The Greek island location had been revealed. Corfu. Or, as Gavin had kept saying, Kerkyra. That was Corfu’s Greek name and Gavin said it sounded more mysterious and sexy. Kerkyra had a surprisingly smart and obviously recently-updated airport terminal. Everything was grey, with a touch of muted turquoise on the signage, and the toilets were modern and clean. Meg had sent her a text about Greek toilets late last night, after Gavin had drunk most of the retsina and started up a rendition of ‘Super Trouper’ like he was a member of an ABBA tribute act. Meg had told Lucie: ‘Hover at all costs, as a lot of the toilets I remember were no more than holes in the ground’. Apparently the ones that weren’t holes in the ground never had any seats. Meg had also suggested adding nappy sacks to her luggage. The following note about having to put your soiled toilet paper in a bin rather than down the loo had actually been true.
‘Feel that heat!’ Gavin exclaimed, tilting his face to the sky. ‘I reckon it’s enough to singe off your eyebrows.’ He faced Lucie. ‘Lucky I still don’t have any.’
Lucie smiled and drew in a breath of the sweet humid air as she let herself take in the buzz that surrounded Corfu’s airport. There were travel representatives sweating a little in their uniforms, clipboards at the ready to check passenger names, cleaners with their trolleys and mops, endless amounts of Greek men with mobile phones clamped to their ears, coaches with engines idling adding to the heat of the atmosphere and a row of dark blue Mercedes taxis, yellow signs on their roofs. It wasn’t anything like standing outside the hospital in Southampton not knowing what they were going to be faced with when they went through the front doors. This was uncharted territory, yes, but the anticipation was giving her all the good tingles.
‘Right!’ Gavin announced, dipping fingers into his neon orange flight bag. ‘Let me check the name we’re looking for here for our transfer.’
‘Aren’t we looking for our names?’ Lucie queried, shielding her eyes from the sun and wondering which compartment of her trolley case she had put her sunglasses in. It was hot and she also needed to remember that she didn’t have copious amounts of hair on her head to barricade her scalp from the UV rays. She looked to Gavin. ‘That’s what they do, isn’t it? Write our names on a board, spelt wrong if you believe the films, and—’
‘And then we get kidnapped by guerrilla drag queens. And then after a tough few weeks of wig envy and a lack of tea, we get rescued by Gerard Butler.’ Gavin giggled and then snorted. It had to be the Aperol Spritz. Gavin didn’t seem to have any nervous hesitation about leaving work for a few weeks like she did.
‘Gav, do you have paperwork or just… stuff that might one day make a good screenplay?’
‘I have paperwork!’
He was making a real meal out of finding anything in the neon bag though. For someone whose trolley case was on the larger size of easyJet dimensions, he’d definitely made the most of all the available space. Was that golf balls he had in a zip-lock bag? Since when had Gavin been into golf? She watched as Gavin returned the packet to his bag and finally pulled out a cardboard folder.
‘Here we are! Sortilas is what we’re looking for.’
Lucie wasn’t sure if ‘sortilas’ was the name of a Greek food, a Greek man or the Greek word for ‘luxury transfer’. Right now, any one of those would have done.
‘There should be a man, or a woman, greeting us with a sign saying “Sortilas”,’ Gavin said.
Perhaps ‘sortilas’ was the Greek word for welcome. Lucie pulled her trolley case a little closer to her and squeaked as she ran over her own bare toes. They might be freshly coated in an Avon shade called Pink Obsession, which The Other Sharon Osbourne had palmed onto her because apparently the hue clashed with Sharon’s spider veins, but they were only just getting over the near-frostbite from very early morning temperatures waiting for a transfer bus at Luton Airport. She should have asked Meg a few Greek words to get her started. Lucie imagined even a young Meg would have been highly organised in her adventuring.
‘There!’ Gavin announced, pointing across the road and a yellow zebra crossing to who-knew-what. ‘Sortilas.’
‘Gavin,’ Lucie began as her friend started to tear off, striding forward as if he was the founding father of power-walking. ‘Is Sortilas the name of our hotel?’ That’s what it had to be, didn’t it?
‘Hotel?’
Why had Gavin said the word ‘hotel’ like it wasn’t a full member of the English language and could not ever be used as such in Scrabble? Lucie was beginning to worry that the faith she had in Gavin choosing somewhere relaxing and away-from-it-all might have been ill-placed. As much as Lucie wanted chill time, she had absolutely thought that would involve a hotel, be it an apartment to cater for themselves or an all-inclusive free-for-all. Granted she hadn’t paid out all-inclusive prices but…
‘Yes,’ Lucie said, still trying to catch up to him. ‘You know, the place we’re staying.’
Gavin laughed then, one hand going from the strap of his bag to his mouth, eyes alive with surprise. ‘I keep forgetting I’ve kept the whole trip under wraps!’ He giggled. ‘Let’s keep that going.’ He grinned at her. ‘There’s no hotel, by the way.’
Lucie’s stomach plummeted like the plane had during a bump of turbulence on their final descent. There was no hotel. Oh, God. The only thing coming to mind now was the memory that Gavin had once taken part in a weekend in deepest, darkest North Wales where he’d had to make a shelter out of sticks, leaves and crisp packets made into triangles for waterproofing. No, it couldn’t be anything like that. Gavin had cried for a week after that experience and said he was never going to pursue a relationship with anyone whose Grindr profile said they liked communing with nature. Gavin had translated that as ‘might indulge in al fresco relations’ when really it had meant ‘possibly Ant Middleton’s twin brother’.
‘Don’t look so worried, Luce,’ Gavin said, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘When have I ever let you down?’ He continued his trajectory with Lucie now on the same squashed-to-his-side course.
‘You shaved off my hair,’ she answered without hesitation.
‘We don’t know I did that.’
‘Gavin, I can’t even do my eyeliner straight. There’s no way I cut my own hair.’
‘When have I ever let you down apart from that?’ He sniffed. ‘If I did do that. Sharon’s being very sketchy about her whereabouts after the casino.’
‘Well… you dropped hot glue on the upholstery of my car trying to fix your leather trousers on the way to Sharon’s probably-not-fiftieth-birthday.’
‘That was not my fault!’ Gavin exclaimed. ‘That was your driving!’
‘The main thing people do in a car is drive! I’m pretty sure gluing clothes together isn’t in the Highway Code’s list of common practices.’
‘Listen,’ Gavin said, smiling. ‘Everything in the UK is way way behind us now. Miles and miles back there over seas and clouds.’ He waved a hand at the pure blue sky. ‘All that matters for the next few weeks is you, me and total relaxation.’
The word ‘relaxation’ from Gavin’s lips actually made her whole spirit thrum in that moment. Her whole self – so much more than her dodgy back – was crying out for it. She needed to completely ease off the gas, take her foot off the pedal and let her soul do the driving…
‘Yassas! Yassas! You are the Gaveen and Loosely?’
There was a man in front of them now, a paper sign in his hand bearing the word ‘Sortilas’. He had thick black hair and a cigarette hanging from his lips. The suit he was wearing was a little too small for him and the belt he really didn’t need was set to the last notch.
‘I’m Gavin,’ Gavin announced. ‘Gav-in… and this is Lu-cie.’
‘I am Miltos. Mil-tos. The driver for the van to Sortilas.’ He grabbed Gavin’s suitcase with one hand and Lucie’s with the other before either of them had time to blink, let alone respond.
‘Did he say “van”?’ Lucie asked Gavin as they hurried after Miltos, past the line of luxurious taxis.
‘I’m sure he meant “minibus”,’ Gavin replied, with little conviction. ‘Minibus, van, they’re probably one and the same in the Greek language.’
Lucie’s heart brightened as she set her eyes on a small, sleek, silver coach ahead. It was all polished chrome and blacked out windows, as if ready to transport Lady Gaga and a full entourage. This was more like it!
Except Miltos wasn’t stopping at the mini-coach. Stop! Stop at the coach! Lucie held her breath as Miltos halted not at the door of the bus she had convinced herself would contain air-conditioning to simulate Iceland – which was exactly what she needed right now – but instead at the rusty framework of a van. A van plastered with effigies of every fruit you could imagine. Miltos now had his hand on the wing-mirror that was wobbling in the humidity so much it could barely be attached to the vehicle. Then he opened a sliding door, popping in their cases and then holding out his hand.
‘Loosely,’ he greeted with a smile.
Lucie now wanted to cry. The interior of the van was dark. Were there even seats in there? There had surely been a mistake. She stayed still, waiting for Gavin to point out the obvious error in their transfer.
‘Please, Loosely,’ Miltos spoke again, taking the cigarette from his lips, dropping it onto the ground and crushing it beneath his shoe. ‘Let me help you with the step.’
‘Gavin,’ Lucie said, her throat tightening. She didn’t know what else to say. She hoped saying his name would be enough to spur action.
‘This is…’ Gavin began, drawing up to Lucie’s shoulder, ‘so not like anything in Southampton, right?’ His voice lowered to a whisper then. ‘Think of it as a grade up from the shittiest Uber you’ve ever been in. The info said it was a thirty-minute drive at most.’ He smiled at Lucie. ‘Dark means it will be cool inside there.’
‘All I can smell is…’ Lucie stopped talking and really breathed. What was that scent?
‘Cherries,’ Miltos offered. ‘I have sold many cherries this morning, but there are a few containers left. Do not worry. Plenty of space.’ He put his hand out again and Lucie felt Gavin nudge her forward.
‘I promise you’re going to love it when we get there,’ Gavin whispered.
‘Well, I think you need to tell me where “there” is now,’ Lucie grumbled, stepping up into the fruit van with Miltos’s assistance and thumping down onto a seat that appeared to be next to an over-spilling tray of nectarines.
Gavin hopped in alongside her, orange bag catching on a set of weighing scales as his bottom found slightly torn pleather. ‘You said you wanted a surprise.’
‘You said I wanted a surprise,’ Lucie answered, gathering herself together in as minimal space as possible. She was afraid that any movement might involve the juice of fruits she suspected would stain the white trousers she had bought on impulse when a holiday clothing ad had been fed to her on Facebook.
‘We go to Sortilas!’ Miltos reminded them, sliding the door closed then hopping up into the cab at the front. ‘Your health holiday begins right here. With the fruit!’
Health holiday. Had he said ‘health holiday’? She didn’t want a health holiday. She wanted cocktails and not having to watch her weight. As much as Gavin worked out at the hospital gym, he wasn’t really one for nuts or seeds, and the only pulses he was fond of usually involved a heavy dance track at nightclub The Edge. And she really wanted something different to measured and cautious, or her mind was going to be trying to tell her she shouldn’t have even left her safety net in the UK…
‘Gavin,’ Lucie said. ‘Please tell me this isn’t some sort of… fat camp.’ For some reason she was conjuring up images of celebrities having their girth measured and progress tracked as they went from slob to slim in a series of challenges that involved coloured tracksuits.
‘What is “fat camp”?’ Miltos asked as he started the engine and the van began to whine and groan like Lucie might soon if she didn’t get something alcoholic in her system. Maybe that was why Gavin had been Mr Italian Aperitif on the plane! Because he knew that was the last of his alcohol!
Gavin placed a hand on Lucie’s knee and squeezed. ‘Mr Miltos, please reassure Loosely that Sortilas is going to have plenty of food and plenty of wine before she faints.’
Lucie pulled a face at Gavin’s use of her name.
‘Oh, Loosely,’ Miltos answered, looking at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘In Sortilas no one goes hungry. Not even the fat camp ones.’