Being Shirley (27 page)

***

Annie wrapped herself in her towel and packed up her bag. With her feet into her flip-flops, she ambled back up the path to the road in order to walk the short distance back to Eleni’s. A handful of tourists meandered ahead of her at a pace set by the afternoon heat. It was funny how she no longer classed herself as a tourist, she mused. She saw a figure dawdle along in the distance. It looked like Alexandros and, with her hand up to shade her eyes, she squinted in his direction. The man had paused to speak to a group of girls heading out of one of the serviced apartments.
Definitely Alexandros then
, she thought and veered off the pavement and onto the slope of the front garden. It was then that she spied Mama and Kassia among the olive trees. She could tell by their rigid stances that neither woman was happy. Mama, as predicted, wrung her hands and Kassia, her own hands palms up towards her, looked to be pleading. Mateo ran past them, too caught up in his game to be aware of anything being wrong. He played with a homemade kite, a plastic bag tied with a string that caught the wind that in the last few days had begun to blow up at the same time each afternoon. Nikolos was in the baby swing under the tree and kicked his chubby little legs but didn’t really go anywhere.

Annie hesitated for a moment, unsure what she should do. Their argument wasn’t to do with her but it was obvious that Kassia had not managed to convey her feelings in a diplomatic way. She would hate for things to be said between these two women whom she cared so much about that couldn’t be taken back. Her mouth set in a line of resolve. She owed it to them both to try to smooth things over.

It all happened very quickly after that because as Annie marched over, clear in her role of peacemaker, Mateo shot past her, racing after his kite. His legs pumped as he ran down the grass verge that disappeared through the gap between the parked row of hire cars. “Mateo! Stop!” Annie screamed. Mama and Kassia’s eyes swung towards the road just as a woman’s scream mingled with a screech of brakes. It was followed by a dull thwack.

Annie was the first to reach the road. A cold fog descended as she ran on automatic pilot and pushed past the woman who stood by the kerb, frozen in shock, murmuring, “We were talking and then the little boy—he just ran out.”

As she crouched down next to the body splayed in the middle of the road, she dimly registered a car door slamming behind her. “Alexandros, can you hear me?” She leaned over him and sent up a silent prayer that he was still with them. Her eyes locked on his and pleaded with him to be okay but his stare was flat and uncomprehending. “Please, God.” This time she begged out loud, “Alexandros, come on, talk to me!” As the light drifted back into his irises, she took hold of his hand with both of hers. “Oh thank you, thank you, God.”

He licked his lips and rasped, “Mateo? Is Mateo alright?” Annie hadn’t realised she held her breath until that moment and as she exhaled, she glanced up and saw that Kassia had scooped her oldest son up into her arms. She held him to her so tightly that he squirmed, not comprehending what had just happened and how close he had come to breaking his mama’s heart. “It’s okay. He’s fine—Kas’s got him,” she soothed as he groaned.

“My arm, it hurts.”

“Stop moving. You need to lie still until we can get you some help.” She cast her eyes around, frantic for a phone.

“He came out of nowhere. My God. I braked but there was nothing I could do. I am so sorry, so sorry.” A man’s quavering Germanic accent sounded behind her but Annie ignored him and yelled for someone to ring an ambulance.

“I’ll do it.” The woman Annie had pushed past swung into action. “What’s the number?”

Kassia held her hand out for the phone, still holding tightly onto Mateo with her other arm. “Let me do it. I’ll be quicker.”

“I’ll go and fetch the doctor.” Annie recognised the voice as belonging to Wendy, the English woman who managed the apartments up the road. She watched as she took off up the road and willed her to run her fastest.

“My arm, it hurts.” Alexandros groaned again just as his mama joined the little huddle. At the sight of her youngest son lying crumpled on the road, she set up a keening that would have put the worshippers gathered at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall to shame. She only stopped when, despite Annie and Kassia’s protestations that he should stay where he was, he sat up, clutched his bad arm with his good and assured her he would be okay. Annie remembered the car’s driver and turned to give him a reassuring smile. The relief was etched into his ruddy features.

Spiros appeared at the edge of the fray with Nikolos, whose cries at having been abandoned in the swing had alerted him to something not being right. He saw his brother and pushed through the little crowd that had begun to gather, and kneeled down beside him. Annie watched the panic plastered all over his normally unreadable features clear as he established that apart from his arm, Alexandros appeared to be fine.

“Has anyone called for an ambulance?” His head swivelled round the throng.

Annie crouched down beside him and rested her hand on his shoulder. “It’s on its way. Wendy from Sunrise Apartments has gone to get the doctor.” She filled him in on how Alexandros had pushed Mateo out of the way of the car. “He’s a bit of a hero, your brother.”

Alexandros waved the comment away with his good arm, and winced as he did so.

“Don’t move.” Spiros reiterated Annie’s earlier sentiments before he kissed his brother on the top of his head. He then turned his attention to his sobbing mama. “Calm down, Mama-mou. Alexandros will be okay.” He carried on in Greek, his words settling her.

“It’s the shock that has upset her so much,” Annie said to no one in particular. “We saw Mateo run out and we thought, well, we thought—” Her voice trailed off. It didn’t bear thinking about. She glanced over at Mateo, who still tried to disentangle himself from his mama’s arms, too young to understand her need to hold him close.

The woman Alexandros had stopped to chat up just as his nephew ran past him had gathered herself and leaned over him. A pretty brunette, who was oblivious of the magical healing power the eyeful of cleavage stuffed inside her blue tank top, had on him.

“I will be alright, I think.” His voice dripped with brave stoicism as he added that she could come by and visit him at Eleni’s tomorrow if she liked.

Annie rolled her eyes.
Only he could think about that kind of bedside care in his current condition
. Still, it was a good sign. She felt a stab of pity for his lady friend in Brazil. She would have her work cut out for her to try to keep him on the straight and narrow, especially with all those young Rio de Janeiro sun worshippers strutting their stuff up and down the beach.

Spiros, who had his arm around his mama’s rounded shoulders, had handed Nikolos to her as a distraction. He held his free arm out to Kassia and Mateo. She walked towards him and rested her head on his shoulder as he pulled them in close.

The sun sat low in the sky and she shivered.
Wanting to be useful, Annie decided Alexandros could probably do with a blanket wrapped around him and that a cup of hot sugary tea for them all would go down well. She headed up to the house and fetched a blanket from the hallway cupboard before she made the one-size-fits-all mugs of tea and placed them on a tray. With the blanket draped over her shoulder, she carried the tray carefully back down to the road.

The local doctor had arrived in her absence and was busy examining Alexandros when she passed the steaming brews round. She had made a cup for the car’s driver too because it was obvious the poor man was in a state as he stood to one side of the huddle around Alexandros. The doctor brushed the dust from his pants before he pronounced that Alexandros’s arm was almost certainly broken in two places but an x-ray would be needed to confirm this. Apart from that and a badly bruised ankle, he would live. The crowd, satisfied that there was no more drama to be wrung out of the accident scene, dispersed, and his brunette friend crouched down and kissed him on his cheek. “You’re so brave.” She promised to pop by tomorrow to check on his progress. The familiar twinkle sparked in Alexandros’s eyes as he watched her wiggle away, her tight shorts a welcome distraction from the throbbing of his arm.

Annie turned her attention to the German driver, whose face beneath his mahogany tan was white. The accident had been unavoidable and could have been so much worse but despite this, he still looked as though he had been given a death-row reprieve as he drained his tea and handed it back to her with a grateful nod. He went back to his car but returned a few moments later with a piece of paper, upon which he had scribbled his details, and handed it to Spiros. He took it and gave the man a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “He is going to be okay. This was not your fault.”

They then heard the unmistakable wail of a siren. Annie expected to see an ambulance careen round the bend at the end of the street; instead, the flashing blue light that appeared came from a motorbike.

Spiros, sounding not unlike his brother, groaned. “It would have to be Dimitris.” They all held their hands over their ears as he roared up alongside them, only then turning his siren off. As he got off his bike and put the stand on, Annie couldn’t help but think all that noise had been overkill. Then, as she watched him take his helmet off and saw that he left his dark aviator glasses on, she’d have taken money on his being a fan of American cop shows—if it had been appropriate. Helmet in hand, Dimitris raked his fingers through his hair before he swaggered over to the scene with notebook in hand and pen at the ready. He fired off a sentence in Greek to Spiros and his reply was equally rapid-fire. There was much hand gesticulating and glances over at the poor German, who looked like he would rather be anywhere but standing where he was at that precise moment in time.

The officer took off his glasses and fixed him with an eagle’s stare before he told him in stilted English that he would need to follow him down to the station once the ambulance had arrived and the road was clear.

Annie overheard Spiros tell the poor man, who now looked as though he thought he was going to be starring in the next episode of
Banged Up Abroad
, that it was just a formality for insurance purposes and that once he had filled out the necessary forms, he would be free to go on his way.

A moment later, they heard another siren and this time it was the ambulance that hurtled down the hill with its siren blazing.
The Greeks were nothing if not dramatic
, Annie thought as it screeched to a halt and two paramedics leaped out and charged over. The doctor spoke to one of them as the other crouched down next to Alexandros and checked him over. Satisfied it wasn’t life and death, he stood back up for a bit of a confab with his fellow medics. The little group watched as the taller of the two medics opened the back of the ambulance and pushed a stretcher out to his partner, who grabbed the end and lowered it to the ground. Alexandros refused to be rolled onto it, so he did a bit of a shuffle and then lying down, was lifted into the back of the ambulance.

“I will go with my Alexandrosaki mou, my agoraki mou.” Mama hitched her skirts up in anticipation of climbing into the back of the ambulance. At the sight of her dimpled knees, Mateo laughed and pointed.

Obviously not traumatised then
, Annie thought with a smile.

“No, Mama. I will go with my brother.” Spiros’s tone brooked no argument. Mama opened her mouth to argue but then, at her son’s expression, decided not to.

“We can follow behind in the car.” Kassia turned to Annie. “Do you think—”

Annie cut her off. “You don’t have to ask. You two go—the boys will be fine with me.” Kassia flashed her a grateful look as Annie held her arms out for Nikolos, and swung him round onto her hip. Then, with Mateo firmly in hand, she shooed the two women up to the house. She stood with the boys and watched as one of the paramedics closed the back of the ambulance and headed round to the driver’s side. Their departure was just as noisy as their arrival, and Annie whispered to Nikolas that they probably wanted to get his uncle dropped off at hospital quick smart so they’d be home in time for their dinner. Dimitris also opted for siren on, although this time he set a slightly more sedate pace in order to let his German prisoner follow.

With the street now empty, Annie saw that the sun was getting ready to set. She had better phone Georgios and tell him she wouldn’t be in to work. “Come on, boys. Let’s go and see what we can find for your dinner, shall we?” Nikolos wrapped his pudgy little hand around one of her curls and pulled with a gleeful giggle as Annie yelped and tried to disentangle his fingers to no avail. Mateo looked on enviously and then with the homemade kite that had caused all the bother in the first place, he ran up the path.

Mama and Kassia were just coming out as they reached the front door. Kassia had changed from her shorts into jeans and a light sweater and Mama was swaddled inside a cardigan.

“Are you sure you will be alright here on your own? I can bring the boys with me.” Kassia unlocked the van doors.

“Don’t be silly. You don’t want to cart them all the way to Heraklion. Besides, you could be hours. You don’t know how long it will take them to see to Alexandros. I am perfectly capable of giving them dinner, and getting them sorted for bed. Please don’t worry.”

Kassia gave her a wan smile. “Thank you.” She went to the passenger side, helped Mama up into her seat and pulled the seatbelt out for her. “I’ll phone you from the hospital when I have an idea as to how long we will be.” She gave Mateo a quick hug and a kiss before she stroked Nikolos’s soft cheek and gave him a kiss.

“Drive carefully, Kas.”

“I will.” She climbed into her seat and backed slowly down the driveway to the road and then with a toot they were gone. The journey to the hospital would be a chance for the two women to sort their differences out, Annie hoped, because surely the events of the afternoon would have put things into perspective for them and shown them what really mattered. Annie reached down and ruffled Mateo’s hair before she gave him a gentle push in the door. She’d ring Georgios and then see what she could sort out for their dinner.
But first things first
, she thought with a frown at Nikolos’s fist—she would find a way to release his stranglehold.