Wish You Were Here

‘I’ve left a list of things I want doing. It’s all quite straightforward.’

Milo had no doubt that it was. He was used to the lists; his life was dominated by them. Not only would he be handed them by Mr Carlson each week but he would find them all over the gardens too: inside temples, taped to tree trunks and once on the inside of Milo’s favourite wheelbarrow. That had been a classic. It had read:

1. Take this wheelbarrow to the tip.

2. Replace with new one.

3. Store new wheelbarrow away each night.

Milo had ignored it. What Mr Carlson didn’t understand was that an old wheelbarrow was a good one. Its handles were almost a part of the user’s hands because they had worked in perfect harmony for so long. It might not always move in a perfect straight line but that didn’t mean it was ready for retirement. No. Mr Carlson should stick to things he knew and keep out of the garden whenever possible.

Milo listened to the rest of his instructions although there wasn’t really anything new and he nodded politely. He said ‘Yes, sir’ wherever appropriate then wished his boss a good journey and got on with his day’s work, walking down the long straight path lined with trees that was known as ‘The Avenue’. He was going to get on with some work in the kitchen garden today. It was one of the few areas that wasn’t open to the public and was hidden behind a large wall which harvested the best of the sunshine and produced bowlfuls of fruit on the trees grown against it.

Milo loved the kitchen garden because it was private and he was rarely disturbed there. In the other parts of the garden, he was always at the mercy of the tourists with their questions and their cameras. If he had a euro for every photo he’d taken of tourists, he could probably afford to buy the Villa Argenti himself, he thought.

But, before he could reach his sanctuary, he saw a figure half-hiding in the shadows of a wall and he instantly knew who it was. Sabine – ‘The Pushy French Girl’ – as he had come to think of her. It wasn’t really her fault. She was sixteen and was on holiday with her family and bored out of her mind. She’d been visiting the gardens with her parents one Tuesday afternoon and had taken one look at Milo and decided that she’d spend the rest of her time on Kethos trying to seduce him. It wasn’t bad as fates went, Milo thought, and goodness only knew that he’d had his fair share of holiday romances with tourists. There was obviously something about being a gardener, he’d decided, that attracted women. Perhaps they liked men who worked with their hands in the great outdoors and it was certainly more original to fall for a Greek gardener than it was a Greek waiter.

He took a deep breath and walked towards her. Be brusque, he told himself.

‘What are you doing here, Sabine?’ he asked as he continued walking. He spoke in English in which she was also fluent.

‘Keeping you company,’ she said, running to catch up with him, her long blonde ponytail swinging about her bare shoulders.

‘I don’t need company. I’m very busy. How did you get in, anyway? We’re not open yet.’

‘I climbed over the wall.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m not telling you. You’ll fence it off.’

‘That’s right,’ Milo said. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’

‘But the gardens are open to everyone, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, but not you,’ he said.

‘Why not me?’

‘Because you should be with your family.’

‘Oh, they’re so boring!’ she said, puffing her cheeks out and sighing dramatically. ‘They do nothing all day!’

‘That can’t be true.’

‘But it is!’ Sabine said. ‘Dad sits around reading his boring books and Mum just sunbathes.’

‘I thought you were going to the museum?’

‘Oh, God! That was even more boring than sitting around the pool.’

Milo frowned. The little museum on Kethos might not be able to rival anything on the mainland but Milo was very proud of it and he objected to people who made fun of it. So it might only have two rooms but it housed a very interesting collection of coins and pottery.

‘Well, what do you want to do all day?’ he asked and then realised that he shouldn’t have.

‘I want to be with you,’ she said, her green eyes large and wide.

‘But I’m at work.’

‘There’s nobody around,’ she said, still running to keep up with him.

‘Sabine!’ he said sharply, stopping in the middle of the path so abruptly that she crashed into him. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said coyly, fluttering her obscenely long eyelashes at him and smiling prettily. She really was very attractive. She was tall for her age too and her figure was full and—

Milo stopped. She was sixteen years old and, although that might all be legal and above board, she was still a child. She might have the body of a woman but she behaved like a petulant teenager and he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. It was courting disaster.

‘Sabine,’ he tried again.

‘Yes?’ she said, tilting her head to one side and giving him her full attention.

‘You have to go.’

‘Oh, not yet!’

‘Yes, you do. I really have to get on with my work and you can’t come with me.’

She pouted at him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But say something in Greek first.’

‘What?’

‘Say something in Greek – anything! Go on!’

‘Sabine!’

‘Go on!’ she pleaded.

‘And then you’ll go?’

‘Yes,’ she promised with a nod.

Milo took a deep breath and told her – in Greek – that she was a spoilt young girl who should really know better and that he didn’t want her getting him into trouble.

‘Oh!’ she said once he’d finished. ‘That’s so romantic!’

He shook his head at her and then pointed towards the exit.

‘All right, I’m going,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’