the moment. This is the precise second when she falls hopelessly in love.
“And—cut! Check the tape,” Jack calls. “Please reset and stay where you are—we’re moving on to the close- ups.”
Spiros leans back and says, “I never though it would be this boring. Same thing over and over again.”
Maria laughs. “Like chasing Albanian and Italian boat thieves? I have never had such a wonderful time!”
He reaches forward and puts his finger on her hand. “You are my real star,” he says. “You look beautiful. I don’t deserve you. Se latrevo.” Her eyes widen. It’s a very long time since Spiros told her he adored her.
Sunil is teaching Selina how to make lamb Madras with saffron rice and an aubergine baji. She’s not gifted in the kitchen department. “The onions will burn if you leave the heat that high,” he says.
She shouts, “Malaka!” and pushes him out of the way as she goes through to the living room and flounces herself down in front of the television, which is showing a Greek news channel.
He smiles and rescues the curry.
She shouts, “Sunil! Sunil! Come! Now!”
He wipes his hands and walks through. He can’t understand the fast Greek the news presenter speaks, but he can see the words Universa and EMO on the screen, together with shots of fire trucks.
Selina interprets. “He’s saying that EMO boxes are catching fire or exploding. Several people have died. Hold on—this is several thousand incidents! Universa Studios have just issued a statement saying that they are recalling all EMOs. Wow! A media spokeswoman says it’s a major disaster for Universa.”
He goes back to the kitchen and adds the spices to the onions. Then he starts laughing and gets a bottle of Ino bubbly Greek champagne from the fridge. He’s still laughing as he walks into the sitting room, peeling the foil, and lets the bottle go very loudly pop behind her back. She jumps and shouts, “Don’t do that!” and turns to see him pouring sparkling wine over his head. He grabs her hand and pulls her towards him and bathes both of them in a shower of bubbles. “What about the curry?” she asks, licking the wine off his face. “I turned the cooker off,” Sunil says. “For now.”
A body floats gently in towards the shore. It’s bloated, and prawns have been nibbling the ears, eyes, and nose. But nothing has touched the ginger hair that floats back and forth in the shallow surf.
Danny is wrapped up in a big warm coat as he sits in a park in Russia’s science city. There’s no snow, but the cold grass looks as though it’s been doused in grey paint. A tall man in his early thirties—dark eyebrows, aquiline nose, parka hood up—comes and sits down beside Danny. “Only one target left,” he says. “She lives in Kiev with her second husband and his two children. He doesn’t know she was KGB.”
“So now she’s FSB?”
“Danny, Danny! I’m a programmer. FSB stands for Front Side Bus. I’m predicting some nasty short-circuits in the electricity supply to their apartment.”
Danny stands up. “Don’t hurt the kids,” he says.
Vladimir laughs. “You work for movie business. Now you start having conscience! Very funny.”
Danny walks away across the park. He turns back for a moment, waves and shouts, “Good job! Spasiba!”
Alexandros and Alice are on the front covers of every tabloid, every celeb magazine, and a thousand websites. His almost-black eyes and her green eyes stare into paparazzi lenses. They are parading along carpeted catwalks. They are signing autographs. They are on chat-shows all over the world. The movie has received five Oscar nominations and seven BAFTA nominations.
Lynne Songbird has a whole-page spread in
Their bags are still packed by the door. They’ve just flown in from Los Angeles via Athens and they’re tired. She looked great at the Oscar ceremony, but she’s not feeling great now.
The air is cool and sweet as they stand outside, fragrant with jasmine and thyme. The moon is up over the hills. Selina, whose name means moon, looks up and yawns. Sunil takes her hand and says, “I quit today.”
“I know,” she says. “Lynne told me. So what are you going to do?”
“We’re not short of money. You’re a great doctor. I’d maybe like to do another Ph.D. I’m a bit worried about your family. If I were just a Brit it wouldn’t matter, but I’m second generation Indian and maybe they’re a bit… concerned.”
She hugs him, and says, “Hey, xenophobia is a Greek word. We’ve survived the alien invasions by the Italians, the Turks, and the Crusaders. I think even my mother can cope with you.”
She kisses him on the cheek and goes in to bed.
Sunil walks down the garden in the moonlight. Magnolia bushes gleam a silvery pink and the olive trees dance a shadowy sirtaki in the breeze. He opens the gate to the fenced area where the goats live. They’ve heard him coming, and they’re up and stirring. They come bounding up to him and jump around in delight that he’s here.
“Tell you what, guys,” he says to the goats. “You three are never going on the barbecue. That’s a promise.”
He lies on his back on the still-warm ground and looks up at the moon and the great bright splash of stars as the goats skip gleefully over him and the night scent full of herbs and richness fills his nostrils and suddenly he feels immensely, ecstatically and overwhelmingly human.
CAMERA rises higher and higher over the Corfu hills, looking down at Sunil and the goats, and then the credits start to roll as Greek music swells on the sound track and the house lights brighten in the cinema:
With grateful thanks to
THE BONELESS ONE
by Alec Nevala-Lee
