The Holiday (44 page)

She smiled. ‘Now, what do you think?’

He replaced his glasses. ‘I think the rest of my holiday is going to be extremely dull without you.’

 

The villa seemed very quiet when everyone had gone. Izzy had been alone in it before, when she had first hurt her ankle, but this time it was different. It was as if an unhappy spirit was lurking somewhere in the large house, following her about.

Sitting on the terrace, looking down on to the beach, she tried to occupy herself by reading
When Darkness Falls.
She had only four chapters left, which meant the tension was building to its climax, but despite the quality of the writing she couldn’t keep her mind fixed on the plot. It kept wandering off, worried about the story’s creator. Where was he? What was he doing? She had hoped he might come and see her, but of course he wasn’t to know that she was immobile again. There hadn’t been time last night for her to explain why she had disregarded his instruction to fetch the others.

Her mind wasn’t put at ease when later that evening Sophia came to cook her a light supper. She was full of apologetic mutterings that she and her husband had not known of the drama that had taken place and been on hand to help. She was also furious that drugs had been involved.

‘It is the Italians and Albanians,’ she said, banging Laura’s expensive Le Creuset frying-pan down on the cooker and cracking eggs into a bowl. ‘They are bringing it here to our perfect island and ruining everything. If I ever got hold of them, they would know about it!’

Her angry outburst complete, she then went on to tell Izzy that Angelos had been to Villa Anna that afternoon to see to the pool and had reported back to his wife that there was no sign of anybody in or around the house. ‘It is very strange,’ Angelos had told her, ‘the shutters are all across the windows, as if nobody is there. And Theo’s guest rarely goes out during the day. Always he is working. Writing. Writing. Writing. He has his favourite spot in the shade where he sits every day. But not today. Perhaps he has finished his book?’

Izzy knew this couldn’t be so. Mark had told her last night that he was only a third of the way through it.

She went to bed early that night but was soon woken by the sound of ringing. She fumbled for the bedside lamp, rubbed her eyes and tried to work out what had disturbed her. It was a while before she remembered the mobile phone Theo had given her. She leaped out of bed and, too late, remembered her ankle. Agonising pain shot through her and she limped over to the dressing-table. She looked at the compact little device wondering how to switch it on, then pressed a likely button and heard Theo’s voice.

‘Izzy,’ he said, ‘is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sound sleepy. Were you in bed? It’s very early. Are you unwell?’

‘No, I’m not unwell, just tired. The last twenty-four hours have been rather hectic.’ She told him about Nick and Sally.

‘Dear God in heaven, that’s terrible. And Mark actually went into the water to rescue Sally?’

‘Theo,’ she said, ‘I might be being silly, but I’m worried about Mark. He told me last night of his fear of water, about the friend of his who drowned when he was a boy. And after he’d saved Sally, it was obvious he was in a state of shock, and since then nobody has seen him. Angelos called at the villa today and said there was no sign of him.’

‘You’re right to be worried, Izzy. I’ll ring him now and call you back later.’

Within minutes the mobile was ringing again. ‘I can’t get an answer from him, Izzy. Now, please, it is a lot to ask of you, I know, but will you do me a favour? There is a key under a flowerpot by the door at the back of the house. I want you to go inside and make sure that my friend is all right. If he is angry that you have invaded his privacy, tell him it is his own fault. Tell him he should have answered the phone. But whatever the outcome, call me. My number is on my desk in my study.’

Izzy hadn’t told Theo the one important factor that was going to make her mission nigh on impossible — her re-injured ankle. The doctor who had checked out Sally had also taken a look at her and told her what she knew already: she was back to square one, and rest, plenty of it, was the only cure. Fortunately she still had the crutches and with these, she was now making slow progress down the path and along the hillside to Theo’s house; concentrating hard on not missing her footing in the dark. Also, she was trying to suppress the fear that something terrible had happened to Mark. Without him having said as much, she knew that Theo’s concern for him was the same as hers; that the shock of what he had made himself do last night might have had him knocking back a restorative drink. A restorative drink that might have done him untold harm.

Her daunting journey complete, she leaned against the gate to Theo’s villa physically and mentally exhausted. Her whole body ached from the effort, and she stood for a moment to catch her breath, to rub away the tension in her shoulders and to rest her good leg. Ahead of her, and beneath a star-pricked sky, the low-roofed house was in darkness. The bushes around her stirred in the mild breeze, and far off in the distance she could hear a dog barking.

She pressed on to the door Theo had told her to use, flashed the torch over the steps and saw the pot he had mentioned. He hadn’t thought to tell her how large it was, though, or that it contained a hydrangea that came up almost to her waist. Resting the crutches against the wall, she bent down and tried to rock the pot to one side. Angelos must have watered it that day for it was damp and even heavier than she expected. She gave it another shove and tilted it sufficiently to grab the key before letting it down with a heavy thud. Wiping the moist soil off her hands, she raised the key to the lock, then hesitated. Shouldn’t she give Mark the opportunity to open the door rather than blunder in and perhaps embarrass him? He might have chosen to do nothing more worrying than shut himself away for the day to work.

The most rational explanation was that he wasn’t in, that he was enjoying a late supper in Kassiópi. Or, like her, he had simply gone to bed early.

As plausible as these suggestions were, they didn’t satisfy her.

She gave a gentle tap at first, then a more vigorous knock. ‘Mark, are you in there? It’s me, Izzy.’ Not getting any response, she inserted the key and turned the handle. She stood in the dark, eerie silence, getting her bearings in a house she had only ever been inside twice before. Closing the door behind her, she thought she heard a noise, and suddenly she was scared, her heart in her mouth, her brain conjuring up chilling murder scenes from the books she had read of late. ‘Irrational,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Get a grip.’ She crossed the stone floor of the sitting room and went towards the kitchen, where she thought the noise had come from.

She found him hunched over the kitchen table, his head clasped in his hands. He was so still, she thought for a moment that he was asleep. Then a worse thought hurtled into her head ... that he was dead. ‘Mark?’

He raised his head slowly and revealed a face of gaunt agony. His skin was grey and lined, his eyes dull and bloodshot, distant, unseeing. His hair was awry from where he must have been raking his hands through it, and it gave him a wild, almost manic appearance. He was dressed in the clothes he had worn last night; crinkled and patchy with salt, they smelled of stale sweat and vomit. But, thank God, there was no smell of alcohol on him. ‘Mark,’ she said, ‘please, what can I do to help?’

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyelids as if to clear his thoughts and summon the energy to speak to her. ‘If you could bear it, would you hold me, please?’ he murmured. His voice was thick, a faint husk of a whisper, and the pain in it made her react at once. Very gently, she took him in her arms, cradled his head against her and absorbed the tremor that was running through him. They stayed like that for an age, disconnected from time or their surroundings; it might have been for ten minutes, it might have been for ever.

The shrill ringing of the telephone made them both start.

‘I know who it will be,’ said Izzy, reluctantly releasing him. She moved across the kitchen on her crutches to the phone that hung on the wall beside the tall American-style fridge.

‘I couldn’t take the suspense,’ said Theo. ‘Is he all right? Please, God, say he’s well and ready to abuse me with a tirade of foul language for my interference.’

‘Yes and no,’ she said truthfully. ‘Hold on a moment.’ She covered the receiver with her hand. ‘It’s Theo, Mark. Will you speak to him, please? Just put his mind at rest that you’re okay. He knows about you rescuing Sally.’

He came stiffly to the phone and took it from her. ‘It’s okay, Theo,’ he said tiredly, ‘I haven’t done anything silly. I’m just a bit out of it, that’s all. Was it you who sent me the guardian angel? Well, how else would she have known about the key? And, no, of course I’m not mad with you. I’m more grateful than I can say. Look, I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Now isn’t the time. Yeah, cheers, mate.’

He put the phone back on the wall and turned to Izzy.

‘You’re not cross I came, are you?’ she asked nervously.

‘How could I be?’

‘Why didn’t you open the door when I called to you?’

He dragged his hands over his face, distorting his features. ‘I don’t know. It was as if I was paralysed. I haven’t been able to think straight all day ... not since last night.’ As if noticing the crutches for the first time, he said, ‘What have you done to your ankle?’

Sensing that he wasn’t ready yet to discuss what he had gone through, she told him. ‘But that’s not important. I’m more concerned about you. Have you eaten anything today?’

‘No.’ He looked down at himself and shook his head wearily. ‘I’m sorry, I must look and smell pretty disgusting.’

‘Nothing that a shower won’t put right. Do you think you can manage that?’

While he was in the shower, Izzy put his clothes into the washing-machine and set it whirring. She made him some tea and took it through to his bedroom, doing her best not to spill it on Theo’s expensive rugs as she made the precarious journey on one crutch from one end of the villa to the other, taking in a couple of steps and a narrow archway that she had to tackle sideways on.

His bedroom came as a surprise. It was meticulously tidy: there were no clothes lying around, no coins, pens or combs cluttering the surfaces, no book left face down with its spine cracked, no socks lurking in the corner of the room, not even a pair of shoes left haphazardly on the floor. The white cotton sheets on the bed were unwrinkled and the pillows perfectly placed - clearly Mark hadn’t slept there the previous night. As she pulled the top sheet back in readiness for him, he appeared behind her in a clean pair of boxer shorts and a black REM T-shirt. He still looked tired and haggard, but there was a reassuring glimmer of light in his eyes now.

‘I know this will sound like the worst chat-up line in the history of come-ons,’ he said, smoothing back his hair and casting his gaze over the bed, ‘but would you stay with me tonight?’

She tried to keep the shock from her face, but must have failed miserably, for he said, ‘Slow down, Izzy, I don’t mean it in the way you’re thinking. I ... I just don’t want to be alone. I’d like to know that you were there.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘if you think it would help.’

He gave her one of his T-shirts and she changed in the bathroom. He had already turned out the lamp when she joined him, but in the moonlight that peeped in through the shutters at the open window, she could see that his eyes were closed. She could also see the harsh contours of his ravaged face, which betrayed his suffering. He must have spent that day reliving an experience he would never be able to obliterate fully from his memory. It struck her then, as odd a thought as it was, that she had never come up with one of her silly celeb-lookalikes for him. It’s because he’s unique, she thought. He’s a man like no other. And, thinking that he might already have dozed off, she slipped noiselessly under the sheet beside him. But he wasn’t asleep and with his back to her, he said, ‘Thank you for doing this, Izzy.’ She moved a little closer and placed an arm tenderly around him. She felt his shoulder quiver and realised just how tense he still was. Gradually she sensed his thin, angular body relax, until finally he fell asleep.

She lay wide awake in the semi-darkness, listening to his uneven breathing, wondering at the extraordinary situation she had got herself into. Could this really be Izzy Jordan, that well-known shall-I-shan‘t-I ditherer; the proponent
par excellence
of ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that’; the neurotic woman who listened to voices in her head for guidance? Come to think of it, Modern Woman and Prudence Jordan had been slacking recently.

Didn’t her mother have anything to say about her scandalously immoral daughter, who was currently lying in bed with a former addict.

‘Well, I don’t care what you think,’ she imagined herself saying to her mother. ‘Mark might have had more than his fair share of problems, but he’s the first man I feel truly comfortable with.’

She thought about this, and realised it was true. What’s more, she trusted him, or more precisely, she had trusted herself to trust again. He was so honest, so direct. And so easy to be with. There was no chicanery to him. She never felt as though he was setting a trap for her.

With these thoughts running through her head, she soon fell asleep and dreamed that she was back in the children’s home. She was standing anxiously at the window waiting for her father to appear through the snow. Except it wasn’t her father who arrived to see her, it was Mark, and she wasn’t a child, she was an adult. He was helping her to put away the box of Fuzzy-felt shapes, telling her that the tears always dry. No matter how many tears, they all dry in the end.

 

Beams of early-morning sunlight were penetrating the shutters, enabling Mark to watch Izzy as she slept next to him. With her hair swept back from her face, she looked so peaceful, and so very beautiful. But there was something different about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Then he understood what it was. He had never seen her with her hair pulled back from her forehead before. He noticed an ugly two-inch scar just into the hairline of her right temple and wondered how somebody so intrinsically cautious could have received such an injury. A car accident perhaps? He winced at the thought and dispelled it immediately. He didn’t want to imagine her coming to any harm.