Chapter 17
Back in my room I checked that the kittens had finished up their breakfast ham – of course they had – and then I went and had a long, cool shower.
What day was it anyway? I normally had a hard enough time remembering what day of the week it was, but here, where one sunny day blended into another and I didn’t have to remember when it was Friday and time to put the bins out, it was even more difficult.
I thought for a moment and then decided it was Thursday.
Which meant we only had two more days to go until we went home again.
Back to my house in Lower Begley where the grass would need mowing.
There would probably be a pile of uninteresting post and flyers for retirement villages on my doorstep, and Ivan, well fed and adored by Nicky, would not run up meowing to greet me with his tail held high, but fix me with one of his withering looks.
I sent off a quick email and some more pictures to my daughter and then turned to the pressing problem of what I was going to wear that evening.
Perhaps my new rose-printed sundress, or maybe the one I had brought with me which was pale blue, and I still had a clean white t-shirt to wear underneath it.
But that was a bit informal, wasn’t it? Maybe some smart, dark trousers and a blue linen blouse?
I looked as though I was going for a job interview.
Jeans and a polo shirt? Too casual. Dark trousers and a striped, green top.
There was a small red wine stain on one side of the neck which scrubbing with handwash had failed to completely remove, but I could cover that up with an artfully draped scarf.
Would my zebra-print kitten heels bear another outing, even though one of them was still a slightly darker colour than the other one?
I bet Will wasn’t worrying about such things. I expect he just slung on the first clean shirt he found in his suitcase and thought no more about it.
So what would I feel most comfortable in? Never mind what he might think of me.
In the end, hoping to avoid detection, I sneaked quietly out of my room to go downstairs just before six o’clock in dark trousers and a clean pink top, my kitten heels clacking on the marble stairs.
I was reasonably confident although I held firmly on to the handrail as I went, because I was sure one of the shoes could skid out from underneath me and send me flying down to the bottom. Not a good first impression at all.
‘So,’ said a voice behind me. ‘You’re off with the divine Will again.’
I turned to see Anita hanging over the banister at the top of the stairs, and I realised she must have been listening for my door to open. It did have quite a distinctive squeak.
‘Oh, just off for that meal I was telling you about,’ I said airily.
‘Excellent news. I shall take great pleasure in telling Jillian when she is flapping around trying to round us all up for the ouzo tasting evening at the Poseidon bar. She’ll be very annoyed.
You must tell us all about it when you get back.
Unless it’s after midnight, in which case we will all be asleep and not interested enough to wake up.
On the other hand, if you end up locked in a passionate embrace in his room, I insist you do bang on my door when you finally get back to your own bed and tell me all about it.
I will want to know every titillating detail. ’
‘It certainly won’t be that late and I certainly won’t end up doing any of that stuff!’ I said.
‘I live in hope,’ Anita said.
‘Oh, you!’
I resumed my careful way down the stairs.
‘Have fun!’ she called after me, her voice echoing down the stairwell. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Actually, I’ve always thought that’s a bit meaningless, isn’t it? Do all the things!’
I flapped a hand at her to stop making such a racket and reached the front door where Will was waiting for me, two of the kittens playing with a twig at his feet.
‘Ah, marvellous,’ he said. ‘You look lovely.’
‘So do you,’ I said rather foolishly. Well, he did.
He was wearing some well-pressed chinos (I hadn’t noticed an iron in my room; perhaps he had brought one with him?) and a brilliantly white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show his tanned forearms. I love that; it’s one of my favourite looks on a man. We were off to a great start.
The taxi came moments later, apparently driven by Gregor’s brother Hector.
He was equally as uncommunicative and large as our usual driver was.
He also seemed to share the same disregard for speed limits and other vehicles, and the journey to the vineyard flashed past with me clinging, white-knuckled, onto the door handle.
We arrived in record time and Hector got out of the car and went to chat with a group of other taxi drivers who were huddled around an ancient olive tree in the car park, smoking and probably complaining about the state of the roads or the government.
At the door everything looked very different from our last visit.
Inside and out the place was lit with hundreds of fairy lights which were strung along the walls, around the windows and out along the steel and glass barrier on the terrace.
It looked magical. I almost didn’t care what the food was like; the setting and the feeling I had this evening were something I would probably never forget.
We decided to start with a glass of Lefteris Glinavos Brut, which was the Greek equivalent of champagne, and it came in slender glasses, the bubbles winking enticingly at the brim.
‘Yamas,’ Will said, and we clinked our glasses as the lights from a departing cruise ship far below us moved silently off into the evening.
‘Cheers,’ I said. ‘I think I would like to learn a new language. I often feel it’s a bit arrogant, thinking that English is the only one worth bothering with.
I did French at school; I wasn’t clever enough to do German.
I’d like to learn Italian, so when I go there I can ask for things, not just the bill in a café. ’
‘You’d like Italy I think,’ he said. ‘I met some lovely people there. But then I’ve realised there are kind, decent people all over the world. People who don’t care if you are rich or poor. It’s very grounding, if that’s not too lofty a word.’
‘It’s reassuring,’ I said, sipping my wine and enjoying the slightly flowery taste. And the hint of citrus. Perhaps that wine tasting had done something for my understanding of wine after all.
At the back of my mind was the small amount of knowledge I had gleaned from Wikipedia about Will.
He was a doctor, a proper medical professional even if he had spent a lot of time on television discussing potty training and chickenpox.
He had worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, and I would have been genuinely interested to hear about it.
Common sense told me I would have to bide my time and let him bring it up.
‘I’m hungry,’ I said, ‘are you?’
‘I didn’t have lunch, so yes,’ he replied.
We were shown to our table, which was in an enchanting little booth overlooking the sea, and as usual Will chose the seat with his back to the room.
Which of course, knowing what I now knew about him, was predictable but really a bit silly.
The evening was warm and the air scented with herbs, warm flowers and the faintest drift of his aftershave, which was lemony and delicious.
We looked at the menus, me wishing I had brought my reading glasses, because without them a lot of the finer points of the dishes went unseen. I would have to hope for the best.
Eventually I decided on scallops to start with followed by a delicious-sounding crispy chicken, until the waitress gently pointed out that I had chosen something from the children’s menu.
Flustered, I pointed at the first thing on the fish offerings, which was catch of the day. Who knew what I was going to get?
‘Ah, bourtheto,’ the waitress said approvingly, ‘you like this – um aromatódis? Hot?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said confidently, ‘very hot.’
Surely there would be nothing worse than tepid fish?
‘Good, good,’ she said, making a note on her pad.
Then there was a bit of a discussion with the wine waiter, and eventually we decided on some Kontarades, which was apparently ‘crisp and dry with stony minerality’ and would go well with fish.
All that business out of the way, we sat back to enjoy our sparkling wine and the view. The restaurant was getting busier, with smart couples and groups settling themselves, even a few children who would probably also choose the crispy chicken.
We fitted in, I realised with a little thrill of pleasure. Will and I were just like these other people, out for a pleasant evening. I was just as entitled to be there as anyone. If other people noticed us, they might assume we were a couple, perhaps married, enjoying a holiday together.
It was so much easier being part of a couple, I realised. Having spent several years on my own or tagging along with other people, a lone woman could, for absolutely no reason, be seen as an oddity, or on one occasion, even a threat.
I remembered one evening some years ago, I went to a retirement party for my old headmaster at the school where I had been the secretary for so many years.
Madge Clifford had been sure I was desperate to latch on to her dull husband and lure him into the stationary cupboard with my evil wiles.
Which I hadn’t been, and my wiles, such as they were, could be safely ignored by all concerned.
I could find little common ground with a man whose sole topic of conversation that evening was Richard III and how he was much maligned.
Roger Clifford might have wanted to discuss the tactical importance of the Battle of Bosworth, but I didn’t.