Читать книгу The Little Christmas Kitchen: A wonderfully festive, feel-good read - Jenny Oliver, Jenny Oliver - Страница 9

CHAPTER 2

MADDY

‘If I tell my mum about the job then she won’t let me go because she won’t approve. If I don’t tell her that I have a job then she won’t let me go because she’ll say that I’ll just be bumming it round London wasting my life when she needs me to work here.’ Maddy wiped her oily hands on the old rag hanging out her jeans pocket and then took the hand Dimitri was offering to haul herself out of the boat and up onto the jetty.

‘Maddy,’ he said, bending down to pick up the board of his windsurfer, the sail already propped up by the side of the taverna. ‘You’re twenty-four. Don’t you think it’s about time you just went anyway?’ He raised a dark brow and looked at her with a fairly patronising smirk on his lips, but then got distracted when he noticed a scratch on his board. ‘Shit, when did that happen? It’s those kids isn’t? Oi you lot–’ he shouted at the gaggle of little kids who were messing around at the end of the jetty, dangling bits of rope into the sea with worms on hooks to try and catch the millions of silver fish that darted around the wooden posts. They looked up all big eyed and terrified when Dimitri yelled. ‘Did you mess with my board?’

‘No Dimitri,’ they all chorused in unison, faces pale and perfectly innocent.

He glared at them for a second, six foot with shoulders broader than should be allowed, black shaggy hair and at least three days’ stubble, he knew he could terrify them.

‘Don’t.’ Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘They’re only little.’

‘They’ve messed with my board. Look at it.’

‘You’re mean. Stop being mean to them. Look at them.’ She turned to wave in their direction, all four kids huddled together, their fishing rods clutched in their hands, their cheeks pink, waiting for their telling off.

Dimitri sighed. ‘You stay away from my board. Yes!’

‘Yes Dimitri,’ they chorused again.

‘And while you’re at it, stay away from my bike as well. I saw you the other day sitting on it. Yes. I did, don’t shake your heads, if it fell on you it could do some damage. Don’t sit on my bike.’

‘Can we ride on it again with you, please?’

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. ‘What have I started?’ he said to Maddy. And she shrugged a shoulder.

‘You shouldn’t have been so keen to show off your new toy should you?’ she said, nodding to where his beautiful Triumph Bonneville T100 sat gleaming on the cobbled slipway.

Dimitri followed her gaze, paused for a second to admire his bike and then said with a shrug, ‘I was excited.’

Maddy shook her head and turned away with a laugh, she stuffed the rag in her pocket and turned around to the kids and said. ‘I’ll take you out on this, if you like?’ This was the sleek white forty foot yacht she’d just repaired the engine of.

‘Are you sure Maddy?’ Dimitri questioned, dubious, as the kids all whooped and, chucking down their rods, ran over to jump on the deck of the boat, their shoes leaving tiny, dusty footprints on the gleaming surface.

‘Yeah it’ll be fine.’ Maddy said, pulling on a big red, oil streaked jumper that came down to just above the frayed edge of her shorts. Sweeping away the wisps of hair that the wind was blowing in her mouth, she said, ‘And with my mum, I just don’t want her to not want me to go. I want her to approve, I suppose. Stupid, huh?’ She laughed, husky and dry like a granddad.

‘It’s pretty windy out there, Mads.’ Dimitri shielded his eyes from the low sun and looked out to where the waves were starting to pick up.

‘Can you focus on what I’m saying about my mum.’ She frowned, ‘And – it’s ok for you take your windsurfer out but I can’t handle the boat? Are you kidding?’

‘It’s got worse in the last few hours. I would never dream of implying you couldn’t handle the boat. But let’s look at the facts, Maddy, it’s really bloody windy and it’s not your boat.’

‘Well he’d want me to test the engine as well as fix it, wouldn’t he?’ She kicked one of the posts with her old Nike hi-top trainer.

‘You can test it by turning the key in the ignition. Not taking a bunch of seven year olds for a joyride into a mistral.’ Dimitri shook his head, tendrils of black hair wobbling like a sea anemone.

‘It’ll be fine. And anyway–’ Maddy jumped down onto the stern, taking the rope she’d looped into one of the jetty rings with her to cast off. ‘I can’t say no now, look at them…’

The kids were all sitting crossed legged at the bow like tiny figureheads, watching expectantly.

‘See this is probably what your mum’s talking about. In your desperation to please people, you don’t think things through.’

‘Oh please.’ Maddy scoffed as she pressed the button to haul up the anchor. ‘She just doesn’t want me to go off to London and leave her alone.’

‘I think she worries that you’ve been too sheltered.’ Dimitri yelled over the wind and the sound of the two hundred and fifty horsepower engine as it sprang to life.

‘Bullshit.’ Maddy shouted back. ‘That’s the most patronising thing I’ve ever heard, Dimitri. You’re so annoying.’

‘Good comeback,’ he said, raising a brow. ‘My case in point.’

Maddy snorted a laugh and then turned her back on him to steer the boat out of the little harbour. The kids were clinging onto the tinsel-wrapped railing at the front, dangling their feet over the edge and laughing as the spray bounced up into their faces.

As Maddy looked past them, out at the wide blue sea, dark like sapphires, the white horses jumping like skittish foals, rays of low winter sun darting off each wave like silver fish, all she could think was, god I wish this was London.