We haven’t done the tedious list of who-what-when. We haven’t exchanged job details, previous relationships, any of that boring crap. It’s so refreshing not to hear the words “So, what do you do?” or “Is your flat a conversion or purpose built?” or “Do you get a pension?” It’s so liberating.
I know he’s single. He knows I’m single. That’s the only update we needed.
Ben has drunk quite a lot more than I have. He also remembers much more than I do about our time in Greece. He keeps sparking old memories which I’d buried. I’d forgotten about the poker tournament. I’d forgotten about that fishing boat sinking. I’d forgotten about the night we played table tennis with those two Australian guys. But the moment Ben reminds me, there it all is in my head again, in a vivid flash.
“Guy and …” I’m crinkling up my nose, trying to remember. “Guy and … what was his name … oh yes, Bill!”
“Bill!” Ben chuckles and high-fives me. “Of course. Big Bill.”
I can’t believe I haven’t given Big Bill a thought, all these years. He was like a bear. He used to sit in the corner of the terrace, drinking beers and sunning himself. He had more piercings than I’d ever seen in my life. Apparently he’d done them all himself, with a needle. He had a really cool girlfriend called Pinky, and we all watched and cheered while he pierced her navel.
“The calamari.” I close my eyes briefly. “I’ve never had calamari like that in my life.”
“And the sunsets,” chimes in Ben. “Remember the sunsets?”
“I’ll never forget.”
“And Arthur.” He grins reminiscently. “What a character.”
Arthur was the guest house owner. We all worshipped him and hung on his every word. He was the most mellow guy I’ve ever met, fiftyish or maybe older, who’d done everything from attending Harvard to founding his own company and going bust to sailing round the world and ending up on Ikonos, where he married a local girl. He would sit every night in the olive grove, getting gently stoned and telling people about the time he had lunch with Bill Clinton and turned down his job offer. He’d had so many adventures. He was so wise. I can remember getting drunk one night and weeping on his shoulder and him stroking me and saying some really amazing stuff. (I can’t remember exactly what now—but it was amazing.)
“Remember the steps?”
“The steps!” I groan. “How did we do it?”
The guest house was set on top of a cliff. To get down to or up from the beach, it was 113 steps, set into the cliff. We used to spring up and down them several times a day. No wonder I was so thin.
“Remember Sarah? Whatever happened to her?”
“Sarah? What did she look like?”
“Stunning. Amazing body. Silky skin.” He seems to inhale the memory. “She was Arthur’s daughter. You must remember her.”
“Oh right.” I’m not wild about hearing descriptions of other girls’ silky skin. “Not sure.”
“Maybe she went off traveling before you came.” He shrugs, moving on. “D’you remember those old videos of Dirk and Sally? How many times did we watch those?”
“Dirk and Sally!” I exclaim. “Oh my God!”
“Partners at the altar, partners on the block,” begins Ben, in that corny voice-over voice.
“Partners to the death!” I join in, doing the Dirk and Sally arm salute.
Ben and I watched every single Dirk and Sally episode about five thousand times, mostly because it was the only box set of videos at the guest house, and you had to have something on apart from Greek news while you were eating your breakfast in the mornings. It’s a 1970s detective show about a couple who meet while they’re at police school and decide to keep their marriage secret while fighting crime as partners. Nobody knows except one serial killer, who keeps threatening to expose them. It’s genius.
I have a sudden memory of sitting with Ben on that ancient sofa in the dining room, our tanned legs tangled up, both wearing espadrilles, eating toast, and watching Dirk and Sally while everyone else was out on the terrace.
“The episode where Sally is kidnapped by the neighbor,” I say. “That was the best.”
“No, when Dirk’s brother comes to live with them, and he’s become a chef for the Mafia, and Dirk keeps asking him where he learned to cook, and then the drugs are in the peach cobbler—”
“Oh my God, yes!”
We both pause a moment, lost in memories.
“No one I’ve ever met has seen Dirk and Sally,” says Ben. “Or even heard of it.”
“Me neither,” I agree, though the truth is, I’d pretty much forgotten about Dirk and Sally till he mentioned it just now.
“The cove.” His thoughts have moved restlessly on again.
“The cove. Oh my God.” I meet his eyes and it all comes flooding back. I’m almost transfixed again with hot, teenage-level desire. The secret cove was where we first got it together. And then again. Every day. It was a little tiny sheltered stretch of sand round the bay. You had to get there by boat, and no one else could be bothered. Ben would sail us there, saying nothing but occasionally flicking me a meaningful look. And I would sit there, my feet up on the side of the boat, almost panting with anticipation.
I look at him now, across the table. Ben’s thinking exactly the same as me, I can tell. He’s back there. He looks as intoxicated as I feel.
“The way you nursed me through the flu,” he says slowly. “I’ve never forgotten that.”
The flu? I don’t remember nursing him through the flu. But, then, my memories are so fuzzy. I’m sure I did, if he says I did. And I don’t want to interrupt or contradict him, because it would ruin the mood. So I just nod gently.
“You cradled my head. You sang me to sleep. I was delirious, but I could hear your voice, getting me through the night.” He takes another swig of wine. “You were my guardian angel, Lottie. Maybe I went off the rails because I didn’t have you in my life.”
His guardian angel. That’s so romantic. I’m quite interested to know how he went off the rails—but to ask him would spoil the moment. And who cares? Everyone goes off the rails. Then they come back on the rails. It doesn’t matter what they were doing meanwhile.
Now he glances at my left hand. “How come you haven’t been snapped up, anyway?”
“Haven’t met the right guy,” I say casually.
“A gorgeous girl like you? Should be fighting them off.”
“Well, maybe I have been.” I laugh, but for the first time this evening my composure slips a little. And all of a sudden—I can’t help it—I have a flashback to the first time I met Richard. It was at the opera, which is weird, because I never go to the opera normally, and nor does he. We were both there as a favor to friends. It was a charity gala of Tosca and he was in black tie, looking tall and distinguished, and the moment I saw him with some blond woman on his arm I felt a pang of jealousy. I hadn’t even met him and I was thinking, Lucky her. He was laughing and handing out champagne, and then he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced,” and I nearly fell into his gorgeous dark eyes.