Send Me A Lover

by Carol Mason

  ‘That’s up to you,’ he says. ‘I’m just saying take one day of this holiday and make it yours and his. Give yourself one last day with him. And then say goodbye. And then don’t go back.’

  I fight the tears back. ‘Isn’t that a little bit mad in the head?’

  ‘Is it? Why is it? Who decides what is mad? And why would you care what those people think? Maybe it’s what you have to do to let him go.’

  The candle flickers back to life again, even though I thought he’d blown it out. I suddenly see his face again. The face of Georgios, my new Greek friend.

  Could this be the face of an angel?

  Eight

  ‘He’s obviously got serious mental health issues.’ Sherrie pronounces her verdict on gorgeous Georgios after I’ve bounded to a telephone to give her the low-down on my strange night out, eager to hear what she’ll make of it.

  ‘I mean, let’s not put too fine a point on it but he’s whacked in the head. And the last thing somebody who’s bananas needs is to hang out with somebody who’s even bigger bananas than they are.’

  ‘Are you making another sexual reference by any chance?’

  ‘Mm. I wasn’t. But I can do if you want me to.’

  We chuckle.

  ‘Seriously though, Ange, let’s just take a moment to get some perspective on things, girl. On the one hand you’ve got your dead husband promising to send you a lover, and then you’ve got your lover sending you on a date with your dead husband. I mean, I’m an open-minded soul, but there’s something a bit kooky about this. And if I were you, I’d either shoot myself or book myself in for some serious electric shock therapy.’

  ‘I’m not loony, Sherrie.’

  ‘Aren’t you? Some people might disagree.’ She sighs. ‘Ange, honey, all I’m saying is, yes he might be gorgeous, and yes he might be well off, and yes he might know all this stuff about olives and gods, and save turtles and be a mind reader into the bargain. But think about it. Among the legions of good advice somebody could give a person, you going on a date with your dead husband, well, I’m afraid that wouldn’t cut it. It really wouldn’t.’

  I sigh hard. ‘The line’s going funny,’ I play with her. ‘We’re breaking up. Going.... Going…’

  ‘I think it’s you breaking up, not the line. Cracking… Cracking... Cracked, more like...’

  I hear her chuckle just as I hang up on her.

  ~ * * * ~

  ‘I’d love to have you along,’ I tell Mam, ‘but I’m going to take the ferry to Kefalonia, maybe rent a moped and tour the island.’ I look at her face. ‘It’s okay. Feel free to have your bottom jaw rejoin your top one any time.’

  ‘You’re going on a moped? A two-wheel thing with an engine?’

  Jonathan begged me to go on one in Barbados, but of course I wouldn’t. We ended up taking ludicrously expensive taxis and service buses that were overfull and didn’t have air-conditioning. He kept giving me that look that said, we could have rented a moped. And I gave him one back, that basically said up yours.

  ‘What makes you think I don’t want to go on a moped?’ she says.

  I pause while I climb into my shorts. ‘You know, somehow, I knew you’d say that. Just to spoil this for me.’

  ‘Look, if you just want rid of me for the day, Angela, you don’t have to go and put yourself in traction just to make the point. I mean, a below the neck transplant, while desirable, might be a little far to go just to get rid of your mother. If it’s all because you’re going on another date with Georgios—’

  ‘I’m not going on another date with Georgios! He never even suggested one.’ Pity. I was certain that he would. I bet it was all that Jonathan talk that put him off.

  ‘Well if you must go somewhere, why don’t you just stay here and explore Zante? Why do you have to go to another island?’

  ‘Because Kefalonia is supposed to be gorgeous. I might as well see it while I’m here. It’s where they shot Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.’

  ‘Why did they have to shoot it? What did it do?’

  I grin at her because I know she is playing with me.

  ‘Well, like I say, if you are going on a date with Georgios, and you don’t want to tell me in case you think I’d be stricken comatose with envy, then all I can say is I’ll cope. His arms are a little too hairy for my taste anyway. I would feel like I was being hugged by the cast of Planet of the Apes.’ She haughtily sniffs the air. ‘If you’re going, go. Just don’t be a yellow-bellied coward and invent some cockamamie story about how you want to go on a moped around an island Angela! The Angela I know would never go on a moped. Good heavens, you were thirteen before you learned how to ride a tricycle, and even that had disastrous consequences for next-door’s tortoise. I’ll never forget the sound of that shell crunching.’

  ‘I’m going on a moped! Why does everybody have such little faith in me?’

  ~ * * * ~

  The ferry gently bumps over bottomless, velvety green water as I sit with my head resting on a railing, giving myself up to the swell and tipping motion, while I stare at a green isle off in the distance: Kefalonia.

  The ‘port’ is little more than a concrete block that juts out into the ocean. The rep from the hotel recommended a reliable place to hire a scooter from, right in the capital of Agostoli. The Greek man who sells me the twenty-euro-a-day rental generously gives it to me for fifteen when he sees me get off the service bus that brings me up from the dock, looking a whiter shade of my T-shirt from all the twists and turns and the speed at which the driver took them.

  When I mount my MBK Ovetto, after a crash course (almost literal) in how to get the thing going, I am overcome with fear, and instantly want to give the thing back. ‘Maybe you not so safe,’ the Greek man tells me, as he watches me zigzag hazardously and nearly run into wall when I try to take both feet off the ground at the same time. But I don’t listen. I’m giving it as far as the end of the road before I pack it in.

  The outer edges of urban Argostoli are at least, thankfully, flat. I wheel around trying to get a feel for the controls and to accustom myself to how uncomfortable it is on my bum. Then I’m off, gingerly at first, then gathering a tiny bit of confidence and speed. Before long I’ve escaped the blossom-treed boulevards with their swish stores and tavernas, and the hoards of tourists sitting on patios, enjoying metzes and ouzo, street scenery and sunshine, and I’m climbing deep into the Greek countryside. The view is breathtaking, and I struggle between watching it and watching where I’m driving. To my left is a mountain with a dense, rich carpet of black fir trees. To my right, thatches of parched hills dotted here and there with a bulbous church spire, and the odd tiny stucco village. Steep roads that the bike chugs unconfidently along, suddenly swoop downwards without warning, sending me into a rapid freefall that would stop my heart, if it weren’t for something inside of me that automatically lets go to the moment. I feel Jonathan’s arms tighten around my ribcage, the hollow of his broad chest against my back, the full weight of his chin settled watchfully on my shoulder, and I see not the danger, only a sparkling Ionian sea that’s so beautiful that tears prick my eyes. My stomach lifts and drops again as the bike and I hug the road, and we coast, a little too swiftly, around a sharp downwards turn. The wind rips through my hair, sending it up in snaky strands, plastering it across my face, then whipping it out behind me. My arms and the tops of my legs fry under a scorching sun. I’ve never felt as free.

  Only when I try to negotiate a hairpin curve too slowly to avoid an oncoming tour bus that seems in danger of taking my kneecap off, and the bike nearly tips, do I falter and remember my limitations again. My foot instinctively goes out to break the fall I’m anticipating, and the smack of concrete sends a quick pain shooting up my leg. For a moment I think I’ve seriously hurt myself. But then I realise I haven’t come flying off. I’m still in one piece. The crisis is over. I have a whole new sense of power. I glance over my shoulder. In my mind’s eye, elation, and pride dance across my husband’s face.<
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  It doesn’t take long to realise I’m lost. I pull over and try to read the map, but a map’s not much use when you don’t know where you are. I try to worry about this, but the miraculous thing is, I can’t. Because I’m too busy gawping down the sheer drop of a cliff-side, at the beach I’ve just spotted: a tiny crescent of unpopulated white sand, sheltered by rocks and lapped by turquoise Ionian water that bleeds to an indigo blue. But it’s a steep climb down, and there’s no obvious road there. But I have to put my feet in that water! I venture back the way I came for about three kilometres, because I vaguely remember a tangent in the road.

  My intuition is right on. It’s dodgy getting down there, but the bike and I make it without my taking a header. The engine stutters to a stop and I’m off quickly and doing a buckling run down a pebbled incline, throwing off my shorts and T-shirt, stripping down to my bikini. I romp into the water, without thinking twice about it, and right next to me I hear a loud thwack, as Jonathan’s lean, fit body plunges in, with dolphin-like expertise, shattering the calm surface. There is a moment of euphoria for both of us when he comes up and we lock eyes and beam at one another. Then he disappears swiftly, and I think hang on, where did he go? But he reappears several yards away; that cute puffiness under his eyes when he smiles, as if to say, fooled you! I swim towards him but he ventures out deeper, as though this is a game: a game to get me to be brave. I paddle quickly after him, not wanting him to get too far away from me. He treads water for a bit, letting me catch up, his chin floating on the velvety surface, his cheeks rosy against his fair, tanned skin; his smile is brilliant. His in-loveness is written all over his face.

  It’s not long before my feet can’t touch the seabed any more, but I’m okay. More than okay. I’m fantastic. The water keeps me afloat. ‘I’m not scared!’ I shout, because I’m not.

  I roll from my front to my back, close my eyes and feel the sun beat on my taut face. The water makes a rippling sound in response to my movements, and to Jonathan’s as he floats beside me. When I look down I can see my red toenails, and the many coloured pebbles on the seabed, and shoals of fish coming at us and diverting around us. I marvel at the quivering shadow I cast upon the sandy sea floor. But where is Jonathan’s? Jonathan doesn’t appear to have a shadow.

  I close my salt-burned eyes again, to stop my momentary panic, and I feel him put his arms around my bottom, lifting me, and then lowering me, so that every part of my body gravitates to his. His arms hug me around the waist. With my legs clasped around him, my knees can feel his lean, straight hips, the funny ones that always fascinate me for their complete lack of hipbone. When I open my eyes again his very dark hair, with its widow’s peak, has a wet gleam. His chest hair gleams. His skin gleams. His eyelashes look blacker, his eyes and eyebrows, darker, and the one freckle on his earlobe cuter; I’d forgotten about it. His freckle.

  I don’t spare one more thought that my bikini top is now slowly sailing out to sea. It floats on top of the water, four pieces of white string, like gangly serpentine limbs. I am too busy adapting to the familiar. His kiss is in living colour, all my senses revived to it, as I lay back and close my eyes, letting the water be a blanket for my head, making extra special note of the feel of his lips as they trail down my throat, committing it to memory, in a way that you would only do when it’s the last occasion of something fabulous that you’re never going to have again.

  I remember the conversation we had once. Not necessarily one of our most profound… ‘How do you know you love me?’ I asked him.

  He’d thought about it carefully. Jonathan always thought a lot before he answered the serious stuff: the lawyer in him. Then he said, ‘Because even when we’re just hanging out, when we’re not really doing anything in particular, I still feel like I’m doing something because I’m doing it with you. In fact, whenever I’m with you, no matter what it is that we’re doing, I can never imagine that I could be having a better time doing something else.’

  He was completely earnest. I had smiled long and lovingly at him, thinking, I am so lucky. How did I ever land this guy? His eyes had filled with tears. I’d never seen them do that before.

  ‘So your turn, tell me… how do you know you love me?’ he’d asked, with that slight cocky streak that he had.

  I’d pretended to think hard. ‘Because you call me a dickhead and yet somehow I’ve not left you.’

  He’d pulled that little smirk on me. ‘I never call you dickhead. Mental midget maybe, but never dickhead.’

  But for some reason the easy way he loved me filled me with misgivings. I didn’t want to love him so much, or to feel he loved me that much. I wanted to leave us both a loophole in case he ever left me and shattered my heart. ‘Let’s not get serious Jonathan and ask heavy questions about why we love one another,’ I said.

  He scowled at me, as though there was something about me that disappointed him: this obstruction that I sometimes erected between us… I can picture his expression so clearly. ‘You started it, egghead.’

  In my mind, now, I answer his question without a hint of the old Angela bravado. I know I loved you, Jonathan, because losing you has hurt so much.

  We stay in the water until the glare of the sun starts to bother me. I swim after my bikini top, which hasn’t drifted far, and secure the wet strings around my neck and my back again. It takes ages to chug back up the cliff but I feel, peculiarly, as though time is small now, in the grand scheme of things. At more than one point the Orvetto strains and I’m convinced I’m going to end up stranded here, and I half hope I will be: stranded here with Jonathan. What did Georgios say about Zeus? Maybe this will be him changing the course of fate.

  At the top I buy bread and feta off a street vendor, and find a shady spot among trees to sit and eat it. The bread is warm and smells like it’s just been pulled from a stone oven. The cheese is marinated in oil and herbs and is an intriguing combination of soft and sharp, sweet and tangy. There’s a single shaft of sunlight that cuts through the trees, and Jonathan sits in it, chewing and looking far off into the distance, all the muscles working hard in his jaw. Jonathan always had a way of eating, absently, as though his mind was on something else. He looks thoroughly content though. I wonder what he’s thinking about. Then he looks at me. And that peaceful, good-humoured expression makes me think he might have been thinking about … well … just, precisely, this.

  In the afternoon I park the bike in Agostoli and sit for half an hour in the sunshine on a patio, satisfying my addiction to really good coffee, beside a small square where a festival is going on. After it, I walk around for a while then let a woman selling jewellery flatter me inside her store.

  ‘Too flashy.’ ‘Too big.’ ‘Too wide.’ Too plain.’ I tell her, as she presents me with one ring after the other, telling me how her brother designs them. Then one does catch my eye. It’s white and yellow gold, with a band of what looks to be interlocking Ss. A motif I’ve seen before. ‘I like this,’ I tell her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is man’s ring,’ she says. ‘No good for you. Only for man.’

  I try it on my thumb. ‘That’s fine. I have a man.’ I smile at her. ‘He’s outside actually.’ We both look out of the window. When I look back at her, she is watching me curiously.

  My eyes go back to the ring. There’s something about it, even though I normally don’t care for jewellery. ‘It is lovely,’ I tell her, holding my hand away and admiring it. ‘Does this pattern mean anything?’

  She takes my hand in hers and rubs her thumb over the ring. ‘It is the meander. The Greek symbol for long life.’

  ‘The meander,’ I repeat, feeling an unusual bond with the ring. When I look at her again she is smiling. ‘I can’t afford it, unfortunately,’ I tell her.

  She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a calculator, starts fiddling with buttons. ‘I have a good feeling about you. I am going to give you a discount… Twenty percent off.’ She wags a finger at me. ‘But you must not tell my brother.’

&nb
sp; She’d sold me even before the discount.

  ~ * * * ~

  When I come out of the store, something has gone from me. I feel the change flatly.

  It’s the day. It’s Jonathan. I look around for him but I can’t see him any more. I want to tell him that I have bought a ring for him, a ring that will ensure that he has the one thing we all value the most, even though we might take the idea of it for granted.

  I cross the square again, suddenly adrift, rubbing the ring on my thumb with my index finger. Amidst the street performers eating fire, and people dancing with the Greek flag, I see a small stall selling books. I don’t know why it draws me, but I wander over and my attention is instantly pulled to a thin and somewhat dog-eared book. I pick it up and it looks like some kind of jotter. Each of the rough pages has something written on it in Greek. Then there are a few blank ones near the back. But on the last page, is a verse, in English. Somebody has handwritten it. I read…

  I search to find you, so I will be found.

  I follow footsteps for their sound is yours;

  All the places you would walk with me.

  I stalk shadows that are but empty impressions of you.

  They lead me back to myself.

  For you have gone.

  I have lost myself.

  Underneath the verse, is written Rebetika. Untitled by Ioannis Mariatos. For moments I turn quite still, the world seems to become toneless. Nothing happens except for a tear that seems to take a long time forming. Then it lands onto the page beside my thumb. I don’t bother bartering with the Greek lady when she tells me that my strange little find is ten Euros. I walk away quickly, as though someone might take it off me if I don’t.

  When I get back down to the dock, after returning the bike, I’m early for the crossing, so I sit on a bench in the shade and open my book at that page again.