Love Tastes Like Strawberries. Rosamund Haden

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THEN . . . A YEAR BEFORE

      Stella

      Stella stares at the painting on the therapist’s wall. A road winds along a mountainside above an azure sea. The slopes of the mountain are covered in olive trees. Small white boats bob on the shimmering water at the foot of cliffs.

      Stella is lost in the painting. She can smell the herbs in the bushes – wild thyme and something sweeter. She is running down a steep path to a cove below. On holiday in Greece. Thirteen. Awkward, in between everything. Filled with lonely longing and stricken with intense embarrassment. She is disapproving and envious of her mother’s childish abandon as she runs down the path in front of Stella, her breasts and bottom bouncing in her pink bikini, her tie-dyed beach bag swinging from her arm. Stella is envious of her golden tan because her own skin is blotchy, white and lobster red where she has burned.

      “You can’t catch me. I am a mountain goat.” Her mom laughs.

      Stella is convinced her mother says these awful things on purpose. She prays there is no one else on the beach. But of course there are people dotted everywhere. There is the normal English family – the mother in a one-piece, the girl reading a book. They are staying in the next door kaliva. There are two tanned young men playing frisbee.

      Stella’s mother reaches the beach, throws down her bag that contains her sketchbook and pencils and shouts back to Stella. “I’m going in!” Then she does something even more unspeakable. She pulls the string of her bikini top and her breasts are released. Stella stares at her feet.

      Walking quickly across the sand, Stella clambers over boulders to the next cove. And then stops.

      A couple are kissing in the sea right in front of her. They don’t notice her they are so engrossed; their tongues weave together. Later, when they are gone, Stella will stick her tongue out in the salty water and imagine what it feels like to be kissed.

      But now she is interrupted by her mother calling her from one of the rocks between the coves. She turns and shields her eyes against the light. Her mom waves. She waves back. Thank God, she has put her bikini top back on. Her sketchbook is on her lap. She is trying to capture the scene of the small bay and the sparkling water and the olive trees on the hill above.

      Stella climbs up to her.

      “What do you think?”

      “It’s good,” Stella says and she means it. Her mom smiles, delighted. She squeezes Stella’s hand and Stella squeezes it back. Perhaps they can go and drink a cooldrink in the taverna on the far side of the beach. Stella is thirsty. But her mom wants to sketch and tan some more.

      “You don’t mind, darling? Why don’t you go and swim?”

      Stella climbs back down on to the sand. The couple has gone. She wades back into the water in her school swimming costume. She dives under. Her hair floats out around her. When she breaks the surface of the water she hears someone laughing.

      “You look like a mermaid.” It’s one of the frisbee players. His frisbee had come spinning over into the next cove. He has the body of a swimmer. She can’t help staring. She has never seen such a perfect body. His dark hair is wet from the sea. She is surprised that he speaks English, that he looks so at ease, so unforeign in this place. But she recognises his accent. He is from Cape Town, he tells her. On holiday. He’s an art student, travelling with a friend.

      She watches as he sculpts a mermaid out of sand.

      “It’s really good.” She puts two pebbles on the sand face for eyes.

      “Not as pretty as you.” He makes her flush bright red. The sand is hot. The student sees that she is burning. “Here, I’ll bury you,” he says. “It will cool you down.” She watches as he scoops out sand to make a hollow. “Now lie down.”

      He pushes the sand against her legs and arms. His fingers touch her skin. “Don’t move.” He laughs. The sand tickles and she squirms. “Are you staying here much longer?” he asks her.

      “Ten days.”

      “You should come and visit. My friend is leaving in a few days. I’ll need someone fun around.”

      She is infatuated.

      “Stella.” She looks up. Her mom waves. Stella’s heart plummets as she sees the student wave back.

      “Your sister?”

      “My mother,” Stella says quietly.

      “What are you drawing?” he shouts up to her mom.

      “Why don’t you come and see for yourself?” she calls back flirtatiously.

      “I will,” he says and leaps up. And he is gone. Away from Stella, up the rocks. She watches as he admires her mother’s sketches. In that moment she doesn’t exist.

      There he is, gaining a firm foothold in her memory, filling up the space. Laughing at her mother’s jokes, pouring wine, cooking. He was twenty-one and her mother thirty-five. She tried not to stare at him as he sat staring at her mom, but she couldn’t help it. He was so handsome. But it was her mother who went down the hill at night to visit him, not Stella. His friend had gone on to the next island. Stella tried to engross herself in playing card games with the English girl, Polly.

      “He looks like a charming devil – you know, if the devil could be good in any way,” Polly said as she dealt a hand of cards. “Isn’t he a bit young for your mother. I mean . . .”

      Of course he was too young. And her mother had acted like an idiot, all giggly and weird around him. Stella hated them and missed her mom. This was meant to be their holiday. The holiday her mother had saved and saved for. A holiday of a lifetime. If anyone was going to have a holiday romance it should have been Stella.

      “Mom, what was the name of the village we stayed in?” She would phone her to check . . . No hellos or how are yous? – just straight to the point, like they were in the middle of the conversation already. This is how they spoke on the telephone. Her mom would phone her any time, day or night. “Stella, do you mind if I throw away your old Scrabble set, the mice have got at it?” or “Stella, where is that tortoiseshell hairbrush of mine?”

      Now Stella feels sick in her stomach. Her mom will never answer the telephone, ever again. She still had her mom’s phone number on speed dial; she hasn’t been able to delete it yet.

      “Do you remember the holiday in Greece?” Of course she would. She had not been able to forget it.

      “You look distressed.” The therapist’s voice is soft with concern and Stella has to force herself not to leap from the couch and run out into the fresh air and light of the garden.

      “Why don’t you tell me why you came here?” It’s her working voice. Her hair is tied back in a tight blonde French knot. She looks like she will peck the information out of Stella if necessary.

      Stella reads the note upside down, on the therapist’s notepad. It is from her GP. It says anticipatory anxiety.

      Definition: To be scared of something that hasn’t happened yet, and might never happen.

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