Page 38 of Summer in Greece

*

Sun streamed through the hotel’s window. Shelly, disorientated for a moment, wondered where she could be and why she lay in bed when it was clearly daytime. She blinked at her suitcase, relaxed, and gathered her thoughts. The little fish-shaped clock on the wall told her it was mid-afternoon. She would check out the next beach, go for a snorkel, eat local food, and sleep with the balcony doors open and the sound of the sea drifting in. Perfect.

She phoned work, relieved to hear Eve was managing perfectly well without her. Then, she called her dad, he didn’t answer. Right after dinner, she would find a frivolous gift for each of them. Now she felt better. A small task to complete would give her day a sense of purpose.

While peering into gift shops and cafés, Shelly became aware of local eyes following her, one of the first tourists of the season. Between a fish restaurant and a ticket office she discovered a rack of sepia postcards showing Kea as it was. Her excitement rose as she bought one of each, and a vague plan to further record her great-grandmother’s life germinated.

A short stroll along the pale sand brought her to the simple little church on a promontory dividing the bay. Under a deep cobalt sky, the blinding white chapel, surrounded by a flourish of wild asphodels bursting from the rocks, made the perfect photograph. She would dedicate at least one day solely to photography, but for now, she needed to swim, to lay the ghost of David and that terrible day. Every holiday was the same. This first swim, a pilgrimage in memory to the day she lost David.

*

She hoped the rock that the chapel stood upon would continue just as steeply under the water. A sanctuary for myriad sea creatures. Small octopus, pipe worms with their colourful chrysanthemum-type heads; fat, coral-coloured starfish, sea urchins, young sea bream and striped, colourful wrasse. Picking her spot on the pristine sand, she dropped her sundress and beach bag, pulled on her snorkel gear, and walked into the sea.

Once the water reached her thighs, she slipped on the fins. It had been so long since her last holiday, she stood for a moment, savouring her surroundings. The sun, on its descent now, sparked off the water. She took a deep breath through her snorkel tube, testing it, then dived below the surface, scudding along the seabed. The thrust of water stroking her shoulders, back, and legs. A sensation of speed, weightlessness, and adventure surrounded her. A smile hovered in her chest, then spread through her body. This underwater world was so beautiful it made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Small boulders lay scattered over patches of pale sand, crosshatched by silver lines of glinting light. The shadows of fish played across the seabed. She wondered how Mother Nature disguised them so well that they disappeared leaving only their telltale shadow on the sand below.

The bottom sloped away until she was two metres beneath the surface. She wanted to stay down, explore, but her chest tightened with the need for air. More fish appeared once she had the eye for them, picture-book perfect, congregating in shapeshifting murmurs. Swift and silent. Her heart thudded, her blood thickened, needing oxygen, she must go up, up, breathe. Half a metre of moray eel slid from under a rock. A body of pure muscle, thick as her forearm, wearing nature’s warning livery of yellow and black. Lips turned in, cheeks hollow, like an old man without his dentures. Repugnant yet hypnotising. The fixed, smiling mouth showed a hint of razor teeth, while two satanic eyes drew her. The devil in the deep blue sea.

Her head buzzed; her chest exploded with the need to breathe now. Why couldn’t she stay down longer? Feel his pain in the last moments of his life. Pay the price for her wrongdoing.

The water, so crystal clear, painfully reminded her of that terrible day when the man she loved was taken away from her, right before her eyes. Why did it happen? And why did she have to keep punishing herself like this? She had loved David so much . . . and it was only a bracelet that her mother had bought her for Christmas. In a cruel twist of fate, her mother was dead because of it. Just a piece of silver with a few poignant words engraved around the inside. Beautiful, sentimental words, but not worth the lives of all those people she loved.

Was this hateful hex destined to go on? Whose life would be destroyed next – DJ’s? After that terrible year with so much pain and loss, Shelly had found it impossible to forgive herself again. For twenty years, she had feared what might happen to anyone who came close to her heart. Now, with no notion of the danger he might be inviting upon himself, DJ wanted to come back into her life. Her precious DJ. If he knew about her past, he would want to get as far away from her as possible.

At the root of all Shelly’s heartache was that beautiful, silver bracelet.

Her memory returned to the island of Paros, and David. She recalled treading water, pulling the snorkel from her mouth and begging. ‘David, please, if you love me, try and find my bangle.’ Shelly remembered his grin – his last grin – ever. She’d slept with him for the first time, the night before. She was a grown-up now, and loving it. He was showing off too, winking at her, touching her at every opportunity – her hand, her neck, her cheek. Smiling with almost religious sincerity. David and his woman. His fins breaking the surface as his head went down. She, proud that he was doing this for her, feeling her power.

Shelly returned to now, with a flick of her fins she headed up, up . . . She’d left it too late! Her lungs screamed, her head buzzing louder and louder, her vision turning black in the corners. She broke the surface! Hauled in those first, desperate, breaths, her chest heaving painfully. Then, she floated on her back while her pulse returned to normal. Her eyes were closed as she pulled her steamed mask back, enabling hot tears to run straight into the sea – saltwater into saltwater. No matter how often she told herself it wasn’t her fault, she always knew it was. Oh David.

A few months later, she met DJ.

CHAPTER 16

GERTIE

Greek island of Kea, 1916.

UNDER AN EVER-HOTTER SUN, on a sea as flat as glass, the bailers kept bailing, but the rowers raised their oars, and yard by sneaky yard we floated on the millpond sea, never closer nor more distant from the island but drifting in the invisible grip of the current. The surgeon rummaged in his bag and firstly used cotton wool to rub a little alcohol onto my wrist. Then he brought out a syringe. For a moment my bravery wavered. I shuddered at the size of the needle, which seemed to grow larger as it came closer to my flesh. He tapped my wrist and pushed the wide-bore needle against an artery. It resisted, then quite suddenly the needle popped through my skin and I heard someone gasp. The barrel of the syringe was glass and as the bright red blood filled it, my head began to swim.

‘Deep breaths, nurse. Are you all right?’ the surgeon asked.

‘I’m only a VAD, sir. Yes, just a little lightheaded. It’s a very odd sensation.’

‘Press down on your artery while I withdraw the needle and insert it into the soldier’s vein.’ He turned to the priest. ‘Please, help her. This needs to be done quickly, before the blood starts to clot. I can’t see to them both at once.’ He took the Corporal’s arm and emptied the contents of the syringe into it. Turning back to me, he said, ‘Do you think you can manage another one?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I believe two pints are possible, are they not?’

‘I think one more syringe should be enough to maintain a stronger pulse. Your sacrifice is admirable. Tell me your name, young lady.’

Before I could reply, someone rasped, ‘Boats!’ I looked up, glad to be distracted from the wide-bore needle. People were pointing and waving at the first of several small craft chugging out towards us.

The surgeon managed to complete his task and although I felt lightheaded, it was a relief to know Perkins stood a much better chance of survival now.

‘What is that place?’ I asked the chaplain, trying to distract myself from the shocking ache in my midriff, and the painful throb of my ankle. I also avoided looking at the sea in case I saw Perkins’s missing foot floating in the flotsam. Was there no end to this nightmare?

‘As I said earlier, I believe it’s the Greek island of Kea,’ the priest said, pressing on my wrist as the surgeon withdrew another syringe full of blood.