Chapter 3
Around seven, I sped down the breezy hillside dotted with cedars and whitewashed bungalows, woodworks painted bright blues and reds.
Arriving at a depopulated pool, surrounded by an L-shaped restaurant, the sky leadened with clouds speeding towards the island, triggering a childhood memory: nights awake listening to the mysteries of the waves from the Sound. At five, I nearly drowned in its dun waves and was pissed when dad saved me. Never wanted to be here.
Reaching the marina the sun was shining. I inspected the yachts. One, the Argo, a black monstrosity had a helicopter parked on it. The five others bobbed around in an aura of dead stillness, deluded that their hi-tech security systems had it all under control (always some poor wretch around with ‘hacky-fingers’).
And then I got envious; a feeling new to me. I’d had it all. Well, maybe not yachts like that, but a 22 foot Nordic Folkboat sleeping four, which I couldn’t sail, and a 12 cylinder hunter green convertible Jaguar, which I could drive, sitting dead in the garage; the 4-wheel Volvo was more practical and the batteries never died.
Not caring to submerge my Apollonian body in polluted water (compliments of the yachts) I fled to the nearby beach.
Swimming fast over a patch of seaweed (phobic about potential watersnakes lying in ambush there) I headed for the deep. After some ten minutes I came to a clearing where something glistened brilliantly, like a wheat burnished diamond. About to grab it, a cuttlefish darted at me spitting ink in my face before vanishing in a cloud of sepia. I felt a sharp pain in the palm of my hand. Blood gushed. My diamond was a piece of glass.
I was out of there.
Surfacing, I banged my head against the keel of a boat. I’d swum in the wrong direction—the marina.
Muscling myself up, trying to get a firm grip on the algae infested boat bridge, my fingers were nearly stepped on by a tall, tanned, blond man, radiant like wolf’s bane, untying a dinghy from a bollard. So the guilty keel was his. He threw me a smile, eyes gleaming devilishly green.
Up, he was right in my face. He looked at my hand, “You’re alright?”
“Yeah fine; just a small cut. The head’s another matter,” I said and moved back. He was wearing shorts nearly falling off his narrow hips.
“I’m Bruno,” he said too friendly too soon. “Staying at the Plutókratos?”
“Yep, just arrived—” His body was well-proportioned and slightly more muscular than a swimmer’s.
“You’ll love the restaurant,” he said. “The chef’s Russian, no really, absolutely brilliant and the pool-bar, makes wicked drinks.” Rams’ heads were tattooed on his wide shoulders.
“Bartender’s Russian too? I mean, Russians equaling wickedness,” something about him I didn’t like. What did he want from me?
“Funny association but no; Ukranian I think. You look familiar. Have we met?”
“Maybe in one of your dreams,” I said and winked, attention hijacked by a woman on a yacht, the Narcissus (what a name), anchored some forty yards out. She looked the woman of the 20-million-plus-euro, 45-metre, three-decker yacht (Abeking & Rasmussen?), with plenty of white clad crew cloying the decks; an arrogant Artemis, with two creamy-pelted salukis at her side, sporting a ring with a large brilliant stone. For a sec I thought we made eye contact and noticed Bruno’s mien cooling. The blonde returned ‘the wave’.
“Well, signal I’ve gotta get back to the little lady,” he said with a nauseatingly chummy smile and threw the rope into the dinghy.
I stepped back. Felt dizzy staring at him.
“You’re alright?” he said with an uneasy smile, submerging the oars. “Still think you should do something about that cut.”
For the first time I looked at him. He was in his 30s, my age—and could be me.
“What’s you name?”
“W,” I hollered running up the white marble steps, blood from my hand staining them, just as the Draken fighters returned, spying on doubles crossing.