Page 6 of Deep Blue Lies

FIVE

I’m not stupid. I don’t mean it literally.

I said Mum’s never talked about my father, but that’s not quite true, a couple of times she’s said something, when she’d had too much to drink.

Once she told me he was a waiter – a Greek waiter.

A proper cliché, as she put it. But she wouldn’t tell me his name.

I couldn’t even understand if she knows it.

Maybe that’s what she means by not being proud of that time of her life?

I don’t know. But what I mean is, I understand there’s no chance of me actually finding my father.

But what I do know is that there’s this island in Greece, a place where I was literally born, and it’s real.

So I want to see it. I want to know what it’s like.

I want to meet the people who live there.

And yeah, maybe I’ll get lucky, and bump into an older guy who looks just like me – but I’m not kidding myself.

I just don’t know why it’s such a big deal for me to find out more about where I’m from.

Our “discussion” peters out, like it always does, and Mum tells me she’s going out – she and Matt already have a restaurant booked.

But she tells me there’s leftover take-away in the fridge.

So I eat that and when she’s gone I pull out my laptop.

You’ve got to act decisively if you want to achieve anything, that’s one of her favourite phrases.

So I run a search for flights to Alythos Island.

It doesn’t actually have an airport, but there’s one nearby, in a place called Panachoria.

Only, this time of year there’s just one flight a week and I’ve just missed it.

But when I look at flights to Athens instead, there’s a discounted flight tomorrow.

The website tells me there’s only one seat left at that price.

I leave it flashing at me, for a long while.

You’ve got to act decisively if you want to achieve anything.

I pull out my bank card and book it.

I feel sick when it’s done. Physically sick, like I’ve set something in motion that I’m not in control of.

Then I go into the utility room and empty my bag.

I dump almost everything into the washing machine and then go upstairs and raid my drawers for all my lighter clothes – I never needed them in Sunderland.

I start packing. And then I stop, and do something I probably shouldn’t.

I make my way into Mum’s office, which is in one of the spare rooms. I pull open the filing cabinet where she stores the accounts.

At the back, there’s an envelope and I pick it up.

I open it and slide out the photo. There’s Mum and her friend Imogen, both about my age, looking so bright, so sun-kissed, so happy .

I know I shouldn’t, but I slide the drawer shut and carry the photo back to my room, where I stash it in my laptop bag.

That was yesterday. Now I’m here. Waiting at the gate at London Heathrow airport. For the plane that’s going to take me home.

I left Mum a note. That was probably cowardly, not telling her to her face, but she had to go to work this morning and I did tell her yesterday, when we argued, so it’s not like she doesn’t know.

And it’s not really her business. I’m paying for the flight.

And it’s my life. Even so, I didn’t feel I could relax at all until I’d got to the airport and through security.

All the time I was looking behind me, like she was going to physically drag me away.

But now she can’t. Now she can’t get me back.

I open my laptop bag and pull out the photo. In the harsh light I look at it more carefully than I ever have before. It’s the first time I’ve been able to do it without worrying about her coming home and catching me.

I guess Mum is actually a couple of years older than I am now, maybe twenty-four?

Her hair is loose, much longer than she wears it now and lighter too.

Her face is golden and she’s got freckles I don’t usually see.

She’s beautiful. Really she is. I don’t want to sing my own praises but I’m OK looking.

I have more olive skin than Mum – presumably from whoever my dad was – but I don’t look as good as Mum does here.

Maybe after I’ve had a summer of sun? My eyes shift over to Imogen.

It hasn’t really registered before, because I’ve always known her as this weird, messed-up, middle-aged lady, but she was pretty then too.

Her hair is dark and tied back in a loose ponytail, and there’s a light in her eyes that the camera has caught, like she’s sharing a secret.

I should say something about Imogen, because it’s a strange relationship that Mum has with her.

It’s like they’re friends, but not because they like each other.

Only because they once used to be friends, and each of them feels they ought to keep it going in some way?

I don’t know. I’ve always felt that Imogen relies on Mum for some sort of mental-health support, like maybe she’s bipolar or something, and Mum feels obliged to help, even though she normally doesn’t like people who are weak, which is what Mum says sometimes after Imogen has come around to visit.

Like I said, it’s kind of weird. And I haven’t seen her in a few years.

We used to see her more when I was younger.

I turn the photo over. There on the back is something I’d never noticed before.

It’s a date: August 2000 . The year before I was born.

I calculate…actually, it’s exactly nine months before I was born.

Which means – if my high-school biology classes and three-and-a-half years at medical school has taught me anything – that this is the exact time my mum was busy having me with my dad, whoever he is.

There’s a bong on the intercom as my flight is called.

Most of the people at the gate stand up at once, and begin waiting to board the plane.

I wait though, joining the line when it’s reduced to nearly nothing, and the flight attendant checks my passport and ticket.

I half expect her to tell me there’s some problem, that Mum’s phoned through and explained I can’t go, but she won’t have seen my note yet.

And the woman just gives me a vacant smile, and hands my passport back, so I walk down the tunnel towards the plane.

I step inside, and squeeze into my seat near the back and by the window.

There’s a long delay, while a queue of planes take off before us.

Finally it’s our time and we spin around onto the start of the runway.

We don’t even stop, and the engines roar.

I’m pressed back into my seat, then I feel twice my weight as we climb up into the air.

We bump and roll, up towards the clouds, and then the damp outskirts of London vanish into a blanket of grey and we rattle our way up, higher and higher until suddenly we break through the top of the clouds.

Here the sun beats down on a secret landscape, soft and endless, like you could step out and float forever.

I try to read on the flight, but my mind’s working too much, so instead I study the people around me.

I’d say the plane is half full of people on holiday, but the other half look different, like they’re on business, or have some other reason to be going to Athens.

I wonder if any have a mission quite like mine.

The landing in Athens is kind of scary. It seems they built the airport right in the city, or maybe the city just grew around the airport?

Either way, as the plane comes in it drops lower and lower over what seems to be endless apartment buildings, and by the time we’re nearly down, some of the tops of the buildings, right beside us, are actually higher than the plane.

You can look inside the apartments, seeing snatches of people’s lives as we thunder past, in this tube of aluminium weighing hundreds of tons.

Then we’re down, and some of the tourists try to give a cheer, but most of the passengers are already snapping their phones on and reconnecting to their lives.

I look out of the window. It’s sunny here. Not a cloud in sight .

I take a bus from Athens to Panachoria. It’s the closest city to the island of Alythos, and it takes four hours.

I’m pretty used to buses what with riding the Megabus so many times.

But this one is more interesting, because everything out of the windows is Greek, and this is where I was born. Or at least the correct country.

It’s a bit confusing in Panachoria bus station, partly because a lot of the signs aren’t written in English but the Greek alphabet, and I don’t understand a word of it.

But an older guy helps me find a connecting bus to Kastria, which is the main town on Alythos.

I’m not sure how it’s actually going to get there, what with Alythos being an island and everything, but I just have to trust. And after twenty minutes we pull up to a tiny little port just as a small ferry is boarding a dozen or more cars.

It’s really cute. The bus drives right to the front and then bumps onto the ferry.

The other passengers around me – locals definitely now – barely even pay it any attention, not even getting off the bus.

But then one couple do, so I follow them and climb up into the passenger area.

Here I stare out at the sea around me, drinking it in.

Ahead of us I can see what must be Alythos, not far away.

There’s other islands around and beyond it.

I hear a blast from a whistle as the ferry starts to move.

I stare down at the clear water below its steel sides.

It’s only fifteen minutes, and I’m called to get back on the bus.

We dock, and again we’re first to drive off.

Then it’s a ten-minute drive to the town of Kastria.

When I disembark here, there’s one more bus to take, down to the town of Skalio, which is down in the south-east of the island.

It’s easier to find this time, because Alythos is quite small.

There aren’t many other places you can go.

I’m the only person who gets off the bus at Skalio, and the driver pulls away at once, leaving me in a cloud of diesel fumes.

When that fades I get a whiff of garbage.

It seems the bus stop here is also by the town’s bin store.

There’s only one way to go: behind me are olive groves, leading up the side of a mountain, with pine forests higher up.

In front of me, a few low apartment buildings, and up ahead a glimpse of the sea.

I shoulder my bag and walk towards it, trying to quell the feeling that I’ve made a terrible mistake.

But as I get a bit of distance away from the bins there’s another smell.

It’s warm but fresh, from the sea I suppose, but something else too.

Something earthy and sharp. It takes me a second to place it, because it’s quite rare that Mum likes to cook with it, but sometimes she does.

It’s thyme. I look around and I see it’s growing wild everywhere in the scrubby land around me, filling the air with this low, herbal hum. It’s nice.

I follow the directions on my phone – and also my nose – down to the seafront, passing a little supermarket with baskets of fruit outside that looks like something from Instagram.

A cat slinks past, stretching lazily, and from somewhere I hear voices, low and relaxed.

I suppose it’s Greek that I’m hearing. Words I don’t understand but which sound like waves rolling in.

When I get to the waterfront the sun is just touching the horizon, sinking into the water like it’s dissolving and turning the whole sky above me pink and orange.

There’s a row of fishing boats rocking in a little harbour, ropes creaking softly as they pull against the dock.

Around them various tavernas have set out tables, and there’s maybe a dozen people dining, with many more tables.

It smells amazing, grilled seafood. The relaxed murmur of conversation.

I’m ignored, able to look around unobserved.

That’s when it really hits me.

This is it. Skalios Bay – Alythos . The place where I was born.

Where I was conceived, at least as far as I know.

But also the place I know nothing about, because my mum has never spoken about it.

Never answered my questions, and there’s only so much you can know about a place from searching it online.

But now I’m here to find out for myself.

Already it’s not quite what I expected. More three-dimensional.

Sights I recognise from photographs not connecting in the way I'd imagined they would.

I don’t know what I expected to feel though.

Some kind of instant connection? A weird sense of recognition?

But there’s nothing like that. Instead it’s just this sort of…

anxiety, uneasiness. Like I’m not supposed to be here.

Like I’ve done something wrong in coming here, and I should have told Mum, let her find a way of stopping me. But I didn’t.

A waiter notices me now – far too young to be my dad – and half-heartedly he tries to interest me in a table.

I back away. I bought plastic-wrapped sandwiches at the bus station in Panachoria, but even so I’m hungry enough that the restaurants are setting my mouth watering.

But there’s no way I’m eating out here alone.

I feel watched suddenly, like someone’s about to notice that I’m here and shouldn’t be.

I can see on my phone that my hotel is only a few minutes away.

So I take one last glance at the water, the sky now shifting into purples and deep blues as the night takes over.

I turn back down another narrow street, following the comforting blue line on my phone, and I can’t wait to check in to my room.

I’m here. But something about it makes me want to hide myself away. Like I don’t want the island to know I’m back.