Wish You Were Here

Chapter 34



Milo was pacing up and down the harbour, wondering what to do. It felt like he’d paced the whole of Greece in his anxiety over Tiana but he just couldn’t keep still whilst she was missing. He’d been in and out of every shop on the harbour front, asking if they had seen her. One woman had taken her time in replying, her eyes scanning the ceiling. Milo had waited, his heart thudding in his chest, and then she’d given him a look as if to say he was completely mad and that, of course, she hadn’t seen a little girl.

He asked the row of fishermen who seemed to live on the harbour wall but they never saw anything that wasn’t directly under their nose or under the water.

When he found himself at the bus stop, he decided it was best if he got himself home and be there if that was where Tiana was making her way back to. He was just fishing around in his pockets for some change when he saw her. It was a girl with long dark hair on the other side of the street. She was looking in a shop window with her back to him. Milo tried not to get excited. After all, most of the girls in Greece had long dark hair.

‘Tiana?’ At first, her name came out as a whisper but then the dark-haired girl turned around and he saw that it was his dark-haired girl.

‘TIANA!’ he cried, her name carrying above a sea of tourists between them. She turned and saw him and he breathed a sigh of relief, tears filling his eyes as she smiled and began to run towards him.

‘Milo!’ she shouted, her feet flying over the pavement.

Milo’s arms opened wide as she crashed into him. ‘Oh my God, Tiana! I was so worried about you.’ He stroked her long hair and breathed in the scent of her in relief. ‘I’ve been looking all over Athens for you. I didn’t know where you were!’

‘I was here,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ve been here a little while.’

‘I’ve never been so worried in my life!’

‘But I was fine,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t worry so much. I can look after myself.’

He cupped her face in his hands and looked down at her. ‘Yes, well I can see that now but what if something had gone wrong?’ he asked. ‘What if you’d taken a wrong turn down a street or somebody had abducted you or you’d fallen into the sea?’

She laughed. ‘But I didn’t!’

Her calmness suddenly angered him. ‘You mustn’t ever do anything like that again.’

Her smile vanished. ‘But I thought you’d worry if I stayed with Georgio and Sonya. I thought you wanted me to live with you.’

‘I do! But you should have stayed where you were. I would have come to collect you.’

‘I didn’t want to stay there. It didn’t feel right.’

‘But you were safe there, Tiana.’ He saw the sadness in her eyes and suddenly felt terrible at having shouted at her. She was safe now and that was all that mattered so he hugged her to him again. ‘How did you get back, anyway?’

Tiana looked a little uneasy for a moment. ‘I took some money,’ she said. ‘But I’ll pay it back!’

‘Where did you get money from?’

‘Sonya’s handbag.’

Milo laughed. ‘I think she’ll forgive you.’

‘But I ran out of money here so I couldn’t get the bus home.’

‘So, what were you planning to do, then?’ Milo asked, trying to sound serious.

‘I guessed you’d come looking for me so I thought I’d wait around here for a bit.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes,’ she said philosophically. ‘I knew you’d be here sooner or later.’

‘You did, did you?’ he said, getting her in a gentle headlock in the crook of his arm.

‘Owww!’ she cried but she was laughing at the same time.

‘Knew I’d come for you, eh? Knew I’d bail you out of any trouble you managed to get yourself into?’ He ruffled her hair and then kissed the top of her head. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the bus stop and get you home.’

They walked hand in hand.

‘I guess I won’t be going to school today,’ Tiana suddenly said.

‘I guess not,’ Milo said.

‘It was really horrible when they took me. I screamed all the way to the boat and then cried for the whole journey too.’

Milo smiled with pride but he didn’t think it wise to praise her for such behaviour even though he secretly applauded it. They were going to have to build some sort of ongoing relationship with Georgio and Sonya, after all.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Milo said after a moment, ‘and I was wondering if you might like to spend more time with Georgio and Sonya.’

Tiana stared at him with bewilderment in her eyes. ‘What do you mean? I thought you didn’t want me to live with them. I thought you said—’

‘I don’t want you to live with them!’ Milo said. ‘I’m not talking about you moving to Athens. I’m just thinking you could stay there every now and again – like a little holiday.’ He knew he wasn’t selling the idea very well because his heart really wasn’t in it but he had to think about Georgio and Sonya and he remembered the fear he’d seen in their faces when they’d thought something might have happened to Tiana. ‘You’ve got your own room there and everything, and they love you, Tiana! They really want to spend more time with you.’

Tiana’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Do I have to?’

‘No, you don’t have to but it would be really kind if you did.’

She looked thoughtful for a moment as if weighing up all the pros and all the cons and then she nodded solemnly.

‘Good girl,’ he said, ruffling her hair. ‘Now, I’d better give Georgio and Sonya a call and let them know you’re okay and it would be very nice indeed if you spoke to them too.’

‘But what would I say?’ she asked.

‘That you’re sorry.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘No, but it would be very nice if you did that too,’ Milo said, his eyebrows raised as he awaited her response.

‘Oh, all right then.’

‘Good girl,’ he said and he ruffled her hair once more for good measure.

* * *

It was a strange feeling to be going back to Greece, Alice thought as she stared out of the plane at the wispy white clouds that threaded by her window in eerie skeins. She couldn’t help feeling a deep sadness when she thought about all that had happened since her last trip there. She felt like a different person now. For a start, she was an orphan. That was probably being a bit overly dramatic at the age of twenty-eight, she thought, but she couldn’t help it. She no longer had a mother or a father and the thought made her intensely sad.

Arriving in Athens, Alice thought about a conversation she’d had with Milo. He’d lost both his parents some years ago. He’d mentioned it briefly – as if it didn’t matter – but she’d seen the sadness in his eyes and she’d wanted to know more.

She shook her head. This trip wasn’t about Milo. She wasn’t going to think about him or their unfinished conversations. It didn’t matter what he thought about his parents because he wasn’t a part of her life. The only part he might play in it was to help her undo this wish which was his fault in the first place. If he hadn’t told her about that silly statue, none of this would have happened. She’d have left the villa that day in blissful ignorance as plain old Alice Archer and would be living quietly at home, and Bruce, Wilfred, Larry, Mr Montague and Ben would never have batted an eyelid at her.

Leaving the airport in a taxi, Alice looked at the streets which led up to the Parthenon and wondered if she’d have time to visit it on her trip. She’d booked five nights because there’d been a deal on and she thought she could probably do with some time away from work and home, some time to call her own. However, thinking about the Parthenon, it probably wasn’t a good idea. There were no doubt dozens of statues of gods and goddesses up there amongst the ruins and Alice didn’t want to be tempted by any of them. Heaven only knew what would happen if she had a close encounter with Zeus or Athena.

She couldn’t afford to book the villa she’d stayed in with her sister and she couldn’t find any other places available on the island at such short notice. Holiday season was in full swing and Kethos was fully booked. So she made do with a room in a characterless hotel on the mainland just outside Athens and near enough to the ferry crossing to get her over to Kethos with the least fuss possible.

Arriving at the hotel after giving an amorous taxi driver the brush-off, she dumped her suitcase and walked across to her second-floor window. She could see the sea if she stood up on tiptoe and craned her neck. She tried to imagine the little heart-shaped island of Kethos beyond the indigo waves. What would Milo be doing, she wondered? How many children would he be tucking into bed that night? And would he be making more with his beautiful Greek wife who had no idea about his romantic liaisons with tourists?

As Alice gazed out across the little patch of visible sea, she only hoped that she could get over to Kethos and back again without running into Milo the married man.