Chapter 23
At last, we reached the beautiful island of Santorini, where the ship berthed out in the sunlit caldera, presenting us with a wonderful morning view of the craggy cliffs and white houses perched on the top.
Like all the other cruise liners, Avanti was a sizeable ship and it was too big to dock which meant we would have to be ferried to the quay in tenders. Evelyn predicted there would be a bit of a logjam and scramble to get off the ship, and so we had a leisurely breakfast in our cabin while Diana fretted about what to wear. She was looking very bright-eyed that morning, occasionally admiring her new hairstyle in the mirror and even taking the time to properly apply some make-up, not just the usual dab of moisturiser and some mascara.
I meanwhile was sending a long message to Eddy and the boys, along with some more pictures of our adventures, only briefly and casually mentioning the unscheduled overnight drive from Pompeii to Messina. I would undoubtedly tell Eddy the full story when I saw him, and knowing me, embellish it to make it more exciting. Five minutes later I had a reply from my younger son, Luke, which in itself was unheard of. As I read it I started chuckling, and then laughing so much the tears came to my eyes.
Luke
Mum, what on earth are you playing at? Are you ok? The three of you missed the boat and had to get a lift from some random stranger and a man you didn’t know? Are you crazy? What if they had been drunk or turned nasty and you and you friends were robbed? Or drugged? Or been in an accident? Or lost your passports? How would you have got home then? I’m glad it all ended up okay but please be more careful in future. I don’t want to worry about you.
‘What’s so funny?’ Diana said as she tried on another cardigan she had bought in the ship’s shop. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of them already – mostly blue or black but the new one was a bright, lemon yellow; a colour I had not known her to wear since we were children.
I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes. ‘It’s Luke. Being outraged that we missed the ship and got in a car with a stranger. He’s saying all the same things I have said to him and his brother over the years. I’ve got a good mind to reply using the exact words he did. “Duh. Chill Mum, nothing happened. You worry too much.”Ooops here’s another one!’
This time it was from Joe.
Joe
Mum, Luke just told me you missed the ship and had to hitch hike through Italy. Is this true? Does Dad know? Where are you? You’ve got to be more careful.
‘Well at least he didn’t say at your age,’ I said. ‘I’ve a good mind to do what they always do and not reply. Then they’ll know how it feels.’
‘I never knew half the time what Sam was up to or with whom,’ Diana said. ‘He travelled all over the place, hitch hiking with random friends. I think about it now and my blood runs cold. The only time he ever rang me was when he was fifteen, and he had sneaked out and gone to France for the weekend with a couple of his friends from boarding school. They paid for a single room in some terrible place and then all crept in. Of course they were rumbled and the three of them were chucked out at four in the morning. And then they were chased down the street by a policeman, but when he caught them he just handed them back some socks they had dropped on the pavement. I had to transfer some money into Sam’s bank account otherwise he couldn’t have afforded the ferry home. Casper got involved then, and I can assure you, gave the headmaster a right earful.’
‘It will give Luke a taste of his own medicine,’ I said, still chuckling, ‘to imagine his sensible mother having an adventure. Golly, the number of times I had to go out at all hours to rescue him from missed trains and cancelled buses.’
‘Let’s not do that today though,’ Diana said. ‘I’ve had enough excitement for now. And we are booked on a proper coach tour to the Akrotiri excavations, so there should be other people responsible for herding us around. Right, I’m just going to cut the tags off this cardigan and then I’ll be ready to go. Let’s see if Evelyn is coming.’
‘She might want to stay behind and rest her ankle.’
When I suggested it, Evelyn looked outraged at the very idea.
‘I have one of Douglas’s walking sticks, and I shall use that,’ she said.
I weakened in the end and sent a very brief message to my sons, leaving out all the interesting bits and reassuring them I was back where I belonged on the ship. And then I sent them a picture of Genova which I had taken at the ferry, just before she left us.
This provoked an almost instant and predictable reply.
Joe
Who is that? She’s hot.
The tender took us ashore where a coach was waiting for us, plus a young man in baggy cargo pants and a cheesecloth shirt, standing holding up a board with the number 4 clearly displayed.
‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ I muttered. ‘After last time, where he goes, we go.’
The coach took us up the winding road, with a number of alarming hairpin bends which gave us the most wonderful views of the sea below. We could see the bulk of the Avanti, gleaming brightly in the morning sunshine, but reduced now to toy-like scale.
The young man, who was called Enrico and had counted us all on, very seriously, started his commentary.
‘The volcanic eruptions that buried Akrotiri happened about three and a half thousand years ago, was one of the largest eruptions ever known, and created the caldera you see below you. It is believed that the island gave rise to the story of Atlantis. There have been eruptions since, but they were minor. There was some destruction of smaller islands, tsunamis, and fatal gas emissions…’
‘What the heck are we doing here? We are going from one disaster zone to another. I had no idea!’ Diana said.
‘Another ancient city destroyed by a volcanic eruption,’ Evelyn said. ‘Do you think we are pushing our luck?’
‘Ladies, there hasn’t been an eruption here since 1950,’ Enrico said cheerfully. ‘A very long time ago.’
‘Not that long,’ Evelyn murmured.
We got off the coach and walked past some beautifully built stone walls, past a large, canopied cafe, which had Thelma wondering loudly if they should stop for a cold drink. Then on through some wooden doors and into a vast, covered space which resembled an aircraft hangar with huge metal pillars holding up the roof, providing some much-needed shade from the heat of the sun.
There were some outlines of the ancient buildings, choked with piles of stone and ash, heaps of rocks, gently sloping wooden walkways and interesting picture displays to explain what we were seeing. It was marvellous and perhaps we were lucky, but surprisingly, it was not too crowded, and it was strangely quiet, as though people were awed by the ancient devastation in front of them.
Enrico held up his number 4 paddle and we crowded around him. He was knowledgeable, very thorough, in need of a wash and somehow slightly dull.
‘I want to know about the Minoans. Where did they go?’ Diana asked.
‘It’s thought that the tsunami following the eruption here devastated the Minoan settlements on Crete,’ Enrico replied, clearly not pleased to have his flow interrupted.
‘We’re not going to Crete, are we?’ I asked and Evelyn giggled.
‘Not this time, but I am told it’s lovely,’ she said.
We pressed on, Enrico making sense of the scene in front of us, which to me at least, looked little more than ruins, abandoned wine flasks and a fair amount of new, wooden props.
I think after the talk was over, Enrico was looking forward to some time without our questions and went to sit in the shade of the cafe awnings with a rather pretty waitress who had been tossing her hair around and pouting rather obviously in his direction. But after our unexpected adventures in Pompeii, we weren’t letting him out of our sight, and trailed around after him like a fan girl group. Sometimes at a distance but never far away.
‘I wonder what is happening back on the ship?’ Diana said.
We were sitting two tables away from Enrico and his giggling companion, enjoying some icy lemonade, while Enrico swigged beer from a bottle in a way that suggested he was showing off for his admirer. Meanwhile she examined her manicure and twirled the ends of her hair.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ I said at last, having watched their display for a few minutes. ‘Nothing changes really. The young male of the species sprawls all over the chair, being expansive and loud, with large but casual gestures. While she is all twisted up in a knot of insecurity. He is scruffy and needs a shower while she is gorgeous and groomed to within an inch of her life. I feel like going up to her and whispering you can do so much better, but she probably sees him through hormone goggles.’
Diana laughed. ‘Hormone goggles. Is that like beer goggles but worse?’
‘Don’t you remember how it felt? Longing for some spotty oik to pay you attention, or at least be gracious enough to take his gum out before he snogged you behind the bus shelter? Not exactly the behaviour of a gentleman.’
‘In my day you knew a man was a gentleman if he took his hat off in a lift,’ Evelyn said.
We sat and thought about this for a few minutes and then all started laughing.
Across the way, Enrico was fiddling with his phone and the girl was pretending to straighten her apron. Something that involved her standing up and wriggling a great deal.
‘I wouldn’t be young again for all the tea in China,’ Evelyn sighed at last, ‘it’s all too difficult.’
‘So how did you know Douglas was the man for you?’ Diana asked.
Evelyn pursed her lips thoughtfully.
‘He was interested in me, he was respectful, he made me laugh and he had beautiful shoes. That was always something my mother insisted was important.’
‘And he took his hat off in a lift?’ I laughed.
‘Every time,’ Evelyn agreed.
‘And that’s all?’ Diana asked. ‘It was enough to be going on with?’
‘What else does one need? It’s not the big things, like good looks or money, it’s silly little details that clinch the deal. My sister, Wendy, ultimately gave up her job and moved to a sheep station in Australia because she liked the way Bill peeled an orange. What about you, Jill? Why did you fall for Eddy?’
‘He had lovely eyes. Well, he still has unless there has been some terrible patio-accident while I’ve been away,’ I said, ‘and I liked him.’
‘It really isn’t much to go on, is it?’ Diana sighed.
‘I suspect you have Rapha?l in mind,’ Evelyn said.
‘Not at all… well, a bit. I mean I was with Casper for so long, and when he died, I never imagined I would notice another man. But now…’
‘You’re noticing,’ I said, ‘admit it.’
Diana looked away and fidgeted with her shirt buttons.
‘I suppose so. What will Sam think? What will people think? If I say “I’ve met someone on holiday”, will people assume it’s some scammer preying on older women, and it’s only a matter of time before he starts asking for money and Amazon gift cards? When I asked him to come and visit it seemed the easiest thing in the world, but now, we are about to go home and I’m trying to imagine what it would be like if he did turn up at my front door.’
‘I’ll tell you who would mind, a great deal, and that’s your neighbour. Tom would probably blow a fuse. You’d have to start washing out your own recycling bins.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Diana said blushing.
‘Oooh, tell me everything,’ Evelyn said, her eyes bright with interest.
I gave her a potted history of the Tom situation and she listened nodding and asking occasional questions.
At last, she shook her head. ‘The truth is, you find Rapha?l attractive and that doesn’t apply to Tom. Am I right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then there’s no discussion to be had, surely. You can’t continue any sort of relationship out of habit or pity. Everyone needs a bit of a spark in their lives, even someone as old as me. And believe me, that spark will give your life new light and energy. And no, it doesn’t have to be Rapha?l or Tom or any other man for that matter. It might be a new interest, writing that book you were thinking about, travelling more, spending time with your son. You may live for another twenty or thirty years. Do you want to spend it stumbling around in the dark?’
There were no mishaps that day and we followed the herd back onto the coach and returned safely to the ship just in time for what Evelyn described as a little pick-me-up.
She took us to the top of the ship, where there was an open area in the shade of the massive red, white, and blue funnel, and tables and chairs had been set up, shaded by blue parasols.
‘They don’t always do this, and only when the ship is in port because if they did it when we were cruising, there might be a problem with the umbrellas being blown overboard. Isn’t this nice?’ she said. ‘Ah, there’s dear Costas coming to serve us. Such a nice man. His daughter dances at the Folies Bergères in Paris. Now what shall we have?’
After some discussion we had champagne cocktails and exquisite little cakes on a flowery stand.
‘I can’t believe tomorrow will be our last day,’ Diana said sadly. ‘We will miss you, Evelyn.’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ Evelyn said kindly, ‘and I’m so glad to have met you both. Perhaps we will meet again. You never know.’
Somehow, I doubted we would. And I was suddenly sad at the thought. She was considerably older than we were, and yet she was still a force to be reckoned with. She had not retreated from the world, she was still very much in it and intended to remain so.
‘I hope you have a wonderful time with Wendy,’ Diana said, raising her glass in salute.
‘Oh, don’t you worry, I will. I’ve decided that there are good things about every situation,’ she said, ‘yes, even missing the ship in Naples. We had an adventure didn’t we, a few laughs and some experiences we hadn’t expected. And it all worked out in the end, that’s the important part. I’ll give you a bit of advice, the world is full of kind people. They just don’t make it into the news. And exciting and outrageous things can happen at any time.’