‘You probably shouldn’t have told us at all. We’ve probably blown your cover already.’
‘As if you ladies would do a thing like that,’ he said.
‘As if. It sounds like when we were at school and we had that awful wait for our end-of-year report to come in the post,’ I said. ‘One year I tried to hide mine because I knew it was going to be lacklustre and my parents always expected me to be top of everything, and I don’t think I ever was.’
‘My mother gave me all my old school reports years ago. I must have been such a tiresome swot,’ Harriet said. ‘The worst comment I got was in Chemistry, when the teacher said I should endeavour to follow instructions. That was the term when I set fire to a bit of magnesium ribbon on the bench. And do you remember how we used to try and scoop up balls of mercury from the sink traps? I kept some in a Tupperware beaker under my bed for months. It wouldn’t be allowed now.’
* * *
I didn’t quite know how it happened but there was a bit of jostling around that evening, with people wanting to sit in different places. Don and Belinda squeezed in next to Evelyn and Marjorie, evidently still hoping to persuade them to play bridge, leaving me, Anna and Harriet on another of the big tables set for ten people, and then Jack came to join us.
He politely pulled out a chair for me and then sat down. Anna and Harriet were opposite us, far enough away for them not to be listening to our conversation. At least I hoped so.
‘You look lovely, by the way. That’s a great colour on you. Now then, tell me what you think of it so far,’ he said.
He bent his head towards mine, so I could hear him over the chatter in the room. Other people had come to fill up the seats.
‘Are you secretly recording us so you can use our comments in your article?’ I said, amused.
I smoothed down the fabric of my new purple dress and then touched the jewelled neckline, reminding myself that I looked okay. I was not just some drab creature in the corner.
He laughed. ‘Not at all. I’m interested. I went to the tourist information centre then I took a taxi to Volosko, the next port along the coast, and it was just beautiful. Then I walked back through some interesting streets and just enjoyed the afternoon. I’m hoping Cres will be just as pleasant. I’ve heard there are some lovely restaurants around the harbour. Perhaps one evening you would…’
He stopped and I looked across at Anna and Harriet, who were busy pretending to read the menu, but quite obviously trying hard to listen to our conversation too.
‘Would what?’ I said, feeling unexpectedly mischievous. Was I even flirting a little? That was something I hadn’t done for years. I wasn’t even sure if I was doing it right.
‘Oh, you know,’ he said, and suddenly he looked unsure.
It was rather touching. I’d always somehow assumed that men knew what they were doing when it came to relationships. That they held the upper hand.
Why I should have thought that I had no idea. Actually, it must be just as problematic for them as it was for women. There was always the risk of rejection, being laughed at, particularly at our age. I wasn’t sure if older men were concerned about their looks, their continuing appeal, in the same way women did, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think they did. I knew they had fears about going bald, and some of them used special shampoo to gradually camouflage the grey. Fred for one, and he had ended up looking very odd, with hair that looked twenty years younger than his eyebrows.
Did men that age worry about the competitive attractiveness of the younger man? Fred had always been so sure of himself, making me feel that I was lucky to be with him. And even my son Ben didn’t seem to concern himself too much about appealing to women. Although he had asked me once if his hair was thinning, which it wasn’t. And whether he had hairy ears. Which was such a weird thing to ask that I had laughed and he had looked very worried.
I realised that Jack was silent. Apparently he was reading his menu too, and over the other side of the table Harriet and Anna were unashamedly watching us over the tops of theirs. I decided I was going to be brave.
‘Have dinner with you?’ I said very quietly at last.
I was hiding my mouth behind my menu too, so that my friends couldn’t lip read.
Jack and I exchanged a look, and he grinned, relieved.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I said, trying to sound offhand and not give away the little spurt of triumph I was feeling.
Evidently we weren’t being discreet enough, because I saw Harriet and Anna exchange little smiles and fist bumps.
Honestly.
* * *
That evening the meal was a definite improvement on the one of the night before, and it seemed the replacement chef was taking his work extremely seriously. There were little spots of jus on the plates, some sort of savoury foam and a few edible flowers in the salad. But the most important thing about the dish I had chosen was its taste, a delicious lamb dish – kleftiko, cooked in individual parcels of parchment paper with subtle spices and herbs. And somehow it felt as though I hadn’t really tasted my food for a very long time.
Fred had liked to watch those pretentious cooking programmes where experts prepared food and deconstructed it and messed about with it. Giving it a new twist, they said. Why did anyone feel the need to deconstruct apple crumble? And was adding strawberries to beef stew or Marmite to spareribs going to change the world? And I firmly believed the only way to eat Marmite was on hot, lavishly buttered toast.
I’d felt slightly confused and not a little irritated by those programmes. But that night I knew what it meant to savour, to taste, to understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed another revelation.
