Chapter 19 #2
‘Excellent. Fine,’ I replied, trying unsuccessfully to ignore my memories of how the previous evening had ended. I wondered what he was thinking, but thankfully I was not so unsophisticated as to ask.
‘Have you decided what you are going to focus on? I quite like the look of this view, but I don’t think I have nearly enough ability to paint it.’
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said, damping down the little flutters of excitement.
‘Jillian’s going to be so annoyed with me if I don’t produce something today.
I like the look of that stone trough with the scarlet geraniums. I love those.
I have some like that at home, but perhaps not so bright.
And those irises are lovely too. Such a perfect purple.
And the shading of the walls in the little alleyway we walked through was wonderful, but I don’t think I would be able to paint fast enough to capture them, because the sun is moving round all the time. But…’ I gave a helpless shrug.
‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘Oooh, yes please!’
Sometimes I thought I was beyond help.
* * *
We walked back a little way, down towards the shady alleyway I had mentioned, and took a seat under the shade of a big rectangular parasol.
Greek coffee. I’d never had any before this trip but now I felt I was getting a bit addicted to it.
It was hot, strong and sweet with a delicious slightly smoky taste, and my jar of instant back home paled into insignificance in comparison.
He ordered slices of cake too, rich with walnuts and orange syrup and topped with a dollop of cream.
Portokalopita; maybe it contained the essence of this marvellous place, distilled down into warmth and sunshine and the feeling of possibility.
Or perhaps it was because of those days of brightness, the brilliance of the sky above us reflected down those dazzling white walls.
The murmur of people strolling past us, exclaiming with pleasure at the streets in front, the little square with its shady corners and picturesque views.
The dusty dog curled up on a doorstep, asleep in the sunshine. What a life.
I didn’t think I would ever think of the world in the same way again, knowing that there were so many wonderful places I could explore.
New people to meet, new friends to make; it filled my mind with all sorts of possibilities.
Perhaps I hadn’t done much actual art this week, but I had painted a new future for myself in my mind, and surely that was just as valuable.
‘I’m going to find Lower Begley a bit dull after this,’ I said at last.
He stirred his coffee with the little spoon in the saucer. ‘I know what you mean. I feel I’ve somehow woken up after a long, dark sleep.’
‘That’s exactly how I feel!’ I said. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and he reached out and briefly took my hand under the table, ‘it is.’
‘You do realise the others are all watching us, don’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘Do you know, I don’t care.’
‘Good. Nor do I.’
We finished our coffee and debated for a while what to do next. In the square we could see the rest of our group apparently hard at work.
‘We ought to do something,’ I said, ‘so we have something to remember this holiday by.’
‘I already have something, I think,’ he said, ‘but yes. Otherwise, we have no chance of any certificate at all.’
‘Beryl will win,’ I said. ‘She’s better than the rest of us put together. I think I will paint that stone trough. Please don’t come and sit by me or you will put me off.’
He laughed. ‘Then I will go and sit next to Dennis and draw that ice cream stall. The one with all the waffle cones on the stand.’
‘Oooh, ice-cream,’ I said wistfully, and he laughed again.
‘Go and do some work and I will buy you one.’
‘It’s a deal,’ I said, and we smiled at each other as though we both somehow recognised something important in the other person. Something far more than a friend. It was a really gorgeous moment.
* * *
I went and sat down next to Anita, shifting slightly so that the tree shaded me from the sunlight.
‘Well, someone’s getting very chummy,’ she said airily, apparently focusing on her painting.
‘Just coffee and a chat,’ I said.
‘Of course it is. You are the talk of the group, did you know that? Dennis says he can’t understand what it is you find to talk about. Or why, when there are so many other things you could be doing.’
I didn’t reply. I just got my sketchbook out and rested it on my knees, took out a 2B pencil and started drawing the outline of the stone trough.
‘And June said she thought you made a nice couple,’ Anita added, ‘and Effie said if she was ten years younger she would give you a run for your money, but she can’t be bothered.’
‘She probably would too,’ I said.
‘Apparently not. Beryl said Effie was talking nonsense because she was always far more attracted to short men who looked a bit dangerous. Not actual hired killers but the sort who might just be wanted by Interpol. And let’s be honest, she would know.’
‘And what does Susan have to say?’
‘She didn’t say anything. She’s gone over there by the shop selling novelty t-shirts because there’s a ginger cat asleep in the sale bin.’
I laughed. ‘I think she would find a cat just about anywhere.’
‘Probably. So what’s going on?’
‘We had a coffee and some orange cake, and a nice talk about how much we have enjoyed this week, even if we haven’t done much work.’
‘And? What about last night and the hot date?’
‘It wasn’t a hot date, and it was very enjoyable. And I think we like each other. He’s had a few difficult years—’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘Just this and that.’
Anita tutted in exasperation. ‘You’re absolutely hopeless.
You still haven’t told us what happened last night and what the meal was like.
And we all want to know but we didn’t want to ask while he was around.
When we get back I am going to tie you to a chair and torture you with – oh, I don’t know – goat’s cheese and pickled onions until you tell me. ’
I giggled. ‘I like pickled onions.’
‘Did the meal go well?’ Anita said impatiently. ‘We were all up on the roof terrace drinking shots and playing I Have Never and waiting for you to come back. And then you didn’t so we just went to bed grumbling.’
‘It was fine, except my meal was much too spicy and that was my fault because I didn’t have my reading glasses and I didn’t understand what the waitress was asking me. And then we went down to a little wine bar at the end of the beach for a nightcap.’
‘And?’
‘And it was lovely.’
There was a pause then as Anita concentrated on her painting.
‘Do you know Dennis was arrested once?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I told you; we were playing that drinking game, I Have Never, and he and Effie both had been.’
I looked up in astonishment. ‘Arrested? What for?’
‘Dennis for taking part in the 1964 Aldermaston marches – Ban the Bomb protests. He said he was put into the back of a Black Maria in handcuffs. But his mother was a magistrate and she knew someone who knew someone and nothing came of it. And Effie was arrested for being drunk in charge of a horse. She was let off with a warning, which her parents thought was ridiculous as her father said he hardly ever went hunting sober. How the other half live, eh?’
‘It sounds as though you had a fun evening,’ I said, trying hard to capture the outline of the geraniums with my pencil.
‘Not as much fun as yours. I think you’re mean not spilling the beans. I told you we Old Ducks cast a web of magic over these occasions. We can’t lose.’
I sighed. ‘And on a scale of none to very unlikely, what are your predictions?’
Anita laughed. ‘Oh, pretty good. We are all very interested to know what’s going on.’
‘Look, tomorrow we will be going back to the airport and flying home. I don’t know what you think can be achieved in one week.’
Anita looked up. ‘You’d be surprised. Has he asked for your phone number or your address?’
‘No,’ I said, slightly uncomfortable that indeed, he hadn’t. And I wasn’t going to make that sort of move. To offer them unprompted.
‘There’s time yet,’ she said, nodding wisely.
‘Don’t be silly.’
I finished the rough outline of my painting and then tipped a bit of my drinking water into my trusty Play-Doh pot and started adding colour.
A dusty grey-green for the leaves, brilliant scarlet tipped with flashes of darker crimson for the flower heads.
Then a pale sandy wash of colour for the trough.
I tried to look with a critical eye and realised it wasn’t really that polished at all, but I liked it. It was something I had created, and it wasn’t as bad as some of the things I had produced since joining the group, so I was pleased with it.
I would take it home and I might even frame it and hang it up somewhere, and every time I looked at it, I would remember sitting here, under a Greek sun, with feelings of optimism and positivity. Two things which had been sadly lacking in my life for far too long.