Wish You Were Here (18 page)

Being irresistible to men wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, Alice couldn’t help thinking when she got home that night. Things were getting out of hand. She’d thought she could control everything but it was becoming obvious now that she couldn’t.

She thought of the wounded expression on Ben’s face as she’d told him she thought they should break up. How was she going to face him the next time he came into the department? And how was she going to stop Larry from talking about her in his sleep? Wilfred the postman and Bus-Stop-Bruce were still professing their undying love for her too and old Mr Montague had been waiting by his garden gate to serenade her when she’d got home from work.

‘I’ve got to stop this,’ she told herself. ‘There’s
got
to be an answer.’

Dropping her handbag on the floor and kicking off her shoes, she went through to the spare bedroom and found the copy of the book,
Know Your Gods,
but there was nothing in there about wishes going wrong so she turned her computer on, searching for the forum she’d found where other people had detailed their experiences about making a wish on the statue of Aphrodite. Surely there were some negative experiences amongst them? Not everyone could have had a happy ending, could they?

Sure enough, Alice soon found what she wanted.

Two years ago, I made a wish on the statue of Aphrodite in the gardens at the Villa Argenti. I wanted to become a man magnet. It was such a stupid thing to wish for but I’ve always been unlucky in love. Men just don’t look at me and I wanted to change that.

It was a total nightmare.

Alice shook her head. Here was somebody who was experiencing exactly what she was going through but what had happened to her? Had the nightmare stopped? Or was this poor woman still being plagued by too much male attention? Alice had to find out.

‘Kerry Colter-Webb,’ she read the name at the top of the entry. There couldn’t be too many women with that name, she thought, immediately logging into Facebook. Sure enough, there was just one and, on her page, it listed ‘Greek Goddesses’ amongst her interests. Even better than that, her home town was listed as Bury St Edmunds which wasn’t that far from Alice. This had to be the woman, Alice thought, as she prepared to send her a message, telling her how she, too, had made a wish on the statue of Aphrodite – a wish to be noticed by men – and how her life had been a nightmare ever since.

It was only an hour later when the reply landed in Alice’s inbox.

Dear Alice
, it read,
we must talk. Give me a call on the number below and we can arrange to meet.

Kerry.

* * *

It was Saturday morning and Alice had arrived way too early in Bury St Edmunds in her anxiety to be on time and had been forced to pace the cathedral grounds. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of Aphrodite and the dreadful mistake she’d made because the gardens were full of rose bushes. Aphrodite’s flower, she thought, cringing at the thought that the plants were mocking her.

She looked at her watch. She was still early so she walked into a little art gallery and looked at some Suffolk landscapes in oil that she couldn’t afford to buy. There was one with what looked like a temple in the distance. A Greek temple in the middle of Constable country? Alice peered closer and saw that it wasn’t a Greek temple at all but part of a ruined church. She moved away from the painting, her heart beating as she thought of the temple on Kethos – the place where she and Milo had made love. She hadn’t thought about it for a good few weeks now. She’d managed to block Milo out when she’d been seeing Ben but, suddenly, all her memories of Kethos came back to her and she couldn’t shake them away.

‘They say that if you make love here, you will be bound together for all eternity.’

Milo’s voice drifted back into her mind. She took a deep breath.
Bound together for all eternity
, she mused. Eternity had obviously become a lot shorter in the modern world, she couldn’t help thinking.

Leaving the gallery and heading towards the café where she was going to meet Kerry, Alice couldn’t help wondering what the next hour was going to reveal. Would Kerry confirm that her suspicions about the statue were right? Or would she simply be mad – as Ben had accused her of being. His words still stung her and she wished with all her heart that she could make him believe her but, as she took a seat in the corner of the café by the window, she knew that it was well and truly over between them and she had to put him out of her mind.

She ordered a hot chocolate as she waited and, just as she was checking her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, the door of the café opened and a woman walked in. She caught Alice’s eye and they seemed to recognise that they were there to meet each other.

Kerry Colter-Webb was about forty-five. Her hair was short and dark, threaded through with strands of grey. She wasn’t beautiful. She was of average height, had a plain face and looked as if she constantly struggled with diets. Alice could totally understand why she’d made her wish. They were two of a kind, weren’t they?

She smiled at Alice as she pulled out a chair opposite her and sat down. ‘Right,’ she said without any preamble, ‘tell me
exactly
what’s happened.’

Alice took a deep breath and started at the beginning, working her way through the many different disasters that had befallen her since making her wish. When she stopped, she looked at Kerry and saw her simply nod her head and, in that moment, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. This woman understood her, didn’t she? She didn’t think Alice was mad because she knew she was telling the truth.

Kerry then told her story. Like Alice, she’d been on holiday to Kethos and had stumbled upon the statue of Aphrodite quite by accident.

‘It was summer and the villa gardens were buzzing with people and there seemed to be a bit of a queue by this one statue so I hung around for a while to see what was happening and people were making wishes,’ she said, smiling at the memory as if she could see the scene before her once again. ‘Hand after hand was reaching out to touch the goddess and I wanted a go too. It’s silly really because I’ve never believed in that sort of thing before. Coins in fountains, fortunes in cookies – it’s all complete nonsense, isn’t it? But I really felt drawn to the statue and my hand was reaching out and I was making a wish before I knew it.’ She looked wistful for a moment but then her coffee arrived and the romantic haze lifted.

‘I don’t believe in wishes either,’ Alice said.

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Kerry said. ‘I denied it for so long too. I thought I must have got a nice tan or something and that’s why I was suddenly turning heads.’

‘I thought that too!’ Alice said.

‘But it became a nightmare pretty quickly. At first, I thought it was brilliant. It was like an incredible superpower. I really felt like a goddess!’ She grinned and she looked like a teenage girl for a moment – one that’s been told she’s beautiful for the first time in her life.

‘So what happened?’ Alice asked, stirring her hot chocolate absentmindedly as Kerry continued.

‘The same that’s been happening to you, I imagine. Men –
all
of them – started noticing me for the first time in my life. The things that were happening, the compliments I was getting—’ she paused and then shook her head. ‘I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t real although I so wanted to believe in it all.’

Alice nodded. ‘Yes!’ she said in complete sympathy.

Kerry gave a little laugh. ‘There was this man who lived in the flat above mine. I’d had a secret crush on him for months but he never took any notice of me. I could have taken my rubbish out stark naked and he still wouldn’t have batted an eyelid but, as soon as I got home from Kethos, he started making a move on me. He sent me flowers and chocolates. He even bought me this gold heart pendant. It was really something,’ she said.

‘So, what happened?’

‘Oh, I sold it. You get a good price for gold these days.’

‘No,’ Alice said, ‘I mean, what happened with the man?’

‘We went out on a few dates,’ she said, ‘and I soon realised that he was just an ordinary bloke. That’s the thing about this wish – you might have it come true but it’s not a cure-all. This guy I’d been fantasising about was a bit boring, truth be told, and his flat was a total mess. You know, I found a sock in his kitchen sink?’

Alice grinned.

‘Anyway, I let things go on far longer than I really should have,’ Kerry said, moving on from the sock in the sink incident. ‘It was fun, you know? I liked being the centre of attention for a while. Who doesn’t? And I had a feeling it wasn’t going to last forever but I had no idea it would be me who’d want to put a stop to it but it just became unbearable. I mean, how many men do you really need falling in love with you on a daily basis? It gets a bit monotonous after a while.’

‘So, what did you do to stop it?’ Alice asked.

‘I went back to Kethos,’ Kerry said, ‘and I went straight back to the villa. The statue was still there, of course, but I wasn’t sure what to do.’

‘Was there a gardener there?’ Alice suddenly blurted unexpectedly.

‘Where?’

‘At the villa.’

Kerry shrugged. ‘I can’t remember. Why?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ Alice said, secretly glad that Kerry wasn’t going to confess to a wild affair with Milo before she reversed the wish. ‘Go on.’

‘Well,’ Kerry said, looking into the middle distance as if seeing the statue once again, ‘I placed my hand on the statue and I asked her to stop the wish. I told her I didn’t want to be a man magnet any more and that she could have her wish back and give it to some other poor soul.’

‘And it worked?’

‘It seemed to. The rest of my time on Kethos was pretty quiet. I seemed to be back to my usual dull and unremarkable self.’

Alice smiled in sympathy.

‘And you’ve not had any repercussions?’

‘See what you think,’ Kerry said, clearing her throat and beckoning the young man over who had taken their order. ‘What’s the soup of the day?’ she asked, batting her eyelashes and beaming him a smile.

‘Mushroom,’ he said with a straight face.

‘Thank you,’ Kerry said and watched as he returned to the counter. ‘See? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! And you know what? It’s
such
a relief!’

Alice nodded. ‘Did you enjoy it, though? The wish, I mean.’

Kerry looked deep in thought for a moment and then a little smile danced across her face and she nodded. ‘You’d be a fool not to make the most of it, wouldn’t you? And I certainly did that but the joy doesn’t last forever. I guess it’s like suddenly winning the lottery or something. At first, you can’t believe your luck and you splurge out, buying yourself all the things you could never afford before but then the novelty wears off and you’re left with that hollow feeling. You know what I mean?’

Alice nodded. She knew.

‘But you
have
to undo it, Alice,’ Kerry said. ‘You can’t let it ruin your life and it will if you go on like this.’

The café door opened and a middle-aged couple walked in. They took a seat at the table next to Alice and Kerry and it wasn’t long before the man clapped eyes on Alice.

‘Hello, gorgeous!’ he said, giving her a lascivious wink.

His wife turned around and glared at Alice. Kerry was glaring at her too.

‘Okay,’ Alice said at last. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll go back to Kethos.’

It had been a dirty, dusty day at the Villa Argenti and Milo had cut himself twice on shards of broken terracotta from the pots that had been smashed by the earthquake. They had spent most of the day chucking old pots into the wheelbarrow. They’d be recycled as crocks to place in the bottom of other pots when planting so that was some solace at least. Nothing was ever wasted in a garden – not by Milo, anyway. Mr Carlson would have had a team of workers come in and sweep everything up to take to a landfill site if he’d been around but Milo knew that even the most unpromising bits of rubbish could be turned into something useful in a garden.

The statue of Aphrodite was another issue altogether. She couldn’t be recycled. Milo was convinced she couldn’t even be fixed.

‘She’ll have to be replaced,’ he told Lander.

‘Mr Carlson won’t like that,’ Lander said.

‘I know,’ Milo said. ‘We’ll have to get a replica.’

‘What about the tourists?’

‘They won’t know the difference,’ Milo said. ‘Aphrodite is Aphrodite to them.’

But she wasn’t to him. This Aphrodite was special. His employer knew it and he knew it. They’d never find a replica that was good enough.

They got to work moving the pieces of broken statue. It felt strange. Milo almost felt like a surgeon as he carried the bits of body over to the wheelbarrow. It was hard and heavy work but they had soon moved the statue to the entrance gate.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ Lander asked.

‘The repair guy will pick her up,’ Milo said. ‘I gave him a call.’

‘What about Athena? And Artemis’s hound?’

‘He might be able to repair those on site,’ Milo said. ‘He’s going to take a look when he picks up Aphrodite.’

Lander nodded and the two of them went their separate ways as they did their best to tidy up the rest of the garden. They’d had to close it to visitors until it was safe again and Milo missed their idle chatter.

For a moment, he thought about the time he’d first seen Alice in the garden and how they’d chatted so easily to one another, sitting together on the white bench under the fig tree as if they were old friends. How sad he felt that he wouldn’t see her again – that bright smile and those kind eyes. He couldn’t help wondering whom she was smiling at now and if they knew how lucky they were.

He blinked hard, trying to dispel the image of Alice from his mind. He had work to do and he couldn’t be standing around daydreaming about a woman he was never going to see again.

* * *

That evening after work, Milo stopped by a little shop on the edge of town and picked up a bag of Tiana’s favourite sweets. She’d been having nightmares since the earthquake which seemed odd as she’d been so calm throughout the quake itself. It just went to show you that you could never second-guess how somebody was feeling just from their outward appearance, he thought, especially a little girl.

He hadn’t spoken to Hanna since before the earthquake and hoped that her home had survived without too much damage. As he rode up the track to her house, he saw, with relief, that it was fine.

The island had been lucky. This time. Geologists were always warning them that ‘the big one’ was on its way but what were they expected to do? Milo didn’t want to leave Kethos and it would take more than the threat of an earthquake to get him off the island. Besides, it wasn’t much safer on the mainland. If the earth was going to throw a tantrum then the islanders would just have to get on with it as best as they could. They were a tough lot and had learnt to live with the quirks of Mother Nature.

Getting off his bike, he walked towards the front door which – as usual – was open, the smell of a fine dinner wafting out into the air.

‘Hanna!’ he called, entering the kitchen.

‘Milo?’ she said, surprise in her voice as she appeared in the doorway.

‘I’m not late, am I?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t expecting you at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your brother – he took Tiana,’ she said and, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Milo’s heart plummeted. ‘Didn’t he tell you? He said he’d told you.’ Her voice was high and anxious now.

‘No, he didn’t tell me,’ Milo said, raking a hand through his hair and leaving it sticking out at the side of his head so that he looked as if he’d been electrocuted.

‘Oh, Milo!’ Hanna’s hands flew to her face. She knew that the brothers were always fighting about who should take care of Tiana but nothing like this had ever happened before. ‘He told me he’d spoken to you and that everything was fine.’

‘He lied,’ Milo said through gritted teeth. ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’

‘But I didn’t know! And he’s her brother,’ Hanna said. ‘How could I stop him?’

Milo took a deep breath. He had to calm down. He was upsetting Hanna and it wasn’t her fault. His face was anguished and he did a funny sort of dance right there in the kitchen as if he didn’t know what to do or which way to go. The last ferry had left the island and there was no way of getting to the mainland tonight unless he took a little boat out himself and he’d never been one for seafaring.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said at last, leaving the house.

‘Milo – I’m so sorry!’

‘I’ll sort it out,’ he called to her as he marched towards his bike, swearing under his breath.

It was a reckless Milo that rode home that evening – a Milo that wouldn’t have ridden like that if Tiana had been with him. But she wasn’t with him. She’d been taken from him.

He blinked hot tears from his eyes. He was not normally the sort to cry but his anger and fear had got a hold of him. He just wanted Tiana back but what could he do? Georgio had no right to come and take her without saying anything. It wasn’t fair on him and it certainly wasn’t fair on Tiana.

Had he even bothered to collect any of her things before dragging her off to the mainland? He doubted it, but just in case he had stopped by their house, Milo increased his speed. Maybe they were still there. Maybe Tiana had somehow managed to run away, causing Georgio to miss the last ferry. Maybe…

The front wheel of the bike suddenly skidded and a cloud of dust blinded him as he struggled to keep control. He lost control and the bike hurtled towards the rocky precipice at the side of the road.