Read The Olive Tree for Free Online

wouldn’t be able
to bear the criticism. She reached for her scrunchie, abandoned on the kitchen table last night, twirled up her hair and wound it into a knot on the top of her head, relishing the sudden coolness
at the nape of her neck.
    I will cope
, she told herself.
I have to
.
    ‘Are we going yet?’ Immy was behind her. ‘I’m hungry. Can I have chips with ketchup at the restaurant?’ Her small arms snaked around her mother’s waist.
    ‘Yes, we are.’ Helena stood up, turned round and managed a weak smile. ‘And yes, you can.’
    The midday sun scorched through the windows of the car as Helena drove along the road that wound through the acres of grapevines. Immy sat illegally next to her in the front,
the seatbelt worn across her like a saggy fashion accessory as she knelt up to look out of the window.
    ‘Can we stop and pick some grapes, Mummy?’
    ‘Yes, let’s, though they don’t taste quite the same as normal grapes.’ Helena brought the car to a halt and they both got out.
    ‘Here.’ Helena bent down, and from under a fan of vine leaves, revealed a tight cluster of magenta grapes. She tore it away from the branch and broke a few off.
    ‘Should we eat them, Mummy?’ Immy asked, staring at them doubtfully. ‘They don’t come from a supermarket, you know.’
    ‘They’re not very sweet yet because they’re not quite ripe. But go ahead, try one,’ Helena encouraged as she put one into her own mouth.
    Immy’s small white teeth bit into the tough outer flesh cautiously. ‘They’re okay, I suppose. Can we take some back for Alex? Sick people like grapes.’
    ‘Good idea. We’ll take two bunches.’ Helena began to break off another cluster, then stood up, instinctively feeling someone watching her. And caught her breath as she saw him.
No more than twenty yards away, standing in the middle of the vines, staring at her.
    She shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun, hoping irrationally that this was a hallucination, because this could not
be
. . . it just couldn’t . . .
    But there he was, exactly as she remembered him, standing in almost the same spot as when she’d first seen him twenty-four years ago.
    ‘Mummy, who’s that man? Why’s he staring at us? Is it ’cos we stole some grapes? Will we go to prison?
Mummy?!
’
    Helena stood rooted to the spot, her brain trying to make sense of the nonsense her eyes were showing her. Immy tugged at her arm. ‘C’mon, Mummy, quickly, before he gets the
policeman!’
    Helena dragged her eyes away from his face and let herself be frog-marched back into the car by Immy, who took herself round to the passenger seat and sat expectantly next to her.
    ‘Come on, then. Drive,’ Immy ordered.
    ‘Yes, sorry.’ Helena automatically found the ignition, and turned the key to start the car.
    ‘Who was that man?’ Immy asked as they began to bump along the road. ‘Do you know him?’
    ‘No, I . . . don’t.’
    ‘Oh. You looked like you did. He was very tall and handsome, like a prince. The sun made a crown on his head.’
    ‘Yes.’ Helena concentrated on negotiating the track through the vines.
    ‘I wonder what his name was?’
    Alexis . . .
    ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
    ‘Mummy?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘After all that, we left Alex’s grapes behind.’
    The village had changed surprisingly little, compared to the ugly Lego-land below them that had sprung up higgledy-piggledy along the coast. The narrow high street was dusty
and deserted, the inhabitants hidden away in their cool stone houses, avoiding the searing sun while it reigned at its most powerful high above them. The one shop had added a DVD library, which
Helena knew would please Alex; but apart from a couple of new bars, everything else looked much the same.
    Having stopped at the bank, then handed over some cash to the doctor’s receptionist next door, Helena took Immy for lunch in the pretty courtyard of Persephone’s Taverna. They sat
under the shade of an olive