The Reluctant Baker (The Greek Village Collection Book 10) (14 page)

He moves closer, their arms touching. The village lays sleepy under the blanket of midday heat, and beyond, the land shimmers in the sun but all he can see is Ellie. His arm around her shoulders, his fingers caressing her hair, so warm, so alive.

He is not sure who makes the move first, but her lips are on his again. Her face is in his hands, but her lips are moving fast. Are they eager or are they scared? Pulling away to look in her eyes, he seeks her hands with his own and holds her still. She gets the message. Letting go, she moves slower, as he does. Each moth-like touch is a sharing of tenderness, the delicacy of respect, the gentleness of love. He wants to know her, to give to her but there is no final aim, no conclusive place to which he wants to get. He is fulfilled exactly where he is; it is enough to hold her. That is all the fireworks he desires.

They lay side by side. The heat of the day is making him sleepy and he drifts. With his eyes closed, all he can trust to be real is the sensation of touch, so he explores. His hands, his lips, her hand, her lips, the one becomes the other. His shirt is gone, her shoes kicked off, and he is lost, absorbed into her as she is into him. He offers his care, his strength, his honesty, his truth. In return, she becomes softer, like liquid running warmly through his hands, malleable to his every touch, so precious he feels honoured. Her dress lies amongst the pine needles, his trousers kicked by his shoes, the touch of their skin sending him to fly with the gods, her breath in his ear a thousand secrets of all the past lives they must have lived together. He wants to offer her more, offer all of himself.

With slow movements, they shift and change until, with no expectation or effort, they fuse and at the moment of fusion they freeze, looking into each other’s eyes. He holds her gaze to reassure himself that this is what she wants, and the look she returns is asking, no, seeking affirmation that he is playing no game.

‘My love,
agapi mou
,’ is all he can find to say to express how deep his feelings run and then she moves and he recalls that they are one, the rhythm of life joining them, the mist in his mind swirling. He is on fire. He was born for this moment. The fireworks are there, the lightning, the soaring, the quickening, the anticipation, and then, then he is lost and she is there with him.

A dog barks. Its lonely sound echoes throughout the village. It receives no reply and the cicadas dominate. Seven years cicadas spend in the ground, as grubs, living no life at all, no sun, no warmth, no sight, just existing. That was him. A grub in the ground, just existing. Then the cicada grubs emerge from the ground and they climb, they climb anything they can find, the higher the better, up grass stalks, trees, walls, anything that takes them upwards to the light and there they cast off their old skins, their casings. The eyes uncover, and they can see; their new wings uncurl and they can fly. They are truly alive.

He too can see now; he too has wings now. Like the singing, winged cicada, he is ready to fly. But unlike the cicada, poor thing, he does not only have a few brief days of summer to find his love and create their children. They, poor ugly bugs, have a few days and then life is snuffed out. That’s all the time the cicadas are allotted, then they fall from the trees, they even fall mid-flight. There is no reprieve. But he can fly for decades. They have years to create their children; there is no hurry. There is no need to sing at the top of his voice to find his mate. She is here. But he wants to sing anyway. He wants to shout. To let the world know that he and Ellie have met.

He looks over to her. She is staring at the sky with a smile that reaches her eyes.

‘Marry me,’ Loukas whispers.

She
laughs, her back arching as she does so. Twisting on her side, she rests her head on her elbow and her merriment fades when she meets his eye.

‘You’re serious?’ she asks.

‘I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Please give me that chance. I have no ring to offer you, but that is just symbolism. My heart is yours.’ Surely she can see his sincerity; surely she must know the depths of his feelings. Otherwise what has just happened wouldn’t have happened. She must realise that.

She scrabbles for her dress and wriggles into it without standing up. She seems cross. But why? She feels the same. He knows she does.

‘Oh Loukas.’ Her voice is gruff with traces of anger. She is on her feet and moving. Scrabbling for his trousers, he stands too, and, jumping to get his feet down the leg holes, he struggles to get them on quickly. He is too slow. Ellie has slipped on her shoes and is running. His shoes are not so easy; the laces will not pull open. He watches her turn into the lane as he gets the first shoe on and, hopping, he tries to get the other one on and run after her at the same time. The pine needles stab at his feet. His toe hits a rock.

‘
Agamisou
!’ he hisses and falls back, sitting on the springy pine needles, and tears open the shoe, pulling it on. He is up, sees his shirt where he left it, darts back and grabs it and then he is running in earnest to catch up with her.

She is not in the lane. He pulls on his shirt as he is moving. Gravity speeds him to the village centre. She is not in the square. There are voices at Stella’s eatery. Maybe she is there. He can ask if they have seen her. If not, he will head to the hotel.

Gasping for breath, hand on knees, he stops in the doorway of the grill.

‘Loukas? What happened? Mitsos asks.

‘Have you seen Ellie, Mitsos? You know, the foreign girl…’

‘Yes, last night she was…’

‘No. I mean today. Just now?’

‘Calm yourself, my boy. You have lost her?’

‘I was just with her and…’

‘And how far can someone go? A stranger to the village has not so many choices. Relax, my friend. Have a beer. She will come back or you will find her, but I can guarantee one or the other will happen before nightfall. This is not a big place.’ With this, he puts the grill tongs down and opens the fridge door.

‘No, no beer. I just need to find her.’

‘Why? What’s happened? Is she in trouble? She shouldn’t be here without her husband. He should be here to take care of her. I told Stella…’ He does not finish his sentence.

‘What?’ Loukas straightens up, getting his breath back, a pain over his eyes. ‘I am talking about the English girl. You know, the girl who was here when I delivered the bread yesterday? Ellie.’

‘Yes.’ Mitsos takes a deep drink of the beer as Loukas tries to make sense of what is being said.

‘She is not married,’ Loukas states and watches Mitsos, who lowers the beer slowly, making sure he does not meet Loukas’ gaze. ‘Is she?’ Loukas is feeling ever so slightly sick.

‘Well, now I am not so sure. It is not for me to say really, but I was not aware that it was a secret. Stella is the one who spoke to her. By email, I mean. But I was given to understand that she was married to a teacher.’

He is going to be sick. His mouth seems to be producing salt; the glands at the back by his tongue pulsate. His stomach is turning. Mitsos puts down the beer and Loukas grabs at it and drinks deeply. The nausea subsides a little.

‘Loukas my friend, can I help? What is it?’ Mitsos’ kindness is ever near the surface, but Loukas runs. Across the square, he sees the old woman, his mother-in-law, coming out of the corner shop. She hails him and waves for him to stop but he has no time now. Pelting past the church, he ducks into the olive grove and heads along the line where olives meet orange trees. There is a smell of goat, but there is no one around. Past old Costas’ mud-brick barn, which is being renovated, the outside walls freshly plastered. Even in his manic rush, in some steady and quiet part of his mind, he recalls that once finished, it will be for rent. The trees pass in a blur. The blue of the sea shows between the trunks and then he is out into the forecourt of the hotel.

Now, which room would have the balcony she was sitting on last night? He dashes through reception.

‘Loukas?’ Sarah stands, puts the phone down, and comes from behind her desk but he is gone, down a dimly lit, air-conditioned, noise-muffled corridor.

All the doors look the same.

The swing doors behind him open. Sarah is following.

‘Which one is Ellie’s?’ Loukas demands.

‘What? What’s happened?’ Sarah is trotting towards him.

‘Which one?’

‘That one, but she is not there.’

Loukas stops, deflated. He has no idea where to try next.

‘Loukas, what is it?’ She follows him as he marches back to reception.

‘Where’s Stella?’

‘I think she is in the courtyard with Ellie.’

He knows it is rude to push past Sarah. She has done nothing, but she stands in the direction he needs to go. Three long strides and he swings into the courtyard.

Ellie has a hanky pressed to her eyes. Stella’s arm is around her. Sarah comes to a halt behind him.

‘You’re married!’ Loukas barks.

Ellie opens her mouth, takes a breath and wails like a child. Stella rubs her back, making hushing noises.

‘And you knew!’ he directs at Stella. He has never heard such venom in his voice. He does not recognise himself.

‘Loukas, no one tried to deceive you.’ Stella begins in Greek. ‘I only knew because I asked if she wanted a double room and she said…’

Loukas interrupts her. ‘She did.’ He points at Ellie. ‘She knows how I feel but she did not tell me,’ he replies in English. Ellie must hear every word of what he is suffering.

A guest, sitting in a wicker chair in the corner, folds his newspaper as noiselessly as he can and, standing, sidles around the courtyard to make his exit. He mutters ‘Sorry’ when his arms touches Loukas’ as he goes through the arch. Somewhere in a different part of Loukas’ brain, a part that has not been scrambled with his life being torn upside down, he makes a mental judgement that the guest must be English. Yes, the English, polite for the insignificant things and silent on the important ones. He slaps his hand on the side of his thigh. One minute his life is complete, his future holds promise, loneliness gone, and the next he is condemned back to making bread for in-laws of a wife he never truly loved, who he was married to for less than sixth months. Life cannot be that unfair. It just cannot.

Ellie does not look up at him. Her face remains in her handkerchief on her knee.

‘Loukas.’ Stella stands. ‘This is not the time and certainly not the place. Come, let us go to my office. We will have coffee. We can discuss.’ Again in Greek, as if that is going to help, as if that appeals to the finer side of him.

‘I don’t want coffee. Coffee is not the answer. She is the answer.’ He steadfastly keeps speaking English and points.

‘Then let us go and discuss how that is possible.’ Stella is calm.

‘I would not have unleashed my feelings without good reason to believe they were returned. I would not have even been sure that feelings were there without her direct encouragement.’ He cannot stop shouting. Stella has a hand on each of his arms. She is trying to turn him, away from Ellie, out of the courtyard.

He shakes her off.

‘Is that what you want, Ellie? For Stella to talk for you?’

Her head remains down.

‘Stella, I told you.’ Loukas addresses his friend. His rage feels as if it will explode out of him at any moment. ‘I told you how I felt and you said nothing.’

That’s it! He has had it with them all. All of them are lying and manipulating and secretive and they don’t care how much he has been hurt. Natasha may have not been fireworks but at least she was honest. The old woman may be grumpy and mean-spirited, but at least she speaks out and tells nothing but her truth, even if she is wrong.

But maybe she isn’t wrong. Maybe her feelings about Stella are justified.

With the hardest look he can manage, he sneers at Ellie and sucks his teeth at Stella. Turning on his heels, he pushes pass Sarah again and strides to the front doors and disappears into the olive grove.

Ellie wails afresh.

‘Come, come on.’ Stella hooks Ellie under the arm and lifts her to her feet. Ellie complies; there is nothing else she can do. Stella leads her out of the courtyard and into the small conference room that is used for the Greek classes. It is the most soundproofed room Stella can think of, and she must think of her other guests even though her heart bleeds for the young couple. Ellie is leaning on her, sobbing, and Stella guides her to a chair. Sarah has followed them and shuts the door behind her.

‘Ellie, my dear,’ Sarah begins and finishes by putting her arm around her.

‘I told him, I told him what happened. He knows.’ Ellie’s words come between sobs.

The reception phone rings and Sarah rushes out.

Stella continues to hold Ellie, rock her, stroke her hair. Presently Sarah lets herself back in.

‘That was Mitsos,’ she whispers ‘He said that he thought Loukas was on his way here, that he seemed very upset. Mitsos said he wanted to tell you that he told Loukas that Ellie was married and that he was sorry. He didn’t know it was a secret.’

Stella rolls her eyes.

‘Ellie, did you actually tell Loukas you were married at any point?’ Stella asks as gently as she can.

‘Yes, no, not really, but I told him what happened in the store cupboard.’

Sarah looks at Stella, enquiry on her face. Stella shakes her head, lifts her shoulders and lets them drop.

‘But did you tell him that you are married?’ Stella asks.

‘No.’ Another wail. The reception bell rings and Sarah leaves them again. ‘I told him what was in my heart, Stella. I told him all the truths that felt real. The marriage is like a dream, there is no reality to it. We are in a village I don’t really know, with no friends and a man I hardly know who comes home to eat and then he goes back out, comes back, and falls asleep before I have brushed my teeth.’

From her own experience, Stella knows it is best to soothe, agree, and soothe some more. Sarah returns.

‘Come,’ Stella beckons her in. She would not admit it but she is beginning to struggle with the cultural differences between her and Ellie.

Ellie’s distress is bringing back memories of her own. As a married woman, she would never holiday alone, even in her first marriage. She did as was expected, kept up appearances. Even when things got as bad as they did between her and Stavros, she still caused no friction until the point when… She cannot think of that now. Sarah will understand more and her own children must be older than Ellie is now. Suddenly Stella’s bottom lip quivers.

‘There, there.’ Sarah squats by Ellie.

‘My marriage was a sham, to stop him getting the sack.’ Ellie snivels.

‘Oh my,’ Sarah says.

‘Her teacher,’ Stella explains.

‘Oh my god.’ Sarah’s hand goes to her mouth. ‘Oh you poor dear.’ Her arm is around Ellie. The reception phone rings, and it is Stella who rushes to answer it this time. When she returns, Ellie and Sarah have not moved.

‘Mitsos just rang again,’ Stella whispers. ‘He just saw Loukas go into the bakery, turn out the customers, and close the door on them.’

Ellie wails.

Stella and Sarah look at Ellie, who looks back up with tears running down her cheeks.

‘What! What? What does everyone want of me?’ She is crying hysterically. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘So you are back, are you?’ the old woman says. ‘Kicking customers out and hiding from the world. Kyria Maria from opposite the church saw you in town yesterday with your tramp, as if you were never married. Poor Natasha will turn in her grave.’

‘Hush, woman!’ the old man says. ‘Son, are you alright?’

‘The old woman was right: right about Stella, right about the foreign girl, and you were right about women. To hell with them all.’ His boots reverberate on the wooden steps as he stomps up to his room. The sound of his door slamming echoes through the building and a picture of Natasha’s grandmother shifts to hang at an angle.