Greek Island Escape

by Patricia Wilson

  ‘What do you mean? What’s this bad thing he’s supposed to have done?’

  ‘Supposed?’ The girl scowled. ‘See, Mrs Johnson, you’ve already decided it’s Megan in the wrong, not him. Sounds just like my dad, always taking his girlfriend’s side. Then you wonder why she ran away.’ She took another bite and glared at Zoë across the table.

  It took a moment for Zoë to take in Emily’s words. She knew she’d get nowhere if she didn’t dampen Emily’s animosity.

  ‘Look, can we try to get on, Emily? I’m trying to help you as well as find my daughter.’ She softened her voice. ‘Come on, call me Zoë, won’t you?’

  ‘Right, so we’re big mates now?’ Emily scoffed.

  ‘Why are you so angry with me? I’m not trying to be your mate, but I am trying to help,’ Zoë said. ‘We can be civil to each other, can’t we?’

  ‘I guess.’ She pointed at Zoë’s unopened burger box and stood. ‘You goin’ to eat that?’

  Zoë shook her head. ‘No, take it if you want.’

  Emily stashed the food in her bag and stepped away from the table.

  ‘Just give me a minute, will you?’ Zoë’s tone said it wasn’t a request. ‘Let’s start again. What did she tell you?’

  Emily sighed and dropped back into her seat, indecision flickering across her face.

  ‘I’m not making trouble, Emily. Can’t you see I need to understand? Megan’s disappearance has always been a mystery. She took some of her clothes and left a note saying she was leaving, that we weren’t to try and find her. And that was all. I had no idea that she was unhappy, or in trouble of any sort.’

  Emily shrugged. ‘I can only tell you what she told me. That she found out something bad about her dad and then she left.’

  ‘And you don’t know anything else?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Shall we go then?’ she asked suddenly.

  Zoë glanced at her watch. Josh would be on his lunch break at school.

  ‘I’ll just give my son a call.’

  ‘Can I use the bog? It’s upstairs,’ Emily said. ‘I won’t run, I swear.’

  Zoë nodded, forced a smile, and felt for her phone as she watched Emily go up to the next floor.

  Josh picked up.

  ‘Josh, hi! How are you?’ She tried to inject cheer into her voice.

  ‘Hi, Mum, fine, how’s things? Have you found Megan?’ He sounded far away.

  ‘Not yet, but she’s here and we’re close. Listen, Josh, you understand you can tell me anything, don’t you? It doesn’t matter how bad something is, I’ll always be on your side.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum. Leave it out.’

  ‘Okay. I just wanted you to know. What’s going on over there?’

  ‘I’m back home and Trisha’s staying at ours till you’re back. Everything’s cool. Trisha let me have my mates over to revise. Where’s my football kit?’

  ‘In the washing machine. Put it back in after practice, will you?’

  ‘Sure. When’re you home?’

  ‘Tomorrow, or the day after. I’m not sure – as soon as I’ve found Megan. She’s taken up juggling for a living.’

  He laughed into the phone. ‘Cool! I told you she was okay. See you. Bye.’

  ‘Bye. Love you.’

  She heard him tut before ending the call.

  Zoë was still gazing at the stairs when Emily reappeared.

  ‘Right, let’s get going,’ she said, eager to get out of the high heels and tailored suit. Zoë wanted Megan to see her as approachable, not as a court magistrate.

  Half an hour later, rushed and flushed, they came out of Asda. Zoë wore jeans, a sweatshirt and flat shoes. Emily had new trainers, leggings and two baggy T-shirts, black over pink. Thank God for credit cards.

  ‘You look nice,’ Zoë said.

  Emily blinked, jutted her jaw and turned away. Still, her attitude had changed a little in the store. She soaked up attention.

  Zoë’s phone rang. It was Don.

  ‘Just a quick one, Zoë. Megan has an appointment at the passport office at 1.45 today. I’ve told them you’re coming. Westminster House, Portland Street. Good luck.’

  A moment later, Zoë hung up, breathless with anticipation.

  ‘Emily, quick, I know where Megan is!’ She grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her across the pavement. ‘We need a taxi to Portland Street.’

  They stood at the kerb, peering up and down the street like a couple of meerkats.

  Emily shoved her fingers into her mouth, produced a deafening whistle, then stuck her arm in the air. Several cars honked as a black cab U-turned and weaved to the kerb.

  There was a spark of magic in the moment, and Zoë laughed.

  ‘The passport office, Westminster House, quick as you can,’ Zoë said to the driver.

  ‘You should laugh more often,’ Emily said inside the cab. ‘It makes you tons younger – not half as scary.’

  ‘Cheeky madam,’ Zoë said, straight-faced but with humour in her voice. In a few minutes she would hold Megan in her arms. In a heart-wrenching moment, she remembered her own mother, holding her limp, cold hand on the day of her death.

  She paid the cabbie, adding a hefty tip before clutching the door handle, ready to leap out the moment they stopped. With the cabbie’s sudden halt, she lost her grip and hurtled back in the seat.

  She and Emily raced towards the rectangular glass-and-cement building. It had started raining again. Their new shoes slapped on the wet pavement. Zoë had half an eye on Emily. She might turn and run at any moment and, if she did, God knew what Zoë would do.

  CHAPTER 10

  SOFIA

  Athens, 1945.

  THE ORPHANAGE WAS OVERCROWDED. Every day I thought about running away, but the outside doors were locked and the windows nailed down. Although I knew that my family had been killed in the theatre, the longer I stayed in the dreadful orphanage, the more I convinced myself there was a slight chance that somebody might have survived the explosion. Every night, I gave my imagination free rein and dreamed of home: the larder shelf full of delicious food; the kitchen’s comforting aroma of freshly baked bread; Mama at the Singer, starting a new dress for my eleventh birthday. These fantasies helped to soften the harsh reality of institutional life.

  In the dormitory, a lot of children cried for their mama, or Yiayá, at night. They were the darkest times for us all. We were three to a bed, one girl older than me, one younger. I clung to the edge of the mattress so that I didn’t slip into the dip in the centre. I wanted to be alone with my misery and my visions of home. The older girl tried to cuddle me but I elbowed her away. The only arms I wanted were my mother’s. The younger one, about five years old, had just arrived and she clung to me as she cried herself to sleep. I lay there, wondering what would become of us all. Every night, as the smell of mildew and urine rose from the mattress, I promised myself I would not be there much longer. I would find a way out.

  As the days passed, the conviction that my parents were out there somewhere crumbled. Had the orphanage taken away my childish desire for play, and replaced it with logic, or was I simply growing up and learning to reason? Mama and Papa would never allow me to stay in such an awful place. So, the seed of acceptance that I was an orphan had set root in the dark of night. But still, in the light of each new day, I rose with fresh hope that a miracle had happened and they were at home, unaware that I had survived. There was such chaos on that disastrous day, I told myself it was possible . . . just possible.

  *

  I had been at the orphanage for several weeks when I had to share my bed with a new arrival, a little girl called Sugar. She had lived with her grandmother who had recently died. I never found out what happened to her parents. Sugar cried a lot. On the second night, I could stand no more tears. In desperation, although I knew it was forbidden, I snuck out of the dormitory to find some food or a toy to give her. I remembered a threadbare teddy she’d clung to through the day and hoped to find it in the day room
.

  Every stair creaked, and the door into the day room groaned as I opened it. I stopped and listened, but the house was silent. Moonlight shone through the bare window, illuminating the toy box.

  My mission was not so simple. Every one of the battered toys had its own peculiar noise as I shifted it. Tinkle. Scrape. Wheeze! At last I laid my hands on the teddy – but just as I slid it clear, the light came on, blinding me.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Matron cried.

  At first, I couldn’t speak. She looked so fierce in her nightgown and her hair tied in rags.

  ‘I . . . I was just getting the teddy for Sugar. She’s crying, Matron,’ I stammered.

  ‘Get back into bed this instant!’

  I raced upstairs and found Sugar already asleep.

  *

  On the way to the dining room the following evening, I heard someone banging on the front door. A teacher, also heading for the dining room, reached under a book on a shelf above the staff coat hooks and withdrew a key. Then she opened the door to receive a parcel.

  Finally, I knew where they kept the key. Now I could make a plan to escape.

  I continued to the dining room, where we lined up with our chipped enamel plates in hand. After being served a scoop of pasta with herbs, we returned to our benches and sat with our arms folded, waiting for the command to start eating. Mrs Orpheus, our head mistress, entered the hall.

  ‘Pay attention, girls!’ she boomed. ‘We have strict rules here, and I must remind you that anyone caught breaking those rules will be severely punished!’

  I was still thinking about the key, hardly listening. How could I reach it? I was small, and there wasn’t even a chair in the hall. My stomach growled loudly, breaking my thoughts. I wished Mrs Orpheus would hurry up – we were all starving! I stared at my plate; the wet shine had already faded and the pasta looked dull, cold and glutinous.

  A fly was buzzing over the plates. We had to keep our arms folded until the gong to eat sounded, but everyone’s eyes were fixed on the insect. I slid my hand from under my armpit, ready to flick it away. Shoo! I blew at it, then regretted it immediately. I was only making my food colder.

  Mrs Orpheus droned on. ‘After an incident last night, I am forced to make an example. This is what happens when someone breaks the rules. Sofia Bambaki, come to the front.’

  Me?

  All eyes left the fly and turned my way. My cheeks burned. What about the pasta? I was starving. And the fly might land on it . . .

  I got up and went to Mrs Orpheus. When I saw the cane in her hand, my knees trembled.

  ‘Climb on the bench so that everyone can watch you receive your punishment.’

  Punishment?

  She stood behind me, lifted my skirt and gave me three stinging swipes across the backs of my thighs. I don’t know if it was the shock, or the pain, or the shame that made me cry out. I had never been hit before. I reached down and covered the backs of my legs.

  ‘Hold your arms out!’ Mrs Orpheus said, whacking the backs of my hands.

  When I did, I received another blow. Tears were rolling down my face as I stumbled from the bench.

  ‘No supper for you. Return to your room. And remember, rules are meant to be kept!’

  I ran out of the dining room into the hall, towards the stairs – and then stopped.

  The key was still in the door lock! The teacher had forgotten to put it back. My heart thumped so hard it was all I could hear. I stepped slowly towards the door, turned the key and dragged it open.

  Then I ran away from that orphanage, that place of pain and hunger and misery, as quickly as my burning legs would carry me.

  *

  I didn’t know how many months had passed since the explosion, but a clump of narcissus that I could see from the orphanage window had blossomed and died. I had stared at them – closed my eyes and inhaled the imagined perfume, remembering Lycabettus. Now, all that remained were a few yellow leaves lying limp on the earth. They would rise up and bloom again one day, and so would I.

  As I raced along empty streets, everything seemed possible. I was free. I could almost believe that the last few months, every day since the explosion, had been nothing but a terrible nightmare. I could almost imagine that my family were waiting for me at the old house, Mama, Papa, Ignatius and Pavlos. I would burst through the door and we would be reunited. We would drink cocoa and everyone would be happy.

  These thoughts tumbled around in my mind as I hurried from the port of Piraeus towards Athens and my home. Darkness had fallen now, and the city was a frightening place at night. Although our house was ten kilometres from the orphanage, once the spotlights on the Parthenon, above the Acropolis, went out, I became confused and nearly lost my way.

  I heard distant gunshots, which made me wonder if the war had started up again. Then a dog with a long bony face and protruding ribs leaped off a doorstep and ran at me. Terrified, I thought it was going to bite me, eat me, and I ran as fast as my legs would go. I guess it was only guarding its territory, because it didn’t chase me and returned to the door. Still, I was shaken. I wondered if it was half crazed, waiting for an owner that might never return.

  Papa once told me of a dog that sat on its master’s grave, attacking anyone who came near, until eventually it starved to death.

  It was probably around midnight when I approached Syntagma Square. It became clear the city was host to two types of people at this time of night. The rich, eating and drinking and dancing to music that drifted into the streets; and the poor, ragged, starving unfortunates, huddled in doorways and behind bins.

  When I entered our street, I saw that lights were on in our big house, and stopped. What if, all along, they had been here, waiting for me? What if I had been wrong to give up hope? My whole family, alive and well! I was in tears and almost at the door when it opened and a group of soldiers tumbled out. They were laughing, perhaps a little drunk. I stopped short, confused.

  One of them grabbed my arm and held on tightly.

  ‘What are you doing out at this time of night, little girl?’ he asked. ‘Are you a spy?’

  The words were mocking, and his friends laughed again. Although he spoke Greek, I recognised a foreign accent.

  Unable to speak, I shook my head.

  His grip became tighter. ‘Tell me! What are you doing here?’ he yelled.

  ‘I was going home, sir.’ I pointed at the front door. ‘This is my house.’

  ‘Where have you come from?’

  I panicked. If I said ‘the orphanage’, they would send me back there for sure.

  ‘My aunty, sir. She’s sick and I’ve been looking after her. I need my clothes.’

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  I hung my head and mumbled, ‘They were in the theatre when it exploded.’

  The soldier’s grip loosened and, if I’d been quick, I could have run away – but how could I? Behind that door was my old home, where I’d spent so many happy years. Everything I knew, everything Mama and Papa owned, all of those memories . . .

  The soldier shook his head and gave a sobering look to his companions.

  ‘Come inside, child,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Sofia.’ I followed him into the house. The moment I stepped through the door I was overwhelmed and dismayed. ‘Mama!’ I shouted as loudly as I could, almost without knowing what I was saying. ‘Mama! Papa!’

  Although I was in our house, my home had disappeared. Kitbags lined the hall. As I ran from room to room, I saw that our furniture had gone, replaced by as many beds as would fit inside. Even the pictures and photographs had disappeared from the walls. At that moment I knew with a horrible certainty that I could not go back. My family were gone. My home was gone.

  Between the front salon and the kitchen there was a storeroom, where I saw an official-looking sign on the door in English. The soldier pulled me towards it, and straightened the front of his uniform, throwing his shoulders back before he
knocked. I had a feeling there was someone of authority inside. They would send me back to the orphanage.

  I ducked under the soldier’s arm and bolted out of the front door.

  Behind me, I could hear them shouting.

  ‘Ela! Ela! Come back!’

  I ran across Syntagma Square as fast as I could, then around the parliament building, where lights blazed down, making dark shadows under the bushes next door. I squeezed through the railings and escaped into the royal park. What should I do? Where could I go? I reached the marble monument of Lord Byron, sat on the step at the bottom of the plinth and stared out at the darkness.

  Why had I been left behind, all alone? I should have died with my parents. If I had made it to my seat, I would be in Heaven with them now . . .

  And yet I knew my parents would want me to be safe, want me to live. I stared up at the stars.

  Mama, please don’t let anything bad happen to me this night.

  I was so tired that I could not even sit up. The backs of my legs still burned and when I slid my hands over them, I felt four long, hard welts where the cane had swiped me. I stretched out on the stone, gaining some relief from the cold marble. Before long, I closed my eyes. Pressing myself into the hard angle of the steps under the statue, I tried to imagine what Heaven was like.

  The next thing, I jumped when someone shook my shoulder. Sunlight made me squint.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ a boy asked. ‘You’ll get into trouble.’

  I rubbed my eyes. ‘I had nowhere to go. Who are you?’

  ‘Markos Papas.’ He had a loaf under his arm, broke a sizeable chunk off and held it out. ‘You want some breakfast?’

  Hunger dragged at my ribs, not having had a scrap to eat since the bread and thin soup we were given for lunch the day before.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ I said politely, knowing it was rude to start eating while someone stood. He grinned and sat next to me. I took the bread, longing to stuff it into my mouth, yet trying to mind my manners.

  ‘May I share it with you?’ I said.

  His grin widened. ‘No, just eat it. You look starved.’

  He appeared to be a few years older than me. Fourteen or fifteen, perhaps. Around the age of my brother, Ignatius. Markos wore his school clothes, though I noticed his shirt needed an iron, and although his shoes were polished, his socks were baggy and concertinaed down to his ankles.