My Map of You (10 page)

The pastel sky outside bled slowly into an inky blackness and the eager moon raced up to join the stars. As the light of the day vanished, the crickets ceased their incessant chorus, until the only sound came from the gentle lapping of the ocean.

Far below where Holly sat, her brow furrowed in concentration and her bare toes resting lightly on the foot pedal of the sewing machine, an egg cracked open beneath the damp sand and a baby turtle wriggled free. He was all alone, but not frightened. He knew what he had to do. Discarding the sticky pieces of his first home, he made his way to the surface and paused to bathe for a moment in the comforting light of the moon. Leaving barely a mark on the sand as he went, the tiny, soft-shelled creature slithered clumsily down to the water and plunged fearlessly into his future.

Tuesday, 6 November 1984

Hello Sandy.

I wasn't sure whether or not to send this, but I thought you'd probably want to know that I was still alive at the very least. You always have been the sensible one, the sweeter one, the better one. I was planning to head to Australia, but I haven't made it quite that far yet. I met a man – he's called Nic – and I'm just staying with him at the moment. Are you still cross with me? I miss you so much that I swear I can feel it burning inside my chest. You're the only person in my life that I care about – I just wanted you to know that. I hope the storms haven't been too bad on the island. I keep picturing us running down the beach in the rain. I wish we still were. Please write back and tell me your news. My address is below. I love you.

Jen Bear xxx

Holly's
mobile phone was ringing. Propping herself up on one elbow, she cursed herself for leaving it right next to the bed. Peering at the screen as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes, she took a deep breath and forced herself to smile.

‘Hi, darling!'

‘Hello, poppet – I didn't wake you, did I?' Poppet? That was a new one. Holly gritted her teeth.

‘Not at all,' she told him. ‘I was just about to get in the shower.'

In reality, she'd only put her head down three hours ago after sitting up sewing until the early hours. The last thing she wanted to do was be awake, especially as she'd been finding it increasingly easy to sleep since she'd been here on the island. Zakynthos: one, Insomnia Troll: nil. Rupert was rabbiting on about some work deal he'd done and Holly felt her mind glazing over.

‘Did you hear that, darling?'

‘Sorry, sweetie – it's not the best connection this end.' It was a lie, of course; she could hear him perfectly well.

‘This new client I've secured – he's worth over ten million for the business. I'm getting a nice bonus out of it.'

‘Wow! Babe, that's great news. Well done you.' Holly wondered if she sounded as bored as she felt. Poor Rupert. Here he was calling her to share his exciting news, and she couldn't even be bothered to listen. She must be more
tired than she thought. She was always grumpy when she got overtired.

‘Are you okay?' Rupert sounded concerned. ‘You don't sound like your normal happy self.'

Her normal
happy
self?

‘I'm fine,' she replied automatically. ‘It's just been a bit weird, you know, all this.'

‘You poor thing,' he said. There was genuine concern in his voice, which made Holly feel even worse. ‘I miss you,' he added, and she felt her bad mood retreating.

‘I miss you too,' she whispered, realising as she said it that she actually did. She knew who to be when Rupert was with her. Out here, it felt dangerously like another version of herself was on the verge of making a reappearance. ‘I really do miss you,' she added. ‘Very much.'

‘I know what you mean,' he admitted. ‘It's only been a few days, but you feel so far away from me.'

Given that he spent a lot of time abroad with work, this revelation came as quite a surprise to Holly. He'd never talked about missing her so much before. Perhaps it was coming back to his flat alone every night that was getting to him.

‘It's only two weeks,' she told him now. ‘Less than two weeks! And I'll be nice and tanned for you when I get back.'

‘I don't care about a tan; I just want you back. And you didn't call me last night.' He was beginning to sound a bit like a grumpy toddler now.

‘You should go, before you're late for work,' she said, abandoning all hopes of a lie-in and swinging her legs out from under the sheet.

‘Okay, darling.' He still sounded sulky. ‘Will you remember to call me later?'

She promised that she would, obediently returning his ‘I love you' before ending the call.

Holly sat in silence staring at the phone in her hand. Why was she being such a cow to poor Rupert? She'd only been away from London for a few days, but she already felt as if her life had changed. Being here in Zakynthos had awakened something in her – she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was yet, but there had definitely been a shift. She was in an environment that should, by all accounts, feel completely alien to her, but instead she found herself feeling more relaxed here than she could ever remember feeling back in England. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. She must have sunstroke or something – the heat was sending her doolally.

Stretching her arms up over her head and groaning as her muscles creaked into life, Holly let her eyes roam the room. The spare bedroom had little in the way of clutter, but as her gaze reached the wardrobe nestled in the far corner, Holly spotted what looked like a folded piece of paper on the top of it. Intrigued, she fetched the stool from her aunt's bedroom next door and stood on it to take a closer look. Age had curled the corners of the paper and turned them yellow, but when she unfolded it, she almost fell off the stool in surprise.

‘Jenny and Sandy's Secret Map' was written across the top in red biro, and underneath was a very clumsily drawn map of Zakynthos. Whoever had drawn it had labelled a lot of silly landmarks along the scribbled coastline, including ‘field that always smells of poo', ‘rock that looks like dog face' and ‘sexy barman'. Some village names had also been added in black pen, clearly by someone else, and
next to a place called Porto Limnionas, someone had drawn a large heart. At the northern tip of the drawing, with a big star helpfully drawn next to it, was a place simply labelled ‘our secret beach'.

Holly stepped down from the stool, the map in her hand and her heart racing. Had her aunt left this map here for her to find? She didn't care, but she did know that she wanted to visit every single place that Jenny and Sandra had marked on it. She wanted to go everywhere – she wanted to swim in the same sea, lay her towel on the same sand and gaze out at the same views. Racing down the stairs, she snatched up her guidebook and flicked through it until she found the map, then ran her finger around the outline of the island, picking out the names that matched those on the drawing.

As far as she could tell, her mum and Sandra's ‘secret beach' was close to a place called Korithi, which was a very long way indeed from Lithakia. On her moped and with very limited local knowledge, Holly guessed it would take her hours to get all the way up there. Plus, who was to say that she'd even be able to find this beach when she got there?

For a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on yet, that was the one place marked on the map that she wanted to see the most, but she would really need a car to get there. Correction, she would need someone who could drive a car. Maybe Annie would run her up there. She decided that she would pop down to the bar later and ask, but for now, it was time to have some breakfast while she took a better look at this new treasure.

By the time Holly opened the back door, a chair awkwardly hooked over one arm and a plate of breakfast and the map in the other hand, it was almost 10 a.m. The patio stones were already beginning to warm beneath her feet, and in the distance she could see the sunlight dancing wildly on the surface of the sea.

Arranging the chair so she was sitting with her back to the house, Holly balanced her plate across her lap and started to devour the slices of tomato that she'd just cut up. They were so much sweeter and juicier here, like an entirely different species to the chalky ones she bought in the supermarkets back home, and Holly had drizzled some honey over the top and seasoned them with black pepper. If anyone could see her, they'd probably think she was disgusting and quite possibly mad, but she loved the way the oozy honey lifted the sweetness of the plump fruit and the sharp pepper kept the whole combination from becoming too much.

Once she'd finished, she put the plate on the floor and tore the lid off her yoghurt. There was a light breeze this morning, which was lifting the ends of her just-washed hair and gently rustling the trees. Lost in her own sleepy thoughts, she didn't hear Aidan's back door open, but a few seconds later she was almost knocked sideways by something very hairy and
very
slobbery.

‘PHELAN! I said WAIT!'

It only took Aidan a few seconds to leap over the small hedge and reach Holly, but he wasn't in time to save her yoghurt. Phelan, his apparently deaf red setter, was now happily licking it up from where it had exploded down Holly's leg.

‘I am so sorry,' he said, hooking his fingers through Phelan's collar and giving it a determined yank.

Holly, who had spent the past few moments running a full gauntlet of emotions from intense shock to extreme amusement, could only look down at her yoghurt-splattered shins and laugh.

‘It's okay,' she finally managed. ‘It wasn't that nice anyway.'

‘Wait there a sec, will you?' Aidan had galloped back to his own house, leaving Holly to stare after him in bemusement. Phelan, finding himself released once again, shuffled forward to pinch the upturned yoghurt pot, which he held neatly between his paws and started to lick.

‘Well, aren't you something?' Holly told him.

Phelan stopped licking and flashed her a wet, yoghurty grin, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in the manner of a friendly lunatic.

By the time Holly had been into the kitchen to sponge her sticky shins, Aidan had returned – and he'd brought her a gift.

‘It's just an orange,' he said, handing it over.

‘Thanks.' Holly sneaked a look at him. ‘But I know what an orange is.'

‘Smart-arse.' Aidan squinted at her through his mess of black hair. He was wearing a pale blue shirt today and faded yellow shorts. There were freckles on his lower arms and across his nose, and one of his toenails was black.

‘I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you yesterday,' Holly was amazed to hear herself tell him. ‘I had no right to bite your head off like that.'

‘You are a bit prickly, I'll give you that,' he grinned. ‘Is that how you got your name, like?'

‘Now who's being a smart-arse?'

They both looked over to where Phelan, yoghurt completely devoured, was rolling around on his back in the dust.

‘He's brilliant,' Holly smiled. ‘How long have you had him?'

‘He's a naughty little fecker, but I do love the little shite.' Aidan crouched down so he could rub the dog's exposed tummy. ‘I found him wandering the streets down in the town about two years ago now. He was in a right old state. It happens here a lot, unfortunately. The Greeks are a bit funny about giving their pets the snip, so they always end up with a load of puppies nobody wants.'

Holly looked over at the floppy, beaming, ridiculous dog. ‘Well, he looks a lot happier than any animal I've ever seen – you must be doing a good job.'

‘Nah, he's just a soppy eejit.'

‘So, you've lived here for a while, then?' Holly asked. She was finding it hard to meet his eyes. There was something deeply unnerving about the way he seemed to look right into her head. If she caught his eye, she was irrationally afraid that he'd be able to read her mind. Instead she let her eyes rest on his lips, which were light pink and smattered with a trace of his characteristic freckles.

‘Oh, a few years, on and off,' he told her, fiddling with his tatty flip-flop. ‘I used to come here as a teenager too. My mum always loved it over here, so when she moved away I took over the house.'

‘Where did she go? Back home to Ireland?' Holly asked,
before adding, ‘Sorry … I mean, it's none of my business.'

‘Don't worry,' he looked at her sideways. ‘She moved over to Kefalonia, actually. It's the closest island to this one.' There was a hint of something cold in his tone, but Holly didn't feel as if it was directed at her. Clearly the topic of his mum was a sore subject for Aidan.

‘Have you managed to see much of the island yet?' he asked, neatly changing the subject.

Glad to have an easy question to answer, Holly told him all about her walk down to Kalamaki Beach the previous day, and how she'd befriended Nikos and secured her moped. Aidan laughed as she explained about Nikos' rickety bike that belched black smoke and was held together with bits of tape.

‘Sounds exactly like one I had,' he said, smiling at some personal memory. ‘Mum hated me going out on that thing, but it was the best way to pick up chicks down in Laganas.'

Holly pulled a face.

‘Hey! Don't give me that look – it didn't take you long to clamber behind that Nikos fella, now did it?'

Holly was about to retort that she already had a boyfriend, thank you very much, but something stopped her. She was aware of a slight charge developing in the air between them and hurriedly crossed her legs in the opposite direction.

‘I'd love to see more of the island,' she said, shyly unfolding the map she'd found and laying it across her legs so he could see. ‘Although I'm not sure I'd ever get to half these places on that thing parked out front.'

Aidan openly laughed as he read some of the descriptions. It was a lovely, warm sound – and very infectious.

‘Listen,' he paused for a second. ‘If you can keep the day after tomorrow and the next few days after that free, then I can help you find a few of these places.'

‘Oh, I didn't mean to hint.' Holly was mortified. ‘I wouldn't want to eat into your free time.'

‘Nonsense!' Aidan held up a freckled hand. ‘Shut your trap, woman. I insist.'

Holly ignored the miniature version of herself that had popped up on her shoulder and was wagging a wary finger at her. ‘Don't be a fool,' it whispered. ‘What about Rupert? What would he think?'