waist, loosely at first, then winched me into him until I gasped for breath.
‘Ah, now you can’t get away from me! You can never escape, Nichi
mou
, I’m going to have you bound up in my grip forever!’
I started laughing.
‘Do you remember the first time we kissed, Nichi
mou
?’
‘Of course. It was on one of our midnight walks. It was October. You were wearing gloves. As you came towards me, you slid your hand out of one. Almost sinisterly!’
‘Ha! Well, if it was the left one, the
sinistra
one, that would make sense. See, even then you thought I was a sleazy Greek.’
‘I thought I you were gorgeous. I thought I was in love already.’
‘But I was the one who said it first.’
‘Well, yes, but what you actually said was, “I think I’m in love with you.” Which was somehow more romantic.’
Suddenly, I was agitated again. Talking about how we met, about the first flowering of our love, was upsetting me. Ever since we’d first got together, Christos and I had been inseparable. How could Christos genuinely bear the thought of living apart now?
‘What’s wrong, Nichi
mou
?’
‘I’m too hot,’ I complained. ‘And too full.’
‘Nichi
mou
, that was a very small dinner.’
‘But I’ve barely moved all day. OK, I’m going to have a shower than lie down.’
‘Shall I join you?’
Christos still had his arm around me.
‘If you like.’
He looked at my face thoughtfully. ‘No, you shower alone. I think you need your space.’
When I got out, Christos was undoing his belt. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower too.’
In little more than a minute he was back. ‘Just a quickie! Heh heh.’
His sleazy Greek act seemed almost unbearably poignant tonight because . . . because what, I wondered. Then I swallowed hard and confessed it to myself. Because we weren’t going to make love. Because here we were in this aphrodisiacal treat of a hotel and I was hiding behind an excuse of fatigue, again. And why was I hiding behind an excuse? Because I didn’t want to admit to myself that there was now something heartbreakingly, irrevocably, hope-shatteringly, wrong with Christos and me. And I couldn’t make love to him any more.
Christos climbed on to the bed, wrapped up in a white robe. It was nicer than the ones the private patients at the hospital received for convalescence in their thousand-pound-a-night rooms. Christos sat propped up against the luxurious pillows, right leg gently flopping to the side. For the first time ever, I saw him as vulnerable. As forlorn and lonely. Then he turned to me and smiled.
There was no expectation in his smile. Just love.
I went back into the bathroom, and wept.
I lay awake long into the night. Christos soothed me, hugged me, and I clung to him, desperately trying to convince myself that we could get things back on track but sleep eluded me. My mind turned over and over. I kept switching between determination to do whatever it took to get us through the PhD, even if that meant living apart, and a cold fear that we weren’t going to make it.
The next day we had a room service breakfast and a late check-out, as if going through the motions of romance. I went for a proper swim and Christos got stuck into his textbook. At around four in the afternoon we set off, back to Christos’s parents’ house.
We’d been driving about twenty minutes when Christos’s phone started to ring. ‘
Gia sou
, Mama.’ Christos’s parents were back from the coast.
I was too tired to concentrate on their conversation and started to doze off. I wanted to get home, have a shower, eat out on the terrace, preferably in my nightie, and go to bed. About an hour later I woke abruptly from a fitful nap. Christos had pulled on the brakes hard as we hit the evening traffic. I was in one of those foul, sleep-interrupted moods. And I was getting a migraine.
‘Nichi
mou
, so Mama said Giagia and Papous want us to go round for dinner.’
These were Christos’s grandparents on
‘Ah, now you can’t get away from me! You can never escape, Nichi
mou
, I’m going to have you bound up in my grip forever!’
I started laughing.
‘Do you remember the first time we kissed, Nichi
mou
?’
‘Of course. It was on one of our midnight walks. It was October. You were wearing gloves. As you came towards me, you slid your hand out of one. Almost sinisterly!’
‘Ha! Well, if it was the left one, the
sinistra
one, that would make sense. See, even then you thought I was a sleazy Greek.’
‘I thought I you were gorgeous. I thought I was in love already.’
‘But I was the one who said it first.’
‘Well, yes, but what you actually said was, “I think I’m in love with you.” Which was somehow more romantic.’
Suddenly, I was agitated again. Talking about how we met, about the first flowering of our love, was upsetting me. Ever since we’d first got together, Christos and I had been inseparable. How could Christos genuinely bear the thought of living apart now?
‘What’s wrong, Nichi
mou
?’
‘I’m too hot,’ I complained. ‘And too full.’
‘Nichi
mou
, that was a very small dinner.’
‘But I’ve barely moved all day. OK, I’m going to have a shower than lie down.’
‘Shall I join you?’
Christos still had his arm around me.
‘If you like.’
He looked at my face thoughtfully. ‘No, you shower alone. I think you need your space.’
When I got out, Christos was undoing his belt. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower too.’
In little more than a minute he was back. ‘Just a quickie! Heh heh.’
His sleazy Greek act seemed almost unbearably poignant tonight because . . . because what, I wondered. Then I swallowed hard and confessed it to myself. Because we weren’t going to make love. Because here we were in this aphrodisiacal treat of a hotel and I was hiding behind an excuse of fatigue, again. And why was I hiding behind an excuse? Because I didn’t want to admit to myself that there was now something heartbreakingly, irrevocably, hope-shatteringly, wrong with Christos and me. And I couldn’t make love to him any more.
Christos climbed on to the bed, wrapped up in a white robe. It was nicer than the ones the private patients at the hospital received for convalescence in their thousand-pound-a-night rooms. Christos sat propped up against the luxurious pillows, right leg gently flopping to the side. For the first time ever, I saw him as vulnerable. As forlorn and lonely. Then he turned to me and smiled.
There was no expectation in his smile. Just love.
I went back into the bathroom, and wept.
I lay awake long into the night. Christos soothed me, hugged me, and I clung to him, desperately trying to convince myself that we could get things back on track but sleep eluded me. My mind turned over and over. I kept switching between determination to do whatever it took to get us through the PhD, even if that meant living apart, and a cold fear that we weren’t going to make it.
The next day we had a room service breakfast and a late check-out, as if going through the motions of romance. I went for a proper swim and Christos got stuck into his textbook. At around four in the afternoon we set off, back to Christos’s parents’ house.
We’d been driving about twenty minutes when Christos’s phone started to ring. ‘
Gia sou
, Mama.’ Christos’s parents were back from the coast.
I was too tired to concentrate on their conversation and started to doze off. I wanted to get home, have a shower, eat out on the terrace, preferably in my nightie, and go to bed. About an hour later I woke abruptly from a fitful nap. Christos had pulled on the brakes hard as we hit the evening traffic. I was in one of those foul, sleep-interrupted moods. And I was getting a migraine.
‘Nichi
mou
, so Mama said Giagia and Papous want us to go round for dinner.’
These were Christos’s grandparents on
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