The Olive Tree (49 page)

And, last but not least, there’s Chloë. One way and another, I’ve seen rather a lot of her in the past ten years. It turned out that our schools did have
‘dances’ together, which turned out to be less
Strictly
and more a sweaty grapple on a makeshift dance floor in the school hall.

As she was still in love with Michel at that point, she’d search me out, asking me to ‘protect’ her from the attention of other boys, and we’d sit in the
corner together sipping our bottles of pop as she poured out her heart and told me how much she was missing him.

She also spent an awful lot of time with all of us at Cedar House. She truly became part of the family – much-needed, as it happened, especially for the little ones.

I calmly bided my time, hoping her Michel fixation would dissipate. It did not. And nor did my fixation with her. I was close enough to her, certainly; she called me her best
friend.

But, as every male best friend to a female knows, trying to alter the relationship status from that to the ‘something else’ I dreamt of every night, seemed to slip
further away from my grasp.

When she finished school, she took a gap year and then went off to London to study fashion.

It was when she graduated that the spell Michel had held over her was finally broken. She sobbed onto my shoulder, telling me she still loved him, but that the
‘long-distance’ relationship had finally taken its toll and it was over between them.

And, around the same time, everything changed for me too.

λβ

I put down my pen and stretch, feeling sleepy from the sun and beer, plus the exhaustion of recalling the events of the past ten years. I look through what I’ve written,
wondering if I’ve missed anyone out, and realise that I have. It’s me. Or at least, the rest of me, up to date. But I’m too hot and tired and sad to continue.

And besides, a car and the white van have just pulled up on the gravel. I see the van disgorge two men who I recognise immediately as Alexis’ sons. And out of the car comes Alexis himself,
with a toddler who takes his hand as they walk towards me. Dimitrios and Michel have opened the back of the van and are lifting more boxes out of it.

The little boy – the image of Angelina, I see as he draws closer – looks at me shyly.

‘Say hello, Gustus,’ his father encourages.

Gustus will not play ball, and hides behind Alexis’ long legs.

‘We thought that we could put up some lights on the terrace and hang lanterns from the olive trees in the grove,’ continues Alexis.

‘Good idea,’ I agree.

‘This must be a celebration, yes?’ Alexis eyes me.

‘Yes,’ I say firmly. ‘It absolutely must.’

We spend the next couple of hours getting hot and sweaty again, as the four of us string lines of bulbs from the balconies upstairs and attach them to the pergola. We talk of
nothing much – just man-banter, revolving mainly around football.

On my travels abroad I have noticed that the mere fact I am English makes me – to all foreigners, at least – an acknowledged expert on the Premier League; in particular, Manchester
United, which is the team all the Lisle men support.

Given I am more of a rugby man myself and I don’t have a personal
entrée
into the bedroom of Wayne and Coleen Rooney, I struggle to give them the information they seek. I
take furtive glances at Michel, who, if anything, is even better-looking than last time I saw him. I want to ask him if he has a girlfriend, a fiancée or even a wife, but nothing so intimate
is mentioned.

Angelina arrives on the terrace with a big jug of homemade lemonade, and little Gustus. He immediately climbs onto his father’s knee as we sit down in the chairs and drink thirstily.

‘It is odd, is it not, Alex?’ Alexis chuckles. ‘I had hoped so much to be a grandfather. Now I am the papa of a little one and my two sons are still to have children of their
own.’

‘Papa, I am only in my early thirties and Kassie is twenty-nine,’ reprimanded Dimitrios gently. ‘There is plenty of time left. And besides, you work us too hard to have time
for children,’ he added with a smile.

‘You are not married, Michel?’ I ask him.

‘No,’ he answers firmly.

‘I think my son is a confirmed bachelor,’ Alexis sighs. ‘There seems to be no woman who can catch him in her net. And you, Alex? Have you found the love of your life since we
last met?’

‘Yes,’ I reply after a pause. ‘I have.’

‘Papa.’ Gustus opens his mouth and points his finger in it, saying something in Greek.

‘So, Gustus is hungry for his supper. We must go home,’ translates Alexis. He calls for Angelina, who appears and issues me with instructions that basically run along the lines of
not touching anything in the kitchen or the pantry until she is back early tomorrow morning. As if I might eat the whole lot single-handedly in the night.

‘Alex, do you wish to come up with us to our house for supper?’ Alexis asks me.

‘That’s very kind of you, but tomorrow will be a very long day and I think I’ll stay here and have an early night.’

Alexis picks up a wriggling Gustus in his strong, tanned arms. ‘Then we will say good night.’

I watch the family pile into their vehicles and drive off. Dusk is beginning to fall, the sun setting once more over Pandora – just as it has here for the past ten years, its beauty
unappreciated by human eyes. I walk into the kitchen and see it is awash with trays and dishes covered with foil, the pantry equally crammed with mysterious desserts of all shapes and sizes. I dole
out the moussaka that Angelina has grudgingly told me I can take a slab of for my supper.

I sit and eat my solitary meal on the terrace, and hope that Alexis hasn’t thought me rude for refusing his invitation. I just need a night alone to gather my thoughts and my strength for
tomorrow.

Then I pull the diary back towards me, thinking that actually, writing it all down might just help.

‘Me’ Continued

I spent half of my gap year saving up the money to go travelling by pulling pints of beer in the local pub, and the second half conquering my phobias of possibly every single
thing I could imagine.

And developing some more – e.g. foreign travel.

Then I began my philosophy degree at Oxford, in Dad and Genetic Dad’s old college. Three years later, when Dad came to see me graduate, there were genuine tears of pride in
his eyes as we did the man-hug thing afterwards.

I read in my ten-year-old diary only last night that I couldn’t imagine him crying – well, sadly he has cried rather a lot since then.

I continued for another year at Oxford doing an MA (more of
that
year later). And then – just as I had given up on just about everything, and was about to settle for
the academic life and turn myself into a ‘Dr’ and eventually a professor of philosophy – I had an email forwarded on to me, from my own professor.

It was sent from a government department in Millbank, which I knew was a street slap-bang next door to the Houses of Parliament. In essence, the email was offering me an interview
for a job in a government policy think-tank.

I admit that after I’d read it I lay on my narrow bed in my shabby Oxford lodgings and had a laughing fit of humongous proportions. Apparently the year-old government wanted,
and I quote, ‘to include the brightest young minds on subsequent policy decisions taken for the future of Britain’.

On the agenda was the EU referendum, what to do about Scotland, the NHS, immigration . . .

In other words, THE LOT.

Well!

To be honest, I went along for a laugh, just to say I had, so I could put it on Facebook and Twitter and impress my friends. Especially certain female friends, who just might be
looking, even if I didn’t know they were.

After all, it was what we’d both dreamt of . . .

I sat there in the swish offices – the very nerve-centre of British government – and looked around excitedly for the red button that would start World War III. Then I
craned my neck to the right to see if it was possible to signal directly across from here to the MI6 building just over the Thames.

They asked me lots of questions, which may have been trick ones, as they were incredibly easy to answer. Admittedly, I found it harder than normal to concentrate, as I kept
imagining Daniel Craig bursting in to tell me I was giving away highly confidential information to a set of Russian spies. And the shoot-out that would follow as he saved my sad backside.

Sadly, Mark and Andrew – ‘Call me Andy’ – were a couple of rather dull middle-aged civil servants, who plodded through my hastily-put-together CV, then asked
me to give my views on how I thought the ‘yoof’ of today felt about the Tories being back in power. And what I would do to change their (apparently negative) opinion.

I didn’t use many of the fine Kantian quotes I could have trotted out. Instead, I spouted the pocket philosophy I’d understood instinctively as a child, feeling that
Mark and ‘Andy’ might appreciate a man of the people more than a boffin full of psychobabble.

Afterwards, I walked away chuckling at the ridiculousness of it. Having always been a Liberal Democrat voter, then swerving to the left with the rest of the Philosophy Department,
here I was being asked to bat for the other side.

Having taken a Snapchat video outside on Millbank proclaiming where I was and what I was doing (probably immediately putting myself out of the running, given how one must surely
behave with discretion if one wishes to work for the government; but who cared?), I then walked away past the Palace of Westminster towards the tube station, knowing there wasn’t a hope in
hell of me being offered the job. If there is one area in which I can’t be swayed, it’s in my fundamental beliefs:

Equality, Egalitarianism and Economy . . .

Interestingly, I do remember thinking as I walked down the steps to the tube that the last ‘E’ was the one thing that fitted with the current government manifesto. Fact:
If you work hard, you should be rewarded. Fact: The capitalist nations of the world become the richest. Fact: They can then feed, educate and care for the most vulnerable amongst us.

Or they should do, anyway. In Utopia, and in my dreams.

There was no one who knew more philosophical theorems than me – the incredibly irritating (and endlessly fascinating) thing was that there was always another viewpoint or
opinion; one contradicting the other. Sadly, I’d also realised during my four long years of theorising about humanity and the world that knowing as much on paper as a person my age probably
could about how people ticked hadn’t helped me one iota in my personal life. Which was at that point – to put it mildly – a car crash.

I also wasn’t convinced that in practice, it helped anyone else either. In rereading this diary I realise that, despite having called myself a right pain in the backside at
thirteen, I haven’t changed very much at all. I’ve simply learnt how to frame my childhood thoughts and feelings in an academic manner.

A week later, a letter arrived on the doormat and told me I’d been offered the job.

And again, I lay on my narrow bed and laughed hysterically. I then read the letter again more carefully, and resorted to language I do not approve of when I looked at the salary
they were offering me.

Well. Er . . . blow . . . ME!

And then I cried. Loudly and indulgently and messily, wiping snot from my nose for a good ten minutes.

Pathetic really, but understandable under the circumstances.

Because there was someone I was desperate to share the moment with. But who wasn’t with me, and would probably never be again.

I’m sitting here now, a few weeks on, thinking about the fact I will probably have to wear a suit – or at least a smart jacket and chinos – when I begin my new job
in under a month’s time. It’s not in the City, but it’s still an office job.

I hope I can use my voice for good when I’m there – I want to, at least. But my study of humans tells me that politicians – and all people for that matter –
believe they will do good, and then get corrupted by power. I’ve actually no idea if you can get corrupted in a think-tank, but I also think anything is possible. Only last week, I received
another envelope – this one thick, cream vellum, inviting me to No. 10 Downing Street for a ‘cup of tea’ with the man himself. Like, the Prime Minister! Apparently, he wants to
get to know all his new young think-tankers personally.

He wants to know
me
.

λγ

I am still chuckling as I put the pen down and wend my way inside the house, closing shutters and switching off light bulbs, which seem to have spawned considerably in number
since this afternoon. Finally satisfied that I won’t blow up with the house tonight due to the overloading of Pandora’s already ancient electrics, I shut myself in my Broom Cupboard,
then switch on the fan and sit on the bed. Then I reach down into my rucksack for the remnants of Bee.

‘Can you believe I’m going to meet the Prime Minister of Great-Britain-slash-the-United-Kingdom? Or in fact, dear rabbit of mine, Not-so-Great Britain and the Disunited Kingdom,
given the Scotland situation,’ I add soberly. ‘Still, it’s pretty bloody impressive at the age of twenty-three.’

Then I stick him under my armpit.

Tonight I need his comfort to face tomorrow.

I am just dozing off when I hear my mobile. I’ve become used to the missed heartbeat, the sense of dread I feel every time it rings.

‘Hello?’ I bark.

‘Alex, it’s me.’

‘Oh, hi, Immy. How is everything at home?’ I ask nervously, as I always do these days.

‘Fine. I mean, Fred and I are here by ourselves at the moment, but Dad knows the arrangements for tomorrow.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m okay. Is it all cool at Pandora?’

‘I wouldn’t say it’s cool, as it’s bloody boiling. But yes, everything’s organised.’

‘Cool,’ she repeats, and I take heart that at least one word in the English language – however naff – has managed to stand the test of time with fifteen-year-old
girls.