Little blue door box set, p.31
Little Blue Door Box Set, page 31
‘Yes, yes! Thank you, mou-mou!’ She threw her arms about my neck, leaving Finn’s jacket to fall to the ground. I made sure she had everything she needed and made my way back to my husband who I could only imagine had a fire twice as hot as the campfire burning in his guts.
It wasn’t until we made it back to the car that he even spoke to me. I don’t know that he was actually angry with me. It was more about his inability to take hold of the situation.
‘I don’t know why I have left her there. She lies to me and gets her own way.’
‘She promised me—’
‘Promised? How can a girl of lies promise things? No.’
‘Anton, stop! She is fourteen, almost fifteen—’
‘Yes, and might be pregnant and no wonder if she is off smoking and drinking!’
‘Stop! This is Gaia. Let her be her age. She has been through so much and she is amazing. She said she hadn’t smoked before tonight and I believe her. I told her you’d punish her tomorrow and she has accepted that. Personally, I think embarrassing her was punishment enough.’
Gaia arrived home around ten the next morning. Keres and I decided to go outside to pick lemons to make lemonade. Really, we just didn’t want to be involved in any screaming that might take place. Gaia had seemed pretty clear-headed when she came in, and I felt reasonably confident that she hadn’t drunk any more after I had left her. If she had, it couldn’t have been much. Anton had put together a long list of dreadful chores for her as well as grounding her and banning her friends from coming over for two weeks.
When Keres and I decided it was time to make our way back into the house, Gaia was sitting drinking a milkshake and reading over her long list of chores, while Anton sat next to her, watching over her. Presumably in case she had any questions. There was no shouting, no screaming. That was the main thing.
‘Pinch punch, first of the month! Kalo mina! We’re making lemonade,’ I announced, waving lemons the size of small guinea pigs at them both.
Gaia’s eyes caught mine. The corner of her mouth turned up and her cheekbones lifted the shape of her face into a heart. Anton and Gaia both declined to get involved in making the lemonade, but in doing so Gaia used the opportunity to thank me without words. To tell me she was grateful without even a whisper. Anton loved his daughter, but he wasn’t a teenage girl and being the only parent for so long sometimes seemed to bring out extremes. In some desperate attempt to find the middle ground, he would often fly off and find no ground at all. As Keres and I made lemonade, I had to explain in hushed tones what “pinch punch, first of the month” meant.
Soon Gaia was outside picking up old fruit off the ground and watering plants as part of her punishment. Keres and I had replaced Anton and Gaia at the table, sipping our triumphant lemonade and scrolling through our phones. Ant had decided to have a lie-down on the sofa after having had almost no sleep the night before. The cortisol levels in our bedroom had been through the roof all night, from worry to anger to frustration back to anxiety, then five minutes of dreams and kicking off of the bedsheets, before he would start all over again. I contorted my body into a side stretch, clicking my spine at the memory of it all.
‘Do you hear that?’ Keres tilted her head like a dog waiting for the sound to manifest again.
‘It was my spine! I didn’t realise it was that loud.’
‘No.’ She got up and started towards the back door. After a few steps, I decided I might as well follow her. I could hear something too as I got nearer to the door. Stepping out into the midday heat left me squinting and blind. The noise was coming from the fruit trees. Keres was marching ahead, then jogging. My feet were hopping every other step to try to keep up.
Hunched over like a toadstool amongst the trees was Gaia, with a bucket half full of rotten fruit and half full of vomit next to her head. She was wearing a fitted, black strappy top and her rib cage was pulsing, with every bone seemingly visible. Between murmured, muddled cries and splutters of coughing, I dropped to her side, ordering Keres to get Anton.
‘Gaia mou, how much did you drink last night, honestly?’
‘Nothing after you left. I promise.’ Her words were said into the dirt and overshadowed by the multitude of wasps hanging around the fruity, sick bucket. I began to frantically rub her back as though that would magically help, my fingers noting every bump of her spinal column.
‘It’s okay. I believe you. I believe you.’
In no time, Ant was running up to be with us and swiftly took over, scooping her up into his arms and carefully carrying her to her room, leaving me to deal with the bucket.
Chapter 18
It was a Thursday evening and Keres had gone out with Akis. I knew Anton had so much that he wanted to ask Gaia, after more of her on-and-off days of vomiting. He had tried to persuade himself that it was because she didn’t want to do all the chores, and even bulimia got called into question before being quickly dismissed as “not fitting the bill”. I knew he had been coming to the same questions and possible conclusions I had. He was too afraid to voice them, particularly to Gaia. He had gently tried to edge that way by asking if she would go for a blood test “to see what it might show up”. Gaia hadn’t been interested.
While Anton was washing off the thin layer of dust that appeared every other day on the cars, I decided it was time I went to Gaia for a chat myself.
‘Hey you. Can we talk?’ I stepped into her room. Books and papers were spread across her bed. After missing so much school right at the end of term, she’d been left with a lot to catch up on. She quickly piled them back up, put them on her desk and placed herself on the fluffy stool in front of it. I sat on her bed opposite her. I took a deep inhale and held it momentarily, not wanting to ask what I knew I had to ask. ‘I am so sorry to ask this Gaia, but I think it’s important that I do. Are you … Could you possibly be … pregnant?’
‘No, don’t be insane.’ She didn’t flinch. Her dark brows fell into thin lines pressing down on her eyes. She began to gently shake her head.
‘Okay, you’re sure? You haven’t even been near any – oh god, don’t make me say it – any sperm?’ I’m sure my whole face was pink. At least in Corfu I had a year-round tan to damp down any added colour that rose to my cheeks. I hung my head, letting my hair cover my face. This time she didn’t answer. When I looked up, her body was still facing me but her face was as red as mine and she was looking to her right. Not looking. Facing to her right, with her eyes tightly shut. Blocking me out. ‘Gaia, it’s okay. You’re almost fifteen. You and Finn have been together for a while. I understand sometimes things happen.’
She had shrunk down, both in weight and in her posture too. There wasn’t much of her to begin with and the on-and- off vomiting had left her legs gangly and bony and her high cheekbones were bordering on making her look like a Halloween skeleton. She normally sat tall and elegantly poised. Now her hands were tucked under her legs and her body was curled in on itself.
‘Nothing’s happened,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t be pregnant.’ Her teeth were gritted, but she opened her eyes and faced me again. Her olive skin was sallow; she didn’t look like the vibrant girl she had once been. I felt like I could vomit too. Anton could hardly keep himself together each time that he saw her, and whenever he squeezed her tiny body tightly I thought she might snap.
‘Come here.’ We both stood up and I held her in my arms, pressing my face into her hair. It wasn’t its usual satin threads. It hung limp and slightly greasy on her head. ‘I love you, Gaia. You’re the priority. I think maybe we should go to the doctor’s tomorrow. For a blood test.’
‘Can I ask a favour?’
‘Of course!’ I pulled back, holding her shoulders. I could feel the workings of her joints in my fingers.
‘Natalia has a book for me. It’s to help with a project we are doing together. Could you go and get it for me? Please.’
‘Of course I can! And the blood test?’
She pressed her lips together but nodded in agreement. Even she knew her sickness had gone on for too long.
I came downstairs to find Anton chatting on his phone at the dining table. I pulled out a chair, making a horrid screeching noise as I did so.
‘Who was that?’
‘It was Basil about the pool you want put in.’
‘Ooh, my wedding gift. And it’s not just me! Gaia wants one too.’
‘Yep. He will bring Michail, his son, as he will take over the business soon and so Michail oversees most bespoke jobs. He is one of Akis’s friends. They will be here tomorrow to measure and look at the position.’
‘Hmm – bespoke, hey? Sounds expensive. Ah, that reminds me. I want to talk to you about my inheritance and my mum’s old place. I need to go and get a book from Natalia that Gaia needs. Remind me when I’m home. But, more importantly than all of that though, Gaia has agreed to a blood test!’
Ant crossed himself and came round the table to kiss my head and my hands, thanking me over and over. Before he could sit back down, I tapped the table, ready to push back my chair, but Anton waved a hand and tapped his finger. Then placed himself next to me at the head of the table to face me on the corner.
‘No, no tell me the rest now. I don’t want to forget. Gaia can wait for her book.’
‘Well, it’s just … Keres is my sister, and the inheritance – at very least from my mum – was for any living heirs. But I think Mama and Papa would have wanted her to have some of theirs too.’
‘Okay. So what are you thinking?’
I hesitated for a moment, rubbing my palms along the smooth cool oak.
‘Half.’
‘You want to give a nineteen-year-old almost half of a million pounds? You do not even know her, Melodie-Mou.’
‘Please don’t be like that. I do know her. And she’s my sister. It doesn’t actually matter if I know her or not. It doesn’t even matter that she is nineteen. She is a living heir of my mother so she really is entitled to half of the house if we sell it. I know outside of that Mum didn’t have much, but why not give her an equal share of my grandparents’ money too?’
‘You were named in their will. No one else—’
‘But they didn’t know about her. Or what Mum was going through or that Keres was adopted.’ It all began to stick in my throat as though I’d accidentally swallowed superglue and it was beginning to harden. ‘I—’
‘Melodie, it is not your fault. You did not know what was happening, and Keres was lucky. It sounds like she was adopted by kind people.’
I gave a couple of quick nods, but my eyes were already on the verge of making their own swimming pool. ‘We can talk more later. I have other things I want to talk to you about when I’m home.’ With that I was up and heading towards my keys and bag. He came up and caught my hand. I hesitated, giving him just enough time to drag me back to him and settle me into his chest. The weight of his arms pulled me into the synthetic but charming smell of washing powder.
‘Just think about it, Melodie. It’s your money. I don’t care what you do with it, but please be sure. She is very young and honestly, I think you need to be careful of her. There is no rush.’
‘What does that mean? Be careful of her.’
He turned away, but I demanded he explain himself.
‘I just do not feel comfortable being alone with her. I’m being silly. Ignore me.’
‘No. What do you mean?’
‘Sometimes her lips, they linger too long on my cheek to say goodbye and … I sound silly. Just ignore me. Go, get Gaia’s book. We shall talk later.’
I left soon after.
Chapter 19
Natalia had left the book with the bartender. Which just so happened to be Nico. As soon as he saw me walking up to the bar, his smile changed to a pout and he began to shake his head. His hair was longer and shaggier than ever. He pushed it out of his eyes in such an over-exaggerated way, I had to roll mine. His arm came up at the same time and he clearly squeezed his bicep to impress anyone who was looking. I thought he was a bit of a skinny thing, cute, nice eyes, but not for me.
‘Have you come to seduce me too?’
‘Hello, Nico. May I please have Gaia’s book?’
‘No. You tell me why you cannot be more like your sister,’ he said.
I had very little patience. None of us had slept properly for ages, I’d got my period two days before and the ache of knowing I wasn’t pregnant was enough to make me snappy. Let alone everything with Gaia.
‘What are you talking about? Surely we are alike in that neither of us said yes to you.’
To this, Nico actually spat. Not intentionally, but the pop of his lips and the pah noise that shot out of him landed on the wooden bar in front of me. He laughed so hard he didn’t even notice. I just waited, with arms tightly folded across my chest.
‘I have seen Keres many, many times. Many late nights,’ he winked.
I almost wanted to poke his open eye right out. ‘What are you suggesting? I don’t have time for your lies and nonsense, Nico.’
‘I am hurt, Melo. I have not lied to you. Your sister, she is … freak.’
My eyes were shrinking into slits, narrowing down. I didn’t know what to say. Was he right? What reason would he have to lie? Anton didn’t want to be alone with her.
‘Are you winding me up, Nico? Why are you telling me this?’
He shrugged in response. His white, short-sleeved shirt, oversized on his slender frame, scrunched in response to his nonchalance. I darted my eyes about. There were no customers at the bar; they were all sat at tables with drinks and menus in their hands. I decided to sit down on one of the wooden stools. ‘What really happened?’
‘You want to know?’ He threw a tea towel over his shoulder and leant on the bar. As he leaned in, his face was only a matter of inches from mine.
I nodded.
‘I took her for dinner and she wants me, she tells me. She takes me back to my car and—’
‘Stop. That’s enough. Give me the book.’
‘You don’t look like sisters.’
‘Now, Nico.’
He reached behind him and passed me the book. I made my way between the tables towards the street and away from Nico. I stood holding the book to my chest for a moment before turning round and marching back in. ‘How many times have you … have you seen her, Nico?’
The side of his mouth turned up and he slowly turned a glass in his tea towel.
‘Jealous?’
I squeezed my eyes almost shut again and wrinkled my nose.
‘Okay, okay.’ He held the glass up as some kind of defence. ‘I think maybe five times. Mostly late at night after my work. I pick her up at your home. We drive around and …’ He bit his bottom lip and wiggled his eyebrows like a cartoon.
‘You know she is seeing Akis, don’t you?’
Now it was time for him to frown, for him to seem confused, for him to stop in his tracks. The glass he had been rotating and drying in his hands was suddenly still.
I didn’t say a thing more. I went straight home.
Gaia was asleep by the time I arrived at the house. I took the book back down the stairs and left it on the dining table. Keres was still out, I assumed with Akis, but clearly I didn’t know anything. Maybe Anton was right and I should think about the money a little more. Mum’s house was by rights half Keres’s. I couldn’t cheat her out of money, especially when she needed it much more than we did. As I went to find Anton, my phone buzzed. It was Harry:
We have a healthy son! 8lbs 4, mother and baby doing well.
I wanted to shout for Anton, but I didn’t want to wake Gaia. I ran upstairs to find him sat on our bed, with his face in his hands. I opened my mouth to tell him the news but quickly closed it along with the door. Sitting down next to him, I wrapped my arms as far around him as I could. He didn’t move as I stretched around his shoulders.
‘She’ll be okay,’ I whispered in his ear.
At last his hands dropped, knocking my arms away. He crossed himself and looked at me. He almost looked as sick as Gaia. Obviously not as thin, but his green eyes were dull like beaten stones that sat deep in his skull, and shadows fell on his face even in the light.
‘You don’t know that. She looks so small.’ He was barely audible.
The loudest sound was the clock ticking on the wall, counting the painful moments of silence. I took his left hand in mine. He wore his new wedding ring on the left, not how he had with his first wife, not the Greek way, on the right. I smoothed out the small hairs on the back of his hand with my thumbs in an attempt to comfort him in any way I could. ‘She is going for the blood test tomorrow. I think she has had a better day today too. She ate more of her chicken.’
‘Do you think she is pregnant? I think I might prefer that to the idea of her being ill,’ he said. His voice was like a thin line drawn with a ruler.
‘I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. She told me she couldn’t be, but … There was something she didn’t want to tell me. I dunno. It’s so hard to say. The blood tests will answer that one easily enough.’ I pressed my fingers into the hollow under my cheek bones, squashing and contorting my face until I let them drop to my bare knees. ‘She will be okay. It’s probably just some tummy bug thing. It’s only been a couple of weeks.’
‘You’d better be right.’ A distinct quiver appeared in his vocal cords that he had been holding back. ‘Come here,’ he said, and took my hand, moving me across to sit on his lap. I wrapped my hands around his head like a turban made of arms. We softly rocked as the clock kept ticking our time away. Eventually, I remembered the news I had for him.
‘Maria had the baby. It’s a boy,’ I whispered.
Chapter 20
