Love, Lies and Lemon Cake

by Sue Watson

  Our days were spent by pools, on beaches, in bars and our evenings clapping the sunset like kids at a magic show. I had never felt such freedom, such happiness—golden days in every sense of the word.

  One night we climbed onto a rooftop with other tourists. ‘I want to see it from close range, get even closer to it,’ Dan joked. He was laughing and clambering up higher but I was scared and wanted him to stop.

  ‘Don’t, Dan...’

  He either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to and kept going higher, holding on with one hand and waving with the other. He was calling me and laughing but I couldn’t look. I felt physically sick and just wanted him to stop.

  Here on the island I was seeing the free, wild side of Dan even more. Here was the exciting, dangerous guy who hung out of taxi windows on treacherous roads and swung precariously over rooftops. Later, as we lay together in bed, I told him how much he’d scared me.

  ‘Faye... I was fine up there. The view was amazing. I wish you would do stuff like that with me.’

  I shook my head. ‘I know I’ve changed in the past few months, and I’ve learned a lot about myself that’s surprised me, but... I’m someone’s mother and mothers don’t take risks.’

  ‘You are someone’s mother...’ He nodded slowly, thinking about what he was going to say next. ‘But... you’re also you, Faye Dobson; you’re also no one’s wife, no one’s mother—just you. Don’t forget that.’

  * * *

  Nick or Ben would bring girls back occasionally, always young, always pretty, always different girls. They’d hang around in thongs and tiny T-shirts complaining of the heat oiling their perfect bodies and planning the night ahead.

  ‘Those girls are a constant reminder to me of my age and how it’s okay for a thirty-something man to sleep with a twenty-something woman, but not the other way round,’ I sighed.

  ‘Why not? We sleep together,’ he said. ‘You’re almost ten years older than me and it’s the best relationship I’ve ever had.’

  I was touched.

  ‘I’ve told you, Faye—stop with the comparisons... no one is judging you but yourself.’

  He was right.

  ‘I just think those thongs are a bit much in polite company,’ I said to Dan one day, sounding like my mother as we sat on the balcony. The girls were wandering around with their bottoms on view and the old Faye wasn’t impressed. ‘I would hate to think Emma was walking around like that.’

  ‘What’s wrong with thongs?’ he said, looking up from his book. ‘You should get some...’

  ‘No... I couldn’t. I mean I just don’t have the bottom for them.’

  ‘Really? Does that matter?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean they show off your bum, don’t they?’

  ‘Do they... I’d never really thought about it.’ He smiled and went back to his book and I rolled my eyes in disbelief.

  It wasn’t until a few days later it became hilariously apparent that thongs to Aussies are what flip flops are to the rest of the world. It had been lost in translation—another reminder that Dan and I were from different worlds, and though we didn’t always need words, sometimes we needed a phrase book.

  The only thing I wasn’t relaxed about was Gabby, who had started to pop her head round our bedroom door to say hi and even sometimes wandered in for ‘a chat’ with Dan. He took this in his stride, once discussing some bloody book they’d both read while sitting bare-chested with only a towel around him. This gave me mixed feelings because I felt invaded and, yes, I’ll admit, territorial, yet as she was in ‘my room’, I hoped she might acknowledge me. I wanted us to be friends; she was clearly the lynchpin here and Dan was close to her, and it would make life so much easier for me if she included me in her conversations now and then.

  Gabby shopped for food, bought beer and told the loudest jokes and was clearly comfortable in men’s company. I envied her ease and natural confidence as she floated round the apartment in a tiny bikini, her childlike hips swaying, her eyes giving everyone the come on. I tried to be mature, but couldn’t help resenting the way she used her relationship with the guys in the house to make me feel out in the cold. I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or just insensitive, but her behaviour around me always caused a twist of hurt.

  Whenever we were all together, Gabby would suddenly recall ‘a day at the beach’ they’d all shared as teenagers, or a mutual friend from ‘back home’. I was interested in Dan’s past; it was part of him, and though I wasn’t part of the story, I listened with interest and would try to join in, but she didn’t acknowledge me. It wasn’t overt, which is what made it harder to handle, and I told myself I was being stupid, but I felt she was deliberately excluding me, almost goading me to cause a scene. Gabby was a man’s woman and whether or not it was about Dan, or about me, the facts were she didn’t want another princess in her tower.

  * * *

  One evening we joined the others for drinks. I had consistently made an effort to get to know them all, but it was hard to penetrate the group, and after a few half-hearted questions I decided to just relax and enjoy their company. No one asked anything of me so I just smiled and joined in when required. The guys were drinking shots and singing, and even if the old Faye couldn’t help but think it bordered on silliness, the new one appreciated their energy and the fact they were young, and happy with no worries. I got the feeling Ben had a thing for Gabby and she knew it; he looked at her a lot and laughed at everything she said (and trust me, she wasn’t funny). She, meanwhile, would smile awkwardly at me now and then and, after a couple of glasses of wine, I sensed a slight thawing. So when she went to the toilets, I went too. I was hoping to chat and perhaps even get her on side a little.

  ‘I love your lipstick,’ I said, hearing myself and cringing. I sounded like a ten-year-old—why was I even bothering with this girl? It was a tiny bathroom and I was definitely crowding her.

  I was giving her a last chance before I gave up completely and declared indifference, or war. We were squashed so close at the minute sink and mirror, she had no choice but to respond, we were almost touching.

  ‘It’s a lovely shade of red,’ I tried again, determined to make her acknowledge me.

  ‘I bought it in Italy earlier this year. Dan told me I had to buy it because it looked so hot on me,’ she sighed, unsmiling. She continued to apply it slowly, widening her lips to fill with colour... I wondered how many times he’d kissed those lips and if he would again. Her arms were bare, beautifully bronzed and slightly muscular—she obviously worked out—and with those tiny hips I doubted she’d ever had her chops round Dan’s lemon cakes.

  ‘You and Dan were... together weren’t you, when you left Oz?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘very much so. Would you like some?’

  ‘Oh...?’

  I wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to—then I saw she was proffering the lipstick, which wasn’t my colour at all, but I felt it might help the bonding process so I thanked her and applied it to my own lips while watching her discreetly. She was about eight years older than Emma and the mother in me wanted to cajole and bring her round, but the woman wanted to tell her to keep off my man.

  I applied the lipstick. ‘It’s red on me... very red,’ I said, pouting uncertainly.

  ‘Hot young starlet,’ she sighed.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I look that good...’

  ‘I’m not... It’s the name of the lipstick.’

  ‘Oh. It’s a bit tarty, isn’t it? On me, I mean... it isn’t tarty on you... at all. I always think red lipstick demands perfect features... you have to be a supermodel to wear red. Not that I’m saying you’re not attractive... well, you’re not technically a super... model, but that’s not to say... I mean...’

  I jammed the lipstick to my mouth to stop myself talking I could only imagine the insults my subconscious would unleash under that kind of stress. Putting the lipstick on in the mirror and seeing the two of us, side by side, the comparison was cruel. Her face was smal
l and smooth, her hair golden and silky, while my face next to hers was big and pasty, my hair wasn’t sun-kissed as I’d thought; it was beach-wrecked. Meanwhile, the red lipstick was less ‘hot young starlet’ and more ‘cold old tartlet’.

  I stared at us both in the mirror and so did she, and we were probably thinking the same thing—that my face looked like the Fun House mirror version of hers. I thought again about Dan kissing her perfect lips, which made me feel even more anxious.

  ‘He’s a lovely guy, Dan,’ I said, handing the tube back to her. ‘I know it’s not forever... I mean, he and I are together now, but I know we can’t be... together forever. Well, we won’t, I mean...’ I don’t know why I felt the need to explain myself to her, but I wanted to gauge her reaction.

  She put her head down. Ah so I was right; she was in love with him.

  ‘Whatever.’ She snapped her bag closed. ‘It would never last in the real world. It’s just a weird summer fling... I mean, you’re so much older...’

  I was taken aback. She was looking at me waiting for a response, trying to measure the pain she’d just inflicted and we both let it hang there for a few seconds.

  At that moment, two drunken girls fell into the toilets and as it was so small we were forced to leave or join them on the floor. I truly wanted to push her head into the door and kick her hard on those long, bronze legs, but I resisted and stood back for her to walk on. She nodded, without smiling, and we walked back into the bar with fresh scarlet smiles plastered across our faces. I would let her have that one—but she’d just declared war in that toilet. Yes, I was older—and that’s where I had the advantage, because in my longer life I’d met her kind a million times and she wouldn’t get the better of me.

  As the evening wore on and the drink flowed, I felt easier in their company and tried not to think about what she’d said. She was a mean girl and I wasn’t going to let her ruin any more time on the island by allowing her to torture me.

  Throughout the evening, Dan held my hand, or rested it on my thigh, a sign we were together, not just a fling—a real couple in the real world. I appreciated the way Nick and Ben had finally begun to acknowledge I was part of Dan’s life and, though it was recent, we had our own, short history. ‘Faye, you must have heard about the time Dan almost drowned when his surfboard shot up in the air over the waves without him and knocked him out—he was in intensive care for weeks?’ And ‘Faye, don’t you think Dan’s jokes are corny?’

  I felt like I was meeting a brand new Dan all over again. This wasn’t Dan from the deli who discussed over-ripe cheeses, fine wines and Jane Eyre; this one was less guarded, more animated. With his friends he spoke passionately of riding waves, chasing girls, and playing in bands, and it seemed their lives had been spent on beaches and in bars, drinking, laughing and basting in the Aussie sun.

  I squeezed Dan’s hand. I was having a wonderful time and didn’t want the night to end.

  We left the others around midnight and walked back slowly down the cobbled streets to the villa, arm in arm, stopping every now and then for a drunken kiss. I sighed, gazing at the shop windows, the faded hippy blankets and scarves hanging from doorways like a throwback from the sixties. I wondered how many people, over the hundreds of years, had walked those streets above the turquoise Aegean... imagining where their life and love might take them.

  We turned into the road of our villa. It was quieter here and no one was around. Dan leaned towards me and we began to kiss, him gently pushing me against a whitewashed wall. It was cool on my back and I wanted him to make love to me.

  ‘Dan... let’s go swimming,’ I heard myself say.

  He laughed and nodded, grabbing my hand. We were suddenly running down through the town. It was late but the bars were still open, people still wandering arm in arm through the streets. I had known he wouldn’t turn me down. Sue had said Sagittarians were instinctive, they acted on impulse and Dan definitely did. There was no question about lateness or safety or how we would reach the sea. He’d just taken my hand and set off.

  After a short run, I demanded we walk the rest of the way to the sea and after about ten minutes we arrived in Goulas, a small fishing village close to Oia.

  ‘How far is it now?’ I asked, already tired from the walk and the lateness and wondering at the wisdom of my impulsive idea.

  ‘Only another 200 steps,’ he laughed, guiding me down into the darkness towards the beach.

  We landed on the beach, which was more ‘public’ than I’d envisaged, with several little tavernas nearby. He began to strip but I got cold feet.

  ‘We can’t—people might see us,’ I said, still a bit tipsy and giggling nervously.

  ‘That’s the point,’ he laughed. ‘Come on—even if you don’t take your clothes off, you’re going in.’ He hugged me, gently wrestling me to the ground and reaching under my T-shirt, discreetly caressing my breast. He slowly pulled off my T-shirt, then jeans and underwear, and though there were one or two people on the beach, we ran hand in hand into the ocean, naked.

  I felt so alive, so bad; I’d never done anything like that—and though it was on my living list, it was more of a dare than a dream. Under the stars, in the blackness of the night sea, we swam together, moving close, holding each other, then apart, swirling around like a dance. Unable to resist, the next time we came together, I wrapped my legs around his waist and there in the sea after midnight, in full view of the tavernas, we made love. It was dark and warm and exciting. And it was just our secret.

  * * *

  The following day, the others announced they were leaving Santorini to go island hopping and then head back home to Australia from whatever island they were on when they felt like it. I was delighted, especially as Dan shared my feelings, saying he was glad for us to be able to have alone time at the apartment before we eventually said our goodbyes.

  The evening before they left, we all played poker on the balcony together. I didn’t know how to play so just sat next to Dan, rubbing his back and urging him on blindly, but Gabby was a card shark; she knew all the moves and took great delight in beating everyone. The other guys were impressed and showed it with high fives and admiring glances, but Dan took it in his stride, shaking his head as he shuffled the cards. At one point Gabby smiled triumphantly and stared straight at Dan. For a moment I wondered what she would say, but she didn’t say anything, just lifted his beer bottle, never taking her eyes from his, and took a long swig. I felt a little chill go through me and, as she slammed down the bottle and put both arms around Ben, she shot me a look.

  I turned away. She was a child demanding attention and I was a grown-up who knew how to treat mean, naughty little girls. The old Faye would have felt insecure and allowed her to walk all over me; I’d have handed Dan to her on a plate, scared of conflict and confrontation. But the new Faye could see through a girl like Gabby. I wasn’t playing silly games, I was too old and my time here with him was too short for that.

  She continued to be loud and boisterous for the rest of the evening and later, when Dan had gone to the kitchen for more beers, she wandered over and sat next to me. She was quite tipsy and, though I still didn’t like her, I thought she may be offering the olive branch and smiled as she sat down.

  ‘I’ll move when he comes back,’ she said, slurring slightly. ‘I know how you like to have him next to you.’

  I ignored this.

  Then she leaned in and said in a very low voice, ‘I’m not being funny... but you’re not his usual type. He always goes for young blondes...’

  ‘Well, perhaps he’s changed his mind since he met me and realised he needs a real woman,’ I said, without smiling.

  She looked at me, angry I hadn’t shown pain or weakness, and she was now planning what to say next. She’d been hurt by Dan and she wanted to hurt me, but I was stronger than I’d ever been in my life. I wasn’t filled with self-doubt about my life, my looks and my age anymore, knowing what I was truly capable of and that Dan found me sexy and fun.
>
  ‘It won’t last, you know... you’re too old for him,’ she spat quietly, under her breath. ‘He loves sex, you’ll never keep up, he couldn’t get enough when we were together, couldn’t keep his hands off me,’ a look of hatred and sheer defiance now on her face. She was waiting for my response. I didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just sipped my drink, put it down on the table, leaned towards her and whispered in her ear.

  ‘Babe. I’m forty-two. I don’t have a problem with it, but for some reason you do. And what you need to know is that in those forty-two years, I’ve learned a lot. Now, one of the most important lessons I learned is how to look after my man. And, girlfriend, as you brought the subject up, I have to tell you, the hot bedroom action Dan’s getting with me is... he says the best EVER... did you get that? EVER!’

  I sipped my drink like nothing had happened and gazed around, an easy smile on my face. She was stunned. She never expected that from me. Her face gave little away but the fact she got up quietly and walked over to sit on Ben’s knee said it all.

  Later, when we were in bed, Dan said, ‘Hey I saw you and Gabby chatting tonight. Shame it happened the night before she goes, but I knew she’d love you once she got to know you—everyone does.’

  ‘Yeah, I think she understands me now.’ I smiled in the darkness.

  19

  FILM STARS AND ROOFTOPS AND SANTORINI’S HEART

  The others left early the next morning and Dan and I waved goodbye and went straight back to bed. I was so relieved we now had the apartment to ourselves for as long as we wanted it. We could wander around half-dressed and wouldn’t have to suppress any sounds of ecstasy when we made love anymore.