Page 69 of Old Girls Go Greek
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I went and sat down next to Anita, shifting slightly so that the tree shaded me from the sunlight.
‘Well, someone’s getting very chummy,’ she said airily, apparently focusing on her painting.
‘Just coffee and a chat,’ I said.
‘Of course it is. You are the talk of the group, did you know that? Dennis says he can’t understand what it is you find to talk about. Or why, when there are so many other things you could be doing.’
I didn’t reply. I just got my sketchbook out and rested it on my knees, took out a 2B pencil and started drawing the outline of the stone trough.
‘And June said she thought you made a nice couple,’ Anita added, ‘and Effie said if she was ten years younger she would give you a run for your money, but she can’t be bothered.’
‘She probably would too,’ I said.
‘Apparently not. Beryl said Effie was talking nonsense because she was always far more attracted to short men who looked a bit dangerous. Not actual hired killers but the sort who might just be wanted by Interpol. And let’s be honest, she would know.’
‘And what does Susan have to say?’
‘She didn’t say anything. She’s gone over there by the shop selling novelty t-shirts because there’s a ginger cat asleep in the sale bin.’
I laughed. ‘I think she would find a cat just about anywhere.’
‘Probably. So what’s going on?’
‘We had a coffee and some orange cake, and a nice talk about how much we have enjoyed this week, even if we haven’t done much work.’
‘And? What about last night and the hot date?’
‘It wasn’t a hot date, and it was very enjoyable. And I think we like each other. He’s had a few difficult years?—’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘Just this and that.’
Anita tutted in exasperation. ‘You’re absolutely hopeless. You still haven’t told us what happened last night and what the meal was like. And we all want to know but we didn’t want to ask while he was around. When we get back I am going to tie you to a chair and torture you with – oh, I don’t know – goat’s cheese and pickled onions until you tell me.’
I giggled. ‘I like pickled onions.’
‘Did the meal go well?’ Anita said impatiently. ‘We were all up on the roof terrace drinking shots and playing I Have Never and waiting for you to come back. And then you didn’t so we just went to bed grumbling.’
‘It was fine, except my meal was much too spicy and that was my fault because I didn’t have my reading glasses and I didn’t understand what the waitress was asking me. And then we went down to a little wine bar at the end of the beach for a nightcap.’
‘And?’
‘And it was lovely.’
There was a pause then as Anita concentrated on her painting.
‘Do you know Dennis was arrested once?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I told you; we were playing that drinking game, I Have Never, and he and Effie both had been.’
I looked up in astonishment. ‘Arrested? What for?’
‘Dennis for taking part in the 1964 Aldermaston marches – Ban the Bomb protests. He said he was put into the back of a Black Maria in handcuffs. But his mother was a magistrate and she knew someone who knew someone and nothing came of it. And Effie was arrested for being drunk in charge of a horse. She was let off with a warning, which her parents thought was ridiculous as her father said he hardly ever went hunting sober. How the other half live, eh?’
