by Lynn Freed
ALL THE WAY BACK UP the hill, I thanked God for the waning of desire. Twenty or even ten years earlier, I wouldn’t have tried to talk myself out of stopping with him at the hotel, as he was now asking me to do, so awful would have been my terror of regret if I did not. The offer (“What about trying out a siesta at the hotel?”) was rather low in desire itself, and my laughing refusal seemed to put an easy end to it.
Anyway, I already felt as if I’d betrayed them all, Gladdy included, just by going off with him. What would I tell them when I returned? How could I just saunter back in as if nothing had happened? Especially when nothing really had happened?
But then, when we reached the hotel, he turned to me quite soberly and said, “Ruth, could you bear to come in with me?”
“That’s not the right question,” I said, parrying for time. But, oh God, with his soft voice and puzzled frown the old terror of regret was, indeed, taking hold of me.
“We could just lie there and listen to the pigeons,” he said, smiling.
At least, I thought, he isn’t stupid enough to say, “We’re neither of us children, my dear.” Still, the fact hung between us unsaid, making an absurdity of my reluctance.
I switched off the car and climbed out.
“Look,” I said as soon as we were closed into his room. “For every sort of reason I think this is a mistake—”
He held up a hand. “Give me a minute,” he said. Then he disappeared into the bathroom.
This sort of situation, I thought, must be habitual with him. And yet to dash off now like a child would be ridiculous. On the other hand, to stay and opt for listening to pigeons? I walked onto the balcony to look at them and, yes, there they were, cooing along the ledges, and then, suddenly, the whole flock of them swooping out and down into the valley. The fact was, I decided, there really was nothing romantic about two adults around seventy in a hotel room, never mind the Ikarians or the glamorized ads in cruise brochures. Sex made most sense when it was at its most thoughtless, most urgent, most dangerous. And when it carried with it the chance of a child.
Perhaps, I thought, cheering up, I’ll do a column on that, although Amy will doubtless want the LGBT-etc. crowd included, which would make nonsense of the whole idea—
And that’s when he came up behind me, smelling of soap and toothpaste, and took me by the shoulders. Thank God, I thought, turning to face him—thank God Gripp is dead and never, not in this life or the next, will I have to write another sex scene.
* * *
WHEN I WALKED BACK INTO the house, it was as if into a hold-up. There, in the middle of the room, stood a tall, bleached, large-breasted maenad in four-inch heels. And she was wielding what looked like a ten-inch scimitar. “Come in!” she shrieked. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
Wendy. Even if I hadn’t seen the photograph of her Dania had shown me, I’d have known her by the breasts and the nails and the appallingly puffed-out lips. I tried catching Dania’s eye, but Wendy stepped between us. “You!” she said, flourishing the scimitar at me. “You’ll tell me what you want to say to Dania!”
I glanced toward the window seat. Usually Bess left her mobile on the little table next to it, and, yes, there it was, blinking. “Bess,” I said as lightly as I could, “you have a message.”
“Oh, Rex,” she said vaguely. “A few minutes ago.”
Rex?
She smiled triumphantly, reaching back for the phone, but Wendy was too quick for her. She clipped across, amazingly agile in those heels, snatched it up, walked to the French doors, and lobbed it into the spa.
“What is going on?” I whispered quickly.
But not quickly enough. Wendy was back between Dania and me. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she said, baring a set of frighteningly white teeth. “Do you think I am so stupid?”
“I don’t think of you at all as a matter of fact,” I said coolly. The afternoon with Rex had worked me into a sort of collapse, body and spirit, and all I wanted was a glass of wine and some silence to think back over it. Standing there, I was thinking it over anyway, deciding that, if I wrote it for a Gripp, I’d be able to describe the ease he’d arrived at as a lover of women—not so much in practicing his charms as in delighting in the gift of them, nothing of Pilates in any of it. To be more specific than that would be to risk squeamishness in the reader, particularly for those who, like me, find nothing charming in descriptions of body parts.
“Do you know who I am?” Wendy demanded, stepping right in front of me. “Do you know?”
“I know you’ve been a damned nuisance,” I said. Knife or no knife, this was becoming ridiculous.
“And is this a nuisance, too?” She waved the knife at me. She was breathing hard now, and her breath was foul.
With a lot of luck she’ll have a heart attack, I thought, although it was hard to put an age to her with all the work she’d had done. Fiftyish? Sixty? Impossible to tell.
“Ruth,” said Bess, “if anyone phones you, please tell them this creature has drowned my phone. I’m going down to my room.”
Wendy wheeled around then. “You’re not going anywhere!” she shrieked, lunging with the knife.
Had Gladdy not walked in then, back from vespers, Wendy might truly have hooked it into Bess. But, as it was, she wheeled round on Gladdy, who, with the instincts of a fencer, raised her Bible to shield herself, and the knife clattered to the floor. When Wendy stooped to pick it up, Gladdy was too quick for her, stamping down on the flat blade with all her weight.
“You!” screamed Wendy, clawing at Gladdy with the nails.
Bess was the first to land on her, hurling all her considerable weight against her back. And then I ran forward to grab her by the hair. It was slick, like silk, and strands of it were coming off in my hands.
“Aiii!” she screamed. “My extensions!”
“Dania!” I shouted. “For God’s sake! Don’t just stand there!”
She came forward then as if, until I’d suggested it, the thought of doing something about the lunatic she’d brought into our lives hadn’t occurred to her. She went to stand over Wendy, speaking to her in the calm, low, purring voice she used on her regulars. And, as she spoke, Wendy seemed to lose some of her starch, curling her head and shoulders down like a caterpillar.
“You stopped taking them again, am I right?” Dania was saying softly, stroking what was left of her hair.
“Yes,” Wendy whispered, eyes on the floor. “Yes, Dania.”
I watched in silence, and so did Bess. Even Gladdy, keeping her foot firmly on the knife, seemed intrigued by Dania’s performance.
“Okay,” said Dania at last, turning calmly to me. “We will be going now for a drive, Wendy and me. There is in the car gas?”
* * *
à gg, Greece
Put three women together on a Greek island, and sooner or later they are going to be laughing about sex. Dania, for instance. The other night, as we all sat out on the veranda under the stars, she came up with her chicken-and-goat analogy. “On and on until you think, better to be a goat or a chicken!” she said.
And we laughed, of course, because which of us, especially at our age, hasn’t had such an experience? And which of us, said Bess, didn’t take it personally?
Well, Dania, as it turned out. Not with the chicken-and-goat man (“He has with intelligent women this problem”), and not with the Sephardic policeman who liked his women as fat as a house (“He has the soul of an Arab”).
Even Bess laughed at this. What she can’t stand, she says, are gymnastics—this position, that position, turn around, stand up, etc. That’s how her last lover was, she says, and you’d think she’d be in shape after this, but that’s not the way it works.
Until I actually met her last lover, I took these tales of gymnastics on faith, putting them together with Bess’s theory on fatness and men. But now that I’ve met him—he arrived the way they all seem to be arriving: without warning—I can’t help thinking that if he was a gymn
ast with Bess, it was surely because he had to be.
But please—please!—before you all write in to tell us how thrilling you find gymnastics or even chicken-and-goat endurance tests, just consider the lilies of the field.
And kalispera to all of you.
* * *
Ruth, dear, we can’t, of course, have any Arab-bashing, and the ending doesn’t work at all. Perhaps you’re still thinking DGMS? I’m not even going to show this one to Amy until you’ve fixed it. Also, very snarky about Bess. What’s going on there? Could we please return to some local color? Recipes? Pretty please? Sxx
* * *
I’m rather confused, Stacey—snark or no snark? First, Amy says she wants something to shake the readers up, and you want recipes? What’s going on there? Rxx
* * *
DINNERTIME CAME AND WENT and still Dania didn’t return.
“Think that Wendy murdered her?” Bess said vaguely.
I was worried about just this. What if the woman had a gun in her bag? And had forced Dania onto the ferry? Or worse? “I suppose Dania knows what she’s doing,” I said.
“Dania?” cried Bess. “That’s just the trouble. She’s so bloody sure of herself she probably thinks she can talk the devil down from the tree.”
“I keep something for Miss Dani?” said Gladdy, looking in from the kitchen.
“Why’re you still so dressed up?” said Bess.
Gladdy pressed her lips together. They played this game constantly—Bess demanding answers, Gladdy keeping her secrets. It was becoming tiresome.
“Think I should call Dinny?” Bess said. “Trouble is, the wife is back from wherever she went to.”
I shook my head. “What could he do anyway? Scan the whole island? We’re just going to have to wait.”
“Glad, you go to bed,” Bess said. “Ruth and I will wake you if we need you.”
When she was gone, we sat in silence—Bess clicking away at her laptop and me in a swoon at last, thinking over the afternoon.
After a while, she looked up. “If it weren’t for the voice, I’d say that Wendy was a trannie.”
“I know. But she’s a she.”
“How do you know?”
“She has a son, also psychotic. And she had an affair with Amos.”
“What?”
Before I could even regret blurting this out, a key turned in the front door and Dania was standing before us, her shoes in her hand.
“What happened?” we both asked at once. Her eyes and hair were wild, quite as wild as Wendy’s.
I got up and went over to her. “Come and sit down,” I said. “Shall I bring you some supper? Where’s Wendy?”
She let me lead her to her chair and then sat there, staring straight ahead.
“Miss Dani?” Gladdy called up.
“Go back to bed, Glad!” Bess shouted. “She’s home. She’s fine.”
“Coffee?” I said. Dania drank coffee like water, and had even bought a percolator when we’d first arrived, keeping it going the way she did at home, day and night.
For a while, she just sipped at the mug, saying nothing. But then she looked up and said, “She fell from the cliff. She’s gone.”
“What?” said Bess. “Which cliff?”
But Dania just stared down into the empty mug now.
“Where were you?” I asked gently. “Which part of the island?”
“We took back from the restaurant that quick cut,” she said.
“Shortcut?” said Bess.
“Over the mountain,” she said, “where once we walked.”
“That goat path?”
She nodded. “There were goats.”
“So what happened?” Bess said.
“I would like another cup of coffee, please, Ruthi.” And this time she did look up. She looked so long and hard at me that I knew she had more to say, but wouldn’t say it until we were alone.
Bess followed me into the kitchen. “There’s something fishy going on,” she whispered. “Why isn’t she calling the police?”
Of course there was something fishy. “Daniushka,” I said, bringing her the coffee, “we should call the police. What’s Wendy’s surname?”
She looked up sharply. “Who wants to know her name?”
“The police will want to know. Someone’s going to have to look for her.”
“The police?” she said, suddenly alive. “Why the police?”
“Because,” said Bess, “Wendy has fallen off a cliff. She may be dead.”
“Tompkins,” Dania said. “With a P.”
Bess went to stand in front of her. “Listen,” she said, “we should phone the police right now.” It was the closest I’d ever seen her come to righteousness. “Or, at least, we should phone Dinny.”
But Dania just looked at her watch. “Already it’s ten o’clock,” she said. “You are going now to phone your taxi driver and make trouble for him?”
“Well, what do you propose?” said Bess.
“Go!” Dania said. “Go ahead! Phone him!”
“Agh,” said Bess. “This is impossible. I’m going to bed.”
As soon as she was gone, Dania got up and beckoned me to her room. There she closed the door, pulled off her sweater, and held out her naked arms. They were bleeding, scored shoulder to wrist with deep oozing scratches.
“Good God!” I whispered. “What happened?”
“I need for them anti-skeptic,” she said. “And look here—here she bit me.” She turned her left hand over, and, yes, I could see tooth marks at the base of her thumb.
“All we have is ouzo,” I said. “I’ll fetch it.”
“Ruthi,” she said when I returned with the bottle, “I will drink some first. It will help with the shock.” She took a long swig, grimacing like a child, then poured it over her arms, wincing as she did. Then she lay back on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. “It is worse than poison this uzi,” she said, slurring the words.
For the first time in her life, she was drunk.
* * *
à gg, Greece
There is a track, really a goat path, that we walk on. It is particularly wonderful when the wildflowers are out, as they are now. But, like so many wildflowers, these wilt almost immediately when cut. There’s a metaphor to be found in most ephemera, I suppose, particularly for women of our age. But none of us cares much for such metaphors—I can’t bear lessons from nature; Dania says it’s people she’s interested in; and Bess doesn’t know what a metaphor is and has no interest in finding out.
Still, making my way up the goat path, I stop to admire the view. Poppies, anemones, buttercups, chamomile, daisies, thistles—never mind my aversion to lessons, I can’t help thinking, standing there, that, at seventy, if I have ten good years left, I will consider myself lucky. I decide that, from now on, I shall train my mind out of its lassitude and refuse to throw even an hour of my time away.
When I announce this at dinner one evening, Dania says, For this you must practice great vigilance. This astonishes me, not because what she says is so obviously true, but because it had not been obvious to me before. Practicing vigilance, clearly, is an essential first step. The next is arming oneself against the disappointment of others. It is this, perhaps, that I find the most difficult.
But why? Why does the disappointment of another, even another of little account, have such power to muzzle and chain the free will? This, says Dania, can be traced back to childhood (a formula she seems to apply to almost anything, including constipation). Still, I am no longer a child, and certainly understand the gratification of praise. Is it gratification, then, that has me handing over my time as if it has no value? Is it this that had me agreeing to talk to a group of aspiring writers at the English bookshop next week, unable to disappoint even the unpleasant owner, who affects such a superiority to detective fiction? And all because, for once, she’d managed to smile as she asked?
I don’t know, I’ll probably never know. But I decide that, the next time I walk
up the goat path, I’ll try to consider the lilies of the field. And take a lesson from them.
* * *
AS IT TURNED OUT, WENDY had, indeed, fallen off a cliff. Dania had pushed her. This didn’t come out all at once, of course. First I had to hear of the drive around the coastal road to the little tourist restaurant on the other side of the island. “All the way,” said Dania, “I talked, she listened like a baby.”
“Daniushka,” I said, “please tell me exactly what happened.” We were on her bed, propped up side by side on pillows.
She sighed. “At first she was calm, eating like a pig, which she is, and drinking, too.”
“And then?”
“When we were drinking coffee I told her she must not again come to the house, she was breaking our rules.”
“So?”
“So then she starts again screaming, there in the restaurant. Rules? What rules? she shouts. She’s going to do this and tell that—crazy things, the usual. So I said, Wendy, you must take your medication—she is, of course, psychotic—but, I should have known it, this question was driving her even more crazy. She starts throwing the dishes, there in the restaurant. So finally I said, Come, Wendy, come. Now we are going.”
“And you drove up the goat path?”
She nodded. “I wanted a place totally uninhibited.”
“But what about that farmhouse? What about that dog?”
“No dogs, no people where I stopped. Just goats.”
“Dania, how on earth did you maneuver the car up there?”
“I am good with such roads.”
“In a tank perhaps, not a Fiat.”
This she waved off. “There is still uzi?”
I handed her the bottle.
“While we were driving, she was quiet again like a baby because she was frightened we would be rolling over. But when I got to the top, before even I have put on the brake, she’s climbing out, running up and down like a mad person, screaming, ‘Help! Help!’ So, I jumped out, too. Meanwhile, the car is rolling over the edge because I forgot the brake. And she comes to greb me, scretching like a cat, so I greb her—oy, Ruthi,” she said. “I don’t feel so good. The room is turning. I am going now to throw up.”
I helped her to her feet and she staggered to the bathroom, where I heard her retching, gargling, cleaning her teeth.