by Sara Alexi
But Aleko doesn’t hurry. He squats and looks at the windlass, first from one side and then the other. Finally he picks up the controller, and with his thumb he depresses the button, and the rollers spin with a satisfying whir.
Spiros’s legs feel super-light as he climbs down the ladder, and he jumps the last few rungs to the ground.
‘Sign here?’ The truck driver is waiting for him at the bottom with a clipboard. Without even thinking about it, Spiros scrawls on the line, and the driver returns to his truck and pulls on levers to make the hoist on the back of his lorry lift the engine high into the air, and then down again next to the yacht.
‘Hang on!’ Aleko is hurrying towards them now. ‘Up!’ he demands.
The truck driver is happy to oblige, and Aleko brings a trolley, places it under the engine. He stands back with hands on hips and smiles at their new toy.
‘Isn’t she a beaut?’ he says.
‘You paying delivery when you do the bank transfer for the engine?’ the truck driver asks.
‘Yup!’ Aleko is poking about at the new engine, which is painted a shiny blue and has all sorts of hoses and wires coming out of it. Spiros spells out the words painted on the side: ‘Perkins Prima’.
‘Right, see you then,’ the driver says.
Aleko waves him off, then turns to Spiros.
‘Good job,’ he says.
‘Eh?’ Spiros is not sure what he means.
‘The winch. Good job. You have the right brain for it.’ He does not pause for a response. ‘Right, let’s get this beast under the boom and we can lift her up.’
Aleko’s words may have been brief, but Spiros feels his chest might burst, it is so full from this praise. He repeats the exact phrase in his head: ‘The winch. Good job. You have the right brain for it.’ If he told his own mama what he had done, she would not believe him. But he had done it. He had taken apart and put back together the most complicated object he had ever worked on all by himself, with no instruction. Could it be as Aleko says, that he has the right brain? His brain does not work fast like other people’s, and in order to understand something he needs to know every little detail. With the windlass, he discovered that if he took his time, examined each piece, laid it out in order, and approached the job methodically, it was not so difficult. His chest inflates again, and he smiles and then grins and then laughs as they manoeuvre the trolley into the right position and attach the chains around the engine to pull her up and into the yacht.
Spiros hauls on the rope and the heavy engine inches slowly up into the air. When it is high enough, he ties the rope off and goes up on deck with Aleko to swing the boom in over the centre of the boat. Aleko goes down below and they lower the engine, slowly and carefully, in through the hatch, with only a space the width of a finger to spare on each side.
‘Whoa!’ Aleko calls from down below, and Spiros holds the rope firm whilst the engine is manoeuvred into place.
The mechanic is sweating profusely in the stuffy cabin, but it seems he cannot wait to get started installing the engine and all the hoses and wires that trail off it. The space is cramped and it really is a one-man job, and so Spiros leaves him to it and begins to tidy what’s left of the mess inside. He makes decisions too. He decides that one of the seat locker lids has warped beyond repair, so he unscrews it and throws it out, along with all the brine-stained and still soggy cushions.
‘You’ll need those as a pattern, to make new ones,’ Aleko says. He has a screwdriver between his teeth like a horse’s bit. Spiros goes down the ladder and piles the cushions up neatly in a corner of the yard so they won’t be thrown away by accident.
Back on board he continues his work. It makes him feel close to George to sort through the mess, and he keeps an eye open for any signs of the octopus. With a sponge, he gets the last of the water out of the bilge and cleans all traces of oil and grease. The octopus is definitely not there, which pleases him as it means it won’t be dead, but it also saddens him as he cannot try to feed it.
‘By the way,’ Aleko calls out, ‘I’ve done as much as I can on the electrics, and we’ll need a specialist to finish the job. I’ll call a man I know later.’
‘We’d better let Takis know how much it will cost first,’ Spiros replies.
The headlining is coming off in one corner and has warped badly. It looks old and as Spiros tries to pin it back up it tears, and so he makes another decision all by himself and pulls the whole thing down.
Aleko looks up to see what the noise is about.
‘You remember when you were first told about inheriting George’s boat, and we all went sailing in her?’ he says.
Spiros has not forgotten. He steered the boat and the feeling was fantastic. Aleko was there with his daughter Eva and her Italian boyfriend Pippo. Thanasis the donkey man was there too, and a friend of George’s called Lazarus, whom he did not know until that day. It was Lazarus who had shown him how to steer, then left him to do it by himself, trusted him. Yes, he remembers that day well.
‘Ah, hm,’ Spiros answers in the affirmative.
It is he who now has a screwdriver between his teeth like a horse’s bit, to free his hands as he takes the warped door off the locker in the little toilet room. He feels like a proper worker. Maybe if he puts it outside with weights on it, it will dry flat.
‘Well, apparently Lazarus was a sailing instructor, and he is thinking about offering lessons again.’ Aleko grunts and curses. ‘It might be an idea, if you are going to keep the yacht, to get your skipper’s licence?’
He grunts again and says, ‘Got it.’ Spiros knows this is not addressed at him.
Could he really get his skipper’s licence? The way Aleko suggested it sounded so matter of fact.
‘What would I have to do?’ Spiros asks. He is on his knees with the sponge again now, getting the water out of the locker in the bathroom.
‘There’s a practical part to it, I think, and an exam.’
Spiros instantly rules it out as a possibility. Back at school he was always bottom of the class, and the teachers gave up on him fairly early on. He was mostly left to his own devices at the back of the class, poring over last year’s textbooks, or staring out of the window, daydreaming. When he was very young this pleased him as he hated to study, but as he got older it became a point of stigma. He felt excluded, and some of the meaner boys teased him. But the teachers had him labelled, and he was told to sit at the back and look at the pictures in lower-grade books.
‘Ah, that’s on!’ Aleko announces, and his face, smeared with oil, appears from around the steps. ‘So, what do you reckon? You going to give it a try? Get yourself a licence?’
‘I can’t do exams,’ Spiros says flatly.
‘Well, from what I’ve seen, you learn well, even if you learn slowly. And anyway, I’ve been given to understand that the paper exam bit is multiple choice.’
‘It’s what?’
‘You know, when they ask you if the answer is alpha, beta or gamma? Which means, if you think about it, if you answered every one of them with a cross against alpha you’d still get one third of the test right.’
Spiros feels just a flicker of hope.
‘Anyway, you can learn.’
The flicker dies.
‘Don’t look like that. Here, I will prove you can do it. Is this screwdriver flat head, Phillips or Allen?’
‘That’s easy – a flat head.’ Spiros chuckles and uses his forearm to flatten his hair, which he can feel is sticking up at all odd angles.
‘It’s easy because you know it,’ Aleko says, ‘and it will be the same when you sit your skipper’s exam.’
With this, his face disappears again behind the steps and into the dark recesses of the engine bay.
Spiros feels the flicker of hope ignite again. Maybe someone could teach him the answers like Aleko has taught him about screwdrivers and wrenches and sockets and pliers and all the other tools.
Chapter 6
The electrician arrives
at the yard early next morning, just after Spiros, and he looks over the yacht, humming and rubbing his chin.
‘Total rewire,’ he announces, and he quotes two thousand euros, just as Aleko predicted. It will take a week to do the job, he says, if not two – maybe even three.
Aleko volunteers to talk to Takis straightaway about the cost and leaves Spiros worrying about the response he will get. Takis is not an early riser, and he will likely not have had his first coffee yet. He is always grumpy until he has had his first coffee! He tries to find something to take his mind off it whilst he waits. Much of the interior woodwork needs replacing or repairing, and the upholstery must all be redone, as well as the headlining. But he can’t do any of that without the tools or the skills required. Outside, the deck is part wood and part white fibre glass. The wooden parts have black rubber between them that is coming out in places and looks ugly. He goes back down below and watches the electrician, who has taken the fascia board off the control panel, but the number of wires worries him. They are all of a tangle, and so he goes outside and climbs down the ladder and paces about the yard. Maybe when Aleko comes back he can suggest the next step.
‘Morning.’ It is Aleko’s wife.
‘Good morning, Kyria Athena,’ Spiros replies.
‘Please, call me Athena.’
She has a basket of washing on her hip. Spiros licks his hand when she is not looking and uses his wet palm to try to stick his hair down a bit. It tastes of oil.
‘Now tell me, Spiro, where am I supposed to hang my washing now my line has gone?’ she asks.
Spiros’s stomach immediately feels full of acid and churning, but no sooner does he notice this when he realises, from the glint in her eyes, that she is teasing.
‘Ah look, there is my line, neatly wound and hung on the tree,’ she continues. ‘I don’t suppose you could get it? Maybe we can hang it somewhere else until you boys are finished with your boat?’
Spiros is quick to try to oblige and he takes the cord and ties one end to the tree, then pays it out until he is left holding the other end with nowhere to tie it. But then he spots a tractor with one tyre missing, which has not moved since they began, and he ties the end of the washing line to the top of the window frame.
‘Good thinking!’ Athena says, and because this pleases him so much he jumps down from the tractor cab and takes the basket of washing from her and holds it so she can take the items out one at a time to hang them. When she is not looking, he blows his weirdly flopping hair from his face or tries to sweep it straight with the crook of his elbow. When Athena has finished and the basket is empty, she takes it and thanks him.
Once she has returned inside he kicks at a small stone and watches it roll. He kicks it again, and it leaves a little line in the dust where it travels, all squiggly like a snail’s trail.
‘Now I can offer you something in return.’ Athena’s voice makes him jump. ‘Come and sit and I will give you the best haircut of your life.’
She is standing by an upturned metal bucket. Spiros hesitates. He hates the barber’s. He avoids going at all costs and it usually results in his mama hacking away at his unruly crop.
‘Don’t be shy. With five children and a husband, I spend quite a lot of time cutting hair, and yours will be no different.’
He still doesn’t move.
‘Unless you like your hair doing all those weird things it does?’
She does not laugh when she says this and it is the nudge he needs to sit. He sits up straight and is determined not to move, no matter how tickly it gets. She tucks a towel around his neck like they do at the real barber’s, and then with quick and confident movements she sets about him.
‘Ah, she got you, eh?’ Aleko’s voice signals his return, and even though Spiros was adamant he was not going to move, his head spins to look at his friend. Athena takes hold of his chin and gently pulls it straight.
‘She’s good, though – plenty of practice. There, see, that bit at the front that never sits flat is fine now.’
‘What did Takis says?’ Spiros asks.
‘Hm, well, yes – as we expected, he was not happy. He pulled me inside, where he had a list of all you two have spent. Apparently once the electrician is paid you will each have only two thousand four hundred euros left. Is that right?’
‘I suppose if Takis says so then it is most likely correct.’
Athena blows hard across his neck and he flinches and feels his cheeks grow hot. But he stays focused on the conversation. ‘But you can take my mama’s air conditioning and stove money off mine.’
‘So, they were five hundred and two hundred, seven from two thousand four hundred. Well, your one thousand seven hundred won’t get the inside done up, and that’s for sure,’ Aleko says, and for the first time since they began working on the yacht together he looks miserable.
‘Oh, don’t get like that,’ Athena says. ‘Something will turn up. Just focus on what you want, let the people you really trust know which direction you want your life to go in and, as sure as anything, sooner or later, everything will slot into place.’
‘Women!’ Aleko replies, but there is a softness in his features that lets Spiros know that he is not being unkind.
‘There, you are done.’ Athena carefully untucks the towel from around his shoulders.
Spiros rubs his hands over his head. In place of his unruly shock of hair is a fuzzy but neat halo. He is a lot cooler, and he is surprised by the amount of hair that now lies on the ground, around the bucket.
‘Look.’ She hands him a pocket mirror. It is too small to see all his head and face at once, so he moves it this way and that, peering into the glass.
‘I look normal!’ he says.
‘Of course you look normal! What else would you look?’
Athena laughs and goes inside, before coming out again with a broom.
‘Anyway.’ Aleko ignores their talk. ‘Takis was a little reluctant but I explained that although it would cost a lot to get the inside all done to the standard it was before the boat was sunk, it would, at least, be in a condition to put it back into Saros harbour where, I told him, he would have a lot better chance of selling her and getting his money back.’
‘But I don’t want to sell her!’ Spiros cries. He thinks of the days and the hours of work he has spent doing her up.
‘Well, let’s hope you don’t have to, but I needed to say that to get Takis to agree to pay up for the electrics.’
‘So did he?’
‘On the spot! Once I showed him the quote, that is.’ He takes a wad of euro notes from his pocket. ‘So, if you can bring your half round tomorrow, the electrician can get going.’
‘So what do I do now?’
Aleko rubs at the back of his neck.
‘You want a haircut too?’ Athena asks, dustpan and brush in her hand.
‘Don’t you dare, woman,’ he jokes, and he pretends to hide behind Spiros, who in turns shifts left and right to avoid being between them.
‘I’ll let you off this time, but don’t sleep too soundly tonight, Aleko, my man, else I might get itchy scissor fingers,’ she retorts with a soft smile, and she goes inside with Spiros’s dead hair in her pan.
Aleko watches her go, then turns back to Spiros.
‘You know, there’s not much you can do now. How about going to find Lazarus and seeing about this yacht skipper thing?’
‘But if we have to sell her, what’s the point?’ Spiros tries not to believe his own words.
‘Like Athena says, things have a way of sorting themselves out, but you would be cross with yourself if they did sort out and you could not sail her, so why not find Lazarus?’
Spiros can see that Aleko has a point.
Chapter 7
Lazarus is drinking a coffee at one of the cafés on the harbourfront in Saros and gazing out to sea. Spiros enjoyed the walk along the coast but now his legs are tired and he takes a seat with pleasure when it is offered.
‘Aleko said you
are running skipper courses.’ Once Spiros has said it, he wonders if he was too abrupt, but Lazarus laughs and seems excited by the question.
‘I have two people interested so far, so it’s on hold until I have a third, but there is another minor problem. Why, are you interested?’ He bubbles his words out.
‘But there’s an exam.’ Spiros’s fear spills out.
‘Well, more of a test, really, but if you decide to join us I’m sure you’ll do fine in that, and in the practical. You seemed to pick it up very easily when we went on your boat. How’s that going, by the way?’
‘Short of money.’ He looks up at the waiter, who is hovering by his side.
‘What can I get you?’ the waiter asks. Spiros is about to reply ‘nothing’, but then he remembers he has money now, even if it is not enough to do up the boat.
‘Strawberry milkshake,’ he answers, and then he looks at Lazarus’s cup, which is empty. ‘You want something?’ he asks. It seems strange to be in a position to offer, but in a nice way.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
The waiter wanders off to invite a group of tourists to sit down, and Spiros wonders if he has forgotten his order. Should he say something?
‘Will you finish the boat? I mean, get her seaworthy?’ Lazarus says.
‘Oh yes! The new engine has gone in and the electrics are being done this week, but inside is a mess.’ This thought saddens him. Athena was very positive, but he cannot see how things will work out.
‘You said there was another minor problem?’ He returns to Lazarus’s previous comment to keep his mind from dwelling on all that needs to be done on the boat.
‘Here you go.’ The waiter puts a large milkshake before him, all whipped and fluffy with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top.
‘Thank you!’ Spiros cannot take his eyes off it; he wants to scoop the bits off and eat them first, but that would spoil how it looks.
‘Sort of a minor problem, sort of a major one,’ Lazarus answers, ‘but I think I see a way round it now.’
Spiros can feel Lazarus watching him as he slurps at the top of his creamy drink.