by Carol Mason
‘Why?’
‘I wondered that myself. Obviously she’s got a persecution complex.’
I tut at her. ‘We’re not seeing him tonight I hope.’
She plonks down on the bed, suddenly looking drained of colour. ‘You’re right. We’re not.’
‘Oh…’ Now I’m disappointed.
She starfishes her arms and legs, and blows a content, partially tired sigh. ‘Because he’s got a date.’
‘A date?’ I throw up my arms. ‘What? With another granny?’
She turns her face to mine. And I can tell that we are not playing anymore. ‘That’s really not very nice… It’s a sad reflection on you, Angela, if you’ve got to keep making disparaging remarks to your mother like that. A sad reflection.’
Now I feel rotten.
~ * * * ~
Rather than use the payphone in the hotel lobby, where I can be seen and heard, I find a call box up on the main street and ring Sherrie and bawl tears. ‘I don’t know what my problem is, Sher! One minute I’m fine, like I’ve passed some hump in the road. Then I’m odious.’ I gasp for breath. ‘I’m so mean! I dragged my mother on a holiday only to spoil her fun at every turn.’ I rub the pain in my head. ‘I’m so screwed up. Here I am leaving in three days, and I’m upset because there’s a very happily married Englishman who I’m never going to see again! And then there’s Georgios. I don’t know where I stand with this man. ‘
‘Errr… hang on. Is that the really rational one that sends you on a date with your dead husband?’
In spite of myself, I smile. ‘The very same.’ I sniff up and scrounge in my bag looking for a tissue to blow my nose.
There’s a long pause, where, for a moment, I think she’s gone off the line. ‘Christ. You’re desperately searching for a man, Ange… It’s like you’ve gone there on a mission to find one and you’re grasping at anything that comes by. Why?’
‘I—I don’t know,’ I stammer, vaguely insulted now. I really do not see myself as doing this. ‘Anyway, Sherrie, you do it all the time. Maybe it’s the popular pastime of singles and widows.’
‘But the difference is there’s an odour of desperation to you. I can smell it from here, and we’re not even in the same country.’
‘There is?’
‘Um-hum. Hang on….. I’m whiffing up….’ She pretends to cough. ‘Let me get out the Febreez.’
‘I’m not desperately searching for somebody, Sherrie, I’m really not.’
Am I though? If she is right, it feels horribly un-feminist, yet a tiny bit like progress. ‘In any case, I don’t believe you find people just by looking… After all, you never do. My belief is that the right people show up when you least expect them. Like that Roger I went out with, remember? He came along—possibly the right guy but the wrong time for me.’
‘Are you still convinced Jonathan is up there trying to help?’
‘No! Of course not. That was just wishful thinking. I mean I don’t think I am.’
She groans. ‘Oh, you had to add that last bit!’
‘But Sher, you have to consider that… well, it is possible that Jonathan has sent me Georgios for a holiday romance. I mean, a teeny weeny little bit possible. I know you think the idea’s ridiculous, but there’s something about Georgios that’s different from anybody I’ve ever met… ‘
‘But there is another possibility too. Isn’t there?’
‘There is?’
‘That maybe Jonathan has sent you nobody, Ange, Because Jonathan can’t send you anybody. Because Jonathan is dead!’ She has that triple-exclamation exasperation in her voice by the end there.
‘This conversation is starting to feel like old ground.’
There’s a frustrated pause. ‘You know, in Ouch-ya-eet-ma-arma, off the coast of Papua New Guinea—’
‘Not another penis-eating story!’
Pause. ‘No! Could it possibly be?’
I sigh. ‘Go on then.’
‘The Nibbils tribe perform a nightly ritual of beating their drums and dancing to ward off unseen spirits. They do this from the day they are old enough to stand, to the day they die.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. That’s it. The point I’m making is that even people who can’t read, can’t write, and go around eating each other, still have enough common sense to want to keep a sizeable difference between themselves and the afterlife… Because there’s something damned spooky about it man! So I wish you’d get the whole idea out of your head!’ She does a noisy shudder. ‘Ange,’ her voice turns serious now. ‘I’m just saying that maybe you’d be better off believing that nobody is gonna send you anybody. Maybe if you’re waiting around for Jonathan to send you somebody you’re using that as an excuse to not go out and find somebody yourself.’
I don’t know what to say. Which is okay, because she’s still talking.
‘Angela baby. I have some serious, one-time-only, take-it-or-leave-it advice for you…. Here it is. Are you ready? Drum-roll… Maybe you should give yourself a bit of a break hun.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, stop thinking in terms of soul mates and lost loves and happy ever afters, and allow yourself to have a bit of fun. You are allowed, and furthermore, what you’ve been through means you’re entitled to it. So… if you’re so convinced that Jonathan has sent you a lover, and Georgios is that lover, then my advice is go for it.’
‘And?’
‘Shag him senseless. There’s not much time left.’
Eleven
When I return to the room, Mam says that Georgios rang and invited us to his house for dinner tonight, which feels like telepathy to me. Another definite sign. I find that once you tune yourself into this cosmic forces business it’s really quite good.
‘I thought he had a date.’
‘I think he cancelled it to spend time with us—or more like, with you, because he never got to see you earlier. He was awfully keen to know if you were back.’ She watches me closely. ‘I told him I was exhausted after being up so early. So I said you’d go on your own.’
‘Is this some sort of scheme? The Vivien I know would rather chew her own toes off that admit she’s too tired to go out for dinner with somebody like gorgeous Georgios.’
‘How little you know me… Actually, if the truth be told, I really am feeling tired.’
‘Are you okay?’ I stop tarting myself up in the mirror, and scrutinise her.
‘Just ready to sit and have a bit of peace and quiet.’
Her eyes look sore and almost puffy.
‘Should I not go, then I can keep you company?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
Okay, so here I am. The hair casually pinned up with a clear plastic clip. The khaki gypsy skirt. The tiny little white tank top—sexy when you wear it braless. Which I don’t. Then I do.
Don’t.
Do.
‘Get them out!’ Mam growls.
‘I think not!’ I slap my arms over my chest. ‘You’re a disgusting pervert of a mother.’
The sandals. High, strappy gold heels that my mother insists look good. I look in the mirror and deflate. ‘I look like a tiny-titted hooker!’
She glares at me. ‘Don’t call them tits! Call them buzzums. You look like a tiny buzzumed hooker. What’s wrong with that?’
I rip the shoes off. ‘Okay that does it. You can have your hooker shoes back. They look better on you.’ I put on my new hot pink H&M diamante flip-flops. Far more me.
‘Make up?’she reminds me, watching me hurriedly bung bright pink polish onto my toenails with a shaky hand, doing a botch-job in the process.
I look in the mirror, and miraculously I don’t look like I’ve been crying to Sherrie at all. I decide on only a dab of clear lip-gloss and the teeniest sweep of black mascara. There.
‘Maybe there’s a store you can go by, on your way,’ she says.
‘What for?’
‘You know.’
‘I don’t.’
&n
bsp; ‘You know…. some…’ She widens her eyes and nods rapidly. ‘Dulux.’ She whispers. ‘Just a little packet.’
For a moment I have to think what she can possibly mean. Then I get her gaff. Only my mother could confuse Durex condoms with Dulux paint. ‘And while I’m at it, I’ll pick up a roller, a pot of turpentine, and a pair of overalls,’ I wag a finger at her, and she scowls at me, clueless.
I pick my bag off the bed, look once more at her bemused face, and drop a kiss on her brow, before heading nervously out of the door.
~ * * * ~
‘There’s something else I never told you about Jonathan,’ I tell Georgios, as he and I sit on a tiny paved vine orchard at the back of his house, drinking amber Metaxa. The chances of us having sex might be improved if I could have one conversation with him that doesn’t bring up my dead husband.
‘Jonathan had bought some stocks without my knowing. It was… do you know what I mean by an insider tip?’
‘Of course,’ he says, sitting casually beside me, his eyes on the foot that I’ve got dangling across my other leg.
‘He put a lot of money into a copper mining venture. Nearly all our savings. He even re-mortgaged our house.’
I hold my glass up to the sun and stare through it, watching the amber liquid glint in the sun. The air is hot and heavy, and is alive with the sound of crickets. ‘He never told me a thing about it. I had no idea until after he died that he lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars of our money.’ I raise my glass—in a toast—to the sky.
‘And you’ve been thinking about this today and that’s why you have depression.’
‘Depression?’
‘Vivien said you feel not good today. She suggest I bring you here to… make you smile again.’
‘She suggested you bring me here!’ My cheeks must turn blood-red. ‘Said you had a date!’
‘With you.’ His eyes look playful.
My damned mother! He had no intentions of taking me out. He’s doing it only to please her! ‘Do you own a shotgun? And can I borrow it?’
We laugh.
~ * * * ~
We finish off the brandies then go inside the house for the dinner he’s going to make us. It’s cool in here, with the stone walls, bare floors and minimal furnishings. I like the rustic kitchen, it makes me feel like I could suddenly be transformed from a crap cook into someone who could concoct delicious culinary wonders made with simple ingredients and olive oil. I like the eyebrow-arch that leads from here to an area with a couch right in front of a wood-burning stove. It makes me think of romantic, television-free winters by candlelight.
I pull a chair out and sit at the table, no longer feeling uncomfortable that Georgios didn’t intend any of this.
‘Have you forgiven him?’ he asks me.
I run my fingers over the rough grain of the wood. ‘I was furious at first… I mean, first I lose him, then I realise I’m penniless… Well, not quite, but close. But obviously I can’t keep being annoyed at him, because ultimately he lost a lot more than I did, didn’t he?’
I think now of what old Ms Elmtree said about Jonathan sitting in his car. I wonder if it was the day he realised he’d lost the money. Maybe he dreaded facing me, even if he knew I had no idea. Or had he had one of his seizures, right as he’d pulled up at our house? I will never know, but it taunts me.
Georgios opens the Metaxa bottle to give me a splash more but I put my hand over the glass. ‘You’re supposed to be a team when you’re married. No secrets. You don’t just do things without telling the other…’ It was that reckless devil-may-care, law-unto-himself thing that drove me mad about him, because it was a part of him that I had no influence over. It was the one part of him I couldn’t own. ‘I’m sure though, he’d be pleased that I had something to hold against him.’
He sits at my side. ‘A house is just a thing, Angelina. Before I was born we had the great earthquake of 1953. Almost everybody lose everything they ever own, including the roof over their heads. And look now. Almost everything you see on this island is rebuilt. Those who lived took the only path. The path of survival.’
I look around the four walls of this room, ancientness and family history seeping from its every pore. ‘What happened to this place?’
‘As I say, most everything was destroyed on this island. But not the olive grove. Not my family home. This placed miraculously survived when very little did.’
I hold out my empty glass. ‘I think I would like another brandy.’
~ * * * ~
The candle on the kitchen table is the only light in the room. We’ve moved on to red wine, only it’s mostly me doing the drinking, not him. I slump across the knotty wood surface after we’ve eaten a simple meal of marinated vegetables and grilled chicken in oil and herbs. I don’t know what we’ve been talking about. I’ve been far too preoccupied with thinking about kissing him.
I’ve missed kissing. More than sex, or even a good-old cuddle. I’ve missed having the back of my head cupped when a man is devouring my mouth. Fingers kneading my skill. Fingers knotting in my hair. Laying a hand on a man’s warm cheek. Negotiating that sexy place at the back of a man’s neck. The breath of a man filling my lungs, nicer than air.
‘Why is there never anyone here Georgios? In this cold stone house.’ Why, after all these talks, do I still not really feel I know you? Why are you’re still not quite real to me? ‘Don’t you miss family?’ I hope he doesn’t think I’m selling myself for the role.
‘There are always people here. Those who work with me. My brother and his wife and sons when it’s time for the harvest.’ He looks at me as though he knows what I mean. ‘When you do not have family of your own—children, a wife—it can feel silent. Life can feel silent sometimes.’
I feel a shiver. ‘I think that’s what worries me the most, Georgios—my life feeling silent. Sometimes I’ll think that if I never marry again there’s going to be nobody around to love me. I’ll be old, and I’ll never lie there napping and have my granddaughter stand over me and scour the familiar features of my face and be filled with love for me, because I am her blood, her family, the mother of her mother.’ I look at him listening closely to me. I love how he does this and can’t quite fathom why he’d care to listen to all this soul-searching by a woman he’s never going to see again after this week. ‘And then when my own mother will be gone… there’ll be no one behind me, and no one in front of me, no one tying me to anyone, and won’t that be the loneliest feeling in the world?’
‘There are always people, somebody…’
‘But it’s family that really counts. The thing is—and I’ve really only realised this recently—other people are the point of life, Georgios. We all think we’re the point of our own lives, but we’re not. Other people are. It’s not what we take from this life, it’s what we leave, and what others leave us.’
‘You are wise.’
‘Well, with Jonathan’s death I think I grew up by about forty years.’ But wisdom, just like life, isn’t always kind. Sometimes it tells you a few things you wish you didn’t know.
We sit just watching each other for a while.
‘Do you not have a mother?’ I ask him.
‘She died when I was four. I was grown up by my father and my brother, and my grandmother, and an aunt. It was a combined effort. Maybe that explains why they did not get me right.’
‘What’s not just right about you?’ The thought of going to bed with him brings a ripple through my body, like a gentle tide rolling up a beach.
‘Lots of things, or so women have told me.’ His eyes smile.
Georgios is a player. This much I believe I know.
‘It’s late. I should probably get you home.’
He gets up and carries plates over to the small, ancient, peeling sink. I look at the crusts of bread left lying on the table. The jar of olives lying open. The bottle of green olive oil. The red wine in the bottom of my glass.
‘I don’t mind staying up late.’ It so
unds like a proposition.
He glances over his shoulder at me, then he abandons the dishes and comes back to the table. ‘Stay then,’ he says. ‘There is no hurry on my part. I am enjoying this.’ He slumps down in the chair, cocks his head, and looks at me inquiringly.
~ * * * ~
The first time I had sex with Jonathan, he said I almost attacked him. I don’t remember any attack, to me it was just urgency. Everything about our meeting had been urgent. He’d given me three minutes to ditch my boyfriend. And I had. I think in two. I wanted Jonathan more than I’d wanted any other lover. I could pretty much count all of them on one hand. Ok, two hands. But I was sure Jonathan was going to be my last.
We stood in the hallway, the sounds of the house party going on behind us. ‘Just because I dumped the guy I came with doesn’t mean I’m going home with you,’ I told him.
I had turned and attempted to walk away. He reached out to pull me back, drew me to him, like a dancer draws his partner into a hold. Only it was into a kiss. It was a nine on the Richter scale of kisses. There was no point in trying to act unbothered. His mouth blotted out all the pretence. There was to be a future here. I think we both knew it.
I let him walk me home, but I wouldn’t allow him to kiss me at the door again. ‘I don’t sleep with men on the first date.’ I gave him a small push when he was moving in on me.
He moved in so close I could see all the tiny black lashes on his lower lids. His face stayed there, and he just looked at me for what felt like a very long time. ‘We haven’t been on a date, though, have we? I met you at a party, two hours ago.’
‘Hmm…. That should make it worse, shouldn’t it?’
I pulled him, ravenously, by his sweater and we practically fell in my door.
~ * * * ~
I feel Georgios’ breath on my face, as he bends over me, studying my face. ‘What are you thinking now?’