Being Shirley (19 page)

“To best friends and moaning!” Both women chorused and clinked their glasses before they took a sip of the wine.

“What’s this?” Annie smacked her lips together.

“Do you like it?”

“I’m not sure. I think so. It’s just that it has an unusual aftertaste to it.”

“It’s a locally made Retsina, which is white wine fermented with pine resin. It is also very potent so be warned because it, how you say? Grows on people.” Kassia winked before she added, “Anyway, we have talked enough about me. I want to hear all about you, starting with how you are feeling these days as a single woman?” She reached forward and popped a piece of marinated eggplant in her mouth before she looked at her friend expectantly.

Annie had to think about her answer for a moment because her feelings were still in a jumble. “Well, I know that breaking up with Tony was the right thing to do but that’s not to say that I don’t miss him or at least the idea of him. I’m not sure I miss the reality of our relationship, though, if that makes sense?”

“I think you mean you are remembering the good times now, not the bad times, which is natural.”

“Yes, I suppose I am and we did have some good times.” Annie sighed and toyed with her glass. “I still can’t quite believe that less than two months ago I was trying on a wedding dress and now here I am suddenly single, sitting amid the olive trees with you in Crete.”

Kassia laughed. “Well, I am glad you are! And yes, life can take many strange turns.” Her expression sobered as she added, “I never thought I would wind up living here with my mother-in- law.” She shook her head. “Don’t you worry—you will get to wear your beautiful dress one day but it will be for the right man, I think.”

“Actually, for now I don’t really want to think about men and as for that dress—as gorgeous as it was, it wasn’t me, not really.”

“But you said it was your dream dress. Was it very expensive, yes?”

“Yes very, very but that’s not why I changed my mind about it.” Annie popped an olive in her mouth and enjoyed the salty burst as she bit into it.

“Oh?”

“No. Don’t tell Carl but it was too bloody tight!”

They broke into laughter and made light work of the platter until Kassia urged Annie to tell her all about her and Carl’s adventures since they’d left New Zealand.

“You’d better fill up our glasses then.” Annie held her empty glass out.

***

“Remind me to never fly anywhere with him! It sounds terrible.” Kassia laughed and by the time Annie had finished telling her about Carl’s misadventures in Athens thanks to his dodgy stomach, she was bent double.

“Stop!” She held up her hand. “My stomach, it is hurting.”

“It’s funny now but believe you me, it wasn’t at the time.”

“I can imagine it would have been quite desperate at the time.” They looked at each other and erupted into peals of laughter.

“What’s so funny, you two?” A red-faced, sweaty Carl flopped down onto the ground next to the table. He took off his hat and fanned himself. “And where’s the worker’s glass of vino, you two lushes?”

“You’re what is so funny, Carl. I have been hearing all about your little problem in Athens.” Kassia wiped the corner of her eyes before she reached for one of the water tumblers. “Will this do? I am too exhausted from laughing to go up to the house to fetch you a proper wine glass.”

“Hmm, hostess with the mostess—I’m kidding, sit back down! It will do just fine and you may well laugh now but it was not funny at the time. I lost nearly half a stone in weight!”

“Perhaps I should visit Athens.” Kassia looked down at her midriff. “Believe me, Mama’s cooking will soon put the meat back on your bones; it has mine and some. Here—”

Carl took the glass and drank deeply. “Ah, ’tis nectar from the gods. Retsina, am I right?

Kassia nodded and looked pleased as he added, “And you have what we in the biz call womanly curves, my dear girl.”

Annie smiled fondly at him and loved the way they had only been here a couple of hours and already they had slotted in and made to feel right at home.

“Is Spiros still working in the garden?” Kassia asked.

“Yes. He said he would square off the patch he was working on and then call it a day. You’ve done well there; he is a lovely man.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That’s an impressive vegie patch he has got going on, too, considering the soil is like rock—once you get past the top layer of sand, that is.”

“You sound like a professional gardener,” Annie said, impressed.

“Too much bloody hard work for me, thanks very much. Spiros said I looked like I was about to keel over, so I should come and sit in the shade with you girls for a while. If I’d known there was wine on offer, I would have been over earlier.”

“Yes, Spiros is in his element, growing things and catching things. I think it is his caveman instincts coming to the fore.”

“He was telling me about his novel, too. It sounds a rather intriguing mystery.”

“I haven’t read any of it yet because he won’t let me see it until it is finished but he is a talented writer.”

“When does he find the time to sit down and actually write, Kas?” Annie asked.

“He goes to the office at three o’clock and writes until five o’clock most days because he says if he doesn’t set aside this time he will never get his book finished.” Kassia shrugged. “He is right, I suppose.”

“Good for him.” Carl took another drink. “He’s really living his dream.”

“Yes,
he
is.” The inflection in her voice didn’t escape him and he raised a quizzical eyebrow in Annie’s direction. She shook her head slightly in warning not to go there.

Kassia ran a finger round the rim of her wine glass before she seemed to pull herself up as she visibly brightened. “Well, now that I have you both here, tell me—what has been your favourite of the Greek islands so far?”

“Not counting here?” Carl asked. Annie noticed his normal colour had returned.

“Not counting here.” Kassia smiled.

“Okay, well, every island has been beautiful, of course, and each island had something special about it. But I think my favourite in the Cyclades would have to be Naxos.” Carl nodded his agreement. “We stayed in the old town of Hora.”

“Ah, Naxos! Yes, it is beautiful—the most verdant of the Cyclades, I think?”

“That’s a big word, verdant.” Annie rolled it off her tongue. “I like it and yes, it was the greenest of the islands once you got inland, which we did when we visited this gorgeous little village. It had the most stunning Venetian architecture and every corner we turned was a photograph waiting to be taken. What was it called again, Carl?”

“Halki—spelled Chalki—and we had the best spinach and cheese pie from that bakery while we waited for the bus to take us back to Hora.”

“Oh yeah, it was good. I could have gone two if the bus hadn’t shown up when it did. Remember the teacher chap I told you I met at the Acropolis, Kas? His name’s Kristofr and he was the one who insisted that we must go to Naxos. It’s where he came from originally.”

“Ah, I see! It is Kristofr now. And did you get this Kristofr’s phone number or he yours?”

“No! It wasn’t like that. He felt sorry for me, that was all, and was being helpful.”

Kassia and Carl exchanged glances as she replied, “Yes, in the way that men are always helpful to a beautiful woman when she is sad.”

“You should have seen her mooning after him.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Now, now children!”

“Alright, I’ll admit he was rather nice.”

“Bloody gorgeous more like,” Carl interrupted and Annie glared at him.

“But we didn’t swap numbers and like I keep saying, I don’t want to meet anybody anyway. Besides, I probably came across as a bit of a loon, offloading to him the way I did about Roz.”

“Take it from me that life has a funny way of not going to plan and in my experience, when you really want to meet someone, you stay single and lonely but when you decide that no, you want to be on your own that is when the right person comes along.”

“Well said, Kas, my dear.” The flicker of sadness that crossed his face didn’t escape Annie. He really missed David, she realised and softened her tone.

“Like I said, we didn’t exchange numbers and I’ll never see him again, so I don’t think it was the start of something beautiful.”

“Ah, it’s a pity.” Kassia shook her dark head as Annie sighed exasperatedly.

“Can we please move on?”

“If we have to,” she said.

“You have to.”

“Okay, so you loved Naxos.”

This was a theme Annie was far more comfortable discussing and she began to wax lyrical. “Oh, I did! It was everything I hoped a Greek island would be. The old town was so beautiful with the bright reds, purples, and pinks of the bougainvillea climbing everywhere. I always feel like I am on holiday when I see bougainvillea. Remember that cute little black cat that kept showing up everywhere we went, Carl?”

He nodded. “Worm-riddled old fleabag, more like.”

Annie recalled how it had seemed like the little cat’s green eyes had followed them wherever they went. She shook the idea away as being silly. “The sunset through the Temple of Apollo and all those gorgeous little tavernas tucked away down cobbled alleys covered in grapevines and lit up by fairy lights at night. It was magical, wasn’t it, Carl?”

“It was.”

“I mean it was definitely geared up for the tourists but it just felt more authentic than Santorini did, which surprised me because whenever I thought of Roz, Santorini was her Greece, and I thought it would be mine too. Before we went there, I thought it would be a place I’d never want to leave but actually it was a relief to get on the ferry.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. Santorini is the crowned beauty queen: she is glitzy and breathtaking but it is the islands like Naxos that are the true gems.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Carl said. “Santorini lived up to all the paintings and photographs I have seen of it but it was, well, it was a bit—”

“Touristy, hot, and overcrowded,” Kassia finished for him with a smile.

“Yes!” Annie exclaimed. “I couldn’t believe the hordes of people we had to fight our way through, especially in Oia. Everybody wanted their windmill photo! We’re not used to crowds like that in New Zealand, and I tell you something horrible came over me. I wanted to walk up and down the little paths with my arms sticking out like rotary blades so that I could smack anybody who dared step into my personal space.” Annie demonstrated what she meant and Carl and Kassia laughed.

“Don’t get me wrong, though, I did love it. The views of the caldera took my breath away—they are truly mind-blowing. It was amazing but there was such a hectic pace of people all the time vying for photographs—gosh, the Europeans are posers, by the way. The women are all the next Jennifer Aniston and the men are all sumos in Speedos. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and enjoy it all like, well, like we are doing here right now.”

“Well said, Annie my love.”

“To here right now, I say.” Kassia raised her glass, which was nearly empty, and looked sorrowfully at the empty carafe.

The other two grinned and reiterated her sentiment as they drained their own glasses.

A companionable silence settled over the threesome as Carl and Annie enjoyed the vista while Kassia popped another olive in her mouth and contemplated going up to the house to refill the carafe. She was about to get to her feet when Annie spoke.

“Oh, and I nearly forgot—we didn’t just get legless on Mykonos; we went to see the
Shirley Valentine
beach too. It was every bit as gorgeous as it looked in the film so I can see why Shirley never went home.”

“Who is this Shirley Valentine?” Kassia frowned.

Annie relayed the story of the downtrodden Liverpudlian housewife who has lost her lust for life only to find it again on holiday in Greece while Kassia listened, head tilted to one side. When she got to the part where the taverna owner, with his well-practiced lines, takes Shirley out for a “ride” on his boat, she interrupted to exclaim, “Ha! This man, he sounds like an older version of Alexandros. He is always taking the women out on his boat and now I know why!”

Kassia got to her feet as Annie and Carl laughed. She took hold of the carafe and waved it at them. “I should check on the boys and I think perhaps it might be time for some more. I’ll be back in a moment.”

As she walked off, Annie looked over at Carl, whose expression had sobered. She reached over and rested her hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a bit tired. It’s been a big day and I am not used to handling a spade.”

“That’s not why you look sad, though. You’re missing David, aren’t you?” Annie took his silence to mean yes. There had been times over the last few weeks that she’d sensed the dip in his mood and she knew that for all his bluster and bravado, he was indeed missing his boyfriend of the past two years. “Did you reply to that happy birthday text message he sent you?” Again there was no reply. “Carl! He held out an olive branch.” She glanced at the branches over her head. “Er, so to speak. You should have taken it.”