The Water and the Wine

by Tamar Hodes

  ‘I see. Does it make you feel obliged?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It is designed to do that and it works. His only son is bumming around on a Greek island while he wants me back there. How does one cope with guilt?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I feel bad because I am living a lie and deceiving Jack. He is a good man but he doesn’t make me happy. I shouldn’t have married him. It was a mistake. I don’t know what is going to happen. I wanted to give my children a wonderful family life but I have failed to do that. I thought that Hydra would heal our marriage but the bright light has only made the cracks clearer.’

  Two large tears ran down her face.

  ‘It will be alright,’ said Carl, wiping them away. ‘You’ll see.’

  A week later, he arrived at the studio with a large package.

  ‘Surprise,’ he exclaimed. ‘Open up.’

  She tore the brown paper away to reveal many delights: six large canvases, new brushes, their tips white and furry, and tubes of oil paints: cerulean, ochre, magenta, crimson, emerald, ivory and lavender.

  ‘Oh Carl,’ she exclaimed. ‘That is so kind. How can I ever thank you?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, holding her so close that she could see the veins in his watery grey eyes, ‘I can think of one way.’

  xxvii

  Their secret was out.

  Leonard no longer belonged exclusively to Marianne.

  Hydra no longer belonged only to the artists.

  Film crews and photographers began to arrive.

  One morning, when Marianne left Leonard to write, there was a group of young fans standing outside their door.

  ‘Does Leonard Cohen live here?’ a pretty girl asked.

  ‘No,’ Marianne said. ‘You must have the wrong house.’

  As more came, she began to feel as if she were pressed against a sea-wall, and the tide was coming in.

  ‘A photographer called James Burke is coming to see me today,’ said Leonard one day as they lay in bed and watched the daylight slide tentatively through the shutters and urge them into action. The winter had been harsh and, although not over, Marianne was beginning to feel that the sky was lightening a little, that it wasn’t as granite and flint as it had been and that maybe spring was going to come after all. The previous day, she had seen narcissus and hyacinth shoots poking their green tips tentatively through the hard earth.

  ‘That’s good. Is he staying on Hydra?’

  ‘Yes, just for a few days. He’s from Life magazine and they are going to do a photographic piece on me, at the house and maybe at Douskos in the evening, seeing how we live here. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s great that you’re getting so much media attention.’

  But deep inside her stomach she did mind. She worried that Leonard was slipping away from her and that she would lose him. She had recurring nightmares of him being whisked away in a boat and vanishing into the distance; or him being carried away by women and her being abandoned on the cliff edge, clutching her scarf around her head, calling out for him and not being heard.

  As if sensing her need for reassurance, he rolled over and kissed her, on her ears, on her neck, on her brow and on her lips, as if to say that his focus was on her and that he was not going anywhere: she need not worry.

  But there were still times when he would disappear for hours, day and night, and she would not ask him where he had been and with whom, for fear of annoying or, even worse, losing him.

  James Burke was a tall man, well spoken, with a warm smile and round glasses. He and Leonard immediately liked each other. First, he took photos of Leonard outside the house, his dark hair against the white walls, standing at his wooden door, opening it with a key and also in his study at the typewriter, his head bent to the task and his back to the camera. Outside the window there was the famous cable cutting the view in two and James waited patiently for a bird to perch on the wire. There would be no article with these photos: the images had to speak for themselves but the readers would understand the allusion.

  James walked with Leonard to the harbour where, for the sake of the images, they put the tables and chairs outside even though it was January. Everyone wore long sleeves and jumpers and the tables, usually scrubbed bare, were dressed in checked cloths as if they, too, were protected against the cold.

  Leonard introduced James to his friends: Marianne had been with Axel Joachim to see Magda and Alexander, helping the boys to become used to each other again and she joined the friends at the taverna, the baby on her lap; Charmian and George came too, as arranged, as did Norman.

  James clicked his camera over and over, while the friends shared retsina and red wine from carafes, baskets of bread and sautéed squid.

  ‘Just behave as you would normally do when you’re together and try to ignore me snapping away,’ he said.

  ‘Feel free to come and join us, Jim, when you want to,’ said George, and so the photographer took a short break to eat and drink.

  ‘Where’s home for you?’ asked Leonard.

  ‘Nowhere and everywhere,’ said James, tearing a lump of crusty bread and dipping it in olive oil which it absorbed like a sponge. ‘I was born in Shanghai where my father was a missionary but I’ve lived in India, Afghanistan, China, all over.’

  ‘That must have been amazing,’ Charmian joined in.

  ‘It was. I’ve photographed everything from snow leopards to earthquakes and monsoons. I go where the work is. Wherever I am, is home.’ And after a short break he was photographing again, trying to capture and reflect their everyday way of life. As the images were black and white, he didn’t seem to mind the lack of blue sky and sunshine.

  ‘Where did you and Leonard meet?’ he asked Marianne who was comfortable with talking to someone whose face was hidden behind a camera.

  ‘In Katsikas’ store,’ she laughed.

  ‘Would you mind posing there with your basket?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’ So she left the baby with Leonard and walked there with James. Her light hair tied in a ponytail, she stood by the bottles of wine and vinegar, pretending to survey the goods. He clicked away, knowing that his editors would love the recreation of the day they met.

  James stayed for a few days. He took pictures of the friends on donkeys trekking up the stony hillside, at the harbour, on a boat, and in the evenings, at the taverna.

  Used to him now, the community chatted freely and ignored his snapping. Leonard played the guitar, everyone relaxed. James captured them in their circle, with the pine tree overhead, its dark leaves lit by the table candles so that the foliage appeared silver underneath.

  The following day he photographed Norman painting; the one-belled chapel stamped against the sky; the harbour curved around the bay, and a lone goat standing in a gridded window as if he was framed by it.

  Next came Charmian and George holding hands on the cobbled quayside; Marianne holding Axel Joachim up to the sun; and somehow James got himself invited into some of the grander houses where there were gilt mirrors and padded furnishings.

  They became so used to James that they were sad to see him go, but when he packed up his equipment and boarded the boat to Piraeus, they waved him off.

  ‘Thank you again,’ he called. ‘I’ll send you a copy when the pictures are in.’

  They had to wait a few weeks but there was great excitement when Leonard brought a copy of Life magazine to the taverna one evening.

  There were thirty images used, a large feature, and it was delightful.

  ‘Look,’ said George, coughing and laughing, ‘there’s you and me, Charm, loved up as ever!’

  ‘Hm,’ said his wife, her face twisting. ‘And they say the camera never lies.’

  ‘Lovely one of you painting, Norman,’ said Gordon, but the artist looked shy.

  ‘Hey!’ said Marianne. ‘They even included the posing goat!’

  But a few days later, a film crew arrived.

  A Girl in Black was being made with Anthony Quinn an
d director Michael Cacoyannis, and a notice went up asking for extras. Martin and Shane Johnston had small parts. Months later they heard that it had been nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes.

  And then there was Boy on a Dolphin, the first Hollywood film made in Greece. The local people watched with amazement as the crew brought landing barges, water-tankers and diesel generators to their shores, happy to make some extra cash from supplying them with food, drink and donkeys to get around on.

  ‘Hey, what do you know?’ boasted George one evening at the taverna, ‘Mart’s not only got a part but he’s acting as interpreter for Sophia Loren.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Chuck. ‘What’s the film about?’

  ‘Well, Sophia is with her boyfriend, an illegal immigrant from Albania, working as a sponge diver on Hydra…’

  ‘Slightly more glamorous than Vasilis.’ Charmian knocked back a glass of vodka in one go.

  ‘…and she finds an ancient statue of a boy on a dolphin at the bottom of the Aegean.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ laughed Gordon, ‘but interesting.’

  ‘And then she is torn between selling it to Dr James Calder, played by Alan Ladd who is an archaeologist, and Victor, who is a dodgy dealer with a history of selling on works of art seized by the Nazis. It all ends happily; the people of Hydra celebrate and she winds up in the arms of Calder.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charmian belching. ‘Sweet.’

  As if that wasn’t enough, a little while later, Melina Mercouri turned up on the island to play a part in Phaedra. Jason never forgot the day when he tripped her up and wrestled with her in donkey dung.

  This media invasion was greeted by people in different ways.

  The Hydriots watched the events with some amazement and did not mind the extra revenue it brought them. The actors and crew shopped at Katsikas’, rented rooms in local hostelries, had their hair cut at Demosthenes’, and drank and ate at Douskos’.

  Some of the artists were bemused and fascinated but for Marianne it was disconcerting. It confirmed her loss of Leonard and she felt side-lined. His songs were frequently on the radio now and there were often articles about him in the papers. In her mind, it marked a separation between them; they were destined, now, to travel different paths.

  The Life feature and other profiles all told the world about Hydra so it was now common for tourists to aim for the island to seek Leonard out. Celebrities visited: Twiggy, Jackie Kennedy, Yoko Ono and John Lennon – with their long dark hair and matching sunglasses making them immediately conspicuous although they were probably hoping for the opposite.

  For Marianne, the island had been an escape, a secret, their secret. How could it continue to be that now that everyone knew about it?

  Leonard tried hard to reassure her. ‘Just because other people come here does not lessen my love for you, Marianne.’

  Put like that, what he said made sense but then when he disappeared for hours on end or when he locked himself away in his room and seemed to abandon her, she felt herself being edged to the margins of his life.

  When they were alone together, that was when she was happiest, with no-one else to interfere in their love. Facing each other in the bed or on the terrace, his gaze, those lovely dark eyes, would be focused on her, not looking anywhere else but at her, and then she knew that she was the centre of his attention and that he loved her deeply.

  When he came forward to kiss her and their lips met, it only proved his devotion to her.

  She tried to train herself to enjoy these times and not think of the times when he would vanish from sight.

  Treasure what you have, she said to herself, and be grateful for it.

  Xxviii

  Having lost a few days being photographed by James Burke, George and Charmian were keen to return to work on the script. Charmian moved between George’s novel and her own adaptation coming to life on the typewriter. Mostly they agreed on the wording and angle but after a drink-filled break for lunch at Katsikas’, problems sometimes arose.

  ‘The thing is, Charm,’ said George as they settled back to their studies at home, ‘I want you to focus more on the contrast between the brothers: David, suave, sophisticated but arrogant and bullish, and Jack, rougher, more of an Aussie redneck, uneducated, coarse. They embody the new Australia as opposed to the old Australia.’

  ‘I get that, George, but the problem is that we don’t want to play into those stereotypes, do we? There is so much of that image already around.’

  ‘That’s not our responsibility, Charm. Stereotypes exist because there are those people, and I have to be honest about Jack and show that he is like that. It’s not for me to worry about how the rest of the world perceives Aussies.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Her face was red from the drink and the heat of the argument. ‘You are one of the country’s best and most famous writers and we want to show that those perceptions are too simplistic. It is more complex than that.’

  ‘That’s for cultural commentators and sociologists to worry about: not writers.’

  ‘So writers have no responsibility? They just write whatever they want?’

  George sighed. His chest was tight and he really didn’t want to waste time arguing. ‘They tell the truth at the deepest level possible and to their best ability. That’s what writers do. To be honest, Charm, I have ABC breathing down my neck, desperately waiting for the script, and you are wasting fucking time talking about morality.’

  ‘Morality? Identity? Reputation? They are trivial, are they?’

  ‘I asked you to write the script because I thought you were the best person to do it but you need to remember that it is my novel and you are merely adapting it, not questioning the very essence of it.’

  ‘And that’s the crux of it. I’m just the monkey at the typewriter. You are the important writer in the marriage, doing the great work. We all know that.’ She crossed her arms angrily.

  ‘Jeez,’ George shouted. ‘You and your fucking chips on both shoulders from your childhood. I can’t deal with it. Just adapt the bloody script, will you, or I’ll find someone else.’

  And he started coughing and spluttering so badly that his face swelled and blood spurted from his mouth like water arching from the spout of a stone lion.

  ‘Take it easy, George,’ she said, standing up. He could not breathe; he was clutching his chest as if trying to control it. Charmian bent to place her palm on his forehead: it was hot and he was shivering with fever.

  ‘Bloody hell, George, calm down, I was just saying…’ but he fell with a thud on the stone floor and the blood did not stop coming. He began, it seemed, to choke on it.

  ‘My god,’ panicked Charmian, ‘George, George,’ and she ran into the kitchen where the maid was preparing dumplings for that evening’s stew.

  Sevasty ran in, her fingers floury, and her face red. She was used to the couple’s drunken antics and nasty fights, but she had never seen George on the floor, a river of blood flowing from his mouth and forming an ever-widening pool on the white tiles.

  ‘Go and fetch Dr Benedictus. Run as fast as you can, Sevasty. Dr Benedictus!’

  Sevasty wiped her hands on her apron and flew as fast as her plump body and thick legs would let her to the surgery. All down the hill she saw donkeys and goats and stray cats and an old friend of hers but they were a smudge as she raced, panting, panicking all the way.

  As she ran in, puffing, trying to catch her breath, Mrs Benedictus was smiling beatifically as always. Sevasty’s voice was garbled, the doctor’s wife’s calm. She said her husband was with a patient but that he would come as soon as he could.

  It seemed to Charmian that the doctor took hours to arrive but, in reality, it was only twenty minutes. George was barely conscious, his eyes rolling in his head, spittle foaming on his lips, sweating and bleeding continuously. As she knelt beside him on the stone floor, stroking his hair, her tears fell onto his face. Please don’t die, George. I love you. I hate you. I am sorry I questioned you. You are e
verything to me. She thought of when they first met. She thought of Martin, Shane and Jason. She thought of Jennifer. The tears fell fast now. It had come to this: two heavy drinkers collapsed on the floor.

  Dr Benedictus arrived, his beard white and eyes shiny. He kneeled to examine George, unbuttoning his shirt to help him breathe. Nothing riled him. In his thirty years as a doctor on Hydra, he had seen it all: the bloody, cut faces of drunk and foolish Hydriots; stillborn babies; women whose husbands beat them up; the artistic community’s ailments and injuries. It did not matter to him whether the patients were locals, expats or tourists: they were all people who needed tending to and that is what he did, a serene benignity on his face, his large hands careful, and that ever-present smile.

  He could smell drink on George. He took his pulse, listened to his heart and knew that it was serious. Through a combination of Dr Benedictus’ broken English, Charmian’s limited Greek, and Sevasty’s breathless, panicky translating, it was agreed that George should go to hospital in Athens. With the blood still streaming and George’s difficulty with breathing, he had no energy to argue.

  He was too ill for a mule ride so Sevasty found Tzimmi with his log cart attached to the donkey, and it was in this unceremonious way that George was taken down to the harbour, for the boat to Piraeus and then a taxi to central Athens. For years afterwards he would remember – and happily dine out on the tale of – how he was slumped, bloody and sweat-stained, in a rough cart, clutching a bag of clean clothes packed by Charmian and a copy of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where all he could see was Tzimmi’s donkey’s arse opening and closing and the lumps of shit that emerged frequently and stenchingly from it.

  Charmian offered to go with him but there was no room in the cart and George insisted that she stay behind and finish the ‘goddam script!’ To be honest, she was relieved. She could be with the children, finish Peel Me a Lotus, complete the script unhindered, send it off to ABC and stay on Hydra. She had never liked hospitals and that was why she had chosen to have Jason at home, with the aid of a Greek midwife who rubbed Charmian’s tummy with alcohol, then gave her two tumblers of ouzo to drink while Martin sat beside her reading The Iliad aloud.