Escape to Ikaria Read online

  Lottie and Gregory could have been Greek dancing for years. It just showed, you either have rhythm or you don’t.

  Meanwhile, Datsun Jim had found himself a rather large woman, who looked at him lovingly in the firelight, her teeth shining like piano ivories. He was more than a foot taller than her and couldn’t reach her waist, so had placed both hands round her neck. It looked as if he was about to strangle her. They shuffled from side to side, moving to a strange beat of their own, reminiscent of the mating dance of exotic birds.

  Everybody was having a good time, and the children perked up even more when they saw Vassili and Agathi in the crowd. Christos and Sam immediately disappeared with a football, while Lysta, who showed a natural rhythm, danced with Xenia. Seth amused himself beneath us, looking for little things that had expired in the sand.

  ‘He’s a natural born undertaker. Instead of digging up the dead, we’ve got to teach him to bury them,’ I told Ros.

  ‘I hope you’re not being serious.’

  It was three o’clock when a wave of tiredness came over me. I went looking for Paulo and Francesca, who I found drawing in the sand with long sticks. That’s what marijuana can do to you: concentrate the mind, get you deeply absorbed in things.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘The end of the world.’

  Francesca said it was beautiful because when the tide came in it would be washed away, leaving no trace. ‘It symbolises our own lives.’

  Now was not the time for a deep discussion. I was trying to gather our group together, and see if everyone was happy to go back to Lefkada.

  ‘We can go when you want,’ said Paulo, with a casual shrug of the shoulders.

  I found Gregory and Lottie propped up against some natural rock armchairs, staring dreamily into the night sky.

  ‘It’s so groovy out there in space,’ Gregory said when he saw me, more than a little laid back.

  I’d done my bit of star-gazing for the night and said, ‘Yes, but out there it takes light years for anything to happen.’

  ‘That’s so true, man.’

  ‘Are you ready to head back to Lefkada?’

  ‘Ready when you are.’

  All I had to do now was find Datsun Jim, and I went in search of him along the beach. Around me the music played on. People were still dancing, teenagers running in and out of the sea, barking dogs leaping into the waves.

  I eventually found him fast asleep on the sand. Lying next to him was his unconscious lady friend, who rather resembled a ship’s figurehead, except that her breasts were rising and falling. Through her half-open mouth she emitted a noise as if she were shunting railway carriages. I tried shaking Jim awake, relieved that his breath did not smell of alcohol.

  ‘Jim . . . are you OK to drive us home?’

  He didn’t say anything at first, and then rolled over and looked at her.

  ‘Thekla,’ he said, and began speaking to her in syrupy Greek, but she was dead to the world.

  ‘You help me carry her?’ he asked, obviously wanting to bring her with us. And I did for a few feet, but she was heavier than a donkey.

  ‘It’s no good, Jim. She can’t come with us.’

  He looked at her longingly, planted a heavy kiss on her mouth and left her, a large heap in the sand.

  ‘This, you know, is my first ever woman. I love her,’ he said, looking back at her. ‘I will drive you to Lefkada, and then I return, and bring her home.’

  10

  Artemis

  It seemed Sister Ulita had only one friend. Artemis turned up from Athens at odd times and stayed for a few days before disappearing again. Where to I could only guess, but I didn’t think it was back to Piraeus, for no one could have endured the eight-hour voyage so often, nor the cost, although she looked like a woman of means; she always took a taxi back to Aghios Kirikos.

  I knew when Sister Ulita was expecting her because she made a fuss about my appearance, making me throw water over my face, indicating that I should tidy myself up, or at least shake the dust off my shirt. When we were on our own and ate together, she didn’t seem to mind how I looked. Why did she like me clean and well presented whenever Artemis came to the monastery?

  Often, I had lunch with them, and while they talked I got on with eating my meal, usually a Greek salad. Sister Ulita acknowledged me only occasionally, when I would say ‘Kala’, letting her know how much I was enjoying it. In England, the gardener would have had his lunch alone in a potting shed, drinking tea from an enamel mug.

  When we had finished, Artemis was always the first one on her feet, clearing the table of plates and cutlery and returning from the kitchen with a bowl of fresh fruit grown in the monastery garden. She never cleared the place laid for the unexpected guest, who yet again would have failed to arrive.

  Sister Ulita insisted on this ritual, believing that even at the final moment the bell could ring and a weary traveller fall across the threshold. Having outrun the pirates who attacked and robbed the Ikarians, he would be in urgent need of sustenance. So the empty seat at the end of the table was of great significance, and no one should ever discount the possibility of a late appearance. The fact that this had not happened for at least two hundred years did nothing to diminish the potency of the ancient custom. At the end of the meal, Sister Ulita would sit in the empty chair, put her hands together and utter a silent prayer. This signified that lunch was over, and no day was any different.

  Her serene face gave nothing away, not least because she was never without her sunglasses, and unable to look into her eyes, I was naturally drawn to her mouth. I watched the movement of her lips, sometimes taut, or expanding with a smile, depending on her mood. Although we understood little of each other’s language, I learnt how to lighten the expressions on that enigmatic face, and even to make her laugh, by enacting no more than a series of comedy skits: deliberately tripping over a flagstone, or standing on the end of the hoe so that it came up and nearly hit me in the face, a finale I generally managed to prevent, catching it at the last moment. They were scenes I remembered from silent films and I was determined, since coming to work for her, that I wouldn’t be some distant figure who just raised his hat at the end of the day and said, in his best Greek, ‘Kali spera’ (Good evening) and walked away. With so few words between us, these humorous acts transcended our lack of language.

  When she disappeared to take her siesta, I too would drift off on the wooden bench in the shade of a pear tree, listening to the cicadas’ incessant screeching, after pulling my ripped panama hat over my face. That hat was a tight fit since I’d once had to retrieve it from the Aegean. I should never have dried it in the sun.

  If Artemis had a siesta, it was always a quick one. She would appear in the quiet hours after lunch, having just showered, her hair combed and wet, her eyes dark with mascara; she had the look of an Italian contessa. I’d be woken by the flick of her cigarette lighter, but pretend to still be sleeping until she came and stood over me. I could not ignore the sound of her footsteps on the flagstones. She spoke with a certain aloofness, as if I should be made aware of potential dangers, when she told me that she’d noticed I had fair skin and could burn easily. Something, of course, I had known all my life.

  ‘You have freckles, and already the back of your neck is red,’ she said, knowing I could see her brown legs and shoulders glistening with sun cream, her dress so light it fluttered around her knees, while a cloud of smoke from her cigarette floated above her. Artemis was a sophisticated Athenian and our conversations became intriguing little intervals in the long blue afternoons. I’d no idea whether there was any deeper meaning behind them. They never really went anywhere, but she fascinated me and then would be gone, leaving the scent of her perfume lingering in the air.

  Who was this woman who had entered the nun’s enclosed life? I knew she wasn’t the unexpected visitor, for Sister Ulita had always prepared her room by the time the taxi dropped her at the monastery gates. Although the nun led an isolated life
she was not completely cut off from the outside world, for there was a telephone in her sleeping quarters. Whenever it rang, she would gather up the loose skirt of her habit and run as if her life depended on it, such was her obedience to this second calling. But if she was at prayer, the chapel door did not open and the telephone was left to ring.

  Once, when I was sweeping the flagstones in the shadows of the cypress trees, an intense sound engulfed the courtyard, as the telephone rang and the cicadas screeched in unison, shattering the tranquillity of the monastery. Suddenly, much to my relief, both ceased as if a click of fingers had ordained an instant silence. And a strange feeling came over me as I stared at the whitewashed walls; the shadows darkened and the bright colours of the bougainvillaea by the kitchen door intensified. I felt as if I was a figure in a painting, such was the stillness that surrounded me. Then a breeze from the Aegean stirred the dust, blowing pine needles across a patch of parched earth. A coil of rope became a snake, and slithered away through the rosemary. I knew then that I was hallucinating. I’d had too much sun.

  Sister Ulita came to get me for lunch and must have seen something was wrong, because she immediately moved me into the shade and turned the hose on me. She gave me several glasses of water, repeatedly saying, ‘Nero, nero,’ slapping the back of my hand like a mother scolding a child.

  I felt all right half an hour later, if a little light-headed, and ate a peach. I hadn’t realised I was getting dehydrated because it wasn’t a feeling I was familiar with. Hardly something one experiences often in North Wales, although the summer of drought in 1976 was a crazy time.

  This incident curiously altered the way Sister Ulita behaved towards me. She appeared more relaxed and certain of herself and became more involved in what I was doing, showing me the depth to dig down to in a patch of land, or the exact distance to leave between each row of seedlings to be transplanted. Everything was expressed silently, as if by a mime artist, with a wagging finger, a shaking or nodding of the head, a clapping of hands and ‘Bravo’ when she was happy.

  After her siesta, she would sit with Artemis, the two of them embroidering a large altar cloth spread out along the length of the table where we ate our lunch. Their hands rose and fell with a regular, unchanging rhythm, drawing golden threads through the fabric. Despite her arthritis, Sister Ulita could hold a needle. Their pace never altered, even as they talked. I could see now what these two friends shared, and it became part of everyday life whenever Artemis was here. Just behind them, beside the whitewashed church, a cloud of swallowtail butterflies danced in a flowering buddleia. The scene made me realise that I wouldn’t mind at all if time stood still, if only for a little while.

  In that long summer of hot afternoons the weather rarely changed, and neither did the routine I followed. After the sun had slipped behind the mountains I made the slow walk up the sloping bank to the sluice gate. Opening it no more than a few inches, I watched the water rush and run along the trenches, quenching the thirst of aubergines, peppers and tomatoes, the smell of the earth filling the air as the water was absorbed into the tilth. Here I would sit and gaze over the monastery roof to the wide expanse of the Aegean, the island of Fourni in the distance, just as it had ever been, in a shimmering haze. It was only the bleating of the goats that got me on the move again. They knew the time of day and I’d walk them to the shelter which was now their milking parlour. That was when Artemis would reappear, a few feet away in the cooling day. I couldn’t tell if these visits were premeditated, or whether she’d had enough of sewing and was simply wandering about the place looking for a suitable spot to smoke a quiet cigarette.

  She spoke good English, and standing behind me as I milked she told me how grateful Sister Ulita was to have someone she could rely on. There was a soft growl to her voice, I thought with a hint of seduction, but probably what I was hearing was no more than the grittiness that comes from smoking. I never knew what to expect from Artemis, but when she asked me if I was superstitious I stopped milking and turned round to look at her; it seemed an odd thing to ask.

  ‘What do you mean by superstitious?’

  ‘Do you believe certain things have magical powers?’

  I answered without really giving it any thought. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Tell me one you believe in.’

  I wondered where this was heading. ‘The imagination’ was all I said.

  She finished her cigarette. I could hear her stubbing it out under her sandal. ‘You can’t make me laugh as you do the nun . . . but you can make me smile.’

  What was she trying to say? That she knew Sister Ulita and I shared some humorous moments together?

  Artemis was finished with me then and walked away through the olive trees in her bright, flowery dress, swirls of dust appearing with every footstep. Maybe I was just a distraction that relieved her boredom. I must have been fifteen years younger than her; she was having fun with me because she could get away with it.

  At the end of each day I would sit in the courtyard and Sister Ulita would bring me sweetened orange peel curled around a spoon on a glass dish. And while I ate it and drank a glass of iced water, she put into a wicker basket my wages for the day: yoghurt, cheese, eggs and vegetables. It felt right to be rewarded for my labours by being given food. Not a financial transaction, but a simple act of giving and receiving. If I could have explained it in Greek I would have told her how much it pleased me to be paid in this way.

  On the walk back to Lefkada, the sea seemed harrowed up in dark blue waves, tipped with white specks like a flock of seabirds, thousands of them. I had my T-shirt tied around my waist, enjoying the cool breeze on my skin. It came over me how content I felt to be leading a life so satisfying and uncomplicated. And I knew Ros and the children were happy here too.

  Lysta was developing strong opinions, mostly about food. She was telling everyone we met that she was vegetarian. It seemed to strengthen her individuality, but was now becoming rather predictable. That evening, when I ordered a chicken stifado, she turned up her nose and asked to leave the table to go and sit with Francesca and Paulo who, she claimed, were teaching her Italian. She was also getting quite competitive with her twin brother, because Sam had started writing down Italian words in his notebook and had decided to show off by reading them out to her: grazie, mamma mia, prego, signorina.

  I asked Lottie where Gregory was that evening and she said he was off photographing the sunset. He’d got it into his head that he could make money by selling postcards of Ikarian sunsets, because the choice at the kiosk in Aghios Kirikos was terrible: they were out of focus and artificially coloured. He’d decided here was a chance to promote work of a superior quality. I didn’t know Gregory was a man with business ideas.

  Sarah and Julia joined us then, back from Aghios Kirikos, and Sam seized the opportunity to remind Sarah she had said she would teach him to swim.

  ‘But you can already swim,’ I said.

  ‘Only the doggy paddle. That’s what Gregory calls it.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it tomorrow. Come and knock on our door in the morning.’

  When Lysta came back to the table, she told us she could say goodnight in four languages.

  ‘Let’s hear them.’

  ‘Kali nicta, Nos dan, Bonne nuit, Buona notte.’

  And just as I was thinking I should go and reply to my mother’s last letter Gregory turned up, camera round his neck, full of energy and enthusiasm that never seemed to diminish, no matter what time of day.

  ‘You know, I’m going to have to develop my own shots. OK, you can take good photos, but you gotta be able to supply the finished product, something you can be proud of.’

  ‘You could come to North Wales and photograph the mountains,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, man, I’m up for that.’

  Lottie came over and kissed the back of Gregory’s neck. It was the first time I’d seen any affection between them. Gregory didn’t respond, probably not wanting to show publicl
y that he was fond of her. You wouldn’t have guessed they were having a love affair. All that Ros and I knew was what Lottie had told us that day.

  When we did all leave the taverna, Ros carrying a sleeping Seth in her arms, I experienced again the contentment I’d felt on the walk back from the monastery that afternoon. I didn’t know why it came into my mind, but back at the house I asked Ros if she often thought about her father.

  ‘I do, of course, but not with such sadness. Now it’s more just remembering him.’

  Ros had been very close to her father and it had been a difficult time for her when he died. But we didn’t have the chance to say more, because Lysta, after getting ready for bed, came in and started to read to us.

  It was a particularly hot day. Maria had a wooden thermometer hanging from one of the eucalyptus trees and Gregory told me it was eighty-five degrees, ‘poli zesti’, so we were all on the beach together, swimming and sunbathing. Sarah was in the sea teaching Sam the crawl as she had promised. It was because he wanted to race Christos, Vassili’s eldest boy.

  I was lying on a towel half asleep when Vassili appeared and stood above me holding a tennis ball, throwing down the bat and stumps he’d made.

  ‘They look great, Vassili. OK, let’s play cricket.’

  I thought better of trying to explain the rules. Nobody, unless it’s in your blood, can understand them. Ros volunteered to be wicket keeper, and Sam, seeing what was happening, rushed from the sea, wanting to open the bowling. I placed people in various positions, Gregory at silly mid-off, and to get the game going I went in to bat. I hit the ball all over the place, mostly into the sea, and although Julia nearly caught me, I retired not out, not bothering to keep my score.

  Agathi didn’t last long, clean bowled by Sam, so we let her stay in again and again out of sympathy. Vassili was a natural, although he possessed no graceful shots, hitting everything for six until I caught him.