Escape to Ikaria Read online

  It was another hot afternoon. I was hoeing the weeds between the pepper plants, lost in my own thoughts, and hadn’t noticed her coming into the garden. She shouted, ‘Neeko, Neeko,’ clearly agitated, turning her face away and wagging a finger. I stopped hoeing and put my T-shirt back on.

  ‘If I can’t take off my shirt, I will only dig early in the morning,’ I said, even though I knew she couldn’t understand what I was saying. It was a moment when we suddenly felt an awkward tension between us and she left the garden.

  A few minutes later she brought me some water, as if to make amends, and wouldn’t leave until I had emptied the glass. She smiled then, saying, ‘Poli zesti,’ playfully flicking water droplets at my face, almost as if she was sprinkling me with holy water. I wished she would take off her sunglasses; it was frustrating not being able to see her eyes.

  After I’d milked the goats and taken the bucket into the old stone pantry, I helped Sister Ulita fill the basket on the front of her moped with eggs, which I passed to her one by one until she had packed them all, without any protection whatsoever. She obviously knew what she was doing, or maybe there was a knack to it, because they were quite rigid and didn’t move an inch. Then she fired up the moped and sped out through the monastery gates. I thought I had witnessed one of life’s great mysteries; surely they would all end up smashed.

  When I got back to Lefkada, Julia and Sarah were in the taverna. Julia was washing her hair, bending down under the standpipe, wearing a sarong. You had to be pretty supple to get into the various positions required to wash away the shampoo. Sarah was drinking coffee at a table nearby. I noticed that her auburn hair had been lightened by the sun and she had striking blue eyes.

  ‘So, whereabouts in England are you from?’ I asked.

  She told me she had grown up on a dairy farm in Sussex; not yet nineteen, she was going to Exeter University in September to read English and philosophy. In just five minutes of conversation, I realised how much we had in common. I was a country boy, born and bred in Dorset. There was an Englishness about her I felt at home with; nothing I could articulate, just a feeling of ease in her company. Julia came over and joined us, her hair wrapped up in a towel like a turban.

  ‘How did you two meet?’

  ‘Absolute chance, really,’ said Julia. ‘I was staying on my aunt’s yacht in St Katharine’s Dock at Tower Bridge.’

  ‘And I was working nearby at the Cruising Association. We got chatting and soon found we both wanted to go to Greece.’

  ‘A few weeks later we were on the Magic Bus to Athens. A long uncomfortable journey we endured together.’

  ‘Yes, that’s how we got here – baptism by fire!’ I said.

  ‘By the way,’ asked Julia, ‘do you know where they’re holding the next panagiri? We want to dance the night away to Greek music.’

  I suggested they talk to Maria, that she would know. We hadn’t been to one, but I’d heard these festivals happened from time to time, mostly in remote villages in the hills.

  Ros and the children came down to sit with us.

  As we listened to Julia telling us about the wild, wonderful landscape of New Zealand, Sam, with the faraway look of someone lost in his own thoughts, asked, ‘Why do you speak English in such a funny way?’

  ‘That’s my accent. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s just different.’

  ‘Well, so is yours.’

  ‘What’s the longest word in New Zealand?’ asked Sam, opening his notebook.

  ‘The words are all the same as you have in England, except, of course, the Maori ones, like pohutukawa.’

  ‘Wow, what’s that?’

  ‘It’s the New Zealand Christmas tree.’

  ‘That’s really good. But I’m looking for the longest word in the world.’

  ‘If you want an extremely long word, Sam,’ said Ros, ‘there’s a Welsh town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It’s very near where we used to live.’

  ‘God, Mum, that’s silly. There wouldn’t be enough room to write it on an envelope. How many letters is it?’

  ‘I think it’s about fifty.’

  ‘Is it the longest word in the world?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  Maria called me into the kitchen. The telephone had rung and it was Stelios.

  ‘Hey, you come tomorrow? Theo will be with us.’

  ‘OK, what time?’

  ‘Six o’clock. Don’t be late.’

  When I told Julia and Sarah I was going fishing the next day, they were keen to go too. I wasn’t sure.

  ‘Come to Aghios in the morning and let’s see what Stelios says.’

  Gregory the Gregarious, as I called him, joined us then, up from the beach. What better place to be than sitting in the taverna exchanging ideas in the long summer nights, having a stimulating debate? But I’d decided tonight I wouldn’t drink retsina because I had a feeling it made me babble on, and Ros had said she would share a carafe of the less alcoholic Ikarian red wine which Maria was always wanting me to try.

  I told Gregory he had the look of an ancient Greek. Although he was only twenty-five, he would not have been out of place dining in the Acropolis, wearing a white robe, drinking wine from a goblet.

  ‘Yes, reclining on a chaise longue,’ said Julia.

  ‘And your concubine tempting you with a bunch of grapes,’ added Sarah.

  ‘Unless my history is completely screwed up, I don’t think you’d find a chaise longue in the Acropolis,’ Lottie said as she joined us.

  ‘What’s your bloodline, Gregory?’ I continued. ‘Have you ever traced it back?’

  ‘Well with a name like Van Brinker you would think my ancestors were Dutch.’

  ‘Logical thinking,’ I said. ‘So you’re more comfortable in clogs than sandals.’

  ‘No, I’m more comfortable in sandals.’

  ‘There we have the clue,’ I said.

  ‘You mean my preference in footwear can be traced back to the ancient Greeks?’

  ‘It could be. I think we should keep an open mind about it.’

  The place was full, which meant Maria was busy in the kitchen, and whenever Yannis was the waiter service was more than a little haphazard. He still believed he could memorise the menu, and not writing down the orders didn’t help. Often we were given someone else’s meal, and it was quicker to walk round the tables to find the people who’d ordered it than to get him to sort it out. Nobody complained; they all felt sorry for him.

  I had already spoken to Maria so there was every chance we would get the squid and octopus, which Gregory and Lottie wanted to try. Everyone at the taverna that night eventually ate a meal, although whether it was what they’d expected was another matter. But Gregory and Lottie did get their order and enjoyed it, which was all I really cared about, and Sarah and Julia had some too. Not that they had ordered it.

  At dawn I went down to the taverna where the two girls were already waiting for me, both disturbed by what they had found lurking in one of Sarah’s sandals. Still half asleep and about to put her foot on it, she had seen the scorpion just in time. I thought I’d heard a scream while I was dressing. She had carefully picked up the sandal and carried it outside, tipped the scorpion on to the grass and watched it crawl away.

  ‘Are you nervous about sleeping there now?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but maybe we need a torch to check the room before we go to bed. I can’t believe how close I was to being stung,’ she said, still clearly shaken.

  We met Stelios on the quayside and he was happy for them to come out with us. Julia wasn’t really dressed for a day’s fishing; the wind had steadily increased as we’d walked from Lefkada and she had to keep holding down her light, sleeveless dress. Sarah had no such problems, since she was wearing a pair of denim shorts.

  ‘Of course, come,’ he said. I could tell by the way he looked at them that he had an eye for the girls. Then he introduced us to a slim young man with
boyish looks who was at that sensitive age when boys grow facial fluff rather than dark stubble. His thick hair was swept back off his forehead.

  ‘This is my brother Theo.’

  ‘Yassas,’ Theo said in greeting, jumping on board and then offering Julia and Sarah a helping hand. He was not at all as I had imagined. He was taller than Stelios and quietly spoken, as if unsure of himself in front of people he didn’t know.

  Stelios called me down into the cabin, ‘You know, I have as you say to change my tactics.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘My mother, she says I bully him,’ which, from what he had told me, was probably the case. ‘So I am glad you bring the girls today. You can make friends with Theo.’

  ‘It will be a voyage of discovery,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, my English friend, and for this trip you will be skipper.’

  Which I was, and on that cloudless morning I steered the boat out beyond the harbour walls, while Stelios went and sat with Julia and Sarah up at the bow. Theo, who didn’t have a lot to say for himself, stood next to me smoking a cigarette. Every so often he ducked down into the cabin and took a swig of retsina, and after half an hour or so he began to open up. He wanted to know about English girls and if they liked to kiss. Innocent, naïve stuff that a teenager will ask when he doesn’t know what is going on with his emotions. What he really wanted to talk about was his girlfriend, Callista, and why he couldn’t keep his mind on fishing, which had led to the difficulties with Stelios.

  ‘Do you have an older brother who gives you trouble?’ he asked.

  Hearing Theo’s side of things made me think that maybe Stelios was the one with the problem, resenting his younger brother’s freedom.

  Meanwhile, Stelios seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself in the company of the girls, showing no interest in where we were, leaving Theo and me in charge.

  Sarah came over and asked if there was anything she could do, saying she felt a bit of a gooseberry.

  ‘Yes, actually. Could you take the tiller while I go and help Theo let out the nets?’

  As we ate lunch, Stelios showed off, walking about the boat balancing a bottle of retsina on his head. He was hard on Theo, letting him drink only one glass, while he flirted openly with Julia. Sarah and I just looked at one another. It was obvious what was going on. Theo watched it all silently, overshadowed by his brother.

  The schools were now closed until the autumn and the tourist season was in full swing. Many Greek-Americans had come back to their families for the summer months, but it appeared that few foreigners made Ikaria their prime destination. Most were on their way to somewhere else. Like Julia and Sarah, they turned up at odd hours, not just on the ferry from Athens but on much smaller boats coming from other islands. These tended to bring the more adventurous, who would only stay a few days, waiting for another boat, before travelling on.

  That was how we met Paulo and Francesca, two Italian punk rockers who walked into the taverna with rucksacks on their backs, arriving from Samos after hitching a ride on the potato boat. They were a strange species I had not come across before. Francesca’s hair, dyed the colour of a wheat field, had what looked like a footpath cut through the middle of it. Her purple eye make-up and the safety pin stuck in her nostril turned a few heads in the taverna. Paulo wore black eyeliner, which gave him a ghoulish look similar to Christopher Lee in Dracula, while his hair was streaked with red and blue stripes, like those in Aquafresh toothpaste. They both wore tight dark jeans with chains hanging in loops over their buttocks.

  Yannis didn’t give them a second look, showing them to a table as he would anyone else, and leaving a menu. We asked if they’d like to join us and before they had even sat down Sam said, ‘Why have you got a safety pin through your nose?’

  Seeming to ignore him, they went round the table introducing themselves. When they reached Sam, who stuck out a hand, Francesca said in a delightfully rich Italian accent, ‘We are making a statement.’

  Not the kind of response an eight-year-old boy would have understood, or anyone else sitting around the table.

  ‘What is this statement?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘It is about personal freedom,’ replied Paulo, ‘the individual being allowed to express himself.’

  I whispered to Gregory, ‘I think this could lead to our first political debate.’

  He nodded enthusiastically. I was preparing for an evening of intellectual argument, full of alternative views. After all, gathered around the table we had plenty of nationalities: Canadian, Dutch, Italian, Welsh, and me an Englishman. It was a pity Julia and Sarah weren’t here, but Maria told me they had gone to Aghios Kirikos for the evening.

  We had all started eating when the evening took a dramatic change in direction. Datsun Jim pulled up, with a goat tied to the cement mixer in the back of the pick-up, chewing a mouthful of hay. Not Jim, the goat.

  He wasn’t alone and I realised the man with him must be Giorgos. I had quite forgotten that he was coming to the taverna; now at last we could sort out the money he owed me. I hoped it wouldn’t turn into an argument in front of our visitors.

  Datsun Jim pointed me out to him and he came straight over. The rounded belly must have been a family trait, or maybe Giorgos was a man of hamburgers and booze, because his T-shirt bulged, displaying on the front a blonde beauty in a black leather jumpsuit holding a smoking gun. He took no notice of anyone but me, and in a strong Greek-American accent said aggressively that he had no intention of paying me any money.

  Before I had a chance to say a word, Ros was on her feet.

  ‘What a bloody cheek! How dare you come in here and refuse to pay my husband for days of work he has done on that house of yours while your brother just drinks endless cans of Coke and then disappears for the day?’

  That rather took him by surprise, but as he was about to respond, with mounting anger and clenched fists, Ros got going again.

  ‘I bet you haven’t even brought the money. Show it to us. Where is it?’

  At this point, Maria came running from the kitchen carrying a broom and whacked him on the arse, simultaneously berating him in a tirade of Greek, letting him know where her loyalties lay.

  Paying her scant regard, Giorgos pulled a bundle of drachma from his pocket and threw it down on the table in front of me. Everyone in the taverna had stopped eating, all knives and forks resting on unfinished plates of food.

  ‘Double or quits,’ he said, looking straight at me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We arm-wrestle. You say I owe you two thousand five hundred, we wrestle for five thousand drachma.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Ros, back on her feet again. ‘Pay what you owe, and walk away with your dignity.’

  I didn’t say anything. I was staring at Giorgos’s arms, which looked fat and flabby. Having been a hill farmer, carrying pigs weighing a hundred and forty pounds and clearing stones from acres of fields, I had, despite my thinness, a deceptive strength.

  I looked at Ros. I had never seen such seething anger on her face before. Sam and Lysta had their arms around their mother’s waist. Seth was preoccupied with his pencil box, which was full of dead insects.

  ‘Here,’ said Giorgos, picking up the money. ‘I give the five thousand to Jim, and he gives it to the winner . . . you agree? Otherwise I walk out of here, and I give you nothing.’

  Ros was silent and then, with a surrendering wave of her hand, said, ‘Oh, I don’t care any more.’ She sounded defeated.

  Gregory said to me quietly that he thought Giorgos had been drinking, and although he was large, it didn’t necessarily mean he was strong. ‘I think you can win,’ he said encouragingly.

  Lottie couldn’t grasp what was going on and asked Ros to explain how all this had come about.

  ‘OK,’ I said, taking up Giorgos’s challenge. ‘I will arm-wrestle you for five thousand drachma.’

  I needed a few minutes to prepare, to choose the best table; most of the
m were wobbly on the uneven ground. And I wanted Gregory to act as my second. It was a sultry evening, unusually still, with not even the gentlest of breezes wafting in from the Aegean. Apart from Francesca and Paulo, everyone was in T-shirts and shorts, their skin damp with sweat. All Datsun Jim said to me was, ‘I told you he was angry.’

  ‘I don’t think it matters now.’ There was no point in saying any more, although there was much I could have said. After all, it was only because of his blundering incompetence that I was facing this situation.

  ‘Good luck, my friend,’ he said in a soulful way, with a look of regret in his eyes.

  ‘So you do have a conscience?’

  ‘I do not understand this word.’

  We agreed on the table to be used and placed it in the middle of the taverna. Giorgos and I chose our chairs and sat down. I calmed myself by taking several deep breaths, flexing my fingers. The last thing I wanted to do was show the most obvious sign of fear, a trembling hand, which I had done once, leading to my downfall in the school conker championship. All I had to do was get myself into the right frame of mind.

  At this point Sam came over to me, I thought to give his father some moral support. ‘I don’t think you can win, Dad. He’s as big as a whale.’

  Ros had positioned herself just a few feet away and was perfectly placed to be in my line of vision.

  And then, finally, we interlocked our hands and brought our elbows together. If they rose from the table, even slightly, the contest would be halted, and we would begin again. Whoever forced the other’s hand on to the table would be declared the winner.

  Gregory began the countdown, ‘Three . . . two . . . one’, and for the first few seconds Giorgos and I just looked at each other, neither of us wanting to give away how much energy we were expending. Both forearms upright, we held a rigid position, until Giorgos gradually increased his effort, forcing my wrist back three or four inches. Gregory, who was close to the action, kept leaning forward saying, ‘Hold him, buddy . . . just hold him there.’