Buying Time Page 16

  “Ah, that would be the colours I use. And also I blur my paintings by tempering the paint with chalk, to achieve a heat-haze effect.”

  “Well, it certainly works. But should you be divulging the tricks of your trade?”

  She laughed prettily. “You don’t look like an artist who would steal my secrets.”

  “I don’t know whether to be flattered that you don’t think me a thief, or hurt that you think I’m not an artist.” He tried to recall what they talked about at their first meeting all those years ago; he was sure he was extemporising now.

  She was perhaps five feet tall, and impossibly slim and elfin. Her skin glowed, as if she were beaming back the Greek sun absorbed during the day in some uncanny kind of photosynthesis. She pressed her glass to her bottom lip, watching him closely.

  “What do you do, Edward?” Her English was precise and unaccented, but occasionally she framed her words in a way that was odd and becoming.

  He told her he was a writer, and recalled how easy it had been, talking to her, eight years ago. Now it was just the same, and he wondered why had he not sought her out again, the first time round, returned to Crete and continued their affair?

  He finished his drink, saw that her glass was almost empty, and asked if she would like another drink.

  “Thank you, yes. Perhaps ouzo like you, this time.”

  When they had their drinks, she said, “And now shall I tell you a little about myself?”

  “No, let me guess.”

  She smiled. “Very well.”

  “You’re thirty-three and from a small town in the far north of Finland. Impressed?”

  “No,” she laughed. “You’ve read the pamphlet in my gallery!” Her victorious smile was wicked.

  “Very well, then; I see I’m going to have to employ my telepathic powers.” He took a long drink, watching her as she smiled at him with amusement, and said, “Okay… you paint in oils, but you’re considering moving into acrylic; in fact you’ve been experimenting.”

  She opened her mouth, appearing shocked; then playfully slapped his arm. “Oh, you! You have been talking to people in the village – no, in the gallery?”

  “And also,” he went on, “you’ve recently signed a deal to supply a gallery in Marseilles with a dozen paintings.”

  “But no one but me and the dealer knows anything about that!” she said, wide-eyed. “Perhaps you are telepathic, Edward.”

  “Ed,” he said. “And I am telepathic, and I know you want another drink and would like to sit outside, on the patio, under the stars.”

  They carried their replenished glasses outside and found a seat near the rail. The Mediterranean glimmered in the distance. A full moon was out, its silver light etching the olive trees which stippled the hillside.

  “How long will you be here on Crete?” she asked.

  “Another thirteen days,” he said. He fell silent, sat back and stared up at the pulsing canopy of stars. If only it were thirteen days, he thought; he would be lucky if he had two days with Emmi Takala.

  “Then we must meet again and I will show you the island, and my studio, and my paintings.” She stopped. “You seem sad.”

  He laughed. He had the ridiculous urge to tell Emmi what was happening to him, to pour his heart out as if appealing to her for help. But he knew better than to scare her.

  “I’m not sad at all,” he said, “just bewildered.” He surprised himself with this admission. “Life is so damned short, and you make so many mistakes. It’d be bad enough, wouldn’t it, if you didn’t make mistakes – if you knew the right decisions to make, all the time. You’d still grow old and ill and die, with nothing accomplished that you really wanted to do.” Where was all this coming from, he wondered; and what was it about this woman which made him open up like this?

  “But we have to make mistakes, Ed, and learn from them.”

  He stared at her. “Perhaps that’s it,” he said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve made so many mistakes and never learned from them.”

  She said gently, “What kind of mistakes?”

  He thought about that. “To begin with, abandoning serious plays when I should have persevered, instead of giving in and writing rubbish for TV. And…”

  “Go on.”

  He regarded the distant sea. “And I’ve allowed myself to fall in love – or what I think is love – with too many women… hurting them, and myself. You think I would have learned from my mistakes by now, wouldn’t you?”

  She was silent for a time, twirling her glass.

  “It’s never too late to learn,” she said. “Perhaps you should write your plays, and find a suitable woman.”

  He gave a hollow laugh and shook his head. “It is too late, for… for various reasons. There isn’t enough time, Emmi.”

  “You’re wrong, Ed. There is always enough time.”

  He felt the sudden urge to weep, but stood quickly and pointed to their glasses. “I’ll get them in.”

  He returned with the drinks, and Emmi smiled up at him. “Thank you. This is nice.”

  He smiled at her. She sat back in her chair with her legs crossed, the hem of her dress riding up over her unblemished knees. She wore a fine gold necklace around her neck. He wanted simply to reach out and stroke her cheek, nothing else; to simply show her his affection.

  She went on, “It is so easy being with you, Ed. It is as if we’ve met before.”

  “Perhaps we have.”

  She told him about her childhood, growing up in a tiny snowbound village beyond the Arctic Circle; told him about her father, who was a woodsman, and her mother who hunted for food, shooting elk deep in the forests, and who told her Finnish folk tales by the fire at night. It was another life entirely from anything he could have imagined. He wondered if she’d told him this, eight years ago, but thought not. For some strange reason, even though he had made love to Emmi Takala every night for ten days back then, he felt closer to her, more intimate, now.

  It was midnight when she finished her drink and said, “I really must be going.”

  “Can I walk you home? I’m staying in the villa just below your farmhouse.”

  They left the bar and strolled up the hill and out of the village. There was no street-lighting along the rough track that straggled up the hillside, but the uneven surface was illuminated by the moon.

  “I’m working on a series of paintings depicting the landscape at dawn,” she said. “I would like youto see them tomorrow.”

  “I’d love to.”

  They stopped by the turning to the track that led to her farmhouse. The silence was absolute here, and a warm breeze lapped in from the sea.

  “Come for lunch at noon. I will show you my studio, and then we’ll go swimming. A little way up the hillside there is a gully with a stream, and a natural lagoon. It is beautiful, and no one but me and the local shepherds know about it.”

  She stood on her tiptoes, quickly, and brushed his lips with her own, the merest touch, then hurried off into the night.

  He watched her go, the pain in his chest intense.

  He turned and made his way towards the villa.

  He wondered if the reason he hadn’t followed her was that he did not want to torture himself; what they might have, briefly, was doomed. He should really not see her tomorrow; he should remain in the villa, get drunk, and await the time when fate would whisk him off to another time, another life. But he knew, of course, that he would do no such thing; he would meet Emmi at noon, and swim in the lagoon, and would that be another mistake?

  A light was illuminating the patio when he returned. Digby was sitting outside with a bottle of beer clutched in his hand. “Nightcap?” he asked.

  Richie fetched a beer from the fridge and joined his friend.

  “And how was she?” Digby asked. “Is she Finnish, and called… what did you say she was called?”

  Richie smiled. Digby was a little drunk. “Emmi Takala,” he said, “and she
is Finnish, yes.”

  Digby shook his head. “But… how the hell did you know?”

  Richie thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the lounge. “I read about her in a pamphlet. She’s an artist.”

  “Ah…” Digby said. He fell silent for ten seconds, then recalled something. “But… the match? Three-one, extra time… How the hell…? How the hell did you get that right, Ed?”

  He considered telling his friend, yet again, about the time-jump phenomenon, but knew he’d be wasting his time. Digby would only think him mad, again.

  “A bloody lucky guess, Diggers.” He took a long drink of beer, then said, “I’m seeing Emmi tomorrow, for lunch.”

  “That’s fine. Marsha said she’d like to take the car, drive into Iraklion to see friends.”

  Richie fetched two more beers from the kitchen and they sat and talked.

  At one point Digby said, “You know something, Ed? I’ve never been happier in all my life.”

  Richie felt a strange pressure in his chest. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I have everything, you know? A decent, well-paid job I enjoy – well, most of the time.”

  “What about that great sci-fi novel you always wanted to write?”

  “Science fiction,” Digby corrected. He shook his head. “I know my limitations, Ed. That’s beyond me, now. I’m happy writing for TV. And…” He pointed at Richie. “And more importantly than anything else, I’m married to the most wonderful woman in the world.”

  Richie lifted his glass. “Let’s drink to that,” he said.

  They sat in companionable silence and drank beneath the pulsing stars.

  SHE WAS PAINTING in the field beside the farmhouse when he arrived the following day. He paused before the gate, watching her. She was sitting on a folding seat with her back to him, leaning forward and applying very delicate strokes to the canvas.He pictured her tongue, trapped in concentration between her small white teeth.

  She sat back, pressed a hand to the small of her back, and stretched. Then she packed up her canvas and brushes and turned towards the house. She saw him, smiled radiantly and called out, “Ed! How long have you been standing there?”

  They kissed briefly, cheek to cheek. “I just got here. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  She led the way to the house. “Shall we have lunch?”

  After the glare and the heat of the sun, the interior was darkened and cool. She led him through to an old dining-kitchen with French windows at one end looking out towards the sea.

  “Tiropita, Greek salad, and home-made humous,”she said. “And beer to drink.”

  “You think of everything.”

  “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Famished. I didn’t have breakfast.”

  He’d awoken early with a pounding head, having sat drinking with Digby until two in the morning. He had little recollection of what they discussed, other than how happy Digby was now, and something about his latest project. This morning, the last thing he’d felt like eating was the fried eggs and bacon Caroline had prepared.

  As they ate, Emmi said, “I came to Greece with friends when I was twenty, to the island of Zakinthos. After northern Finland, can you imagine what I thought of Greece, the sun and the stark landscape and the warm, warm sea? I knew I would come back one day, and paint it. I have been here for five years now, and I have no plans to go back.”

  “What about your family?”

  “My parents are both dead.”

  His throat caught. “And lovers?”

  She looked at him through long lashes. “No one who is important,” she said. “And you? Your family?”

  “My mother and father died when I was in my twenties, within a few months of each other.”

  She smiled at him, then jumped up, grabbed his hand, and dragged him from the kitchen and through the house. She led him into her studio and watched his reaction. He stared around him in wonder. “So many canvasses…”

  A hundred or more, some completed and stacked against the walls, others in various stages of completion, on easels or leaning against tables and chairs. The smell of oil paint and turpentine mingled with the lavender hanging in swatches from low, oaken beams.

  She had never showed him her studio, eight years ago. He had made love to her night after night in the cool, ground-floor bedroom. He had been more intent on her body than her art, and had not asked to see her work in progress.

  He watched her move around the room, showing him piece after piece, explaining why she had come to paint this canvas and that…

  “And these are my dawn paintings, Ed.”

  “They’re very beautiful.”

  “I’m proud of them.”

  They showed the rocky coastline bathed in the incendiary pinks and crimsons of sunrise, highlighted with dashes of silver; he knew that from now on he would see the familiar seascape with new eyes.

  Just as he was seeing Emmi, again, but as if for the very first time.

  “I will just get a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, and then we will go swimming. The lagoon is shaded by trees, so we will not burn.”

  They walked through the searing afternoon heat, up the hillside and over an outcropping of rock towards groves of olive and carob trees. They passed through the vegetation and there, before them, a green lagoon shimmered.

  Emmi set the wine on a flat stone in the water, shaded by ferns, and turned to him. “Shall we swim?”

  Without waiting for his reply, she turned away, unbuttoned the front of her cheesecloth dress, and let it fall to the floor. He watched, his pulse loud in his ears, as she walked naked into the water, then eased herself forward and swam the length of the lagoon.

  She turned, treading water and laughing. “Come in,” she called. “It’s wonderful!”

  He undressed, stepped into the water, and swam towards her. He reached where she had been, but she had darted off, a mischievous naiad, laughing at him. He swam towards her again and she approached a large flat rock and levered herself from the water. She turned, crouching, and smiled at him, shaking water from her hair.

  He came to the rock and settled his forearms on the warm, striated sandstone, staring at her.

  She stared back, a half smile playing on her lips.

  He felt his throat constrict. He knew that soon they would make love, and it would be bliss, and he knew with the same terrible certainty that at some point he would be taken from her.

  She sprang to her feet, dived over him and entered the water like an arrow. She swam the length of the lagoon, emerged from the water and walked into the shade of the trees, turning to face him.

  He swam towards her and strode from the pull of the water.

  They stood facing each other for long minutes, Richie staring into her blue eyes. She came towards him, reached up, and they kissed. He embraced her, pulled her body towards him, and lifted her onto him.

  They made love, and swam, and drank wine all afternoon, and Richie was sure that for the entirety of their time at the lagoon they hardly spoke a word.

  The sun went down and the breeze cooled, and they dressed and made their way back to the farmhouse.

  At one point Emmi stumbled, cried out, and lifted a hand to her temple. Richie reached out to steady her. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head, as if to clear it. “A little dizzy.” She looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time, and smiled. “The effect of the heat, I think.”

  They entered the farmhouse and ate the leftovers from lunch, supplemented by slabs of moussakaand glasses of cold retsina. Then Emmi took his hand and led him to her bedroom and they made love again by the light of an old bedside lamp.

  He lay beneath her, and she traced patterns on his chest.

  She looked at him and said, “Why are you crying, Ed?”

  She wiped tears from his cheeks with her thumb, licked them and smiled. She kissed him, and whispered, “I can help you.”

  He stroked her cheek with the back of
his hand. “I doubt it, my darling.”

  “I can. I know what you’re going through.”

  He tried to laugh. “You have no idea…”

  She straddled him in silence, staring down, her lips curved into a gentle smile.

  And then she said something which sent his pulse racing.

  Very quietly, in almost a whisper: “We have done this before…”

  He felt dizzy; had he not been lying flat on his back, he might have collapsed. He shook his head, unable to find the right words.

  “I know what’s happening to you,” Emmi said, “because the same thing is happening to me.”

  How could she know, how could she possibly know, unless she were telling the truth?

  “Ed, I was sent here, to you,” she said.

  He stared at her. “Sent?” He shook his head, dizzy again.

  “I was sent here, to you, to explain.”

  He felt some strange unnameable emotion swelling in his chest, part joy, part apprehension. “Sent to explain?”

  “Sent by the scientists, Ed.”

  He repeated the word. “Who the hell,” he asked, “are the scientists?”

  “They are the people responsible for what is happening to you.”

  She placed a finger on his lips. “But we need a drink.” She jumped from the bed.

  He watched her dance through the door, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  Emmi was undergoing what he was experiencing; she had been sent to explain the experiment being carried out by the scientists…

  He sat up suddenly, alerted by a familiar pain in his head.

  He called out her name, fear clutching at his chest, and tried to climb from the bed.

  “No!” he cried. “Emmi!”

  He reached out, staggering towards the door.

  The heat in his head increased, followed by a blinding white light, and Richie passed out.

  From the Daily Mail, 20th March, 2014

  MEANWHILE, MORGAN’S CAFÉ limps from one lame cliché to the next with a cast of dull characters matched only by the banal ineptitude of the script. So far this season we’ve had our lead characters surviving a gas explosion, a train crash, attempted murder and life-threatening illness. If that were not enough, the café itself was threatened with closure in episode seventeen – and I for one was praying for the bailiffs to move in! Veteran lead writer Ed Richie needs to look long and hard at where Café is heading, before the Beeb do the honourable thing and scupper their flagship soap.