The more I thought about Gozo the more I fancied the idea of living there. Not all the time. It could get far too hot for me in the summer, but then I wouldn't wish to leave England anyway. This is where my family and most friends live. But if there were to be a way in which I could spend most of my time there, writing, managing some business and relaxing and also having a place to return to in England from time to time then that could work pretty well. In theory, at least. It was just an idea and, whilst I did want to try to put some bones on it sometime, there was no real incentive for me to change my life as it was. What I really needed was someone to do things with.
There was no-one on the scene at all now. Sophie was a little mad. Fairly pleasantly so, as in a bit bonkers. Calls from her tended to be long and rambling and she was like another version of Katrina in many ways now I think about it. She believed in all sorts of secret powers and if not conspiracy theories themselves the idea that there might be conspiracy theories, aliens and goodness only knows what else. I could imagine that she could very easily be or become a member of one of those sects who worship ancient gods and dance naked around trees in the rain. Her writing was quite tedious to read. She had written a massive book about another life and time but it was hard-going. I did my best to edit it and make it readable, or, at least the first few chapters. She appreciated the feedback but kept changing everything until it became really quite hard work to deal with her.
She was in Cyprus and I did like the idea of visiting the island. It could certainly be another place I would like to explore one day. I was just not sufficiently attracted to Sophie, though, to want to accept her offers of accommodation should I make a trip one day.
Another person that kept in touch with me over the years was Debbie, someone I had known since the 1980s. I had met her very briefly in Athens and we had stayed in touch since then, albeit several years often passing between conversations and I cannot remember when I last actually met her. She had a hard life in very dull Leyland in Lancashire and absolutely adored and lived for each year's holiday in Greece. Almost as soon as she got back she would be counting the days until her next holiday the following year. Facebook enabled her to share the red-faced photos of a sudden tan and she repeated them every year, not a lot really changing.
When I was lying in the penthouse suite at Derek's place on Gozo it was Debbie who sprung to mind as someone who would have really, genuinely appreciated being there. So I wrote to her with some photos and asked whether she would be able to get away. She couldn't - three of her children had special needs and she seldom got any freedom to go anywhere other than that one annual break to Greece. Instead, I said I'd take her to Anglesey. It was an island. It should be sunny at the end of March / beginning of April and it would be something to do for a long weekend. She managed to get some help for the three days and so I picked her up and we explored another little island at the top left of Wales.
She is really easy to talk to and we have known each other long enough not to have to invent or elaborate anything. She tells it how it is and I listen. There was never really any chance that we would have got together for anything other than these occasional breaks so there were no expectations and no disappointments either. We fooled around after a few drinks but there was really not a lot going on. We enjoyed the great scenery and visited as many bays and beaches as we could find in the short time we had.
I talked about Tanya and Sophie and how sometimes I wanted to settle down with someone because I was getting older and just beginning to get a little scared of what might happen if the heart thing were to recur more seriously one day. But sometimes I also realised how happy I was on my own and how I'd managed pretty well without anyone for an awful long time! OK so there had been very occasional nights with Tanya or herself in the past but these were so few or far between that I had been, to all intents and purposes, celibate for nearly 20 years! Was this going to be how my life would evolve? Getting older and having even less by way of physical relationships and closeness? I reckoned I might have one last chance and so it was on this trip to Anglesey that I decided to see who and what may be out there.
As I dropped Debbie back at her house in Leyland she wished me well. I had a feeling that I might not be seeing her again.
Someone I did see again, though, was Sophie. I did my best to avoid it but she was coming to England to visit her mother in Birmingham and she kept asking if we could spend a few days together. She wanted to help me with getting my book published and there did seem some mileage in our encouraging each other to send off samples to literary agents. I had tried to get Judy Harrison to help with that way back in 2007 but she had never started. Sophie, for all her madness, was a determined sort and someone who who keep going against all odds to try and achieve what she wanted. It was her way to acknowledge the help I'd given her, and that hoped I would continue to give. So I said OK but I didn't want her coming here. Indeed, I wasn't too sure what I wanted. That necessary attraction just wasn't there so it was likely to be more business than pleasure for a couple of days.
I reckoned that she would love places like Glastonbury, Avebury and the like. My German friend Andi had enjoyed seeing a few of these places when I'd taken him around bits of Middle England when he visited me in July. So I booked an apartment to stay in the wilds of Dorset, or maybe it was in Gloucestershire or Somerset even. I can't recall but down that way somewhere. I worked out a nice route to take in lots of old stones and special places which I thought she'd like.
We talked about the accommodation and, although there was only the one bedroom, there were two separate sleeping areas. So that was all right. No pressure. I had no idea what to expect from her in that respect. She seemed pretty much a hippy in some ways and so it may be that she just strips off and jumps into bed with me one time. Then on other occasions she seems pretty old and a bit boring and that sex is the last thing on her mind. I was not too bothered but just decided to see what happened.
She came down to MK on a train from Birmingham and we set off on the circuit I had planned. She looked OK, the black bags had gone and I just headed south west with no other plan than the road map in mind.
I took lots of photos and the stones were magnificent. Some sites I had never heard of but which I found on the map were quite special in ambience and you could feel some sort of power emanating from these places. I had taken a good decision but I was not expecting the effect of a tiny little hole in the wall in Glastonbury.
Sophie had told a friend that she was going to explore places and Glastonbury would be on the route. the friend, wise in matters of this sort, said that she must visit the White Water (or something like that). She had some vague directions but we did, eventually find the place she meant. It appears as a gap in a stone wall near some houses on a street leading out of town. There's a natural spring and what looks like an entrance to a cave of some sort. There were plenty of people hanging around outside and I just thought that was it - maybe the spring water was a bit special or the cave a bit spooky but nothing more.
It was possible to go in to the cave, however, and once your eyes became adjusted to the darkness it turned out to be quite a cavern with a much bigger water source inside and a stone pool. People stood around or sat on the edge of the pool. As it was really wet where the pool flowed over some edges many people were in just bikinis. Then I saw that some girls were wearing nothing at all. They entered the water and walked around the pool, some coming out and just standing on the edge, dripping. What i though had been a recording of ethereal new age singing was actually live. A girl was standing, naked, and singing this remarkable tune and seemingly making it up as she went. A long-haired guy also stripped and entered the water from time to time and seemed to know the one singing. Others came and went as most of us just stood and watched, taking in the strange but quite pleasant atmosphere. Some of us were clearly tourists or visitors but others seemed well-acquainted with the place and it was like a church to them.
Sophie has left me and gone to explore further round the central pool. She had taken off her shoes as it was quite wet to go round the back. Then I saw her climb up onto the edge of the pool herself and she had taken off not all but most of her clothes too. It was difficult to make out much in the very dim light but she went into the water and walked around in time with the singing.
After what seemed a very long time indeed she emerged and came back to me. We slowly left and walked back through the town. She was wet but the sun was warm and she dried as she walked. It was all most odd but had certainly made an impact on me.
That evening we made our way on foot to a restaurant just a short walk from where we were staying. The food was excellent and we had a bottle of wine between us too. That definitely had some effect and Sophie was pleasantly drunk as we clung on to each other, staggering back to the apartment.
Inside I flopped down on a sofa and she fell beside me. We embraced and kissed, not really thinking about what we might or might not be doing. I almost knew I was going to regret this the moment I got into the double bed with her. Somehow, I don't know how or why, we didn't have sex. She was crying out loudly during some foreplay and that seemed to be all that was needed. I lay there wondering not what I should do next but what I wanted to do next. I wanted to go home. I could see where this might be going and I was resisting. Difficult, but my body, still half drunk, wasn't interested and that kinda saved me from what could have been a fate worse than marriage. I waited until she was asleep and went round to the single bed on the other side of a room divider.
In the morning it was like nothing had happened. All I wanted to do was get her back to Birmingham and put some distance between us. She did not look too good in the morning. I kicked myself for not being brave enough simply to say a long time ago that we could be pen friends or something but let's leave it at that. I had left the door ajar and she had left the door ajar too. I had no idea what she was thinking but she was intelligent enough to be thinking, like me, that we had crossed a line and now had either to do something about it and talk about it sometime.
On the journey back we did get around to remembering the events of the night before and she reckoned that we would be or had been great partners in another universe. Great! I could go along with this theory. For once, Sophie's madness was providing a respectable exit for my lack of arousal when she was experiencing the opposite. I nodded in agreement and lied as I reassured her that I had great difficulty in resisting her but it was probably not to be in this world. I was beginning to pick up the language and the rest of the jurnet became a lot easier.
Quite how a man a can tell a woman that she is not sensually attractive and get away with it is not something I expected to get away with. I live to love another day. Much as I want the physical thing, it needs to be someone else and I'll wait.
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