Escape to Ikaria Page 14

  Artemis, having showered and changed, reappeared wearing a long white dress, as if she was about to attend some important function. There were none on Ikaria that would have required such an extravagant style. It was in keeping with a chic Martini advert, and it showed yet another of the enigmatic quirks of this unfathomable woman.

  ‘You are making good friends with the sister.’

  ‘Yes, I think I am, and soon I hope we will be able to understand each other.’

  Whenever I worked at the monastery, the slow-moving afternoons reached an inevitable climax when I walked up the steep incline of the vegetable garden to open the sluice gate. Sometimes Sister Ulita liked to accompany me and watch the water rushing along the trenches, racing between the rows, reviving the plants, leaving the earth damp and the leaves uplifted. But today, as we made our way through the garden, the sky darkened and a light rain began to fall, not bouncing on the leaves, but delicately, as if the heat was dissolving the drops before they reached the ground. It barely ran down my face, just dampened my cheeks, not enough to water the plants or get into the earth. But it stirred the insects who danced in great circles around us. As I opened the sluice gate to release the water, the rain hardened and from nowhere the wind blew up.

  Soon I was soaked, my shirt clinging to my body. Because the soil was so dry and dusty the trenches collapsed, and everywhere soon became saturated. All the while, Sister Ulita, who had not run for cover, stood there unmoving in her sunglasses. It was the first time I had been with her in the rain and I could see she was delighting in every drop, because so little fell in the summer months. But she was getting drenched so I said to her, ‘Sister, ela.’ Come.

  ‘Fidi!’ she replied, as if frozen to the spot.

  I didn’t know the word – it sounded like ‘feethy’ – but as soon as I looked down I knew what it meant as I saw a black snake, about six inches long, just two feet from her. It slowly slithered away, eventually disappearing through the dwarf bean plants and she gave a great sigh of relief. ‘Thilitiriothis!’ she said. It was poisonous, and a bite could be fatal.

  The sudden downpour only lasted a few minutes; the clouds cleared and the intense smell of vegetation filled the air, raindrops dripping from the leaves.

  I left Sister Ulita and Artemis sitting sewing the altar cloth, the sun shining again in a clear sky. The nun’s last words to me now were always ‘God bless you’; Artemis never said goodbye, or acknowledged I was leaving.

  12

  A Night in the Taverna

  Vassili had let me know of a job in Xylosirtis. It was a week’s work, painting an upturned fishing boat for the owner of the mini-market, Kostas. His wife was an enormous woman who always wore a black swimming costume, no matter what the time of day or whether she was on the beach or in the shop, which, by the way, never opened or closed. You rang the bell at any time, and if they were there they would serve you. They sold local produce such as fruit and vegetables, milk and cheese. Everything else came from Athens, which explained the half-empty shelves; they were always expecting a delivery ‘avrio’.

  Patrolling the front of the shop was a long-haired mongrel with very short legs who emitted a high-pitched yap similar to the sound a toy animal makes when it’s turned upside down, only ten times louder. He was on a long lead, and although he had a kennel he preferred to guard his territory by running continuously along a wall that bordered a run of gobbling turkeys, seeing them as a major threat. So whenever I arrived he ignored me, giving his full attention to the bunch of ruffian birds gathered at the wire fence, my approach having set them off.

  Like his wife, Kostas also spent all day in his swimming trunks. He was a neat and well-groomed man in his fifties with carefully trimmed hair, grey and wavy, but well maintained. He was muscular, and clearly looked after his sunburnt body. There were striking similarities to the silver-haired man I’d often see on the beach who wanted to attract everyone’s attention. Kostas was less flashy, but suave, with a good centre of gravity. He spoke English fluently enough for me not to have to hang on every word, trying to unscramble the meaning of each sentence.

  For nearly a week, I left Lefkada at six in the morning to walk the five or so kilometres to Xylosirtis along the quiet winding road, the view of the Aegean coming and going round each bend.

  I’d noticed how many Ikarians talked about the wind. Depending on where you lived on the island it seemed to be part of everyday conversation, but at Lefkada it hardly bothered us. How different in Xylosirtis. The Meltemi, as it was called, was tiresome, blowing solidly for five days without a minute’s let-up, battering the pines, shaking their branches, bending them in all directions. It was strong enough to blow the cicadas from the trees. That’s what Kostas told me, although I didn’t know whether it was true. I asked him how he coped and he said if he was in the shop he played loud music, but outside you just had to put up with it. Which I did, starting work at seven, being constantly buffeted on the shore. A few fishing boats moored nearby rocked to the frenzied rhythm of the waves. Sea birds struggling with the Meltemi were seemingly going nowhere, flying on the spot.

  There was no one about, apart from Anatoli, an old man I would find every morning sitting on a lobster pot smoking. I hadn’t painted a boat before, but Kostas had given me several tins of various colours. It appeared to be a simple job, because all I had to do was repaint what was already there and then put on three layers of varnish. The boat was about fifteen feet long, and rather than having to price it up he paid me four hundred drachma to work until one o’clock each day. It seemed to be the going rate.

  Anatoli only moved once an hour, to hobble to the shore and pee into the water. He was at that stage in life when a man has to take into consideration his distance from a public convenience. In Anatoli’s case it was fifty yards or so, then take aim into the Aegean. He had an annoying habit of coming over to scrutinise my work when it had absolutely nothing to do with him. He spoke his own version of English, a kind of verbal leapfrog which jumped over words. I managed to understand the gist of what he was saying, but I was trying to concentrate on the job and his interference slowed me down. When Kostas came on Wednesday to see what progress I’d made he tut-tutted, walking around the boat and talking to Anatoli. I could guess what they were saying.

  ‘Bit faster,’ was all he said to me, and sauntered off, like a middle-aged Greek god in flip-flops.

  When Anatoli eventually left, shortly before one o’clock, I decided to stay on an extra hour and try to make up for lost time. But the wind increased a few knots, blowing dust along the pebbly shore, the grit stinging the bare skin of my back. I gave up and walked to the mini-market to tell Kostas I’d work an extra hour tomorrow and that if Anatoli left me alone I’d get the job done much more quickly. All the way to the shop I battled against the wind, meeting it head on. It turned the feral cats sideways and blew plastic bags down the road. When I got there and rang the bell he didn’t answer. I could see him through the window fast asleep on a sofa. Not even the yapping of the mad mongrel dog leaping in the air disturbed him, the turkeys gobbling, their feathers ruffled by the Meltemi.

  I was looking forward to getting back to Lefkada, to be somewhere calmer where I could hear myself think; this incessant wind could drive a man insane.

  As I got closer to home, the wind dropped and I stopped at a secluded cove, empty but for two people sitting at the far end of the beach.

  Wearing only shorts, I kicked off my sandals and walked straight into the sea. And then, after no more than a few steps, I walked straight back out. A shoal of jelly fish, white and ghostly, sinister-looking things, like strange fungi, were coming towards the shore. I’d heard they had an excruciatingly painful sting; apparently, the simplest antidote was to get someone to pee on it, not that I’d ever witnessed this.

  Then, some distance ahead of me, I saw the couple walking towards the sea.

  I shouted, ‘Jellyfish!’ and ran towards them, shouting again, ‘Jellyfish!’

&nbs
p; It was only then that I recognised Sarah.

  ‘Nick! What are you doing here?’ she said, obviously surprised to see me somewhere other than Lefkada and while she was with her Greek boyfriend, who had clearly won her heart. I could see it in her eyes. I knew he was an Ikarian, and now I could see he was slim with a mass of dark curly hair, roughly my age.

  ‘This is Ilias,’ she said, and he shook my hand and then took from his pocket a silver tin of tobacco.

  ‘You roll your own,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Golden Virginia. I don’t smoke very much, but I buy it whenever I’m in Athens.’

  ‘I haven’t had a roll-up since I’ve been here.’

  ‘Please, help yourself.’

  And I did, and smoked one with him as he told me a bit about himself. The islanders called him the Pharaoh; both his parents were Ikarian but he’d grown up in Egypt where his father had been a cotton merchant in Alexandria. Ilias had travelled all over the place and had worked in London and the US.

  ‘By the way, you know what the Ikarians say about these jellyfish?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the Turks send them over to frighten the tourists away. Sarah tells me you spend a lot of time at the taverna. I inherited it from my father. I’ve rented it to Maria and Yannis for years now.’

  ‘It’s our second home. We’re there every night.’

  ‘You like Maria’s cooking?’

  ‘More than that. It’s the centre of our universe.’

  In the taverna that evening, Paulo and Francesca, who were planning to leave at the weekend, demanded that we debate anarchy and how it could bring about a new way of life, rather than living under the thumb of the political elite.

  ‘Sounds like a subject to get our teeth into,’ I said enthusiastically. Not that I knew the first thing about anarchy, only that it was a form of chaos.

  ‘It’s a very serious subject,’ said Gregory. ‘I suggest it should be discussed without too much alcohol being consumed.’

  Of course he didn’t mean a word of it, and after what had begun as a civilised discussion, voices became raised and gradually we were talking over each other and then shouting. That’s when Maria came over waving her broom and said, ‘No more drink.’

  Nobody had won the argument, and nobody had changed their mind about what they believed. Lottie wanted cars to be banned from all cities in favour of bicycles; Ros and I couldn’t think of anything better than democracy. Paulo and Francesca were outnumbered, and, I thought, talking a load of political bollocks; I hadn’t been able to resist pointing out the irony of their argument, considering that they came from Italy where governments fell regularly anyway, regardless of whether anarchy was involved.

  ‘If there was anarchy, would we still have to go to school?’ Sam asked.

  ‘No, probably not,’ I said. ‘Everything would come to a halt, and there would be no education as we know it.’

  ‘I want to be an anarchist, Dad.’

  ‘Anyone fancy having a chat about synchronised flower arranging?’ I said, trying to lighten up what remained of the evening.

  Just when I thought the night was over, Datsun Jim pulled up with his bride-to-be, Thekla. It looked as if she might have started a diet and Jim’s pot belly appeared to have lost a couple of inches as well. They made a constant fuss of each other, Jim offering her his arm as they walked to a table, pushing the seat under her large bottom as she sat down. It was endearing to watch his good manners and the attention he gave her. Unfortunately, he let himself down by clicking his fingers as if he expected Maria to rush over and serve them. Datsun Jim had poured himself into love, and after Maria had brought them a carafe of Ikarian wine they raised their glasses and toasted each other, while from the back of the pick-up a tethered goat bleated its approval.

  Jim was the kind of man who would allow himself to be completely dominated by Thekla, which was just as well, as he was incapable of looking after himself. One day, when I had been mixing cement with him, he’d told me that the hardest day of his life had been when he was thirty-six and his mother pushed him out of the family home, having had enough. He’d gone and lived in a goat shed, while the goat went on living there too. He said they had a very good relationship, but I doubted either of them did the washing up.

  I knew very little about Thekla, only that she was an Ikarian from Faros, right at the northernmost tip of the island.

  While she sipped her soup he excused himself and came over to me.

  ‘She is such a lovely woman,’ he said, looking across at her adoringly.

  ‘Jim, you are a changed man. You seem more relaxed.’

  ‘I am very much in love, you can see that. I have given up the Coke. I am on the green beans and the salads. We swim, we walk, life is full of the magic.’

  ‘This is wonderful for you, Jim, after all the years of being on your own.’

  ‘My only worry is the money, the cost of the wedding, very expensive. I have been offered a job, to lay bricks at the Toula Hotel. It is good money, from Athens. Will you come and mix cement for me?’

  I hadn’t followed up my conversation with Petros on the day of the invasion, but I wondered whether now was the time to do so, so I said, ‘I’m painting a boat at Xylosirtis and working at the monastery, but if they will pay me an hourly rate, maybe I could come for four or five hours.’

  ‘This he will do; he needs more workers. You come tomorrow?’

  ‘As soon as I have finished at the monastery.’

  Of all our children, Seth was the most hidden. Trying to fathom what was going on between his ears was beyond us most of the time. When we sat around the table, eating and chatting, he contributed little to the conversation. It was because he had other things on his mind, especially since his discovery of what I thought was a new indestructible compound. Often the world’s greatest inventions happen by accident. Two chemicals are brought together by chance, a certain reaction occurs, and quite unexpectedly a new product finds its way on to the market, making someone a millionaire. And it could have been Seth, after he brought back from the taverna the vanilla paste from the bottom of his glass of water. He had crushed the bone-dry bodies of some dead insects into an extremely fine powder which he stirred into the vanilla paste, and left the mixture to dry in the sun, or rather got bored and walked off.

  But the sticky substance became rock hard and was impossible to shatter. We hurled it against walls and dropped large boulders on it. We even got a hammer from Maria and tried to smash it. It was simply unbreakable.

  ‘God, Ros,’ I said. ‘That boy of ours could be an accidental genius.’

  ‘It would be amazing, wouldn’t it, but I don’t think we should build our hopes up too high,’ said Ros. ‘It’s a long way from here to the shelves of an ironmonger’s.’

  ‘You know, Ros, we could have children with hidden talents. We’ve already produced a fervent vegetarian, an anarchist, and now an inventor.’

  She wasn’t impressed, reminding me that after the initial excitement had died away something else would come along and distract me. I wanted to do some more experiments, but Maria, who bought the vanilla paste in tubs, became a bit suspicious when I asked her to sell me a kilo of the stuff. She’d already been mystified by watching me trying to smash a little round ball to smithereens with her hammer.

  Like everyone else that day, she was a bit on edge since a single-manned submarine had been spotted out in the Aegean heading back to Turkey. Ikaria was rife with rumours of an impending invasion, convinced that this submarine had been on a reconnaissance mission, looking for a suitable place to land troops. The response was to keep a close look-out and soldiers scanned the waters with binoculars, waiting for the Turkish fleet to appear.

  Only the older Ikarians considered the threat to be real, remembering their grandfathers’ tales, claiming the cursed Turks wanted the island returned to them. It had been in Turkish hands until 1912, when it declared its independence and after five months became part of
the kingdom of Greece, so the suspicion was not unreasonable.

  Captain Karalis came to the taverna, bringing out the worst in Maria who still hadn’t forgiven him. Yannis was more accommodating and treated him like any other customer, including keeping him waiting for his meal. Captain Karalis’s assessment, as Ikaria’s only professional soldier, was that these threats came in cycles.

  ‘The Turks do it just to let us know they are still out there and to keep us on our toes,’ he said, sipping his coffee. ‘And I will tell you more. A one-man submarine moving on the surface at five knots surely has a mechanical problem. They need to get it into a garage, and check it over.’

  ‘Of course, captain, you are right. We can breathe again.’

  ‘You do not take me seriously, my friend. One day they will come and try to take our island.’

  I knew Datsun Jim would be waiting for me, but it had been an unusual morning at the monastery. One of the goats had a severely injured horn; it had split along its length, right down to the base. Sister Ulita was very concerned, but surprisingly ‘hacksaw’ was not in the phrase book, and that was what I needed if I was to cut it off. I’d done it before, to cows back on the farm. It causes them no distress and usually they stand quietly, not feeling a thing. Through an improvised mime show and then a sketch, she knew exactly what I was after. She sprang into action with a speed I’d not seen before except when the phone had rung. She kick-started her moped and revved it up on the throttle, and as soon as I opened the monastery gates she raced past me, the loose folds of her wimple flowing behind her. Crouched forward over the handlebars, she leaned into the first corner, her habit ballooning out like a large Christmas pudding. I wished I could have taken a photo. It was the kind of image a rock band would have on the cover of an LP. I walked down a few yards and watched her speeding along the coast road towards Xylosirtis, dust clouds trailing behind her. It was a sight I knew would never fade from my memory.