The Water and the Wine

by Tamar Hodes

  She moved his head onto her lap now and was cradling him. In the last two days she had screwed Nature Boy in a cove down by the harbour, him releasing his loincloth with a single hand, his dick, it seemed, permanently hard and always ready. And then there was Anthony who had drawn her as many times as he had made love to her, a delicious pattern they had established in the early afternoons when the light twisted and spiralled through the large windows and onto them, coating them in its sweet syrup.

  It was wrong, she saw that now. She should have devoted herself to her ill and gifted husband.

  ‘You know what, darling George?’ She kept talking as if she believed that he would not die mid-conversation. ‘We will stop our petty spats. They damage us and upset our children. Let’s be sure to have only harmony from now on.’

  She looked him up and down and was shocked at how skeletal his body was. She thought: I know Nature Boy’s and Anthony’s bodies better than his. George’s white shirt was stained with drops of blood and his trousers hung about his legs like a scarecrow’s. His skin was sallow and his face gaunt, his cheekbones hollow as if scooped out with a spoon. She could see the veins in his eyelids, purple and transparent as if they could easily tear. They reminded her of butterfly wings that you could almost see through.

  George’s hands were clasped on his tummy so that he looked like a marble figure carved and frozen on a tomb. The smell coming from him was of booze and fags and the metallic stench of blood. She thought back over their life together: to when they had first met as they both worked on the Argus and he had seemed so clever, eleven years older, more worldly-wise than her, already married, a father, and he was so handsome and smart, always dressed in a hessian suit and shiny tie, looking every bit the journalist and novelist, always ready with words flowing from his typewriter, his pen or his mouth.

  Charmian remembered how he had seemed so sophisticated, so knowledgeable. He knew everything about America and Asia. He had met Gandhi and had contacts in Washington and New York. And he had clearly fallen for Charmian with her jet-black hair pulled sleekly back over her head, her high cheekbones and her lips always scarlet and wide.

  She recalled their flat in North Bondi with its Japanese prints and the mural of a ship, which George had painted. She had made curtains from candy-striped pyjamas and cleaned the flat until it gleamed. How they had partied in that apartment, even after Martin was born, and friends had shared bowls of spaghetti and bottles of red while talking about everything from the power struggle in Berlin to their individual dreams. Their lives had seemed shiny with possibility then and yet here they were, crouched on the floor, by a pool of blood.

  George opened his eyes but they looked watery and grey, devoid of any glow. He looked at her, a half-smile forming, and he nodded as if to say, I am alright.

  Olivia came into the room, carrying dirty bowls, tidying up. ‘George!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘He’s okay,’ said Charmian. ‘He’s had a bit of a nasty turn but I am going to get him home. Can you stand up, George?’

  He nodded and the women lifted him, like hoisting a flag; although he was a bit wobbly, he was able to stay upright.

  ‘Do you want Georgos to walk him home?’

  ‘No, Olivia, thank you. We will manage, the two of us. Sorry about the blood.’

  Olivia waved her hand; it didn’t matter.

  For the rest of their marriage, Charmian never forgot that slow trek home. It was dark and tranquil, the trees and bushes black on black, the air crisp and cold. The chapel at St Constantine was lit for midnight mass and they could smell the salty sea although they could not see it.

  The island was mostly still for the night. Walking carefully, George’s arm around Charmian’s shoulder and their spare hands clasped together at the front, they formed a united shape, facing the darkness, taking it on with their combined strength.

  The cold air bit their cheeks and made their eyes water.

  And then the bells of the chapel rang as they reached their front door and it was as if they were ringing for them, signifying their future, their starting again.

  ‘No more fighting, only loving,’ said Charmian as they arrived home and the bells filled the air with their frilly pealing and George mumbled, ‘Amen.’

  xxiv

  The cruel winter did nothing to improve George’s health. The cold spells and his coughing bouts grew longer as if one was fuelling the other; he frequently coughed up blood but still he refused to seek medical help. His self-made routine was rigidly adhered to: drink, smoke and write. Day after day, no matter how rough the night before, he and Charmian sat in adjacent studies and worked, the sounds from the two typewriters creating their own percussion, egging each other on. There were times when they read each other’s prose and commented. She always encouraged him ‘to write something significant’.

  On Charmian’s desk, there were three paperweights: a pebble, a goat bell and a door bolt.

  Above George’s desk were three signs: one read Fuck Virginia Woolf! the second And Rilke too! and the third, A time to write and a time to puke! If ever he had blank spots, and he rarely did, looking at those signs and soaking up their defiance spurred him on.

  If he felt tired, he thought of Old Babba Yannis who, at 87, still worked a twelve-hour day, and would do any errand on the island for some cash. Once, he shifted a vast quantity of cement across Hydra on his mules although he was rarely sober and only had one eye. His face was scarred from constantly falling over when drunk.

  George had two mottos. One was ‘If Old Babba Yannis can do it…’ and the other was ‘Nothing important is further off than a donkey ride’ – a saying which lent itself to various interpretations.

  The couple’s routine rarely altered: hard work in the morning, sometimes taking a break to play darts on the terrace, getting pissed at lunchtime usually at home or sometimes in Katsikas’ store, seeing their kids briefly in the evening, listening to records on the old player (Haydn’s Horn Concerto was a favourite or sometimes Bob Dylan) and then a good discussion – or fight – in Douskos’ Taverna.

  The worse George’s health was, the better was his writing, as if the deterioration of one led to the success of the other. He sometimes imagined a weighing scale where he traded his bad health for success – and it seemed worth it.

  ‘Hey Charm!’ he called out one day in between bouts of coughing, ‘Guess what? Bill Collins is sending me an advance for My Brother Jack and enough copies for our friends. He loves the Sid Nolan cover. Jeez, that man is a genius. Closer to the Sun and High Valley are doing well and he likes the outline for the sequel Clean Straw for Nothing. He thinks it has overtones of Madame Bovary. Maybe our days of goat stew are over and triumph is on its way!’

  A few days later a huge cheque arrived at the post office along with books from Sidney Nolan with money stuck in between the pages as a gift.

  ‘Jeez,’ said George, ‘this is my lucky day. Nick,’ he called to Katsikas, ‘how much do I owe you, my friend?’

  The man brought over the piece of paper with George’s debts on it. He had not cleared them for over two years and it amounted to the equivalent of £900. George paid it off at once.

  In the store, he treated all his family. He bought Charmian chocolate, caviar, Holland sprats and a bottle of Metaxas brandy. He purchased sweeties for Jason, perfume for Shane (she was now dating Nick Katsikas’ nephew, Baptiste) and packets of paper and ink for Martin who was writing poetry and producing an island newspaper with an overtly political stance, especially anti-Vietnam. One of his pieces on Greek mountain fighters had actually been printed in the English version of the Athens News, making his parents proud. ‘The next generation of writers is born,’ Charmian liked to say. ‘And so the tradition continues.’

  How wonderful it felt for George to go back home and give all his family gifts. There was an air of excitement as he handed them out, even giving Sevasty some wine.

  ‘And tonight at Douskos,’ he announced proudly, ‘the drinks are
on me!’

  True to his word, George arrived that evening at the taverna, scrubbed, in a clean suit with a gardenia in his buttonhole and his hair washed. He had even shaved. The night before, he and Charmian had had mediocre sex; he had called her his praying mantis and he was feeling great.

  ‘Friends,’ he stood up at the table when everyone was seated, ‘the bill is being paid by me tonight. Tomorrow is New Year’s Day – or St Vasilis Day as our Greek friends say – and the year has started well. Have whatever you want. Len, Mari, Norm – all of you. Drink and be happy!’

  And that is what they did. The wine and retsina flowed. Charmian had her favourite: champagne, peach juice and brandy.

  George looked around at him and felt fantastic. Here, under their beloved pine tree, they were with their friends. Here the fire and candles were ablaze, his books were selling well, there was money coming in and life was good.

  He called Douskos over and asked him to bring them food and soon bowls of brightly coloured pastes with warm pitta to dip arrived. There were olives and dolmades and kofte meatballs, and when the plates were empty George ordered more. It was not only food that he was consuming, but wine and plenty of it. As the evening progressed, his face became redder, his coughing worse, until he was slurring his words and shouting out. ‘I love you, my friends, I fucking love you.’

  ‘Take it easy, George,’ his wife tried to quieten him.

  ‘Fuck off, Charm, in the nicest possible way. Jeez, can’t a man celebrate when life is good?’

  Costas and Constantinos walked past the taverna and George beckoned them in.

  ‘Hey, Laurel and Hardy,’ he called. ‘Come and have a drink.’

  The policemen looked at each other. They did sometimes join the expats in the taverna. George drew up two chairs and they sat, clinking glasses with the artists, joking with those who spoke better Greek.

  ‘Thingis,’ said George, one word running into another, ‘I think the only noble thing to do in life is to create.’

  ‘I agree.’ Jack raised his glass in solidarity. ‘If you aren’t going to leave a legacy of your creative work when you die, what is the point of your life?’

  ‘So, doctors, nurses, teachers – all wasting their time?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘Not wasting their time exactly,’ answered George, ‘but they are not contributing to the body of culture that defines society. Mozart, Beethoven, Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare: these are the shapers of our lives.’

  ‘And George Johnston!’ Charmian’s voice was sarcastic.

  ‘Well, I’m on my ninth novel, Charm. Jeez, I think that’s a fair level of productivity.’

  ‘Yes, but I always tell you, it’s quality, not quantity.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that my novels are shit, are you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Your words, not mine.’

  ‘What about people who make it possible for creative people to do their work?’ said Chuck. ‘Maids, cleaners, cooks, drivers, log deliverers. If it weren’t for them, we couldn’t write, but they get no credit.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Gordon. ‘Maybe they are the unacknowledged legislators of the world?’

  ‘Jeez, so you want me to dedicate my books to Old Babba Yannis and Tzimmi?’

  ‘No,’ Gordon tried to keep him calm. ‘Not dedicate your books to them but recognise that we are free to create because our domestic chores are carried out by others.’

  ‘Fair point.’ John stroked his beard as if it might help him to articulate his views.

  ‘Jeez, you’re all crazy. You’re attributing all our dedication and talent to the cleaners and cooks.’

  ‘You’re a fucking idiot, George,’ Charmian’s patience was fraying. ‘No-one says attributing; they say acknowledging.’

  ‘Probably most achievements are due to others helping out of sight: plays, shows, music, let alone muses,’ Leonard smiled at Marianne, ‘and the lovers who stay at home and do the dirty work while the genius creates.’

  Marianne smiled, grateful for this recognition.

  ‘Call me a snob,’ shouted George.

  ‘Snob,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Fuck off,’ said George. ‘But those menial jobs can be done by anybody. Anyone can cook and clean. Very few people have the ability to create. As Ionesco said, writers must be original at all cost.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Jack.

  You would, thought Frieda, but she didn’t say it. She found these noisy interchanges very difficult as she was never given space to air her opinions. Charmian just shouted out whenever she wanted to and Marianne and Magda would speak, if they had something of value to say. She envied them their confidence, their ability to chip in.

  Leonard bowed his head to play his guitar again. Costas and Constantinos were observing cheerfully but when George ranted, they looked a little uneasy.

  ‘The nineteenth-century romantic view of the great artist, on a cliff edge, like a Caspar David Friedrich painting surveying the landscape below, is a very dangerous portrayal of artists,’ said John.

  ‘Dangerous? Why?’ George’s face was angry, red, lined, blood and wine staining his mouth.

  ‘Because the artist is looking down from his lofty heights onto society rather than being part of it, which links back to what we were saying about getting others to do our domestic work so that we can create and then be superior, but claim to be of the people.’

  ‘At least I collect my own garbage,’ said Norman gently.

  ‘Jeez, that’s fine then.’ George looked ready for a fight. ‘I’ll let Yannis and Tzimmi do the writing for me from now on and I’ll fetch the logs.’

  ‘You can’t,’ laughed Charmian. ‘You’re not up to it.’

  ‘Okay Charm,’ he turned angrily on her, wiping the spit from his lips, his face fiery. ‘You’ve been goading me all evening, and I have just about had enough of it.’

  ‘Goad, goad,’ she chuckled, but her laughter stopped abruptly when George leapt up from his seat, toppling it to the floor, and lunged at her. The glasses and bottles went flying, bowls were upturned. Everyone jumped up and Gordon and Chuck tried to stop George but he wriggled free. He chucked a glass of retsina in Charmian’s face. The liquid soaked her hair and cheeks and she began to cry. Then George, with a massive kick, knocked the table on its side and everything broke in disarray. Shards of glass and crockery lay fragmented on the floor.

  Costas and Constantinos leapt to their feet, blew their whistles and each grabbed George by an arm. He kicked and shouted but they held him tightly and escorted him off the premises.

  The rest of the friends stood, shocked. They put the table back on its legs and Douskos and Polixenes started to sweep up the debris. They shrugged as if to say: we have seen it before and we will see it again.

  ‘As we were saying earlier,’ noted John. ‘It is the ordinary workers who have to clean up after artists.’

  The celebration had come to an ugly end.

  Costas and Constantinos dragged George, still screaming and swearing, to the police station which consisted of an office and one cell. It was near the harbour and like Dr Benedictus’ surgery, it seemed too attractive for its purpose. Built of white stone, it looked out to the sea so that even the cell’s barred windows shared the idyllic view. They locked George up for the night to sleep off his drink and anger.

  Although the cell’s single bed was a metal frame with a thin mattress, he slept soundly, a pool of saliva, vomit and blood leaking from his open mouth onto the concrete floor as he did so.

  In the office, Costas and Constantinos shared a bottle of retsina and played cards, unperturbed by George’s intermittent coughing and snoring in the background.

  xxv

  There were times when Hydra felt like a fragmented community; each tolerant of the other but at a safe distance.

  But 6th January, or Epiphany, was a day when everyone came together. For the locals, the day marked Jesus’ baptism as a man and they called it the Blessing of the Waters. Down in the
harbour, men were diving bravely into the cold water – Nature Boy, who didn’t have to change his outfit as he always wore the same, whether on land or sea, day or night; the Katsikas brothers, who had shut their shop for an hour; Douskos, whose taverna was closed in the mornings anyway; Demosthenes, the barber, his stomach like a buoy, always visible above sea level; Francisco, the carpenter; Demi, the baker; Vassilis with his yellow teeth, who in spite of his disabilities could swim quite well; and Old Babba Yannis, who at 87 had never missed an Epiphany yet and wasn’t going to start now.

  There were whoops of delight and horror as their bodies hit the icy water, each determined to get his cross blessed by the priest first as that would guarantee good luck. A crowd had gathered on the quayside, including the expats: Norman, Jack, Frieda and Esther (Gideon had decided to stay at home and clean his stones); Olivia and Georgos with their children; Gordon and Chuck; Charmian with Jason. Shane was with Baptiste, and Martin had stayed behind to work on his writing. Leonard was playing the guitar with the other musicians, one on accordion and another on trumpet. Polixenes tapped the tambourine and rattled its bells with a sense of duty and little enthusiasm. Magda and George were both still in prison.

  Some local women had dressed in black and red and they danced on the cobbles, their wide shirts billowing out into stiff bells and their headdresses adorned with flowers. The crowd, dressed in coats and hats, clapped in time and cheered and whistled. The dancers didn’t seem to feel the cold: their movement or the sheer excitement of the day seemed to warm them.

  A group of maids had gathered in a circle and Frieda noticed that Evgeniya had a black eye again. When Frieda had enquired about it before, the woman had waved a hand in the air: it was nothing and she did not want to discuss it.

  ‘When is George being released from jail?’ Marianne asked Charmian.

  ‘Later today if he can control himself, bloody fool. What about Magda?’

  ‘Soon, I hope.’

  ‘How is she?’