Page 60 of Old Girls Go Greek
I flapped a hand at her to stop making such a racket and reached the front door where Will was waiting for me, two of the kittens playing with a twig at his feet.
‘Ah, marvellous,’ he said. ‘You look lovely.’
‘So do you,’ I said rather foolishly. Well, he did. He was wearing some well-pressed chinos (I hadn’t noticed an iron in my room; perhaps he had brought one with him?) and a brilliantly white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show his tanned forearms. I love that; it’s one of my favourite looks on a man. We were off to a great start.
The taxi came moments later, apparently driven by Gregor’s brother Hector. He was equally as uncommunicative and large as our usual driver was. He also seemed to share the same disregard for speed limits and other vehicles, and the journey to the vineyard flashed past with me clinging, white-knuckled, onto the door handle.
We arrived in record time and Hector got out of the car and went to chat with a group of other taxi drivers who were huddled around an ancient olive tree in the car park, smoking and probably complaining about the state of the roads or the government.
At the door everything looked very different from our last visit. Inside and out the place was lit with hundreds of fairy lights which were strung along the walls, around the windows and out along the steel and glass barrier on the terrace. It looked magical. I almost didn’t care what the food was like; the setting and the feeling I had this evening were something I would probably never forget.
We decided to start with a glass of Lefteris Glinavos Brut, which was the Greek equivalent of champagne, and it came in slender glasses, the bubbles winking enticingly at the brim.
‘Yamas,’ Will said, and we clinked our glasses as the lights from a departing cruise ship far below us moved silently off into the evening.
‘Cheers,’ I said. ‘I think I would like to learn a new language. I often feel it’s a bit arrogant, thinking that English is the only one worth bothering with. I did French at school; I wasn’t clever enough to do German. I’d like to learn Italian, so when I go there I can ask for things, not just the bill in a café.’
‘You’d like Italy I think,’ he said. ‘I met some lovely people there. But then I’ve realised there are kind, decent people all over the world. People who don’t care if you are rich or poor. It’s very grounding, if that’s not too lofty a word.’
‘It’s reassuring,’ I said, sipping my wine and enjoying the slightly flowery taste. And the hint of citrus. Perhaps that wine tasting had done something for my understanding of wine after all.
At the back of my mind was the small amount of knowledge I had gleaned from Wikipedia about Will. He was a doctor, a proper medical professional even if he had spent a lot of time on television discussing potty training and chickenpox. He had worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, and I would have been genuinely interested to hear about it. Common sense told me I would have to bide my time and let him bring it up.
‘I’m hungry,’ I said, ‘are you?’
‘I didn’t have lunch, so yes,’ he replied.
We were shown to our table, which was in an enchanting little booth overlooking the sea, and as usual Will chose the seat with his back to the room. Which of course, knowing what I now knew about him, was predictable but really a bit silly. The evening was warm and the air scented with herbs, warm flowers and the faintest drift of his aftershave, which was lemony and delicious.
We looked at the menus, me wishing I had brought my reading glasses, because without them a lot of the finer points of the dishes went unseen. I would have to hope for the best.
Eventually I decided on scallops to start with followed by a delicious-sounding crispy chicken, until the waitress gently pointed out that I had chosen something from the children’s menu. Flustered, I pointed at the first thing on the fish offerings, which was catch of the day. Who knew what I was going to get?
‘Ah,bourtheto,’ the waitress said approvingly, ‘you like this – umaromatódis? Hot?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said confidently, ‘very hot.’
Surely there would be nothing worse than tepid fish?
‘Good, good,’ she said, making a note on her pad.
Then there was a bit of a discussion with the wine waiter, and eventually we decided on some Kontarades,which was apparently ‘crisp and dry with stony minerality’ and would go well with fish.
All that business out of the way, we sat back to enjoy our sparkling wine and the view. The restaurant was getting busier, with smart couples and groups settling themselves, even a few children who would probably also choose the crispy chicken.
We fitted in, I realised with a little thrill of pleasure. Will and I were just like these other people, out for a pleasant evening. I was just as entitled to be there as anyone. If other people noticed us, they might assume we were a couple, perhaps married, enjoying a holiday together.
It was so much easier being part of a couple, I realised. Having spent several years on my own or tagging along with other people, a lone woman could, for absolutely no reason, be seen as an oddity, or on one occasion, even a threat.
I remembered one evening some years ago, I went to a retirement party for my old headmaster at the school where I had been the secretary for so many years. Madge Clifford had been sure I was desperate to latch on to her dull husband and lure him into the stationary cupboard with my evil wiles. Which I hadn’t been, and my wiles, such as they were, could be safely ignored by all concerned. I could find little common ground with a man whose sole topic of conversation that evening was Richard III and how he was much maligned. Roger Clifford might have wanted to discuss the tactical importance of the Battle of Bosworth, but I didn’t.
‘What unusual shoes,’ Madge Clifford had said as she steered the hapless Roger away from me. I’d been wearing heels that evening, and the implication was: a) that I was too old for that sort of nonsense, and b) therefore a bit of a floozy.
Anyway, here I was now, just a woman out for the evening with a man. A very attractive man actually, who wanted to spend time in my company and talk to me.
Our starters came quickly and I tried not to greedily hoover up my scallops as though I was starving. Instead, I ate daintily and slowly, taking sips of water and paying attention to our conversation. And my word how we talked. We talked about so many things in a way I hadn’t done with any man for years. We even disagreed about things without anyone taking offence or storming off jangling the car keys as had happened once with Malcolm when we fell out over Brexit.
The wine waiter brought over our bottle of Kontarades, and a few minutes were spent messing about with corks and white napkins before we were left in peace to enjoy it.
