M Vassiliev 13

Every evening numerous Greek relatives of Aunt Debra's husband invited all three of them for some or other family event and Mary learned once and forever who were the most hospitable people on Earth. She also learned that there can be too much fun. Her poor head was killing her, she couldn't take any more of loud music and yet louder voices: it seemed that her new friends never talked but shouted. Food was excellent but its quantities scared even Mary. And wine only seemed to be light. As a result she returned home dead tired longing for endless sleep but every morning at half past six Nick appeared on the doorstep of her room with invariable astonishment on his face: "Still in bed?"

Yesterday she suddenly remembered that somebody on the plane recommended her to visit a certain cave or rather chain of caves which were said to be if not eighth then ninth or eleventh wonder of the world. Mary made some enquiries and found out that there was an organised tour to the cave, so she decided to go there. Aunt Debra approved her plans but Nick laughed scornfully at them both.

"You'll be bored to death there," he said, "it's not even a real cave. They practically have marble floors there. If you want to see a genuine cave, I'll take you to the one tomorrow."

In the morning giddy from the lack of rest Mary tried to revive herself with endless cups of coffee while Nick stuffed himself like he hadn't eaten for a fortnight. From time to time he begged her to join him but Mary just shook her head and smiled with badly concealed dislike at her torturer. After yesterday's feast even a thought of food made her nauseous, Nick on the other hand never lost his appetite. "No wonder he's so bulky," thought Mary maliciously, "nobody can eat as much for breakfast without consequences". It wasn't entirely true. Nick wasn't bulky. He was rather powerfully built and not being very tall he looked a bit too broad. He was also dark-haired and his eyes were like black olives. Needless to say that Mary hated his type, she preferred her men tall, slender and fair (just like Dan).

"Where do we go, then," Mary asked trying to divert his attention from her empty plate, "is it a long drive?"

"Not really, no. About fifteen minutes along the motorway."

Nick said the truth. Well, partial truth. They did indeed drive around quarter of an hour along the motorway, this time in a car, then they left it and took some minor route towards the mountains. After that there was an hour or so of head-spinning pirouettes on a mountain road which brought them to a tiny village of a dozen or so houses. A short and slim man standing in front of a pretty yellowish church smiled at them.

"We've got to stop here for a sec," said Nick and jumped out of the car almost before it stopped and threw his arms around poor man neck. Mary closed her eyes ready to hear it snapping but to her surprise both the neck and its miniature owner survived. Nick introduced them. As Mary expected the man had a long and magnificent name which she wouldn't be able to repeat for her dear life. Then she was forgotten about for a while and the man and Nick talked, only it looked more like a quarrel than a conversation and at the end they shouted so vehemently that Mary was afraid they would start killing each other. When they finally drove away she asked Nick what that was all about and he said that his friend enquired about Aunt Debra's health and promised her some new recipe for chicken.

"Do you ride?" Nick asked.

"Ride? Why ride? I've thought we were going to the caves," said Mary getting out of the car because finally after nearly three hours on the road they reached their destination.

"Of course we do."

"Then why do we have to ride?"

Whilst talking they joined a group of other tourists that gathered near the parking lot. Most of them were Greeks.

"Riding a horse is a part of attraction." Nick explained.

Mary wasn't sure about attraction. First of all she had never ridden before. Secondly she was wearing a pretty white dress which she bought specially for the holiday but hadn't yet have a chance to wear it. She liked the dress very much, loved herself in it and doubted that it was appropriate for riding.

"No problem!" Nick said and he did look like a person who never had any problems in life. "You can change."

From the boot of his car he produced a not very clean tracksuit bottoms and a big ugly brown-grey sweater. Mary studied a big spot on the trousers for full three minutes. Although it had an interesting shape of a legless camel she didn't somehow fancy putting the trousers on. Finally she said:

"Perhaps I'll walk while you ride. I rather like walking. Especially in the morning when the air is so fresh and healthy."

"I didn't know that," said Nick listening to her with growing interest, "tomorrow I'll wake you up early and we can walk as long as you want. But now you have to put these clothes on: they will be more suitable in the caves too."

"Why this moron couldn't warn me about that at home," thought Mary in cold rage pulling Nick's stuff on, "God, how I hate him!"

Meanwhile the horses arrived. They looked very peaceful and worn out.

Their guide was even smaller than Nick's friend whom she had met earlier, and could easily play Tom the Thumb in Christmas panto providing that Tom the Thumb had a wild half-inch long stubble. He approached Mary and said in English:

"This is MY HORSE. You ride he!"

The horse was an amazingly unsightly creature of dirty grey colour, or perhaps, it was just grey and dirty, with very long tale and kind intelligent face. The owner looked at it with an expression of a real pride.

"How to mount it?" asked Mary hesitantly.

"I help!" Tom the Thumb said.

Mary thought that he was overoptimistic: he was at least five inch shorter than she and looked nothing like Hercules. Nevertheless she decided to give him a try and put her left foot in the stirrup.

"When our ancestors mounted their horses," said one of the local children with somewhat mechanical intonation but in surprisingly good English, "they always held a spear in their right hand so our ancestors mounted their horses always from the right." OK, smart ass, Mary thought while the parents of a bright youngster beamed at him. In her attempt to climb the horse Mary grabbed the saddle with such vigour that it started to slide towards her depriving the girl of support. In vain she tried to throw her leg over the horseback. After the third go she thought that she understood the mechanics of mounting but unfortunately Tom the Thumb chose that moment to come to her rescue.

Mary had too vivid an imagination. As soon as her petite helper offered his assistance she visualised him holding her pretty ample thigh with unconcealed admiration written all over his unshaven face and began to laugh. She totally forgot that one of her legs was still in the air. Together with the saddle she fell down to the ground still laughing hysterically. Nick who followed her progress with healthy curiosity stepped in and two men's combined efforts were crowned a success.

"You! Take this." Tom the Thumb said giving Mary reins. "He is very clever horse. You pull this he go this way, you pull that he go that way. Pull-pull and he stop."

…And the theory of riding became crystal clear for Mary.

"Go!" said the proud owner of the very clever horse and slapped its back.

It jumped forward with surprising agility. Not so fast, Mary begged silently. It seemed that the horse understood her plea and slowed down. Now they were moving steadily and Mary even began to enjoy the ride. The horse made a couple of circles around the place where Nick, Tom the Thumb and other people and horses were but then it changed its mind and moved away from it.

"My dear," said Mary cautiously, "don't you think we have to return and join the others?"

The horse either couldn't talk at all or didn't speak English on principle. It continued to move forward God knows in what direction. Mary gently pulled "this". No reaction.

"OK, if you don't want to go to the right, let's try to turn to the left." Mary said softly.

Left wasn't an option either. Mary began to tug more persistently and eventually the horse simply stopped. After some consideration Mary realised that she wouldn't be able to dismount and that if nobody would find them she would spend the rest of her days literally in the saddle. The last thought made her to pull the reigns with a tripled zeal and the horse lost its patience. It looked at Mary with offended air, then opened the mouth and showed its enormous yellow teeth. It didn't look friendly any longer.

"I agree with you completely," said Mary hastily, "by the way, when was the last time you cleaned your teeth?"

The horse opened its maw even wider.

"When I'm safely back I will buy you a toothbrush." Mary promised.

The horse closed its mouth, brood over Mary's words and shook its head. Like Mary it suddenly understood that a human toothbrush wouldn't be much of a use for it. It bared its teeth once more moving its mouth slowly but surely towards Mary's knee.

"Of course!" Mary exclaimed. "Shoe brush! That's what you need: a nice new shoe brush."

The horse sighed noisily, then dubiously sniffed on Mary's borrowed trousers and showed Mary its big dark-pink tongue. Before Mary had time to ask what that meant Nick and his horse appeared from behind the shrubs. Without saying a word he kicked Mary's horse and it trotted obediently forward. In no time they reached the cave. Its entrance looked like some industrial waste tube. A dirty stream the colour of clay coming out of the cave only increased that resemblance. Mary looked at it with philosophical calmness. She tried to decide whether she would be able to walk into the cave or she had to swim into it. Then she felt somebody's hand on her shoulder: it was Nick offering her a pair of huge Wellingtons.

"Don't you have anything smaller?" she asked without much hope.

"These are the smallest." Nick answered cheerfully. "Put them over your plimsolls and you'll see how comfortable they are."

They weren't comfortable at all and Mary missed first wonders of the cave trying to learn how to walk in them. The bottom of the cave was slippery which didn't boost her confidence. From the beginning of the tour around the caves she remembered only a bizarre xylophone made of pallid stalactites which their guide played with the help of a thin stick. Strangely enough the music he extracted was charming and sweet. He was so proud of his efforts that Mary unthinkingly applauded him and was rewarded for her kindness by getting the stick.

"Play!" said guide firmly with the intonation of a modern healer ordering a legless to walk.

Before they returned to the entrance the guide showed them a big black hole in the wall of cave.

"There is nothing behind it," he said dramatically and Mary didn't understand what he meant: that there was nothing interesting there or that there was a cosmic emptiness stretching from the hole to the end of time and Universe.

"Now make yourself presentable," said Nick, "because we're going to visit a friend of mine and there is no time for you to go home and change."

Mary's dress looked as if the horse chewed it and her white pretty plimsolls were covered in muck.

"Is it far away from here?" she asked inertly.

Nick's friend lived in a picturesque village in the mountains. He had an attractive white house and an enormous garden. In one of its corners they found their host with his guests. Most of them were artists like Nick's friend. It was a very mixed crowd consisting of a half a dozen Greeks, a silent German couple, three bearded Frenchmen, a cute Italian girl who spoke only Italian and a tall grey-haired lady of indeterminate age and nationality who rushed around like a comet. She managed to be in a few places at the same time and talked unstoppably. She jumped at Mary like some hungry tigress and instead of greeting asked:

"Is your husband Greek?"

Mary opened her mouth to say that Nick wasn't her husband but the other one had no intention to listen.

"Awesome!" she screeched and ran away leaving Mary to wonder what exactly made the lady so happy.

To Mary's sincere grief (and Nick's equally sincere joy) the lady sat next to her. She continued chattering but luckily never to Mary. Luckily because Mary was really hungry and the table was packed with different dishes all looking absolutely scrumptious. Mary helped herself with a few stuffed vine leaves, poured tzatziki over them and prepared to enjoy her first course when her weird neighbour put her elbow in the girl's plate. It seemed that she settled very comfortable there and wasn't going to change her position.

Mary tried to reward herself with a corn on a cob but unfortunately the impossible lady found that a good idea too. So she simply snatched Mary's cob from her hand and began to eat it with the speed which could easily land her in the Guinness' book of records. As she was still talking the kernels flew out of her mouth in different directions. Mary felt her appetite vanishing. If she'd start her own dieting course for seriously overweight people, she would become rich in no time, Mary thought looking with distaste at her neighbour. Nick watched them and loved every minute. Mary hated him.

Yet the evening turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. Mary became friendly with one Greek woman who gave her a recipe of steak and ale pie and a Frenchman who tried to teach her how to dance sirtaki. Then their host joined in and the three of them ran and hopped around the garden like some maniacs. An enormous festive moon smiled at them and music was wild and vivid and urged them to move faster and faster. And still faster.

Mary had a great time. Especially after her mad neighbour took a sudden interest in an Italian girl and went to give her a crash course in the Japanese art of calligraphy.

Nick drove Mary home when the night wasn't young anymore.

"Let's have a dip," he said unexpectedly, "the sea is really great in the night."

Mary refused curtly and not politely.

"As you wish." Nick agreed and stopped the car.

The sea was so close, only a strip of a shore separated them from it. The sky was black, the water was black and once again it was impossible to tell where the sea ends and the

heavens start.

Mary swam along the moon path towards the mysterious something which name was

Infinity. She didn't see much around her and she didn't care. She didn't want to go back. She felt like becoming a part of Nature. She was a wave, a blackness of the night, a salty sigh of the breeze.

"Penny for your thought," said Nick in his boring loathsome voice but Mary who loved the entire Universe at that moment forgave him.

"What do you do here?" she asked with celestial intonation. "I thought you stayed on the beach."

"I meant to. But you were swimming away with such fervour that I decided to join you."

With these words he turned her in an opposite direction.

"No," she said stubbornly, "I don't want to go back."

"It's OK," he consoled her, "you won't be there soon."

And she realised how far away from the shore she was and at first felt fear and then tiredness.

"Don't be afraid," said Nick, "I'm with you. I will always be with you."

Later Mary asked him:

"Why do you do everything to annoy me?"

And he answered:

"You came to the land so beautiful, that once even gods didn't mind to live here. Yet you try to do nothing, to see nothing, to learn nothing. It's wrong! I want you to fell in love with this place as much as I have."

He thoughtfully drew her close to him and in the fading light of the moon she saw that his eyes weren't black but blue. Dark-dark blue but still blue…

The great English weather was behaving badly once more, the promised BBQ summer turned out to be cold and wet. When Jane strolled slowly along the promenade sharp gusts of wind tugged her skirt and it flapped as if trying to fly away. The sky was low and the sea was the colour of led. This abundance of different shades of grey was rather beautiful in a gloomy apocalyptic way.

After her solitary walk Jane went back into her empty home: the children were in Italy staying in Adam's parents' villa and her husband was in one of his business trips. On his return they were going to join the kids. She put the kettle on and had a cup of tea and a bit of salad which her mum for some obscure reason called Tenderness.

After supper Jane went around the flat: everything was clean, orderly and didn't need her attention. She tried to read but couldn't concentrate on her book. She switched TV on but got the same result. There were still at least four hours to kill before going to bed. She went into the study, sat in front of the computer, opened a new Word document and started writing a letter which she knew would never be sent.

That's what she wrote:

I loved you. My God, how much I loved you! I love you now. I can't lie. I don't want to lie. It looks like I'm going to love you to the end of my days. Funny, isn't it?

Why are you leaving me? Don't you know that I can't live without you? I can't think without you. I can't breathe without you. We were so happy together! We were happy, weren't we? Or could it be that I deceived myself and all the time while we were being together you weren't with me? And now you're finally leaving for good and my stupid pride doesn't allow me to run after you and hold you back.

"Stay," my heart is shouting but you don't hear its screams. You've made your decision and are not going to change it. Goodbye. I have to give in. Fate is stronger than I am.

I'll live.

I'll live. Nothing will change in the world. The sun will rise as always in the morning and I will be busy with my everyday routine but from time to time I will be stopping in my tracks to think of you. Today, tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And the next day.

Forever.

There will always be people around me and in each of them I will search for your dear features. And perhaps I will find them but I won't find you. I will live among the strangers, I will talk to them, I will laugh so not to cry, I will live. But there will be no joy, no grief, no happiness, no pain…only emptiness. Oh, such an endless emptiness!

You will tell the other one that you love her. She will become your life, your time, your anxiety, your rest. It's her lips you will kiss and her hand you will touch. You will learn to be tender, jealous, miserable…

You will learn to love.

I believe…no, I know that one day we'll meet again. I have no idea when, why and how. But it will happen.

You will recognise me. You will say "hello!" and tell me about your life. And I…I will smile. Just smile and smile and smile trying with the warmth of my heart to melt down a wall of ice standing between us. I'll do it. I'm very strong: I'll do it. Do you hear me? I'll do it. You only trust me and I'll do it.

I'll do it!

I'll do it!

I'll do it!

And you will never leave me again…

The end of Part 1

To be continued sometime in the future with one of them getting divorced and another

one married but not to the guy she was going to,

The third one becoming rich and famous,

The fourth being torn between two men and the fifth being beaten by her admirer's jealous partner and finding through that her One and Only (well, more or less One and sort of Only).

Can you guess which one is which?

Don't be shy, make your guesses and in the meantime Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Let all your wishes come true in the 2015!

Marina