Witnessing her consternation the Pappas offered her a drink from his hip flask of whisky watered down with holy water. Kyria Sisyphean declined his offer with a shrivelling look, telling him “the bible warns against carbuncling in drunkenness.”
“I think you mean carousing,” he automatically corrected, being used to her frequent malapropisms. “I was merely trying to calm your nerves, not lead you into debauchery.” This unbending woman could indeed try the patience of a saint with her inflexibly rigid moral codes and her proclivity for suspecting sin lurked behind every olive tree.
Throwing her knitting into a suitcase Kyria Sisyphean suddenly asked, “How am I supposed to get to Astakos? There’s only one bus a week out of the village and it went yesterday.”
“There are more regular buses from Prositos, I believe one leaves every day,” the Pappas said, referring to a more accessible village seven kilometres away.
“It’s a long walk to get to Prositos with a suitcase.”
“Indeed,” the Pappas replied, thinking if she hadn’t alienated everyone in the village with her piety and moral judgements someone might have been prepared to offer her a ride. As it was the best she could hope for was cadging a ride to the bus stop in Prositos on the donkey belonging to the old farmer she paid to chop wood.
“It’s not dignified,” she grumbled as the Pappas gave her a leg up onto the donkey. Waving her off with a sigh of relief he muttered “if a donkey was good enough for Christ it should be good enough for an insufferable old bag like you.”
He hoped young Iraklis made a full recovery from whatever was presumably ailing him and then asked heavenly forgiveness for sinfully wishing his recovery would take long enough to prevent Kyria Sisyphean returning to the village anytime soon.
Chapter 27
Deirdre Flashes A Randy Old Goat Herder
“I don’t believe it,” Quentin exclaimed, pouring over the statement from his American bank. “Just look at the size of the long distance telephone bill run up by those gabbling Greeks. And what’s this? The shipping costs for those one hundred Christmas tinners is three times higher than the cost of the tins. Deirdre, we will have to start cutting back on our expenses. You can forget all about that long weekend break in Athens at a five star hotel you’ve been hankering after.”
“But Quentin, you promised me a city mini break, I was so looking forward to it,” Deirdre pouted.
“There’s no need to get upset Deirdre, we just need to cut back temporarily. After all we do have two houses to run.”
“You’re the one being extravagant, running round buying a goat and an old banger.”
“Come now, the goat is an excellent guard dog and we needed a car. We couldn’t keep relying on Adonis to ferry us around and you flatly refused to ever set foot in Nitsa’s taxi again.”
“She held me hostage with her central locking for hours if you remember,” Deirdre reminded him with a shudder. Quentin well recalled the incident when Nitsa had refused to let Deirdre out of her old Mercedes taxi until Quentin returned from the cash point with the readies to cover the exorbitant fare. Whilst he had sprinted between cash machines trying to find one that hadn’t been completely emptied and actually had some notes left, Nitsa had gone off for a boozy lunch with Fotis, completely forgetting Deirdre was locked in the taxi in a heat wave. Quentin had ended up handing over all the notes the cash machine had reluctantly spewed to Bald Yannis who had rescued a sweating Deirdre by smashing the window of the old Mercedes taxi with a mallet, landing Quentin with another exorbitant repair bill at the garage.
When Adonis had suggested his cousin Adonis the mechanic had the perfect run-around to suit the Americans, Quentin had been a gullible buyer for the old banger that now spent most of its time back at the garage undergoing repairs.
“Well to make up for forgoing our mini break to Athens I will take you out for a scenic drive in the car today, my dear,” Quentin offered. “Melecretes recommended the most authentically traditional Greek coffee place in the village of Ankinara, quaintly named for an artichoke. He was positively raving about it and you know what high standards he has.”
“Oh I know how you love to visit every village named for a vegetable darling. I’ll just get my handbag,” Deirdre enthused.
As they drove out of the driveway Fotini appeared from the neighbouring house with the parrot clamped on her head, desperately trying to flag the pair down.
“Just ignore the old bag,” Quentin instructed, tooting his horn. The goat reared up at the sound of the loud noise, causing Fotini to scuttle back indoors in terror.
“It’s no good, I cant’s live next door to that disgusting creature any longer,” Fotini complained to Nitsa and Hattie.
“Now Fotini, that’s my son you’re insulting,” Hattie admonished.
“I was talkin’ about the malaka goat,” Fotini clarified.
“Oh, that disgusting creature. It does stink to high heaven,” Hattie agreed.
“It’s not right that yous is frightened to step outside yous own front door, all on account of them foreigners,” Nitsa sympathised.
“I’m sure they didn’t realise you have a fear of goats,” Melecretes volunteered, joining them.
“Everyone knows about Fotini’s goat phobia,” Nitsa said. “I cant’s believe Bald Yannis would pander to ‘em.”
“That bald malaka will do anything for money,” Fotini observed.
“Well not quite anything,” Nitsa argued, remembering how Bald Yannis had turned down her body. “Still, the point is, the goat ‘as to go or else Fotini is going to be a virtual prisoner in ‘er own ‘ome.”
Nitsa winced at the memory of how Fotis had plotted to keep her practically a prisoner in his home by scheming to marry her in order to gain an unpaid nursemaid for his skeletal old mother. She had put paid to his dastardly intentions and was not prepared to stand by and see Fotini imprisoned by the deliberately callous actions of Quentin.
Grabbing the axe Nitsa rushed outside. Paying no heed to the prickly pear plant she virtually vaulted over the neighbouring wall and set to severing the rope tethering the goat to the washing pole. Slapping the creature heartily on its rump she encouraged it to make a speedy escape from Quentin’s garden.
Quentin was blissfully unaware his prize goat costing one hundred Christmas tinners had been freed, as he drove up the steep winding road towards Ankinara. “Are you sure this old banger will make it?” Deirdre questioned as the engine coughed and gurgled.
“It just needs a drop of water,” Quentin guessed, pulling to a halt next to a natural spring water tap. The pair climbed out of the car to admire the spectacular view and waited for the engine to cool down. Pointing towards the crystal clear sea Deirdre observed, “Oh look, isn’t that Gorgeous Yiorgos’ fishing boat? It’s quite a way out from shore.”
“Perhaps he’ll bring fresh fish to be cooked in a lemon dress to the taverna this evening.”
“So your economy drive won’t prevent us from eating out,” Deirdre sighed in relief.
“Well we have to be sociable,” Quentin quipped.
“I hear Soula is having a dinner party, but we haven’t been invited,” Deirdre told him.
“Well that’s a relief. Would you really want to spend an evening stuck in the company of Bald Yannis? He’d probably carve the meat with his chainsaw.”
“Don’t be silly dear, Bald Yannis is a vegetarian.”
“Not since he developed a phantom pregnancy in sympathy with Soula,” Quentin laughed.
“Good grief Quentin, how long have you been keeping that bit of juicy gossip to yourself? I had no idea.”
“Well next time you see him have a good look at his baby bump and swollen ankles.”
“I will have to think of an excuse to go in the hardware shop,” Deirdre mused.
“You can always buy one of his hideous old lady dresses.”
“Are you suggesting I am completely tasteless, dear?” Deirdre asked, smoothing imaginary creases out of her twi
n set. “Has the engine cooled down enough to carry on yet, Quentin? I really do need to stop for a bathroom.”
“That reminds me, I won’t be a jiffy,” Quentin said, making a quick dash towards the nearest olive tree.
“It’s all right for you, I can’t just pop behind an olive tree with all those goats watching,” Deirdre complained as Quentin re-emerged, zipping his flies.
“Cross your legs dear, we must be very near to the coffee place Melecretes raved about,” Quentin advised, starting the car.
Five minutes later the American pair pulled into the tiny village of Ankinara. “Are you sure this is the place? There’s no sign at all of any tavernas or coffee places,” Deirdre asked.
“Mel said it was just set back from the road and was very traditional looking. This must be it,” Quentin said spying the house Melecretes and Nitsa had gate-crashed.
Deirdre wasn’t convinced the scruffy looking stone house was actually open for coffee but her bursting bladder made the decision for them and they rushed inside.
“Kalimera, two of your finest coffees please,” Quentin said to the scowling peasant woman dressed in an odd assortment of homemade rags whose neck was encased in an unyielding grubby surgical collar.”
“And which way to the toilet?” Deirdre asked, rushing off in the direction the woman pointed. Deirdre groped her way down a dimly lit corridor ending abruptly in a door that led outside. Picking her way across a muddy yard full of hens and roosters she arrived at an outside toilet with a rather dubious door only opening outwards. With no sign of a light switch Deirdre was forced to leave the door ajar. As she sat down a gust of wind blew the door wide open, leaving her embarrassingly exposed to an audience of goats and an old goat herder who chuckled as he handed her a roll of toilet paper, saying “yous will be needin’ this.”
“I need a large brandy to go with this coffee,” Deirdre demanded on her return, looking like a reject from a horror movie as she dabbed blood from her face and neck. “That was the most primitive toilet I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.”
She blushed scarlet as the old goat herder entered the room, pulling up a seat beside her, slapping a hand on her thigh and winking lasciviously. Announcing he’d pay for her brandy, he said “it’s the least I can do after yous flashed me so delectably.”
Removing his hand from her thigh Deirdre smiled nervously and knocked back the brandy. Not only had she inadvertently flashed her glow-in-the dark silk panties at this randy old goat herd but she had also been attacked by a swarm of blood sucking mosquitoes breeding in the leaking toilet cistern.
The old goat herd was not so easily deterred and turning to Quentin he asked, “Are yous ‘ere on holiday?”
“Yes, we have a holiday house down in Rapanaki,” Quentin told him.
“Ah, a lovely village, I used to bring the goats down before my knees got all arthritic,” the goat herder reminisced.
The glum peasant woman grabbed the goat herder by the collar and pulled him to one side, hissing, “Father, ‘ow many times ‘ave I told you not to chat up the tourists I’m trying to rip off. ‘Ow am I supposed to come out with my line ‘does I looks like a taverna’ if yous is treating it like one?”
“Yous knows ‘ow I like to be sociable, bein’ a goat herder is a lonely business,” the old man snapped. “Now stops yous moanin’ an’ go an’ fetch some more brandies for my guests.”
Quentin launched into a description of the sturdy looking goat he had just acquired. “Yous is a lucky man. A fine lookin’ woman on yous arm an’ an horny goat in yous garden. Years back, before I met ‘er mother,” the goat herder said, tilting his head towards his scowling daughter, “I ‘ad designs on a fine lookin’ woman down in Rapanaki, but it wasn’t to be ‘cos she had a mortal fear of goats.”
“Fotini,” Quentin and Deirdre declared in unison.
“Aye Fotini, that were ‘er name. I ‘aven’t seen ‘er in many a long year. Is she still alive then?”
“Alive and kicking, next door to us,” Quentin revealed.
“Well blow me, what a small old world it is. Yous will ‘ave to remember me to ‘er, the name is Pedros,” he said as Quentin and Deirdre raised their eyebrows at the coincidence of Fotini naming her only son after this thigh groping old goat herder.
Chapter 28
Goat To The Boat
“’Ere pass up that stuffed gonorrhoea,” Fat Christos called down to Iraklis. “I cant’s believe mother is insisting we put all these stuffed microbes up on the top shelf with the naked statues.”
“Perhaps we should just market them as cuddly toys and dispense with their actual diseased names,” Iraklis suggested.
“Yous could be onto something there, but they is meant to be educational,” Fat Christos praised his new helper. “Ere Masha, would yous be more inclined to buy this yellow stuffed toy if it wasn’t called ‘herpes’?”
Mail order Masha was only half-listening and told Fat Christos, “If yous ‘ave picked up something nasty yous ‘ad better go to the ‘ospital. I’ve been telling Vasilis he should go an’ get himself checked out; he’s not been looking too healthy these last few days.” Masha was worried about that old fool Vasilis; he’d been too exhausted to climb on the donkey earlier. She’d sent him back to bed with a bowl of borscht, telling him to conserve his energy for Soula’s dinner party that evening.
Soula, all in a flutter about hosting her first ever dinner, was getting on Bald Yannis’ nerves. He decided to cycle over to Quentin’s house to see if the Christmas tinners had arrived for his apocalypse kits and to breathe in some fresh sea air to counter his all day morning sickness. He was just approaching the house when he spotted the goat he had taken so much trouble to deliver to Quentin wandering down the lane. Grabbing the end of the severed rope still dangling from the goat’s neck he tied it to his handlebars and redelivered the creature to Quentin’s garden, tethering it to the washing pole and sticking a bill for his trouble under the door when he realised no one was home.
“I dont’s believe it,” Fotini cried in horror when she spotted the goat once again in residence next door. “That disgustin’ creature ‘as back in K-Went-In’s garden.”
“Leave it to me,” Nitsa shouted, once again grabbing the axe and scaling the garden wall. Despite her gallant effort in once again freeing the goat, the creature refused to budge, settling down to hungrily devour the rest of Deirdre’s vegetable plot. “We’ll ‘ave to get Pedros to come and shift it quick in his pick-up before the Americans get ‘ome,” Fotini shouted over the wall.
“What is it now mother?” Prosperous Pedros snapped down the phone.
“There’s no need to take that tone,” Fotini reprimanded her son.
“Sorry mother, but the phone has been going all afternoon. Every time I answer it there is nothing but heavy breathing.”
“Well, never mind that, get yourself over ‘ere now, it’s an emergency,” Fotini commanded.
Grumbling to himself Prosperous Pedros climbed in the pick-up, wondering if his mother’s emergency involved blowing up the deflated air bed or driving to the shop for chocolate supplies to satisfy her insatiably sweet tooth. “I must remember to tell ‘er to stop letting herself into my ‘ouse, I’m perfectly capable of doin’ my own housework an’ darning,” he muttered. He could not imagine why his mother had suddenly taken it upon herself to become motherly but was determined to put a stop to it. It seemed that every time he went out his mother must have popped round, no doubt in Nitsa’s taxi, to scrub and polish, and rummage through his belongings.
“’Ave yous lost yous marbles, why on earth would I be coming round to clean yous ‘ouse Pedro? Dont’s stand there accusing me of such nonsense,” Fotini screeched when Pedros told her to stop. “Fancy thinkin’ I’m breaking into yous ‘ouse to do yous laundry when I’ve got enough on my plate keeping on top of this place at my advanced years.”
“Well the ‘ouse ain’t cleanin’ itself,” said a truly perplexed Pedros. He could think of
no other explanation for the sudden transformation of his cottage into a germ free zone.
“Never mind that now Pedro, yous ‘ave to do somethin’ about that malaka goat of K-Went-Ins,” Nitsa cried. “He couldn’t even be bothered to tether it up properly an’ now look, it’s in our garden chomping down all the best horta.”
“I could take it back next door,” Pedros offered.
“That wont’s do at all Pedro, K-Went-In’s not responsible enough to ‘ave charge of a living creature an’ yous mother is nearly deranged with terror.”
“What does yous suggest I do with it then?” Pedros asked, desperate to escape to the kafenion for a peaceful coffee.
“Cant’s yous stick it in yous boat for now? Just ‘urry up and get rid of it before them gormless twits gets back.”
“Just for one night, an’ then yous had better think of something else. I cant’s be ‘aving a floating goat leavin’ droppings in my boat, it will put the fish off,” Pedros gave in, driving away with the goat. He failed to notice the strange looking woman furtively hiding behind an olive tree who had arrived just in time to eavesdrop the last part of his conversation.
“Ooh my husband, I must help you out of this unwanted dilemma. If you don’t want that goat in your boat I will get rid of it for you, sweet Pedro,” crazy Koula exclaimed to herself. Now on a mission she turned towards Astakos and quickened her pace. Introducing herself to her new mother-in-law could wait for another day, the deluded woman decided.
Chapter 29
Glamping For The Gullible
“There was no need to go to so much trouble,” Bald Yannis pronounced, surveying the sumptuous spread of home-made bread, olives and Greek salad Soula had laid out in readiness for their guests and calculating how much of his hard earned cash it had cost him.
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