He’d never heard a conversation between them that didn’t involve his mother making vicious little digs at his father all the time...or sweeping sabre strokes of bitter accusation.
He looked at his father now, standing there angrily, filled with self-righteous indignation at his wife’s errant behaviour, and felt an immense exasperated irritation with them both.
‘Is that what you came in to tell me?’ he asked tightly, having no intention of being drawn into witnessing any further diatribes by his father against his mother.
‘I wanted to check over the Hong Kong trip with you,’ his father said, still ill-humoured, ‘and warn you that if your mother hasn’t deigned to return before you go I’ll have to go and fetch her home. I’m not having her roaming around Europe, bad-mouthing me to everyone she knows. And I’m not leaving her in Milan on her own too long either—catching the eye of some predatory male!’
He gave his son a withering look.
‘Not that your mother has any looks left—she’s not aged well,’ he said sourly. ‘Which is another reason,’ he finished defiantly, ‘for me to find something more agreeable to look at than her crow’s feet.’
Nikos forbore to add oil to burning waters by reminding his father that his mother was equally and vocally critical of her husband’s jowly features and increasing paunch. Instead, all he said was, ‘I’ve got the meetings in Hong Kong all set up. Take a look.’
He found he was glad he had a trip to the Far East coming up—it might help take his mind off his own miseries. Though it didn’t do him any good to realise that he was already thinking how much he’d have loved to show Hong Kong to Mel.
We could have flown down to Malaysia afterwards, Thailand, too, and Bali—even on to Australia, maybe.
And from Australia they could have taken in New Zealand—and beyond that the verdant jewels of the South Pacific islands...
He tore his mind away. Why torment himself? Why think about holidays he would never have with Mel? All she’d wanted from him was a brief few weeks on a single island. Nothing more than that...
‘Good,’ his father was saying now. He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go—I’m having lunch with Adela.’ He paused. ‘I might not be back afterwards...’
Again, Nikos deliberately said nothing.
Not even as his father headed back to his own office, adding, ‘And for God’s sake don’t tell your mother. That’s all I need.’
What you need, thought Nikos grimly, is a divorce.
But that wouldn’t happen, he knew. His parents were locked in their bitter, destructive dance, circling round each other like snarling dogs, biting at each other constantly.
That’s why I’ve stayed clear of long-term relationships. So I’ll never get trapped in an ugly, destructive relationship the way my parents have.
Moodily, he jackknifed out of his chair, striding across the office to stare out over the streets of Athens below. Thoughts, dark and turbid, swirled in his mind.
He didn’t want to be here, staring out over the city of his birth, working himself senseless, just to block his mind from thinking about what he did want—which was to be somewhere utterly different.
With Mel.
He shut his eyes, swearing fluently and silently inside his head. He was off again, thinking about Mel—wanting her...wanting her so badly it was a physical pain.
But she was gone—gone, gone, gone. She had walked out on him and she’d been right to walk out on him—that was what was so unbearable for him to face. Mel had done exactly what would have happened anyway, a few days later—ended their affair. It had been just as he had planned it to be—transient, temporary, impermanent.
Safe.
Safe from the danger he’d always feared. That one fine day he’d find himself doing what his father had just done—walking in and snapping and snarling, berating and bad-mouthing the woman he was married to.
His eyes opened again, a bleak expression in them. He could hear his father’s condemnation of his mother still ringing in his ears. Together or apart, they still laid into each other, still tore each other to pieces. The venom and hostility and the sheer bloody nastiness of it all...
They couldn’t be more different from the way Mel and I were together...
Into his head thronged a thousand memories—Mel laughing, smiling, teasing him with an amused, affectionate glint in her eye at his foibles—him teasing her back in the same vein,—both of them at ease with each other, companionable, comfortable, contented...
Contented.
The word shaped itself in his head. He’d used it in Bermuda—trying to find the right word to match his feelings then.