The Little Christmas Kitchen. Jenny Oliver
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in the snow and eat liver the colour of petrol.
She was still looking out at other little shops and cafes along the drive she recognised when the driver turned up the road to her mum’s village. Ella had to look back to check the sign was right, it seemed too soon. The road was rutted and the drive bouncy. She felt a bit sick as they jumped along, the lush vegetation gleaming in the bright sunshine. As they turned the corner into the main square, she saw Christmas lights hanging from one street lamp to the next and bunting flickered in the breeze around the square. Out in the bay three great statues of boats sat ready to light up at dusk as part of the Christmas decorations. Ella paid the cab and wandered out past a row of shabby white houses on her right draped with the odd sprig of parched brown bougainvillea. Bypassing the church on her left and the shuttered-up tourist shop, she was being pulled to the view ahead of her like the grubby looking dog that limped past, its nose sniffing along the ground leaving a line like a snake track in the red dust.
A half moon bay curved like a sleeping cat below her. Frothy white horses glistened in the late afternoon sunlight as if flecked with diamonds and rolled over plump, pale pebbles that rattled like bones as the water pushed them, chattering, up the beach. Little fishing boats, the colours you’d paint them in primary school, bobbed on their moorings, just a couple of them like knitting grannies, nodding up and down as the waves gently tumbled. It was impossible to see where the sky met the sea.
She realised that she had never been here in winter before. She was used to two weeks of bubbling sun, flocks of tourists and the roaring hum of cicadas. But as she looked out over the horizon, flecked with prickly pears and plants like aliens, fronds jutting out at crazy angles and precariously perched on the side of the rocks, she realised how silent it was. How quiet. How exposed. How perhaps this was a terrible mistake.
‘Ella?’ A familiar voice said.
She turned to look in the direction of a dirty big garage, the green doors padlocked and the neon sign flickering. Her younger sister was walking towards her, looking as cool and calm as she always did. Hair pulled into a messy bun, long tanned limbs hanging weightlessly, freckles over her nose, gap between her front teeth that she could slide a penny into. Young, gangly, immature, beautiful Maddy.
‘Hi.’ Ella said, feeling suddenly sweaty and awkward in her now crumpled shirt and pencil skirt that she’d been wearing at the office. Her feet pinched in her Louboutins, the polished leather dirty with dust. ‘I just arrived.’
‘No kidding.’ Maddy raised a brow. ‘Does Mum know you’re coming?’
Ella felt instantly defensive. ‘No. I wanted it to be a surprise.’
Maddy gave her a look that Ella interpreted as both mocking and bemused. ‘She’ll be surprised all right. Isn’t it your anniversary? Is Max here?’
Ella shook her head. ‘Yes, but we went out last night because he had a big deal come up at work,’ she lied, the rehearsed words rushing out too quickly. She paused, took a breath to calm herself down. ‘He’s flying out later,’ she added and instinctively her hand wrapped around her phone and she looked down to check it again. No messages. In fact barely any signal at all. She could feel Maddy watching her, looking her up and down. She wished that she’d changed into something more casual before getting on the plane. She felt foolish in her work clothes and it was making her defensive. ‘Can you take me to her?’
Maddy scoffed. ‘I’m not your servant. You know where she lives.’
Ella couldn’t at that moment admit that no, she actually didn’t know where she lived. She had never walked from here to the taverna, was unfamiliar with the network of back streets. When they came to stay they stayed at the five star hotel at the next beach where bougainvillea pouring like cherryade over the balconies, the waiters knew their names and there were aperitifs in the bar at six. Max always hired a boat and they would zoom up to the jetty, an arcing wake behind them, and she would step out wearing a sparkly maxi dress and a big sunhat and Max would tip one of the little kids on the jetty to tie up the boat and make sure it was secure because, while he liked to mess around, showing off in his speedboat, he wasn’t the best sailor and had no idea how to moor or when to drop anchor.
No she’d never arrived in the town via the backstreets.
Well, not in the last ten years anyway.
MADDY
Maddy could tell something was up. Ella never went anywhere without Max. Ever since they’d got together she clung to him like a limpet. As if, if she let go he might disappear into a puff of smoke and she’d be left sitting on a pumpkin with lots of mice running around her.
She looked immaculate as always. Her clothes worth more than Maddy earned in a year. Her expression was disparaging, haughty. Like there was no way she would trudge through the streets on her own to get to their mum’s.
Maddy swallowed.
Dimitri once said, ‘Why do you let her get to you?’
And Maddy had shrugged, looked away and said, ‘I don’t know.’ But she did know. Because on the one hand Ella terrified her and on the other hand Maddy so desperately wanted to be her, or at the very least be liked by her again.
‘Come on, I’ll take you.’ Maddy said in the end, conscious of her dust coated hair and make-up free face.
Ella took a couple of steps forward, tottering awkwardly over the pot holes in her killer heels. ‘What is wrong with the bloody roads?’ she huffed.
‘The road is paved up here, it’s not usually like this,’ Maddy said, defensive of her island. ‘It happened in the storm.’
Ella made a face as if it’d happened just to spite her.
‘People lost their houses.’ Maddy narrowed her eyes.
Ella looked away.
They trudged on another couple of steps, Ella taking tiny steps in her leather boots and dragging a Louis Vuitton case behind her.
‘Do you want me to take that?’ Maddy said as they got to the top of the sloping cobbled path that led down to the beach, the jetty and the taverna.
‘No I can manage.’ Ella said, the sharpness of her tone making Maddy flinch.
ELLA
There is no way I’m letting her make everyone think I can’t even carry my own bag.
Ella bit the inside of her cheek. Her shoes were rubbing, her shirt was sticking to her back, her bag was getting increasingly heavy as she tried to stop it running away with itself on the sloping road.
Maddy loped ahead of her, all sun-kissed beach-babe, scuffing her trainers on the cobbles almost trying to show Ella how casual and laidback her life was.
I gave all this up because of you. The thought popped into her head as suddenly as the view of the taverna appeared before her, and, as she pushed it away, she found herself caught. Staring, involuntarily, at the sprawling building. She hadn’t looked at it in years. Really taken it in. Seen the terrace that led out into the sea like it was floating on the water and the lattice of vines that stretched up along one wall and over the roof. Gone were the rattan mats that had been nailed onto the awning as a makeshift defence against the rain and used to bash and shake in the wind, terrifying them in their beds at night. In their place was a sparkling new roof, beautiful terracotta tiles that curved like waves and thick new wooden beams that her mum had strung with coloured lights that swayed gently in the breeze. The stone walls had been whitewashed since she’d last been there and The Little Greek Kitchen had been slapped on the side in yellow paint.
Maddy had come up with the name and Ella remembered being so jealous. Her suggestions had seemed so lame in comparison.
‘Are