Chapter 9 #2
Well, that brought the conversation to a sudden halt, and for a moment both of us seemed a bit edgy, and he moved his cutlery about and I wriggled on my chair, so that one of the front chair legs sank deeper into the gravel.
This meant I was leaning slightly to the right, and I had to plant my feet on the ground at a strange angle to steady myself.
Perhaps I had congratulated myself too soon and trainers would have been a better choice after all.
Luckily at that moment the waiter returned with the wine, and close behind him was another with a vast metal pan of paellera.
This meant there was a few minutes when we juggled with wine glasses, cutlery and plates until I couldn’t wait until we were left in peace to get on with it.
I didn’t know about it being a meal for two; to me it looked like a family of four would have been quite happy to share.
China fingerbowls of water and a couple of cloth napkins were put down on the table a few minutes later followed by various implements and nutcrackers. Then the waiter did the sort of flourishing things waiters do with wine bottles and white napkins and poured some out for us to try.
‘Assyrtiko, beautiful wine. An excellent choice,’ he said as we did a bit of tasting and frowning and swirling.
At last we were left alone with the hot, metal dish filled with tiny, golden orzo pasta, various things like prawns, crab claws and mussels poking out, and the aroma of saffron and seafood was divine.
‘Go for it,’ Will said.
I dolloped a big spoonful onto my plate and started digging out the interesting bits.
To be honest I wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with a lot of it.
I decided to watch what he did and follow his lead.
In the end it was quite easy, and everything was delicious, even the bits of octopus, which I really wasn’t sure about to start with.
The wine was going down extremely well too, and after a few minutes I began to feel more relaxed and even confident.
This was going far better than I had ever imagined and the possible delights of Athena’s – where the vegetarian moussaka was apparently the best on the island according to Jillian – paled into insignificance as far as I was concerned.
I stopped trying to get information out of him, and we just chatted about light-hearted things.
The weather, the island, a Netflix series we had both watched, what we were hoping to see at the ancient excavations the following day, and whether it would be possible to get a bus to the north of the island where there was a bigger town.
‘I’m so glad we had this,’ I said, washing my fingers in the china bowl, and unfortunately slopping some of the water over the table. ‘I can cross this off my bucket list with a smile.’
I took my napkin and mopped the water up as best I could, stretching over to his side of the table where the rivulet was threatening to dribble onto his trousers.
The leg of my chair shifted a little more, and I moved my feet again for stability.
I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but I was sitting very inelegantly, leaning forward on the edge of my chair, with my knees far apart and one of my beautiful new shoes completely buried in the dusty grit and gravel under my chair.
‘I had this in Rhodes once. It was good, but this is better,’ he said.
I felt unjustifiably proud to hear this; after all, I hadn’t cooked it. Never mind, we were sharing a lovely evening, and I hoped he was enjoying it as much as I was.
‘This is so much better than sitting at home watching television,’ I said. ‘There’s just nothing on at all that I want to watch these days. Perhaps a few cooking programmes, and Strictly. But most of the time it’s just people arguing with each other.’
He didn’t look at me but concentrated on washing his fingers and drying them carefully. He had nice hands too, strong and well kept.
‘What about dessert?’ he said at last when we both had to admit that the paellera had defeated us. There were just a few clumps of orzo left and a lot of bits of shell.
‘I don’t think I have room,’ I said.
‘Metaxa then and coffee?’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go and…’
I made the sort of vague gestures that indicated I was going to go and find the loo, and turned in my chair to stand up.
Very unwise. The combination of the uneven gravel, one foot being buried and the best part of half a bottle of wine meant that my chair fell over and with a shriek, I sprawled full length next to my companion, narrowly missing hitting a passing waiter who was carrying a tray filled with massive pizzas on his shoulder for the family at the next table.
Will gave a cry of dismay and he and another very kind man who was sitting near us helped me to my feet, where I stood flushed with embarrassment, my knees together and my feet stuck out for balance.
I brushed the dust off my clothes and fervently wished the ground could swallow me up.
Indeed, it had actually buried one of my zebra-print kitten heels and we spent a few excruciating minutes looking for it, digging through the stones and the discarded pizza crusts and cigarette butts.
I had the awful feeling that everyone was looking at me and deciding I was either drunk or not safe to be out in the first place. I think a few sympathetic glances were thrown in Will’s direction too, which made me feel even worse. What on earth would he think of me?
There were even a few muttered comments.
What on earth…? Oh dear… Is she all right? Isn’t that him?
Back in one piece again, I tottered off to find the loo and spent a few minutes splashing my face with cold water and dabbing at my hot face with a damp paper towel.
I looked up to see my reflection, which was rather flushed and wild-eyed.
I patted at my hair, which was similarly looking a bit dishevelled, and wished I had brought a brush, peered closer. Yes, there were little turmeric stains around my mouth which made it look as though I had a nicotine habit. I washed them off.
Isn’t that him?
I looked at my reflection thoughtfully. What did that mean? Were they referring to Will? And if so, why?
Isn’t that him?
Had I heard that properly?
Calm down, for heaven’s sake. I had probably just heard the tail end of someone else’s conversation. It probably meant nothing.
I straightened up and took a deep breath. The waistband of my new trousers was feeling a bit snug because of the massive quantity of paellera I had eaten. Perhaps I needed a walk for a bit so that I didn’t have a Dennis-type disturbed night. Or maybe the Metaxa would do the trick.
Back outside, I picked my way carefully across the gravel to our table and adjusted my chair so it was on more stable ground.
There was a tray with two glasses of black coffee and some Metaxa in front of me, plus a dish of pastel sugared almonds.
Pretty as they were, I wasn’t going to risk it, not with all my fillings just waiting to snap off. A woman has to know her limitations.
‘Okay?’ Will said kindly.
I could feel myself blushing.
‘Sorry about that, my chair tipped over. This gravel…’
‘As long as you’re not hurt,’ he said. ‘Have some Metaxa to settle yourself. It’s very good, one of my favourites.’
I took a sip. Yes, he was right. And the coffee was good too, very hot and sweet in the way Greeks seem to like it.
I would behave as though nothing had happened, that was the answer.
‘So tomorrow, the visit to the ancient ruins. What time do we have to leave?’
He gave me another twinkling grin across the table.
‘You mean you didn’t read Jillian’s notes? That’s just wilful disobedience.’
I laughed. ‘I know, I’ve always been the same. It got me into no end of trouble at school.’
‘I can’t imagine that,’ he said. ‘You seem more the type to behave and do as you were told.’
I looked at him through my lashes.
‘Ah, but you don’t know me very well,’ I said, with the astonishing feeling that I was actually flirting with him. It had been years since I had done that. I didn’t think I still could.
‘Not yet,’ he said, taking a sip of his Metaxa. ‘Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow morning when you are late for the bus, which, by the way, leaves at nine o’clock.’
‘As long as Costas hasn’t got a darts match this evening.’
‘Good point.’
We finished our drinks and coffee and after a polite wrangle about who was going to pay, Will settled the bill.
‘This was my idea. You can pay next time if it worries you that much,’ he said.
I sat and thought about this, hoping I wasn’t blushing. The next time. So, there was going to be a next time? Goodness me.
‘That was really delicious,’ I said as we finally escaped from the gravelled area and back onto more solid ground. ‘A lovely way to spend the evening.’
I had to stop for a moment, leaning against a fence to take off my shoes and shake out the accumulated dust and grit.
Will waited patiently, looking out to sea at the lights of a boat, and didn’t mention my humiliating accident of earlier, for which I was grateful, and in a way, it made me like him more.
If it had been Malcolm, he would undoubtedly never let me forget his embarrassment, and eventually it would be turned into a story where my clumsiness and wine consumption would be exaggerated into his usual brand of gaslighting humour.
I could almost imagine his ghastly ex-work colleagues from the bank, braying with laughter at my expense at the annual Christmas get-together.
As we walked back through the little town, the streets were busier. We had obviously beaten the rush, such as it was. At last, we turned into one of the little back alleyways which would lead us to the hotel.
‘Thank you so much,’ I said.
He gave a funny little bow in my direction. ‘No, thank you.’
At this point I almost said thank you for thanking me, as a sort of joke, but mercifully I didn’t.
I knew we were nearly back because I could see the lights from the Hotel Costas roof terrace ahead of us, and there was still a pile of moped parts on one side of the pavement, so evidently the man who had been working on it the previous day still had work to do.
I knew that once the others saw I was back, they would want to know chapter and verse about our evening.
About him, what he had said, what I had said; it would be worse than being back at school.
And I realised that despite our non-stop chatter, I still knew hardly anything about him apart from the facts that he was retired, lived alone and shared a cat with his neighbour.
I raked my memory for details. He obviously liked travel, seafood and white wine, and he was quietly elegant and had well cut hair. What else had he said? That he had once worked in London and had lived for a few years in Oxford where the traffic was terrible and parking spaces at a premium.
I had asked why he hadn’t moved somewhere more rural with views over a lake and perhaps room for some hens.
I had told him about my house, and he had made approving comments.
And then we had talked about chickens and tried to think up funny names for them.
Starting with fairly predictable ones like Henny-Penny, Chicken Little and Hen Solo and eventually deciding on Cluck Norris, Mother Clucker and Hennifer Lopez.
Then we discussed what would happen to them when he went off on holiday, and he picked up his phone and googled hen-boarding facilities, which I refused to accept even existed, and found Henidorm, What the Cluck and The Clucktastic Hotel within twenty miles of his house.
By the time we finished I was almost weeping with laughter, and his face had lost a lot of the tension which had become so familiar.
I could almost see the man he must have been when he was younger, and strangely enough he was even more memorable.
But apart from that? I went back through our conversation of that evening, looking for nuggets of information that the others would find titillating.
He let slip that he’d been briefly married in his thirties, a relationship which had ended after a few years.
He had enjoyed sailing when he was younger, had once owned a boat, which I had found impressive until he told me about all the ropes and knots and having to pretend something akin to standing in the rain tearing up twenty-pound notes was fun.
‘And how do you spend your time now?’ I’d asked. ‘What do you like to do with your retirement?’
‘Dull things,’ he’d said. ‘Weeding my garden, reading old books, watching boxsets on television. Occasionally I cook. And as a side line I invested in a couple of properties years ago which I renovated and sold. I’ve just bought another one.
That keeps me busy. I’m very keen on a spreadsheet, which is what I was doing the other day. ’
‘None of those things are dull, unless you think I am dull too,’ I’d said.
‘No, you’re not,’ he’d replied. ‘I told you, I think you’re fun. What else do you do?’
‘Drink tea, sometimes coffee, eat biscuits, do the ironing.’
He’d pulled a face. ‘Ironing? No one enjoys that.’
‘I do. I love taking a basket full of crumpled things and creating order. And I can watch television at the same time. So that passes for multi-tasking I think.’
‘Impressive. I like to clear my worktops in the kitchen—’
‘Oh, me too!’ I felt unreasonably pleased when he said that. Almost as though we were kindred spirits.
‘—and I’m afraid I like to mow the lawn into precise stripes.’
‘I can’t do that; I tend to be more fluid in my mowing. I tried to mow my name into it once. The M for Meg was okay, but I had trouble with the E and the G. I did the little line on the G with a pair of kitchen scissors in the end.’
He’d laughed, throwing back his head at this. ‘You’re crazy.’
Funny; Malcolm had said much the same thing the day we separated and I had cut his new tie – which he had admitted quite proudly had been a present from his new lady friend – in half with the same scissors.
But somehow this time it sounded different.
As though being crazy might be a good thing.
That someone like me, who laughed at silly things, who worried about the world, who cared about relative strangers and who suddenly wanted to live an interesting life again, was actually not a bad person after all.
‘I think I am sometimes,’ I’d said, ‘and much good has it done me.’
‘You’ve done me good,’ he’d said. ‘I haven’t laughed so much for a very long time as I have this evening.’
And he bent and gently kissed my cheek, and I honestly thought I might explode with the shock. And considering how much paellera I had eaten, that would not have been a pretty sight.