Escape to Ikaria Page 18

  After Ros and the children had gone home I climbed the steep steps of the vegetable garden and sat for a while. Out in the Aegean, a large yacht was passing on its way to Samos. I saw them every now and then but they never stopped at Ikaria; there was nothing for their millionaire owners here. Overhead, a Greek air force jet, no doubt showing off its military capabilities, flew towards the mountains and disappeared, its noise shattering the peace.

  I realised how closely we had become entwined in the lives of others, and how all the kindness and hospitality so many Ikarians had shown us had made us feel at home. If I had been a different person and kept everything at a distance I wouldn’t have cared so much about what was taking place. How little control one has over outer events that pick you up and drag you along.

  I knew Maria was in her seventies, but her son, Dinos, whom she had mentioned to me before, could only have been in his thirties. So she must have had him late; what my mother called an afterthought, and others called an accident. She introduced me to him when he arrived, a tall, gangly young man. I could see the family resemblance, the same thin build as Yannis.

  Every summer he came back from Athens where he worked in a museum, cataloguing artefacts. Like many Greeks, he was fluent in English, and when we talked he told me I would be seeing a lot of him in the taverna, fighting with his mother over who should do the cooking.

  ‘Don’t be worried if you hear us arguing in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘We disagree a lot over our recipes.’

  ‘But I like your mother’s cooking, especially the squid in olive oil.’

  ‘Ah yes, but how can she fry chips in goat fat! If I were not a historian I would have been a chef.’ I didn’t dare tell Lysta about those chips. His speciality was a traditional Ikarian dish called soufico, usually made from aubergines, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes.

  ‘Hey, maybe one night I could cook this for you.’

  It was the first time I had arrived on site and not found Datsun Jim already laying bricks. He was usually there at seven and liked to get a spurt on before the sun got too high, when the sweat ran down our backs and our T-shirts clagged under our armpits. Since being with Thekla, he had always been punctual. But Zenas just moved me on to mix cement for another bricklayer, building a high wall of breeze blocks that was probably going to be the main entrance.

  Angelos was working nearby, driving a dumper truck full of heavy electric cables. He waved me over and said we urgently needed to talk in our fifteen-minute break. Petros was there early, walking around a marked-off area to the side of the hotel where I was sure they were going to build the swimming pool. How many gallons would that take to fill, never mind showers and baths? I was becoming quite obsessed with the whole water situation.

  At eleven Angelos told me everyone was fed up with their pay and conditions. They wanted at least another thirty drachma an hour, which was about enough to buy a newspaper and a packet of chewing gum. They had elected him as their spokesman, because he went to university. He was reluctant to fulfil this role, being only twenty years old, and thought Petros would just laugh and sack him on the spot.

  ‘There must be a way to achieve what we want,’ I said.

  Then Zenas blew his whistle and the break was over without anything being decided.

  ‘Let’s meet at the taverna tonight,’ I said.

  At that moment Datsun Jim drove at speed onto the site and rushed over to Zenas. He apologised profusely for being late, with all the exaggerated gestures that Ikarians used to drive home their point. To make up the time, he didn’t stop for his half-hour lunch break. Later in the afternoon, Zenas moved me back to work with him, and I finally heard about his troubled morning. His wife-to-be had found his adult magazines. Jim had moved them from under the passenger seat of the pick-up and thought they’d be safe hidden beneath the straw bedding in the goat hut. On an unexpected visit, Thekla came upon the goat not chewing the cud but eating a girlie magazine. And, to make matters worse, she discovered several more, half-chewed, beneath the straw. Jim was dejected and didn’t know where he stood with her.

  Angelos and I had our arranged rendezvous in the taverna. It felt like the meeting of two collaborators secretly planning the downfall of a despotic dictator. That was certainly our intention, if Petros didn’t give everyone a wage increase and improve the working conditions by providing lavatories and washing facilities. Whenever someone was caught short they had to take themselves off into the scrub. I told Angelos workers went on strike all the time in England, but they did have trade unions to do their fighting for them, which was unheard of on Ikaria, because there was no workforce. Everyone who worked was self-employed and agreed a price man to man; I doubted anyone paid taxes. It was a cash economy, reinforced by the exile of the communists to Ikaria during the civil war.

  The weakness was obvious. Petros’s labourers were not a collective group of men who spoke with one voice, but poor individuals who came from other islands and sent what they earned back to their dependent families. Lots of Ikarians survived on the money they received from relatives who worked in the United States. The merchant ships were full of Greeks. Husbands left their wives and children, sometimes for years, to keep them all fed.

  As we sat talking, it became obvious that Angelos was not the person to confront Petros. He didn’t have the hardness needed to stand up to a tyrant, in fact he was an extremely likeable human being. Petros would throw him off site as soon as he tried to negotiate. Then he’d threaten everyone with the sack unless they returned to work. I suggested he’d be less comfortable dealing with an Englishman, not knowing how I would react to his threats.

  ‘I’ll take him on if you will do the translating.’

  ‘You are a brave man.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’ve just got far less to lose than you.’

  In three days’ time, we decided, we would spring a few surprises on Petros, catch him off guard, we weren’t yet sure how. Another Amstel might help.

  I told Ros what we were planning. She said I shouldn’t get involved in the island’s politics and ought to let them fight it out amongst themselves. But I was already involved, not only working on the Toula Hotel, but committed to the monastery as well. She was concerned about the possible consequences for the future, if we were going to continue living on Ikaria. What she didn’t know was that I had reached a decision about staying on the island. It had come to me after talking to Vassili again. The winter on Ikaria was like a hibernation, and finding work to pay our way would be impossible. Relying on the generosity of the islanders was out of the question. I knew all of us would love to stay, but practicalities made the decision inevitable. Ros and I needed to talk.

  16

  The Showdown

  It was a quiet August evening and Gregory asked if I would go for a walk with him. The light was sharp on the horizon’s edge but the intense blue of the sea no longer reflected the sun. Clouds were floating up over the mountains. He had a handful of figs and offered me one which I declined. The pips got stuck in my teeth. But I liked watching how he peeled off their skins symmetrically in neat little strips. I’d noticed his dexterity before, when he changed the film in his camera, and because I didn’t possess such skills it left an impression on me. I had a feeling this was going to be a man-to-man talk.

  ‘I suppose there is nothing quite like it, wandering through a long hot summer living half naked on a beach, waking yourself up with an early morning swim in the Aegean, having a girl by your side and not noticing time passing because life is so simple. If only the world could stand still.’

  That’s what Gregory was thinking, now the end was in sight. That and just how difficult it was going to be to leave Ikaria. Suddenly the days were numbered, his summer becoming full of yesterdays. He talked while we skimmed stones. I suggested he put a date on his departure and tell Lottie, so she could prepare for it and make her own plans.

  I didn’t find out whether this was helpful, because we were distracted by the sight of a girl di
ving into the sea from a fishing boat. I knew that boat. It was Stelios’s, and the girl swimming to shore was Julia, returning no doubt from a stolen day in one of the remote coves that could only be reached by sea. As she stepped onto the stony beach in a white bikini, twisting the water from her hair, she was completely unembarrassed, smiling and pleased to see us.

  ‘Hi, guys! God, how I love this country, being out on the sea. It reminds me of New Zealand, where I grew up in the Sounds of the South Island. So beautiful, the same rugged landscape and bright light.’

  ‘Do you miss it?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, and I’ll go back one day, but there’s so much to see and do on this side of the world. And what a day it’s been! Most of it on a sandy beach all to ourselves. We cooked fish over an open fire. Stelios is a passionate man all right, and boy can he sing.’

  ‘You’re quite a girl, Julia,’ said Gregory. ‘Come on, let’s go and have a beer.’

  Angelos was waiting for me at the taverna, anxious to hear my plan, which I had worked out the night before, drinking a glass of Ikarian wine on the patio, while Ros and the children slept. Despite the three slow-burning insect repellent coils I’d lit, the mosquitoes had decided to make a meal of me.

  Time does not go on the same for ever, the days uniformly following one another, the sun always rising into a cloudless sky, change never visible on the horizon. And now I felt a nervous energy: I was not only playing a part, I was interfering in the life of the island that had been our home for the past seven months.

  ‘The art of surprise is a great advantage in unnerving your enemy,’ I told Angelos. We should all meet at the entrance to the site, and I’d state our demands to Zenas. Then we would wait for Petros to turn up, and confront him as a united band of brothers.

  ‘It will only work if we stand together and no one weakens.’

  ‘What if he refuses and loses his temper?’

  ‘Then we all sit down. Tell everyone we need to hold out for three days. Then he will give in. He’s got a hotel to build.’

  ‘You are sure about this?’ he said, as if he doubted me.

  ‘Of course. I have seen it many times in England. Yes, there will be angry words, but everyone will calm down eventually and reach an agreement and we will all return to work.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy.’

  ‘We must not weaken,’ I repeated, asking Angelos what the Greek was for ‘hold your nerve’ and telling him it should become our slogan. I had a feeling I would be saying it a lot over the next few days.

  Ros was reluctantly playing her part by agreeing to milk the goats when I couldn’t, but she warned me again that I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

  ‘There’s no hospital on the island, you know,’ were her last words on the matter.

  Gregory the Gregarious gave me his opinion too. He thought Petros would retaliate by attacking the weakest, and so frightening the others. He didn’t think we had a chance of victory.

  ‘If things get out of hand we’ll call the police,’ I said. ‘All two of them.’

  ‘It’s highly likely that Petros has already paid them off,’ said Gregory, putting an end to that option.

  We would just have to wait and see what happened.

  At the end of each day, as I was about to leave the monastery, Sister Ulita would put my wages into a basket. Today I could see they included a honeycomb, straight from the hive, which she had wrapped in greaseproof paper. She beckoned me to come and sit with her at the table in the courtyard, and Artemis joined us. Sister Ulita took a handwritten note from her pocket and read silently to herself before passing it to Artemis, who smelt of cigarette smoke. Artemis cleared her throat and said, ‘The sister has asked me to translate this for her.’

  The note explained the troubles with the islanders over the water. The matter had never been resolved and now Sister Ulita had to deal with the new threat from Petros and the Toula Hotel. I remembered then when she had taken me to see what was happening up above the vegetable garden, outside the monastery wall. However, troops were on their way, meaning fifteen nuns were coming from Samos, and they would help her resist Petros.

  ‘What has all this got to do with me?’ I asked, looking at Sister Ulita.

  ‘You must stand guard for us until our friends arrive from Samos,’ Artemis insisted. ‘You will do this for the sister.’

  It dawned on me then that of course they didn’t know I was working at the Toula Hotel. How would I ever be able to explain that it was just a job? I knew they would see it as an act of betrayal. But my loyalties were split now, between the monastery and my fellow labourers; it was getting complicated.

  ‘I will come when I can in the morning,’ I said, ‘and return in the afternoon as I always do, until the nuns arrive from Samos.’

  We all gathered at the site entrance, watching Zenas undo the padlock to let us in, but when we just stood there and no one followed him through, he smelt trouble.

  ‘Ela, ela,’ he shouted, beckoning us forward, but not a single one of us moved. He blew his whistle repeatedly and threw his arms about, but we all stayed where we were and watched him.

  Then I walked casually out of the crowd, taking my time to come face to face with him. I was taller than Zenas, who was stocky on his short legs, thick in the thighs. He was at least two stone heavier than me, but I had the height, and he was put at a disadvantage by having to aim his aggression up at me. Which he did anyway, shouting in Greek. I asked Angelos to translate what he was ranting on about. It was just as I suspected: we would all be sacked without pay as soon as Petros arrived.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said calmly, slightly overacting, but he got the message that we were not going to enter the site and so turned his attention to the workforce. It didn’t take long for him to see he was getting nowhere. He jumped into the site pick-up and would have driven straight into us if we hadn’t leapt out of the way. It took literally ten minutes for the dust to settle.

  I noticed the key was still in the padlock, so I closed and locked the gates. No one could get in now, and that included Petros, unless he had a pair of wire cutters.

  ‘Hold your nerve,’ I said to everyone.

  ‘Kratiste tin psychraimia sas,’ echoed Angelos.

  Then as we all began to sit down Datsun Jim drove up, unshaven, with Coke stains down the front of his T-shirt, the dishevelled Jim of old who looked as if he had spent the night in a goat hut. He seemed not to notice the scene that surrounded him and came straight over to me, slapping his forehead as if he was fed up with everything.

  ‘I’ve had enough, no more women. It’s over with Thekla.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Jim, but things are a bit difficult here. We’re on strike.’

  ‘Strike? What does this word mean?’

  ‘It means we have stopped work.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I’ve just told you.’

  ‘About women. You are married to one, you must have known.’

  ‘It’s true I am married to a woman, but we can’t talk now. Later,’ I said, putting a consoling arm on his shoulder. ‘Now you must join us. We are refusing to work; we are on strike.’

  ‘I will work. Do not worry, my friend.’

  ‘Ochi, Jim, you must not work. Do you understand?’

  At which point Zenas returned, repeatedly sounding his horn, trying to intimidate us, swerving the pick-up from side to side. When he reached the gates and found them locked he searched frantically in his pockets for the key, and then realised he was shut out. A minute later Petros arrived. He chose a more dignified approach, walking in front of us in his dark suit, like a predator stalking its prey. I moved quickly and stepped up in front of him. Although I was playing a dangerous game, I wanted to show the others I wasn’t afraid.

  ‘Petros, we need to talk.’

  He pushed up his sunglasses and gave me a look of intense anger, unable to get a word out, or least not a word of English, which needed s
ome thinking about. To try to articulate the anger he felt in a foreign language would weaken his position. For a brief moment I had the upper hand, and he said, ‘What do you want?’

  So I told him our demands. When he’d heard what I had to say he turned his back on me, laughing theatrically. Zenas, his obsequious minion, echoed the hollow laughter as they walked away and began whispering to each other.

  Suddenly Petros swung around and addressed me.

  ‘What has this got to do with you, who doesn’t even belong here, a tourist who has overstayed his welcome? You should leave Ikaria and go back to England.’ He gesticulated as if slapping me with the back of his hand.

  ‘You won’t get rid of me that easily. You should consider what we have asked for, and what you are going to do about it.’

  ‘Nothing. I will sack you all and bring others to work here.’

  ‘Not if we stay here and block the entrance.’

  He punched the wire mesh as his temper boiled over, then got into his BMW and drove off, leaving Zenas in the pick-up, like a man trapped without a friend in the world. After glaring at us fiercely, but to no effect, he left too.

  We sat there for most of the day, all of us except Datsun Jim, who promised to return within one hour. I held out little hope of seeing him again now he was alone once more to fend for himself. His brother Giorgos had returned to America and he would slip back into his old ways. I had no idea what he thought about our situation. I was sure it didn’t make any difference to Jim who he was working for, except that he had always done a full day for Petros, no doubt because Thekla kicked him out of bed each morning. I felt a painful sympathy for him, because without a guiding hand he was lost.

  But he was also unpredictable, for suddenly he returned with Maria and her son in the back of the truck. He and Dinos then lifted out crates of Amstel and Coca-Cola, while Maria passed among the workforce like Mother Teresa, handing out fruit to everyone.