A Theatre for Dreamers

by Polly Samson

  Thanks to Leonard, Jimmy performs trite poetry to me all the way home and back down to the harbour at Kamini. ‘Erica, I cherish her, I can’t help but stare at her …’ is about the level of it. It makes me happy enough as we goose each other up and down the twisting steps and through the moonlit alleys. He starts singing the song that had been on the radio but he switches the words so it’s: ‘You’ll never find anyone else like me for you,’ and just then I notice an undarned hole in the elbow of his blue Guernsey sweater and it comes to me like a blessing and a curse that this is likely to be true.

  All is quiet at the harbour, not even the soul of a fisherman. We wander up the mole to confirm that Panayiotis’s fishing boat hasn’t set out without him, but there it is, snug with ropes and nets, bobbing sleepily at its moorings.

  Jimmy tells me that as soon as he has money he will buy us our own boat and paint it pea-green. ‘Before we set sail I’d better have another go at mending your sweater then,’ I say as we wander back to the port. ‘You’re going to need it for winters here.’ And I think of the sea raging all around and imagine the glow from the charcoal pan in our cave of a bedroom.

  We can hear music from the tannoys inside Lagoudera. Jimmy says we’ll stop for a drink. The bar has recently been opened and we’ve been only once, put off by the smart weekenders from Athens and the people from yachts who don’t seem to mind paying four times normal prices. There’s something rowdy going on, by the sound of it, but we’re distracted by four bodies lined up at the edge of the harbour. From a distance they might be corpses.

  There they lie with the kerbstones for pillows, Leonard and Marianne and Axel and Patricia, all in a row, close as sardines. It isn’t until we hear Leonard’s voice that we realise they are stargazing. Leonard is tracing a constellation with his fingertip. ‘So small between the stars, so large against the sky,’ he says. Marianne’s crab-shell jewel is gone from her forehead, leaving a dent; her knees are bent so the orange dress falls away from her thighs. She lies sandwiched between Leonard and Axel and though we hurry and try not to stare I can tell that Axel’s body veers from his wife and like a plant seeking light to Patricia at his other side.

  Across the agora there are drinkers outside Katsikas. Panayiotis and the rest of his crew are there and I shrink when I see Charmian at her table with George and Chuck, Gordon, Patrick and Nancy. This lot wear their winters on the island like some sort of merit badge; they have more signals and in-jokes than the Freemasons, can close in and have someone judged to be a pissant or a bludger and blackballed in the wink of an eye.

  Charmian is talking, waving her arms around, and the others are laughing away at whatever their Queen is telling them. I watch her stand to leave, which seems to involve Patrick crawling at her feet and fumbling in her skirts. Before I can stop him, Jimmy is waving and she comes hopping towards us with one sandal on her foot, the other in her hand.

  She might be attempting a deck in choppy water. ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ I hiss. ‘She’s drunk. Take me home.’

  ‘Erica, stop!’ Charmian drops the sandal, holds out her arms. ‘I’m so sorry. A nightcap? Let me explain?’

  Twelve

  I go marketing with Charmian as though nothing has happened. It’s a fresh morning and I’m light as the skittish breeze that sets the port bunting and flags dancing. Charmian fills her basket with globe artichokes, a vegetable I’ve only ever seen in paintings, and I offer to run ahead to the butcher to secure some reasonably lean shanks of lamb for us to mince for dolmades. She promised last night to teach me how to make them. She’s designated today ‘a family day’ and she told me that I should come and join in, that of course I’m welcome any time they’re not working, though I must never again enter the room when they are. Her hat is wide-brimmed, straw, with a faded green ribbon the exact same shade as her eyes. Only the dark shadows beneath them betray something of yesterday’s binge.

  ‘Shane and Martin sleep the sleep of hibernating bears when they don’t have school, so it would be marvellous, if you’re sure you haven’t got something better to do with your time.’

  When she smiles at me I realise I no longer notice the missing tooth.

  ‘I’ve completely lost track of who’s coming for dinner tonight so I’ll just have to make enough tucker for the masses,’ she says, showing me the list she’s scribbled on a cigarette carton. She pulls her shirt collar up against the sun and, though her shirt is patched and faded, her glamour persists. Even the knotty old shoelace she uses to tie back her hair seems chic.

  She could use an extra pair of hands and mine are available. Jimmy has been out all night dynamiting fish with Panayiotis so I won’t be seeing much of him anyway. I take one of her baskets.

  ‘Jimmy says I’m a distraction so I’ve got all the time in the world.’

  From beneath the brim of her hat Charmian shakes her head at me and tuts but is sidetracked by a woman who calls out to her in a surprisingly plummy British voice. ‘Crikey,’ Charmian says, pointing to her belly. ‘Again, so soon?’

  Charmian’s friend Angela is a goddess of fertility with long, flowing hair and turquoise jewellery that matches her eyes. She wedges a baby with white-blond curls across her bump while a second curly-haired scamp emerges from her skirts sucking a thumb.

  The house the family are in is falling down around their ears but Angela seems remarkably calm. Charmian calls out to Mikhailis, who might know of somewhere else they can stay. I leave them and head for the butcher, thinking only that it would be preferable if my babies inherited Jimmy’s strong curls and not my lanky locks. I dream on: Jimmy’s project reaching fruition, his paintings on a gallery wall, his name in the newspapers, a fabulous book. I even allow myself an impassioned dedication.

  Apostolis the butcher is clearly an artist too. In his window this morning a new tableau: six tiny flayed lambs propped in a line, their limbs arranged like high-kicking dancers on a stage strewn with rosemary and hibiscus flowers. I feel a pang for Apostolis in his bloodstained apron.

  ‘But goodness, he’ll turn everyone vegetarian if he keeps this up,’ Charmian says, returning to my side.

  I have long lost my squeamishness. We both agree that Apostolis’s artistic expression is more interesting than the harbour views and colourful little boats that have started popping up on polite easels in the streets.

  This island has no use for the prissy. I’ve watched children feeding flowers to pet lambs and a few days later licking their lips and holding out their bread as fat bubbled and dripped from the paschal pet turning on the spit in the street. Twice a week we hear the slaughterhouse screams. We see blood and entrails sluicing into the sea. The mutton and goats arrive with the market boats; sometimes they break free and run among the café tables on their way through the port: ‘Oh look! This one has the eyes of Sophia Loren!’ We no longer take meat for granted.

  We walk back to Charmian’s weighed down by baskets. Straight away there’s a commotion. Booli’s crying, Shane’s shrieking, clattering feet on the stairs. We struggle in with enough food and wine to feed the entire foreign colony for a week as Shane flies at us, Booli behind her screaming in Greek.

  Booli grips Shane’s skirt. He stamps a foot, insists, ‘Tha ertho kai ego, tha ertho kai ego,’ as Shane tries to unfasten his fingers.

  ‘Booli wants to come and ruin my day,’ she cries, attempting to make a break for it, whipping a towel from a heap of laundry on her way. ‘Rita’s uncle from Athens is taking us all on his boat around to St Nicholas’s Bay.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Charmian says, grabbing her arm before she makes her getaway.

  Shane glares from beneath her fringe. ‘I already told you, Mana. You never listen. I might as well talk to myself.’

  ‘Mazí sas! Mazí sas!’ Booli launches himself at his sister but she steps sideways and he crashes head-first against the well. Charmian is calm as a practised nurse. She hacks ice from the icebox and wraps it in a cloth. Booli kicks his legs at her while she holds it to his head. Sha
ne stands over them with her hands on her hips and he looks up at her, his eyes trembling with tears until she sighs and holds out her hand and Charmian runs to find his sandals and hats for them both.

  ‘Well, so much for my family day,’ she says after they’ve gone. ‘Still, if it’s the Katsikas uncle I’m thinking of, they’ll be roasting a goat on the beach so they’ll get their tummies full as googs.’

  She makes me promise to go to St Nicholas’s Bay as soon as anyone with a boat offers me a ride. ‘The beach is all smooth pebbles, and so marvellous for swimming,’ she says and sighs as though such things can only be memories for her now.

  I follow her outside to pick vine leaves. Beyond the high courtyard walls the island bells ring: mountain bells from churches and goat bells and the jingling of passing donkeys. The light falls tender green through the leaves of vines that are already beaded by clusters of grapes. An ancient lemon tree is splinted but defiantly bountiful with both blossom and fruit. The scent of ripe plums from a pair of trees is attracting wasps. There are tiny tomatoes on straggly vines and aubergines hanging white and surprising as goose eggs, mint and basil running wild, a rosemary bush so vigorous it has split its wine-barrel container, and stone urns and blue-painted concrete which tumble with bright nasturtiums and herbs and geraniums that smell of attar of roses.

  Charmian stands on an upturned bucket and motions for me to hold up my skirt to collect the plums. ‘Time to grab these before the local urchins come scrambling down the walls. We lost them all the first year we had the house. George sulked for a week,’ she says, taking a bite from one.

  We bring in the plums and she slides a long-player from its sleeve, ‘Brahms, I hope you don’t mind,’ and takes it to the gramophone. ‘Might as well be uplifted by tremendous beauty as we work.’

  Brahms’s Fourth swells, and I’m swept along, knowing that I will forever be transported by this piece of music and will always think of her when I hear it. She shows me how to lay out the green vine leaves with their veins facing up. We mince a great slab of mutton and fry and chop onions and herbs. The smell makes my stomach rumble as the mixture cools on the sill while from our fingertips we tumble flour with sheep’s butter. ‘Keep it light, keep it cool,’ Charmian says. ‘Use water from the ice tray when you’re ready to turn it into dough.’

  I’m useless with the rolling pin.

  ‘Did Connie never show you how?’ she says, ungluing my pastry from the table. ‘Sorry, that was thoughtless.’ She bites her lip and gestures for me to hold out my hands for a dusting of flour.

  I tell her about Mrs Dabbs who always made our pies and dinners.

  ‘Because she preferred cooking to cleaning.’

  ‘Oh dear yes, I remember Mrs Dabbs …’ Charmian retrieves the tea towel she keeps draped over her shoulder and wipes her hands. ‘She was my char too. She had the most appalling rheumatism. I always felt I should clear up before she came …’ For a moment I think she might hug me but she turns to the window. ‘It must have been wretchedly dull for you in gloomy old Bayswater. Mrs Dabbs and you stuck there taking care of your dad. I know he was a difficult sod.’

  I concentrate extra hard on rolling the pastry. ‘He was in and out of hospital when we were little. His routines had to be kept the same, day in and day out. She was never off duty, always careful not to set him off. Sometimes it was a relief to go back to school. But after she died, I wasn’t going away to school any more and it was me trapped there walking on eggshells.’

  ‘I certainly don’t blame you for running away.’

  I nod, not able to meet her eyes. ‘The only good thing that happened to me after Mum died was Jimmy and it all came to a head with Dad when he tried to stop me seeing him. And then your book came through the post and, well, here we all are.’

  I can tell she’s pleased when I bring her book into it. We talk a while of Jimmy and I don’t imagine she winces several times as I tell her our plans. She’s quite outspoken on account of my age but says, ‘It’s not my place to tell you what you should do in the big bad world.’ And her words bring on a wave of longing so intense that for a moment I think I might cry. She shakes me out of it with a few brisk anecdotes; is good with practical advice. Apparently families like Angela and David’s can live on Hydra for five hundred a year. ‘It all sounds very romantic, very audacious, but do try to have something for yourself. Whatever you want to do, try to get it bloody well done before the babies come along …’

  I like being taken in hand and I enjoy the flush that flattery brings to her. ‘But, Charmian, you seem to manage it. Having books published, and children and George and all of this.’ We talk about the new book she has coming out and she says that goodness she hopes it will be well received because it’s the first novel she’s written which will have only her own name on the cover.

  ‘When Faber published our collaborative novels no one once asked my opinion about editorial changes or anything like that. I was always too tired to make a fuss’

  She lights a cigarette, squints into its smoke. ‘Did I tell you about the time we met T. S. Eliot at his office in Russell Square? No?’ I hunger for her stories, even those she’s told me before. ‘… So there he was on his hands and knees, muttering about his Nobel citation which he swore was somewhere in the papers and manuscripts scattered across the floor.’ Apparently Eliot liked to write the dust-jacket copy at Faber. ‘… And there was I with J. Alfred Prufrock himself, something I had never dared to dream, and do you know what I was doing? I was worrying about my hair, and whether I had a speck of soot on my white gloves as I poured the tea that his secretary brought in. As you might imagine, I was terribly cross with myself afterwards. I don’t suppose George was thinking excessively of his hair pomade or pocket handkerchief as he talked to our idol.’

  She thinks that girls of my generation might make a better fist of fighting the status quo. ‘Just look at the island women here: it’s the Middle Ages, all cooped up in their houses and servile to their men. I suppose we should be thankful we’re further along than that.’

  I think about Mum and the post-office savings she left me. Had she bought me my freedom by cheating a little bit every week on her housekeeping? I can almost see the tic beneath her right eye as Dad checked over her receipts.

  ‘I would still be dependent on Dad if Mum hadn’t saved all that money for me. I’d like to think that being here and all this isn’t squandering it. I’ve still no idea what she really meant when she told me to live by my dreams.’

  Charmian shrugs, hands me a knife and we start on the plums. Brahms has been replaced by the small hiss of the needle stuck in a groove.

  ‘When I was your age I dreamt of a silver lamé gown and a white sports car with red leather upholstery. But I reckon that you’re not as silly as I was. What I can tell you is that Connie was my most encouraging pal when I first mooted throwing everything up in London. I remember she drove me in her little car to Stanfords and she bought me a map of the Greek islands.’

  I almost leap at her. ‘The car! You knew about it?’

  Charmian flaps her hands at me to be quiet. We can hear people moving about upstairs. ‘You can’t expect me to know what Connie dreamt for you. I remember she was proud of how well you were doing at that posh boarding school. She became rather boastful when you won a prize for something you’d written; maybe there’s a clue in that … As for the car, it was a nice green convertible that she had for nipping around town. There was nothing mysterious about it to me.’

  I can’t help thinking she’s relieved to be interrupted as George staggers in, coughing. A folded letter protrudes from the breast pocket of his shirt. Silently Charmian goes about the routine for his injection while he fidgets, his hand drawn to the pocket.

  Martin appears the moment food hits the table. Lunch is the miraculous globe artichokes, their great pulpy leaves dabbed in olive oil and lemon. George doesn’t have much of an appetite; he nibbles sesame seeds from the bread, lighting and relighting cigare
ttes while Martin chats about an octopus at Vlychos that old man Stavros claims can play Nine Men’s Morris. Martin plans to borrow a rubber mask and hike over to take a look. Once I reach the choke, he leans over and with surgical precision instructs me in dissecting the heart.

  Charmian has not spoken a word to George and he’s avoiding her eyes. The silence stretches and trembles like a membrane between them. Martin senses it too and slinks away with a couple of cold chops. Charmian sits drinking her wine as though neither George nor I exist. George never stops fidgeting, rolling small pill-shapes from a piece of bread which he lines up on the table, touching the letter, occasionally stealing a sidewards glance at her.

  ‘Who is the girl in the photograph?’ I cut in when I can no longer bear it. ‘I haven’t been able to get her face out of my mind. Is she in your book?’

  George leans into the broken silence and stares at me. He tears miserably at a fingernail. ‘I was there when our man took that photograph,’ he says. ‘Heartless bastard. Kweilin 1945, thousands fleeing from the Japs straight into famine … That little girl was alive while he was focusing but dead when he hit the shutter. He might as well have been holding a Luger in the kid’s face. But he was hardened, didn’t care. We’d gone through it, mile upon mile of dead and dying rotting by the roadside, and we’d arrived at this place where the troops were foraging on their hands and knees, digging with their teeth through the bare earth for roots. The girl’s mother was already being pecked at by the bloody birds …’

  He rocks back again and throws wine down his throat as though to douse the images his words have conjured. ‘And now, while the rest of the island siestas, I’ll be up in that room tapping away trying to turn a bloody nightmare into a potboiler.’ Charmian’s attention is back in the room. I see her wince when he adds: ‘But where there’s a pot that needs boiling someone has to be bloody doing it.’