The Summer of Aphrodite Read online

  Suddenly Anna caught sight of Nathalie on the upstairs balcony, and sprang back from the window in embarrassment. It wouldn’t do to be seen snooping like that, she had appearances to keep up. To all intents and purposes her neighbours thought Anna spent most of her time writing a novel on her computer. It was the novel that would bring her riches, success and fame, and make everyone proud to have been a part of her life (no matter how insignificant). Unhappily, however, Anna could barely think up a storyline, let alone characters and a narrative, and her computer was used more for card games, shopping and depressing herself on Facebook.

  This woman was divorced, Anna thought, She’d been there. And now here she was, looking perky and positive. And so damned attractive. Anna hoped they’d be friends. She hoped that in Nathalie she might find companionship: someone to explore the island with, as she really hadn’t done much on her own. She pictured the two of them laughing together over morning coffees, enjoying long lunches with a bit too much wine, shopping conspiratorially, egging each other on to increasingly luxurious purchases, and maybe taking one of those cruises to Israel and Egypt. A birthday treat, that sort of thing. Richard wouldn’t mind. This woman might make her happy, Anna thought, as if happiness was otherwise beyond her.

  She gasped as Nathalie swept her hair back out of her face, pausing momentarily to take in the sun. Her eyes were closed and she looked radiant and at ease with herself. Totally at ease - a state Anna barely recognised. Her blouse had three buttons, Anna noted, wondering what it would be like to unfasten them. She was probably wearing some adorable lacy bra underneath, and for a moment Anna imagined holding the firmness of her breasts in her hands. She let the curtain fall, shocked at how far her mind was wandering.

  At school, Anna had a crush on a girl two years above her, who seemed to be everything she wasn’t: sophisticated, confident and well-dressed, with perky, tennis-ball shaped breasts. She’d watch her during assemblies and keep an eye out for her on the trudge between classrooms. But never once did she speak to her, and the girl wouldn’t even have known she existed. She felt a little like that now. She knew all she had to do was nip round and offer Nathalie a cup of coffee or tea, or something, but she felt trapped inside her own house, scared to make a move.

  Twice she began rehearsing some lines: ‘Hi, I’m Anna, you must be dying for a cup of tea by now? I’ve just got the kettle on.’ The first time she delivered it was with a casual laugh, the second time sounded less convincing. Her stomach did a somersault, and Anna hid behind the front door, astonished at her own weakness. The next time she looked out of the window, Sheila and Barry had begun preparing for their barbecue, setting up a garden table by the pool, laden with bottles and glasses. It was nearly six. Anna had spent the best part of the day studying her neighbour, yet failing to make any contact.

  What had happened to her confidence, she asked herself. Had it all evaporated in the Cypriot sun?

  Chapter Two

  ‘I’m afraid from now on it’s just going to get hotter and hotter,’ Sheila started, offering Nathalie a bowl of nuts. She’d finished her potted history of all the residents and had moved on to the weather. ‘Thank goodness we’ll be away this time. How we survived last August I shall never know.’

  ‘What brought you here in the first place?’ Nathalie asked, her enthusiasm wilting with the heat. Barry was one of those resolutely jolly types, she’d quickly deduced, who was fine in small doses and meant well, while Sheila seemed to spend her days missing England and redistributing other people’s news.

  ‘Our son, Ian.’ Barry took over. ‘He was sent over by his office, he’s in banking, you see. Moved here with his wife and their two little ones. We were getting a bit fed up with old Blighty, what with the dreadful weather and high cost of living and all that, and so we thought, why not give it a go? So we moved over to be nearer to them.’

  ‘And then six months after we arrived, he got a job in the Tokyo office!’ Sheila continued, despair in her voice. ‘I mean, Japan? I ask you? Well, we could hardly follow him there, could we?’

  ‘Yes, it was a bit of a blow,’ Barry added, handing Nathalie a gin and tonic. ‘It had been wonderful to see so much of them while it lasted, but then, that’s life, isn’t it?’

  ‘But Japan!’ Sheila went on. ‘I don’t know how Belinda copes. She’s a nervy girl as it is, prone to moods, if you know what I mean, so I can’t imagine she’s at home there at all.’

  ‘Belinda should be pleased, at least her husband got a promotion.’ Anna joined the gathering, emboldened by the presence of familiar faces. She’d changed into her favourite three-quarter length white linen trousers and a short-sleeved turquoise top, and had tamed her hair, for the evening at least, with a little gel. ‘I’d trade this place for a world city any day. Hello, I’m Anna.’ She offered Nathalie her hand. ‘We live next door to you, in number eight. Welcome.’

  ‘Isn’t Richard with you?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘Still at the office. Thank you, Barry,’ Anna added, accepting a glass. ‘My husband works in banking, too, only rather than high finance and stocks, he deals with cheque and savings accounts. So?’ She looked at Nathalie, trying to suppress the nervous feeling that was fluttering throughout her stomach. ‘What made you decide to move here?’

  ‘It was a moment of madness,’ Nathalie told her openly. ‘I came over for a break in May, while my ex-husband was emptying his belongings out of our old home. And for some reason the place got to me, and I saw an ad for the house to rent, and suddenly I’d taken it on, just like that!’

  ‘How brave you are!’ Sheila exclaimed.

  ‘Just a bit spontaneous. I’ve signed up for all these courses subsequently,’ she added. ‘Reiki and massage therapy to start with, and I’d like to take up personal coaching. I’ll keep myself busy, don’t worry.’ She turned back to Anna. ‘So you moved here for your husband’s work, I gather? How do you fill your days?’

  ‘I’m a writer, actually,’ Anna told her with a hint of embarrassment. ‘I’m fascinated by Greek mythology, and in particular, Aphrodite. I’m trying to update her story.’

  ‘Ah, Aphrodite, Goddess of love, beauty, fertility and sexual rapture, born out of the severed genitals of Uranus.’ This came from a tall man in his early sixties with an open, intelligent face, twinkling, intensely blue eyes and a broad smile. He would have been a heart-breaker in his youth, Nathalie thought, and clearly he looked after himself, as there wasn’t a trace of fat on his body. ‘How on earth d’you intend to go about updating that?’

  ‘I’ll find a way,’ Anna replied curtly.

  He turned his attention towards Nathalie, eyeing her up and down with open approval.

  ‘You’re Nathalie, I gather,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘Welcome to Fig Leaf Villas. Has anyone told you about our initiation ceremony yet? You have to run three times around the pool covered only in fig leaves, while we all chase you, trying to tear them off.’

  ‘Don’t listen to a word he says,’ Barry said with an embarrassed laugh, passing his neighbour a drink. ‘He’s a mischievous one, is our Douglas.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’ Nathalie looked directly into Douglas’s eyes and couldn’t help smiling back at them. There was a definite sense of fun there, as well as something more intoxicating; he had the air of someone who’d constantly got away with behaving as he wanted, and who didn’t give a damn about what anyone else thought.

  ‘And what fortuitous timing,’ Douglas started, enjoying himself. ‘Today’s July the ninth, Aphrodite’s feast day. You must be a messenger of the goddess herself, delivered as a gift to inspire our mortal souls.’

  ‘And what makes you think you deserve such a gift?’ Nathalie asked.

  ‘I’ve been a very good boy lately,’ he replied dryly. ‘The festival of Aphrodite is called Aphrodisiac, of course,’ Douglas continued. ‘They don’t celebrate it in Paphos unt
il September, but her influence makes itself known long before then. This island does things to people, it has a force all of its own. Like all the orgies that have been going on in boats around the coast. People get caught up in it here, Aphrodite’s sexual rapture. There’s no escaping it.’

  ‘Did you hear about those boat parties?’ asked the permanently shocked Sheila. ‘It was in all the papers. They were just teenagers, but it was so debauched. They’d been drinking too much, of course, and then there were all these sex games on board and they all got carried away and just did it, with anyone, like animals! I’m glad our children are grown up, as I wouldn’t know how to start bringing teenagers up in this day and age. Everyone’s so permissive.’

  ‘And you’re so Victorian, Sheila,’ Douglas teased. ‘But even you’ve had children, and I doubt they came into the world like Aphrodite.’

  There was a second’s silence before an embarrassed Barry began passing round nuts and olives, but in that second Nathalie caught Anna’s eye, and smiled. Anna returned the smile, a blush rising to her cheeks.

  ***

  From her upstairs bedroom window, Ginnie watched the gathering, kneeling on her bed with one hand down her knickers. It excited her to masturbate, knowing that other people were just metres away. It felt naughty, as if any minute now someone might look up and point: there’s Ginnie up there, whatever do you think she’s doing?

  She hadn’t intended to have a quickie - Ginnie was dying for a nice cold voddie and tonic - but it was so damned hot and there was something about the heat, and the perpetually moist feeling between her legs, that just kept her constantly turned on. In the winter she could go for days without thinking about sex, but during the summer it was rarely out of her mind. She could do this quickly, she told herself, pulling her pussy lips apart and plunging her index finger inside herself, and then she’d go and meet the new neighbour.

  She was sitting on George Clooney’s face, she decided, rubbing her clit. Or was it Harrison Ford’s? Or pre-rant Mel Gibson’s? She felt his tongue lapping at her, eating her, possessing her, she felt that warmth and that wetness and she felt his eyes on her pussy, remembering it for future reference. Her pussy. Ginnie’s pussy. George Clooney was memorising the folds of her pussy, so that he summon them to his mind’s eye whenever he wanted. He was swallowing her juices, and his finger was slipping inside her.

  Ginnie came, thrusting against her own fingers, and two of the three cats that had been snoozing peacefully at the end of the bed jumped up, startled. ‘Yes, yes!’ Ginnie gasped as she writhed against her own digits, momentarily forgetting the scene below.

  Years before, when Ginnie was living in London, her then-boyfriend Robin had a flat that overlooked the old Arsenal ground, at Highbury. From the bathroom window you got a tremendous view of one set of goal posts, and they’d make a point of having sex in the tub during every home match. Ginnie used to love the idea that perhaps, in amongst all those goal celebrations, someone, somewhere in the stands, might just look up and spot them.

  Once her orgasm subsided, Ginnie got up to wash her hands. Derek was playing up again, and so she took some ointment from the bathroom cabinet and rubbed a dab on. Derek had been the last in a long line of boyfriends in England. He’d managed a road haulage company, but what he really wanted was to run his own pub, and they’d started looking into possible properties. Ginnie’s dream had been to live above a delightful, cottage style country establishment, serving home-made meals (bought in, of course, Ginnie had never been much of a cook) and real ales. The centre of village social life. Unhappily, however, before any of this happened, Derek met a thirty-something with two young children, and his manly instincts had taken over, and he’d shacked up with them. Ginnie had taken a long time to get over this, but naming her pile after him was certainly helping. And Derek was feeling particularly red and itchy today, and a bit more swollen than usual, though the cream was helping. Ginnie knew she shouldn’t read her copies of Good Housekeeping on the loo, but you got into bad habits when you lived alone.

  Ginnie sprayed on a little perfume and reapplied her lipstick. She was beginning to look her age, she thought disconsolately in the mirror. Nearly fifty-five, and her skin was starting to sag. She was getting that jowly look of her mother’s. The tan helped, of course, and she was sure to keep dying her hair blonde, but the symptoms of age were all ganging up against her. Never mind, a vodka and tonic would cheer her up, she thought. It always did.

  Ginnie went downstairs and, leaving her front door unlocked, went to join the others. She loved how safe she felt in Cyprus, and she loved the reassuring company of other Brits, even if there were times when she felt like strangling them all.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she announced, making a bee-line for Nathalie. ‘I’m Ginnie, from number three, how are you? Ooh, Barry, that’s just what I need, a nice long V&T.’

  ‘Have you been at the refuge today?’ Sheila inquired.

  ‘Yes, we had five kittens last night. If you know of anyone looking to adopt, do send them over, won’t you?’

  ‘Just strangle the buggers,’ Douglas suggested. ‘There are far too many cats on this island as it is.’

  ‘Strangling’s not the solution,’ Ginnie said firmly, her face flushing pink. ‘Sterilisation is, and at Tiggles we’ve got a policy of sterilising every cat that comes in. If we had more money we’d do a general awareness campaign, believe me. But you can’t just strangle the new-borns, it’s not right.’

  Douglas looked at her in amusement, having achieved precisely the effect he’d wanted.

  ‘Is Tanya still here?’ Nathalie asked no one in particular. ‘The young estate agent who rented me this house? Only I’m sure she told me she lived here, too.’

  ‘That’s right, she’s over in number one,’ Barry said, indicating the smaller property at the complex entrance. ‘She’ll be joining us later, only she’s got a client meeting this evening. Nice girl, I hope it all works out for her here.’

  ‘So young to be here on her own,’ Sheila started, and when only Ginnie responded, Nathalie found herself gazing wistfully at what looked like a shepherd’s hut perched half-way up a hillside opposite. For a second she wished she’d rented something completely isolated; far away from sun-burnt Brits with their stories and their regrets. But it was too soon for that - Nathalie knew she needed to acclimatise first. Number nine would be her halfway house; the sanitised version of the life she might yet lead.

  She was aware of Douglas moving closer towards her, and of the slight charge that shot through her body as he did, and realised with a terrible certainty that he was someone she could, and most probably would, sleep with. He was like a magus, enticing her, tempting her to do things she’d never done before, and she could see herself with him, going places that she couldn’t now begin to imagine. She could see rituals and domination, she could see herself lifting up and leaving her own body, and she could see passion and fire and a darkness she hadn’t expected on such a sunny island. The images shocked her, but they intrigued her, too.

  He leant in closer and whispered, ‘Tedious lot, sometimes, but they’re harmless enough.’

  She turned to face him, catching her breath. She was tempted to take him by surprise, to wrap her leg around his and urge her tongue inside his mouth. This was desire, she remembered. She hadn’t felt it in years. ‘So what brought you to Cyprus?’ she asked, determined to maintain control.

  He paused for a second before answering. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? I came to worship the goddess.’

  Chapter Three

  Richard was half way between the bank and Fig Tree Villas when he remembered. Barry was throwing another of his interminable pool parties tonight, Anna had warned him earlier. A couple of wasted hours listening to Sheila going on about mosquitoes, Ginnie whining about her cats and Anna taking any opportunity she could to humiliate him. He checked his watch. It wasn’
t unheard of that he had to stay late at the bank because of some major development or other, he’d just have to make one up. Driving steadily along the sea road, Richard pulled over at the Sunset Bar.

  Once inside, the beer slipping down his throat like liquid bliss, Richard unbuttoned his collar, pulled loose his tie, and stared out to sea. Cyprus. What in God’s name was he doing here?

  He’d wanted Abu Dhabi and they’d given him Paphos. What kind of a joke was that? There’d been an opening in the Emirates and it would have been a huge responsibility, managing and developing their corporate and personal client base. Abu Dhabi. A bit dry, perhaps, but at least it was an international centre, and could have led to greater things. But Paphos? It was just a parochial town, a career cul-de-sac, a tourist spot for wrinklies, where the most exciting business development that ever happened was the opening of a new restaurant.

  Life seemed to cheat him at every turn, Richard thought glumly, drinking more of his beer. Nothing ever turned out the way he’d expected: his career, his marriage, his home, nothing. Everything he tried and everything he did seemed to go wrong. It was as if he was cursed. Even now, looking down at his dishevelled clothes, damp with sweat, his buttons straining from too many after work beers, Richard felt a wave of self-loathing. He’d stumbled into a pit, and instead of heaving himself out again with a renewed sense of determination, all he seemed capable of was lying still and waiting for the maggots to get him.

  It was shortly after their wedding, four years ago, that he’d put in a transfer request. See more of the world, he’d explained to Anna and his boss; get about a bit. Anna had rather liked the idea of expat life, of a large house and servants and taking tennis lessons and lunching with other expat wives; of giving up her own job in PR and finally living the kind of life she’d always felt she deserved. Oh yes, Anna had been all for it at the time. Now she never stopped punishing him for it.