Chapter 35

The journey home was sombre. Kostas drove us and Maria and I sat in the back, holding hands. We walked into the house and the silence was oppressive. It seemed as if the absence of Sandy had taken the life out of the place.

Kostas went to the kitchen while Maria and I sat in the living room.

“I need to contact a funeral home,” Maria said.

“What are we going to do about the funeral?” I asked, “have it here?”

“At first, I wanted to take her home, to Greece, but that’s not her home. Her home is in Hoboken, I’m going to look at how much it would cost to take her.”

“Don’t worry about the cost,” I said, “whatever it is, if that’s what you want, we’ll do it.”

“And what about you David?” she asked, “what do you want?”

I sat silent for a moment.

“I want my Sandy back,” I replied and the tears started again.

“We all do sweetie,” Maria said, “but it can’t be, we have to accept what is.”

Kostas came in carrying a tray with three empty glasses and three mugs of coffee. He put them down on the coffee table and went to the drinks cabinet and brought out a bottle of Lagavulin. He poured three measures into the glasses and handed one each to me and Maria.

“You know it’s illegal for me to drink this?” I asked.

“Not if you’re doing so under doctor’s orders,” he replied, “drink it.”

It wasn’t my first, my Dad had introduced me to it early. Thanks to the English alcohol laws that was legal in my own home.

“What are you going to do?” he asked Maria.

“Well,” she replied, “I still have my job as David’s housekeeper, if he wants me, but short term I need to arrange the funeral and try to get Sandy home.”

“Well, if you need anything,” he said, “just ask.”

“Thank you Kostas, you’re a good friend,” she said.

He looked at her and even I could tell that he was hoping to be something more than just a good friend. When he turned his gaze on me, I smiled and nodded gently.

“We should start to let people know,” I said.

“Tomorrow,” Maria said, “we’ll do it tomorrow. Most of the people I want to let know are in Europe and it’s the middle of the night there.”

“I may stay up late and let my family know,” I said, “I doubt I’ll sleep anyway.”

“I already told your Mum,” Maria said.

“Thank you,” I replied, automatically.

“I can give you some medication,” Kostas said.

“No thanks Kostas,” I replied, “I really don’t want to start relying on drugs.”

“Your choice, but I’ll leave some in the downstairs washroom cabinet in case you feel the need. Now, I’d better be off and let you two get to bed.”

Maria looked across at him and held out an arm

“Stay,” she said softly.

He looked at me, I just shrugged. Maria was an adult and quite capable of making her own decisions, I wasn’t going to get involved and I knew that she sometimes stayed overnight at his condo.

“You’re both grown-ups now,” I said, “none of my business.”

They went off upstairs and I pulled out my phone and called Sam Goldfarb, my mentor and, at the moment, employer.

“David, my boy,” he said, his voice full of concern, “how are things, any change?”

“They pulled the plug on Sandy’s life-support this afternoon,” I said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he replied, “were you there?”

“I held her as she slipped away,” I said, “anyway, I’m ringing to let you know that I need to take tomorrow off, but then I can start work again. I’ll need some time off for the funeral though.”

“Whatever you need, son,” he said, “just make sure you and her mother are all right.”

“I think Maria will be fine,” I said, “she has her faith. I have my work.”

“Are you sure work will be enough?” he asked, “you don’t really have any support up there, you know.”

“I’m going to ring my parents in a couple of hours, they should be up by then, they’re already planning to come over.”

“Well, if you need anything from me, you know where I am.”

“Thanks Sam,” I said, “I’ll speak to you soon.”

We hung up and I turned on the TV, hoping to find something to distract me. The BBC Canada channel had an episode of Doctor Who on, I settled for that.

Halfway through I had a sudden thought. They changed the actor playing the doctor pretty regularly and the sidekicks. I wondered, idly, whether I could audition and maybe work in England for a while. I think that that was the moment when I decided that, although I’d still go to University so that I had something to fall back on, my future lay as an actor.

I missed the end of Doctor Who, I dozed off in my chair and, when I awoke, called home. Mum answered.

“Mum,” I said into the phone.

“Oh, David,” she replied, taking her cue from my tone of voice, “I’m so sorry darling. Do you want to talk about it?”

“This afternoon,” I answered, “they shut off the life support at just after three and she died in my arms a few minutes later.”

I had trouble getting the words out.

“Oh, my poor darling and her poor mother, how is Maria coping with it?”

“She’s trying to be stoic about it, for me I think, but I think that deep down inside, she’s devastated.”

“Well, give her our condolences and tell her that we will be over as soon as we can get there.”

“You don’t have to come, Mum,” I said.

“Yes I do,” she said, firmly, “you’re my son and you’re hurting, I’ll be there. Don’t worry about telling anyone else over here, I’ll take care of that and I’ll call you later today to tell you when I’m arriving.”

“Thanks Mum,” I said.

“Right, now, get yourself off to bed son and get some sleep. I suspect you’re going to be busy tomorrow.”

I was a good boy and did as my mother told me and as I opened the door to the master suite I turned around and walked down to the end of the corridor, to one of the guest bedrooms, I couldn’t face sleeping in our bed. To my surprise, I slept, dreamlessly.

The calls started at a little after eight the following morning, mainly for me, but some for Maria. She spent most of the morning on the phone to relatives in Greece.

It was lunch time when she made the call that neither of us wanted her to have to make, the Funeral Director.

They promised to have someone with us by six in the evening.

Kostas left at lunchtime to go to work.

We continued to get a stream of sympathy calls, including a good many transatlantic ones until the funeral director arrived at just before six.

She was young, probably late twenties, pretty and very pregnant. She introduced herself as Rebecca Norton and handed each of us a card. She was quiet, respectful and sympathetic, but also business-like. In under an hour she had all the details she needed to get things started, had filled in all the necessary paperwork and Maria had chosen a casket. She assured us that transporting Sandy back to New Jersey was possible. It was done regularly, not necessarily to New Jersey, but to lots of places around the world. and that she would take care of all the arrangements, adding that if we let her know who was doing things at the other end she would liaise with them to make sure everything went smoothly.

I suggested to Maria, after Rebecca had left, that it was too late to start cooking and that we should go out for dinner. We decided on the Vancouver Fish Company on Granville Island and enjoyed a very nice seafood meal.

“What will you do, Maria?” I asked.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked.

“No, I’d prefer you to stay,” I replied, “but I’ll understand if you want to go back home, whether that’s to New Jersey or to Greece, the decision really is yours.”

“And what will you do?” she asked me.

“I don’t think I’ll stay in the house,” I said, “I don’t think I could, I’ll probably get an apartment, maybe three bed. Then if you do decide to go home, I’ll probably eat here every night, this Halibut is lovely.”

“I want to stay,” she said, “if you’ll let me.”

“Of course I will,” I replied, “I want you to stay for as long as you like.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“And anyway, I think there’s someone else who wants you to stay.”

“Kostas,” she said, “he’s sweet.”

“He looks at you the same way that I used to look at Sandy,” I said.

“David, eventually, this programme will be made, you’ll go back home to England and I’ll go back home.”

“To New Jersey, or to Greece.”

“There’s nothing for me to go back to Hoboken for anymore,” she said.

“So what then?” I asked.

“Back to Kalymnos, to Myrties,” she said, “perhaps I’ll find a small hotel, get a bank loan and run it.”

“Is that what you want to do?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “that is what I want to do.”

“Then I have a proposition for you,” I said, “a partnership.”

“What?” she asked, an incredulous tone in her voice.

“A business proposition,” I said, “we find a small hotel on Kalymnos, I provide the capital, we modernise it where it needs it, then you run it. You draw a salary and the rest we split fifty-fifty. We use half of your share to pay me back the capital and then, when it’s paid off the hotel is yours free and clear. Just one condition.”

“Which is?”

“We call it the Sandra Hotel,” I said, “and I get to stay for free whenever I come.”

She looked at me, her eyes fixed on mine. She looked for a long time.

“You’re serious,” she said, a statement, not a question.

I said nothing, merely nodded my head.

She held out her hand.

“You have a deal, partner,” she said.

“Now,” I said, “what are you going to do about Kostas?”

“Kostas?” she replied, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” I replied, “Are you serious?”

“Yes, if Kostas wants to do something, then he’s going to have to bring it up. I’m not going to chase him.”

We’d finished the meal, so I paid, we drove home and Maria poured herself a drink. I settled for a hot chocolate before I headed off to bed, once again in a guest bedroom.

I slept well again, which was good, since the alarm woke me at six the following morning ready for work. I grabbed a quick cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal in time for the studio car to pick me up at six-thirty.

I needn’t have rushed, there were no scenes involving me on the call list for the day, instead I spent the entire day in my trailer reading script changes and learning lines. Interrupted far too often by people popping in to express their sympathy.

The car dropped me back at the house at five thirty, where Maria had a bowl of soup and a sandwich waiting for me and a message from Mum. They were arriving in Vancouver at eleven thirty. With no indication of who they were.

“I’ve got all the bedrooms ready just in case,” she said as we sat at the kitchen table eating.

“Thanks,” I replied, “are you all right for picking them up tonight, or should I get a taxi?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” she said, “I had a nap this afternoon, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“David,” she said, changing the subject, “about what we talked about last night, were you serious?”

“Of course I was,” I replied, “my Dad told me that I should invest the money I make to make more money, that way I’d always have a cushion to fall back on if times got hard.”

“Sensible man, your father,” she said, “then, if it’s all right with you, as soon as the funeral is done with, I’ll go over there and see what I can find.”

“And I’ll get George working on a partnership agreement,” I said.

I checked the flight arrival time on the internet before we set off for the airport, they were forty-two minutes behind schedule, now due to touch down at twelve minutes past twelve. We set off at midnight and arrived in the arrival hall at the airport just as the indicator board changed to ‘landed.’ We knew that they were going to be a while, so found an open coffee shop and sat and sipped, while we watched the doors from the baggage claim and immigration.

Since there weren’t many flights arriving at that time in the morning we guessed, correctly, that when the automatic doors opened it was their flight coming through. The first through the doors was Alison, which surprised me because it was still school time for her, then my parents, Dad pushing the trolley.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her after she’d thrown herself into my arms and buried her face in my shoulder, “shouldn’t you be at school?”

“I rang the school and explained what had happened,” Mum said, “they gave her a week off.”

“Generous of them,” I said.

“Well, I may have slightly exaggerated how close she was to Sandy.”

Mum spotted Maria and she walked over to her, they hugged and I could hear Mum expressing how upset she was at the news.

By that time it was near one o’clock in the morning and everyone was tired. We drove home pretty much in silence and everybody went straight to bed, promising that we’d catch up in the morning.

Work the next day, or that day, I suppose, was therapeutic.

The effort of having to remember lines and directions and perform everything at the right time, in the right place and with the right people helped me take my mind off my sorrow. I think that was also helped by us working through until eight that night. The day after, though was Friday, my education day. The tutor would be coming in around one but given the circumstances I felt justified in ringing and cancelling.

The first thing Mum had done, against protests from Maria was take over the running of the household. Mum argued that at a time like this, Maria needed to be doing other things than cooking and cleaning.

I wasn’t happy with Mum and neither, although she never said anything, was Maria. I had to sit Mum down and explain to her that Maria was using being busy in the house as a way to avoid brooding over her tragedy, that she needed the activity to keep her sane.

Once Mum realised her mistake, to her great credit she went and found Maria in her room and apologised to her, handed the reins back and offered her help in anything she needed.

On Saturday morning Rebecca from the funeral directors rang to let us know that they’d be collecting Sandy from the hospital on Monday and would then begin the preparations. She told us that she’d let us know when we could visit and that she’d done some research on Hoboken funeral directors and would drop a list off for us later in the day, in case Maria didn’t have a favoured firm. Maria thanked her and hung up.

She had tears on her cheeks when she finished and Mum rushed to comfort her. She led her over to the table, sat her down and got my sister making ‘a nice pot of tea,.’

“I should be doing that,” Maria protested.

“Trust me,” I said, “Pip needs the practice a lot more than you do.”

My sister shot me a look I thought only Mum could do.

“Besides, you’re not just an employee here, you’re a friend,” Mum said.

“Actually Mum,” I interrupted, “Maria is, or is going to be a business partner?”

“What?” Mum asked, “How?”

I told her about the small hotel in Greece idea. Dad brightened up at the prospect.

“Do you want me to see what I can find?” he asked.

“Please James,” Maria replied, smiling for, I think, the first time in two days. “That would be kind, I really don’t feel up to it.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

“Oh yes, Kalymnos in the Dodecanese,” she replied, “preferably around Myrties, my home town.”

“I’ll get onto it as soon as we’re home,” he said, “how are you going to finance it?”

“From my business bank account,” I replied.

I got the impression that Dad wanted to argue that, but then thought better of it.

Mum and Maria made lunch between them, sandwiches which we ate outside on the patio and Alison and I cleared away afterwards, leaving the three adults outside chatting while we caught up on who was doing what back home and who they were doing it to.

“By the way,” I said, as she finished telling me the latest about Kathy Kearford and her boyfriend Dave, “not that I’m attempting to get rid of you, but how long are you planning to stay?”

“Mum’s planning on staying as long as she’s needed, but Dad and I are flying back on Thursday.”

“It will be nice having you here,” I said, “but you know I’ll be back at work on Monday?”