The New Mrs D Page 3

  Reaching over to the coat hook for her jacket, she took off into the street I’d just come in from without looking back. As the door slammed shut behind her, I told it:

  ‘Michael’s been having an affair.’

  After testing the hotel’s less than efficient plumbing system with at least one bottle of the previous night’s wine, I washed my face, brushed my teeth and stared bleary-eyed at the person in the mirror, wondering who the hell she was. Jeez, I had to cut back on the booze. But, however terrible I felt right now, I was determined to get on with the holiday programme. I had to.

  David and I had planned a special honeymoon of firsts, choosing an adventure excursion company recommended by a lifelong friend of his, who had moved out to a tiny, not so commercial Greek island to work for them. A bachelor at forty-eight, several years ago Chris had begun spending six months in Greece teaching painting to tourists and six months back home in Nottinghamshire, where he had an art gallery. As David and I had sifted through the brochure, full of pictures of things neither of us had ever done before we’d agreed to have our very first class learning to paint with Chris. We’d both been looking forward to seeing him, especially because his being in Greece at this time of year meant he had missed the wedding.

  The rest of our planned experiences were nothing too insane, just a series of mini-adventures and experiences for us to pick from. We had cut out the ones that appealed, then folded and thrown them into a fez. The same one I’d sported while wearing a pair of see-through knickers and not a lot else to perform the Zorba dance on the day the honeymoon travel tickets had arrived. Classy. Really, really classy.

  ‘Oh, you can kiss me on a Monday, a Monday, a Monday is very, very, good!’ I belted out.

  ‘I can’t kiss you on any day if you’re in Turkey – where they actually wear the fez – and I’m in Greece.’

  ‘Oh,’ I sulked. ‘How am I to know the fez has nothing to do with Greece? Call the Geographical Hats Society!’

  ‘You plonker,’ he’d laughed, knocking it off my head, but (sigh) leaving my knickers on.

  Then we played the honeymoon raffle, taking turns to draw out a full itinerary of adventures for our trip. It was all my idea, another of life’s new adventures. Maybe it was my approaching middle age, maybe the prospect of getting married again, but in the past few years I’d developed a desire to really find myself and cram just about as much life into whatever time I had left. Turning forty did that to you. One day you feel a world away from old age and the next you are realising that, if you’re lucky, you’ve reached the fifty percent of your life mark. I looked back over the fifty percent behind me, and saw nothing, except the incredible experience of the birth and raising of two wonderful girls, for me to feel proud about. Not one thing. And right then I knew nothing I’d done so far in my professional life had ever seemed to fit. So, I took to the vast library of self-help books out there and began to devour everything and share it with a less-than-enamoured David. He agreed to the new experiences, but begged me to stop reading ‘you either get it or you don’t’ paragraphs from Dr Phil aloud. This honeymoon was meant to have been to be a fun, romantic start to our life together for David and, unbeknown to him, the beginning of a secret quest I’d set myself to unpick my life’s defining moments - the things that had happened along the way to change me forever. Funny that the honeymoon itself should turn out to be one of them.

  ‘Can we at least open the envelopes?’

  David’s last plea popped into my head uninvited. A secret, ‘let’s do this together’ suggestion written in private, sealed inside envelopes then exchanged with each other, to be opened on the penultimate day of the honeymoon. My envelope from David was still in my suitcase and was, not without a dab of irony, tucked under my sexy, now-redundant honeymoon negligee. No doubt, his suggestion was to watch Debbie Does Dallas together. Or maybe – just maybe – he had opened his heart in a way I hadn’t seen him do before. But why open it now? What was the point? I couldn’t – wouldn’t – let myself read it. I had to focus and pull myself together for the painting lesson.

  I had been facing the prospect of seeing Chris again with some trepidation, mainly because I feared looking a prat − neither myself nor David could draw for toffee; a fact proven time and again on games nights at home when the girls had destroyed us at Pictionary. Painting lessons with David, I imagined, would be as funny as trying to guess An American Werewolf in London from his hysterical, child-like sketches.

  ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan?’

  ‘No, no!’ (He had drawn something resembling Animal holding the US flag next to a clock tower.)

  ‘Once Upon a Time in America with the Muppets?’ Beth would always join in on our turn.

  ‘Aaaarrrgggghhh!’

  ‘Aaaarrrgggghhh? Is that the first letter of the first or the second word?’

  Now, there was another reason for my apprehension about seeing Chris again. How could I explain appearing there, on my honeymoon, without David?

  I had no idea how was he going to be with me, yet I really wanted to see a friendly face. He was now the only person I knew on the island and I felt sure David would have been way too embarrassed and proud to have turned up there. I liked Chris; and I wanted to take his art class as planned.

  All I had to do now was work out how to get to his villa. For years I’d been unable to get back behind the wheel but now I wanted . . . no, I needed that independence.

  ‘Can I help you, Mrs Dando?’

  The receptionist using my new married name gave me another unwelcome jolt of pain. As newly-weds, you go to any lengths to hear and use your new name. Except when you decide to call time on your marriage four days later.

  ‘I love you, Mrs Dando.’

  And I love you, Mr Dando.

  ‘Would you pass me the salt, please, Mrs Dando?’

  Why are someone else’s squirty-cream covered boobs looking at me from the browser on your mobile, Mr Dando?

  ‘Mrs Dando?’

  ‘Mrs Dando!’

  The receptionist’s voice snapped me back to the present. Right. Time for me to try something new that wasn’t on the itinerary; taking to the open road, alone, for the first time in years.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me where I go to hire a moped?’

  Chapter Four

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beeeeeep! This isn’t an episode of The Osbournes . . . We’re renting mopeds!

  At the age of 18, I passed my driving test and wrote-off my dad’s car on the way home. I lost all confidence and handed back my keys, deciding never to take to the wheel again.

  I’d only taken my eyes off the road for a second – to throw my L-plates into the back – when the corner of one of them caught in the brushed nylon roofing material and pinged back at my head. But that wasn’t when the crash occurred . . . the crash occurred when I bent forward to pick them up for another go. ‘It could have happened to anybody,’ didn’t seem to convince my dad as I handed him the now-detached steering wheel of his prized Sierra Cosworth.

  From then on, I’d relied on others to drive me around. Following a barrage of ‘Are you stupid?’ type abuse from my furious mother when I got home, and my own realisation that I must be the most accident prone woman on the planet, all the confidence gained in 30 weeks of driving lessons was lost forever.

  ‘My darling Binnie, I’m going to teach you to drive if it’s the last thing I do!’

  With David gone there wasn’t going to be anyone to drive me around or teach me to drive – I was on my own. My driving license was in my handbag ‘just in case’ David could talk me into hiring a moped – though I’d been convinced he’d never be able to do it. My choices were to stay round the hotel pool with a group of unadventurous, sunbathing couples, or to get out and explore the real splendour of the island alone. It was no contest. For the sake of doing everything on the adventure tour group itinerary, I was going to have to take to the open road alone. Never had I needed some freedom to explore as m
uch as now.

  The short walk from the hotel to the moped centre took me past shops where I was able to purchase supplies to aid my sickly stomach. Bye-bye sugar low – hello very large bag of mini chocolate croissants, two cartons of orange juice and a packet of mints to stop my breath vaporising all the new people I was about to meet at the painting class. I downed the first carton of orange juice greedily, but still my suffering, grief-stricken belly wasn’t accepting any food callers.

  ‘Now, remembers Mrs Dando, you drive with bike on the right. It is not like in the English.’ The boy from the hire centre handed over the map he’d drawn to Chris’s villa and searched my face for a glimmer of understanding as I sat astride the moped. Peering through the visor of my oversized helmet at the controls that he’d just spent an age explaining, I nodded . . . and the world went black. Pushing the helmet around until I could see again, I took the map and his pencil before grabbing the handlebars. This didn’t look so hard; what had I been worried about? Front brake. Back brake. ‘Why would I want one half of me to stop and not the other?’ Accelerator.

  ‘And this button is . . . ?’

  ‘BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!’

  ‘Oops! That’ll be the horn,’ I laughed, as several mystified faces appeared from nearby shops to see what the noise was. The boy, who looked about 12, failed to see the funny side. Judging by the look on his face in my rear view mirror, he was pretty worried.

  ‘How on earth do people manage with the island heat in this headgear?’ I asked, turning towards him, but finding I could only see half of his face as the mahoosive helmet remained facing forwards. I adjusted it again, just in time to spy him rolling his eyes.

  ‘Don’t they make these things for people with normal sized heads?’ I muttered into the sweaty, foam lining.

  ‘Mrs Dando,’ the boy began, gravely, ‘do you understand? Do not forget. You drive on the . . .’

  ‘. . . right side of the road. I get it. Really, how hard can it be?’

  It wasn’t my voice I heard answering him so impatiently; it was my mother’s.

  ‘Come on Bernice, just pedal! How hard can it be?’

  I was ten and sitting aboard my new bike, frozen to the spot. Dad was holding me, and the bicycle, upright.

  ‘Just push off from the kerb,’ Mum wailed at me. ‘Go! Go!’

  I gave the brakes one last squeeze, to check again if they could stop me from having the horrible collision I was busy picturing in my head. But even as the pads tightened against the wheel, reassuring me that stopping was possible, I couldn’t let go of my father as he tried to push me while attempting to release my vice-like grip on his arm. I couldn’t be alone on that big, wide, busy road. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Bernice, you’re ten!’

  The secondhand bike was thrown back in the garage within ten minutes, with Mother shouting, ‘Never again! What a waste of money that was!’

  Sniffling and crying, I hoped for some comfort and reassurance that I wasn’t useless and we could try again another day, but she was staring at the bike on the floor of the garage with a look of disappointment.

  ‘We can send it back, George,’ she called after my father, ignoring me. ‘I think the store might refund us if we tell them she’s too scared to ride it.’

  ‘No, Mum, I want to ride it, I do!’ I cried. ‘Please let me try again another day.’

  ‘No point,’ she shot back, hurrying to follow my father. ‘You never just try things for me, do you? How can you let me down after I paid out all that money? Your little sister has been riding a bike since she was seven. When are you going to grow up?’

  ‘Mrs Dando,’ the boy brought me back to the present with a wave of his hand in front of my face. I’d clearly glazed over for a few seconds. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, a little more confidently than I felt. I turned the throttle on the bike. ‘Let’s do this!’

  ‘Okay. And Mrs Dando?’ he continued. ‘Can I have my pencil back?’

  Except I didn’t have the chance to respond to that last bit because I was already revving off, giving an awkward ‘I’m okay’ wave to the lad. Which I wasn’t because I hadn’t meant to move forwards at that moment. Where did he say the brakes were?

  Even over the sound of the engine and through muffling headgear, I could hear shouts from behind and risked a swift peek over my shoulder. Seeing the boy waving at me, I waved again, but struggled to keep control of the bike which mounted the kerb, sending several stray cats scattering up trees to safety.

  ‘Aww, come on!’ I complained, revving the engine a second time. Looking back at the hire centre, I saw the boy had been joined by what looked like two huge Greek men, and all three were now running after me, gesticulating wildly. Shit, was I about to be arrested for pencil theft?

  I turned the throttle to full and, as my head was almost torn off my shoulders with the force of sudden forward motion, I threw the pencil to the ground behind me with a shout of, ‘There’s your pencil!’ The moped charged onwards, bumping up a cobbled side street. It seemed there was no way to stop, even if I wanted to, without crashing into something.

  ‘Mrs Dando! MRS DANDO!’

  Another rearwards glance showed that the sales boy had now jumped onto a rental moped with the beefy henchmen on another, all in pursuit. Oh God, this was it; I was about to be ambushed . . . maybe even killed! Tomorrow’s island newspaper headlines flashed into my head:

  BRITISH PENCIL THIEF RUBBED OUT BY

  LOCAL HITMEN

  Would a stolen pencil really warrant such an elaborate daylight operation? Of course not, stupid woman. Maybe I was being mugged. Was it the stash of euros in my purse that I’d flashed while paying for the moped? Oh no, wait – they surely weren’t after my faux diamond-emblazoned Primark flip-flops?

  In a panic, I kicked one off into the path of an elderly couple as they strolled out from a hotel car park. The shoe shot straight into the old man’s portly, bare stomach with a sickening slap.

  ‘They have the diamonds!’ I called, mercilessly pointing them out to the gangsters before whizzing onwards to make my getaway.

  But it was all for nothing; the roar of bikes continued behind me. I slowed to turn a corner into another side street and heard a shout.

  ‘Stop! Mrs Dando! You stop NOW!’

  What on earth could they want? I reached down with one hand, trying to take the other flip-flop off to throw back as a ransom, but dropped it instead. As I cursed myself and looked up, an ancient Greek woman on a scooter was zipping round a bend straight at me, only swerving at the last second to avoid a collision.

  ‘What the . . . ?’

  ‘WAAAAHHHH!!!’ We screamed the last part in unison; ‘Waaaahhhh’, it transpired, being the international synonym for ‘OH SHIIIIIT!’ In an instant, her front wheel bounced off the kerb, sending both the old lady, and the basket of lemons balanced on her handlebars, flying, Frank Spencer style through the air towards a couple of teenage boys. Christ, I’m in a Carry On film.

  ‘Save the lemons!’ I called back, rattling onwards with no time to look behind again or wonder why my first manic thoughts were for Frank Spencer and the fruit – not the little old lady. Speeding away from the increasing chaos behind, I rounded a honking car pulling out from a driveway and yelled at its startled occupants, ‘CALL THE POLICE!’

  Despite the throttle being fully open it seemed the tiny engine had no more to give and the roar from the biker gang got closer. Turning round once more, I could see the two bikes were still in hot pursuit, and for the first time I noticed the boy had a very fat man riding pillion. So there were four of them! And the fourth had mad lady-killer written all over him. Heart pounding with fear, I grabbed the nearest thing to a weapon from the moped basket and began hurling ammunition overhead at the assailants. However, taking my eyes off the road to lob miniature chocolate croissants was a last, fatal mistake.

  Crunch!

  The moped bumped straight
up a kerb, sending my stomach boinging up to my lungs and my knicker tops rolling back down below my belly again, as the bike came to a near halt. This was it, the end. I waited for my life to flash in front of me . . . but a massive, spiny bush got there first. Without testing the moped’s brakes, and fuelled by an extraordinary burst of adrenaline, I dived off, sending it ploughing, un-helmed, into the bush. This was where, in a moment of TV cop-esque brilliance, I rolled over and over onto a grass bank before springing back to my feet.

  ‘Whoa!’ For a split second, Mrs David Dando was Lara Croft; crime fighting, tomb raiding stunt rider. That was until My Big Fat Greek Assassin got off his bike and made towards me and I remembered who I actually was. Bawling Binnie – with her knickers rolling down again.

  ‘Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I’m unarmed!’ I yelled, trying – and failing – to get my helmet off before throwing up my hands in surrender to the waiting gang.

  ‘Other side, Mrs Dando! Other side!’ yelled Zorba the Crook, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe bits of chocolate and pastry from his fat sweaty face. Spying his accomplices coming up behind, I turned around and threw myself face down in the dirt with my hands behind my still-helmeted head.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I whimpered, ‘just please don’t hurt me.’

  There are moments that should flash through your mind when you think death is imminent; the faces of loved ones, lifelong friends, long-forgotten happy moments, childhood memories. This was my crucial moment – and I was going to die wondering if Greece had body bags big enough for me in this colossal monstrosity of a biking helmet.

  The Fat Assassin flopped down beside me and prodded my shoulder. ‘Oh God,’ I thought. ‘He’s really mad! Goodbye cruel world!’