The New Mrs D (3 page)

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me where I go to hire a moped?’

Chapter Four

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beeeeeep! This isn’t an episode of The Osbournes . . . We’re renting mopeds!

A
t the age of 18, I passed my driving test and wrote-off my dad’s car on the way home. I lost all confidence and handed back my keys, deciding never to take to the wheel again.

I’d only taken my eyes off the road for a second – to throw my L-plates into the back – when the corner of one of them caught in the brushed nylon roofing material and pinged back at my head. But that wasn’t when the crash occurred . . . the crash occurred when I bent forward to pick them up for another go. ‘It could have happened to anybody,’ didn’t seem to convince my dad as I handed him the now-detached steering wheel of his prized Sierra Cosworth.

From then on, I’d relied on others to drive me around. Following a barrage of ‘Are you stupid?’ type abuse from my furious mother when I got home, and my own realisation that I must be the most accident prone woman on the planet, all the confidence gained in 30 weeks of driving lessons was lost forever.

‘My darling Binnie, I’m going to teach you to drive if it’s the last thing I do!’

With David gone there wasn’t going to be anyone to drive me around or teach me to drive – I was on my own. My driving license was in my handbag ‘just in case’ David could talk me into hiring a moped – though I’d been convinced he’d never be able to do it. My choices were to stay round the hotel pool with a group of unadventurous, sunbathing couples, or to get out and explore the real splendour of the island alone. It was no contest. For the sake of doing everything on the adventure tour group itinerary, I was going to have to take to the open road alone. Never had I needed some freedom to explore as much as now.

The short walk from the hotel to the moped centre took me past shops where I was able to purchase supplies to aid my sickly stomach. Bye-bye sugar low – hello very large bag of mini chocolate croissants, two cartons of orange juice and a packet of mints to stop my breath vaporising all the new people I was about to meet at the painting class. I downed the first carton of orange juice greedily, but still my suffering, grief-stricken belly wasn’t accepting any food callers.

‘Now, remembers Mrs Dando, you drive with bike on the right. It is not like in the English.’ The boy from the hire centre handed over the map he’d drawn to Chris’s villa and searched my face for a glimmer of understanding as I sat astride the moped. Peering through the visor of my oversized helmet at the controls that he’d just spent an age explaining, I nodded . . . and the world went black. Pushing the helmet around until I could see again, I took the map and his pencil before grabbing the handlebars. This didn’t look so hard; what had I been worried about? Front brake. Back brake.
‘Why would I want one half of me to stop and not the other?’
Accelerator.

‘And this button is . . . ?’

‘BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!’

‘Oops! That’ll be the horn,’ I laughed, as several mystified faces appeared from nearby shops to see what the noise was. The boy, who looked about 12, failed to see the funny side. Judging by the look on his face in my rear view mirror, he was pretty worried.

‘How on earth do people manage with the island heat in this headgear?’ I asked, turning towards him, but finding I could only see half of his face as the mahoosive helmet remained facing forwards. I adjusted it again, just in time to spy him rolling his eyes.

‘Don’t they make these things for people with normal sized heads?’ I muttered into the sweaty, foam lining.

‘Mrs Dando,’ the boy began, gravely, ‘do you understand? Do not forget. You drive on the . . .’

‘. . . right side of the road. I get it. Really, how hard can it be?’

It wasn’t my voice I heard answering him so impatiently; it was my mother’s.

‘Come on Bernice, just pedal! How hard can it be?’

I was ten and sitting aboard my new bike, frozen to the spot. Dad was holding me, and the bicycle, upright.

‘Just push off from the kerb,’ Mum wailed at me. ‘Go! Go!’

I gave the brakes one last squeeze, to check again if they could stop me from having the horrible collision I was busy picturing in my head. But even as the pads tightened against the wheel, reassuring me that stopping was possible, I couldn’t let go of my father as he tried to push me while attempting to release my vice-like grip on his arm. I couldn’t be alone on that big, wide, busy road. Couldn’t. Couldn’t.
Couldn’t.

‘For Christ’s sake, Bernice, you’re ten!’

The secondhand bike was thrown back in the garage within ten minutes, with Mother shouting, ‘Never again! What a waste of money that was!’

Sniffling and crying, I hoped for some comfort and reassurance that I wasn’t useless and we could try again another day, but she was staring at the bike on the floor of the garage with a look of disappointment.

‘We can send it back, George,’ she called after my father, ignoring me. ‘I think the store might refund us if we tell them she’s too scared to ride it.’

‘No, Mum, I want to ride it, I do!’ I cried. ‘Please let me try again another day.’

‘No point,’ she shot back, hurrying to follow my father. ‘You never just try things for me, do you? How can you let me down after I paid out all that money? Your little sister has been riding a bike since she was seven. When are you going to grow up?’

‘Mrs Dando,’ the boy brought me back to the present with a wave of his hand in front of my face. I’d clearly glazed over for a few seconds. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ I said, a little more confidently than I felt. I turned the throttle on the bike. ‘Let’s do this!’

‘Okay. And Mrs Dando?’ he continued. ‘Can I have my pencil back?’

Except I didn’t have the chance to respond to that last bit because I was already revving off, giving an awkward ‘I’m okay’ wave to the lad. Which I wasn’t because I hadn’t meant to move forwards at that moment.
Where did he say the brakes were?

Even over the sound of the engine and through muffling headgear, I could hear shouts from behind and risked a swift peek over my shoulder. Seeing the boy waving at me, I waved again, but struggled to keep control of the bike which mounted the kerb, sending several stray cats scattering up trees to safety.

‘Aww, come on!’ I complained, revving the engine a second time. Looking back at the hire centre, I saw the boy had been joined by what looked like two huge Greek men, and all three were now running after me, gesticulating wildly.
Shit, was I about to be arrested for pencil theft?

I turned the throttle to full and, as my head was almost torn off my shoulders with the force of sudden forward motion, I threw the pencil to the ground behind me with a shout of, ‘There’s your pencil!’ The moped charged onwards, bumping up a cobbled side street. It seemed there was no way to stop, even if I wanted to, without crashing into something.

‘Mrs Dando! MRS DANDO!’

Another rearwards glance showed that the sales boy had now jumped onto a rental moped with the beefy henchmen on another, all in pursuit. Oh God, this was it; I was about to be ambushed . . . maybe even killed! Tomorrow’s island newspaper headlines flashed into my head:

BRITISH PENCIL THIEF RUBBED OUT BY
LOCAL HITMEN

Would a stolen pencil
really
warrant such an elaborate daylight operation?
Of course not, stupid woman.
Maybe I was being mugged. Was it the stash of euros in my purse that I’d flashed while paying for the moped? Oh no, wait – they surely weren’t after my faux diamond-emblazoned Primark flip-flops?

In a panic, I kicked one off into the path of an elderly couple as they strolled out from a hotel car park. The shoe shot straight into the old man’s portly, bare stomach with a sickening slap.

‘They have the diamonds!’ I called, mercilessly pointing them out to the gangsters before whizzing onwards to make my getaway.

But it was all for nothing; the roar of bikes continued behind me. I slowed to turn a corner into another side street and heard a shout.

‘Stop! Mrs Dando! You stop NOW!’

What on earth could they want?
I reached down with one hand, trying to take the other flip-flop off to throw back as a ransom, but dropped it instead. As I cursed myself and looked up, an ancient Greek woman on a scooter was zipping round a bend straight at me, only swerving at the last second to avoid a collision.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘WAAAAHHHH!!!’ We screamed the last part in unison; ‘Waaaahhhh’, it transpired, being the international synonym for ‘OH SHIIIIIT!’ In an instant, her front wheel bounced off the kerb, sending both the old lady, and the basket of lemons balanced on her handlebars, flying, Frank Spencer style through the air towards a couple of teenage boys.
Christ, I’m in a Carry On film.

‘Save the lemons!’ I called back, rattling onwards with no time to look behind again or wonder why my first manic thoughts were for Frank Spencer and the fruit – not the little old lady. Speeding away from the increasing chaos behind, I rounded a honking car pulling out from a driveway and yelled at its startled occupants, ‘CALL THE POLICE!’

Despite the throttle being fully open it seemed the tiny engine had no more to give and the roar from the biker gang got closer. Turning round once more, I could see the two bikes were still in hot pursuit, and for the first time I noticed the boy had a very fat man riding pillion. So there were four of them! And the fourth had mad lady-killer written all over him. Heart pounding with fear, I grabbed the nearest thing to a weapon from the moped basket and began hurling ammunition overhead at the assailants. However, taking my eyes off the road to lob miniature chocolate croissants was a last, fatal mistake.

Crunch!

The moped bumped straight up a kerb, sending my stomach boinging up to my lungs and my knicker tops rolling back down below my belly again, as the bike came to a near halt. This was it, the end. I waited for my life to flash in front of me . . . but a massive, spiny bush got there first. Without testing the moped’s brakes, and fuelled by an extraordinary burst of adrenaline, I dived off, sending it ploughing, un-helmed, into the bush. This was where, in a moment of TV cop-esque brilliance, I rolled over and over onto a grass bank before springing back to my feet.

‘Whoa!’ For a split second, Mrs David Dando was Lara Croft; crime fighting, tomb raiding stunt rider. That was until My Big Fat Greek Assassin got off his bike and made towards me and I remembered who I actually was. Bawling Binnie – with her knickers rolling down again.

‘Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I’m unarmed!’ I yelled, trying – and failing – to get my helmet off before throwing up my hands in surrender to the waiting gang.

‘Other side, Mrs Dando! Other side!’ yelled Zorba the Crook, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe bits of chocolate and pastry from his fat sweaty face. Spying his accomplices coming up behind, I turned around and threw myself face down in the dirt with my hands behind my still-helmeted head.

‘Okay, okay,’ I whimpered, ‘just
please
don’t hurt me.’

There are moments that should flash through your mind when you think death is imminent; the faces of loved ones, lifelong friends, long-forgotten happy moments, childhood memories. This was my crucial moment – and I was going to die wondering if Greece had body bags big enough for me in this colossal monstrosity of a biking helmet.

The Fat Assassin flopped down beside me and prodded my shoulder. ‘
Oh God
,’ I thought. ‘
He’s really mad! Goodbye cruel world!
’

Dear Facebook, today I was so hot. Oops, bloody mobile phone typos! I was s-h-o-t.

‘Mrs Dando . . .’

As I lay there with my eyes screwed shut, waiting to feel a gun in my ribs, (please God let it be a gun in his pocket), hearing him huffing like a muddy, wet contestant on
Total Wipeout
, his voice took on a calmer, more sinister tone.

‘I not kill you. You kill yourself.’

I froze. Oh my God, he was going to make me shoot me.

I heard him take another deep breath and cough. ‘Mrs Dando,’ he said finally. ‘You drive with the moped on the other side!’

‘I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t . . . oh!’
Ah. Right
. . . I rolled back over to face him, but again, could see nothing but blackness. So, I wasn’t going to be bumped off for stealing the island’s only pencil. Or for assault with a supersized bag of mini croissants.

Twisting the monstrous headgear off and easing myself upright, I was met by four nonplussed faces caked in, well . . . cake.

‘Oh,’ I said, smoothing my hair in an attempt to recover some composure. ‘Well, er . . . why didn’t you just say so?’

Chapter Five

Discovered my superpower isn’t making a cool ‘KSSHHH KSHHH’ noise when I walk.
Unrelated: Now have 40 smartphone photos of the inside of my pocket.

P
ulling over to catch my breath, drink some more juice and update Facebook, I gazed through olive groves to the distant horizon where real life, work, bills and complicated relationships awaited my return. Still a little shaken from the moped chase, I realised that for that whole brief, albeit zany window, I hadn’t thought of David once. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the sweet and savoury aroma of lemons and olives and thought of myself zipping through the island’s sleepy, cobbled streets on the wrong side of the road. Despite a slight prickle of embarrassment, a wry smile spread across my face. It was so wonderfully liberating taking to the road alone, I understood now. I opened my eyes, taking in the astonishing view, and made friends with the glinting Aegean once again.

There is a moment in every relaxation tape I’ve listened to when Mr Making-Me-Sleepy-Voice-Man tells me to imagine my calm place to begin. That place for me was usually here in Greece, sitting with my toes dipped in the warm, almost silken waters as the scorching, summer sun nipped at my shoulders. I was already beginning to relax again . . . Until I remembered I was about to face my husband’s best friend.

It seemed so long ago now that David had first introduced Chris and me, two months into our relationship, and as time passed and we saw Chris time and again, it became clear that we had a lot in common. We had the same sense of humour, came from similar backgrounds and liked all of the same things. It seemed I had passed the ‘meet the best friend test’ with flying colours.

Then, one night, right in the middle of a conversation we were having alone at a party, everything changed. We were both more than a little inebriated; laughing until we cried as we always did, when he stopped, touched my hand and said, ‘You know, David is my oldest friend. I wouldn’t want to see him hurt.’

‘Hah,’ I laughed. ‘I’m not going to hurt him.’ Noticing his serious expression, I changed my light-hearted tone to a more serious one. ‘I like him a lot.’

He grasped his pint glass with both hands and stared solemnly into the beer. ‘Me too,’ he said.

‘Are you saying I’ve got a rival for his affections?’ I asked, only half joking.

‘I’m saying let’s change the subject,’ he replied, looking so uncharacteristically serious that it felt almost like a reproach. I was puzzled, but put it down to the drink and did as he’d asked. After that night, we never really talked that much again. Shortly after, I’d tried to recall the conversation leading up to his unexpected sharpness − maybe I’d said something stupid and he’d gotten the wrong end of the stick? Maybe he’d told me a secret about David that he wasn’t supposed to reveal? But I couldn’t remember what had occurred. When I mentioned it to David, he just shrugged it off.

‘Oh, Chris is just funny sometimes,’ he said.

‘Are you sure you’re not hiding something?’ I asked.

‘Apart from that time he went to prison for me, no,’ he joked.

Six months later, Chris had headed out to Greece for a new life and I hadn’t thought about it again until now.

There was only a short uphill drive remaining, but now the pain in my heart was beginning to dull, replaced by nervousness.

I was going to have to face Chris and his painting class alone . . . and shoeless. I imagined him quizzing me.

‘Teenagers threw your flip-flops away?’

‘Yup. Flipping flip-flop flingers.’

Choosing one of the smaller, less touristy islands had been David’s idea; not just to meet up with Chris again, but to explore these little-known corners of the earth, filled with undiscovered treasures, coupled with a list of new experiences we’d planned like conspiring children. In truth, it was a life experience I’d planned to have 23 years earlier – right before discovering I was expecting Sal.

Michael, Sal’s father, was a college mate I barely knew. At 19, without even having had time to wave goodbye to a higher education, we had chosen to ‘do the right thing’ and get married. By 21, when most of our friends were leaving university to dry out and get respectable jobs, I was already a mother of two with a husband. But at least I wasn’t alone on that road.

It was 15 years before I really got to know the person I’d married, when a collection of love letters – stumbled upon while tidying the loft – revealed he’d had a mistress for six of those years.

Michael was now married to Caroline, but I’d never told the girls their dad and new stepmum were a perfect match – of lying, cheating, conspiring lowlifes. I’d even accepted Facebook friend requests from both of them to keep the ‘happy, extended family’ dream alive.

Caroline would like to add you as a friend.

Bloody fiend more like.

For me, reading the words ‘Caroline likes this’, with the jolly little Facebook thumbs up beside it under my holiday snaps, was tantamount to winning first prize in a glamorous grannie competition. When Sal and Mark announced their engagement and Caroline had updated her status to say ‘Ooh, can hardly believe I could be a grandma soon’ it burned my heart like ice.

‘
My
children.
My
grandchildren,’ I felt like screaming out, but swallowed the words. All that mattered to me was Sal and Beth’s happiness. And
they
adored her.

Smother − who had made sure she too was friends with Caroline on Facebook − had written her congratulations to Sal, Mark
and
Caroline underneath the post. She had always maintained a friendly relationship with Caroline, although she knew why my marriage to Michael had collapsed.

‘Well, she hasn’t done anything to me really, has she? And she’s so good with the girls. I like the way she fixed Beth’s hair for her party last summer. You know you were never any good at that kind of thing. She came and did mine too, for my reading group social. That reminds me, I must send her some flowers to say thanks.’

Blinking at the memory, I recalled too, the only person who had been available to decorate a new flat before someone moved in recently. A person who had never painted a wall in her life, had very little money, but wanted to try and make everything nice for her mother; an old woman who was forced to move from the house she’d lived in for twenty years into something smaller and easier to manage. A person who had showed her mother all the newly decorated rooms, grinning from ear to ear while feeling shattered − but more than a little proud − at what she’d achieved. It took two seconds for her to feel slapped in the face.

‘Well, this will do for now, Bernice. At least I’ll be able to pay someone to do it properly once I’m settled in.’

Discarding the juice carton to the back of the moped basket, along with thoughts of Smother, I pressed on, even remembering at the last minute to move back to the right hand side of the road. Before long, I turned into a quiet lane that stopped before large, black iron gates with a sign that read:

Chris Paynton. Art Classes. Please ring the goat bell.

Hmm . . . did I need a goat right now? My stomach gurgled as I removed my helmet and glugged down more orange juice, praying it wouldn’t be making a reappearance anytime soon. It would be a good day; I’d had many a fine moment ribbing Chris about being an artist called Paynton. Once I’d explained away the absence of my husband – his best friend – I was sure we would just fall back into the old routine. I rang the bell.

Sure he’ll be pleased to see you. Because you just sent his lifelong friend packing – the person he’d asked you not to hurt. For the first time, I faltered. What was I thinking, coming here after all that had happened?

As I considered turning back, six heads, alerted by the dingly-dong of the goat bell, popped up from a leafy patio area above.
Well, I’m here now.

‘I’m looking for Chris Paynton,’ I called.

‘Hold on!’ The voice came from just in front of me, making me jump.

‘Hello?’ I said, holding on to the gatepost for support as the day’s heat and yesterday’s wine had a foam party in my belly. Inside the gate was a small white car with an ample, khaki-shorts-clad bottom sticking out of its back door.

‘Just . . . getting . . . some . . . oh, wait . . .’ the bottom grumbled. Finally, Chris, owner of said ample bottom, emerged, holding a large box of brushes and cloths and clutching two large rolls of paper under each arm. What I hadn’t reckoned for was how much more attractive he would look carrying a few extra Mediterranean diet pounds, newly greyed hair and a suntan.

‘Bernice!’ he said, walking towards me happily. All I could think of was how much his clear, blue eyes resembled the placid deepest depths of the Grecian sea. And how happy he looked. A stab of envy and a longing for his carefree life in the sun overwhelmed me. How well it suited him.

‘Oh, er . . .’ I smiled and smoothed my wind-blown hair back down.

Chris dropped the paper rolls on the ground, laid down the box and stood twisting the barrel on the bike-lock that was holding the gate closed. For a second he stopped as he spotted my bare feet.

‘Well, you got here at last,’ he said, getting back to opening the lock. ‘Congratulations on your wedding! Where’s the blushing groom?’ He glanced behind me, then back at my feet.

My stomach lurched. ‘He, erm, isn’t coming,’ I said.

Finding the right combination at last, the lock gave way and he opened the gate, beckoning me onto his property. He looked puzzled.

‘Sorry about the locked gate – it keeps the damned goats out.’ He stared a third time at my bare toes, then at the moped, as if mulling over the situation in an attempt to understand his friend’s absence, while I fought an inward battle with the unexpected pain − seeing him made me think of David. ‘There was no fence when I moved here,’ he continued. ‘And the bloody things took over and ate everything in sight.’

‘I see,’ I said, still holding a forced smile whilst racking my brains for an ‘Oops, I kind of lost David’ excuse. ‘Perhaps if you got rid of the goat bell they’d stop coming round so much?’

He laughed and beckoned me in, onto the crisp, gravelly driveway. Which was when another, much more immediate pain hit me.
Owww!
The gravel was boiling hot! I hobbled in, gritting my teeth and trying my utmost to look normal.

‘They don’t wear shoes in England anymore then?’ he asked.

‘They do. Such boring, conventional people in England, don’t you miss them?’ Knowing my sense of humour was still intact soothed me somewhat. David hadn’t taken everything.

‘Conventional, yes. Sadomasochistic − maybe not so much. How’s this heat on your soles?’

‘Honestly?’ I was now hopping from one foot to the other, trying hard to keep from crying out as they burned. ‘I think I’m already onto a new layer of skin.’

‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘I have water
and
shoes. So, where
is
David? Hung over or something?’

Helping him with the rolls of paper, I followed him up the pathway towards the group waiting on the patio. My feet hurt, but not as much as my brain, which was still scrambling for a story. Why hadn’t I thought of one before I got here?

‘You haven’t heard from him then?’ I asked.

‘No. Not at all,’ he said, concern in his eyes.

‘Well, okay,’ I said, taking a very deep breath. This was it. ‘Yes we got married as planned, and it was a beautiful day. But, it’s just me here today. It’s just me on the entire honeymoon now, actually.’

‘I don’t . . . ?’ he started.

I didn’t want to stop for breath or questions, which I hoped wouldn’t make me sound heartless. He was the first person I’d told, and it felt very, very painful speaking about it.

‘Do you mind if we leave it at that just for now? I know you two are good friends so it might not be appropriate for us to discuss it. I’ll let him explain,
his
way. I’d just like to take your painting class, Chris, if you’ll still have me?’ I could feel tears welling up in my eyes and I rubbed them away quickly. ‘
Just let me get through this day,
’ I thought.

As he stood, looking for all the world like he was wondering what to say next, I saw sympathy behind his kind eyes and felt myself blushing. How I hated the blushing thing − the embarrassment of being a fair-skinned English Rose. It was all so
awkward
. I shouldn’t have come.

‘Right, understood,’ he said at last. ‘And yes, of course you can take my class.’

There was no time for me to wonder what he thought of me right then, I just wanted to get on with things. He stole another glance at my bare feet and winced.

‘Look, I have an old pair of sandals belonging to a friend that you can borrow.’

I hadn’t meant to make David being gone and my missing shoes sound connected, but it seemed I had, as if there had been a row on the way here and I’d flung my shoes at him.
‘Go away, and take my shoes with you, you bastard!’
This unspoken explanation was going to have to suffice for now. It was way better than admitting I’d smacked a random old codger with a flip-flop on the way here.

As we continued up the winding path, to my enormous relief he didn’t ask any more questions about David. He paused and nodded toward the imposing white washed villa, with its sea-facing balcony. ‘This is my summer home, Villa Miranda,’ he explained. ‘Downstairs there at the front is a little apartment, but it isn’t being used at the moment.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, amazed. It was also huge. ‘Such a colourful array of flowers, too.’

‘Yes, I planted them all myself. I’ll just grab those shoes for you. They’re a size six, I think. Is that okay?’

‘Yes, I’m a five but they’ll do fine, thank you. She won’t mind will she?’

‘Who?’ he said.

‘Your friend.’

‘Oh no, she’s long gone,’ he answered, matter-of-factly. As he turned to fetch the shoes, I peered around the extensive villa grounds, waving a hello to the watching, smiling faces under the pergola and sighed. Despite the unwelcome reminder of David that Chris had unwittingly brought me, it was good to see him again after all these years, now all silver-haired and tanned, with his Grecian villa, all this land and so much taste and sophistication . . .