Chapter Thirty-Five

‘Your boy’s in a spot of bother.’ Audrey was standing on Tanya’s doorstep, brandishing a Sunday newspaper.

‘What do you mean?’ Tanya asked, confused.

Audrey presented her with a photo of a dishevelled-looking Marinos stumbling out of a Cypriot night club. ‘He’s supposed to be recuperating and yet there he is, up all night. And he’d claimed to be seeing a specialist in Cyprus yet that very same specialist has no record of having ever taken a look at him.’

Tanya scrutinised both the picture and the write-up. She felt a shiver of excitement, seeing someone she actually knew in the papers. Marinos really was famous! ‘So what’s going to happen to him?’

‘Oh, nothing, I shouldn’t think, he’ll get a rap on the knuckles from his manager, that’s all. But the press’ll be onto him from now on; they’ll be watching his every move.’

‘He is quite nice looking, isn’t he?’ Tanya said sadly. Two working days and no fax. So he really wasn’t interested after all.

‘You can have this if you like,’ Audrey said, handing her the paper. ‘I only read it for the sports pages.’

Tanya ate her breakfast muesli over the day-old paper. There was a picture of a footballer’s girlfriend out shopping and a pop star’s wife leaving a restaurant. They’d just struck lucky, she thought, to date men who were famous. Life wasn’t fair. She was prettier than either of those two. And better dressed. It should have been her in those photos.

Tanya resolved to do something; she couldn’t sit back and let Marinos slip through her fingers, she had to be more pro-active. She decided to pretend that it was standard practise to call anyone who’d viewed the show-house after about a week, to gauge their level of interest. What was the harm in that? In fact, so good was the idea that Tanya wondered why it wasn’t standard practise, and thought she might recommend it.

Once she had some free time, she took a deep breath and dialled his number. The phone rang four, five and then six times; she was on the point of hanging up when he picked up and said a tentative ‘hello’.

‘Marinos Kiriakos? It’s Tanya Hopkins here, from Odyssey Villas.’

The relief in his voice was palpable. ‘Tanya, it’s good to hear from you. I’m sorry, I thought it might be someone else.’ The press, no doubt, Tanya thought excitedly. She was talking to a celebrity! And one who fancied her at that!

She started trotting out her rehearsed spiel but he interrupted her. ‘Yeah, look, I’ve been meaning to fax over the application form but things have been a bit, well - difficult - here lately. But I’ll do it, I promise I will. I want Adonis, I really do.’

‘Good.’ Tanya beamed down the line. ‘Now, you do know there’s a party coming up for new residents at the weekend now, don’t you? They’re laying the first foundation, basically.’

‘I can’t do parties at the moment, I’m sort of grounded.’

‘By your parents?’

‘My boss,’ he corrected her.

‘Why, have you been a bad boy, then?’

‘Not half as bad as I would of liked,’ he chuckled. ‘If you’d of come and had a drink with me like I wanted.’

‘You know I was a fool,’ Tanya lied, enjoying herself. ‘Turns out my boyfriend was cheating on me all the time; I only found out at the weekend. Couldn’t believe it. I only turned you down because of him, basically.’ It came out so easily Tanya was impressed with herself.

‘What are we gonna do, then?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you come to London?’

‘London?’

‘Why not?’ he suggested excitedly. ‘Only I can’t go to work because of my foot, but I can’t get out much either. I’m getting bored of daytime telly. Wouldn’t mind going shopping, but it’s no fun on your own.’

Shopping! Tanya thought excitedly. With a celebrity!

‘Sounds good,’ she said, trying to contain herself. ‘And come to think of it, I haven’t taken any time off for a while now. Been working overtime while my boss was getting married, but he’s back now, so I’m due a break.’

‘You get yourself a flight over and I’ll send someone to meet you at the airport,’ he offered. It would have been better, Tanya reflected, had he offered to pay for the flight itself, but that wasn’t important. He seemed genuinely keen.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she told him. ‘But send your application through now and my boss can hardly complain, can he?’

Her mind was racing. There was the big party at the weekend, but what did it matter if she missed that? Or could she even be back in time for it? She poured over her alternatives, and then found a solution. Spotting Yannakis in his office through the blinds, she pretended to answer her mobile phone, and then acted shocked at the news she was receiving, dramatically crying out and rushing her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, is she all right? Which hospital? And you couldn’t of told me sooner? Oh God, but what are her chances? Yes of course I’ll be over. No, he won’t mind, he’ll understand, he’s a family man himself, he just got married, didn’t he? Look, I’ll see what I can do, but I’ll get on the first plane I can, OK?’

‘Everything all right, Tan?’ Yannakis appeared in her office, a concerned look on his face.

‘It’s my mum,’ Tanya sobbed. ‘She’s been taken ill basically, they don’t know what it is, but she collapsed and - I don’t know, it might be a stroke, or a heart attack or something.’

‘Oh Jesus, I’m sorry. You want to go home?’

‘Yes please.’ Tanya nodded. ‘Would that be all right?’

On cue, Marinos’s fax application started to come through.

‘Of course it’s all right,’ Yannakis said, eyeing up the fax. ‘Look, you’ve done a really good job here lately, you know that? I’ve been really impressed with you, and so’s head office. Of course you must go back. Go on now, get yourself home and get packing.’

‘Thank you Yannakis. I don’t know how long I’ll need, but basically I’ll try and make it back before the party.’

Tanya left the office, her heart soaring. She could spend a couple of days in London with Marinos and still be back in time for Saturday’s party. But in that time they could establish themselves as a couple, she thought. She could start flying over more often and then, who knows, maybe she’d end up moving back and living with him? The London she’d never enjoyed would become a completely different place with a man like Marinos, she told herself. Suddenly it would be all glamour and parties; taxis and good restaurants. Never again would she find herself shivering at a bus stop, wondering if she should start to walk; never again would she pass fancy restaurants and wonder if she’d ever make it inside. With Marinos life could be all she’d ever wanted.

Full of the Hello! and Heat stories in which she might appear, Tanya raced back to Fig Tree Villas to pack.