I spend the evening catching up with Carol and Soraya who have landed back into a very wet Bristol airport before making their way home. I tell them all about my day with Elias. Carol is positively seething and wishes she had stayed on, but she has appointments for a full head of highlights and some OAP perms booked for the morning, so she didn’t have much choice.
I still haven’t replied to Michael and consider blocking him for the duration of my trip. Then I think better of it in case the girls can’t get hold of me, and there is some huge emergency that is so bad it could only happen in my imagination.
Maybe it is the thought of how nice Elias is that makes me respond, but I finally answer Michael’s message.
Michael, this is nothing to do with you. Elias is a very nice manfrom Manchester. He’s not a scammer. You need to calm down.
There. I’ve stood up to him!
Almost instantly, Michael replies.
Elias? That’s his name? He’s made it up. I bet that’s not his name.That doesn’t sound like some geezer from Manchester. He should be calledJohn, Pete, or Steve, or something… I don’t think you should have anyfurther contact with the man. Please stay safe, the girls need theirmam.
I throw my phone down on the sofa. The cheek of this man telling me not to have contact with Elias! Then I start seething, pick it back up and type:
Don’t you dare tell me what to do. You’ve no idea about him. He’s amuch better man than you’ll ever be!!!!
I press send, and the ticks show he has read it. Immediately, I can see he is typing, so I decide that for one night, surely I can block him without there being some kind of emergency in this family. With a simple block, he is no longer typing.
After all, this is a break for relaxation, inspiration, dolphin watching and eating croissants. This is not a holiday where I will allow any drama from my ex-husband into my life.
Chapter Thirteen
I am fast asleep in my lavish four-poster in the midst of the most delicious dream about Elias. We are on the yacht, all cuddled up on that round bed of his, when he leans over and hands me an adorable little kitten with the most enormous blue eyes looking up at me. I am about to kiss Elias in my dreamy haze when there is the biggest bang, followed by shouting in French.
Now, normally, in the morning, I have to open one eye first – always the left one – and this slowly follows with the right eye. However, this morning, I am forced to abruptly open two eyes, and I quickly pull the duvet up around me to protect myself from the screaming woman standing at the foot of the bed.
‘Sortez, sortez!’ she screams. I remember seeing a sign saying something like that on an aircraft once, and I’m sure it must have meant exit. I think she wants me to leave, and I am afraid she is going to drag me out of bed hair first by the wild look in her eyes. I put my hands up in the air as if to sayI surrenderand climb out of bed searching for my kimono to wrap around me. What if Gianni hasn’t told his wife that someone is staying here, and she thinks I am having an affair with her husband? I try not to panic. Surely, she will understand that I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for sleeping in their marital bed. The more my eyes focus, the more I realise that the woman looks like one of the big portraits that hang on the living room wall.
‘Speak English?’ I ask meekly.
‘I thought you were from Poland?’ she says gruffly. Okay. I am so confused.
‘No, Wales. You know,Pays de Galles.’ I am suddenly thankful for learning where I am from, along withmercifrom some old language cassettes I had years ago.
‘I don’t care where you from. You should not be sleeping in my bed!’ Her voice is still a few octaves too high for my liking, so I quickly apologise. I now wish I had stayed in my old room when Soraya left. Perhaps they didn’t expect their visitors to use the master bedroom. My heart is racing, my mouth is dry, and I would do anything to have the girls here for backup.
‘Yes, I’m so sorry. I’ll get my things out of here as quickly as possible.’
The woman stamps up and down, grabs some of my clothes that are left on the white leather loveseat near the bed and throws them at me.
‘Out!’ she shouts.
I stumble about and grab all my bits as the woman reverts to screaming in French once again. I didn’t realise Gianni’s wife would be this feisty, but I suppose she did find a strange woman in her bed.
Once I have all my bits from her room, a moisturiser bottle that I had left in the en suite comes flying towards my head. I duck and find myself apologising for her attempted assault.
‘Why the agency send me such stupid people?’ she shouts.
‘The agency?’
I look towards the front door, feeling that I may need to make a sharp exit from here and notice a whole stack of designer luggage has been left by the doorway. I am guessing the lady of the house is back from her trip. Maybe she has left Gianni in Dubai alone. If only she would calm down a bit, I might be able to explain what I am doing here.
‘You’re fired,’ she screams.
‘Fired? I don’t work for you.’
‘Listen to me.’ Her face is getting menacingly scary now. ‘You work for me. Not the other way around. Now, I have to clean bed! How dare you sleep there!’
