A Handful of Pebbles (6 page)

Sarah feels out of breath just listening to her.

‘The flower people are saying there is a problem with the flowers and we may have to use Ruscus leaves instead of Smokebush, but to be honest, I really don’t think it is a deal breaker.’ Helena pauses to take a sip of her frappe. Sarah has also ordered a cold coffee, this time trying it
glyko
—
sweet.

‘
Have you got your dress yet?’ Sarah squeezes the question in just as Helena is about to say more. She can see why Finn is attracted to her, with so much energy but, really, she is almost too much.

‘
Oh, it is to die for.’ Helena’s hand raises to her chest. She sucks in her lower lip and looks to the skies.

Pru
’s head turns.

‘
I saw a shop with wedding dresses in the window on the way here,’ Pru says. ‘Greek taste is very, um, interesting,’ She inhales on her cigarette and then her jaw pushes forward and bottom lip extends as she blows smoke above Helena’s head. ‘The one in the window was all net bodice and diamante. It was so, how shall we say,’ she pauses for effect, ‘bold.’

Helena
’s eyes flash, perhaps hers is net bodice and diamante. Sarah wants to say, ‘Have you met Pruella de Ville?’ but instead pours herself some more water as her heart goes out to Helena, who is some years junior to Pru and with a fragility about her.

‘
It’s possible that they could look too ‘bold,’ as you put it,’ Helena replies with a calmness that impresses Sarah. ‘Few could wear them, as you really do have to have the figure.’ Helena’s focus flicks from Pru’s eyes down to Pru’s ever-so-slightly spreading waist. Pru looks away. Helena stands and excuses herself, smoothing her dress over her slim hips and, with slinky movements, extracts herself from the group and heads indoors, presumably to the toilet.

Sarah wants to shout
‘Touché.’

‘
Isn’t she amazing, Mum?’ Finn leans over and whispers.

Sarah smiles at the closeness of his face.
‘Somehow, I think I’m going to like your Helena.’ She smiles and brushes a stray hair from his face as if he was eight years old again.

When Helena re-joins the group, the conversation moves onto the complexities of living in different countries.

‘
I miss so many people back in Ireland,’ Sarah joins in, and Laurence raises his eyebrows as if this is news to him.

‘
But the world is getting smaller. I mean, I was born in the States and I am back there now, but I have lived and worked in Hong Kong and London. It’s no big deal anymore to keep up. Sure, my friends in Hong Kong meet me halfway, usually Paris, but all you need is a long weekend.’ Pru lights another cigarette, tipping her head to one side behind the lighter, the sun catching its gold, a momentary dazzle, hiding her face

‘
I think you have to like flying,’ Helena answers. She seems to bear no grudge from the previous encounter. ‘I mean, even though I was born here, we moved to Australia when I was six months old and we stayed till I was seven and then moved to the States. When I settled in London, it seemed a long journey to catch up with old friends. I’ve only been back to Oz four times.’ This explains why she has no Greek accent. Finn is holding Helena’s hand under the table.

Sarah can count the times she has been on a plane on her fingers.

‘I haven’t travelled much,’ she feels compelled to say. ‘I mean, we holiday two or three times a year, don’t we?’ She turns to her husband. ‘But with Laurence traveling all over the world with his work and golfing, he prefers to ...’ she pauses, looking for the right word. ‘... explore the UK. Less travel, more relaxing.’ The words ring hollow in her ears. She looks from Helena to Pru and back again; her jury wears a slight frown. She would like to add that they have plans to travel, but they don’t.

‘
So you’re a golfer,’ Helena chimes in, taking the focus from Sarah. ‘It must be handy being a pilot. You must play in some of the best clubs in the world?’

Laurence shuffles his feet.
‘Well, the golfing’s enjoyable of course, but it’s also a tool for business. I mix with pilots from other airlines, and it has paid off, as shown by my recent move. But also with the suits on the ground, the decision makers, it’s good to spend time with them.’ He casts a fleeting look sideways to Sarah. ‘But mostly, it just kills time between turnarounds.’

Laurence has had long stopovers in America, Mexico, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica. All places Sarah would like to visit, all places with golf courses. The first time he had a long stopover
, they had just got married. She had been so young, hadn’t even turned twenty. He sat on the bed with her, holding her hand, explaining how it was just a turnaround, how boring it would be, how he would be filling in his paperwork, playing a round of golf with someone from the airline, and really, he would have no time for her at all. She would be left alone. Sarah had pointed out that she would be left alone at home anyway and that she would be rather be left alone in the sun. Surely the hotel would have a pool?

Laurence had sighed and explained kindly how it would not look right if he were to bring his wife along to his work
. It just wasn’t done. He seemed so much older than her in that moment; he had a certain gravitas at thirty-four compared to her nineteen years. Sarah suggested that she just take his flight, once they were at the hotel, he wouldn’t even have to acknowledge her. His hands had un-entwined from hers and he had stood up at that point, dropped his kind tone and asked why she was trying to make his life difficult when he was trying to be so considerate. This was his work they were talking about, not playtime. That was the first of the golfing stopovers at far-flung, beautiful-sounding places with people (he said) it was important he mixed with. Her holidays with him were in five-star hotels in Dublin, or Bath, or Edinburgh. One time, they only got as far the Mount Murray Hotel, a ten-minute drive from their home in Ballasalla, and that had a golf course where he met up with friends and she spent her time in the spa.

‘
I tell you what I find tricky about having a foot in so many countries—the tax. Because I have a house here in Greece, I must file a return even though, officially, I am a UK resident for tax purposes,’ Helena says.

‘
The same for me,’ Laurence rejoins. ‘I did live in London once, just briefly when I qualified. Bought a flat; thought it was the right thing to do. Rented it out when I moved back home, but I seem to get endless letters from the letting agency, and I have the rental income to declare. Get a tax accountant, that’s my answer. All the post goes to him now.’

Joss says something about his Green
Card and
Sarah’s gaze drifts to some people watching. Families with small children sit nearest to the open area in the square, their children tentatively venturing away from them with balls or tricycles. Round the back of the plane tree sit couples absorbed in the moment. She is aware that she is vaguely looking for the shepherd, but as she becomes aware of this, she rebukes herself, firstly because there is no reason for him to be here and secondly, what is it to her where he is? She lets her thoughts drift. It is strange to see no variation in hair colour; everyone’s dark, the women with the occasional gleam of red, dark and shiny. Men and women alike seem to have a dress sense that screams confidence in their appearance, the women coordinated, high heeled. If they walked down Strand Street, they would look, well, very overdressed. A bit tarty perhaps, but here in the sun, they look like birds of paradise.

As if on cue
, a sparrow flies down from the tree and hops along the ground. Now, she sees, there are many of them busy clearing crumbs, some bold enough to sit on the backs of seats, others waiting expectantly under the tables. A cat lazes under a chair with no interest in either birds or leftovers.

A dog barks and Sarah turns to see a Husky at the feet of one of the coffee drinkers. The owner is leaning over, his shoulder
-length hair flopped forward, his hand on the back of its neck
pushing down so there is no choice but for it to lay. The poor thing must be so hot in this weather. The owner of the dog talks to it before straightening and just for the briefest of seconds, as he flips his hair back, Sarah sees Torin. Her thighs tense and she sits up straight. His dark hair, the straightness across the shoulders, the way he moves his head to settle his hair. And then, as quickly as it arrived, the illusion is gone and the dog owner is a Greek stranger again.

It
’s been a while since she has thought of Torin. She is not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. They don’t talk of him. She doesn’t want to upset Liz, and Liz probably doesn’t want to upset her. But really, it has been twenty-nine years. They should speak of him with ease by now.

‘I saw someone today who reminded me of Torin.’ The pool is deliciously warm by the time the sun disappears behind the fig tree. She is drying now in the evening’s residual heat, which is warm enough for her to lay there in her bikini. The husbands have gone for a walk, the boys have left for a
mesimeri
—siesta—before heading out with a young group of Helena’s family to the nightclubs along the coast road out of Saros town that open late and don’t close till dawn. Sarah and Laurence have not been invited.

Liz spins the lilo around to face her.

‘Just for a moment, I thought it was him,’ Sarah muses.

‘
I see him all the time.’ Liz pushes herself away from the edge with her toes. Her retro swimsuit really suits her.

‘
Do you? It’s an odd feeling. Inside, my love is exactly the same for him. I suppose it’s because he hasn’t changed. He is still twenty.’

‘
Mine too,’ Liz replies.

‘
It’s funny, well not funny, strange maybe, that if it wasn’t for Torin, our lives would be so different.’

‘
If it wasn’t for Torin, we would probably be married to some dead-end bartenders in Cork or somewhere.’ She refers to a time when Liz was proposed to in one of the new bars in Cork. They took the bus there one Saturday as schoolgirls. ‘To get coloured paper from Bowen’s for an art project,’ they told their mums, and then spent the day trying one licensed place after another until they returned worse for wear with the bartender’s number, and his friend’s, but without any purchases from Bowens.

‘
Well, you might be, but I would be married to Torin. Do you want a G & T?’ Sarah replies.

‘
Do think we would have been any different if you had been my sister-in-law all this time?’ Liz asks.

‘
No, you would have irritated me just as much,’ Sarah teases. ‘Do want a G & T or not?’

‘
Yes, of course. Do you need to ask?’ Liz grabs the pool side and pulls hard, sending herself spinning toward the fig tree.

Sarah returns with two tall glasses filled to the brim.

‘You want this on the lilo or are you coming out?’

‘
Here.’ Liz cups one hand and rows herself to the edge.

‘
You would have been an aunt to Joss and Finn,’ Sarah muses.

‘
It wouldn’t have been Joss and Finn, though.’ Liz is now paddling with one hand and going around in circles; her other hand holds her drink.

‘
True.’ Sarah watches her. She stops paddling to take a sip of her cold gin and tonic, closes her eyes in appreciation, and the lilo drifts off to the other end of the pool with the current from the water filter.

Joss and Finn or Torin? But of course, she would never have known Joss and Finn to miss them, and the truth is she would never have swapped Torin for two people she had never met. She tips her head back and looks up at the fig tree behind her. Torin would have climbed the fig tree rather than sit under it, discovered all the streets of the village rather than sipping gin and tonic, and probably made friends with a few of the villagers, make everything in their lives seem like it matters.

Or to be more accurate
, he had made her feel that she mattered, and no one has done that since he died. Well, the boys when they were young, maybe Liz before she moved to London, but not ever, if she is honest, Laurence, and definitely not, and it stings to admit it, herself.

The gin percolates into her bloodstream, distancing herself from her surroundings.

Other than her boys, the things she has filled her life with since have just been meaningless. She had joined a string of groups after the boys grew up and first Joss and then Finn went off to university. The organic farm helped for a while. Getting her fingers into soil had been so cathartic. She would go along and spend hours digging and weeding, planting and pruning, listening to the hum of insects. The other people were enthusiastic, but no one seemed to understand the marketing side of the business. The women who were just filling in time had annoyed her, which was so hypocritical. The men her own age seem to be directionless; she had very little to say to them. The lack of anyone taking control of the business side of things had the project doomed from the start, and none of them were surprised when the co-op broke up with finger pointing and blame and the land was bought by developers.

But she kept trying. The beekeeping night course mixed her in with a new set of people and for a while
, it was something she looked forward to each week, but as the course neared its end, her fellow students began talking about what they would take next year: lace making, painting, learning Spanish, and the reality that she was finding substitutes for any real meaning in her life closed in on her and so she quit and became almost reclusive.

‘
Finding substitutes for any real meaning.’ She didn’t really even know what she meant by that. Life had no meaning and nothing she could do could give it meaning.

The thought takes her right back to the party to celebrate
the eighteenth of a friend of Torin’s. She and Liz had spent hours getting ready at Liz’s house. Torin was out taking his driving test and they could tell by the whoops and cheers he had passed.

It was as if he had changed whilst taking his test from an awkward best-friend
’s-brother to Torin the man. Sarah was transfixed by the transformation as he admired her dress. At the party, he told her of his plans to move to Dublin, where there was more to life than there ever could be in county Clare, and it felt exciting. In that one evening, Torin brought relief from the thought there was no meaning, to a future full of possibilities. He entertained her, made her laugh, and turned life into an adventure. He said they would take bites out of living together.

Then all too quickly
, he was gone and without him, she was left without power and the questioning re-emerged.

Sarah blinks against the sun at the sound of voices.

‘
Hey girls, have you had a good time? We walked all the way up the dry river bed to an ancient pile of stones. It didn’t have anything to tell you what it was, but it was clearly ancient.’ Neville wanders into the garden.

‘
It says here ...’ Laurence comes up behind him with a guide book Sarah saw on one of the shelves in the bedroom earlier. ‘That it is
Mycenaean
, so 1500 BC. Can you believe it? And what a relief from the usual oversell. There was not a plaque, not a tearoom, not a gift shop in sight.’

‘
Anyone getting hungry? Shall we go into Saros again?’ Neville asks.