The Olive Tree Read online

  For the ‘real’ Alexander

  Follow a shadow, it still flies you;

  Seem to fly it, it will pursue.

  Ben Jonson

  Contents

  Alex ‘Pandora’, Cyprus 19th July 2016

  July 2006 Arrivals

  α One

  β Two

  Ψ Three

  δ Four

  ∈ Five

  ς Six

  ζ Seven

  η Eight

  θ Nine

  ι Ten

  ια′ Eleven

  ιβ′ Twelve

  ιγ′ Thirteen

  ιδ′ Fourteen

  ιε′ Fifteen

  ις′ Sixteen

  ιζ′ Seventeen

  ιη′ Eighteen

  August 2006 Departures

  ιθ′ Nineteen

  κ′ Twenty

  κα Twenty-one

  κβ Twenty-two

  κγ Twenty-three

  κδ Twenty-four

  κε Twenty-five

  κς Twenty-six

  κζ Twenty-seven

  κη Twenty-eight

  κθ Twenty-nine

  λ Thirty

  λα Thirty-one

  Alex ‘Pandora’, Cyprus 19th July 2016

  λβ Thirty-two

  λγ Thirty-three

  λδ Thirty-four

  Acknowledgements

  The Seven Sisters

  1

  2

  Alex

  ‘Pandora’, Cyprus

  19th July 2016

  The house comes into view as I steer the car around the perilous potholes – still not filled in from ten years ago, and growing ever deeper. I bump along a little further, then pull to a halt and stare at Pandora, thinking that it’s really not that pretty, unlike the glossy shots of holiday homes you see on upmarket property websites. Rather, at least from the back, it is solid, sensible and almost austere, just as I’ve always imagined its former inhabitant to have been. Built from pale local stone, and square as the Lego houses I constructed as a boy, it rises up out of the arid chalky land surrounding it, which is covered for as far as the eye can see with tender, burgeoning vines. I try to reconcile its reality with the virtual snapshot in my mind – taken and stored ten summers ago – and decide that memory has served me well.

  After parking the car, I skirt round the sturdy walls to the front of the house and onto the terrace, which is what lifts Pandora out of the ordinary and into a spectacular league of its own. Crossing the terrace, I head for the balustraded wall at its edge, set just at the point before the terrain begins to tumble gently downwards: a landscape filled with yet more vines, the odd whitewashed homestead and clusters of olive trees. Far in the distance, there is a line of shimmering aquamarine separating land and sky.

  I notice the sun is performing a masterclass as it sets, its yellow rays seeping into the blue and turning it to umber. Which is an interesting point, actually, as I always thought that yellow and blue made green. I look to my right, at the garden below the terrace. The pretty borders my mother had so carefully planted ten years ago have not been maintained and, starved of attention and water, have been subsumed by the arid earth and supplanted by ugly, spiky weeds – genus unknown.

  But there, in the centre of the garden, with one end of the hammock my mother used to lie in still attached – its strings like old and fraying spaghetti – stands the olive tree. ‘Old’, I nicknamed it back then, due to being told by the various adults around me that it was. If anything, whilst all around it has died and fermented, it seems to have grown in stature and majesty, perhaps stealing the life force from its collapsing botanical neighbours, determined over the centuries to survive.

  It is quite beautiful, a metaphoric triumph over adversity, with every millimetre of its gnarled trunk proudly displaying its struggle.

  I wonder now why humans hate the map of their life that appears on their own bodies, when a tree like this, or a faded painting, or a near-derelict uninhabited building is lauded for its antiquity.

  Thinking of such, I turn towards the house, and am relieved to see that at least from the outside Pandora seems to have survived its recent neglect. At the main entrance, I take the iron key from my pocket and open the door. As I walk through the shadowy rooms, shrouded from the light by the closed shutters, I realise that my emotions are numb, and perhaps it’s for the best. I don’t dare to begin to feel, because here – perhaps more than anywhere – holds the essence of her . . .

  Half an hour later, I’ve opened the shutters downstairs and removed the sheets from the furniture in the drawing room. As I stand in a mist of dust motes catching the light from the setting sun, I remember thinking how everything seemed so old in here the first time I saw it. And I wonder, as I look at the sagging chairs and the threadbare sofa, if like the olive tree, beyond a certain point old was simply old and didn’t visibly age further, like grey-haired grandparents to a young child.

  Of course, the one thing in this room that has changed beyond all recognition is me. We humans complete the vast majority of our physical and mental evolution during our first few years on planet Earth – baby to full-grown adult within the blink of an eye. After that, outwardly at least, we spend the rest of our lives looking more or less the same, simply becoming saggier and less attractive versions of our younger selves, as genes and gravity do their worst.

  As for the emotional and intellectual side of things . . . well, I have to believe there are some bonuses to make up for the slow decline of our outer packaging. And being back here at Pandora shows me clearly that there are. As I walk back into the hall, I chuckle at the ‘Alex’ I used to be. And cringe at my former self – thirteen years old and, in retrospect, a self-absorbed right royal pain in the backside.

  I open the door to the ‘Broom Cupboard’ – my affectionate term for the room I inhabited during that long, hot summer ten years ago. Reaching for the light, I realise I was not underestimating its miniature size and if anything, the space seems to have shrunk further. All six foot one of me now steps inside and I wonder if I closed the door and lay down, whether my feet would need to hang out of the tiny window, rather like Alice in her Wonderland.

  I look up at the shelves on either side of this claustrophobic corridor, and see that the books I painstakingly arranged into alphabetical order are still there. Instinctively, I pull one down – Rudyard Kipling’s Rewards and Fairies – and leaf through it to find the famous poem the book contains. Reading through the lines of ‘If’ – the words of wisdom written from a father to a son – I find tears welling in my eyes for the adolescent boy I was then: so desperate to find a father. And then, having found him, realising I had one already.

  As I return Rudyard to his place on the shelf, I spot a small hardback book beside it. I realise it’s the diary my mother gave me for Christmas a few months before I came to Pandora for the first time. Every day for seven months, I wrote in it assiduously and, knowing me back then, pompously. Like all teenagers, I believed my ideas and feelings were unique and ground-breaking; thoughts never had by another human being before me.

  I shake my head sadly, and sigh like an old man at my naivety. I left the diary behind when we went home to England after that long summer at Pandora. And here it is, ten years on, sitting once more in the palms of my now far larger hands. A memoir of the last few months of myself as a child, before life dragged me into adulthood.

  Taking the diary with me, I leave the room and go upstairs. As I wander along the dim, airless corridor, unsure in exactly which bedroom I want to plant myself during my stay here, I take a deep breath and head towards her room. With all the courage I possess, I open the door. Perhaps it is my imagination – after ten years of absence, I guess it mu
st be – but I’m convinced my senses are assailed by the smell of that perfume she once wore . . .

  Closing the door again firmly, not yet able to deal with the Pandora’s Box of memories that would fly out of any of these bedrooms, I retreat back downstairs. I see night has fallen, and it’s pitch-black outside. I check my watch, add two hours for the time difference and realise it’s almost nine in the evening here – my empty stomach is growling for food.

  I unpack the car and stow the supplies I picked up from the shop in the local village in the pantry, then take some bread, feta cheese and a very warm beer out onto the terrace. Sitting there in the silence, with only the odd sleepy cicada to interrupt its purity, I sip the beer, wondering if it was really a good idea to arrive two days earlier than the others. Navel-gazing is something I have a double first in, after all – to the point where someone has recently offered me a job doing it professionally. This thought, at least, makes me chuckle.

  To take my mind off the situation, I open my diary and read the inscription on the first page.

  ‘Darling Alex, Happy Christmas! Try and keep this regularly. It might be interesting to read when you’re older.

  All my love, M xxx’

  ‘Well, Mum, let’s hope you’re right.’ I smile wanly as I skip through the pages of self-important prose and arrive at the beginning of July. And by the light of the one dim bulb that hangs above me in the pergola, I begin to read.

  July 2006

  Arrivals

  ALEX’S DIARY

  10th July 2006

  My face is perfectly round. I’m sure you could draw it with a compass, and only very rarely, the edges of the circle and my face wouldn’t combine. I hate it.

  I also have, inside the circle, a pair of apple cheeks. When I was younger, adults used to pull at them, take my flesh between their fingers and squeeze it. They forgot that my cheeks were not like apples. Apples are inanimate. They are hard, they don’t feel pain. If they’re bruised, it’s only on the surface.

  I do have nice eyes, mind you. They change colour. My mother says that when I’m alive inside, energised, they are a vivid green. When I’m feeling stressed, they become the colour of the North Sea. Personally, I think they’re grey rather a lot, but they are quite large and shaped like peach-stones, and my eyebrows, darker than my hair – which is girly-blonde and straight as straw – frame them well.

  I’m currently staring into the mirror. Tears prick my eyes because when I’m not looking at my face, in my imagination, I can be anyone I choose. The light here in the tiny on-board toilet is harsh, shining like a halo above my head. Mirrors on planes are the worst: they make you look like a two-thousand-year-old dead person who’s been freshly dug up.

  Beneath my T-shirt I can see the flesh rising above my shorts. I take a handful and mould it into a passable impression of the Gobi Desert. I create dunes, with small pouches between them, from which could sprout the odd palm tree around the oasis.

  I then wash my hands thoroughly.

  I actually like my hands, because they don’t seem to have joined the march towards Blob Land, which is where the rest of my body has currently decided to live. My mother says it’s puppy fat, that the hormonal button labelled ‘shoot sideways’ worked at first press. Sadly, at the same time, the ‘shoot upwards’ button malfunctioned. And it doesn’t seem to have been fixed since.

  Besides, how many fat puppies have I ever seen? Most of them are sleek from the exhaustion of excitement.

  Maybe I need some excitement.

  The good news is this: flying gives you a feeling of weightlessness, even if you are fat. And there are lots of people on this plane far fatter than me, because I’ve looked. If I’m the Gobi, my current seat neighbour is the Sahara, all on his own. His forearms hog the armrest, skin and muscle and fat spreading like a mutating virus into my personal space. It really irritates me, that. I keep my flesh to myself, in my designated space, even if I end up with a bad muscle spasm in the process.

  For some reason, whenever I’m on a plane I think about dying. To be fair, I think about dying wherever I am. Perhaps being dead is a bit like the weightlessness you feel here, now, inside this metal tube. My little sister asked if she was dead the last time we flew, because someone had told her Grandpa was up on a cloud. She thought she was joining him when we passed one.

  Why do adults tell kids such ridiculous stories? It only leads to trouble. For myself, I never believed any of them.

  My own mother gave up trying them on me years ago.

  She loves me, my mother, even if I’ve morphed into Mr Blob in the past few months. And she promises that one day, I will have to crouch down to see my face in water-splashed mirrors such as this. I come from a family of tall men, apparently. Not that this comforts me. I’ve read about genes skipping generations and knowing my luck, I shall be the first fat dwarf in hundreds of years of Beaumont males.

  Besides, she forgets she’s ignoring the opposing DNA which helped create me . . .

  It’s a conversation I am determined to have during this holiday. I don’t care how many times she tries to wimp out of it and conveniently changes the subject. A gooseberry bush for a father is no longer satisfactory.

  I need to know.

  Everyone says I’m like her. But then, they would, wouldn’t they? They can hardly liken me to an unidentified sperm cell.

  Actually, the fact I don’t know who my father is might also add to any delusions of grandeur I already harbour. Which is very unhealthy, especially for a child like me, if I am still a child. Or have ever been, which personally I doubt.

  At this very moment, as my body hurtles across central Europe, my father could be anyone I choose to imagine; whoever suits me at the time. For example: we may be about to crash, and the captain has only one spare parachute. I could introduce myself to him as his son and he would have to save me, surely?

  On second thoughts, perhaps it’s better if I don’t know. My stem cells might originate from somewhere in the Orient and then I would have to learn Mandarin to communicate with my father, which is a mega-hard language to master.

  Sometimes, I wish Mum looked more like other mothers. I mean, she’s not Kate Moss or anything, because she’s quite old. But it’s embarrassing when my classmates and my teachers and any man that comes into our house looks at her in that way. Everyone loves her, because she is kind, and funny, and cooks and dances at the same time. And sometimes, my bit of her doesn’t seem large enough and I wish I didn’t have to share her the way I do.

  Because I love her best.

  She was unmarried when she gave birth to me. A hundred years ago, I would have been born in a poorhouse and we’d probably both have expired of TB a few months later. We’d have been buried in a pauper’s grave, our skeletons lying together for eternity.

  I often wonder if she is embarrassed by the living reminder of her immorality, which is me. Is that why she’s sending me away to school?

  I mouth immorality in the mirror. I like words. I collect them, like my classmates collect football cards or girls, depending on their maturity levels. I like bringing them out, slotting them into a sentence to express the thought I’m having as accurately as I can. Perhaps one day, I might like to play with them professionally. Let’s face it, I’m never going to play for Manchester United, given my current physique.

  Someone is banging on the door. I’ve lost track of time, as usual. I check my watch and realise I’ve been in here for over twenty minutes. I will now have to face a queue of angry passengers desperate to pee.

  I glance in the mirror one more time – a last look at Mr Blob. Then I avert my eyes, take a deep breath and step outside as Brad Pitt.

  α

  One

  ‘We’re lost. I’ll have to pull over.’

  ‘Christ, Mum! It’s pitch-black and we’re hanging off the side of a mountain! There is nowhere to pull over.’

  ‘Just stop panicking, darling. I’ll find somewhere safe.’

  ‘Sa
fe? Hah! I’d have brought my crampons and ice pick if I’d known.’

  ‘There’s a lay-by up there.’ Helena steered the unfamiliar rental car jerkily round the hairpin bend and brought it to a halt. She glanced at her son, his fingers covering his eyes, and put a hand on his knee. ‘You can look now.’ Then she peered through the window, down into the steep valley far below, and saw the firefly lights of the coast twinkling beneath them. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she breathed.

  ‘No, Mum, it is not “beautiful”. “Beautiful” is when we’re no longer lost in the hinterland of a foreign country, a few yards away from hurtling two thousand feet down a valley to our certain deaths. Haven’t they heard of crash barriers here?’

  Helena ignored him and fumbled above her head for the interior light switch. ‘Pass me that map, darling.’

  Alex did so, and Helena studied it. ‘It’s upside down, Mum,’ he observed.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ She turned the map round. ‘Immy still asleep?’

  Alex turned to look at his five-year-old sister, spread-eagled across the back seat with Lamby, her cuddly sheep, tucked safely under her arm. ‘Yup. Good thing too. This journey might scar her for life. We’ll never get her on Oblivion at Alton Towers if she sees where we are now.’

  ‘Right, I know what I’ve done. We need to go back down the hill—’

  ‘Mountain,’ corrected Alex.

  ‘– turn left at the sign for Kathikas and follow that road up. Here.’ Helena handed the map to Alex and put the gear-stick into what she thought was reverse. They lurched forward.

  ‘MUM! Christ!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Helena executed an inelegant three-point turn and steered the car back onto the main road.

  ‘Thought you knew where this place was,’ Alex muttered.

  ‘Darling, I was only a couple of years older than you the last time I came here. For your information, that’s almost twenty-four years ago. But I’m sure I’ll recognise it when we reach the village.’