by Sara Alexi
The Art of Becoming Homeless
Sara Alexi
PUBLISHED BY:
Oneiro Press
The Art of Becoming Homeless
Book Five of the Greek Village Series
Copyright © 2013 by Sara Alexi
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Chapter 1
Friday
By the time the plane had landed in Athens Michelle would have given anything for a flat surface and just for ten minutes to close her eyes.
The doors opened and the glorious sunshine startled her senses, momentarily dispelling her fatigue. The heat engulfed her as she hurried down the steps. The sky was an endless blue, lifting her spirits and the caress of the warmth slowed her feet once on solid ground. A man, dragging deeply on a cigarette, used the authority of the airline badge on his shirt to chivvy her off the runway as she lingered, and inside to passport control where her initial joy of having escaped the cold of London ended.
The first air-conditioned hour in the airport could not have been worse, primarily due to the loss of her luggage, but greatly enhanced by her lack of sleep.
‘It is not possible,’ the airline’s representative had argued.
‘What do you mean it’s not possible? The carousel has stopped, I have this bag and my hand luggage, but my main bag isn’t here, so it’s missing.’
‘No, it is not possible.’ At which point he had walked away, leaving Michelle open mouthed.
The staff at the airport help desk, all smiles and welcoming at first, slowly seemed to lose their command of English the more it became apparent her bag had flown to some other destination.
A new face was brought to pacify her. ‘Madam, do not upset yourself. You are no used to the heat, you have no slept, maybe you no brought another bag?’ he suggested with a smile.
At this, Michelle blinked as the office swam behind welling tears. He handed her a box of tissues.
‘Perhaps it will be best if we speak to your husband. He will have a clearer idea I think?’ His tone low and solicitous.
The chair almost toppled back as she stood. He stood too, his eyes wide with surprise at her sudden movement. Michelle stepped slowly around the desk and used her height to intimidate him, tears forgotten, to put him straight with the clear enunciation of a few select words.
He’d cowered at her onslaught, and conceded the possibility that she might have in fact lost a bag, and his initial denial was replaced by a quantity of lost property forms which she was obliged to complete. The promises of the bag’s retrieval seemed fragile at best.
The relief that her laptop and paperwork were in the case she had retrieved was immense. At least the purpose of her visit would not be thwarted, the meeting could still go ahead, moving the whole claim forward, and going some way to securing her position at work - she hoped.
People entering and leaving the airport kept the automatic doors opening and closing, the heat flowing inside in waves. Outside the taxis were lined up in shiny yellow pairs, even the motorway beyond looked magical in the sunlight, intensely three dimensional, and beyond it the distant hills an unreal hazy blue. Michelle took a step towards the line of taxis, where the drivers on the pavement were in a heated conversation, slamming the flat of their hands on their car roofs to emphasise their point.
Not one to be intimidated, Michelle strode past the group to the car at the front of the line and waited. A red-faced man eventually slid into the driver’s seat muttering something in his mother tongue. Presently though, his argument forgotten, he turned his full attention on Michelle, and she wondered if it might have been wiser to sit in the back.
A tinny blare of bouzouki from the radio, a cacophony of car horns and a hot dusty smell off the tarmac all served delightfully to remind Michelle that this was not England. Here the view was not dimmed with grey drizzle and the shops’ lights not lit all day, reflecting off puddles. Instead the brilliant light gave everything an exciting, vibrant quality. She yawned and settled into the journey, driving through the fatigue of an economy class seat on a night-flight.
The hotel had been momentarily a little more tranquil, but once she had checked in and stowed her suitcase, she came out to find the lobby a sea of tourists all clamouring to speak to the man behind the reception desk, who was ignoring them and yelling into the phone. It seemed that a tour bus had not turned up and the group’s travel plans had gone askew.
The hotel’s ‘courtyard’, towered over on all sides by apartment blocks, was relatively quiet. The flagged floor well-scrubbed, the flowers carefully tended. She sank into a soft chair in the shade of an umbrella to revive over a welcome cup of coffee. The caffeine brought enough life to her mind and her limbs to take stock of her situation. Her work days while she is here are accounted for. She should really use her time to read through the paperwork again. But right now is the start of the weekend.
The next two days could be hers, all hers, full of possibilities.
The bright sun makes promises that anything she chooses to do will be full of joy and the heat assures her of deep relaxation to all her muscles and as she sinks in her chair she is excited into motion by an idea.
An hour later, in the back of a taxi this time, trying to avoid making eye contact through the rear view mirror, she arrives at the port of Pireaus, with nothing but a few essentials in a money belt and a small rucksack.
She will island hop for the weekend.
She watches and waits as a man comes out of the ticket office on the quayside.
His bag is big enough to fit a whole life in.
‘Excuse me,’ he says as he passes her, his head bowed, concentrating on where his canvas holdall is snagging on the doorframe.
Michelle steps aside to let him by. He shows no embarrassment at squeezing past. The hairs on the back of his neck, dark and soft like a child’s, contrast his bright orange t-shirt.
He manhandles the other end of his bag out of the door, patient as it lodges again in the opening, the veins in his forearms bulging in his olive skin as his muscles contract with the effort of lifting it through. These briefest of moments observing someone else’s life fascinate Michelle. She squints as her gaze follows across the port in the bright sunshine.
‘Can I help you?’ The man behind the wooden ticket desk takes a noisy suck on a foam-encrusted straw which is half submerged in something brown and frothy in a transparent plastic cup.
‘Oh yes, I would like to go to an island near enough so I can be back by Sunday lunchtime at the latest. Which islands are that close?’ she asks. The posters on the walls suggest endless destinations.
‘None of them. They are all unreachable now.’ He flips over his desk calendar, until it correctly reads ‘Friday’.
‘Sorry?’
‘Boats are all stopped.’ He replies.
‘What, all of them?’
‘Yes, everything. Everything stopping: the boats, the train, the bus. Everything to travel. It is stopped for one day, maybe two ... Only the taxis are OK.’ He sucks again on his straw, turning the cup as he does so.
Michelle blinks, this is not part of the plan.
‘Why?’ she asks.
‘Money, jobs, pension, everything.’ Putting down his empty cup he picks a bit of lint from his crisp white shirt and drops it on the floor, rubbing his finger and thumb together.
Michelle considers this response. ‘Oh, a strike?’ That could explain all the arguing outside the airport and in the hotel lobby.
‘That is what I said, a strike,’ he says, checking the rest of his shirt. He has not made eye contact w
ith her yet.
‘Oh, but I only have today. There’s nothing else?’ Her shoulders droop.
‘No.’ He takes another suck on his straw. ‘Only this.’ He points out of the window, into the sunshine, to a small, angular grey ship which is rocking ever so gently in the harbour, sandwiched between other, much larger vessels. ‘She is private, not union, one day tour.’
‘Where does it go?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It is the only ship. You have no choice.’ He glances at her briefly from under bushy eyebrows to emphasise the point.
Michelle sighs in exasperation, feels in her pockets for a tissue to mop her brow, it is so hot.
‘If it is not too much trouble I would really like to know where it is I would be going,’ she asks, looking around for a bin for her bit of tissue.
‘Ah.’ He shrugs and stands. He clearly has no interest. ‘Tickets on the boat.’ He reaches under the desk and pulls out a triangular wooden block with ‘CLOSED’ stencilled on one face. Placing the block on the counter he pulls down a blind.
Michelle stands for a moment, at a loss, until the sound of a ship’s horn brings motion to her limbs.
Stepping out of the office back into the sunshine, she squints at the brightness, shields her eyes with her hand and approaches the boat to which the man had pointed.
A sign hanging from the handrail tells her the boat’s destination is Orino Island, a place Juliet suggested she must visit one day. Well today could be that day. The times are scrawled on a blackboard. She can take this boat, have the rest of the day there to explore, stay one night, return on the one thirty tomorrow which will give her Saturday night and all of Sunday to prepare for the meeting on Monday. Perfect.
On board the heat is stale, the air-conditioning barely cooling in the saloon. The room is packed with tourists, bustling to stow their bags, order coffees, arrange themselves on the seats. Michelle finds the outside stairs and climbs as high as she can, to the open top deck. Throwing her head back she absorbs the deep expanse of cloudless cobalt which stretches to the very edges of her vision and finally takes that breath to let go of all her worries. She leans on the rail and watches the activity on the pier as the metal hull judders, the mooring lines are pulled in, and the ship slips out of the harbour.
She experiences a sense of freedom she has not felt for years, which trills in her stomach and makes her feel lightheaded. Responsibility, deadlines, enclosed offices - all echoes of another life. In this second she is the person she always has been.
Once out to sea, the ship’s bow cuts through the glinting flat water and seagulls soar silently alongside, hovering on the updraught of the boat’s motion. Michelle watches them for some time, leaning on the rail before her tired legs demand that she sit. The slatted wooden benches have been bleached white in the sun, and the green painted deck shimmers in the blaze. Women wave newspapers to cool themselves; men mop their sweating brows with large handkerchiefs.
With only partial shade, there is a choice of where to sit. Most passengers are below in the relative cool.
The slight breeze is deliciously cooling as it picks Michelle’s hair off her neck. Leaning her head back, her eyes close against the brilliance of the sun, the insides of her eyelids glowing bright red. Gulls call above her, the hum of the engine vibrates below, the chatter of Greek and English all around. She wants to slow down her time and savour every second, be swallowed by everything Greek, experience the culture to the full.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Josh, put it down.’ A south London twang. ‘Dirty.’
Opening one eye, Michelle witnesses Josh squatting, dropping a cigarette packet and examining his fingers for evidence of the dirt.
The bench is missing one of its boards. Michelle shifts her weight and opens both eyes. On the seat opposite, a moustachioed man in a black fisherman’s cap, sleeves rolled up, swings a komboloi, a string of amber beads, which click as they pass through his fingers. He looks directly at her, smiles and nods. Self-consciously nodding back, Michelle shades her eyes with her hand.
It is all so deliciously foreign.
The mainland recedes behind them, a haze hanging over the city, the Acropolis just visible in the distance above the mass of concrete-block houses.
Laughter and animated chatter herald the arrival of a group of girls dragging heavy rucksacks up the steps onto the deck. They are young, tall and slim, in shorts and strappy t-shirts. It could be Swedish or Finnish they are talking. Pushing their bags under the benches they sit, stretching their long legs out in front of them, mopping sweating foreheads with tissues, pulling down the edges of their shorts to get comfortable, and kicking off flimsy flip-flops. The man with the komboloi clicks his beads just a little bit faster.
On the seat behind the girls, a man of the church, in a tall black hat and black robe, has spread a cloth over his knees. His hugely round stomach catches the crumbs from his picnic feast that have slipped through the filter of his untrimmed beard. His eyes glassy, his focus seems internal. Beyond, in the shade of one of the lifeboats, two crew-members lean, quietly laughing, furtively smoking, their eyes alert, ready to stub out the evidence.
Michelle fishes into her rucksack to find her guidebook, which she opens, the white pages a momentary blur. She angles the book to put the type in the shade.
The book informs her that Orino Island has not changed in centuries. There are no motorised vehicles, and donkeys are still used for all heavy lifting. Groceries from the mainland, roof tiles and bags of cement for building, as well as heavy suitcases bound for the boutique hotels are all carried by these gentle beasts. It is worth noting, it adds in a boxed section, that the island’s strict planning code allows only traditional methods for building, with stone and wood still fashioned by hand. The island works to the old rules, slowly, lost in time. Michelle is intrigued by the idea of a slow weekend, lost in time.
Flicking through the guidebook, the pages fall open at ‘Useful Phrases’, written both in Greek hieroglyphics and phonetically. It starts with the basics.
‘Efharisto. Thank you. Efharisto.’ The word has no link to her reality. Pausing, she looks to the heavens. ‘A ferret’s toes. Efharisto’. It is a technique from her long-gone student days, linking meanings to facts to aid memory.
‘Parakalo, parakalo, you are welcome, parakalo, parrots claws.’ Michelle looks about her, suddenly self-conscious that she has just spoken too loud. She runs her hand down the seam to open up the spine of the guidebook as she continues.
‘Mia beera, one beer.’ She turns the page, picking out potentially useful phrases. She hopes she will not be in need of the hospital, nor does she think she will want to buy a kilo of rice.
A seagull lands on deck and patters to a white plastic bag which, after a brief examination, it holds fast with its feet and tears at with its beak. A dark-haired toddler runs across the deck, screeching, arms outstretched for the bird, a man quickly behind him, ready to catch him if he falls, which he does. Michelle smiles. The man scoops the boy into his arms, kissing and soothing in his foreign tongue. She fascinates in people’s relationships with their children, an unknown. The seagull flaps lazily away to join its companions, floating effortlessly on the breeze above the ship’s side.
The young man she saw leaving the ticket office comes on deck, in his bright orange t-shirt, long legs, and ridiculously large canvas bag. He walks straight up to Michelle’s bench, dumps the bag down beside her and flops next to it. She crosses her legs in the opposite direction and looks pointedly at the book.
‘Don’t I know you?’ he asks.
Michelle sneaks a look to see who he is talking to, to find he is addressing her with a broad grin on his face.
‘Sorry?’ Michelle must have misheard. It’s the sort of line she hasn’t heard since her teens, of the kind the boys from Bradford Grammar might have used round the back of the pavilion on a Wednesday a
fternoon, Juliet puffing on a cigarette, school skirts rolled up to make them shorter. Juliet would parry with something like ‘you wish’ and grind the cigarette out with the toe of her shoe as they had seen in a film once.
‘Yes, we have met,’ the young man with the oversize bag persists, his eyebrows arching in the middle as he smiles. Beautiful teeth, bright white against his tanned skin.
She calls his bluff. ‘No, I don’t think so, but if we did, where would it have been?’ It’s flattering in a way, but she is not sure she wants a hormone-driven youth pestering her. She looks him over; she is old enough to be his mother.
‘I remember, but to tell you would be too easy. You work it out.’ He runs his hand through his hair, stroking his fringe to one side.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ The words come out as a sigh, but with a smile; he is just a little bit too immature.
A new man sits behind Mr Komboloi, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
Michelle looks around, other people have cups too. She stands and walks towards the back of the ship, where she discovers a little bar selling drinks and pastries.
The Styrofoam protects her fingers as she blows across the top. It’s dreadful coffee but in the circumstances tastes like heaven, and Michelle savours the caffeine fix. Now life is perfect. She finds another bench.
She tries to absorb everything: the magnificence of the heat’s embrace, the lonely, romantic screeching of the gulls, the deep, beautiful azure of the sky, the animated sparkle of the sea, the possibilities beyond the horizon. It feels as if life has suddenly come into focus.
Balancing the remains of her coffee on a bench near the bar, she stretches her hand to the heavens. Right now life is perfect. Fingers splaying as she reaches up, she yawns and pauses with the sun on her face before opening the guidebook again.
The next sentence in the guide book looks difficult. ‘Ti ora fevgi to leo … leofor … leoforri …’
‘Leoforeio, bus,’ a voice helps. ‘What time does the bus go?’