The Art of Becoming Homeless

by Sara Alexi

  ‘Go on, take the drinks to the young ladies,’ the man behind the counter had urged his son. Juliet had winked at him just as he was lowering the glasses to the table, and one shot forward, covering her with pink froth.

  ‘What ya do that for?’ She laughed, but the boy, not much older than them, couldn’t stop apologising and tried to wipe down her jumper with a damp cloth.

  ‘Hey!’ Juliet pushed his hands off her chest. The apologising began again and Juliet started to giggle.

  ‘They gave us a fry-up on the house,’ Michelle tells Dino, ‘by way of apology, and more milkshakes.’

  Back out in the cold and grey of a London afternoon, the girls felt suddenly tired and homesick, and made their way back to the train station.

  ‘What do you mean we don’t have the money to get back?’ Michelle almost screeched.

  ‘Have you got any?’

  ‘I had a quid for my lunch.’

  ‘Well how did you think we were going to pay for it?’

  ‘I didn’t. How much have you got?’

  ‘Mum left her purse in the kitchen, but I couldn’t hardly take it all, could I?’

  Michelle felt all the fried food turn in her stomach, but Juliet didn’t even blink.

  ‘Come on, we’ll hitch.’ And with that she ran off in the direction of the underground, Michelle straggling behind. No one seemed to care that they ducked the barriers. They surfaced at Watford.

  Everything with Juliet used to happen in a whirl back then.

  They walked for a bit, but the light was fading, and soon it was dark. No cars stopped to pick them up. Juliet had not batted an eye at finding a doorway out of the wind, and together they huddled up and spent, for Michelle anyway, a rather sleepless night. In the morning they got a lift from a trucker who told them they were going the wrong way and took them to a transport café where they were faced with a room full of burly men, their sleeves rolled up, tattoos exposed, tucking into egg and chips and huge steaming cups of tea. Michelle sat and pulled her school skirt down as far as it would go, but Juliet grinned as they drank their tea, bought and paid for by the truck driver.

  ‘Oi, listen up.’ The truck driver stood at the counter and called out into the room. ‘Got two young un’s here, need a lift home to Bradford. Anyone going?’

  ‘Pair of skivers,’ someone had shouted, and laughter rippled round the room. Michelle felt heat in her cheeks, and looked at the floor.

  ‘What, and you were Einstein?’ came a reply.

  ‘I’m going to Sheffield,’ another barked.

  ‘I’ll take them, got a delivery for Grattans in Bradford. They’ll have to sit back though; not meant to have passengers,’ said a third man, from the back of the room.

  ‘Sitting back’ meant cross-legged on the sleeping bunk behind the seats.

  ‘Cool.’ Juliet climbed straight in. Michelle found it a bit more difficult as she was taller. Before they were far out of London she must have dropped off, as the next thing she recalled was Juliet pulling her sleeve and telling her, ‘We’re home.’ Literally, as the truck driver had made a small detour right to Juliet’s house.

  They waved him off. Juliet’s parents were out, so they raided the cupboards and feasted on a packet of biscuits, a lump of cheese, and a jar of pickled onions, and watched the late film—Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn—after which they cut each other’s hair so they could sport Roman Holiday fringes for school the next day. Most of their classmates laughed at them, but Juliet walked with her head held high, arm in arm with Michelle. Michelle felt so proud of her friend and quite forgot to be embarrassed by her own Hepburn fringe. Her parents had voiced their displeasure at the haircut at tea that night, and Juliet was banned from the house for a week.

  ‘But you know, the overriding feeling it left me with? The fear that still stays with me to this day? In the dark of that night, other homeless people had passed and tried to make conversation with us. Not young people like us but middle-aged people. People who had lost their jobs and ended up homeless, people who had no mums and dads to return to, people who lived that way night after night.’ Michelle recalls the dread, the real fear of being homeless, of being lost in that situation, devoid of hope.

  Dino looks as if he is about to say something but changes his mind and holds out his glass. Michelle picks up the full wine jug, and as she does so she looks out to sea. Dino follows her gaze. The sky is darkening and the most distant islands are turning purple against a pinking sky.

  ‘We are both in the same place, you and I,’ Dino begins. He feels that perhaps he should have eaten something before drinking half a jug of wine. But Michelle replies before he finishes what he was going to say.

  ‘Yes, in a perfect taverna on a perfect island with a perfect view.’ Michelle raises her glass.

  ‘With perfect company.’ Dino smiles and touches his wine glass to hers. They look at each other for a moment, listening as a donkey on the hills brays, a soulful lost sound that dwindles to a wheeze.

  Kyria Zoe is not sitting outside. Tonight her lights are off and the pair are alone outside Michelle’s door.

  In the light of the moon she is stunning, regal, her back straight even though she has had a good deal too much wine. Poised. Maybe she did ballet? Maybe she still does, there is so much he doesn’t know about her.

  But there is something he does know. She is way too special for a clumsy manoeuvre of the type Adonis would try. She deserves far more respect than that.

  Maybe he should use words, or just a kiss, on the cheek perhaps?

  If he kisses her hand, will that be too smooth? She has opened her door, now is the time. She is looking at him, expectantly. Or is that the wine and his imagination?

  He brushes his fringe across, out of his eyes, looks at her, but cannot maintain eye contact.

  ‘Goodnight, Michelle.’ It comes out all of a rush. His cheeks feel hot. He has drunk too much wine. He marches to his own room and shuts himself in.

  Chapter 11

  Sunday

  The next day passes like a dream. They drink coffee in the harbour, go to a taverna under a huge fig tree for lunch, while away the afternoon. Michelle doesn’t care where she is or what she is doing. Inside her head, she is having an affair with Dino, a cerebral romance until she has to return to Athens. She is soaking up being with him, delighting that she has his company. All the feelings of love, but with a switch-off time and date, so no one gets hurt or embarrassed. He need never know. She will not one day lay on her deathbed regretting she never lived; from now on she will allow every feeling that comes her way. She just might not share them.

  ‘You want to meet Adonis tonight?’

  ‘OK.’ She doesn’t mind one way or the other.

  The bar Adonis is working in is playing soulful jazz, the interior lit with red bulbs, the decoration dark, earthy hues. It is very bohemian.

  They sit on the rush-seated wooden chairs outside. All the traditional Greek wooden sofas with their curvy backs have been taken, their ample cushions drawing the early birds to lounge in the open air and watch the people walking up and down the alley.

  A waiter comes to serve them, and Michelle instinctively knows it is not Adonis. He smiles when he sees Dino, shakes his hand, argues in Greek, slaps him on the shoulder, and goes back inside, throwing his circular tray up in the air, end on, and catching it.

  When Adonis appears, he is exactly as she imagined. Taller and leaner than Dino, he walks like a model.

  Dino covers his mouth with his hand and whispers, ‘He’s done modelling, can you tell?’ and sniggers.

  Adonis has the straightest nose Michelle has ever seen.

  And then he smiles.

  All the stars are extinguished, the world recedes, the girls from several of the tables around them turn his way, his hips respond by rolling as he walks. Michelle groans inwardly at the sight of him.

  The same graceful arrogance of Richard, the sort of charm that makes women flirt even when they don’t want
to. An unforgivable sense of superiority based purely on the looks he was born with. She takes a drink of wine and braces herself.

  ‘Hey Dino …’ and then he speaks in Greek. No arguing tones here, a slow drawl, words continuing into each other seamlessly and without breath.

  ‘This is Michelle; Michelle, Adonis.’

  She tenses. He scans every laughter line, the length of her hair, the size of her breasts, her unpolished fingernails, her shaved legs and then back to her lips, which she licks in nervousness and then wishes she hadn’t. See! Men like this always make you flirt. Until they know you and then they expect you to pick up their dry-cleaning and compete with you on the work front, and all that charm disappears.

  It was Richard’s father who brought about the marriage. She had dated Richard on and off, when he was free, and then, one lunchtime, he had come up with the idea of cohabiting, out of the blue it seemed. Their joint salaries could afford a much better place to live than the flats they each rented at the time. As soon as she returned to her office, Michelle did a brief, but excited, online search of some practical places near to work. She was thirty and old enough to know better, but up until then her life had been all work and no play, and her clock was ticking, as they say. She e-mailed her finds. He was uninterested in any of her suggestions and after a few days she began to think maybe he wasn’t serious. But the following Sunday he had turned up in his Jag and took her for a drive. Lunch, he said, at a country pub.

  She skipped lunch that day. There was no pub, but there was the crumbling Grade I listed house he had lined up to see. To Michelle it had looked like a castle after all the council houses she had lived in with her family, sharing a bedroom with Penny, fighting for space. Richard said it was the sort of place they deserved, considering the hours they put into work, and besides, with a house like this they would never have to upgrade.

  But it was too far from work, needed lots of attention, and in any case, they could not afford the deposit. So that was that, or so she thought.

  The next weekend they went up to Richard’s family home for lunch, which was a rare occurrence and not one to which Michelle looked forward. On her last visit the entire conversation revolved around a monologue by Richard’s father about his personal experience of trap-racing and horses until, fearing the onset of rigor mortis, Michelle excused herself on the pretext of finding the toilet. To her delight, she got lost and spent the only pleasant half-hour of the day talking to a girl from Barnsley in a maid’s uniform, who was having a quick cigarette in what she told her was the original pantry. This room, the girl had said, in a broad familiar accent, hadn’t been used since 1915 when the family had bought one of the first fridges to be imported into the country, from America she thought, or was it Germany? Michelle had almost been on the point of sharing her last cigarette with the Barnsley girl as the whole situation reminded her of being in the pavilion with Juliet when they had played hooky from assembly.

  Eventually she pulled herself away and returned to the drawing room to be greeted like a long lost child by Richard’s father, with the words:

  ‘Isn’t it about time you two settle down?’ His arm around her, his fingers exploring the little bit of extra weight she kept around her middle back then.

  On the next visit the same topic was brought up but this time, to Michelle’s surprise, Richard replied, ‘Talking of which, Dad, I have found the most perfect house,’ and he poured himself another whisky.

  ‘Well there you are. Time to make an honest woman of this girl.’ His fingers moving up to her ribcage trying to find their way further around the front.

  Michelle pulled free and reached out a hand on Richard’s forearm as his words were already slurring and he always insisted on being the driver on the way home.

  ‘That house is way out of our league.’ She smiled, mostly glad that she had established herself by Richard’s side at arm’s length from his father. Richard’s mother had helped herself to yet another sherry and sat down again without a word.

  ‘We could afford the mortgage payments if we only had the deposit.’ Richard had put his own arm around her shoulders at that point, his hand limp; she was a resting post.

  ‘Well come on then, how much is the deposit? I am happy to splash out for a wedding present.’ His father had laughed from his belly, refilling his own tumbler. ‘Mother, there’s no ice,’ he announced to his wife. Richard’s mother had gone to the door and opened it to quietly call someone called Brenda, who turned out to be the cigarette-smoking maid, and who was dispatched to bring ice.

  ‘My God, Richard, this is a day to celebrate, bridling a good, level-headed, down-to-earth girl like Michelle here. You have asked her then?’

  ‘Well not exactly but hey, you are up for it aren’t you Mich?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘So, is that a deal then, Dad? Actually, it would be a lot more useful to have the deposit as an engagement present.’

  ‘Ha! You think I don’t know you’re a slippery pup.’ He cast a brief glance at Michelle before patting a guiding hand on Richard’s back. ‘Let’s go into my office, my boy. We can smooth it all out in there.’ The two of them, disarmingly similar in height and build, sloped off, with the same gait, into his file-lined office and closed the door.

  Richard’s mother had offered her more sherry whilst filling her own glass. Michelle had declined, and they sat in silence listening to the voices behind the polished wooden door laughing and bantering until, eventually, the money was agreed. Father-in-law-to-be added a proviso on the gift, giving Richard five years to be properly wed. Richard came out with a signed contract.

  ‘Congratulations, my dear,’ Richard’s father had said before turning to Richard to say, ‘You have a good settling influence now; you will be a better man for it.’ His head jerking in her direction to indicate what, or rather, whom, he meant.

  Michelle had searched her feelings and her motives, but each time there was the seductive promise of stability. Richard’s excitement over the house that soon became their home was contagious. It really all had had the promise of happy ever after.

  They married five years later to the day.

  Adonis takes her hand and raises it to his lips, maintaining eye contact. Michelle wants to snatch her hand back but Dino is looking on, and for his sake she bears it. He grins as he releases her hand and Michelle, quite spontaneously, tells a lie.

  ‘Oh, you seem to have something green between your teeth. Lettuce perhaps?’ She smiles innocently. If only she had ever been brave enough to say such a thing to Richard. Ha!

  He colours in a second and puts a hand over his mouth as he sucks his teeth. Michelle is a little shocked at her own deceit.

  Adonis is at the end of his shift, and the three of them stroll around the harbour and up to the top of the hill that flanks the far side. Here a remote single-storey mansion had been turned into a disco, but the shutters are closed tight, the place looks dead.

  The noise jumps out at them as they open the door, the bouzouki in a refrain that the locals are singing along to, a line of people arm over shoulder snaking around the dance floor, flicking their feet out in front of them every so often, following the steps.

  ‘Ah, Adonis.’ Dino laughs. Michelle casts him an enquiring look and he points. Adonis has already joined the line of dancers, his head thrown back, lost in the music. Dino leads her to a table and orders a jug of wine from a passing waiter.

  As he holds out a chair for her to sit, she can feel herself pulled in the opposite direction. She stumbles as she is dragged bodily into the line, Adonis’ arm around her shoulders to support her, a girl in a blue dress on her other side. Michelle trots to avoid falling over her feet, performs a remarkable full twist, freeing herself from all arms, and slides smoothly back to the waiting chair.

  Dino applauds her manoeuvre.

  Once seated and with her glass filled, she watches the dancers’ feet. To her surprise, the steps look quite easy. The girl in blue is English, and each time she passes s
he makes comments in an East London twang as she gets the steps. As Adonis passes, he looks at Michelle and smiles, beckoning her with a head movement. She rolls her eyes; his slick moves lack sincerity. And yet, there is still something charismatic about him. She looks away. She labels him dangerous but only half thinks these thoughts and soon she is not thinking at all. It’s still hot and the wine flows down her throat like water. She watches the dancers snake out of the nightclub doors, each in the line looking forward, past Adonis, to see where they are going. There is a fumbling behind her and she sees Dino has risen from his chair and slid his way between a waiter and a large lady.

  He is grinning. They snake out into the night sky, through the open door, then weave between the olive trees. Adonis pulls into the line a man who is tethering a donkey for the night. He takes the lead for two or three steps before breaking away back to his work smiling, and the line snakes its way back inside. The musky aroma mixes with the wine in her system until Michelle is completely lost in the moment. Just conscious enough to feel carefree.

  By the bar the line breaks up, the dancers laughing, falling into seats, and the bouzouki player takes a well-earned rest. He downs a full glass of water and two shots of ouzo before lighting a cigarette.

  Adonis drops himself into a chair at their table, grinning, languid, smooth. Dino is chatting to a man of about his own age.

  Another bouzouki player joins the group of musicians: a younger man, shirt open down his chest, a medallion completing the cliché. When he begins to play, there is a different feel to the music.

  ‘Opa!’ Adonis expels. He stands again and takes to the centre of the dance floor, his arms wide, stretched out, at shoulder height, his wrists limp, fingers clicking, his head bowed. One by one, the other dancers shuffle to prop up the walls as Adonis commands the floor, his passion, his grace, his vitality entrancing all around him. He stomps and kicks, slaps his ankles behind him and slaps the floor in front of him. He spins and throws his head back, observing a tradition of generations past. His energy grows as the music gains momentum, his movements more aggressive. He is no longer Adonis the waiter. Instead he is a hunter, a barbarian, a Greek warrior, and proud of it.