‘I’m not really sure,’ I said, and I turned and walked further along the deck, my face towards the breeze.
The feeling that I was okay, that I wasn’t an embarrassment or a nuisance. I was a perfectly nice person after all. And he thought so too.
I closed my eyes, wanting this moment to go on forever.
‘You’re not cold?’ he said.
‘A bit.’
After a moment I felt him put his jacket around my shoulders. It felt heavy, warm and was scented with sandalwood. There was something about it that tugged at my memory. What did I feel? What was this moment?
Ah, yes. Then I remembered. It was romantic.
I was enjoying a romantic moment with a man on board a ship in the Adriatic. I hadn’t seen that coming at all.
When was the last time I had felt romantic?
I delved into my memory as we walked around the deck, avoiding the steel hawsers which were part of the boat’s structure, trying to pin down something.
Fred had been romantic in the early days I suppose. Valentine’s cards and blood-red roses, even though he knew I didn’t like them. A surprise dinner at his favourite restaurant on my thirtieth birthday when it was quickly apparent I was the designated driver. A gift of a cashmere scarf, light blue to match my eyes. Yes, he had said,You should like it, it was jolly expensive.
This though, this cold, windy walk with a dark, Croatian sky above us, with my hand tucked into the crook of his arm, this was really romantic.
How marvellous.
Perhaps Evelyn was right; one was never too old for anything. Except maybe gymnastics and taking up mountaineering.
‘According to legend, Cres and Lošinj were formed when Medea quarrelled violently with her brother, killed him and threw his body into the sea,’ Jack said.
‘Yes, a game of Monopoly often ends like that,’ I said, and he laughed.
‘Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean. I remember those awful Saturday evenings, when my parents insisted we should play Scrabble or some other game, and it always ended in a row and someone, usually my younger brother, shoving the board off the table and stamping off in a temper.’
‘And what does he do now?’
‘He’s a vicar.’
I snorted with laughter and after a moment he joined in.
‘He’s one of the nicest people too, and he has three children, I do hope they are better behaved than he was as a boy.’ Jack chuckled.
‘You’re a nice person too, you know,’ I said.
‘Am I?’ he said. ‘I’m glad you think so.’
We had gone all around the deck and reached the stairs leading down. It was the end of this dreamy moment.
‘Well. Goodnight.’
And then he took hold of my shoulders, looked into my eyes and kissed me.
I hadn’t expected it at all either.
It was years, decades since a man had kissed me as though he actually wanted to. Rather than it being something that would stop a discussion or be some sort of apology for something.
And in that moment, in my thin sparkling dress, his coat around my shoulders, with the wind ruffling my hair, I felt marvellous.
I realised I was a woman who liked being kissed, who – like Scarlett O’Hara inGone With the Wind– needed kissing very badly. And he did it very well, so much so that by the time he released me even my toes were tingling.
