Page 72 of Deep Blue Lies

SEVENTY-ONE

I pause, frozen. Captured in a moment speaking to her, with nothing to say.

“What’s going on, Ava?”

“Nothing, nothing’s going on.”

Silence. “OK. Well, it’s taken you long enough to get around to calling me. Did you run out of money?”

“No. No. That’s not why I’m calling.”

“OK. That’s something at least. Well, I’d love to hear an update.”

“Where are you?”

There’s a pause. “I’m at home. I’m watching television. Where are you?”

I look around. “I’m in Panachoria, in Greece.” I wait, wondering if she’ll remember the name. It seems she does.

“Have you been to Alythos yet?”

“Yes. I’ve been there the last three weeks.”

“What have you found out?”

“That’s a weird question. What do you think I might have found out?”

There’s a sound down the phone. I can almost see her on the sofa in our front room, wine glass on the table beside her, as she balances the remote on her knee.

“I don’t think you’ll have found anything out. There’s nothing to find out. But I know you went looking for something.”

“I met a man called Kostas Aetos,” I hear myself saying. Blurting out really. It silences Mum, at least for a few moments.

“Who?”

“Kostas. You might remember him better as the gardener of the Aegean Dream Resort? Or Imogen’s boyfriend, does that help?”

There’s another pause.

“You met Kostas? He’s still there?”

“Yes, he’s still here. He runs a dive centre now. In Skalio.”

There’s a long silence. “I see. And what did Kostas have to say?”

This time it’s me that’s quiet. I’ve unleashed this conversation, but I haven’t planned it. Maybe that’s for the best, but maybe it isn’t.

“He didn’t have much to say. At first at least. He told me he didn’t remember you.”

She’s not quick to answer, but when she does I’m certain I hear relief in her voice.

“OK. That’s not a surprise, it was a long time ago?—”

“But then he changed his mind,” I cut in. “He said he did remember you. Except you weren’t…” My mouth stops working. I can’t produce the last word.

“Weren’t what, Ava?”

Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant! My mind screams down to my mouth, but my voice won’t produce the word.

“What did he ‘ say I wasn’t ’? Ava?”

I close my eyes, see only my mother, curled up on our sofa. I shake my head to release the image.

“He had your diary, Mum. He found it in your room.”

This time it’s incredulity I hear. This stuns her.

“My diary ?”

“Yes. ”

And now calculation. A long pause of calculation.

“I see. Did he tell you what was in it?”

“He did more than that. He gave it to me. I read the whole thing.”

She’s silent. So am I, for a few moments, then my words come in a rush.

“You weren’t pregnant, Mum. Mum. You weren’t fucking pregnant. I read it, thinking I was going to find out who my dad was and it told me I don’t have a mother! You didn’t have a baby , Mum, not when I was supposed to be born?—”

“No. Stop .” Her voice is biting, slicing into me. Cutting me dead. “You don’t know anything. You do have a mother, but you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand? What? Tell me, please. I don’t understand anything, that’s the whole fucking problem.”

“Who else have you spoken to? Out there, have you talked with anyone else?”

I try to think, my mind has gone temporarily blank. “Simon Walker-Denzil.”

“Simon? Oh my God.”

I try to work out whether I should tell her about the baby. The baby she nearly killed, the baby I thought was me, but now I know can’t be. In the end I don’t get the chance, because she moves on quicker than I do.

“Simon doesn’t know anything. Is there anyone else you’ve spoken with?”

The question makes my mind spin through everyone I’ve talked to here, but I don’t say anything. At least not about that.

“There’s a reason I called.” I screw my eyes shut, trying to focus.

“Well obviously, I had no idea you were digging all of this nonsense up?—”

“I spoke to Imogen. A few days ago.” I cut her off the same way she did to me. “I told her some of the things I found out?—”

“You haven’t found anything, Ava. There’s nothing to find out?—”

“Even so,” I cut back in, “I spoke to her.”

Silence.

“And what did Imogen say?” She layers something onto the name. A familiar note of contempt.

I take a deep breath. “She told me she was going to come out. Here to Alythos. And she was going to tell me everything.”

“Oh my God, now Imogen’s going to Alythos?

Oh, this is fantastic. Bravo Ava, this just gets better and better.

Listen to me Ava, you cannot listen to what that woman says.

She’s been on Seroquel for years . Twelve hundred milligrams a day.

You know what that’s for, don’t you? It’s an anti-psychotic drug.

One that doesn’t always work too well. I’ve always told you, Imogen is a weak, weak person. You can’t trust her.”

“She’s already here.” I can’t listen to my mother anymore. The rant flowing out of her. “But she didn’t get the chance to say anything. Someone attacked her. Someone tried to kill her.”

Finally, finally my mother shuts up.

“What?”

I tell her again.

“I was going to meet her. When I got there she’d been attacked, someone hit her on the head. She was nearly dead.”

A silence. “Oh my goodness.” I hear her breaths. “Where are you now?”

“I told you. In Panachoria, outside the hospital.”

“She’s in hospital ? Imogen’s in hospital?”

“I just told you Mum, someone attacked her. To stop her talking to me, someone smashed her head in, and I don’t know who, or what they’re trying to hide?—”

“What hospital?”

I shake my head. “Panachoria. It’s the town on the mainland near?—”

“I know where it is. Is she OK? Is she going to be OK? Is she speaking ? Does she know who attacked her? ”

“No. The hospital put her in an induced coma. The police say it was probably Albanians. Apparently they have a problem with them here.”

“Oh my goodness, Ava. A coma? Is she going to be alright? Have you spoken to anyone who knows?”

“I’ve spoken with the doctor. She says they’ll know more in a few days. She might have brain damage, or she might be OK. They won’t know until she wakes up.”

“Oh my gosh. This is horrible news. Horrible, Ava.”

“I think she was attacked to stop her talking to me.” I say it again, but she ignores me.

“OK. Ava, you need to stay there. Wherever you are, just wait there. I’ll come out. I’ll get the first flight I can, and I’ll meet you wherever you’re staying – are you in a hotel?”

“No…”

“Never mind. Just stay there. Keep your phone switched on. I’ll be on the next flight. We’ll get through this, we’ll make this right.” Then she sighs down the phone at me. “For God’s sake, Ava. I did tell you not to go out there. Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”