Page 52 of The Actor and His Secret

The ground floor doesn’t have many personal touches, almost like an estate agent had come through and gotten it ready to sell or rent out. There’s cookware and dishes in the kitchen, a living room with comfortable furniture in it looking out at the olive trees around the house, and a few other empty rooms that probably once served as bedrooms or maybe a dining room or office. I go up the stairs to the second floor, bypassing the bedroom where we’d stayed last night and looking through the other rooms. One of them has a bunch of furniture in it, like everything personal has been stashed here to make the rest of the house a blank slate.

I slip in, running my hand over furniture in olive wood that looks like it could have been hand carved. There are colourful hand-woven rugs rolled up and decorative pots and vases lined up against a wall. Religious icons hang on the walls - each as intricate and detailed as the next. I’ve never been one for religion, but I can certainly appreciate the beauty in it. I imagine the way the house must have looked when Nikos lived here with his parents, warm and bright and welcoming.

On a chest of drawers pushed off to the side, there’s a stack of framed photos which must have been taken off the walls of the house. I look at the first one, and a pang goes through my chest. It’s a young, curly-haired Nikos, no more than three or four years old, sitting on the sand with a shell in his hand, grinning. I trace the photo with my finger, memorising the way he looked as a baby, and then move it aside to see the next one.

It’s a posed picture of Nikos and two people who must be his parents. They’re wearing fancy clothes, and I wonder if this was some holiday. His father is familiar. He looks just like Nikos - he must have been the same age in this picture as Nikos was now, if not younger. He’s not smiling - he looks dead serious, and more than a little humourless - but his mum is grinning. She’s beautiful, not just the way she looks but the light in her eyes, and the way that she’s hugging baby Nikos close on her lap, beaming with pride.

Nikos never talks about his family. I wonder where they are now - whether they’re still living in Greece, or whether they’ve passed away. I don’t want to pry, but maybe being here will get him to open up about what his life was like before he became Nikos Ridge.

I hear the front door open and my cheeks heat - I don’t want to be caught snooping. I carefully place the pictures back in order and dash to the top of the stairs, calling out a hello to Nikos.

He takes one look at me, silhouetted against the doorway, and I can tell something’s wrong. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

‘Nikos?’

‘Be careful,’ he begs.

‘Of what?’ I look around, hoping there isn’t some kind of snake or massive insect right next to me in the house.

‘The - coming down - the stairs.’ His voice cracks, like he’s really, really upset. I startle at the emotion written all over his face - he looks like he’s going to cry. ‘Please, Oli. Be careful.’

‘Alright.’ I speak like I’m trying to soothe a spooked horse, making a show of putting my hand on the banister and slowly making my way down to him.

‘Oh, love,’ I say as gently as I can manage when I get to him. He’s shaking like a leaf when I put my arms around his shoulders. This is clearly something deeper than I realise, maybe trigged by being back in his childhood home. ‘Tell me, what’s going on?’

20

NIKOS

I’ve never told anyone this story, besides the police who investigated it when I was eighteen. Of course my father knows, and still hangs it over my head like a rotting carrot I’m supposed to chase after.

Just the thought of voicing it aloud is painful, but Oli is persistent, which I find almost calming. Like someone else is taking control of something I’ve never been able to deal with.

‘Sit with me,’ Oli pats the rusted iron chair on the veranda at the back of the house.

The sun beats down on me, making me sweat through the white linen shirt I’d put on to go shopping. I rip the sunglasses and hat off, no longer caring if it was a good enough disguise when I popped into the small town and brought supplies. No one seemed to notice me. If anything, the kind-faced Greek woman who’d served me spoke in broken English when talking to me, clearly telling me she had no idea I was one, Greek and two, the same boy she’d last seen over twelve years ago. My new American accent to my Greek must have made me seem like a different person.

I bury my face in my hands, unable to clear the image of Oli standing on the stairs. It wasn’t the first time he’d used them since we got here, but it had been the first time without me standing right next to him. Seeing him, just stood there, on the very step that cracked my mother’s skull open like an egg was terrifying.

You should really tell him how dangerous stairs can be… one wrong step and he’ll have a nasty fall.

‘Take your time,’ Oli encourages, reminding me I hadn’t said a word since he ushered me back here. He places a hand on my back and rubs circles into my skin. ‘Did something happen at the shop? Crazed fans?’

I wish it was that easy. ‘It’s not that. It’s…’ I look at him through damp lashes, the tears falling freely. ‘There’s a reason I haven’t cum here in so many years. I didn’t plan to take you here, but when we got to the airport and saw all the media, I panicked and changed our destination.’

Oli doesn’t pause his calming circles. In fact, he lays his other hand on my knee and squeezes. His touch alone anchors me. ‘We can leave, if it’s easier?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t always run away.’

‘Run away from what, Nikos?’

His use of my name is jarring. I long for him to continue pretending we’re strangers, using the nicknames as a way to keep playing this little game we found ourselves in. But since we arrived here, for two days now, I’ve been lava bubbling in a dormant volcano, ready to erupt. Seeing Oli on those stairs was the stone dropped into the chasm that broke down my defences.

‘My mother died here,’ I admit.

Oli takes a moment to take in this information. His silence is so palpable I can taste the emotion in the hot air. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Normally people follow up sad news with an apology, but how could they possibly mean it? Except when Oli says it, he’s so sincere I swear I believe him.

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