Chapter 19
NINETEEN
‘The flight’s delayed!’ I do a double take on his whiskered face. ‘You look like a human cockerel.’
His hair, particularly the front bit, is standing on end, like there’s something sticking in it. Ew! What is that? I go to touch it then pull my hand back; I have no idea where that hair has been. He clearly pulled an all-nighter as he’s wearing the same shirt – and sunglasses, even though we’re inside.
‘Something’s, er… hanging out.’ I point south.
He looks down at his crotch.
‘Not there.’ I tsk. ‘Your bag.’
‘Ah.’ He zips it open and pushes the dangling sock back in.
‘Can’t believe we’re delayed.’ I sigh.
‘It’s only an hour. I overheard them say it’s due to wind. Not sure how they know it’ll be less windy in an hour.’
A Greek woman standing beside us overhears. ‘First they tell you an hour, then it’s two hours, then it’s all day, then it’s cancelled please come back tomorrow.’ She shrugs, gives Frank the lustful once-over then says, ‘Welcome to Greece!’
‘I could have had another hour in bed,’ I moan, suddenly registering his pallor. ‘What did you get up to last night? You didn’t just go back to your hotel room, did you?’
‘I’m taking the fifth on that.’ He takes off his shades and presents me with his red eyes.
‘Yikes!’ I peer closer, our noses almost joining. ‘I think you’ve got conjunctivitis.’
‘That’s just the whisky.’ He slides me an unscrupulous grin.
‘Well, how late did you stay out? And who were you with?’
‘I don’t know, Mom .’ He puts his face in my face again, so close that I do a little jump back. ‘Think it was way past my curfew.’
I start digging in my bag. ‘I’m going to be civilised and read my Kindle. What about you?’
He fixes me with a stagnant stare. ‘I’m going to be civilised, too.’ He turns to the Greek woman who seems overly interested in us. ‘Is there a bar here by any chance?’
She puffs up with importance. ‘No, sir. No bar. Not here.’
‘I think she’s lying,’ he says. ‘I’m off to find one. Hair of the dog.’ He glances me up and down, slackly. ‘You coming, Mother?’
‘I’d rather pour hot tar down my throat.’
‘I think you should give that a try.’ He walks off.
Our fellow randy traveller gawks after his rear end like she’s ravenous and it’s a hamburger.
Ding-a-ling! Ding-a-ling! Ding-a-ling!
I’m trying to get into this book. His book. Moon on River . Can’t he leave me alone? I go to pull out my phone to tell him precisely this, but then I realise it’s a Ding-a-ling! not a Ping!
WhatsApp.
The only person I ever WhatsApp with is Harriet. I fill with a mix of excitement and terror. But when I look at my screen, I am staring at Rupert’s blue eyes. The mischievous little overbite smile.
Rupert’s a bit old-fashioned when it comes to technology. He doesn’t use video-chat apps. Or… he didn’t. I swallow the urge to puke at the thought of him having video sex with Dagmara. I swipe up and reject the call.
Now there’s a whoosh sound! A message notification. I tell myself not to read it, but I’m too curious.
Switched to WhatsApp. Tired of sending texts you ignore. Thought you can ignore me in a different medium.
There are more whooshes, but I click off without reading them. But the dilemma surfaces again. How do I tell him I’m here in Greece, and betray Harriet, just when I’ve crossed the world to make things right with her again? And how do I not tell him that his only daughter is getting married in Greece on Saturday, and he could hop on a plane and be here in a few hours?
Hop on a plane and be here in a few hours?
I try to picture what that would look like. Him. Me. Frank. And my stomach turns queasy again.
Frank comes back an hour or so later. I tell him they just announced it’s delayed until noon now. He parks himself beside me, stinking of stale booze. ‘If that woman’s right and it ends up being cancelled, then we lose a day to find them.’ Today is Tuesday, I remind myself.
He unscrews a bottle of water and downs the contents in one go.
‘Comments?’ I say to the side of his head.
He burps. ‘None.’
His face is flushed. ‘I can’t believe you’re not finding this annoying,’ I say.
He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘It can’t be easy being you.’ He pelts the empty bottle at the bin.
‘Actually, it’s very easy being me, thank you.’ I pick up my Kindle again and attempt to read. It is still surreal to me that we came together to stop our kids from getting married, yet here we are – plan epically failed – en route to witness them do just that. ‘Don’t you just hate it when they tell you it’s the weather that’s causing the delay and yet, look, nothing’s blowing. Not even a leaf on a tree. I mean, can you see one moving?’ I might as well be talking to myself.
He finally stares out of the window. ‘No. But that’s because there aren’t any trees. There’s just an airport runway. Anyway, thought you were reading.’
‘But if there were trees… And the book is not all that gripping.’ I glance at him to see he’s giving me a very strange look indeed. ‘I’m not trying to be insulting, but maybe it’s all okay for you. You’re used to having copious time on your hands. No book deadlines. No place to be except in your lovely mansion on the ocean. Maybe it’s easy to just let these things roll.’
‘I think that should be your epitaph.’
‘Huh?’
‘Here lies Moira. She wasn’t trying to be insulting.’
I give him my best blank stare.
‘But as you mention real life. Well, let’s talk about that,’ he says. ‘So, you’ve run away from England and, if I’m to read between the lines, from your husband. You’re hiding out on the other side of the world purporting to be helping your daughter settle into a semester of college – help she doesn’t need. And you engage in almost non-consensual sex with a virtual stranger, then try to pretend none of it happened. What were we saying about real life? Remind me again?’ He leans in again, so the distance between our faces closes significantly; in fact, it makes me go cross-eyed. ‘Growing a little fuzzy…’ He gently tap-taps a finger on my temple.
‘Non-consensual?’
‘I believe it was you who mauled me then threw me onto a piece of furniture.’
‘What?’ A giant heat wave rushes over me at the very memory of what happened on that chaise.
‘If we have a re-run,’ he raises an eyebrow, ‘I’ll point out the exact part where the line gets blurred.’
It takes me a moment but then I grin. But then I realise I am not supposed to do that.
Do. Not. Smile.
I discreetly blow air up to my forehead.
‘Looks like it’s cancelled.’ He breaks the bad news when I get back from the loo.
‘What?’
‘They just announced it.’
‘Unbelievable!’ I throw up my hands. ‘Did they say why?’
‘Think someone checked the trees and discovered it’s still windy.’ When he sees my face, he adds, ‘No, they didn’t say. I was just chatting to our Greek friend.’ He points to the woman who is eating an apple while still giving him a lewd stare. ‘Nothing we can do about it. Just chill and try to see the bigger picture.’
‘The bigger picture didn’t include us being stuck in Athens tonight. What if it happens again tomorrow? I can see this becoming a Greek Groundhog Day. They’re getting married in four days’ time – remember? And we don’t even know where they are. We’re literally just about to drop a pin on the map of Santorini and assume with a bit of luck that they might be where it lands.’
Oh dear. Look how far we’ve come. I can’t believe that I’m now actually panicked at the thought of missing their wedding.
He stands, reaches for his bag handle. ‘How about we shelve that prospect, Miss Bright Side Finder, and consider a worst-case scenario instead?’ Then he puts his sunglasses back on. ‘Anyway, she said cancellations never happen two days in a row.’
I perk up. ‘She did?’
‘No. I made that up.’ He nods to my luggage. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here… Go find some trouble we can get into.’ When he says trouble he whips his eyes the length of me and smiles.
Given I can’t exactly stay here, I trot after him.