Send Me A Lover (11 page)

As we stand in line to collect our passes for the archaeological museum, I observe, more concretely, the three Englishmen at the top of the queue who are having a good bit banter with Costas. There’s a nondescript ginger fellow and a blond. But it’s the other guy I’m surprised I’m only just properly noticing now. A tall, tanned man with light brown hair and clear-looking green eyes, who is, by anybody’s standards, a hunk, but wholesomely so.

We enter the museum for a tour given by Cathy, who Costas tells us is our guide to the site. But I pay scant attention, because having now noticed the Englishman, I can’t quite keep my eyes off him. The statue of the Goddess Nike might be fascinating, but when I discretely swing my gaze my shoulder, to the tall, well-built figure of a man at the back of the crowd, Cathy’s gentle voice becomes like sound that’s had a blanket laid over it: faint and indistinct.

Stepping outside of the museum, and taking my last glug of bottled water, the heat is breathtaking. The Englishmen are laughing at something and I notice the good-looking one’s yellow T-shirt has something about ‘surfing’ written on the front. I wonder if they’re here on a team. He looks fit and outdoorsy.

I debate whether to go in search of a vendor to buy more bottled water before we embark on the tour of the site, but decide there’s not time.

‘The first official games were declared open in 776BC, and held in honor of Zeus, God of Men and God of Gods,’ Cathy tells us. ‘During the games, participating city-states were bound by a sacred truce to stop beating the hell out of one another and compete in sports instead!’ Cathy’s exuberance makes me think I’m going to find Olympia far more interesting than I was expecting. As she talks us through a tour of the Temple of Zeus and the Altar of Hera where the Olympic flame is still lit every four years, I see that the Englishmen talk between themselves, the ginger one’s voice and laughter occasionally rising above that of the crowd. At one point, when I look over, I think the nice one might have just been looking at me, but our gazes slide past each other, his a little too quick, mine a little too slow, so I’m not even sure it really happened.

When Cathy gives us fifteen minutes to go off on our own and explore, I wander in the opposite direction to the crowd, and find myself in the Byzantine Church, with its crumbling walls, where competitors used to pray for victory. I perch on what’s left of a stone altar enjoying the serenity, feeling, strangely, less widowed today—like there are two
me’s—
the single me, and the widowed me, and we’re somehow hinged, but the widowed me has just become unattached and drifted into the background.

By the time I head back to the meeting point, I realise I’m going to pass out if I don’t get some water. I abandon any intentions of joining the tour and wander back out the way we came in. At a ‘mobile shop’ selling food and drink, I buy a Greek yoghurt, and a bottle of water, and down them while sitting on a bench, listening to a middle-aged American couple complaining about the heat. I deliberately wore my flowery tankini top, along with a denim mini, because I thought I’d breathe more in it. But it feels a bit underdressed now, for such a reverent place. The back of my neck is sticky. I happen to look down at my newly transformed feet in their flip-flops. When I woke up this morning, I thought my eyes were playing tricks. Mam was hovering at the end of my bed in her petticoat, carefully applying red varnish to my toenails that were sticking out of the covers. I felt the little tickle of the brush.

I’m still sitting there when I see the three Englishmen walking over this way. I feel a dart of pleasurable panic. Behind them I notice a raunchy-looking couple, maybe Turkish or Spanish. She’s got an enormous boob job, and a big jiggly bum that hangs out of tiny white terry-towelling shorts. Her boyfriend, draped in gold chains, is all over her like Godzilla on Viagra. It’s interesting because, with the built-in radar that men have for these things, the three Englishmen, who come and sit on the bench adjacent to mine, are tuned into her, and their gazes follow her as she passes them.

I find myself watching the nice one watch the girl. I don’t know if their quiet comments and grins mean they think she’s hot, or not, but for some stupid reason I feel the teeniest bit envious of her. I notice he wears a wedding ring. They all do.
He’s married
. Of course he would be.

Their fascination with the girl goes on too long though. As if that weren’t bad enough, the ginger guy pulls out his digital camera and aims it at her bum. Then they pass the camera between them, the blond one mucking around with the zoom. ‘Here mate…’ The ginger one waves Costas over. ‘Come look at this then!’ And I think,
oh for heaven’s sake, grow up!
Costas takes a look and smiles. Then he must say something to them because they all turn and look at me. I quickly snap my gaze away, but I feel the nice one’s eyes on me moments longer after the other two have looked away. But when I glance back again, they’re all fixed on the camera again.

I’ve seen enough of this silliness now. I get up, and as I am too self-conscious to pass them, I take off in the opposite direction, across a lawn. There’s a payphone, and I just bought a calling card this morning. It’s the middle of the night in Vancouver, so rather than ring Richard at home, I ring his office and leave a message on his voicemail, telling him that he’ll be pleased to know that I took his advice and I went on a vacation. Then I ask him if he’ll stop by my apartment, pick up my mail and deposit a check for me. Then I call Sherrie. Predictably, she picks up.

‘I can’t believe you had the nerve to go to Greece and not invite me along, you witch! I have to go to Bangladesh on a sales trip. It wouldn’t have been that far off!’

‘Yes, we all know they’re practically neighbours, Bangladesh and Greece.’

She chuckles.

‘You wouldn’t care for it here, Sher. It’s full of very attractive married men, and slimy, randy tour guides. Plus it’s, like, three hundred degrees. It’s so scorching that I had to leave Mam behind at the hotel. I was just on a tour of the ancient ruins of Olympia but I nearly became an ancient ruin myself.’

‘Slimy randy tour guides? I’m logging on to Air Canada as we speak…’ She chortles again. ‘But you’re having a good time my friend? That’s what I really want to hear you say. That you’re having a great time with your mom, and you’re happy.’

‘Funnily enough, Sherrie, I am having an okay time. Mam and I have nearly killed each other a couple of times, but we’re licking our war wounds today.’ I miss her suddenly and regret my testiness with her yesterday. The toenail-painting episode, I sense, was her way of making amends.

‘Has Jonathan sent you a lover yet?’

The question comes as a bolt out of the blue. I’d almost forgot I told her that night. Just as I’m about to reply, I see the Englishman walking my way, with his friends.

I follow him with my gaze, choreographing a sudden raunchy fantasy in my mind. ‘No. Not yet, Sherrie. Still waiting …’

Jonathan wouldn’t send me a married Englishman. Shame. Maybe my life could use the drama. I lean back against the wall, propping a foot up behind me, listening to Sherrie’s patter. As the Englishman approaches, I close my eyes and do a very good job of tilting my face, indifferently, to the sun.

~ * * * ~

Costas wants to sit beside me for lunch.

Oh no! This is not what I want. I don’t want to be bugged by anyone. Least of all a man I am not interested in. I’ve just snagged a nice table for two under an arbour, and I’m just reaching for the wine list, minding my own business. Now I’ve become somebody’s charity case. Or their fair game.

‘Actually, if you don’t mind… I really would like to just sit on my own.’ I pull a desperately pleading smile, trying, at the same time, not to be rude.

He says something in Greek to the middle-aged “Mama” restaurant owner. I try to go back to my wine list, but then the Greek Mama speaks to me. ‘You please join another table.’

Just when I think it’s nice of her to care that I have company, Costas explains, ‘This restaurant, it gets busy. Another tour bus is expected in ten minutes. One person cannot occupy a table alone, when they can give that table up for a couple who might want it.’

‘Well where am I supposed to sit then?’ I’m not amused. Is this supposed to mean that my good time doesn’t count because I’ve no one to share it with?

‘Here!’ Big Mama indicates to a long picnic-type bench that’s empty except for the three Englishmen seated at one end.

It seems I’m being ordered to relocate. So I get up and go and hover at the end of the table. The three guys look up from their bottled beers. Not sure what else to do, I sit down, making a point of pulling out the chair farthest away from them. It strikes me how odd I’m being. Why can’t I just sit and talk to them, like a normal person?

When I glance over, the fair-headed guy smiles and says a cautious, ‘Hiya.’

I give a tight smile, then bury my cringing embarrassment in the menu. The nice one couldn’t seem to care less about my arrival at the table, which disappoints me slightly. But why would he? He’s a married man enjoying a ‘guys’ day out. She’s probably back at the pool, frying herself in factor 8. She’ll have one of those lean bodies that still manages to have fair-sized boobs, a funky hairstyle and a belly-ring. And she’ll worship the ground he walks on. And despite the fact that he might casually observe a femme fatale in hot pants, or a thin blonde who doesn’t look like she has much of a personality, the feeling will be mutual.

I stand up sharply. The three Englishmen look up and say something to each other as I leave the table: something disparaging no doubt.

I walk up into the town, embarrassment dragging at my heels. What a performance! Why am I so bizarre sometimes? On an inconspicuous patio, in the shade of a tree, I wolf down a greasy spinach pie and an overly sweet baklava, then rather wish I hadn’t.

~ * * * ~

It’s a blustering ferry ride home. The five o’clock sun is quieter than it’s been all day, and I brave sitting outside on the top deck, my head tilted up to its rays, as we get bumped and tossed over a tempered Ionian sea. When I go inside to the toilets, I’m not even bothered that the Englishmen are sitting on the seats right outside the toilet door. I feel them watch me. Who cares if they think I am a nut-bar? When I come back out again, I’m aware of the three of them staring intently at my face.

‘Jesus,’ I hear one of them mutter once I’m past.

Large shots of Greek Brandy are only three euros. I buy myself a couple.

Jesus.
I wonder what that was supposed to mean.

We board the double-decker coach that collects us off the ferry to deliver us back to our resorts. I say good-bye to Costas and leave him a scant tip. I find a seat downstairs, and, by chance, find myself across the aisle from my three fellow day-trippers. The one who has some strange effect on me, directly faces me. At one point I tune in and hear the ginger chappie say to him, ‘it’s all going to be different though, isn’t it? When you move away.’

‘How so?’ my guy says. ‘Why does it have to be that much different? It’s a small world.’ The accent almost sounds Irish. I wonder where he’s moving to.

I sneak looks at him and note how the golden tan makes the whites of his eyes look fabulous. Even his hair has flecks of gold among the brown. He must sense me looking because he glances over. I look away before our eyes connect. There is something uncivil between us. The die has been cast though. It’s too late now to show that I actually am a nice person after all.

I stare out of the window, not knowing why I feel so spiritless. Maybe it’s because in a different set of circumstances I’d have gone for him; he’d have been my type. Still alive, for one thing. I could have been the one who waits for him now, with fresh new tan lines, wondering how his day out with his mates was. I bet she’s potty about him. I bet they make a lovely couple. I bet that could make a still-broken hearted widow really envious. If there were one around.

They talk quietly now, below the level of the droning bus engine. I try to look out of my window at the view, but I just keep seeing snatches of my desperate face. How did I manage to be sitting here on my own, on a bus in Greece, admiring a married man and feeling discombobulated by the thought that I’m never going to see him again? The absurdity of it almost makes me scream out in bewilderment.

‘Kalamaki,’ the driver announces the name of the resort, as the bus pulls to a stop and I recognize the fruit and magazine stall where a few of us joined the bus this morning. The friendly couple who boarded with me, and their son, come clunking down the stairs.

‘Phew!’ the father says to me. ‘Another one bites the dust. Are you going on the Athens trip tomorrow?’

I tell him I’m not. As I get up out of my seat, the Englishman’s head moves ever so slightly over his shoulder as I pass him.