‘Do you have fun, though?’ I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth because they sound rude and there is no reason for me to be rude to Callum (or anyone). ‘Sorry, that sounded ridiculously rude. I didn’t mean it in a rude way. I didn’t mean it at all, in fact.’
He blinks and then says, ‘No, fair play; I haven’t exactly been holding back. And, yes, I do have fun.’ He says it very firmly, possibly as though he’s trying to convince himself.
I smile at him and he just kind of looks at me.
I’m the one whose eyes swerve away first.
I clear my throat and focus on my plate of rabbit stew and say, ‘We did so well to find this monastery. This is delicious.’
Callum agrees and so does everyone else – obviously – and we have a mundane conversation about the (genuine) wonderfulness of the monks, and then the chat trundles on from there for the rest of the meal.
It takes quite a long time for dinner to end because the monks have an amazing tiramisu for us plus some home-made fruit sweets and then coffee and then they basically force a truly deadly tasting pistachio liqueur on us (are monkssupposedto try to get people drunk?), which first tastes weird and then gets you hard in the back of the throat and then makes you feel boiling hot inside and finally leaves a weird aftertaste, so I would very much not recommend it, but it’s hard to say no to such nice people.
When things do eventually wind up, I feel like we’ve been sitting here for hours, and I feel genuinely fond of some of ourfellow guests and sad that we won’t see them again. I also am not looking forward to the awkwardness of going back to the room with Callum, so when John and Manda, a lovely couple from Northern Ireland, suggest that we all go for a night walk to get a drink (there’s been no more rain), it feels like a no-brainer to say yes.
‘I might just…’ Callum says, clearly not wanting to come.
‘You can’t desert your wife after leaving her all afternoon while you worked,’ Manda says.
‘Yep, no, absolutely.’ Callum sounds like he’s gritting his teeth. ‘Did we want to get an early night, though? Darling?’
Does hereallywant us both to go back to the room sooner rather than later?
Maybe he does. Maybe he’s so unaffected by seeing me now that he’ll just hop into his bed and get a solid eight hours in straight off. I by contrast can imagine not being able to get to sleep for hours and to have a hope of nodding off I’d rather be more tired than this before I get into bed.
‘We can have an early night any time, darling,’ I say jollily. ‘Whereas we can’t have a drink with this group any time. So I’d love to go.’
‘Of course.’ Callum nudges my ankle under the table and I ignore him.
Well, I ignore him in that I ignore his meaning, which was clearly to say can we please actuallynotgo for a walk. I struggle entirely to ignore him full stop because I can’t help thinking that this is the first time we’ve touched all day. Which is probably not normal when you think about it. Like, if you’re with a friend all day would you not at times inadvertently bump into them? Or just bump hands or arms or something? Subconsciously I must have been holding myself away from him and maybe he’s been doing the same.
I address the monks. ‘Thank you again.’ And then I address the group who want to go for the walk. ‘Shall we go?’
I feel like we might be keeping the monks up. I’m less knowledgeable than I should be, I realise, given that we’ve been welcomed here at a very low price (we should make an extra donation) and they’ve been very generous with their hospitality and time, and I really don’t know what a monk’s daily life entails, but I do think maybe it involves getting up during the night or very early to pray so we should really let them get on.
‘Could we help do the washing up for you?’ I ask. ‘Please?’ It just seems rude not to.
I start to gather up the dishes nearest to me and then several other people, including Callum, join in, despite the monks’ protestations, and we take them to the kitchen, and then insist on doing the washing up for them, which I have to say is genuinely enjoyable and also quite quick, with the group of us doing it, because it turns out the monks don’t just have one dishwasher (I’d feared they wouldn’t have one at all; Father Davide laughed uproariously when I told him that), they havethree.
Callum’s on the other side of the kitchen drying hand-wash dishes while I load one of the dishwashers, so there’s no chat between us in there, and that’s good.
When we finish, though, it occurs to me that it might beweirdfor a newly married couple not to walk along next to each other in a group of people they’d only just met, and it must occur to Callum at the same time, because by mutual consent we move towards each other as we all head off out of the monastery, all of us armed with keys to the building’s main door, provided by Brother Francisco, who I haven’t had the opportunity to chat to much but who has a lovely smile.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask the group so that I don’t have to chat to Callum.
‘Are there any bars?’ John asks.
‘Isn’t the nearest village miles away?’ I say.
‘No, it’s just down the road,’ Laura tells me. ‘It’s a tiny village but very well-equipped with a bar and a shop and a garage.’
‘A garage?’ Callum repeats. ‘What kind of a garage?’
‘One for fixing cars,’ Laura tells him, looking at him as though his understanding is poor.
‘Wow,’ Callum says. Yes.
‘We weren’t planning to stop here,’ I explain. ‘But our windscreen wipersandback lights broke and it was raining so we couldn’t drive anywhere, and we thought the nearest garage was a long way away, so that’s why we’re here for the night.’
