Escape to Ikaria Page 19

  The apprehensive mood we had been in all morning took on a more optimistic air with this unexpected welcome twist. Maria, I knew, would stand up to anyone, and Dinos shared his mother’s fighting spirit. He stood in the back of the pickup and made a rousing speech, of which I didn’t understand a single word, but Angelos translated. It wasn’t about the demands we were making, but about how the Toula Hotel would ruin the landscape and the island did not have the necessary utilities to provide for such a large construction. He went on, about sewerage and, of course, the water supply. It was all true, and the more I listened the more I realised that the battle being fought here had spread beyond the rights of a few workers to something far greater, to whether the islanders wanted the Toula Hotel to be built at all. I had done my bit and could now step back. Dinos was the man to take this forward and defeat Petros.

  Nobody could have known what was about to follow. For moving at no more than five miles an hour along the coastal road came a JCB digger, a black and yellow leviathan with giant rubber tyres, spitting up stones behind it, giving out a dense black smoke. It swung its great shape towards us and ploughed through the gates, flattening them as if they had been held together with paper clips.

  Then Petros reappeared in his BMW and stood in front of the digger.

  ‘What would you do in his position?’ I asked Dinos. He thought the man had two choices, either to concede and meet our demands, or to sack everyone and bring in a new workforce, which could take days. And where would he find them? Certainly not on Ikaria. He would have to bring them from other islands, Samos or maybe Mykonos. If this was his course of action, we would have no alternative but to stand at the gates each morning and stop them coming on site. I knew this was impossible: none of us could fight a long, drawn-out battle because we all lived hand to mouth; we could survive until the end of the week, then everything would fall apart. We needed to frighten Petros into immediate submission.

  Then I had one of those inspirational moments, when the solution to the whole conflict suddenly came to me. We should gather Ikarians to stand shoulder to shoulder with us and demostrate our solidarity. We could bring them out of the bars and cafés of Aghios Kirikos, and show a united front. It made sense, even if most of them probably knew little about the hotel.

  For the rest of the day we played football, or went swimming, or threw prickly pears high into the air, trying to catch them with our bare hands; anything to stave off boredom. As the afternoon dragged on, Dinos and I talked. He was more than happy to drum up support from his cousins in Aghios Kirikos. All those cousins, I thought to myself. Where else would you look first, but within the extended family?

  Sarah and Julia abandoned their lovers for the evening and joined us for Gregory the Gregarious’s last night on Ikaria. It had come as a complete surprise when he’d told us he’d decided he wasn’t returning to Montreal, but was making his way to Africa. Lottie was leaving too, going back to Amsterdam after spending a few days with him in Athens before he flew to Cairo.

  I’d miss him and hoped we’d keep in touch. I wrote down my mother’s address in England and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. We’d become fond of Lottie too and they both had taken to the children, who expressed their feelings by begging them to come and stay with us wherever that would be. Seth gave Gregory his most prized possession, the corpse of a large black beetle wrapped up in a paper napkin.

  I thought we probably wouldn’t see Gregory again. Friends can fade away and be quickly forgotten when the world opens up. And that would certainly be the case for Gregory, travelling into deepest Africa. Maria planted a kiss on his forehead, insisting he return next year. Yannis, not given to showing his emotions, actually embraced him.

  As for Maria’s farewell to Lottie, she burst into tears. She had been a great help to her for the last few months.

  Dinos gathered us together to take a photograph, capturing a split second in our lives, smiling, our arms round each other, glasses raised. Then Gregory suggested we go for one last swim.

  In the early September moonlight we dived through waves which immediately became luminous with phosphorescence, the sea suddenly lit with fairy lights as we splashed each other. Sam and Sarah, doing the crawl, appeared to be escorted by fireflies that danced around them. Lysta gave up cartwheeling along the shore and, with Seth, ran towards us, mesmerised, catching the magical droplets of water that sparkled in their hands.

  ‘Wow, man, have you ever seen anything like it?’ said Gregory, scooping up brightly lit handfuls while Ros and Lottie spun around in the waves, creating circles of light. It will stand out in my memory, that night when the Aegean filled us with mystery and wonder.

  The following morning Datsun Jim drove Dinos, Gregory, Lottie and me into Aghios Kirikos.

  From the road we could see the ferry steaming towards Ikaria, the sun rising, the shadows shortening. We passed ripening figs ready to be eaten, an abundance of them swaying in the trees. They would be over the top soon if no one picked them. But that’s how it was, too much fruit just an arm’s length away. They weren’t worth trying to sell in the grocers’ shops because they were there, in easy reach, for anyone who wanted to stretch out a hand.

  Datsun Jim dropped us off and Dinos went in search of some locals, hoping to persuade them to get off their arses and fight for a good cause. Gregory, Lottie and I sat on the harbour wall watching the ferry dock. I could see a group of nuns on the top deck leaning over the railings. Were they the ones coming to support Sister Ulita? Most of them looked very young, just teenagers, laughing and excited; only three or four appeared to be in their forties. Not really a sight that would instil any fear in Petros.

  For many of these girls, it was probably their first trip away from Samos. What followed was something of a calamity, as they walked in single file down the wooden gangway. It couldn’t bear the weight of so many people at once and suddenly, with a ghastly cracking sound, it broke in two and three nuns fell into the sea. Others clung to the shattered gangway, one swinging above the water. Members of the crew dived in to carry out a swift rescue as the nuns frantically tried to keep themselves and their suitcases afloat. From where we were sitting, they looked remarkably like a family of seals. One of the cases had burst open and the contents spilt out, various articles of clothing drifting across the harbour waters.

  We looked at one another in total disbelief as a controlled pandemonium unfolded around us. The captain of the ferry shouted orders through a megaphone to the crew, who splashed about in the water. While others threw lengths of rope, the sister dangling from the broken structure was heaved to safety.

  ‘If I hadn’t packed my camera I’d photograph it,’ said Gregory.

  ‘It’s hard to be sure this isn’t some bizarre comedy routine we’re witnessing,’ said Lottie.

  ‘Oh, it isn’t that,’ I said. ‘Look at the gangway. The planks are completely rotten.’

  All the excitement, if you could call it that, was over in fifteen minutes. Amazingly, nobody appeared to be injured; perhaps the only casualty was the pride of the saturated nuns, who sat on the quayside comforting one another.

  Eventually, the outgoing passengers were allowed to board. I asked Gregory what the chances were of receiving a postcard from Egypt. I’d already given him our Poste Restante address.

  ‘Of course, man. A felucca going down the Nile.’

  ‘And you, Lottie, will you send us one from Amsterdam?’

  ‘I will, as soon as I get home.’

  I watched them walk gingerly up the new gangway, some quickly erected construction, bits of wood held together with knotted ropes. I left the quayside and walked over to Stelios’s mooring. I could see him helping tourists on board, a sign nearby saying Boat trips 200 drachma.

  ‘Kali mera, Stelios.’

  ‘You see why I am not fishing?’ he said. ‘It is here before your eyes.’

  ‘I’ve come to tell you we are leaving the island soon.’

  ‘You are sure? Then before thi
s, we must go fishing, yes, one more time.’

  17

  Victory

  I walked to the monastery wondering what awaited me, how I would be received by an army of nuns. Ros had milked the goats the previous afternoon, and told me all the talk had been about the sisters falling into the sea. Meeting the children distracted them and they were soon playing hide and seek.

  I, of course, received a rather different welcome, bashful to say the least. Coy looks greeted me as I walked through the courtyard, where I found Artemis in a tight-fitting dress chasing a rat with a spade.

  ‘The problem is getting worse,’ she said, obviously exasperated. ‘Not once, but many times a day I see them.’

  ‘You will have to put poison down,’ I said.

  ‘And that cat, I keep telling her not to feed it, that it should hunt for its food.’

  I remembered we had had the same problem on the farm. Initially I had tried shooting them with an air rifle, but I was a hopeless shot so we put warfarin down. That got rid of them.

  ‘I am going back to Athens. I’m fed up. The place is overrun with rats, and now nuns.’

  We heard Sister Ulita approaching, purpose in her step. She took Artemis and me by the hand and led us into the church, closed the door and sat us down. After bowing to the gold cross on the altar, she went straight into a rushed monologue without pausing for breath. Artemis raised her hands. ‘Stamatao!’ Stop.

  A profound silence fell, no doubt accentuated by our surroundings.

  ‘I suppose I have to translate this madness,’ said Artemis, trying to compose herself, her earrings sparkling in the sunlight that poured in through the stained-glass windows. Close by me in a glass case I could see the bones of their revered Saint Adrianos. A single honey bee circled above us. I wanted to open the door and let it out; it had work to do. Artemis spoke slowly and quietly as if the most essential thing was to remain calm in what was proving to be a difficult day for her. It was hard to imagine what her perfect day would be, maybe cigarettes and a book alone on a patio somewhere. In company she was abrupt and had very little patience.

  As she gradually told me the plan, I wasn’t sure who had devised it, Sister Ulita or the bishop. I knew already that a nun’s life was full of self-discipline and self-sacrifice and now realised that, if necessary, the nuns would stand in front of the digger and not move an inch. That was their strategy and would be especially effective if the JCB driver happened to be a God-fearing man. When she’d finished translating, Artemis got up and left the church, probably desperate for a cigarette. I had never seen her so on edge. Her tranquil life at the monastery had certainly been disrupted, but what really agitated her were the rats.

  All the nuns and I walked out beyond the monastery walls to where the water flowed, coming from underground as clear as glass. The liquid of life, so vital to everyone on a parched island, and when in short supply, through the dry summer months, so often fought over.

  For the rest of the morning we threw stones and pushed boulders into the gully to protect the watercourse. Despite our strenuous efforts, though, our blockade would take a digger two minutes to clear away. The nuns all worked together, their pace never easing, apart from short breaks to drink water from a goat skin.

  Sister Ulita sat away from us, a lonely figure on a rock, her arthritic hands clasping a silver cross to her chest. She was lost in spiritual contemplation, or baffled by the great conundrums of life, and the flawed souls who had broken into her divine world. If she ever needed a saviour to turn up, it was now. Again I was struck by my complicated position in the whole drama. Why was I helping to build what was going to be an ugly blot on the landscape? Of course, like the other workers, I needed the job. But I thought of the extra cars it would bring, all the rubbish, the pollution, the sewage and, crucially, the water it was going to require. I felt sure this was the beginning of mass tourism and the end of a way of life. And all the while the monastery’s livelihood was under threat. I realised it would be better if the Toula Hotel was never built. All this went through my mind as I watched Sister Ulita concealed behind her sunglasses, hiding those eyes I’d never seen.

  I do not deny that I hoped Artemis would come and find me. For whatever reason, she had not sought me out lately, or had a quiet cigarette watching me milk the goats. Maybe she had withdrawn into herself now that her solitude had been breached and she’d lost the freedom to wander alone in the gardens. And then, as I was picking the first ripe pomegranates in the orchard, I sensed her standing behind me, before she struck a match and exhaled the blue smoke that drifted away through the branches.

  It was hard to tell if she rehearsed a single line, but she always began these secluded encounters by saying something that had an undercurrent of tension and intrigue. She said nothing about not seeing me since our lunch together, when she had got drunk on that bottle of wine.

  ‘You know I can read your mind.’

  I was certain she couldn’t, but I was intrigued by the enticing little journey her words seemed to promise. Could she have come to believe over the summer that I was receptive to her advances, and now be circling before the kill? I didn’t want to think I was an open book, prey to this woman who was so clearly experienced in the art of seduction. Rather, I imagined that she was just playing a game, was bored and wanted to amuse herself.

  ‘What am I thinking?’ I answered in a tone that implied only mild interest.

  ‘That it is time now for us to swim together.’ It came as a complete surprise. I had expected some innuendo and there didn’t seem to be any. She just wanted to go swimming.

  ‘I know somewhere that no one knows about,’ she continued.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you have finished your day’s work.’

  There is an intimacy to swimming with someone on a quiet beach, when there’s no one else around, just the two of you, and I admit I wanted to. And yet somehow it seemed deceitful, as if we were secretly stealing away together. But secret from whom? Certainly not Ros; she wouldn’t have given my swimming with Artemis a second thought. No, it was as if I was about to be unfaithful to Sister Ulita, and with the temptation came a sense of guilt.

  It would have been easier if I could have just slipped away, but Sister Ulita came running towards me, putting a finger to my mouth to indicate I should remain silent while she read from a handwritten piece of paper. ‘Good morning . . . and how are you today, sir?’

  ‘Sister, that’s marvellous! You have mastered the English language.’ And the sheer pleasure this gave her swept across her face, while one of the young nuns came and told me shyly she was teaching Sister Ulita English after evening prayers.

  Artemis was waiting for me on the coastal road, carrying a woven bag over her shoulder, wearing sunglasses and a head scarf. She had removed all her make-up; for the first time I could see her natural complexion, her lips thinner, her cheekbones less pronounced.

  We passed no one on the five-minute walk and turned down a narrow gap between the great sculptured rocks, just wide enough for one to squeeze through. It was not surprising that this beach was virtually unknown; only the thin would find it, and those who didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. We had to step carefully down the sloping, stony track that opened out onto a small stretch of sand where the waves broke gently upon the shore. The hidden cove was no more than fifty yards long, empty and quiet. Only a flock of seabirds scrawled a signature across the sky.

  There was a freshness in the air now, warmth no longer carried on the wind, no summer heat burning the skin. Artemis undressed slowly, slipping out of her dress, revealing a black swimming costume. I watched her in the slanting sunlight that gave the shadows a distinct sharpness, her slim figure clearly defined against a deepening sky. She folded her clothes neatly, running her hands over the creases. All I had to do was take off my T-shirt and sandals to swim in my shorts. It seemed as if several minutes had passed before she beckoned me, and together we walked out into the sea up to our waists. Without th
e slightest splash she glided down into the water, her hair floating over her back, her breaststroke so slow she could turn and say to me, ‘Now we are swimming together.’

  I knew everything was contrived even before she disappeared below the surface. This stolen swim in the Aegean meant nothing and was going to lead nowhere. She was a solitary, sophisticated woman who I suspected kept her distance from emotional relationships. Maybe this was no more than a distraction from the long summer hours spent embroidering an altar cloth. I had seen the slow progress of the undertaking for myself, the precision of each stitch, the rise and fall of the needle as the two women sat at the table in the courtyard. I’d seen the altar cloth occasionally when they unfolded it, and it looked hardly changed.

  After we had swum for no more than ten minutes she walked back up the beach and began drying herself. I didn’t have a towel and shivered, pulling my T-shirt over my wet body. She gave me no warning that she would remove her swimming costume, and revealed her nakedness without inhibition. I turned my back; it was I who was embarrassed. When she had finished dressing she said, ‘Why can you not look at a naked woman?’

  I didn’t reply, saying only that it was time for me to go.

  As we parted she said, ‘I hope you are happy now we have swum together.’ As if we had made love, and I should be satisfied.

  The taverna was packed; I could hear the noise at least two hundred yards before I got there. I thought it was a wedding party even though it was six o’clock on a Tuesday evening. But nothing surprised me on Ikaria. It was in the islanders’ blood to find a reason to celebrate, whether it was a saint’s day or someone’s birthday. As long as it went on late into the night, wine and music flowing, and everyone, young and old, dancing the Ikariotikos in a large circle beneath the eucalyptus trees, until dawn swept away the last stray stars.

  But this was something quite different. Dinos was being carried shoulder high around the taverna and everyone was singing at the tops of their voices, without accompaniment. It sounded like something you’d hear at a sporting event, rousing stuff after a great victory. And it was.