hope of seeing Urian, but also because I became quite fond of Mr Potatohead whose name I’d since learned was Evangelos.
His wife Sofia was equally charming. She ran the kitchen while Evangelos did front of house, a job ideally suited to him. Wherever he went he was followed by a menagerie of people and animals wanting his attention – the keys to the cellar, a titbit of bacon, a pat on the head. One of his errant offspring was invariably hanging off his leg as he gracefully wove his way between tables with plates held aloft in his massive hands. Even Barbara Streisand plumped up his feathers and called out loudly as he passed. Evangelos made a habit of stopping every so often, no matter how busy the restaurant, and scratching the colourful bird behind the ear. His party trick was to dance comically in front of it which would make Barbara Streisand jump up and down in excitement and shout ‘Yaso, yaso’ loudly.
If I turned up before ten I was usually in time to see Urian and Gregorie arrive for breakfast. My heart would speed up as soon as I heard the distant buzz of their motorbike coming over the hill. Ridiculous I know, but it felt enlivening having an adolescent crush after all these years. It made me want to feel beautiful again with that same blushing awkwardness that gave teenaged passion its pulse-quickening edge. The more Andrew annoyed me with his pompous calls from Brussels (barked instructions and orations about his own glorious conquests), the more I justified my titillating daydreams to myself. I’d played the dutiful housewife for fifteen years. Hell, I was owed a few harmless fantasies.
Not that Urian even looked my way. He’d stalk in, grab a paper, order a coffee and commandeer his usual table on the veranda without so much as a surly nod. Clearly he wasn’t a morning person. Although he didn’t seem like much of a night person either, given how moody he’d been the first night we’d met. That set me off thinking about the times of day that would suit Urian…
Carnal carousal at dawn?
Febrile fondles at dusk?
Comforting cuddles at lunch?
I needed to get a grip.
Gregorie was the opposite. Warm, convivial, approachable. There was clearly something going on between him and Turban Girl as they often arrived together and shared things like forks and plates of food. She could speak fluent Greek (of course!) and I’d turn green with envy as she huddled conspiratorially over the newspaper or round the radio.
Only Gregorie was kind enough to give me the time of day. He usually wandered over after breakfast and asked what I’d been up to, whether I’d taken in the caves at Agios Ioannis or climbed Papas, the island’s highest mountain. I usually felt embarrassed that I’d done so little with my time.
Moisturising.
Exfoliating.
Detoxing.
Toning.
That’s what filled my days.
Halfway through my stuttered excuses I’d feel Urian turn his scornful gaze on me. Once, I was brave enough to return his stare but I had to break away first. He just continued staring over his paper with his bottomless brown eyes as if seeing me exactly for who I was. No one.
After that I often felt his hot stare penetrating my forehead from across the restaurant as I self-consciously scooped my yoghurt and honey into my mouth, trying not to smudge my lipstick. His expression was unreadable, but I figured it was one of disdain. I was the vanguard of league of greedy foreigners come over from Europe to gobble up his heritage like low-hanging fruit off a vine. What was he thinking? Did he know I was the devil Theodora was in league with? Or did he just disdain me for being a stupid, botoxed foreigner? The more he condemned me with his Heathcliffian scorn, the more I responded with a Brontean yearning to feel his thighs against mine.
Back home in the villa I Facebook-stalked him – but of course he was way too cool to be on Facebook. In desperation, I ended up Googling his name like the sad loner I was. I found it on a page of popular Greek names for boys.
Get this, Urian means ‘from Heaven’.
Naturally.
Theodora worked herself into a flat spin of bewilderment over my refusal to engage. I had the money, she had the property - why would I not dance? She soon worked out my new schedule and started turning up earlier in the mornings, prompting me to take up jogging to Livadi before breakfast. If I left early enough I could catch the cinematic splendour of dawn breaking across turquoise sea. I’d circle the castle ruins and then double back to the concrete bunker restaurant where I’d do my stretches on the shuttered deck.
Livadi was so peaceful at dawn. The bedraggled city of colourful hippy tents flapped contentedly in the breeze and goat bells chimed softly in the surrounding hills.
One morning I saw Turban Girl crawling out from one of the tents. She was instantly recognisable from the trademark coil of tangerine fabric wrapped around her head despite the fact that she was wearing only a skimpy brown bikini.
I studied her through the small window between my thighs as I counted my sit-ups. Her breasts were large and pendulous while by some strange miracle her arms remained thin and her stomach flat.
Bitch.
She probably did no exercise at all.
As if reading my thoughts she stretched and yawned, arching out the vertebrae of her spine like an oversexed cat. In her hand she appeared to be holding something – a leather pouch. She sauntered over to a rock near the water’s edge, perched on top and began digging around in the pouch until she produced a roll of tobacco and a packet of Rizlas. Of course, I thought to myself sourly, Turban Girl was far too cool to smoke pedestrian cigarettes like the rest of us plebeians. It went without saying she’d roll her own.
The luminous surf framed her bent head as she painstakingly rolled her smoke with the same care she’d taken over her leather bracelets. Then she lit up and smoked with ritualistic solemnity, savouring the morning light in meditative silence. She looked beautiful sitting there. Like a rebellious mermaid that had crawled from the lapping waves to escape Neptune and his lecherous demands.
When she was done smoking, she ground the fag out on a rock and stood up, turning in my direction. I ducked involuntarily but she didn’t see me spying on her from the deck like a weirdo. Instead of going back to her tent, she picked her way through the thorny undergrowth to the dune behind, kicking at the sand as if she was looking for something. Intrigued, I sat up and squinted to get a better look. To my horror she yanked down her bikini bottoms and squatted down to pee in broad daylight.
Unbelievable.
Simultaneously disgusted and fascinated, I froze, mesmerised by the stream of yellow urine that shot out from between her legs into the sand. Suddenly she looked up, directly into my eyes, and lasered me with a penetrating glare as if she knew I’d been there all along. Flustered, I launched back into my sit-ups with the commitment of an Olympic athlete.
You’d think she would have dived for cover or something but she just carried on squatting there, staring straight at me and peeing into the sand like a horse. When she was done she waggled her bum in the air for a few seconds before pulling up her pants and nonchalantly strolling back to her tent.
By then I’d done so many crunches my stomach was killing me and I collapsed back onto the deck in agony. Something about the girl infuriated me. The way she met my gaze as if I was the one committing the transgression through my voyeuristic curiosity, not her by peeing in a public place. Annoyed by her louche confidence and my own spinelessness,
