Daughter of the Winds (26 page)

I couldn
’t comprehend anything that had happened today. I knew that Anna wasn’t a figment of my imagination. We’d had conversations. I’d held her hand. She wa
s
no
t
a ghost. I could remember the touch of her small warm hand in mine and the lavender scent of her hair when I kissed the top of her head. There must be an explanation for it. But I strained to remember seeing her talk to anyone else. That first day I saw her in the kitchen, she stood away from everybody else. Whenever she came to my room, she was alone.

If what
Stefanos said was true, she had led him to find me in the ruins of the old apartment. Could a ghost do that? It was hurting my head to think about it. I tried to sit up but every muscle in my body ached. I let out an involuntary cry as I felt the pain burn through my muscles.

Two men appeared at the bottom of my bed.
They smiled pleasantly at me as I pulled the sheet up around me. The two men were polar opposites. One man, who was obviously a doctor, was unusually fair and stood at about six feet four inches and was uncomfortably scrawny. The other man, in normal clothes, was about a foot shorter, dark with a comfortably round belly.

“
How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.

“
Good, thanks.”

“
Sore?”

“
A little.”

“
You are lucky that you were not seriously injured. Those mopeds are lethal. They should ban tourists from riding them. But that is just my opinion. I am only a doctor.” There was no humour in his eyes even though the soft smile remained.

I looked at the other man who was almost imperceptibly shaking his head. I couldn
’t tell what was in those twinkling brown eyes, but I had a strong sense that I wasn’t meant to enlighten the doctor as to the exact nature of my injuries.

“
I will send a nurse in to change your dressings and then you will be free to go home. Stay off the bike. Fill in this form before you leave and give it to the nurse at the desk.” He dropped a clip-board onto the table at the end of the bed and nodded to the other man, said something in Greek and then left.

The short man smiled prodigiously at me.
“We think it is better to not say where you were. So if anyone asks, you came off your moped. Okay?” Now he was smiling I recognised him as being Stefanos’s father, George.

I nodded.
“Whatever you say. Where’s everyone gone?”

“
Stefanos has taken his aunt home. She is... a little emotional.”

“
Right. Yeah, she would be. Do you believe in ghosts, George?”

He sat on the side of my bed without a
nswering and folded his arms. He stared off into the distance and at first I thought he hadn’t heard me. I studied his face. At this proximity I could see that he had hair sprouting from his ears and his nose. His stubble on his chin was a thick, short carpet of bristles. If there was anything this man was lacking it certainly wasn’t hair.

“
Yes,” came the staccato response. I waited for him to continue. “I have not seen one. But you have seen Anemone. She has been dead for many years. I cannot say that you are wrong in what you say. I believe you.”

“
I’m not sure I believe my own eyes, George.”

He smiled and rubbed my arm.

“We cannot know everything about the world, Writer Lady. Accept that there is much we cannot understand. Do not think so much! Waaa-ha-haaaa!”

“
Okay. No more thinking. It’s a deal.” I smiled at George’s laughter. It was a nice sound. So wholesome. So alive.

A nurse bustled in then with a trolley on wheels.

“I will be outside if you need me. Okay?” George slid from the room.

The nurse worked in silence.
I guess she didn’t speak English and I didn’t attempt to use any of my scant Greek vocabulary. I bit my lip as she recleaned my wounds and covered them with gauze and cotton wool wadding. It wasn’t an unbearable pain but I could have done without it.

When she was finished, I hobbled out of the hospital, doing my best to walk normally, and failing.
I was relieved to see George leaning against the railings blowing cigarette smoke skyward in front of the hospital.

“
You good?”

“
Yep. Free to go.”

“
I drive you home.”

I climbed into the passenger seat of George
’s truck and closed my eyes to ward off any further conversations or admonishments. It turned out that we were quite some way from The Pleiades and, in spite of the uncomfortable seats and the non-existent suspension, I dozed most of the way back.

I opened my eyes as the engine cut off.
Yaiyai was back in her usual spot but with the addition of a coffee in her brown bony hands today.

“
Thanks for the lift, George,” I said through a yawn.

“
S’okay.”

“
And, more importantly, thanks for saving my life”

“
It was nothing. I save lives every day. I am Superman. Waa-haaaa!”

I smiled at him but felt suddenly sad.
I felt that I owed him an explanation. He had risked his life for me.

“
You know it’s actually the second time in my life I’ve been buried in rubble in that building? That was where my mother found me, after the building was shelled in ‘74. She saved me and took me home with her to England.”

“
Your father?”

“
Dead. Well, missing. So I think it’s safe to assume that he’s dead.”

“
If the body has not been found, he cannot be dead. Not in the law. There are women whose husbands went missing during the fighting who are still married to them. I know a man who keeps his son’s bike clean and shiny in the corner of his café for the day that he comes home. People offer him money but he says it is not for sale. It belongs to his son. It is difficult to move on if you have not buried your dead. After many years there are still people who hope that the people they love will come home.”

“
That’s understandable, I guess.” We sat for a moment before I said. “You coming in?”

“
No. The boss needs me in work today. She is very angry that I ran off with a writer lady yesterday! She had no one to hit with saucepan. Waa-haaa-haaa-ha!”

“
Thanks for everything George. Really, I mean it.”

I half-stumbled out of the car and slammed the car door harder than I needed to.
The force of the action shot spears of burning pain through my shoulder. I waved as much as I could while keeping my elbow tight to my side as George drove away. I caught Yaiyai’s deep black eyes on my face and just as I expected to see her spit at the soil, she nodded at me. From her that was tantamount to a warm embrace. Perhaps she was starting to forgive my fellow countrymen or, at the very least, starting to tolerate my presence here.

I rolled my shoulders slightly to ease the tension but instead was rewarded for my thoughtfulness with a crunching sound in my neck. I was about to walk around the side of the house when the front door flung open.
Antheia was on top of me instantly, smothering me in her arms. She took my face in both her large, soft hands and kissed the top of my head. Saying something in Greek she beamed at me and led me into the house by the hand.

“
I will bring you food, yes? Tonight is celebration, I cook special meal. You do not need to come back up to the house tonight though.” She winked at me.

I didn
’t have the energy to argue with her so I simply nodded. I followed her into the kitchen where heavenly smells were pervading the air. When the flood of saliva into my mouth threatened to drown me I realised just how hungry I was. Even so, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to keep my eyes open long enough to eat a thing.

“
Is she here now?” Antheia asked me.

“
Who?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“
Anna.”

I glanced around the room for effect more than anything.
I already knew she wasn’t here.

“
Sorry. No.”

Antheia waved her pudgy hand through the air.

“Pfft! No matter. She will be back. Now go.” She handed me a single red rose.

“
For me?” I asked stupidly. She laughed a loud braying laugh.

“
Yes. Yes. You go.”

My heart sank.
Was this Stefanos again?

I noticed a card gift label attached to the spiky stem and read it with a certain amount of trepidation.

My heart missed a beat. It read simply, “I love you.” I knew that stocky confident script anywhere.

Walking in a daze, I stepped through the back door into the courtyard.
On the side of the well was another red rose. “Because of the way you smile at me in the mornings.” I wasn’t really sure that I’d been doing much of that recently. At the top of the stone steps there was another rose. As I bent to pick it up I saw a rose on each of the three stone steps going down beneath it. “Because of your dirty laugh!” “Because of the way you support me in my career.” “Because of the way you dance in the kitchen when you think that no one is looking.” “Because of the way you cry at romantic films.” “Because you are an amazing lover.” This one made me blush, even though I was on my own in the mid-afternoon sun.

I stepped down the stone steps, my weakened legs threatening to give out beneath me.
Another rose, and another, signposted their way towards the shack. “Because you thought the Elgin Marbles were actually small round stones.” All right,  was he ever going to let me forget that one?

As I neared the cottage, I thought I could smell him.
That heady scent on his skin, half musky, half citrus. I was sure that I could feel the thrum of his heartbeat rising in time with my own. I imagined him sitting outside with the sun glinting off the copper strands in his hair, but when I cornered the building there was no one there. My heart sank a little. What if he wasn’t here? He did say that he was too busy to come and we hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

Even if this was only a delivery from
Interflora, at least it showed that he was thinking of me. I tried to console myself with this thought as I spotted a final red rose on what passed for a doorstep. The final note was “Because of the way you feel in my arms.” I pushed open the door with my shaking hand and stood for a moment peering into the comparatively dark room, trying to make some sense of it. As my eyes adjusted I saw, sitting in the bed with a rose between his teeth, Dom.

It is no exaggeration to say that he took my breath away.
My heart boomed inside my chest and my nerves came to life all at once. He was sitting back against the pillows completely naked from the waist up. It was difficult to tell from the way the sheet was across his lap, but I had a sneaky feeling that he was naked from the waist down too. He was broad shouldered with a small splattering of hair around each nipple and that fine line of hair that trailed down the centre of his torso towards his groin. He was naturally tanned and his skin glowed like it had been kissed repeatedly by an adoring sun.

I knew from experience that he tasted as good as he looked
; his skin was a warm caramel, smooth and soft. I stood on the threshold of the shack drinking him in. The air was electrically charged around him. This room had never felt like it had any energy in it before. Without Dom it had felt drab and sparse but seeing him there in my bed, the room was suddenly brighter and more alive. The atmosphere was thicker and ebbed and flowed between the two of us in caressing waves.

His eyes of the deepest blue were reflecting a light that wasn
’t there. They twinkled like they were moving, as if I could see the thoughts behind his eyes taking formation and trying to communicate with mine. He moved to take the rose out of his mouth and the spell that had rooted me to the spot was broken. It took all my strength not to run and jump on him. I kicked off my shoes and within three strides I was by his side and on the bed.

His dark eyebrows sloped together as he noticed my bruises and he opened his mouth to speak. Before any sound could come out I knelt and placed my mouth against his. He tried gently to push me back to speak to me but I clung on and he gave up without a fight.
From my kneeling position I was slightly higher than him and he had to turn his handsome face up to me as I kissed him. My hair fell across his face and I held the palms of my hands against his strong jaw.

Our tongues explored eac
h other’s mouths tentatively, like it was our first kiss. He closed his eyes and leant into the kiss but I kept my eyes open, scarcely believing that he was here in front of me. I pulled away from the kiss and looked at his face. He kept his eyes closed for a moment longer and his lips still parted like he was still living the kiss. When he finally opened his eyes he was smiling.

“
Hello,” he said.