It’s most definitely the witching hour and I can’t sleep. My thoughts whir while lying in bed staring into the darkness, slumber far from reach. I decide to get up and dig a little deeper online to see if I can uncover any pointers about the Methoni painting and to contact this man Arabelle suggested. Now I know it’s actually a real picture, rather than a copy of a painted sketch, it’s all I can think about.
I find myself drawn down a rabbit hole of images of the little Greek village of Methoni. The lamps in the dining room throw exaggerated tendrils of shapes up the walls as the light from my laptop illuminates my face. Trucks approaching the traffic lights outside on the New Kings Road squeak, bus brakes hiss and taxis rattle along. My hand hesitates over the mouse as I digest the image of tranquil paradise on the screen. So compelling, it slowly erases night-time London noise. The clumsy text translated into English amuses me: a heartbeat around every corner of the village, this will be waiting to enthral and make a relax with you. Whatever that means, it sounds heavenly.
A small one-bedroom apartment for rent, nestled in the hillside above Methoni looks out to sea. I can almost smell the salt water and feel the sea breeze. I imagine myself sitting on the terrace sipping something cold, watching the sun set on ancient paradise. It’s available for three weeks from the first of April. In just three days’ time … dare I? Perhaps Arabelle is right. I should be the one to uncover this piece of Mum’s, like she left it for me as a mission. Tiff can continue to hold the fort at work. She’s been such a rock since I took a step back to care for Mum six months ago and insisted I took as much time as I needed – three more weeks won’t make a difference. Even though I’m the founder of Sophie’s Kitchen Catering, it’s a partnership more than a hierarchical arrangement. I know Tiff will be fine with it, she will be adamant I go. I am so lucky to have her. I gnaw at the skin around my fingers, a nervous habit I’ve developed that would make Mum tut in disapproval.
The need to be here at home is all-consuming, but I refuse to become an old spinster living in what has gone before, turning this house into a miserable museum retrospective – a tribute to all that is lost. I feel compelled to go to Methoni, almost as if I can’t grieve properly knowing there’s a missing piece of Mum out there somewhere.
I sit back in my chair and invite rational thinking, trying to remove the emotion from the situation and see things as clearly as I can. I am single, bereaved, Tiff can run the business, so why shouldn’t I go? It could be just what I need. To have a purpose, when I’ve been floating directionless in a permanent state of anxiety looking after Mum, coming to terms with the end of my relationship with Robert. An exciting adventure, exploring the unknown and discovering Mum’s special corner of Greece. And then triumphantly finding her painting. The pull of the ghosts of the past makes me want to burrow into what has gone before, but it feels like those same ghosts are compelling me to discover my future.
I’m also intrigued to find out more about this man my mum has captured. My eyes keep returning to him, his anguish somehow permeating through the page, even though I can’t make him out in detail. What’s tormenting him so? I put the paper down, as it’s becoming my torment.
Could I be so bold and travel to Greece on my own?
I answer myself out loud. I have nothing to lose and it’s exactly what I need.
‘Yes!’
I compose an email to the man Arabelle told me about, Tony Giovinazzi, to begin my quest.
Dear Mr Giovinazzi,
My mother’s agent, Arabelle Thoreau, kindly passed on your contact details. As you’ll be aware, my mother, Lyndsey Kinlock, died recently. I’m trying to find a lost painting you may have heard of in the series of five my mother created of Greece. I’d love to see the two paintings you own in person. I’ll be in Methoni from this Friday for the first three weeks of April and would be delighted to visit you if it’s convenient. If there’s anything you can think of that could help me to track down the missing painting in the meantime, I’d be very grateful. Or anyone you know of who could assist me.
With kind regards and hope to meet you soon,
Sophie Kinlock.
I add my mobile number and press Send before I second-guess myself any further. And so it begins …
The prospect of spending time alone away from here is so appealing. I adore my friends, they came through when I needed them and continue to do so, but I’m also mindful that even the best of friends’ tolerance for this morbid version of me will expire eventually. Nobody wants to be around sadness and misery. It would be too tempting to cling to all I know for the sake of consolation. Robert could easily be that option, but there are too many strings attached for the sake of fleeting familiarity and that Pandora’s box must remain closed. How fitting to think of that Greek legend, when I’m looking to Greece to help me now …
The sting of Tasha and Robert having a confrontation in the churchyard after Mum’s funeral still smarts and my irritation lingers. I know she was trying to protect me and defuse the situation, but I also know from experience that now he’ll be even more determined to reach me.
Leaving Robert was the hardest, bravest thing I’ve ever had to do, before burying my mother. I shake him from my consciousness, along with any vague wisps of longing. I don’t need a man to rescue me. I’m perfectly capable of being my own knight in shining armour. I just need to find the nerve to leap into the next bit of life.
I sift through other photographs of Methoni that Mum had kept. There’s one of Mum and me the only time we went there together, one spring when I was five. I feel a flicker of joy from our smiling faces, followed by an exhausting wash of sadness. Even then, Mum and I looked so similar. Her hair is exactly like mine in texture, the sea air making our curls frizzy ringlets. I have no memory of this moment, but here it is, somehow tugging me back to this place. The yearning to walk in those sandy footsteps again is irresistible. I recognise the jumpsuit Mum is wearing. Floral green and pink on black with spaghetti straps. An original Biba. I wore it last May to a special picnic on Clapham Common – Mum, Robert and me.
We were celebrating a huge sale of Mum’s. A Japanese collector had bought six of her pieces and she was thrilled, insisting we gather and drink copious amounts of fizz. It was a rare day of easy bliss when it stayed warm beyond dusk and there was no need for an extra layer when the sun went down. The Common was filled with people doing the same; someone had a guitar and began to sing. It all felt spontaneously groovy.
Mum told us about the music festivals she’d been to and we sat, enthralled. I felt proud at just how effortlessly cool my brilliant bohemian mum was. My school friends all adored her. How glamorous it was that she travelled each summer to seemingly far-flung, exotic places for work. And she was famous, even though none of us knew quite how so. It wasn’t like she was a musician or a celebrity in our world. Just in artistic circles.
Robert and I walked back that night, singing seventies songs and giggling. The heat and the champagne striking the rare perfect balance for affection and gentle passion. That was one of the few good days, when his darkness remained under lock and key.
We were together for six and a half years, most of them good, some parts horrendous. When we first met, his cut-glass manners and magnetic charm won me over. I fell for his dimples, tales from the city and effortless wit. But underneath his care-free demeanour and boyish good looks lurked a narcissist with a temper that reared its head only very occasionally in the early years, but when it did, it was hateful. That only happened when he was drunk, but as time went on, those days increased in frequency; after a long office lunch, a client dinner, a bad day or a catch-up with the boys. A poorly timed comment interpreted as criticism would trigger him from zero to one hundred in seconds.
Then I’d be in for hours of torment. His insecurities bubbling up through a vodka-skewed fog causing him to rage incoherently at me, sometimes grabbing my wrists hard enough to leave bruises. He’d rant and rave drunkenly, calling me every name he could conjure from his extensive vocabulary, and I’d do my best not to provoke him further, pleading with him to believe that I truly loved him. Then, when he eventually calmed down, I’d quake with fear beside him until I heard snoring – the signal that it was safe for me to sleep and the storm had passed.
The following morning would be filled with remorse, apologies and platitudes. I never believed that I was a victim of abuse, because he didn’t hit me. I now know differently.
It was a volatile pattern of destruction we followed that somehow became our normal. The shame of trying and failing to fix him or admit my mistake muzzled me into silence and acceptance. I had trapped myself.
I look again at my laptop, at the hillside apartment in the sunshine, and shake off my jumbled thoughts, overlapping like tautly wound maypole ribbons. Something is drawing me to this place that meant so much to Mum, enough for her to commit it to canvas repeatedly. I tap my fingers on the table, impatient and frustrated. I’ve got to try to shift this clinging grief and shake off the past. I won’t get any answers being here.
The photocopy of her painting and this man make me feel a little uneasy. There’s something about him, his intensity she’s somehow portrayed despite him being in shadow, and her note on the reverse. Fate brought who together, then ripped them apart? Is she talking about herself and the man in the painting?
Someone must know. And I’m determined to find out. I autofill my payment information, and go to book both apartment and flights. Ready to depart this Friday. I inhale deeply and exhale my misgivings.
I click confirm.