Those Summer Nights (Corfu, Greek Island Romance) (18 page)

T
hey wound
their way down the long road, stopping at almost every stall to see what was for sale. To Imogen the whole ambience felt like a carnival. She sensed the same feeling of happiness and community spirit she’d experienced as a child. She and Harry had been part of the Amesbury Carnival when they’d lived in Wiltshire. Both on their school float dressed in outfits from the 1950s, their father was home for the weekend and her mum had made the costumes: a teddy-boy suit for Harry and a bright pink top and circular blue skirt with music notes stitched on it for her. She’d loved the way the skirt flared out when she danced. They’d travelled on the back of an Amesbury Transport trailer from the sports centre, jiving to Elvis and Bill Haley. A circuit around the town and they’d ended up at the recreation ground. The lush, green park had been covered in stalls – guess the name of the bear, tombolas, toys to buy, toffee apples and homemade cakes. She had saved her pocket money all year to spend at the carnival. Here, in Arillas’ market, it was like reliving those joyous moments, when her family had been all together.

‘There are candles,’ she said, looking to Panos. ‘I need to get some.’

She stepped across the street to the stall she’d spotted and began to look at what was on offer.

‘
Kalimera
,’ she greeted the lady behind the counter.

‘
Kalimera
,’ she replied. ‘English, yes?’

Imogen smiled. ‘Is it that obvious?’

The woman smiled. ‘It is nice you try to speak Greek.’

Imogen picked up a pillar candle and held it to her nose. A heavy waft of mint and lavender hit her senses.

‘That’s nice,’ she remarked, setting it down. ‘What other fragrances do you do?’

‘Cinnamon and apple, gingerbread, olive and camomile, honey and lemon…’

‘Oh, honey and lemon,’ Imogen said excitedly. ‘Could I smell that one?’

‘Of course,’ the lady said. ‘Would you like pillar candles, votives or tea lights?’

‘Tea lights, I think.’

Imogen watched her fetch a box before offering it out to her. She lifted it to her nostrils and the scent filled her mind as well as her nose. It was a fresh hit of citrus coupled with the warm, comforting sweet smell of fresh honey.

‘That’s so…’ Imogen stated. She didn’t have the words for how good it smelled. She turned to Panos and gave the box over to him. ‘Tell me what you think.’

She watched as he took the box and lifted its open flap to his nose. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

A
s the combination
of honey and lemon hit him he was plunged back to a moment in time. His mother screaming for help, his father lying on the floor of the lounge. Pulled from the honey cake and fresh lemonade he was eating under the shade of the olive tree in their garden by his mother’s cries. He’d dropped his plate and run but there was nothing he could do. It had been too late.

He opened his eyes and passed the box back to Imogen. ‘How about the olive and camomile?’ he suggested. ‘Not too overpowering.’

‘Don’t you like this one?’ she asked.

He shook his head but recovered quickly. ‘It is not to my taste. But, remember, as you keep telling me, it is not my restaurant.’

She smiled then. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t.’ She handed the box back to lady. ‘Thank you. Can we come back a little later?’

‘Of course. No problem.’

Had she caught his reaction to the scent? The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. But that’s what tradition and community did, wasn’t it? Brought back memories. Good and bad. Just like Imogen had said.

‘I think I’m ready for that
gyros
now,’ she said, looking up at him.

G
yros
was the ultimate kebab
. Gorgeous strips of meat stuffed into a pitta bread with fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber drizzled in chilli sauce or
tzatziki
.

Imogen had plumped for the
tzatziki
and it was drizzling down her chin as they walked along the promenade. She followed Panos’ lead and stepped down onto the pine-coloured sand. The ocean, rumbling toward shore in hefty waves for a July day, was on their right, skirted by a craggy headland hanging out into the sea. Its crumbling, pale rocks, coated on top by a slice of greenery, reminded Imogen of a cake. Layers and layers of biscuit-coloured stone made up the sponge, topped with spinach-hued shrubbery as the icing. The flat terrain of the beach was the perfect contrast to the rugged rock jutting out across it.

‘This is so good,’ she remarked to Panos, a slight breeze blowing through her hair.

He had been quiet since he’d smelled the candles. She had watched his expression as he breathed in the lemon-and-honey scent and she had seen something shift. The movement of his eyes under heavy lids had been like he was reliving something. He’d calmly said he wasn’t keen on the fragrance but she thought there was probably more to it than that.

‘I miss this,’ he admitted. ‘Corfu still makes the best
gyros
.’

‘Where do you usually live?’ she asked. ‘The address on that business card of yours?’

‘Yes, Rethymnon, Crete,’ he answered. ‘I have a villa there.’

‘You live alone?’ She grimaced slightly at her own question and felt the need to say more. ‘I mean, Greeks all have big families, right?’

‘I live alone,’ he said.

‘You’ve been married?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘So you don’t have any children or anything?’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘Do you? Have children?’

Imogen smiled. ‘Only Harry. He’s quite enough at the moment.’

‘But one day you will,’ Panos said with confidence.

She looked up at him, watching him eat his
gyros
. The chiselled jaw moving with every chewing motion, his dark hair falling forward a little. There was no denying the fact she found him ridiculously attractive, more attractive than she’d found anyone in… Had it really been years? She swallowed as a remnant of
tzatziki
soured her throat. This was why she was acting like this – letting a man she didn’t know very well kiss her, coming here, high on the romance and beauty of this island. She was horribly out of practice.

‘Do you think you will have children?’ she asked him. ‘You know, one day, in the future?’ A blush hit her cheeks as she thought about
him
in the act of making children.
With her.

‘Children complicate things,’ he stated.

She’d barely managed to imagine what their children might look like when the bubble burst. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I work hard running my business,’ he reminded. ‘There is no time for children.’

‘But… you won’t work forever. Will you?’

His eyes met hers. ‘You have just bought a restaurant,’ he said. ‘To make this a success you are going to have to spend most of your life running it.’

‘
I
haven’t bought it,’ she reminded. ‘Harry has.’

‘And you are here with him.’

‘Only for a few weeks,’ she stated. ‘A little less than two actually.’

‘What?’

She willed moisture into her mouth as reality hit. ‘I have a job at home and a house. My mum and Janie wanted me to come here to make sure Harry realised what a mistake he was making and get him to come home,’ she said.

‘And now?’ Panos asked.

‘And now I know I’m going to help him open it up but beyond that… Corfu was never in my life plans.’

‘What job do you have?’

Thoughts of gut-buster breakfasts, Old Joe coughing and Mrs Green’s bag of wool flashed into her mind. ‘I’m in catering.’

‘A restaurant,’ he said. ‘So, it is
you
that plans a chain. UK, Greece, where next?’

She shook her head, laughing. ‘No, it’s not like that at all.’ It was time to come clean about her food and catering knowledge. ‘I’m just a waitress. I mean I
can
cook. I
used
to cook, for fun… for friends… but I haven’t done anything for ages.’

‘Just a waitress,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Imogen, in my experience they are some of the hardest-working people there are.’

‘I
do
work hard,’ she admitted. ‘And I’m studying for an NVQ, a qualification in hospitality.’ She pulled a piece of meat from her pitta bread and slipped it into her mouth. ‘I hoped a long time ago to get into the hotel business. I applied a few months ago to the Wyatt Hotel Group. For one of their training programmes, you know, starting at the bottom and working my way up.’

‘Hotels,’ Panos breathed, as if the word was dirty.

‘My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur like your father. But all his stories about the places he stayed, the Egyptian cotton and the stargazer lilies, the miniature soaps and room service… I thought working somewhere like that would be the best job in the world.’ She smiled. ‘Plus there’s the pens.’

‘The pens?’ He looked quizzical.

‘My dad used to bring me a hotel pen from every place he stayed. I have hundreds of them,’ Imogen admitted. She scooped her free hand into her yellow handbag and began to filter through the contents. Within seconds she was pulling out ballpoint after ballpoint. ‘This one’s from Tunisia. See, it has the Tunisian flag and the coat of arms.’ She passed it to Panos and delved in for another. ‘This one is one of my favourites. The Metropole Hotel in Brussels, Belgium. It’s chocolate-coloured with gold lettering. It makes me think of truffles,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I can even smell them.’

He smiled, shaking his head as he took the pen from her hand and looked at it.

‘I know they’re just pens and it’s a bit silly to keep them all like trophies but… my dad worked all the time so we could have a better life and really all we wanted was more time with him.’

He nodded, passing back the pens to her. ‘I can relate to that.’

‘Which is why you can’t think about sharing your life with children,’ Imogen guessed. ‘Because you don’t want to put them in the position you were in, missing your father when he was running hotels.’

He sighed. ‘It isn’t about sharing my life with children. It’s sharing anything with anybody.’

‘I see,’ she stated, nodding her head. ‘So you think it would be easier to tear up the town and alienate everyone around you than try and make a reconnection?’

P
anos stepped
up onto the concrete groyne that protruded out into the ocean and held out his hand to her. She accepted it and, with a lunge forward, joined him on the structure. There were a few fisherman casting their rods out into the ocean, the sea lapping back and forth against the bricks.

‘Tearing down the town was always on my mind,’ he admitted. ‘But I really came to see my grandmother.’

The fact that he had admitted there was sentiment involved weighed heavy. What was he doing sharing that fact with Imogen when he barely wanted to share it with his own conscience?

He walked on, looking into the water breaking at the base of the jetty. ‘I haven’t been back to Corfu for a while.’ He inhaled the salty air. ‘I did not know she had given up the restaurant.’

‘You didn’t even know it was for sale?’ Imogen asked him.

‘No.’ His eyes went to the rocky islands out in the sea. ‘But that was
my
fault, not hers. I am not good at keeping touch.’

‘You’re too busy working,’ Imogen said. ‘I’m sensing a theme here.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘So, what about your mother? Do you keep in touch with her at all? Or, what about brothers and sisters?’

It was an innocent question he should have known was coming. He shook his head again. ‘No, no brothers or sisters.’ Was that answer going to be enough for her?

‘But you’re close to Risto?’

‘Yes, he was always like a brother to me.’

‘Was?’

‘I have not kept in touch with anyone, Imogen.’ He sighed. ‘And I should have. Risto has been out of work for a long time. I didn’t realise Corfu was feeling the burn of the desperate times in Greece like on the mainland.’

A silence fell between them as they reached the bench at the end of the breakwater, a chunky wooden seat set into the stone, facing the water.

‘So, when did you leave? How old were you when you started your business?’ Imogen asked, moving to sit down.

‘Twenty,’ he stated. ‘I left Corfu when I was sixteen, determined to make a success of my life.’ He sat next to her, his eyes still directed at the sea and the sunlight making the crests of the waves look like strings of bright diamonds. ‘I moved from Rhodes to Crete, working bars and clubs and going from barman to bookkeeper. Then one day I met a man who changed my life.’

‘Who?’

‘His name was Yiannis and he owned a property business in Crete. He taught me everything I know about business.’

Yiannis had been his mentor and father figure. He had taken Panos under his wing and given him the benefit of all his experience in a working masterclass. The man had opened up his business brain and his home to an eighteen-year-old looking to expand his horizons and make the best of himself.

‘I worked with Yiannis for two years and then it was time for me to stand on my own two feet. ’ He let a hand rub at the wood of the bench. ‘I set up my own business, using the skills Yiannis taught me.’

‘He sounds like a lovely man who was very generous with his time.’

‘He was. I owe him everything.’

‘Do you keep in touch with him?’ Imogen asked, a smile on her lips.

He smiled back. ‘When we are both not too busy working.’

‘You think you have forever,’ Imogen said, ‘that’s the real problem. My mum went through a lot when my dad died. Suddenly working two jobs, making sure we had everything we needed for school, then college for Harry… I missed my dad terribly but practically, physically and emotionally, she was the one who always had to be there for us. And she was.’

He swallowed. He hadn’t given his mother much of a chance to be there for him. He had run away. Perhaps he should have thought more about being there for her instead of leaving Elpida to pick up the pieces.

‘
I
mogen
, I have never been in this position before,’ Panos said, reaching for her hand. Light as a feather, he spiralled a figure of eight over her skin. His touch delivered sensuous sparks of longing shooting around her body in every which way.