Wish You Were Here (3 page)

Alice turned into the tree-lined driveway and the south front of Bellwood House rose up out of the immaculate lawn to greet them. It was an imposing Georgian house which had been extended and modernised to provide more ground-floor facilities for its residents. Her father, though, despite his wheelchair, had insisted on having a first-floor room because he wanted a good view.

Alice pulled up outside the front door and one of the carers, Sam, was immediately there to help. He always had the uncanny ability to spring up out of nowhere when he was most needed and Alice watched as he helped her father into his chair, wheeling him up the ramp into the home.

‘No need to come with me,’ her father told her.

‘Are you sure?’

‘You’ve done quite enough for today, my dear.’

Alice bent down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Give me a call soon, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he said, grabbing hold of one of her hands. ‘Thank you.’

Alice smiled at him. ‘Happy birthday, Dad.’

She watched as Sam wheeled her father’s chair into the lift up to his room on the first floor and waited for him to return, peeping into the main sitting room which overlooked the front lawn and wondering if she’d catch a glimpse of Rosa. Would it be too intrusive to ask for her? she wondered. Yes, it would and what would she say, anyway?
Excuse me – are your intentions towards my father honourable?
No, she was quite sure that he was old enough to know what he was doing when it came to the opposite sex.

At last, after settling her father into his room, Sam returned.

‘Did he have a good day?’ he asked Alice, his young face beaming at her.

‘He did,’ Alice said, knowing that Sam was referring to the mental and physical state of her father rather than whether he’d enjoyed himself. ‘He was absolutely fine. No problems at all. Just got a little tired at the end of the day.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Sam said with a smile.

‘You’ll let me know if he has another turn, won’t you?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve got your number,’ Sam assured her.

‘My mobile
and
my home number?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the office one?’

‘We checked them all last time, remember?’ Sam said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Alice said.

‘He’s well looked after, Miss Archer,’ Sam assured her. ‘We’ve got him on the new dosage of medication for the MS and he’s eating well, sleeping like a log and – well, everything is absolutely normal.’

‘I know. It’s just that I want to make sure,’ Alice said.

‘And the dementia – well, he has good days and bad days.’

Alice nodded. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she said. ‘Isn’t MS enough? Why dementia too?’

‘Old age can be very cruel sometimes,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve seen so many of our clients battling no end of ills.’

Alice nodded, blinking fast so that her tears wouldn’t spill. ‘But he isn’t old,’ she said hopelessly.

‘Well—’

‘He
isn’t!
Not by today’s standards.’

Sam nodded. ‘You just have to take things one day at a time with ageing. That’s all you can do.’

Alice nodded and said goodbye, leaving Bellwood House for her sister’s. It was dark now but there were no lights on in the house. Alice wondered if her sister really was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a box of tissues but she quickly dismissed the thought as she popped the car keys through the letterbox.

Walking to the end of the road, Alice turned left and headed towards the bus stop. Fishing her mobile out of her pocket, she texted Stella.

Had a great day with Dad. Car returned. Hope you’re feeling better.
X
x

The reply took only half a minute to arrive.

Hope you topped up the petrol. S x

‘We can’t possibly go on using that room for interviews – it’s far too noisy with them digging up half the street outside,’ Larry Baxter told Alice without actually looking at her.

‘How about the old filing room?’ Alice suggested.

‘What?’ Larry snapped.

‘The old filing room at the end of the corridor. It’s only got one old filing cabinet in it and we don’t really use it anymore. It’s quiet in there too and has lots of natural light.’

Larry deigned to look at Alice for a moment but didn’t really appear to see her. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said at last, scratching his bald head.

Alice shook her head. Ben Alexander had three interviewees arriving in less than an hour and they had nowhere to put them. The least Larry could do was listen to her perfectly decent suggestion or they’d end up interviewing the candidates in the canteen which would probably flout the all-important health and safety regulations.

Alice was just racking her brains for an alternative suggestion when Ben Alexander walked into the room.

‘Hello, Larry. Hello, Anna,’ he said, his all-encompassing gaze sweeping Alice oh-so-briefly. ‘All set for the interviews?’

Larry cleared his throat. ‘I suggest we use the old filing room at the end of the corridor,’ he told Ben. ‘It’s quiet and has lots of natural light.’

‘
Excellent
idea!’ Ben said, clapping his hands together.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ Larry said.

‘Your boss is a miracle worker, isn’t he, Anna?’ Ben said.

Alice turned round and rolled her eyes, returning to her desk where she found Larry’s empty coffee cup waiting for somebody to wash it. She sighed, thinking to herself that her situation might be more bearable if she had somebody in the office she could talk to but the only other woman who worked in her department was part time. Her name was Pearl Jaggers and she was about a hundred and twenty years old and was only interested in small talk if it was about her eleven grandchildren.

She wasn’t sure how she managed to get through the next few weeks leading up to the holiday. She endured countless cold mornings at the bus stop, her neck retreating like a shy tortoise’s into the woolly folds of her scarf. Bruce was his usual uncommunicative self and didn’t even attempt to help when a speeding car splashed an icy puddle up her legs.

Wilfred the postman was as grouchy as ever, complaining about the conditions postmen had to endure during the cold months and then promptly sneezing on her and, at work, Larry continued to ignore her and Ben continued to call her Anna. Life was perfectly normal if far from perfect.

But, finally, the great day arrived. Alice had spent the final five evenings before the holiday packing. And unpacking. She just didn’t know what to take. She’d looked up the temperatures in Kethos online and was assured that mid-April was mild but not hot. That meant you had to take absolutely everything: jeans and jumpers in case it was cool and dresses and swimsuits in case it was warm. Not that Alice had much in the way of clothes; she wasn’t the sort of woman who had an excess of anything – unlike her sister who had once bought a favourite dress in three different colours. Alice thought of her sister’s heaving wardrobe and the number of clothes which had been flung over their father’s old bed. She couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong when a person had more shoes than books in their home.

Which reminded her, which books was she going to take? She’d treated herself to a guidebook and a lovely paperback romance called
Swimming with Dolphins
as well as a funny little hardback she’d found in her favourite second-hand bookshop in Norwich. The book was called
Know Your Gods
and, as Alice didn’t, she’d bought it.

Their flight to Greece left shortly after seven and Stella refused to drive to the airport so early in the morning and didn’t want to pay the parking charges for the week either.

‘You can pay for a taxi. You
are
getting a free holiday, after all,’ she told Alice who swallowed hard, held her tongue and made a huge cash withdrawal from a hole in the wall.

Travelling with her sister was a trying experience. She had been the archetypal
are-we-nearly-there-yet
kid and she hadn’t grown out of that with the passing of the years.

‘I don’t understand why we have to be at the airport so early,’ she complained. Then came, ‘There really isn’t enough leg room for somebody like me. It’s all right for you with your short legs.’ Then, ‘I can’t believe we don’t get a meal on this plane. Not that it would be edible or anything but it’s the principle, isn’t it?’

The world would never please Stella no matter how hard it tried, Alice thought, gazing out of the window and smiling at the intense blue waters far below them as they neared their destination.

The island of Kethos lay in the Mediterranean Sea just off the mainland of Greece. From the air, it looked rather like a squashed heart and Alice wondered if this had anything to do with the Aphrodite legend that was linked to the island.

She picked up her guidebook. ‘Do you want to read this?’ she asked Stella.

‘No, I’m reading this,’ her sister answered, holding up a copy of a glossy gossip magazine. Alice was just about to try and find out more about the famous Greek goddess when the announcement came that they were about to land.

‘About time too!’ Stella said, shoving her magazine into her handbag and reaching for her compact to make sure her face was still immaculate. Alice didn’t bother reaching for hers.

For a moment, she was aware that her sister’s eyes were upon her. ‘You could’ve made an effort,’ Stella told her. ‘Were you in a rush this morning?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Well, just look at you!’

‘We’re travelling, Stella, not attending a party,’ Alice said, noticing her sister’s lacy dress with the plunging neckline.

‘Yes, and you never know who you’re going to meet,’ Stella said, pointedly looking around the aeroplane. ‘Take him over there – he’s quite nice looking. In fact, I might introduce myself.’

‘Stella, you’ve just broken up with Joe.’

‘Oh, that was
ages
ago!’ she said. ‘And what’s wrong with a bit of flirting, anyway? I’m totally up for a holiday romance and you should be too. Once you get a bit of sun on your face and do something with your hair, that is.’

Alice took a deep breath and counted to ten. She might be getting a free holiday but she knew that it was going to cost her dearly.

Milo Galani had lived on the island of Kethos for all of his twenty-six years. His brothers – all three of them – had left for the mainland years ago but there was no life there for Milo. He couldn’t imagine living anywhere that wasn’t completely surrounded by the sea and the idea of a city gave him nightmares. He’d once stayed with his eldest brother in his tiny flat in Athens for a whole week and it had nearly killed him. He’d been kept awake all night by the sounds of the city: the police sirens, the drunken party-goers and the incessant mopeds.

When he’d returned to Kethos, he’d vowed he would never leave again. The bruising, bustling city might suit his three brothers but it didn’t suit him. He would rather walk through an olive grove than a crowd and he preferred a rocky mountain track to a shop-lined pavement. The island was like an extension of himself and he knew every field and every cove and he loved them all, especially once the spring arrived, like now.

There were some islanders who objected to the arrival of spring because, just as the island was reawakening after its winter hibernation and the first of the year’s flowers were emerging, the first tourists would arrive and the island would be wrenched from the residents and hauled back into life. There were some residents who lived up in the hills who had nothing to do with the tourists at all. They led solitary lives and were happy to do so. They believed that the island belonged to them and them alone and that the outside world had no business intruding upon it.

Luckily, the objectors to the tourists were in the minority and Milo certainly wasn’t amongst them. He welcomed the new injection of life which the tourists brought – he liked talking to them and hearing about the places they came from and the lives they lived there. It was his way of travelling without actually having to leave his beloved island.

He loved watching the boats chugging across the sea from the mainland and he couldn’t help but stare at the holiday-makers as they disembarked. What had brought them to his little island, he wondered? Were they in search of peace and solitude? Did they come in search of Greek myths and legends?

He was watching them today after doing a spot of shopping in Kethos Town. It wasn’t a large crowd – they would come during the busier summer months – but there was enough to fill a couple of tavernas. He spied an elderly couple who were linking arms. The man looked a little pale after his sea crossing and the woman was patting his hand as if to reassure him it was all over. There was a young family with two children who were tugging their parents along as if they couldn’t possibly wait a moment longer for their holiday to begin.

Then, his eye was suddenly caught by a young woman whose face was full of wonder as she stepped off the boat, her eyes large and searching as if she was trying to take everything in at once, and that made him smile. She looked so thrilled to be there – as she should, of course, but he’d seen some really miserable faces coming off that boat in the past. Like
her
, he thought, staring at a young woman who was following the smiling girl. She was beautiful with her shoulder-length golden hair and her perfect figure encased in a lacy dress but her face was as grim as a stormy day at sea. There was no joy to be found in it and Milo found his gaze returning to the smiling girl once again. She didn’t have the golden hair or knockout figure of her companion but there was something rather special about her and Milo couldn’t help but wonder if he would see her again. Maybe she’ll come to the gardens, he thought. Yes, let her come to the gardens.

He didn’t have time to hang around the harbour. He had to get to work and, for Milo, that meant a short moped ride to the Villa Argenti high up in the hills on the other side of the island. His boss was leaving the next day and wanted to go through some things with him and that always meant trouble. The sooner he left, the better, Milo thought, and then he would have the place to himself again.

Cedric Carlson was an American businessman who did something in technology. Milo wasn’t quite sure what it was, exactly, but it was obviously something that made a lot of money because Mr Carlson had homes in New York, Los Angeles, London and Milan as well as the Villa Argenti on Kethos where Milo was the groundsman.

Milo loved his job at the villa. He had a team of three part-time gardeners working for him but, most of the time, he had the gardens to himself and that was exactly how he liked it.

When Milo clocked in for work, Mr Carlson was sitting on the veranda with an enormous newspaper obscuring the view and covering almost his entire body. How could he be bothered with such things? Milo wondered. Couldn’t he sit back and luxuriate in the sun and enjoy the view for once? But perhaps that was the difference between the two of them – Milo might be able to enjoy the views that the Villa Argenti gave him but he’d never own them. Owning them took hard work,
endless
work. There was no time to just sit and stare at things.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Mr Carlson said as he spotted Milo.

‘Yes, sir,’ Milo said, running a hand self-consciously through his dark hair. He’d been told to address Mr Carlson as ‘sir’ on his first morning of employment seven years ago and woe betide him if he ever forgot.

‘I’m leaving for New York in—’ he paused and looked at the very expensive gold watch he was wearing, ‘thirty-eight minutes precisely.’

Mr Carlson liked to be precise and his chauffeur would be fired on the spot if he ever failed to match his boss’s precision.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And I’ll be gone for a fortnight.’

Milo nodded.

‘I’ve left a list of things I want doing. It’s all quite straightforward.’

Milo had no doubt that it was. He was used to the lists; his life was dominated by them. Not only would he be handed them by Mr Carlson each week but he would find them all over the gardens too: inside temples, taped to tree trunks and once on the inside of Milo’s favourite wheelbarrow. That had been a classic. It had read:

Milo had ignored it. What Mr Carlson didn’t understand was that an old wheelbarrow was a good one. Its handles were almost a part of the user’s hands because they had worked in perfect harmony for so long. It might not always move in a perfect straight line but that didn’t mean it was ready for retirement. No. Mr Carlson should stick to things he knew and keep out of the garden whenever possible.

Milo listened to the rest of his instructions although there wasn’t really anything new and he nodded politely. He said ‘Yes, sir’ wherever appropriate then wished his boss a good journey and got on with his day’s work, walking down the long straight path lined with trees that was known as ‘The Avenue’. He was going to get on with some work in the kitchen garden today. It was one of the few areas that wasn’t open to the public and was hidden behind a large wall which harvested the best of the sunshine and produced bowlfuls of fruit on the trees grown against it.

Milo loved the kitchen garden because it was private and he was rarely disturbed there. In the other parts of the garden, he was always at the mercy of the tourists with their questions and their cameras. If he had a euro for every photo he’d taken of tourists, he could probably afford to buy the Villa Argenti himself, he thought.

But, before he could reach his sanctuary, he saw a figure half-hiding in the shadows of a wall and he instantly knew who it was. Sabine – ‘The Pushy French Girl’ – as he had come to think of her. It wasn’t really her fault. She was sixteen and was on holiday with her family and bored out of her mind. She’d been visiting the gardens with her parents one Tuesday afternoon and had taken one look at Milo and decided that she’d spend the rest of her time on Kethos trying to seduce him. It wasn’t bad as fates went, Milo thought, and goodness only knew that he’d had his fair share of holiday romances with tourists. There was obviously something about being a gardener, he’d decided, that attracted women. Perhaps they liked men who worked with their hands in the great outdoors and it was certainly more original to fall for a Greek gardener than it was a Greek waiter.

He took a deep breath and walked towards her. Be brusque, he told himself.

‘What are you doing here, Sabine?’ he asked as he continued walking. He spoke in English in which she was also fluent.

‘Keeping you company,’ she said, running to catch up with him, her long blonde ponytail swinging about her bare shoulders.

‘I don’t need company. I’m very busy. How did you get in, anyway? We’re not open yet.’

‘I climbed over the wall.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m not telling you. You’ll fence it off.’

‘That’s right,’ Milo said. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’

‘But the gardens are open to everyone, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, but not you,’ he said.

‘Why
not
me?’

‘Because you should be with your family.’

‘Oh, they’re so boring!’ she said, puffing her cheeks out and sighing dramatically. ‘They do nothing all day!’

‘That can’t be true.’

‘But it
is!
’ Sabine said. ‘Dad sits around reading his boring books and Mum just sunbathes.’

‘I thought you were going to the museum?’

‘Oh, God! That was even
more
boring than sitting around the pool.’

Milo frowned. The little museum on Kethos might not be able to rival anything on the mainland but Milo was very proud of it and he objected to people who made fun of it. So it might only have two rooms but it housed a very interesting collection of coins and pottery.

‘Well, what do you want to do all day?’ he asked and then realised that he shouldn’t have.

‘I want to be with you,’ she said, her green eyes large and wide.

‘But I’m at work.’

‘There’s nobody around,’ she said, still running to keep up with him.

‘Sabine!’ he said sharply, stopping in the middle of the path so abruptly that she crashed into him. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said coyly, fluttering her obscenely long eyelashes at him and smiling prettily. She really was very attractive. She was tall for her age too and her figure was full and—

Milo stopped. She was sixteen years old and, although that might all be legal and above board, she was still a child. She might have the body of a woman but she behaved like a petulant teenager and he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. It was courting disaster.

‘Sabine,’ he tried again.

‘Yes?’ she said, tilting her head to one side and giving him her full attention.

‘You have to go.’

‘Oh, not yet!’

‘Yes, you do. I really have to get on with my work and you can’t come with me.’

She pouted at him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But say something in Greek first.’

‘What?’

‘Say something in Greek – anything! Go on!’

‘Sabine!’

‘Go on!’ she pleaded.

‘And then you’ll go?’

‘Yes,’ she promised with a nod.

Milo took a deep breath and told her – in Greek – that she was a spoilt young girl who should really know better and that he didn’t want her getting him into trouble.

‘Oh!’ she said once he’d finished. ‘That’s
so
romantic!’

He shook his head at her and then pointed towards the exit.

‘All right, I’m going,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Sabine –
no!
’ But she’d trotted off and pretended not to hear him. It was Milo’s turn to sigh. Why, oh why, couldn’t he meet a nice normal girl?