Chapter 3 #2
I found my adaptors and put my phone on charge so that I could send a couple of photos to Nicky.
I added a brief summary of what I had been doing and, reading it back, I had to admit it sounded fun.
Spending time with some new people, seeing new sights, gatecrashing a wedding and eating different foods was all great.
Why hadn’t I thought of doing this before?
Perhaps I needed to be a bit braver in future.
Nicky replied to my message almost immediately. Allowing for the time difference, I guessed she had just got home from her work at the library.
Nicky
Sounds like you’re enjoying it. Lovely pics.
I’ve had a rubbish day; someone said our library might be in line to close at the end of the year.
So unfair. We are always busy. We are going to start a protest. Ivan is fine, I took him some left over chicken and he snarfed it up as though he was starving.
Don’t you ever feed him? And then he sat on my lap while I was having a cup of tea.
I’ve never known a cat with such a loud purr.
What are you doing tomorrow? Are they organising you all?
I gave a rueful smile, remembering how the four of us had hidden in the gift shop from the official guided walk that afternoon. But also, in those last few hours, how much fun we had shared. I typed out a reply.
Mum
We were supposed to be going on a group tour but instead the four of us (me, Anita, Beryl and her sister Effie) sneaked off and had a lovely walk by the sea (that’s when we mistakenly joined a stranger’s wedding reception), had lunch in a restaurant (I had a fantastic proper Greek salad) then back to the hotel.
There are kittens here!! And Ivan purred and sat on your lap?
He’s never once done that to me. And yes I do feed him, that cat is a liar.
He usually looks at the food I give him and walks away from it.
I bought him some new stuff, beef in gravy, he might like that?
Sorry to hear about the library. Perhaps you need to write to your MP or get a celebrity to endorse you?
Do you know any? Off to the pool on the roof terrace now. Jealous?
* * *
I pulled on a clean blue shirt and made my way upstairs to the roof terrace, where in one corner there was a small pool, an even smaller jacuzzi and, most unexpectedly on the other side of the roof, a bar where Costas was sitting looking gloomy reading a newspaper.
Beryl, Anita and Effie were already settled at one of the tables in the shade of an oversized white parasol. It looked idyllic.
I’d been on the mailing list of some Italian garden furniture company, and their catalogue was filled with photographs of wonderfully attractive people on massive lounging beds and lavishly cushioned chairs.
I’d spent quite a long time indulging in a fantasy where I had the Sorrento dining experience, with seats for twelve, a cantilevered parasol and matching fire pit.
Or perhaps the Ischia daybed, with floating white curtains and the same sublime view over the Bay of Naples which I too would be sharing with a companion who looked like a young Franco Nero.
Instead of that I’d made do with some chairs from a discount outlet store and Malcolm’s mother’s picnic table.
Although there had been more than a bit of Nero in Malcolm’s character as he aged.
How lovely to have the space and the money for those things, but of course back home in Herefordshire there would have been a continual to-ing and fro-ing with the seat cushions, the elegant, cantilevered parasol would be blown down the end of the garden in minutes and Ivan the Terrible would have made short shrift of the billowing voile drapes.
I went over and swished my hand in the water. It was a bit too cold for my liking.
‘Isn’t this lovely?’ Anita called. ‘Just glorious. I wish I had something like this at home. But then the view wouldn’t be the same. Or the climate. I tried to get Rick to put in a hot tub after we got back from Rhodes, but we argued about where to put it so much that in the end we didn’t get one.’
‘I don’t think a hot tub would be much fun on one’s own,’ Beryl said, and she winked. ‘Far better to have company and the ensuing entertainment.’
‘Beryl! Really!’ Anita spluttered.
‘Depends on the company,’ I said.
‘The others aren’t back yet then?’ Effie said, leaning back in her chair with a happy sigh. ‘I wonder what they will be like.’
‘Well, we know there’s Dennis,’ I said, ‘and didn’t that other man with them look familiar to you?’
‘Not particularly,’ Beryl said. ‘I asked Nina about him. She said he booked a place here ages ago. She doesn’t know much about him.
She told me she believes he’s a history buff.
Very keen on the Minoans. Nina and I had such a nice chat.
I know all about her bunions and how she wants her son to get married and have a family.
He’s working as a DJ on Mykonos. Now then, shall we have a coffee?
Costas has one of those clever machines behind the bar, and my caffeine levels are running low. ’
Anita went off to order some and Effie pushed her chair back a little way, took a cigarette out of a silver case and lit it with a pleased sigh.
‘I’ve cut down a lot,’ she said as she saw Anita coming back. ‘I tried nicotine patches once and then I had a cigarette as well because I forgot I was wearing them. I didn’t half have a headache.’
‘That shows you how bad for you they are,’ Beryl said, ‘although back in the sixties nearly everyone did. We both used to smoke Sobranie cocktail cigarettes which had gold filter tips. Do you remember? And I had an amber cigarette holder just like Princess Margaret’s.
I don’t think I actually inhaled, just waved them around a bit. ’
We could suddenly hear the sound of chattering voices from out in the street and the unmistakeable boom of Dennis laughing and shouting at the others.
‘Now, come along, ladies, there will be plenty of opportunity to find blister plasters later. Will wants a drink and I for one agree. So, everyone upstairs to the terrace.’
The four of us grinned at each other.
‘Incoming,’ Beryl murmured.
* * *
A few minutes later, Dennis appeared in the doorway onto the terrace and stopped theatrically when he saw us, causing his companion to bump against the staircase behind him.
‘Ah, there you are. Did you not read Jillian’s notes? About the guided walk? Susan printed them out. You missed an absolute treat. This is a fascinating little place. You can ask me anything.’
‘Why are you so incredibly noisy all the time?’ Beryl whispered under her breath, and I giggled.
Dennis’s gaze swivelled on to me.
‘Ah! There she is. The new girl. Maggie, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think I count as new any longer, and I’m Meg,’ I said.
‘That’s what I said. We have had a grand old time, I must say. I’m glad I am as fit as I am. That’s what comes of being practically but not exclusively vegetarian and not smoking,’ he said, fixing Effie with a stern look.
‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Effie drawled with a sweet smile, blowing a plume of smoke into the air. ‘You look a fine figure of a man.’
Dennis looked confused for a moment and then gave a modest smile.
‘Anyone got any blister plasters? Susan here had the wrong shoes on.’
A small white-haired woman went to sit down at the next table with a sigh of relief.
‘Please don’t fuss, Dennis,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Blisters need looking after. I remember a chap in the ATC when I was at school. Blister went septic, almost lost his leg. Now then, let’s move these tables together and shift around a few chairs.’
The next few minutes were taken up with introducing everyone to Susan, rearranging the terrace furniture and pulling chairs from other tables while from behind the bar, Costas fixed us with a brooding gaze and rustled his newspaper to convey his disapproval.
‘We had a grand old time too,’ Anita said, ‘and a lovely lunch.’
‘I should have come with you,’ Dennis said, favouring her with a roguish twinkle.
‘Where did you go?’ Susan asked. ‘We went to a place by the little quayside after our walk. Really nice if you like fish. Which luckily I do. I had the freshest sardines I’ve ever had.’
‘I had a bulgar wheat salad, which is a nutritional powerhouse,’ Dennis said, thumping his broad chest. ‘I’m up for anything. Now, where are the other two? I thought they were just behind us. And Will? Where’s he got to? I wanted to talk to him about the Minoans.’
Susan gave a shrug.
‘Jillian was just sorting out my shower and she needed an aspirin. She’s prone to headaches.’
‘I have a few plasters in my first aid kit,’ I said, leaning towards her. ‘Dennis is right, you don’t want to leave that blister.’
‘Anyone got any ideas for a painting yet?’ Anita asked. ‘The view from my balcony alone would be ideal.’
‘Isn’t this place nice?’ Susan agreed. ‘Not too fussy. I wouldn’t have dared come on my own, not abroad or anything, but June said it would be fun. She’ll be here in a minute. She’s my neighbour. We go to the Begley Moor painting group on a Friday.’
‘Ah, here come the stragglers,’ Dennis said, turning round in his chair. ‘Come along, everyone. We’ve started without you.’
Another woman in a flowing sundress and cardigan came out onto the roof terrace followed by the tall man.
He was quite handsome in a rugged, Mark Harmon sort of way (I’d watched a lot of NCIS at this point) and he came to sit down opposite me and gave me a quick look with wonderful blue eyes before he put his sunglasses on.
‘Here we are, so now you have met, this is Susan, and this is Will who has come here independent of us all, poor fellow,’ Dennis said, ‘but we’re old friends now, aren’t we chaps, so we need to make him welcome.
The gang’s all here so let the battle of the brushes commence.
Shame you missed out on the group walk earlier.
I know Jillian was disappointed not to see you there. ’
‘We just needed a little stroll and some fresh air,’ Beryl said.
Dennis shook his head in sorrow. ‘Valuable connecting time.’
‘I’m not much of a connector, more of a rheostat,’ Effie said and gave him a mischievous smile. ‘We have plenty of time to connect.’
‘Painting, that’s what we should be doing,’ Susan said. ‘I can’t wait to get my paints out. Those views are just catnip, aren’t they?’
‘We’ve got catnip in our garden,’ June said eagerly. ‘It’s powerful stuff. Sometimes when I go out there, it’s like some sort of feline drug den. A lot of yowling and writhing, and that’s just me.’
I snorted with laughter and started to giggle, and then everyone joined in.
Will looked over the top of his sunglasses at me and grinned. He was very attractive when he smiled, there was no doubt about it. But why was he so familiar?