Page 83 of Deep Blue Lies
There’s a sound down the phone. I can almost see her on thesofa 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.
“Mydiary?”
“Yes.”
And now calculation. A long pause of calculation.
“I see. Did he tell you what was in it?”
“He did more than that. Hegaveit 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 ababy, 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. Youdohave 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?”
