Send Me A Lover (25 page)

‘Mm. Yeah. Not that I would have any experience of that feeling.’ I quickly remember what it is I’m about to go back to. A job I don’t want that I have to ditch very soon. But I’m not really thinking about that right now.

‘The other trouble is though… and this is the difficult part.’ He stops walking now, looks at his feet again. ‘I’m not sure I want her to come with me.’ He says it very quietly, and now I realise I’m about to find out what all this is about.

‘You don’t want her to come? Why?’ I scour him with my gaze. He looks at me frankly, shakes his head as though disbelieving something.

‘You know, when you imagine how your life’s going to turn out… I’d have never seen me in this moment, you know… walking in Greece with a woman I’ve just met, telling her that my wife did something that sometimes makes me never want to set eyes on her again.’

‘She did?’ I’m confused. ‘So what are you doing on holiday with her then?’ The question is out of me before I can stop it. I quickly add, ‘Sorry,’ but he just looks at me and says, ‘No, it’s a good question. The answer is, mainly because the holiday was booked, and, well, she doesn’t know I know, and I still haven’t worked out what to do… so it makes sense to say nothing until I know exactly what it is I want to say, and just go on as normal. Meanwhile I’m still getting used to the idea that our two-year marriage all boils down to very little in her eyes.’

‘Was it an affair?’

We reach the end of the bluff, and there’s a drop down to the ocean, with nowhere else to really go, except back in a circle. ‘Do you want to sit here? On the grass?’ he asks me, so we do.

‘No, it wasn’t an affair. Not exactly… Jen’s always been a really fun girl, you know. That’s one of the main things that attracted me to her. She’s good to be around. Only there’s a line, isn’t there? Between fun and inappropriate behaviour.’ He shakes his head, pensively, then looks me right in the eyes. ‘She went to a strip club, for a hen night. Tiff—Boz’s wife was there. Boz is the one with the ginger hair, who you saw the other day… And Michael is the other one from the trip…’

I nod. Boz. The talkative one.

‘She did something with one of the strippers.’

My jaw almost drops. ‘Did what?’

‘Something not very nice.’

‘She had sex with him?’

He doesn’t answer, so I’m thinking I must be right. ‘But you weren’t there,’ I say. ‘How would you know all this?’

‘I didn’t have to be. I got enough details as it was. Couldn’t have seen it more clearly than if they’d taken photos.’ He looks at me. ‘Tiff told Boz, who of course told me, even though he wasn’t supposed to. So I have to look at all of them knowing they know something I’m not supposed to… It’s very weird. I have to decide what I’m going to do, then they’ll all stop looking at me like they know something they can’t tell.’ He look away. ‘They didn’t have sex exactly. Not intercourse.’

Is he meaning what I’m thinking? So it wasn’t that bad?’ I offer, hoping he’ll elaborate.

He laughs, humourlessly. ‘No. It was bad.’

‘Can’t you just try forgetting about it?’ I say after a while. ‘They probably had loads to drink. So if she was pissed… I’m not saying it was a good thing to have happened, but I hardly think it’s bad enough to end a marriage over. If that’s what you’re thinking of doing.’

‘That’s what Tiff told Boz. That she was really wasted.’

‘She probably really regrets it,’ is about all I feel I can fairly say about a woman I don’t even know, a marriage I know nothing about.

He looks at me directly now, firmly. ‘Jen’s not the kind of girl to go around regretting too much of what she does. She seems to think that that’s just the way she is, and it’s something we should all accept about her. But I’m not the kind of guy who can go around forgetting that his wife cheated on him.’

‘But we all know hen nights and stags are dirty. Maybe what happens at them should be put down to the occasion. Maybe it’s best not to know.’

‘It might have been. But I do know, don’t I.’ He looks at me, but like he’s only half listening. We walk back almost in silence, yet it’s not an uncomfortable silence. ‘It’s okay,’ he finally says. ‘I’m bothered, but I’m not destroyed.’

I gaze up at him. He’s obviously a lot more bothered than he’s making out. I wonder if there’s more to the story than he’s letting on.

Eventually he says, ‘I don’t even know you yet I’m telling you all this stuff.’

‘That’s all right. I have one of those faces.’

He looks down at my face. ‘What? You mean people tell you all their problems?’

‘I guess. I don’t know. I was really just joking. Trying to be light.’

‘You are light. That’s what I like about you.’ Then he stops walking, and he looks at me again. ‘Or maybe light’s the wrong word. ‘ I can tell he’s just remembered I’m a widow. ‘Maybe what I mean is… easy.’

‘Better be careful there,’ I tell him, and he laughs a bit.

‘God I’m hopeless with women, aren’t I? Easy to talk to,’ he adds. ‘All that’s missing is the portable quack’s couch, eh?’

‘And my bill. Which would probably make all your other problems feel small.’

He smiles. We walk back as far as the main tourist drag. ‘God it’s awful up here eh?’ He stops and looks around at the street life. ‘They always like package tours—Tiff, Boz, Michael, Becca, Jen… Eating. Drinking. Sitting on the beach surrounded by a load of English people. Not really my thing.’

‘You’re at a crossroads,’ I tell him.

He meets me in the eyes. ‘Yeah, I suppose I am.’

‘So… stay married, stay in England, and forgive her. Or…. Leave her, leave England, move to Seattle.’ I don’t know why I’m saying this. It all feels like nose-diving off a springboard, when I’m not sure I’m going to make the plunge properly; maybe I’m going to belly-flop and it’ll hurt like hell.

‘Something like that, yes. Or the obvious other option—stay in England, don’t take the job and leave her.’

Forgiving her definitely doesn’t sound like an option. ‘But the other way sounds better.’

He looks at me. ‘Yeah, but it feels more cowardly. Like running away.’

Didn’t I run away from England because I felt I wanted to put distance between me and my parents? Aren’t I thinking of running away again—to try to forget Jonathan? ‘Moving away isn’t cowardly, Sean, if you’re moving to take a job. Although it’s not an easy thing to do, and you can take it from somebody who’s done it. But running away is never good, I don’t think.’

‘Thanks for the input,’ he says, tilting his head and looking at me again.

‘Has it helped?’

‘I wish it could be that simple. But it’s good you tried.’

‘So you don’t want me to send you my bill, is that what you mean? The hour hasn’t been worth it.’

‘No,’ he looks at me and smiles. ‘It’s definitely been worth it.’

We walk back to my hotel. Outside the door, he pauses, looking like he’s teetering on the edge of something he wants to say. And then he says it. ‘If I asked you to meet me again tomorrow morning, say at ten o’clock,—and I absolutely promised you that we wouldn’t spend a minute of it talking about me and my messed-up life—we’d just meet and enjoy a good-old-fashioned gyros off a street vender in the sun—would that sound vaguely tempting to you at all? You don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings if it wouldn’t. I’m not going to commit suicide or anything like that. Although if I do, I’ll make sure there’s a special, conscience-screwing note for you.’

I don’t really believe he is looking to go to bed with me. Nor am I looking for that either. ‘Go on then,’ I tell him. ‘It was the gyros that sold me.’

He watches me walk inside. When I turn around to see if he’s gone, he’s still standing there, smiling at me as though I’ve just pleased him more than he ever thought he could be pleased right now.

Mam’s bed is empty when I get back to the room, and empty when I get up to pee at two in the morning. I go back to bed and try to sleep but I can’t. My head’s a mix of my mam, Sean, Jonathan… Would Jonathan have left me if he found out I’d got it on with a stripper? Interesting question. I think he’d probably have been disgusted at me. He’d have made me feel really, really small and pathetic, but ultimately, he’d have got over it.

Around three, I hear the door. She creeps in, picks her way around the room so as not to disturb me. I smell a gentle waft of her perfume. I pretend I’m asleep.

~ * * * ~

He’s sitting on the wall when I come out. The sight of him makes my stomach flip.

‘You’ve got good legs,’ he says, looking objectively at them in my short denim skirt. ‘Runner’s legs.’

‘That’s what my husband used to call them.’

He looks sad for me, for a moment. ‘Do you run then?’

‘Only if I’m being chased.’

He gets off the wall. ‘By who?’

‘Oh… wives of Englishmen I meet on holiday in Greece.’

A proper smile now. ‘Well that counts me out. I’m Irish, remember.’

We stand there looking at one another, a bit like we did yesterday, only not half as uncomfortably. ‘I’ve been thinking about everything you told me,’ I tell him.

‘You and me both.’ He holds my look for a while. ‘Come on,’ he says, leading me out onto the street. ‘This is my rental. Well, it’s Boz’s really.’ He indicates to the silver Nissan Micra.

‘Where’re we going?’

‘Away from this pit.’

‘Did you tell your friend Boz—is that really his name—that you’re taking me out?’

He pauses with his handle on the passenger-side door. ‘It’s short for Barry, only we’ve called him Boz since he was, like, two. And yeah, I did tell him.’

‘Oh.’ I can just imagine the tone of that conversation, what they’re all going to think.

‘Why? Do you care?’ He scrutinizes me.

I shrug. ‘I suppose not. If you don’t.’

‘He’s a good guy, anyway, Boz. No worries there.’

‘So what does he make of this?’

‘Oh, just that I’m giving myself more problems.’

‘And you?’

He gets in, slams the door heavy-handedly. ‘In a way it’s not that simple. In a way he’s probably right. But I’m a big boy—I can decide for myself.’ He looks at me again. ‘Besides, who knows, maybe we were fated to meet.’ He starts up the engine. ‘Now I’m not going to let Boz and a few more little problems get in the way of that. Am I?’

~ * * * ~

We drive up to Bohali. The place we came on the trip, that left such an impression with me. Where Georgios brought me for dinner. The restaurant where we ate is closed, as it’s still only early morning.

‘Did your mam come home last night?’ he asks.

‘She did. Around three.’

He whistles. ‘So what happened with her and the Greek lover? Did she give you the gory details this morning?’

I shake my head. ‘She was sleeping when I got up. I didn’t want to wake her.’ We sit and watch the view. ‘How did you meet her? Your wife?’ I ask him, after a while.

He takes a moment or two to reply, as though he’s partially reliving it. ‘In a bar, in Liverpool. I’d just broken up with a girl I’d been seeing for six years. She was a nice girl. Looking back now, I probably should have stayed with her. Only at the time, it felt like too much too early… We met in uni, but then we graduated, got jobs in different cities. When we did get together on weekends, there was too much pressure to have a good time, but somehow all we did was fight. I could tell we were both getting restless to just be rid of each other.’ He looks at me now, laughs a bit. ‘Anyway, I met Jen, and Jen didn’t seem to have a care in the world, or a serious side. It made her very fanciable. She was great to be around. She never really took responsibility for anything… And she still doesn’t.’ He shakes his head. ‘I thought I’d change her, once we got, you know, married, got the house, a life together... I thought she’d settle down. Yet it’s daft really because you can’t marry somebody expecting them to change, and I was attracted to her because she was who she was… Maybe I’m the one that’s grown up in these last two years—more so than she has. I look at her now and I’m not so sure I see her as the mother of my children.’ He knits his brows, looks at me, shakes his head. ‘Anyway, let’s not talk about all my crap mistakes.’