I swallow, unsure how to tell him that I don’t want to set eyes on Mark – not tonight, not tomorrow, and maybe not till we’re back in the UK. Seeing him will just bring back those terrifying minutes in the pool when his life hung in my hands.
Yan reads my mind perfectly. ‘Mark has put Nella through enough tonight. She’ll see him when she’s ready.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he apologises.
‘Let’s just concentrate on the fact that we’re all safe and sound,’ says Tig, surprising us all with her maturity.
‘You’re right,’ says Yan.
‘Of course I am,’ she says. ‘Because if you selfish gits had died, it would have seriously mucked up my seating plan.’
Chapter 34
Everyone’s quiet in the car home. I sit in the front passenger seat, resting my forehead on the window. I’m exhausted but I know I won’t sleep tonight.
Theo comes back with us, too. Mark’s been admitted overnight and we’ll hear tomorrow morning when he’ll be discharged.
Back at the villa, I turn down offers of tea and go straight to my room.
My curtains are still open, and the lights around the pool give off an eerie blue glow.
Mark’s discarded T-shirt and shoes lie on the ground by a sun lounger. It feels wrong to leave them there, so I go and gather them up.
When I bend to pick up his shoes, a glint of gold catches my eye. It’s a tiny crucifix on a long gold chain; the cross is small, like one you’d give a child. The chain, though, is adult-sized, long enough to reach Mark’s sternum. I guess it must have come off when he peeled off his T-shirt.
It’s odd that he was wearing it, though. Mark was never religious; he always described himself as atheist and hated that his dad had insisted his first-born be baptised a Roman Catholic like a proper Sicilian. Not that Giovanni cared about religion – it was an ego thing, Mum used to say. Sickly Leo was of less interest, so was allowed to be Greek Orthodox like his mother.
I leave the T-shirt and shoes in the living room, but the crucifix I keep, putting it in a small velvet box with my own jewellery.
I strip and step into the shower, lathering my hair twice to wash away the acrid tang of chlorine.
What I can’t wash away are the flashbacks. Mark facedown in the pool, the trickle of blood at his temple, his cold blue lips. I cry hot, angry tears until my throat aches and the water has wrinkled my fingertips.
I get out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel and sit on my bed.
My anger at Mark isn’t justified. I know that. But it’s easier to deal with anger than what’s rumbling underneath.
He could have died. And if he had, what would I have done with all the unsaid things between us? Unsaid and unexamined.
I’ve avoided him for fifteen years, but the imprint he left on me during my teenage years is still there. That period in my life was the first time I had to deal with messy emotions, the first time I couldn’t categorise everything into two distinct categories of wrong and right.
He was the biggest mistake I ever made, but a small part of me thought – thinks – it wasn’t a mistake at all. It was me putting myself first. The consequences were catastrophic. It turned me into a much more careful person, weighing every decision meticulously, needing things to be neat and tidy, to clearly be either right or wrong. Rich sleeping with Lucy was wrong, but then so was me kissing Mark.
And yet … a part of me doesn’t regret it at all; a part of me that I rarely acknowledge. Because the thing I’ve never told anyone – the thing I can barely admit to myself – is that no one’s ever matched the way Mark made me feel that night.
No one’s even come close.
It’s almost midday when I wake up, but I still beat Tig to breakfast. Yan, Pen, and Theo have been up a while and areplaying Uno in the air-conditioned living room. A quick peek at the score reveals Theo is doingverybadly.
‘I hope you’re not playing for money,’ I tell him. ‘These two are infamous cheats. Check Yan’s sleeve for cards if you don’t believe me.’
Yan clutches his heart. ‘That’s slander.’
Theo smiles good-naturedly. ‘I’m terrible at this game. They don’t need to resort to cheating to beat me.’
‘Thank you,’ says Yan, although Pen is suspiciously quiet and fighting a sly smile, which convinces me I’ve rumbled their scheme.
‘Any news on Mark?’ I ask.
