Fifty-five
So naturally, Andras slipped his arm around Tess’s waist, drawing her into his body, his other hand finding hers and holding it tightly.
‘I am sorry about Nikos,’ he spoke, beginning to sway them gently to the slow tempo of the Greek musicians on the beach.
‘Oh, you don’t have to apologise. I was grateful for someone to get me away from the girls’ table.’
‘I am sorry for that too.’
‘I had to sign shoes,’ Tess admitted. ‘What is that all about?’
‘Did they also make you spit on the floor?’
‘What?’ Tess laughed. ‘Is that a Greek thing too?’
He nodded, smiling. ‘For luck.’ He shook his head. ‘You must have realised that everything is about luck around here.’ He sighed. ‘Luck and duty.’
Tess swallowed. It was so nice here, in Andras’s arms, living this pretence, being a couple, under a Corfiot sky. Despite the way Andras felt about his family, to her, there was no real pressure as to how anything was going to go. Because there were no rules. No promises. No expectation. But she still itched to know the truth after everything the women in his family had said.
‘Did you split up with Elissa because she had a career?’
He stopped dancing then and, still holding her hand, he looked deep into her eyes. ‘What?’
‘Sorry, I know that it’s none of my business but Kira and Juno and … Agatha, I think her name was … they all said that the reason you split up with Elissa was because she wanted a career and you just wanted her to have babies.’ She swallowed. ‘And I … just wanted to hear that from you.’
A low sigh left him and he loosened his grip on her hand, letting it go and dropping his to his side. ‘Is that what they all think?’
‘It was my fault,’ Tess jumped in. ‘I was trying to steer the conversation away from something Sonya had said that was going to make her cry an ocean’s worth of tears so, to change things up, like you do, I told the whole table that I didn’t want to have children.’
Andras sucked in air through his teeth and shook his head at her, a hint of a smile on his lips. ‘I can guess what reaction you might have had to that.’
‘Yes, well, it was too late to backtrack, and then the women were on a roll.’
Andras smiled, nodding at her. ‘Sit down with me?’ he asked, indicating the wooden floor.
Only a few days ago, if someone had asked her to sit on bare boards in a dress that would usually have cost over three hundred pounds if it hadn’t been from the British Heart Foundation, she would have pulled a face and refused. Now she found herself bending down almost eagerly, steadying herself as she lowered her body on to the slats, feet hanging over the side, only inches from the sea, a slight breeze buffeting her hair. Andras sat close, his legs swinging over the water, shoes almost touching the ocean.
‘Elissa and I didn’t split up because she wanted a career or because I thought she should stay at home having babies,’ Andras spoke.
‘If I really was your girlfriend I would be very relieved right now.’ She swallowed. She was relieved. Genuinely relieved. But not at all relieved that she felt that relief.
‘Tess, I have never told anyone, not one soul, why Elissa and I really broke up.’
Now she didn’t know what to say. She turned her head to look at him more closely. She could see so many different feelings etched on his face. She had seen some of them reflected in her own expression in the days and weeks after Adam. Pain, hurt, misunderstanding, sorrow.
‘Elissa was pregnant when she left,’ Andras stated. He blew out a heavy breath that seemed to take some of his life force with it. She watched his knuckles tighten as he scrunched his fingers up into fists against the wooden platform.
‘So …’ She knew her voice was shaking and she had no idea why or how to control it. ‘So, you have a child?’
Immediately he shook his head and gasped. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘The baby …’ He stopped, the word seeming to catch in his throat. ‘The baby wasn’t mine.’
‘Oh my God.’ It was an instant reaction. Complete shock brought her hands to her mouth. ‘Sorry … I shouldn’t have said that.’ She breathed. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
He shrugged then. ‘It has taken me a long time to come to terms with it, but I have had to come to terms with it.’ He looked at her. ‘But still, I don’t seem to be able to tell my family that my wife, the woman I loved, the woman I knew my mother didn’t approve of, had cheated on me … and that she was carrying another man’s baby.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Tess said softly.
‘Ochi.’ He shook his head. ‘No, you do not need to be sorry.’ He looked out over the water. ‘When she told me, every piece of me began to die inside, but I still wanted her, wanted them both. I still believed that our marriage could recover. I said I would stand by her. That we could leave Corfu and make a new start wherever she wanted to.’ He breathed. ‘Do whatever she wanted to.’
‘But she didn’t want to?’ Tess guessed.
‘She hadn’t just betrayed our vows, she had fallen in love.’ He sighed. ‘What do you say to that?’
Tess mused on the sentence for a moment until she made her reply. ‘At least you got to say something.’ The sea breeze suddenly made her shiver. She wanted to say something now, to him. She wanted to tell Andras. And as that emotion toyed with her, inside she felt herself slowly begin to unravel.
She took perhaps the biggest breath she had ever taken before letting the words tumble from her lips. ‘My fiancé didn’t come to our wedding.’
‘What?’ Andras whispered.
She nodded. ‘He left me spinning around in the wedding car outside and then … when I couldn’t bear seeing any more of the village or the desperate look on my mother’s face, I got out of the car and I walked up the aisle expecting him to spontaneously materialise like the genie in Aladdin.’ Her breaths were coming thick and fast, heart pumping. ‘I stood at the front of the church, waiting, looking at my family, his family, just standing my ground, thinking that somehow this was going to turn out all right, if I just didn’t move. If I stayed right there, right there where I was supposed to be, where he was supposed to be.’
‘He didn’t come.’
Tess shook her head. ‘No. I stood there, with the vicar making small talk about spiritual growth and nurturing, and then my dad started to come down the aisle towards me and … my mum stood up and then, I knew, then it finally sunk in that Adam wasn’t coming.’ Her shoulders shook as she drew up her head like she was somehow fighting for air. ‘And I still didn’t want to hear it. I had my mum and my dad just a few feet away, heading towards me, Rachel looking at me with tears in her eyes, all of them wanting to comfort me, wanting to make things better and I couldn’t stand it.’ She started to quake, suddenly feeling so cold, lips trembling, shoulders wobbling. ‘I put one bare foot in front of the other and every single flagstone felt like it was a bed of nails, so I ran.’ She let out a breath. ‘I sprinted up the aisle and out of the church, nothing on my feet, and I didn’t stop until I got home.’ She swallowed. ‘Two point four miles of not feeling my feet getting cut to ribbons.’
Now it was all becoming clear. The not walking barefoot on Kalami beach, still wearing her designer shoes when she jumped off the boat into the sea on that very first trip, and at Agios Spyridon with the dog. This was the reason why she didn’t want to ever be barefoot. Why having her feet strapped into something at all times was necessary for her. Right at that moment, Andras wanted to find this Adam himself and hurt him like he had hurt Tess.
‘He is not human,’ Andras whispered. ‘To do something like that, on what should have been such a special day.’ He slipped his arm across her shoulders, wanting to wrap her up, wanting to take her pain away. ‘To leave you there.’
Tess sniffed. ‘My sister Rachel kept telling me it would have been worse if he had gone through with the marriage and left me afterwards but, I don’t know … This way it was so humiliating for everyone and there was nothing tangible to show for our relationship, just Breville sandwich-makers and a cheeseboard set and bloody scallops.’
‘You should not feel humiliated,’ Andras spoke gently. ‘You did nothing wrong.’
‘But I don’t know that. I will never know that.’ She raised her head to look at him. ‘Because Adam never spoke to me again.’
‘What?’
‘I tried to call him. Text him. Email him. Just for an explanation and, like you, I suppose I hoped we might be able to somehow work it out …’
‘And he never explained himself?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘And all this …’ Andras began. ‘All this is why you date, not love.’
‘Like you,’ Tess replied. ‘With your flings with holidaymakers so you can’t get hurt again.’
He nodded his head in acceptance at his own situation, so desperately similar to hers. ‘Except it does not always feel the way it should, does it?’
He looked across the shoreline where some of his family were starting a conga line across the stones, shouting opa and laughing their way into a circle.
‘No,’ Tess admitted hesitantly.
He turned his attention back to her and began to feel that now all too familiar sensation whirring in his psyche. There was something here, something between them, that wasn’t cheap or disposable, and it was bubbling and burning its way to the surface the more time they spent together.
He took a breath, his fingers finding the fine gold of her hair and trying to tame it into position as he gazed at her.
‘I have spent such a long time being afraid,’ he admitted. ‘Of making other poor choices, of misinterpreting my own feelings, of getting hurt again, but I think …’ He smoothed her hair back, his fingers contacting the slight curve of her neck. ‘I think that even if you try to guard your heart, even if you try to lock it up so tightly, there is going to come the moment …’ He paused. ‘There is going to come the moment when someone arrives with the key.’
Her eyes, the colour of the sea, were looking back at him, her full lips slightly parted, her scent, the heat from her skin, everything about her was calling to him. He shifted slightly, leaning a little forward, slowly, taking his time, not wanting this to be about lust and libido but something else, everything else. And he didn’t want to push her like he felt he had in Kassiopi, when he had been jealous and crazy and …
Her lips met his then, softly, slowly, her mouth working delicately over his in the sweetest, most sensuous way he had ever experienced. He felt her hand cup the back of his head and he deepened the kiss, welcoming her tongue, tasting her desire. This wasn’t a throwaway moment. This was one of the best moments of his entire life.
She broke the kiss, leaning away, touching her fingers to her lips, eyes wide. Was her expression surprise? Shock? He didn’t want to say too much. But he knew he needed to say enough.
‘Tess …’ he began.
‘What was that?’ She seemed to be questioning herself as well as him.
‘It was …’
She started to get to her feet, apparently not wanting to hear his answer. ‘I have to go. I have to go and find Sonya.’
‘Tess …’ Andras began again.
‘Tomorrow,’ she blurted out, upright now, her teeth juddering together. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. A Greek eight o’clock.’
There was nothing left to say right now. He just had to let her go. He nodded his head. ‘Kali nichta.’
‘Goodnight,’ she answered, rushing down the jetty.
Tess wasn’t shaking, she was shuddering, actually internally quaking like a volcano ready to erupt and spew lava, melting its way down a mountain trail. Her legs could barely hold her weight as she stumbled down the pontoon. What had she done? Why had she kissed him like that, like it wasn’t just about her neglected G-spot but about … She couldn’t even bear to think the words that were popping up, all of them synonyms to a four-letter word beginning with ‘L’.
She blinked back confusion and tears and … there was Sonya in front of her. Thank God. Someone sane, someone from London life, not Greek life with all its holiday, relaxation and escape connotations. She put on a smile, urging her limbs to move faster. And then she saw the expression on her friend’s face.
‘Sonya?’ she said, hurrying up to her, own emotions camouflaged.
‘I … I called Joey,’ Sonya whimpered, face dropping its sun-kissed look from earlier and seeming to pale by the second.
‘You got hold of him. Well, that’s good,’ Tess ventured. Still Sonya’s expression wasn’t looking hopeful. ‘Isn’t it?’
Sonya shook her head. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘I didn’t get hold of him.’
Tess swallowed. ‘You didn’t?’
‘No,’ Sonya said, this time with the tail of a wail at the close of her sentence that led to her putting a shaking hand to her lips.
‘Son, what’s happened?’
‘It was a woman,’ Sonya blurted out as tears fell from her eyes. ‘A woman answered Joey’s phone.’