Looking for the Durrells Read online

  Looking to her left at the seat occupied by a stranger rather than Bruce, she felt a pang of regret and arguing inwardly with herself, a misplaced longing. He was somewhere there on the ground, no doubt striding purposefully, but ever so slightly self-consciously, between lectures, the tan leather belt on his carefully chosen casual trousers matching his loafers, the sunglasses understated but making a statement.

  It was easy to dismiss him for his ultimate shallowness, his vanity, but even after six months of the single, Bruce-free life, older memories of when they’d first met and all was golden sometimes caught her off-guard. There had been no one in her life quite like him; so vibrant, so confident. She’d tried to paint him once, but hadn’t been happy with the result. He wasn’t one of her book illustrations, created so meticulously. He was real and even now she could not, as a professional artist, dilute his handsomeness, even though it would have helped her to move on.

  Corfu’s runway stretched out across the old lagoon at the edge of the sea; a spectacular site reached at the end of a slow, breathtaking descent along a coastline of great beauty. Green, felt-textured hills and peaks, with rocks that appeared white where they broke the surface. Pale houses and white-rimmed island contours appeared and then finally the plane swooped down so close that the sea could be seen rippling in the gentle cross winds.

  Mouse Island – in legend, Ulysses’ ship turned to stone – and the southern end of Kanoni welcomed the passengers lucky enough to be able to look out of a window. To the west, if one approached from the south, were the Chessboard Fields Gerry Durrell had visited as a boy; a matrix of ancient waterways and home to many creatures.

  It was really Gerry’s writing, the adventures of a ten-year-old boy recounted twenty years later, that had brought her here. A miraculous experience, which had begun when he’d been lifted from Bournemouth and replanted in the richness of the land and life of Corfu, along with his family: his mother Louisa, Leslie and Margo, all following Gerry’s eldest brother Larry, who was already there with his wife Nancy.

  Nothing ever stayed the same, whether a person or an island. Would Corfu still smell and sound the same as it had for the Durrells when they had lived there in the 1930s? Would the air shimmer with waves of nostalgia and remembrance, like radio signals bringing the lost past into the present, powerful echoes she might feel travelling through time? Or would there just be sadness for those no longer there, with memory conjuring melancholy on an island saturated with sunshine and sun-seekers.

  As the plane bounced down onto the runway Penny hoped that a month would be enough time to find all the answers to the questions in her heart and head. Or would a month be too long? Would disappointment – or the discovery that this was a silly, indulgent idea –leave her morose and lost?

  As she stood at the top of the plane steps blinking against the light and feeling the warm, heavy, pine-and-herb-scented air of Corfu for the first time, Penny knew one thing for certain – she wished her dad was with her more than anything in the world.

  Chapter 3

  Guy Frobisher had already had a difficult day and it was only noon. The airport was getting hotter by the second, one of the luggage carousels had broken down, and there were two people who he had sent off to their transfer coach three times, who kept bouncing back. How difficult could finding Bay 22A be?

  After ten weeks the novelty and perks of being a holiday rep had almost vanished for the university student, who had imagined freer, finer, and altogether more glamorous things. To add to the day’s woes, he’d also just had to say goodbye to a tearful Ellie from Newcastle, to whom he had promised regular text messages and perhaps more.

  His day brightened at the thought of the possible arrival of another ‘Ellie’ on the next flight. After all, he mused, who could resist the significant charms of his slightly plummy accent, entertaining stories, and blue-eyed, floppy-haired handsomeness?

  At 20, Guy thought he had peaked and his irresistible personality and pulling power were not to be squandered. It would be wrong, he thought, not to share his gifts with an ever-changing cast of female leads in the Guy Frobisher Show.

  A smitten college friend had once told Guy that he looked a little like Rupert Brooke, the war poet, and from that moment he often brandished an embossed leather notebook and a silver fountain pen, just in case the muse came upon him.

  ‘Guy, which bay is the Gouvia bus in?’ A small blond lad with an impish face puzzled over a collection of papers taped clumsily to a clipboard that bore the legend Greektime in pseudo-Greek lettering, on a bright blue and yellow background. A happy sun with large white-gloved hands in the thumbs-up position, wearing sunshades, dominated the logo.

  Guy responded with a casually raised arm and pointed vaguely to the right. ‘Over there, Rich, but it doesn’t seem to matter today, my friend, because wherever you send ’em, they keep coming back in droves and telling me the bus or the bay doesn’t exist.’

  Richard Leigh smiled, aware in his quiet and accepting way that Guy wasn’t in the best mood. They had arrived together on Corfu, feeling lucky and happy to be on the same island for their summer job, as they were pals and roommates at university. For their final year they planned to share a small flat, in which Guy had already claimed the en-suite bedroom.

  In spite of the bus and bay confusion outside the airport, within thirty minutes all the coaches were full and Guy and Rich were heading south. Between them they looked after five resorts, some lively, others more sedate. The last stop on the journey was St George South and as the air-conditioning began to soothe everyone’s nerves, the noise level on the coach dropped and minds turned to thoughts of beaches, bars, and relaxation.

  In a few hours, thought Guy, the rest of the day will be all mine. Corfu Town was calling and as the following day only involved a couple of welcome meetings, he would no doubt be out until dawn – or his money ran out.

  As he handed out welcome packs to the passengers, he caught the eye of a young woman travelling with friends and smiled. She smiled back and Guy immediately channelled Mr Brooke as he took out his antiquated notebook with a flourish and – not too ostentatiously – looked thoughtful and began to write.

  After waiting for the carousel to behave, Penny emerged from the airport with the right suitcase and looked for a Greektime rep. The bright yellow uniform was easy to spot and within seconds she arrived in a bus bay, directed by a small lad with a clipboard, who seemed to be part of a double act with a tall floppy-haired chap of about the same age.

  Morecambe and Wise, Pete and Dud, Stan and Ollie? Penny wasn’t sure which iconic duo they reminded her of, but there was something comic about their interaction that made her smile. When the pair joined her coach they handed out welcome packs and the driver slowly navigated the road from the airport. As they doubled back to follow the coast road, from the left-hand side of the coach, she saw another plane floating above the sea as it began its elegant descent. The Greek mainland glowed green, grey, and blue in the distance, the channel between the island and the mainland narrower than Penny had imagined.

  The local radio station delivered its eclectic soundtrack of Greek and international pop music, as the film set of the road south rolled by the bus window. Past Perama, site of the Durrell’s first home, the Strawberry Pink Villa, and on through Gastouri, famous for its charming donkeys with a distinctive white circle around their eyes.

  Benitses, Moraitiki, Messonghi . . . on they went, stopping occasionally to decant holidaymakers at their hotels and apartments. As they turned inland the roads became narrower and the corners tighter. Gnarled and ancient olive trees, their nets folded in the lower branches, featured at the side of the roads. Chickens and a goat or two worried the soil in the welcome shade, their surroundings bleached by the relentless sun. Painted shutters of china blue, now looked washed-out and pale, the grass patchy between each village, apologetic and sparse.

  Eager to absorb every inch of the journey’s unfolding story, Penny closed her eyes every few mi
nutes as though trying to imprint an image on her mind’s eye. The camera inside her head clicked away and treasured every single view that presented itself, beautifully composed and framed. Picture-perfect.

  To her surprise, unbidden and unexpected, Bruce pushed himself again into that same space inside her head. She straightened her back in her seat, as though preparing for an argument or a difficult conversation – an old, familiar sensation.

  She had acknowledged when they broke up that far from being the man she had thought he was, Bruce had also failed in her eyes to be the human being she’d hoped most people could be. As her father had become more confined and frustrated by his cancer, Bruce had competed childishly for her attention. He commented in a passive-aggressive way on the time Penny spent in her old family home, creating an unwelcome, exhausting layer of conflict and appeasement. An opportunity for him to work in Italy had brought things to a head. He had to go as it was the opportunity of a lifetime, he’d explained: ‘You have to understand, Penny, this is a top university. A professorship at my age doesn’t happen every day.’

  What Bruce didn’t realize was that she’d already stepped away from him by the time he shared the news of the job in Brindisi. A phrase, a sentence, a collection of words had begun this process, but the impact had been profound: ‘I don’t like hospitals,’ he declared as she pushed her father, who was in acute pain, in a wheelchair down a busy hospital corridor. Bruce’s petulance, after a sudden call from Penny asking him to meet her at the local infirmary, had surfaced in an ugly but ultimately timely way.

  She had realized at that moment and in the weeks that followed that this was not – as her father used to say – ‘someone who’s wagon you would want to hitch your star to’. Bruce had sent a short letter of condolence when her father had died, informing her he was about to move abroad, but that he was thinking about her as he knew how much her dad had meant to her.

  She imagined him now just across the water in Italy, still disliking hospitals and still happily believing that the world should revolve around him.

  The bus stopped suddenly and, pulled back into the present, Penny saw a tourist in a hire car reversing frantically to let the bus through. A sign on the bend in the road declared, ‘Welcome to St George South’.

  She had made it. For the next month this would be home.

  Chapter 4

  St George South spread out to the left and right, radiating from a small picturesque harbour; a safe haven that day for four boats, anchored neatly, waiting patiently for a fisherman or holiday sailor. Restaurants, bars, cafés, several supermarkets, and a jewellery shop followed the shoreline. On the horizon, a tiny island shimmered luminously, as though part of an imaginary world.

  A number of small hotels, apartments and tour, and car-hire companies lined the main road through the resort. Individual homes, some with beautifully manicured gardens, colour and fragrance escaping over the low whitewashed walls, made up the rest of the street landscape. To the north, the beach widened out into sculptured sand dunes.

  The true secret of St George’s success however, as with most places, resided with its people. Visitors returned each year as dear friends or extended family, building relationships and showered with warm, welcoming Greek hospitality. For decades, generations of residents had welcomed thousands of sun-seeking, tired, frazzled, and expectant families and individuals to this little piece of paradise. Most came looking for something prosaic or profound, or days by the pool with suntan oil and swimming costumes, or sometimes a need for rest, release, or hope.

  The answer each found at the end of their week or fortnight stay was, quite often, one that they hadn’t expected. Sometimes they felt the positive glow of a week well spent with friends old and new. Others left with a determination to change their lives or lifestyle, to find a better work-life balance or perhaps – with balmy sunset meals still vivid in the memory – just to eat outside in the garden more.

  Everyone took back with them a speck or two of the magic Corfiot dust that had settled on every visitor, even before the likes of Nero and Mark Antony had arrived in the harbour at Kassiopi.

  It was into this world that Penny stepped as the coach stopped outside the Athena restaurant.

  Penny had barely turned around with her suitcase when a small boy, who looked around 7 years of age, approached the bus. Guy and Rich greeted him with the easy familiarity of established friends and shared some banter with their young pal, who showed them a small kitten, before Rich guided Penny across the road and along a lemon-tree- and honeysuckle-lined path. It was early afternoon, hazily hot, and the small lizards that populated this little lane hid in shady gaps in the wall. One poked its nose out for a moment to take a closer look at Penny. They would emerge in the cooler evening, she thought.

  Two double-storey villas came into view, each painted pale blue with creamy yellow shutters and divided into four separate apartments, with one bedroom, an en-suite bathroom, and a small kitchen and living area. A small balcony or veranda, depending which floor you were on, accommodated a circular table and two chairs.

  Deep pink, abundant bougainvillea softened the stucco. To the right a few intrepid residents braved the high sun, as they melted slowly beside a small pool. The heat would defeat them soon and a late-afternoon nap would beckon in their shuttered rooms.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Rich as he led Penny up a set of cool marbled stairs. ‘You’re on the best side of the building, so you get a mountain view and a glimpse of the sea.’

  Penny opened the shutters and stepped onto the balcony. A triangle of azure glistened to her left and a plane glided over the green and silver mountain to her right, on its way to the airport.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then. There’s a meeting this evening at the Athena across the road at seven. Just a little welcome meeting for all our new arrivals – and a free drink. If you have any questions about anything, that’s a good time to ask. See you then!’ Rich backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  Penny sat down on the bed closest to the balcony windows, the mustard-coloured bedspread soft between her fingers as she smoothed it down. For a second, she felt more alone than she’d ever done in her life.

  She lay back on the bed, lifting her feet from the cool floor, and closed her eyes for a moment. Her left hand stretched out across the blanket, as though looking for human contact. Six months of sleeping alone and she still hadn’t got used to it. She turned her head on the pillow, eyes open now, and fixed her gaze on the empty space beside her.

  A mosquito enjoying the shelter of the room buzzed around laconically. Penny watched it cross the ceiling and settle on the light fitting. Getting up, she opened her suitcase mechanically and found the mosquito plug-in she’d bought the day before. Laughing quietly at herself – the ever-practical, ever-organized Penny – she plugged it in and acknowledged that her sense of loneliness, if accompanied by itching bites, would definitely make things worse. There was always something she could do to help herself, some small thing to help lift her mood, until the low passed.

  He dad had said that nothing stayed the same. Good, bad, indifferent, it all moved on, whether we wanted it to or not. Change was part of life. Each wind, each tide brought something new. So, she would force herself to the Athena at 7 p.m. and meet her fellow Greektime travellers.

  The temptation to wander out now, then shower and change before the meeting, was too great. The unpacking can wait, she thought, as the large suitcase stood like a monolith, accusingly in the corner.

  This place is only really for sleeping and showering, she told herself, realizing suddenly how eerily quiet a room could feel when you were the only one staying in it.

  Grabbing her slightly battered, but jaunty, wide-brimmed sunhat, she took a quick look in the mirror above the dark, wooden set of drawers next to the second bed. I look hot, she thought, but not in a good way. Picking up the leaflets the reps have given her, she fanned her face for a few seconds and then, dropping her keys in her
small rucksack, left the apartment.

  Chapter 5

  It had been a steady day for Tess, with the usual mini-crises that running a popular restaurant and apartments brought. The heat had been fierce in the middle of the day, but happily she had been mostly in the shade. The air was cooler now and the breeze from the sea made the Athena the perfect place to sit in the early evening.

  How lovely, she thought, to stop just for a few minutes, close your eyes, and take in all the sounds and sensations hanging in the air. The low murmur of relaxed chatter competed with the rhythmic sweep of the waves below, muffled laughter, and calls from the kitchen.

  Keeping busy was a financial necessity, but also an emotional one. She had lost her husband three years earlier. Theo her son had been 5, and her 40th birthday only days away, when Georgios had stepped out onto the road and a tourist, who had forgotten momentarily which side of the road he was meant to be driving on, had hit him. A helicopter flight to Athens and all the expertise of the team at the hospital had failed to revive him from the coma the head injury had caused.

  Her desolation mingled with remorse. That morning she and Georgios had argued – not an unusual occurrence, but all the more painful now because no more words could be said, and the last ones between them, if not meant, had been harsh and shrill.

  She pulled two tables together and rearranged the chairs. The twice-weekly holiday rep welcome meetings at the Athena were a useful advertisement for the restaurant’s ambience and perfect setting. But the Athena had no real need for advocacy and signposting. The welcome was warm, the team professional and helpful, the food, created in the cosy kitchen by the indomitable Anna, outstanding. The tables, pale-blue and shabby chic rather than rustic, were well spaced and matched by solid wooden chairs.