by Sara Alexi
Abby sobs. She doesn’t want to let go. Stella smells safe, feels safe.
Chapter 17
After moments that stretch into hours and back into moments again, Stella gently releases Abby.
She looks behind her and outside.
‘He may come back. It is best if you don’t see him again.’
Abby sniffs and wipes her nose, running her hand up it from fingertips to palm. Stella, without thought, pulls some kitchen roll from under the counter and tears off a strip and hands it to her.
‘Come on, get your things.’ With nimble fingers Stella turns off the chip fryer and moves all the food from the top of the grill into a dish. Abby has her bag and stands waiting.
‘What are you doing?’ Her gaze follows Stella’s rapid movements.
‘Making sure it’s safe to leave.’ Stella checks out of the window before she opens the till and takes what money is there.
‘You are leaving too?’ Abby asks. ‘But this is your shop.’
‘Your safety, my safety, he has done this twice now, there is nothing to stop him …’ She doesn’t bother to finish her sentence as she hurries her habitual closing-up jobs.
The street glare is blinding. The sun bounces off everything white. Stella closes the double doors to the takeaway, locks them and pockets the key. The two of them march through the square and turn as if to go home.
‘Is your home a good idea?’ Abby asks as she looks behind them, trotting to keep up with Stella’s pace.
‘We are not going home.’ Stella’s direction turns towards the church, but on seeing the doors closed she changes direction again and heads out of the village.
‘Where are we going?’ Abby is panting, her thin muslin trousers sticking to her with the sweat the brisk pace is producing.
‘This morning someone reminded me of a place I thought was a dream.’ She turns up the track. ‘We will be safe there while I think and figure out what we must do.’
‘Could we go to the police?’ Abby’s eyes are wide, her breath is fast.
‘Stavros’ best friend is a policeman.’ Stella hesitates before her next sentence, which comes out more quietly. ‘They would not believe what a gypsy says over what he says.’
‘What about my word?’ Abby stops walking.
Stella stops too and turns to her.
‘I am afraid with those short white shorts you had on they would say you had encouraged him.’
‘But they are designer, everyone is wearing them.’
‘But not in the village, and not when they are trying to convince the police that someone else has done wrong.’ Stella begins to walk again, but not as fast. ‘I met a girl some years ago in town. She was just sitting having a coffee. She looked sad so I was nice to her. She was half Greek, half English. I did not speak English then.’ Stella lets out a brief laugh but there is little joy in it. ‘She said she was chased by a man who tried to grab at her, on a beach that was far away from people. When she went to the police they asked her if she had been sunbathing without a top on. She said no but she had been under the water without a top, which was why she had gone to a beach so far away. “Ah,” said the policeman. “So you lead him on, what do you expect?” and that was that.’
Abby gasps. ‘That is so sexist!’
‘But this is Greece.’
The track steepens and Stella puffs as she tries to maintain her pace. As always, the exertion gives her the illusion of power. She stops to let Abby catch up.
‘Do you not do any sport at school?’ Stella notices her labouring. Abby smiles and pushes on her knees as she climbs. Her breathing eases as the way levels slightly. The two of them turn with the path, from the gully, up the spine of the hill, onwards until they are at the top.
The panorama lifts Stella’s spirits.
‘Wow. Awesome. Wouldn’t you love to live up here?’ Abby rubs one of the bruises on her arm.
The whole of the plain is laid out in one big expanse. The village is a small cluster of red and burnt-umber roofs at their feet, the orange trees neatly lined up in field enclosures. Field, after field, after field, to the towns dotted around the coast, to the blue mountains, the fruit dominates.
Abby brushes off an upturned wooden crate by the track’s edge.
‘Handy,’ she remarks, and sits on it.
‘The goat herders have brought it up for exactly that purpose,’ Stella replies. She is no longer looking at the view. She has found a stick and is beating at some bushes.
‘What are you doing?’ Abby stands.
‘Looking for a track to take us to those bushes over there behind that rocky bit.’ She points to a small summit further on.
‘Well, there’s one there that leads down.’ Abby stands to investigate. ‘Look, it goes back up further on, behind those bushes, but then it disappears.’
In Stella’s mind the forgotten pictures are like yesterday, her legs moving fast down the hill, running with excitement, ahead of her father; her shoelace undone, her father calling to her, him bending down and, with the greatest of care, tying up her laces, slowly, so she can watch and learn, until one day she does it by herself without being shown. Her mother had thought it was a miracle.
‘I remember! I have always looked to go straight across to the rocks from here, but now I remember.’
Abby is transfixed looking at Stella: her eyes are shining, her tense facial muscles relaxing, her brow lifting. She looks like a different person. Like herself but ten years younger.
‘Where are we going?’ Abby asks as Stella follows the track.
‘My Baba would bring me up here.’ Her tone hardens just a little, but she continues. ‘I was reminded of it this morning. It is an old goat shed, but my Baba had no goats. He would come up here and make candles and soap.’ Stella is ahead of Abby and stops while she catches up. ‘The candles were just for use in the home. He had a metal table with holes in so he could make a few at a time. The soap smelt so lovely, lemon mostly.’
‘Why up here?’
‘I don’t know. Most men go to the kafenio, but he used to come here. Not often, once, twice a year, for a few days in a row, and he come home smelling of wax, honey and lemons.’
The track peters out. They have reached the rocky outcrop and there is nothing but bushes. The track has released old memories in Stella.
‘We go around the back,’ she says.
Abby takes the lead and circumnavigates the bushes that grow up against the rocks.
‘Oh, look here.’ Abby ducks into an opening just the height of a goat. Stella remembers the entrance being higher, an arch of green, her Baba had not crouched. But that had been years ago, there are many more bushes grown since then.
She hears a squeal and pushes through the last bit of growth to where Abby stands upright in front of a lean-to shed. Stella remembers the slope of the roof, hanging onto the rocks at its top, pushing back the bushes near the ground.
The door has a rock in front of it to secure it.
Stella pushes it away with her foot and enters her dream. It smells of goats.
Abby waits at the door until the goat smell is not so strong to her. Stella moves, but slowly, memories giving everything significance and importance.
The sloping window in the roof creates a lozenge of light on the floor. Goat droppings form a carpet. They hadn’t been there back then. The candle table has been moved, but it is still there, up against the opposite wall now, the soap frames still hanging from the beams above.
‘It is all more, how you say in English, not made by factory …’ She looks to Abby.
‘Hand-made? Rustic?’ Abby is looking at the candle-making table.
‘”Hand-made” I think sounds right, this “rustic” I do not know.’ Stella picks up the melting pot. She remembers it being much bigger. ‘More “hand-made” than I remembered.’ She outlines with her finger a patch that is welded to the base of the pot.
‘It’s like walking back in time.’ Abby examines everything in the roo
m. There is a second table, a fireplace in the back wall. She looks up the chimney and sees the blue sky. There are heavy iron cauldrons stacked in a corner. ‘This would be trashed in England,’ she states.
‘What is this “trashed”?’ Stella has found a stool and sits leaning against the wall by the door, looking around this drab, dusty version of her dream. It does not hold the answers she thought it would. Her face muscles sag a little.
‘You know, people would come in and break everything and spray-paint their names on the walls. There would be beer cans on the floor and it would smell of pee.’
‘P? The letter “P”?’
‘No, pee, piss, urine, wee.’
‘Ah, ah, better it smells of goat,’ Stella chuckles before frowning. ‘Why would people do that, what for?’
‘Not sure. What’s this?’ Abby holds up a heavy pair of scissors with half-moon blades. With a hand on each half she tries to open them but they are rusted closed.
‘Oh, I remember those. My Baba would hold the candle and let me cut the candle string.’
‘Wicks,’ Abby helps, but Stella falls silent for several moments, time playing games, lost to the present before coming to and continuing.
‘But they weren’t for candle string, they were for cutting the candles themselves, make the bottoms flat. I didn’t have the strength for that when I was a child.’
‘When did your dad stop coming, then?’
‘I am not sure. I don’t really remember coming here as a teenager, only as a small child. But I did have gifts of soap still, on my name day, right until I left home, when I was twenty-two, when I married Stavros.’
Abby’s right hand comes up to hold the bruise on her left arm. Stella moves a wooden box next to the wall, inviting her to sit.
‘He has my passport, did you know?’ Abby studies the floor, sitting very still.
Stella shrugs. ‘Maybe it is best to tell the authorities you lost it.’
Abby begins to cry.
‘Ti? Ti einai. What, what is it, do they hurt a lot?’ Stella puts a gentle hand on her bruises.
‘My passport, they won’t let me go home without my passport.’ Abby gives in to her tears.
‘Explain to them,’ Stella replies, but moves her stool closer to Abby’s and puts and arm around her.
‘Do you have a passport?’ Abby asks, looking up, surprise on her face.
‘No. I never have a passport.’ Stella strokes Abby’s hair back to see her face.
‘They cost a lot of money and take ages to get, and someone who has known you for seven years or something has to sign your photograph to show it is you, and I haven’t know anyone in Greece for longer than four days which means I can’t go home.’ Abby takes in a big breath, and as she exhales she cries again in earnest.
‘Shh, my little one, shh, not to cry. We will fix this. He is not so clever. Your passport will be in the car cupboard …’
‘Car cupboard? Oh! Glove compartment,’ Abby chuckles through her tears.
‘Car glove cupboard, in the drawer under the sink in the kitchen or in his back pocket. He puts things nowhere else. We will get it back.’ She pauses. ‘Glove cupboard like gloves for the hands?’
‘Yes.’ Abby’s tears are subsiding, Stella fishes a napkin from her ample pocket and hands it to her. ‘Bastard.’ Abby expletes before taking the tissue.
‘What is this “bars-tard?”’ Stella asks as she takes from her same pocket a mini bottle of ouzo. She takes a nip before offering it to Abby, who shakes her head as she blows her nose.
‘It means he is a twat but worse, meaner, nastier.’ Abby looks at Stella, no longer crying but her eyes liquid with tears.
‘Ah ha,’ Stella says slowly, but she has no idea what “twat” means either, although she can guess the general idea.
‘What are we going to do?’ Abby says, looking around.
Stella looks at the candle-making table. ‘My Baba brought me up here. This was his private dream. I think he liked the quiet and the steady work. But before we got here we would look at the view and he would say that I could do whatever I wanted to do.’ Stella sighs. ‘So I thought here I would find an answer. But all I find is memories. Which hurt.’ She takes another breath. ‘He was not my father.’
‘Sorry?’ Abby looks at Stella, puzzled.
‘I am not half gypsy, I am all gypsy. “Dirty gypsy”,’ She quotes, her lips thin, tight. ‘I went to the lawyer to see “how the land lies” with the shop and the house and he told me by accident. My Baba is not my father, a gypsy is my father’.
A silence follows until Abby says, ‘Wow, harsh. Are you ok?’ She wipes the last traces of tears from her eyes.
‘I was very upset, but then I met some gypsies.’ Stella takes out the ouzo bottle again and has another nip and sits, legs outstretched, her hand holding the bottle, resting on her knee.
‘What happened?’ Abby asks.
‘They didn’t see me as a gypsy.’ Abby continues to look at her, waiting for more. Stella jolts from her stare to turn to her. ‘They are proud people the gypsies, not all rough and “bars-tards” like my family.’ She offers Abby the bottle again. Abby shakes her head but continues to look at her. ‘The woman gypsy tells me that to be a gypsy must be in your heart. So I think what is in my heart. My Baba, my real Baba, he is in my heart.’ She looks around the room and then taps her chest. ‘He is in here, and so is the shop.’ She looks at Abby, whose eyes are swimming with tears again. ‘And you are there.’ She smiles and takes her hand. ‘And I have found Mitsos is there.’
‘Mitsos? The old farmer with one arm?’ Abby cannot keep the surprise from her voice.
‘Yes, the old farmer with one arm,’ she says deliberately.
‘Oh. Yes, ok, I can see it. He is very kind.’ Abby backtracks.
‘He is kind and thoughtful and he has lovely eyes, and he is tall and broad and not all his hair is grey.’ Stella screws the top onto the mini ouzo bottle and puts it back in her pocket. ‘And if he is in my heart and part of who I am then I am not a bad person. But I will tell you who is not there - Stavros.’
Abby’s face tenses.
‘Do not worry, my little one. In this searching of my heart when I found Mitsos and you and Vasso, I discovered something. There is a difference between love and, how you say, when you have many thanks for something?’
‘Gratitude?’ Abby suggests.
‘Yes, I will learn this word,’ Stella says quite loudly. ‘A difference between love and gratitude. For Stavros I never felt anything except gratitude and maybe a little bit of “eros”, how you say “sex”, when we were younger. But not love. He has never given me reason to love him.’
‘Gratitude for what?’ Abby has taken Stella’s hand in both of hers and is playing with her fingers.
‘I think he stopped the teasing for me being gypsy, when I married him. But now I am not so sure. When I saw the gypsy, so proud, you could not tease her. So now I am thinking that the teasing stopped because I had pride, because I walk with my head up after I married him.’ Stella sighs and sits silently for a second. ‘I think the teasing at school was just kids, but because I let my head drop the children they did it more and it became how it was.’ She pauses. ‘From my Mama,’ she clarifies, ‘she always walked with her head dropped. She never looked anyone in the eye.’ Again she pauses. ‘Because of her family, they were not nice.’ She takes a big breath and pushes herself back on the stool to straighten her back, still holding tightly to Abby’s hand. ‘And here I was about to follow the same thing with Stavros, watching my head drop year after year with how he treats me! I thought I wanted everything to stay the same. And then you came. You came and changed everything.’ She pats Abby’s hand.
‘Me?’ Abby swallows.
‘Yes, you. If you had not come along none of this would have happened, it would just have continued,’ Stella says.
‘Oh, I am so sorry …’ Abby begins. A tear forms but does not fall.
‘Sorry? Why sor
ry? You are not understanding. You came and took the curtains down so I could see. I am very sorry that you have the bruises but now it is open we can all see. Now we make the changes.’ Stella disentangles her fingers from Abby’s to embrace her. As she holds her tight, her eyes glaze over with bliss. Her hold becomes more fierce until a new kind of tears fall from her eyes. They finally, gently separate.
‘I think this is how I would feel if I had a child,’ Stella says. Her face is open and relaxed.
Abby’s cheeks redden. She does not say anything, looking to the floor.
‘You know what I think?’ Stella asks. Abby shakes her head. ‘I think that if I had a child things would have been so different. I mean of course they would have been different, but I think that I would have been thinking of the child and not myself. I would not have been thinking what people thought of me being gypsy. I would have held my head up with pride in my child. I think I would have talked to other mothers and forgotten my birth. I would be a mother, not a gypsy. I wonder how long I would have put up with Stavros’ way of talking if I had a child?’ She looks around the room. ‘So!’ Stella’s voice has energy. ‘What will we do?’
‘I need my passport,’ Abby replies
‘Oh yes, ok, we get your passport, and then?’
‘Maybe I need to go home, I feel alone here. The only person who speaks English is you.’
‘Ok, we can fix that now, come. Enough of this dirty shed.’
Chapter 18
Juliet makes more tea and takes it outside on a tray with another box of tissues.
‘So Sonia met him online?’ she clarifies.
‘Sort of, well yes. She was a friend of a friend on Facebook. Dad found her comments funny and they friended,’ Abby says. She looks at the pomegranate trees, their black trunks starkly silhouetted against the whitewashed wall, flowers planted underneath in the shade, pinks, purples and white.
Stella sits silently, her head turning to look at Juliet or Abby as they speak. Occasionally she looks up to the view of the hills beyond the garden wall. The craggy summits call out to be climbed.