by Carol Mason
‘Nothing,’ I tell him.
‘I think you’re thinking something,’ he sits down, rests his chin on the backs of his hands.
I’m thinking that my heart is thrashing, but I don’t know whether it’s from the anticipation of Georgios, or from remembering Jonathan and my first kiss, which is the last sort of confusion I want right now.
‘Come on!’ He stands up suddenly and holds out his hand. ‘I want to show you something.’ He picks up his keys from the countertop and leads me outside.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask him. But he doesn’t answer. I listen to our feet crunching the gravel as he walks to his car.
The white Suzuki jeep bounces its way through the darkness, climbing higher and higher, as though we are on a path to the moon. I can smell the olive trees without seeing them. Georgios drives confidently as the rugged ground seems to throw itself at us under the beam of the headlights. ‘How can you even see where we’re going?’ I ask him.
‘You don’t have to see things to know they are there, Angelina,’ he says.
When we reach the top, it’s like that day when he brought us here, that feeling of being in the celestial heights. Georgios shuts off the engine, and all I hear is the sea, a dim and steady swash below us. The only light is from the crescent moon, like a bright smile lying on its side.
‘Let me tell you about a story. A story about Selene. Selene was Goddess of the moon. One night, as she rides across the sky, she looks down, and she sees Endymion a humble shepherd. Endymion is sleeping there, outside...’ He looks across at me. ‘Of course, she was immediately attracted to him… So she go to him and she kiss him, just lays a kiss on his eyes, on his face… Now Endymion feels this kiss, strongly. So when he wakes up… he realises she came to him only in a dream. But of course, now there is a problem for him. Now he has tasted her kiss, he can think of nothing else. His waking world has no appeal anymore. All he desires is sleep, so she may come to him and kiss him again.’
I stare far across the darkness.
‘Selene fell in love with him. She loved him so much that she asked Zeus to give him the most special of gifts—to allow for him to choose his own fate. So Endymion chose to never grow old and to be in eternal sleep, where he would be visited every night by Selene and her rays of light.’
I smile at him. ‘Did she do it?’
‘Every night. She come. And somehow, even though he stays in everlasting sleep, Selene managed to give birth to fifty daughters from him.’
‘I look at his scratched hand resting on the wheel. ‘Fifty daughters! That’s a lot of stretch marks.’
‘I think ten might have been good.’ His eyes twinkle at me. ‘Fifteen is most.’
‘I’m glad you’re a modern man.’
We smile long and fondly. I wonder if Selene is up there, languishing on the crescent moon, and what she might be making of us.
After a while, he says, ‘Let us go back,’ and he gives one final glance up at the moon. I’m a bit bummed out, because I was thinking that a kiss might have been in order, under the moon.
We drive down the mountain in the darkness. Neither of us talks. Until we get back to the house, where he turns off the engine and sits there looking awkward.
‘I have enjoyed our evening,’ he says. ‘I have enjoyed it so much.’
‘Me too,’ I tell him. I enjoy all the time I spend with Georgios.
‘But perhaps you can help me, Angelina. You see, I have a small problem…’ He looks at me candidly. ‘I shall put it as a hypothetical question…’ He clears his throat. ‘Say there was a man, and this man was interested in a woman. Only the woman is not travelling alone, and she is here for only short time. Now he can forget about her… Or he can find a way to ask her to spend her last days with him, if they both feel that the person who travels with her will understand.’ He rubs a hand across his face, and I feel my heart kick into gear again. ‘I am wondering, what should he do?’
‘Well…’ My heart is beating with delight. ‘Is the man so very confident of the woman’s attraction to him?’
He hesitates. ‘Somewhat confident.’
‘Well perhaps he needs to find that out first.’
He holds my eyes. ‘Maybe he should try kissing her.’
He smiles, glances at my lips. ‘That was definitely on the man’s agenda.’
I smile too. Still he looks at me intensely for a moment or two. But instead of kissing me, he puts the vehicle into drive again.
He’s obviously one of those Mediterranean men who like the initiative to have come from them. We don’t say much as he drives me back to the hotel, and I am too busy being confused to think of conversation. When we pull up outside the hotel, he shuts off the engine and angles himself so he can better see me, his scratched hand resting casually across the wheel again. And then I know that it is coming.
‘It’s been wonderful,’ I encourage him. ‘Tonight. It really has.’
The edges of his mouth twitch up into a little pleased smile. His hand leaves the wheel, and his body moves across toward me. I close my eyes, my lips parted waiting for his kiss.
Then I am aware of the car door opening. Georgios is reaching across my lap, pushing my door open.
‘Goodnight, Angelina. And thank you for your assistance in these things,’ he says when I open my eyes, and he gives the door a little push. ‘Will you tell your fabulous mother that I will pick her up at ten?’
Twelve
‘Jonathan’s sent my lover to my mother!’ I squeal at Sherrie, on the hotel payphone. ‘Can you believe? It’s not me he’s interested in! It’s her! They’re on a date! He picked her up this morning. Wants to spend as much time as he can with her from now until she leaves. He’s grateful I understand!’
‘Oh, man! That’s so sweet!’
‘Sweet? It’s catastrophic.’
‘And what does she say about all this? Madame Sexpuss Vivienne?’
‘Nearly peed herself with joy! So much for all that claptrap about you’re going to marry him, I can just feel it…She stole him out from under me!’
‘Sounds to me like he was never under you in the first place. That was the problem.’
I picture those Tiffany gems twinkling, madly and infatuated. ‘There was one-upmanship written all over her. Gleeful one-upmanship.’
‘Well I’m not surprised. It is quite an achievement—that he’d pick a woman her age over you. Actually, I’m starting to like him more now…’
‘How?’
‘It makes him more of a human being and less of a man.’
‘Hello? Sherrie, are you still there?’ I ask her, when she seems to go quiet.
‘Oh, sorry… I was just wondering something.’
‘What?’
‘If you know how to say ‘dad’ in Greek.’
~ * * * ~
I step outside of the hotel, into the dazzling sun.
The Englishman is standing right there.
My face must register my shock, because he smiles slightly, his expression a mix of awkwardness, confusion and—is that relief?
‘I wasn’t so sure I would bump into you again. Before you left. Like I said I was.’
Still he stands there, with his hands in his shorts’ pockets. His golden tan gleaming against the white of his T-shirt, his hair a golden brown. ‘So I came looking for you.’
‘You did? I don’t know what to say,’ I tell him, because I don’t.
‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ he asks, awkwardly.
There’s something upright and responsible and honest about him, that makes it impossible for me to distrust him. But I still say, ‘Maybe I should ask you the obvious question first.’
He cocks his head. ‘Go on.’
‘Where’s your wife?’
He doesn’t flinch, just continues to look at me. ‘Well, it’s one of the things I can tell you about if you come for a walk. But not if we just stand here... obviously.’ Some people come out of the hotel behind me and look at u
s. But I continue to stand there.
‘She’s gone with the girls to Athens for a couple of nights. Us blokes didn’t want to go,’ he says.
‘So the cat is away so the mice will play?’
He meets my gaze, steadily. ‘It’s really not like that.’
‘He flicks his head in the direction of somewhere away from here. ‘Can we? Please? It’ll be easier to talk.’
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I ask, when we start walking.
He laughs a bit. ‘I didn’t did I? I mean, yesterday, when you walked away, I watched you walk up this way, so I knew your hotel was up here somewhere.’
‘There’s a million hotels up this way.’
‘Well, not a million but there’s certainly a good few, yeah… But it’s weird…’ He stops, turns and looks at me. ‘The first hotel I happened to glance in… there you were.’
I shake my head, baffled. He stops and looks at me again, like he too is in a bit of a quandary. ‘There’s no harm in us walking, is there,’ he says. And I’m not sure whether he’s asking me or telling me, but I tell him, ‘suppose not,’ all the same.
~ * * * ~
‘My mother has a date with a very attractive Greek man.’
We sit on a coarse, dry dune, on the curve of the bay, overlooking the water dotted with topless women, dads and kids. I give him a short version of the events of our holiday so far.
‘Get out!’ he laughs. ‘So you had the hots for this fella and it turns out this fella’s had them for your mother?’
I rest back on my hands. ‘I wouldn’t go as far as calling them the hots.’ I kick off my flip-flops and run my feet over the coarse grass. ‘I liked him though. I did. He’s nice. Attractive. Decent. Interesting. Single...’ I flop back on the grass feeling him watching me. ‘And crazy about my mother.’
‘It’s a bit Shirley Valentine isn’t it? Coming on holiday and copping off with the Greek? A bit Mamma Mia.’
I squint up at him. ‘It’s not really like that, not if you knew Georgios and my mother.’
‘But it’s the thing to do, isn’t it? To come on holiday and have a mad, passionate romance with somebody you’re only going to know for one week. For some reason the rest of the world thinks that’s really appealing. Like that’s going to solve a lot of bigger problems in their lives...’
I look at him now, sitting there, staring off into space, knees up, elbows resting on them. The long line of muscle that runs under his arm, the soft golden hair on his legs, his handsome profile, long eyelashes, nice nose. ‘Is that what you’re looking to do?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘That couldn’t be farther from what I’m looking to do.’
He doesn’t elaborate, then says, with a small laugh, ‘There was that case not so long ago in the newspapers, wasn’t there?’ He looks at me with lively eyes. ‘D’you remember? Some woman went to Africa and came back with a tribal leader who knew no English and shacked up with him in Cornwall or somewhere. And he got frustrated because he couldn’t understand the customs or speak the language, and he didn’t even know what a kettle was for, or a toilet, and he ended up bludgeoning her to death.’
We smile.
‘Why are we smiling?’ he says. ‘It’s not really funny is it?’
‘It shouldn’t be, no.’ I sit up now, and notice his eyes quietly taking in my legs.
‘So I reckon I must look normal after a freak like that, then?’ he says. ‘Just a normal married lad from England, on holiday, stalking a seemingly very nice and very pretty single girl around the resort while his wife’s gone off on a daytrip to Athens.’
For some reason, he’s impossible to take offence to. ‘And then there’s the taking photos of a girl’s bottom at Olympia.’ I try not to smile.
‘I didn’t do that! Boz took it! I just looked at it.’
‘Did you think she was attractive?’
‘I can hardly remember now,’ he grins. ‘You’re make me sound horrible! A real perv.’ He laughs. ‘What’re you doing here with me? Eh?’
I look at his handsomeness. His hair, his shoulders, his lovely smile. The sincerity in his eyes. ‘That’s a very good question.’
~ * * * ~
The lamb gyros is spicy and sloppy. I wipe my face with a napkin. He tucks into his. ‘I love these,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve been eating about ten of ‘em a day.’
‘That would qualify as loving them for sure. Or an eating disorder. I’m not sure which.’ I look him over. ‘How do you stay so fit if you eat this much? You don’t go and put your fingers down your throat afterwards do you?’
He laughs. ‘Neh, I got therapy for that. God they’re good though. Nothing like the ones you used to get in Liverpool after a night out round the town. Kebabs.’ He pulls a face. ‘Remember them?’
‘I thought they only did that in Sunderland.’
‘You know, I keep forgetting you’re from Sunderland. You just don’t sound it. You don’t act like it either. You’re very cosmopolitan. Are you sure you really grew up there?’
‘Hey, don’t knock Sunderland. People who live there can, but nobody else! Actually, I’ve been thinking of moving back.’
‘And? Are you going to?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ He turns and looks at me, once he’s finished chewing. ‘Why is a lovely girl like you coming on holiday with her mam, and not her boyfriend?’ He must see my face, because he quickly says, ‘I’ve said something wrong. What’s the matter? I’ve gone and put my foot in it haven’t I? Let me guess… You’ve just broken up with somebody.’
‘No,’ I shake my head, trying to be breezy. ‘I was married. My husband died.’
He quickly scours me, as though for some deeper reaction from me. ‘Died?’ he says, like he can’t fathom such a thing. ‘Oh. That’s crap. When? How?’
‘Two years ago. Car accident.’
He scowls. ‘He must have just been a young guy…’
‘Thirty-six.’
He rubs a hand across his face. Looks shocked. Visibly troubled. ‘Whoah. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. It must have been awful for you.’
I pull a smile. ‘And not so great for him, either.’
~ * * * ~
When I get back to the room, Mam has got the radio on full throttle and is hula-dancing around the room to U2’s Mysterious Ways. She promptly stops, breathless, when I come in. ‘I just got back a few minutes ago.’ She shouts over the music. ‘I wanted to come back and see how you are, babsy.’
I stare at her. ‘You know what the cuckoo is? It’s a bird that goes and lives in another bird’s nest.’
She reaches for the deodorant stick, runs it up under her top. ‘Cuckoos live in clocks,’ she says, and then she chuckles. ‘Are you really upset? I’m sorry. It’s not right me being off with Georgios and you being left here. You should be with us.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure that would be a real party. What was it you said? I don’t want to be a spare wheel, or a heel, or somebody with no feet?’
She beams at me. ‘Are you mocking the afflicted?’
‘I might be.’ She looks so happy it’s impossible to seriously want to kill her. ‘Go and kiss him and tell me what it’s like,’ I tell her. The very thing she said to me.
She plonks down on the edge of her bed, clasps the deodorant tightly at her chest. ‘I want to,’ she says quietly. ‘Oh, Angela…I want to.’
‘You’re supposed to say you don’t! That was supposed to be my job!’
‘I know! And I’m supposed to say that he’s too old for me and too short!’
My words to her, once.
‘But it’s not true.’ She claps both hands either side of her face. ‘It’s just not true, Angela.’
‘Spare me,’ I hold up a hand. ‘I don’t want to know how your loins are twitching just thinking of him.’
She is trying not to smile.
I whip my glance over her—the long, pale pink T-shirt with the sleeves that come d
own to her knuckles, and the way she has two silver bangles over them, ‘napkin-ring style’. The pale denim A-line, knee-length skirt. And the cream espadrilles with her snazzy toenails peeping out. ‘So where is he, then?’
‘He had some work to do. He wanted me to come with him, but I didn’t want to be in the way. He’s not on holiday like we are, is he? But he’s coming back for me at four.’ She stares at me, as though her mind’s elsewhere. ‘I wanted to see you. I was missing you.’
‘Liar. You wanted to come and gloat.’
‘No,’ she shakes her head and does a dirty grin. ‘Actually, I’m dying to tell you something.’ She’s giddy now, a queer mix of nervousness and excitement. ‘A girlie confession.’
‘Hang on…. er… you’ve bonked him.’
‘Don’t say that! That’s so uncouth, Angela. But along those lines… What I wanted to tell you was that… I haven’t….you know. Anything. Not in fifteen years.’
It dawns on me that she’s talking about sex. Mam and I don’t talk about sex. Even when she taught me about the birds and the bees she did such a good botanical job of it that I didn’t realise it applied to people until about ten years later. ‘But Dad’s only been gone eight years.’
‘Your dad and I…’ She clutches her hands in her lap, her index fingers making a tense, bent steeple. ‘Nothing. Not in a good many years.’
I swallow hard. ‘Oh…. I had no idea.’
She glares at me. ‘Don’t look at me like the topic’s so distasteful!’
‘It’s not! I mean, I wasn’t looking at you in any way. Don’t be so touchy.’
She’s too happy to fight. ‘You know, I’ve never told you this… but a long, long time ago, well before I met your dad, there was a boy… I met him at a dance, with my friend Eva. Eva and I both thought he was a bit of scrumptious. But it was me he liked from the start.’ She gazes wistfully into the distance. ‘Which of course he would, wouldn’t he. He was handsome. Decent. A little bit forward—certainly not boring. And I was potty about him, only I don’t think he ever really knew it.’
