Chapter Six Wake Up

Wake Up

The funeral lasted the standard ninety minutes for a Greek Orthodox service.

Demetrios kept his focus trained on Jesse the entire way through. He checked on him when the priest anointed Freya’s body with oil and earth. Watched him as the guests said their last farewells at the casket. Hovered behind him as Jesse made his way over to his mother, holding onto his aunt’s hand, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He then followed him out to the grounds, stood behind him while Yiannis cried into the sun as Freya’s coffin was lowered into the grave that would be her last resting place.

Demetrios wanted to hold him. Ached to share this with him. To let him know he understood. He felt it all too. That, eventually, the pain eases and makes way for a gaping emptiness. A void that’s never filled but doesn’t quite hurt anymore.

But he didn’t.

Because, whilst noticeably upset, Jesse wouldn’t look at him. He stayed between his aunt and uncle, they being the ones to offer their comfort. A few of Freya’s friends from back in England who had made it to the church service came over to him, offering condolences in hugs and handshakes. Flowers were thrown onto Freya’s coffin, the final Trisagion chanted to dismiss her body to God to await the resurrection and second coming. Demetrios remained as close to Jesse as he would allow. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed. But Demetrios would always notice Jesse, and he reeled over what he had said in his eulogy. What he had insinuated. Was it too conceited to think he had been talking about him? He couldn’t ask him. Not here at his mother’s funeral. Not when she was buried inside the soil that had taken her away from him.

Once all the formalities were complete, the congregation made their way back to the taverna on foot, leaving Yiannis at the grave, Jesse loitering slightly away with Diane and Andrew. Demetrios remained far enough away he wouldn’t be in their face, but close enough to hear what was being said. Diane and Andrew squeezed Jesse’s shoulder, then meandered off toward the exit, Andrew holding his wife as she sobbed. Andrew tapped Demetrios’ shoulder in solidarity as they passed.

That left Yiannis and Jesse at Freya’s graveside.

Yiannis spoke in Greek. To Freya. How much he loved her. How much he wanted her back. That he would miss her terribly. Jesse wouldn’t understand any of it, but it would be obvious in his sobs and how he kissed the stone that would forever mark where she lay what he’d been saying. He peered up at Jesse, and he slipped into English as if it was second nature.

“You gave a beautiful speech,” he said.

Jesse flinched as if he hadn’t realised Yiannis had even been there, as if he’d been able to block out his vociferous howls. He bowed his head, hands tucked in his pockets, and stared at the ground and the coffin drenched in flowers six feet below.

“She loved you so much.” Yiannis edged closer, then embraced Jesse. There was hesitancy on Jesse’s part, but if Demetrios knew his babá, he wouldn’t be put off by the stiff upper lip and years of anguish caused by him. He gave hugs as if they were healing medicine. “I’ll leave you alone,” he said as they broke apart and Yiannis, true to his word, tapped Jesse’s shoulder twice, then staggered away toward Demetrios. To him, he spoke in Greek. “Look after him.”

“I will, Babá.” Demetrios hugged his father, kissed his cheek, then rubbed his back. “We won’t be long.”

Yiannis ducked away, through the graveyard gates and out of sight. Demetrios waited, eyes fixed on Jesse, rigid and unmoving as if he, too, were made from stone.

Then, his soft words, spoken to the grave, had Demetrios falling to bits.

“I didn’t get you flowers,” Jesse said, as if he were speaking into his mother’s ear. “You used to kill all the plants back home, so I figured it was best to give you something else instead.” He rummaged around in his pocket, laid whatever it was in his palm, then held up a chain. The silver pendant glimmered in the sun’s rays, and Jesse wrapped it back up in his palm.

“The St Christopher you gave me for my seventeenth.” Jesse adjusted his glasses on his nose, those rickety arms loose from the tape he’d used to secure them together. “That one year you let me travel here alone because you had to work. You said it would keep me safe.”

Demetrios remembered that necklace. Remembered Jesse wearing it when he’d picked him up from the airport on his scooter during his first solo visit to the island. Recalled how it had felt against his skin, as if they were chest to chest now. And how, when, after frolicking in the sea at their secluded beach cove, Jesse had pushed him to the sand, straddled him and that pendant had drooped into his mouth.

Demetrios had plucked the chain from Jesse’s lips and kissed him.

It felt both a lifetime ago and as if no time had passed at all.

“I wish things had been different, Mum. I wish I could have told you everything.” Jesse stepped closer to the grave, kissed the necklace, and threw it in. “Rest in peace, Mum. I love you.”

Jesse lingered a while before turning and coming face to face with Demetrios. He blinked, then wiped under his glasses, removing the evidence of fallen tears.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Jesse said.

“Wasn’t sure you’d know the way back.”

“I might not have been here in a while, but I can find my way down a hill I walked up an hour ago.”

Demetrios smiled at the stupidity of his comment. “Okay, fine. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Strangely, I feel better.”

“Good.” Demetrios took a step closer, almost chest to chest as they had been that day on the beach, but his suit and Jesse’s shirt weren’t the only barrier between them. Not anymore. He stroked a thumb across Jesse’s cheek, wiping away a stray teardrop, then poured everything he wished Jesse knew into his gaze. Everything he wanted to say, but knew it wasn’t the right time or place.

Jesse’s lips parted, and he breathed out a cautious, “Dem—”

His name being hollered across the graveyard cut off whatever he might have been willing to say. “Jesse!”

Diane waved at him from the exit.

“We should…” Jesse gestured to his aunt, then scurried around Demetrios to walk away.

Always walking away.

Demetrios followed a few steps behind to give the blood relatives their time. He’d have another moment with Jesse. Wouldn’t he?

When they returned to the taverna, it was locked to avoid customers thinking it was happy hour and they entered through the side door under the passageway. It had been arranged into two long lines of tables, ready to host the Makaria luncheon where friends and family would share their stories of Freya. Everyone else was already back, having taken their seats, leaving a cluster at one end near the door. Jesse, Diane and Andrew sat together with one seat vacant. Beside Jesse.

Demetrios discarded his guitar in a corner, then took up that spare seat. Jesse didn’t acknowledge him, barely a smile as he sat, and he was rigid, playing with his hands in his lap, probably through anxiety and apprehension of what was coming next. It must be hard for him, as the son, to not have been part of the organisation. And to not understand Greek culture and tradition. Back when they’d been friends—more than friends—Demetrios had always been there to offer translations and explanations of what would happen next. He wasn’t sure Jesse wanted it anymore.

So he remained quiet beside him. There if he needed him. A ghost if he didn’t.

Christos and his kitchen team brought out the bread and olives to start the three course meal. Drinks flowed, with beer, wine and ouzo shared among the fifty strong congregation, and they all raised glasses in Freya’s memory.

The stories started.

Each person around the table shared anecdotes of their time with Freya. Sometimes funny. Often melancholic. But each had something to say of her outgoing nature, her kindness, her endearing clumsiness inherited by Jesse, and her infectious smile, her thirst for adventure and, in later years, her extreme contentment with the life she lived.

Jesse stiffened beside him. Whilst it could be comforting to hear his mother had died happy, it still must hurt to know she hadn’t been as happy with her life with him and his father.

The fish course came out and Demetrios leaned back, picking at his sea bream, listening to those in his immediate family regaling the crowd with tales of Freya. Jesse, head down, hardly touched his meal. Demetrios couldn’t bear it any longer and lay an arm on the back of Jesse’s seat, edging close enough to touch him. His fingers itched to do it.

He daren’t.

Laughter rang out at the anecdote told by Cora, one of Freya’s fellow members of the Naxos Women in Business network. She’d said it in Greek, so Demetrios tilted closer to Jesse, inhaling the perspiration glistening on his neck.

“She said your mum had too much ouzo at a business networking meeting. She hiccupped throughout her presentation.”

Jesse turned his head to face him, lips a kiss away. Demetrios smiled. Jesse gave a half one back, and it felt like a fierce penetration through to his heart. He could have floated up to the ceiling on that smile alone, and those eyes behind his lenses were the most beautiful eyes Demetrios had ever had the fortune to gaze into.

Diane broke them apart again when she offered her own story.

“My sister was always a thrill seeker,” she announced to the room. “At fifteen, she was so desperate to go to a party she’d heard was happening at an abandoned warehouse outside our town, but our dad had refused for her to go. So, at bedtime, she got dolled up, slathered herself with makeup, got into a mini dress and somehow tamed those curls of hers. Then climbed out of her bedroom window, onto the slanted roof of our conservatory, slipped in her new plastic pumps and fell on her arse. She slid down the roof and landed in our dad’s compost heap below.” Laughter rang out and Diane held up her wine in salute to them all. “Needless to say, she never made the party and our dad grounded her for a month. She maintains if she’d been allowed to go, she would have hated it and come home within the hour anyway. So her parenting was to always allow Jesse his freedom. Right, Jess?”

Jesse offered a smile, and the rippling, leftover laughter echoed around the tables as Yiannis then stood. He spoke in English.

“My Freya was the sun. She was bright and beautiful and every moment with her has been precious to me.”

Jesse wiped underneath his glasses, and instinct had Demetrios rubbing soothing circles across his back. Jesse stiffened, but didn’t move away. After a moment, he relaxed beneath his hand and glanced over his shoulder at him. The ice was thawing. Demetrios could tell. After this, things might be okay.

“She took this place as her own and will live on in these walls…”

A figure emerged at the open door and Yiannis stopped mid-speech to glare over everyone’s heads.

“Look at you all!” The voice behind Demetrios slurred. It was angry. And English.

Demetrios swivelled in his seat. Gamoto!

“Telling stories as if you knew her!” Jesse’s father staggered inside, spittle launching from his feral mouth.

Jesse stood, Demetrios’ hand falling away. “Dad?”

Richard Hough was how Jesse might look in thirty years’ time. It wasn’t an exact match. There were drips of Freya in Jesse too. But he bore more resemblance to his father. The same light-brown hair, the same need for glasses, the same slender build, although Richard Hough had none of the cuteness that Jesse carried as if it was his to own. Maybe that was age. Maybe that was Richard’s years of alcohol abuse. Maybe that was what happened when work came before family. Richard was a shell. A shadow. And although Demetrios hadn’t seen him in well over ten years, he still had the same air of arrogance and an all-round coldness that had caused his wife to leave him. He’d always been distant, hiding behind newspapers and phone calls, even when holidaying with his family on an idyllic Greek island.

He might have given Freya and Jesse a life of luxury with his rich earnings as an investment banker in the city, but Demetrios doubted there’d be this many people sat around a table recounting touching, funny tales at his funeral.

“You didn’t know her!” Jesse’s dad leered over the hushed dining table, seeming not to notice Jesse, or ignoring him. Intoxicated enough for it to be either.

“I knew her!” Richard prodded his chest, face red with alcohol and anger. “She was mine!”

Diane scrambled out of her seat. “This is not the time, Richard.”

“You only had her for a few years.” Richard tripped over his feet trying to get around the long table. “I had her for twenty! Twenty years she was my friend, then my girlfriend, then my fiancée. Then my wife.” He choked, whispering the rest to the floor. “She was my whole world. My soulmate.” He raised his head, stabbing a finger in rabid accusation at Yiannis. “And you stole her from me.”

“Dad, stop.” Jesse scrambled to get out of his space but so was Diane, and Demetrios stood too, putting them all in the way of Jesse’s reach.

“I made her happy.” Yiannis wasn’t going down without a fight. “You didn’t. She left you willingly.”

“Babá!” Demetrios yelled. “Not now.”

“Dad!” Jesse grabbed his dad’s arm. “What the fuck?”

“Come on, Richard.” Diane linked her arm into Richard’s, attempting to steer him away.

Richard yanked his arm from Diane’s and she stumbled back into Jesse, then Andrew. “No, Diane!” he growled, pointing a menacing finger at the table. “He took my Freya from me! From her only son! And now she’s dead and you’re all here, celebrating it!”

“Dad, please.” Jesse put two palms on his father’s chest as if taming a wild beast. Maybe he was. He looked pained, too. Embarrassed. And worse, as though this wasn’t the first time he’d been begging for his dad to stop.

Demetrios felt for him. What must the past eight years have been like? He’d known Richard had been angry at the divorce. Losing his wife had caused him to fall into drink, subsequently losing his job and Jesse had become his carer. Jesse’s life was this, instead of how it had been for Demetrios, where he’d had a loving, happy father and his new wife whom he’d had the privilege to call stepmum.

“No, Jesse!” Richard launched spittle into Jesse’s face with those two words, and Jesse had to remove his glasses to clean the droplets off on his shirt. “It’s bad enough you’re here! How could you come here? Why would you do that?”

“To attend my mother’s funeral.”

“You should have fought to have her brought to England!” He glared at Yiannis. “Where she belongs.”

“Richard.” Andrew scooted around his wife, hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Come on, now. This isn’t the time nor the place for this.”

“Oh, fuck off, Andrew. It’s half your fault, anyway. And Diane’s!”

“How is this my fault?” Diane splayed a hand across her chest, fingers trembling.

“You told her to leave me.” Richard hiccupped, clear he’d had way too much booze on his flight over. “Both of you did. You encouraged her. Rather than work on the marriage, you told her to leave me and Jesse.”

“I never told her to leave Jesse!” Diane sobbed.

“Diane—” Jesse didn’t know which to go to.

“It was supposed to be me, Diane!” Richard slapped his chest. “It was supposed to be me who until death she did part. Not him!” He pointed over at Yiannis. “Not the man who pretended to be our friend but had been fucking my wife behind my back for years! When we’d been here as a family.”

Richard launched forward, as if he was going to leap over the table and pummel Yiannis into the ground to join his wife. Demetrios couldn’t allow that and he grabbed him before he could get anywhere near.

“Hey!” He forced him back to the wall. “Calm down.”

“You!” Richard hissed through his teeth. “Think you’re a big man now, do you? You’re even worse. You took advantage of my family just as much as he—”

Demetrios refused to hear any more, and he yanked open the side door, dragging Richard outside the taverna, hauling him all the way to the veranda cleared of chairs and tables, and only then did he let him go. Richard toppled back, unsteady on drunk legs, and stumbled over the ledge, falling onto his arse into the sand. Jesse rushed out, glancing from his father in a heap to Demetrios standing with menace over him.

Demetrios held up his hands. “I only let go of him.”

“Dad!” Jesse rushed down to the beach to aid his father up. “Come on, let’s get you to a hotel. Sleep it off. I’ll take you to see mum in the morning.”

“She was mine, Jesse.” Richard sobbed as Jesse hauled him to his feet. “She was ours. Not theirs.”

“I know she was. But this isn’t right, Dad. This is her funeral.”

Demetrios glanced behind him to where everyone was watching through the window, Diane and Andrew hovering outside.

“Do you need help, Jess?” Andrew asked.

“No.” Jesse threw his dad’s arm over his shoulders. “No, it’s all right. Go back in. I’ll get him sorted.”

“I’ll help,” Demetrios said. “Go on. Go back in.”

Diane nodded, tissue to her nose, and Andrew steered her back inside. Demetrios remained where he was. He couldn’t leave Jesse to deal with a drunk and emotional father alone. Even if he had been doing it for years.

“Why didn’t you come with me yesterday?” Jesse asked his dad.

“I couldn’t, Jess.” Richard leaned into Jesse as if he couldn’t stand. “I didn’t want to come at all but…Oh, God, Jess.” He cried into Jesse’s neck. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Jesse spoke to Demetrios. “Did your dad cancel that room I had booked at the villa Konsta-whatever?”

“I doubt it.” Demetrios jumped down to help, holding Richard’s other arm as he continued to cry into Jesse’s neck. “I’ll take you there. I know Konstantin. He’ll have something available.”

“You don’t have to come. Point me the way.”

“Jess, you can’t get him there on your own. Let me help.”

Jesse sighed, as if contemplating what the lesser evil was. Eventually, he nodded, and they both stumbled back up to the pavement level, dragging Richard with them, and had to walk him past the seafront tavernas and bars, holidaymakers watching as Richard hung his head, scraping his feet, as if the adrenalin had seeped out of his body and the alcohol waned in his system.

Konstantin Villas was a five-minute stroll along the seafront, and a part of the way back from the main strip. It was a small complex, as they all were on Naxos, mostly family run. The reception, which was a single wooden table hosting a laptop, led through to the self-catering apartments overlooking the beach. They hauled Richard inside where Anastasia, Konstantin’s daughter, sat behind the open laptop. She flashed Demetrios one of her smiles.

“Deme! What brings you here?” She spoke in Greek.

“Do you have a booking for Hough?”

Anastasia checked on her laptop, then nodded. “Is it for you?”

“For them.” He angled his head. “Can you check him in? On my say so?” Normally, she’d have to take Richard’s confirmation, his passport and whatever else they used to secure and vet the customer. But as she knew Demetrios, knew him very well, having sold their other apartments to the Kallis’ for a sum that had taken any chance of his independence away, he hoped she’d waive all that for him.

She reached behind her and produced a key, handing it over. “Sorry to hear about your mum. Did you get our flowers?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Demetrios passed the key behind him to Jesse. “You want me to help him up to the room with you?”

“No, it’s okay.” Jesse yanked on Richard’s arm. “Thanks for your help. You can go back.”

Jesse stumbled with his father toward through to the separate apartments, leaving Demetrios alone with Anastasia.

She leaned forward on her elbow. “I’m finishing in twenty. Fancy a drink?”

“Another time.” Demetrios spun and walked back out, where he stopped and stared at the beach.

He should go back to the taverna. Jesse had told him to. He had no idea how long Jesse would be with his father. For all he knew, he’d be up there all night, fall asleep with him and they’d board a plane first thing in the morning back to England. He should also be there for his own father. Yiannis needed him. And he was as loyal to Yiannis as Jesse was to Richard.

But he fell to sit on the aligning ledge and waited.

Twenty minutes later, as Anastasia waggled her fingers at Demetrios and skipped along to whichever bar she’d be getting her free drinks in, Jesse exited the reception.

“You’re still here,” he said, part surprise, part statement.

Demetrios shielded his eyes from the lowering sun. “Yeah. He okay?”

“No. He’s a drunk.”

Demetrios nodded. “You okay?”

Jesse shrugged and watched the waves crashing on golden sand, the sun dipping down into the sea, the last of the stragglers roaming the beach. “I need a drink,” he said in a hefty exhale.

“Plenty back at the taverna.”

Jesse screwed up his nose. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Demetrios stood, swiping his hands together to rid the sand that was stuck to them. “You…wanna go somewhere else?”

Jesse’s chest inflated, then emptied around his, “Yeah. I wanna dance.”

Demetrios cocked his head. “With somebody?”

“Maybe.”

Demetrios heart fluttered and his lips curved into a smile. “Okay. I can dance.”

“I remember.” Jesse stepped past him, leaving Demetrios watching him with a thrashing pulse.

He remembers.