“Slower. Control the flow with the pressure.”
I do, and this time I’m pleased with my effort.
“So where was this bar you worked in before?” is all Hans says.
After that I try to be proactive. I study the cocktail menu, surreptitiously googling to learn how to make the drinks we offer. I think that Hans hasn’t noticed, but when another customer asks for a mojito, he strides across.
“That’s white rum, lime juice?—”
“Sugar and mint leaves.” I brush him out of the way and get on with it. I didn’t completely waste my time at university.
The first few hours fly by, but then there’s a lull in the customers. Hans sidles over.
“What exactly is a pretty girl like you doing all alone on Alythos?”
The question takes me by surprise, and actually I’ve almost forgotten, at least for the moment. I’ve been so focussed on learning the job. I’m cautious though, not sure of how much it’s sensible to tell a guy with friends like Klaus.
“I was at university in England,” I tell him. “It didn’t go too well. So I thought I’d travel for a while, work out what to do next.”
“I get that. I only came for one summer. Still here five years later.” I think his curiosity is satisfied, but I’m wrong. “The Greek passport? Where’d that comefrom?”
I might as well say. “My mum. I was actually born on the island.”
“Yeah?” He picks at a tooth with a fingernail. “She a local?”
“No…she worked here.” I pause. You can see the remains of the resort from here. An empty dark shell a way down the beach. “In the Aegean Dream Resort.”
“Seriously?” He seems interested by this, then he gives a gruff laugh. “The Aegean Nightmare Resort, I call it.”
I have no idea what he means by this. When he doesn’t explain, I ask.
“Why do you call it that?”
“You don’t know?” His blond eyebrows rise up his face.
“Know what?”
“What happened at the ADR?”
“No. What happened?” Something about the look on his face unsettles me.
Hans leans against the counter, wiping it down with slow, deliberate strokes, like he’s enjoying drawing this out.
“It was before my time. Probably for the best, you know?” I don’t but he goes on quickly this time.
“I think it was one of the guests, or maybe one of the staff, I’m not so sure. But he went crazy. Killed like half a dozen people. Cut one woman’s head clean off, threw it in the swimming pool when people were still in it.”
For a second I think he must be joking, but I can see from his face that he isn’t.
“Oh my God.”
“You didn’t know? I thought you said your mum worked there?”
“She did, but…” I stop. Oh shit. Isthiswhy she doesn’t talk about it? The idea flares in my mind, that I’ve had this all wrong, totally misjudged her. But not for long.
“When was she here? Maybe she knew the guy? I think he was English, like you.”
“I was born here. So twenty-two…years ago?”