’m coming. I just need to—’
The rest of her sentence was lost in the air as Andras swept her up into his arms, again turning to the sea and making his way across the beach, taking her with him.
‘Put me down!’ Tess squealed, kicking her legs.
‘I will,’ he answered. ‘On the boat.’
‘I can walk!’
‘At the speed of a tortoise.’ That reminded him of Hector. He really needed to find a permanent home for the animal. Somewhere that didn’t consider his presence a curse and wasn’t going to make him the prime ingredient of a stew.
‘I’m on holiday,’ Tess remarked. ‘People shouldn’t be rushed on holiday.’ She continued to fight in his arms. ‘Greek time, like you said.’
He had to give her that comment. They reached the boat and he lifted her up until she finally wriggled free from his arms and clambered aboard. He watched her step from seat to floor, her hands brushing down her expensive-looking dress, handbag swinging from her shoulder.
‘You are OK?’ he asked her.
‘Somehow I’m covered in sand,’ she replied.
He smiled. ‘Life is a beach.’ He set about pulling up the anchor.
‘I hope you remember I’m doing you a favour here,’ Tess stated, plumping down next to Sonya.
‘And I am returning this by being your … what did you call this?’
‘A guide man,’ Sonya stated. ‘Like they have in Barbados.’
He watched Tess fold her arms across her chest. ‘This had better be good.’
He started the engine of the boat. ‘This is Corfu,’ he declared over the noise. ‘Everything is good.’ Apart from his life, which was beginning to resemble a Greek tragedy. Still, perhaps a day out on the water would give him some perspective.
Sonya and her Marco Polo map had made suggestions of where to go before they set sail until Andras talked about tides. Apparently, it would be better to head south towards Nissaki and Barbati now, then take a slower cruise back up the coast for the other stops Sonya wanted. And now, as they planed over the ocean, Tess couldn’t keep her eyes off the landscape.
Corfu wasn’t just good like Andras had said, it was beautiful, from each and every angle. From the sparkling ocean they were speeding across, to the rugged, shrubbery-infused rocks that towered up towards the cloudless sky. There was a new view every second. Villas poked their brick-and-glass frontages out of rocky crevices hanging over the sea and small cottages sat dotted amid lush olive groves. Why had she never considered visiting Greece before? She swallowed. Because ever since Adam she hadn’t considered anything except doing exactly what he had done – running away – from everything in her life except work. And work was not her happy place at the moment. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sunny, salty air.
‘Mmm, these crisps are good,’ Sonya announced over the roar of the engine, spray splashing over the sides of the motorboat and hitting the bag of snacks she was holding on to. ‘Oregano. Who would have thought of oregano crisps?’ Sonya shook the bag at Tess. ‘Have some. Try them.’
‘I’m fine,’ Tess answered. She raised her voice a notch. ‘How far is it?’ she called to Andras.
‘How far is what?’ he called back over his shoulder.
She sighed. It wasn’t just the external scenery she had been admiring. Skippering the boat had meant Andras was stood in front of them at the helm, those tight glutes beneath the denim, not to mention the muscular forearms directing the wheel. She didn’t want to be his fake girlfriend for a week, she wanted to have him – literally – not just a snog when his mother was looking. If it hadn’t been for Sonya’s stupid single pledge she could be moulding her hands to that sweet ass and posting their picture on Insta. How ironic was this situation?
‘How long until we stop?’ she called again.
The engine noise lessened slightly and the boat came down from riding the crest of the waves and fell into a more sedate pace across the water.
‘We do not have to go so fast,’ Andras told them. ‘We will soon be there.’
Sonya stared at her map. ‘Are we anywhere near the Rothschild mansion?’
Andras smiled. ‘You English. You are always interested in the people with lots of money.’
‘Prince Charles stays there,’ Sonya said, looking at Tess.
‘If you’d said Shia LaBeouf I might have been more interested.’
‘The Rothschild house is near Agios Stefanos,’ Andras stated. ‘The other way from here.’
‘Oh,’ Sonya said, disappointment in her voice.
‘I will point out this and all the other places of interest on the way back down the coast.’
‘Any good bars soon?’ Tess asked, stretching her arms out behind her.
Andras pointed. ‘Nissaki is just coming up.’
Tess sat up in her seat, following the direction of Andras’s finger. Ahead of them, to the right of the boat, was a large biscuit- and terracotta-coloured hotel springing out of the green mountainside and dominating the immediate landscape. Set just below this was a long stretch of beach, a handful of what looked like tavernas skirting the land side. As their captain slowed the boat and they started a gentle cruise towards shore, the colour of the water began to change. Deep dark blue quickly transformed into bright light greens and turquoise. Tess edged her way across her seat to the side of the boat and looked over into the sea.
‘Can you see the fish?’ Andras called.
‘You can see the fish?!’ Sonya exclaimed, leaping up from her seat and rushing to the side of the boat too.
‘Whoa!’ Andras exclaimed as the boat rocked right. ‘Come back please or you will tip us right over!’
‘Sonya!’ Tess exclaimed.
‘Sorry!’ Sonya said, quickly scrabbling back into the middle of the vessel. ‘Going to the other side.’ She sat down and leaned over on the left, looking into the ocean. ‘Oh my! I can see them! Can you see them, Tess? Fish! There’s tiny little silver ones and ones with stripes and, oh, quite big black ones …’
‘Let me know if you find Dory,’ Tess said, focusing her gaze into the water again.
‘I’ve never seen water this clear! Look how clear it is!’
Tess watched a small shoal of grey fish with blue trims swirl through the water in front of her and she felt Sonya’s excitement. Seeing them so easily, moving right around them, it was something special.
‘Wait until you swim with the fish,’ Andras stated, driving the boat in closer to land where a man was beckoning them in.
‘Swim with them?’ Tess answered. Seeing them from the boat was one thing, getting up close and personal was quite another.
‘Of course,’ Andras answered. ‘That is why visitors come to Corfu.’ He smiled. ‘For man, or woman, to be at one with nature.’
‘I can’t wait!’ Sonya exclaimed, stripping off her top and adjusting the straps of her tankini.
Tess swallowed. She’d been thinking more of having a cooling cocktail and soaking up some sun rather than puckering up to a vertebrate. She had never seen the attraction of a fish spa.
‘But for this you really will have to take off your shoes,’ Andras told her.
She looked up at him, her toes clenching automatically. Sarcastic bastard. Suddenly his attractiveness was losing its shine.