Chapter 18
I glanced at my watch. It was just after eight thirty and Hector was due to pick us up at nine o’clock.
I should have waited. Any conversation we could have now was going to be one where we were interrupted. The bill needed paying too.
I signalled to the waitress and did the usual scribbling in thin air that people did in every country when they couldn’t speak the language. She gave me one of her brilliant smiles and a few minutes later, I was presented with a discreet, green leather folder containing a printout.
Will and I had a short, polite discussion about who was going to pay, which I won, and of course the next few minutes were taken up with the slowness of the card machine while I worried that it was going to decline the payment, our discussion about leaving a suitable tip, and then the business of Will getting his jacket on and making our way through the gift shop to the front door.
They had some lovely fridge magnets and tea towels too, which under other circumstances I would have bought.
We went outside into the warm, dark evening, where the skeins of lights were illuminating our path, past the old olive tree, and out into the car park.
Hector was there, smoking a cigarette and still chatting with the other drivers.
I wondered if he had been there all the time, waiting for us. Surely not.
Hector’s expression brightened as he saw us, and he stubbed out his cigarette and opened the back door for me with elaborate courtesy.
‘Good meal, heh?’ he said. ‘Good food?’
‘Excellent, thanks,’ I said, and then unexpectedly, bearing in mind my rather rattled mental state, I remembered the words, ‘éxochos efcharistó.’
Hector smiled, pleased at my efforts, and started the car.
The drive home through the patchy darkness seemed to take twice as long as it had on the way there, and we didn’t talk much.
It felt to me as though there was a distinct tension building between Will and me in the car, and I wondered if he felt it too.
I should have kept my curiosity under control.
What difference did it make after all? If he wanted to keep his life private, what right did I have to pry?
But human nature wasn’t like that, was it?
Newspapers and magazines made a great deal of money rehashing other people’s secrets and scandals.
How many column inches were filled with details of unwise behaviour and lawsuits by irrelevant soap stars or footballers?
And hardly anyone cared, not really. It was just gossip; pathetic fodder.
And most of the people I’d never heard of and would never meet in my local supermarket.
Had Will been subjected to this, back in the day, I wondered?
Eventually, we saw the lights of our little town appearing in front of us. Past the petrol station, the supermarket, the bakery and the shop where we had bought that terrible wine, and then we turned into our road and stopped outside Hotel Costas at last.
I could hear music from the roof terrace bar, and all the lights up there were blazing. There was laughter and someone shouted, ‘Oh, Dennis, don’t be daft!’
I think it was Effie.
Will and I watched the taillights of Hector’s car disappear down the road and then we looked at each other.
I felt uneasy, unsure of what was going to happen next.
I think I assumed he was going to say something polite about having had a lovely evening, and thank me, and then disappear back into his room.
And I would do the same. I certainly didn’t feel much like going up and joining the others on the terrace.
In fact, I felt a bit sad. It wasn’t what I had expected from this evening at all. One that had started so well and gradually got worse until the two of us were barely speaking.
Will took a deep breath and jerked his head up towards the noise from the party that was going on.
‘I don’t think so, do you?’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘What do you think? Let’s get a nightcap, shall we? Are you warm enough?’
And when I said I was, he reached out, took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. Just like that. So he couldn’t have been thinking negative thoughts about me after all my angst and overthinking, could he?
We walked off together down the street towards the sea, the noise from the hotel fading behind us. After a few steps, he adjusted his long stride to my pace. And my thoughts were tumbling over each other in a way they hadn’t done for a long time.
It wasn’t that I was pleased to be getting a man’s attention after so many years of being practically invisible, it was that he was another human being treating me with kindness and respect.
Two important things I had missed out on.
Small acts mattered. Little gestures of consideration were what made my heart soar that evening, and the way that we were together, communicating as new friends.
* * *
It was surprisingly crowded as we walked down the little coast road.
Most of the restaurants were open and looked busy.
The older people like us had gone, and it was time for the tribes of younger holidaymakers to come out.
Groups of young men passed us in a cloud of aftershave and hair products.
No jeans and t-shirts but smart trousers and shirts.
They twitched nervously at their cuffs, smoothing their hair down, casting glances at the girls as they passed.
The girls in white trousers, ruffled crop tops and hair extensions which they tossed about like weapons of mass destruction.
Was it easier for young women these days?
I’d thought so once, with all their freedoms and expectations, but perhaps it wasn’t.
Maybe underneath the nail treatments and flicky eyeliner, they were just as insecure and confused as my generation had been at that age.
The boys too, not knowing what was expected of them.
What to do to catch and hold a girl’s attention, all of them wondering if they were attractive enough, buff enough to pair up with someone.
And yet even at my age I guessed people felt much the same.
I might have decided that I had no interest in a new relationship, but was that true?
I had blithely discounted the idea, noting the drawbacks of older men.
‘Set in their ways’ was the expression most of my friends used about their husbands, but wasn’t that true for older women too?
Perhaps I was set in my ways as well, unwilling to change.
If I wanted my life to improve in the ways I had imagined, then I would need to do something about that.
In my head I might have felt about thirty-five, but one glance in the mirror showed that wasn’t true. Perhaps it was the same for men.
I sneaked a look up at Will’s profile, seeing traces of the young heart throb he had once been, but this evening of course he looked older too: his hair grey when once it had been dark; there were wrinkles on his face, crow’s feet around his eyes accentuated by his tan.
I thought not for the first time how annoying it was that these things somehow made a man better looking while women were urged to buy expensive creams and potions or ‘get a little work done’. I bet no one ever suggested that to George Clooney or Patrick Dempsey.
Sensing my gaze, he looked down at me.
‘Okay?’
‘Yes, fine. It’s busier now, isn’t it?’
He laughed. ‘All the young people coming out to play. Not sloping off to bed early with a good book and a cup of tea like I usually do.’
‘Me too,’ I said, delighted to think he agreed with me.
‘There’s nothing I like better than a cold winter’s evening, the electric blanket on full power, a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Sometimes my cat will even curl up on my feet if he feels like it.
I’d rather he did that than be out hunting and the risk that he might bring me a late-night snack of his own choosing. ’
‘Does he often do that?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. Twice recently he brought in mice and let them go under the bed, which of course makes for some very entertaining moments. And he is always so furious when I take the poor things away from him. Then he will sit at the end of the bed and glower at me.’
‘I like the sound of Ivan.’ Will chuckled. ‘I’d love to meet him.’
‘Knowing Ivan, he would be all over you like a rash, and you would think I had made up the story of his baleful nature and bad behaviour.’
‘I like that about cats. Dogs always seem to be consistent and uncomplicated, happy to please, but cats can be very sneaky.’
Interesting, I thought. He was talking about a time after this holiday was over when it sounded as though we might keep in touch. Even if the thought had been prompted by my slightly sinister cat.
We got to the far end of the beach road where the wine bars and restaurants had almost petered out, and still we hadn’t stopped for that nightcap. At last, as the only thing in front of us was a boat yard and a few ramshackle sheds, we turned round and retraced our steps.
‘What about here,’ he said as we passed a café which was still open but practically empty apart from a man behind the counter who was hunched over a newspaper and sipping something cloudy and white that was probably ouzo.
‘What do you think?’ Will said, and I nodded.
‘Not ouzo,’ I murmured, ‘or retsina. They don’t agree with me.’
‘Oooh yes we do,’ he said in a silly voice, and I laughed.
The room was enlivened by a small electrically powered water feature in the middle where a waterfall trickled onto the figure of Poseidon complete with his trident.
They really shouldn’t put these things in places where older women were going to be sitting.
Did I need to go to the loo? No, I was okay for the moment.
We sat down at a table in the corner and the boss came over with two menus and his notepad ready.
‘A Greek mojito,’ I said, pointing at the picture. ‘It’s got Metaxa in it and I’m getting a taste for it.’