Page 37 of After the Accident
All of this happened in about two minutes at the most. I got inside and turned the key – and the engine started. It was like a magic trick. I wanted to ask how he’d done it but knew I’d likely have no clue, even if he explained it.
He closed the bonnet and stepped away, then gave me another shrug as he put his tools back in his car. I was trying to say thanks, but he was already back in his own car. I’d not even closed the door on the rental when he sped off along the road.
I watched his car for a moment, wondering if he might turn and come back. He didn’t – he kept driving and, before I knew it, he’d disappeared as magically as he’d arrived.
As well as my relief at the car running again, the other major positive is that the air conditioning had kicked back in. I don’t think there’s anything quite like a blast of cold air on a scorching day…
…
Maybe a Calippo straight from the freezer on a garage forecourt.
I thought about turning around and heading back to the village. There would be safety there – except that’s not where the answers were going to be. So I kept going.
I don’t think the road surface got worse – but it certainly didn’t get better. Every time the car lurched into a pothole, I thought the engine would cut out again. As patch-up jobs on the side of the road go, that guy must have done quite the piece of work – because the car kept going and going until I came to a small sign that read ‘Ag Georgios’.
There was a small row of houses on the inside of the road, with the view unimpeded towards the ocean on the other. The woman at hotel reception had laughed about the idea of coming here – and I soon understood why. There were no side roads and no turn-offs. Within thirty seconds at most, I had driven past the last building and was on the way back out of St George.
I had to stop and do a five-point turn to head back the way I’d come. This time, I left the car on the side of the road and started walking on foot.
I’ll call it a village, but St George was so small that I could see from one end to the other. As well as the houses, there were a couple of central buildings that were bigger than the others. I couldn’t read the signs on the outside, but there were some tables outside one, so I headed inside.
It was a café in the sense that there was a table with a tea urn and a man sitting behind a newspaper. There was a fan in the corner, but it wasn’t doing much other than blowing the hot air around. There was nobody else there and the man blinked up at me as if he was looking at an alien coming down the steps of a flying saucer.
I was holding the envelope that I’d found in Mum and Dad’s suitcase, and I took out the sheet of paper that said ‘Ag Georgios’ across the top. The other scribbles on the page didn’t seem to be in English, aside from the ‘#133’. I felt sorry for the guy when I showed him that sheet. He had this mix of bewilderment and terror on his face. I guess they don’t get many tourists out there. Either way, he scanned the page, pouted out his bottom lip and then pointed to the building next door.
It was a strange moment when I walked into that second building. Something utterly foreign and yet something completely recognisable at the same time. The best way I can describe it is when you walk into a neighbour’s house and the layout is the same as yours… but different.
That was my first time entering a Galanikos post office.
The first thing I saw inside was a counter with a display of commemorative stamps at the side – plus a stack of differently shaped envelopes. There was a poster with a photo of a passport and lots of foreign writing. It was… strange – and so disconcerting that I almost missed the bank of boxes off to the side.
I only saw them after the man behind the counter said something I didn’t understand. There were rows and rows of small metal doors, each around fifteen centimetres square, with numbers on the front.
The man at the counter was still talking, calling at me maybe, but I wasn’t listening – because I suddenly realised what the 133 meant – and why there was a key in the envelope.
So I walked across, put the key in the door of PO box 133 – and then I unlocked it.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE MAGIC GOAT HAIR
Geoffrey McGinley (husband of Bethan McGinley, father of Emma and Julius McGinley):It’ll need more than a drop from a steep cliff to take me out, sunshine.
Emma:Dad’s ring was back on his finger when I saw him in the hospital that afternoon. I doubt he even knew it had been missing.
He was awake but drowsy, slurring jokes to himself and trying to get Mum to scratch his backside. Mum said he was on strong painkillers, which was an understatement considering he asked me what rhymed with orange and then giggled himself back to a half sleep that didn’t last long.
It’s fair to say he wasn’t himself… which was apt because I wasn’t sure whether I could ever look at him the same way again.
Scott had asked me who benefitted from Alan being pushed – and I didn’t want to listen. Then I’d opened the post office box…
I was lost in that when the door to Dad’s room opened and the doctor came in. He told us that Dad had multiple fractures in both legs and that operations would be needed to help set them. Before he could finish, Mum asked if that could be done in the UK. I thought it was fairly clear that the doctor was trying to steer us away from that, but as soon as he said ‘it’s possible’, Mum leapt on that and said that they’d get anything done privately as soon as they got back.
The doctor was trying to explain the dangers, but Dad was higher than a hot-air balloon and Mum seemed determined to get him out of there. The doctor said that Dad would need a wheelchair to be on a plane and that they’d do something with his legs to try to make it as comfortable as possible for him.
In the end, he could have said that Dad needed a bed of marshmallows and a pillow made out of magic goat hair and Mum would have said it was fine. She wanted him off the island.
The doctor made a few other checks, gave one final attempt to change Mum’s mind – and then wished us well. It was like a parent telling a child not to stick their fingers in an electrical socket and then standing back with their hands up when their stupid kid insisted on doing it anyway.
