The Island of Missing Trees(44)

No sooner had she had this thought than guilt found its inevitable way up. She was not planning to tell her father about the video, it was embarrassing, and there was nothing he could do about it anyway, but maybe he should know how she felt.

‘Dad, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this … I want to switch schools.’

‘What? No, Ada. You can’t do that in the middle of your GCSEs. This is a good school. Your mum and I were so happy when you got in.’

Ada chewed the inside of her mouth, annoyed at the way he had brushed aside her concerns.

‘Listen, if you’re worried about your grades, why don’t you and I study together during the holidays? I’m happy to help.’

‘I don’t need your help.’ She looked away, disturbed by her own tone, the readiness of her anger, so close to the surface.

‘Look, Aditsa,’ he said, his skin sallow in the candlelight as if moulded from wax. ‘I know this past year has been incredibly hard for you. I know you miss your mother –’

‘Please stop!’

The sadness in her father’s expression triggered a throbbing ache at the centre of her chest. She saw the helplessness in his eyes and yet she did nothing to pull him out of there. She fell quiet, trying to grasp how this could keep happening between them, this disorientating slide from affection and love into pure hurt and strife.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, sweetheart?’

‘Why do butterflies cross the Channel and come here? Don’t they like warm climates?’

If Kostas found the question unexpected, he didn’t show it. ‘Yes, for a long time, scientists were puzzled. Some said it was a mistake, but the butterflies couldn’t help it, they were conditioned that way. They even called it a genetic suicide.’

The word hovered in the space between them. They both pretended not to notice.

‘Your mother loved butterflies,’ Kostas said. His voice rose and fell, like water settling. ‘Look, I’m no expert on them but I think it’s plausible they plan their moves beyond their lifespan – not within one generation, but across many.’

‘I like that. It also kind of explains what happened to us. You and Mum moved to this country, but we’re still migrating.’

His face clouded over. ‘Why do you say that? You’re not going anywhere. You were born and raised here. This is where you belong. You’re British – with a mixed heritage, which is a great richness.’

She clucked her tongue. ‘Yeah, sure, I’m rolling in richness!’

‘Why the sarcasm?’ asked Kostas, sounding offended. ‘We have always treated you as an independent being, not an extension of ourselves. You will build your own future and I’ll support you every step of the way. Why the obsession with the past?’

‘Obsession? I’m already burdened with it –’

He cut in. ‘No, you are not. You are not burdened by anything. You are free.’

‘That’s bullshit!’

Kostas held his breath, shocked by the harsh word.

‘You don’t mind believing young butterflies inherit migrations from their ancestors, but when it comes to your own family, you think that’s not possible.’

‘I just want you to be happy,’ said Kostas, a knot in his throat.

And then they were silent once again, drifting back to the painful place they both shared but could only occupy separately.





Fig Tree





I once heard Yiorgos tell Yusuf a story. It was late at night, all the customers had left, and the staff, having cleared the tables, washed the dishes and swept the kitchen, had gone home. Where only moments ago there had been laughter, music and bustle, calm reigned. Yusuf sat on the floor, his back to the window, his shadow sprawling across the dark glass. Resting his head on Yusuf’s lap, Yiorgos lay staring at the ceiling, a sprig of rosemary between his lips. It was his birthday.

They had cut a cake earlier in the evening, a cherry-and-chocolate gateau prepared by the chef, but otherwise this evening was no different from any other. Neither man ever took a day off. They always worked and everything they earned, after covering expenses and rent, they divided between them.

‘I’ve something for you,’ said Yusuf, producing a small box out of his pocket.

I loved to observe the change in Yusuf when he was alone with Yiorgos. He rarely, if ever, stumbled over his words when he talked to us plants. But he also stammered noticeably less when it was just the two of them. The speech impediment that had tormented him forever almost entirely evaporated when he was with his beloved.

Yiorgos, a smile softening his chiselled features, propped himself up on his elbow. ‘Hey, I thought we weren’t buying each other anything this year.’ Taking the box nonetheless, he glowed with the bright expectation of a child anticipating a treat and unwrapped the tissue paper.

‘Oh my God!’

Dangling between his fingers from a chain was a pocket watch, gold and sparkling.

‘This is beautiful, chryso mou, thank you. What have you done? This must have cost you a fortune.’

Yusuf smiled. ‘Open it. There’s a p-p-poem.’

Engraved inside the lid of the watch was a verse – the letters glinting like fireflies against the night. Yiorgos read them aloud: