by Polly Samson
George rocks back in his chair, watching her perform.
‘Any titbit to tempt him with his poor invalid appetite. A perfect Manhattan shaken on ice on the balcony looking across all of Athens to the Hill of the Muses, really nothing was too much trouble for her.’
He starts laughing and coughing and lunges for her, grabbing her by the waist as she tries to skip past.
‘Oh, do cut it out, Cliftie. You’re getting yourself worked up again; not every relationship with a woman has to be about sex, as you very well know.’ He pulls her to his knee for a growly kiss that sends Martin and Shane running from the room making gagging noises.
Little Booli is grasping my hand and leading me up the ladder to show me his new den beneath the couch. We run in and out of the rooms playing hide and seek and Booli bursts with helpless giggles and gives himself away every time.
I help Charmian to make up the beds and couches for the guests. She tucks and straightens, takes snips of lavender she’s brought from the courtyard to lay on the pillows. She tells me Big Grace is under the impression that it’s constant rowing with his wife that’s made George ill. ‘She is determined to rescue him, you’ll see if you meet her,’ she says. The sheets, though thin and darned, smell of new ironing, of charcoal and steam and best intentions.
‘Oh, it’s all such a bloody bother when I could be getting on with my book, but we owe them an invitation and better they come now while there’s still water in the cistern.’ She stands from the bed, easing her hands to the small of her back.
‘You can’t imagine the fuss of having people stay when we’re dry, which often happens in high season when we have to pay for every drop to be delivered by Elias, plus it’s a terrible chore having to flush through the privy with sea-water. Water becomes terrifically hard work and so pricey; I feel I must warn you, Erica.’ She’s stuffing a few things away in drawers, straightening the rug. ‘Though, when at last the rains come, the sound of the water filling the cistern will call to you and you’ll want to dance starkers through the streets.’
She surveys the room and cocks an ear. A ting and a burst of clatter from George’s typewriter, another ting and then a pause and the sound of paper being wrenched from the carriage with a roar of her name. ‘Soundtrack to my life,’ she says with a pantomime curtsy and smile.
Shane calls to us from the courtyard. ‘Look, Dissy has found Penny,’ she cries, pointing at the tortoises who are bashing shell to shell, as if locked in mortal combat. The heavy breathing and orgiastic grunts sound all too human as the old boy scrabbles in a frenzy of lust on top of his smaller mate. Booli is horrified, runs at them: ‘Óchi, óchi, óchi,’ pulls Odysseus off and banishes him to the furthest corner, behind the privy.
We run around with a tennis ball. Shane is the champion in every possible sequence of bouncing the ball against the wall or the well, and clapping and turning and touching the ground, and Booli is good at fetch. It’s a relief, sometimes, to mess around with the kids.
Charmian comes out with a basket on her arm. She says it’s her last chance for freedom before the guests arrive. ‘Anyone fancy a walk?’ The others shirk. ‘If you like we can go to Marianne’s with your embroideries. She has a good sewing machine and she’ll know about fixings,’ she says, and offers to wait while I grab them.
Booli skips off to the port to see if Martin has found some live bait for his fishing rod. He’s only four but he has the run of the island, a golden-haired princeling welcome at any table, wonderful really. Charmian smiles as she watches him go. We talk about Bayswater, about being cooped up in a flat and all the trees we weren’t allowed to climb in Kensington Gardens and the dirty gutters and constantly coughing because of the beastly yellow smog.
The golden hour lights our way up the lane of the roses and on towards the graveyard where wild raspberries grow. ‘I think your mother would’ve loved this island,’ Charmian says and tells me of an afternoon they shared in Mum’s open-topped car with a swim in the Thames and devilled eggs in a tea shop in Cookham. She shakes her head when I ask her: ‘Really, she never mentioned a lover?’
The graveyard has a glorious view to the sea; you can almost imagine yourself happy to die knowing you’ll rest with this vista among the pines and the flowers. We stand beside the grave of a young sponge-diver, an anchor, an iron boot and the round window of a diving bell set into his headstone. I haven’t entered a graveyard since we buried Mum in a corner of Kensal Green Cemetery so shaded it was dank. Charmian reaches for my hand. I tell her how I long for my mother to come back and haunt me. ‘I suppose that everyone feels like that when they miss somebody,’ I say and wipe my eyes with the back of my wrist.
‘Do you feel ghosts, Charmian?’
‘Oh yes,’ she replies, and she sighs long and hard. ‘I have ghosts, not all of them dead.’
‘What do you mean?’ She opens her mouth to say something, stops. I feel her change tack.
‘It’s a strange thing when you miss someone who is there,’ she says, and she looks down at the sponge-diver’s grave as sadly as if he were her own son. ‘There but not there. Right before you all the time. Like George, by which I mean the George I married, with his tremendous verve and unbroken spirit.’
She tells me it can’t have escaped my notice that things are not right between them, says how awful she feels for the children having to witness their fights. ‘I should have put my foot down about that wretched novel of his.’
‘You know I shan’t read it,’ I say, making a cutting motion at my throat and giving her my Girl Guide’s honour which at least makes her laugh. ‘But if it’s embarrassing for you, why has he done it?’
‘To understand George, you have to know something of his childhood in Australia: a fragile boy, bookish, rather artistic in temperament, the opposite of his beefy brother Jack. His father was a brute with the razor strop. Savage beatings and never for something naughty he’d done, that was the thing, but just in case there was some misdemeanour that he wasn’t admitting to. Can you imagine what that does to a sensitive little boy?
‘The saddest thing is he’s become like his old man, now his leaping time is behind him. It’s buried so deep in him there’s nothing he can do. He suspects me and imagines all sorts of bullshit things, and he thinks he should punish me.’ She manages a rueful smile. ‘You know, just in case.
‘Closer to the Sun is a difficult one. There’s often a green-eyed nymphomaniac stirring up the troops in George’s books …’ Again the rueful smile. ‘But this is the first time he’s written from within his own skin. An Aussie writer, a former war correspondent, a wife and a family on a Greek island. No doubt people are going to read it as though it were the truth – memoir, if you like, and not some twisted product of his poor tortured imagination.’
I’ve been silent but can’t help myself. ‘Hang on, what about Jean-Claude?’ I daren’t look at her once the words are out.
‘Really, Erica, you’re just as bad as the rest of the mongrels.’ She stamps her foot. ‘And, if you must know, Jean-Claude Maurice does not merit the literary attention that is lavished upon him.’
She changes the subject as we cut across the top of the gully. ‘I’ve been mulling over what you told me the other day at the store and I think you really have to pluck up the courage to tell Marianne that Axel’s with Patricia.’ I know she’s right but still it feels like a punishment. ‘It would be a kind thing to do, if you can bear it. The poor girl’s under the impression that he’s alone on his boat, thinking how to save his marriage.’
I follow her into Marianne’s, my stomach queasy. A small breeze ruffles the lace at the broken window. Stems of pink rambler roses have been arranged in a pewter jug on the table. Someone has been attempting to sketch her on a sheet of paper that lies with a stub of pencil beside it. It’s a good likeness, catches the Sphinx-like smile, the modest lowered lashes against the bloom of her cheek.
We call to her from the foot of the stairs and she appears above us in a white dr
ess, like a sun-bleached angel. The dress might once have been a peasant girl’s petticoat but Marianne is wearing it with a belt of plaited leather. We pass a sleeping Axel Joachim as we tiptoe outside.
Marianne moves dreamily, clearing some beakers and an earthenware jug from the table. I can’t seem to speak without crushing my r’s. She has a peach-coloured shawl, despite the heat, which she keeps wound around her face.
She ends my agony by resting her hands on my shoulders to silence me. Above the peach silk her eyes are sharp with tears.
She drops her hands and I feel dismissed as she turns from me to Charmian. ‘So, I guess he picked Patricia up from where she was waiting on Poros as soon as he left here.’ Her voice is shaking. ‘I suppose it was all arranged. Maybe he thought it would cause me less humiliation if I didn’t see them leave together as a couple.’
Charmian’s eyes flare with dislike. ‘Who does he think he is, to parcel out pain like that? He’s nothing but a moral coward. A child-man like Axel can never be a good father for your son.’
Marianne speaks through the scarf, her face turned away from us. ‘He is crazy about Patricia. There’s nothing I can do about the bones in his nose. He thinks only of her.’
‘I know how forgiving you can be, but not this time, Marianne,’ Charmian says. ‘And what’s all this with the shawl? I can’t really make out half of what you’re saying …’
Charmian reaches a couple of times to pull it aside and eventually Marianne gives way and unwinds it to reveal skin that looks sore and red around her mouth and chin. ‘Oh, what is to be done?’ she says, giggling and burying her head in her hands.
‘Has something been biting you?’ Charmian asks with a wicked arch of her brow.
‘It’s not what you think.’ Marianne is still trying to conceal her hot face. Tiny blue sparks dance in her eyes. She squeaks through her fingers, ‘I am allergic to the face cream Magda got for me.’
‘Marianne!’ Charmian says. ‘I really do think you might tell our Canadian friend to buy some new razor blades.’
Seventeen
The harbour is jostling with yachts. The port is so crowded you might think the whole of Athens has come to the island for the festival. The artists are hopeful, displaying their paintings along the wall of the Lagoudera Marine Club; the sponge-sellers arrange their wares in tiers and pyramids at the dock and have more success than the painters. Every taverna is open, the coffee shops and bars along the waterfront are bustling, the grand stone houses high above the port throw open their shutters and old Vasilis the knife-grinder wheels his stone through the lanes.
At home I sit chin to knees in the deep window nook and watch Jimmy as he hammers nails into the rafters for my hangings and for some netting against the mosquitoes. I don’t have a bite on my body thanks to the superior bait that lies sprawled beside me every night. He balances, naked and effortless, with one foot on the bedpost, reaches for the furthest beam with a mouthful of nails. His calf muscles flex, and I watch the shifting contours of his bum which is as burnt-honey tanned as the rest of him. No wonder the mosquitoes thirst for his body. I see the way other girls look at him, grown-up women too. I’d like to build a moat around him and fill it with crocodiles. I hug my knees tighter, say what I’ve been meaning to say for the last few nights. ‘We could always convert to Greek Orthodox and get married on the island.’
Jimmy swivels to check I’m not joking, retrieves the nails from his mouth.
‘There can’t be any wedding at all until I’ve sold my book,’ he says, and I pull a pout and look out of the window to where the breeze has whipped up a whirl of fallen wisteria blossom.
He springs down, the boards barely register his landing, and he tups me under the chin to make me look at him. His eyes are the colour of brown-bottle sea glass when you hold it up to the sun, amber flecked with gold.
‘I’m afraid it would be the final straw. My mother wouldn’t send another penny.’ And he flutters his dark lashes in a Mummy’s poppet sort of a way though really he hates to talk about his mother sending money.
‘But I quite fancy a full-immersion baptism,’ I say and he chuckles, his fingers starting on my buttons.
‘The priests will enjoy it, that’s for sure,’ he says with a lecherous grin. ‘They insist on full nakedness, you know …’ I’ve given up wearing bras and he feigns surprise as he pulls open my shirt.
‘Ah, yes. I reckon we could drum up some support from that bishop at Profitis Elias, “Come, come, my child. That’s right now, shed your sins …”’ and because Jimmy’s got the gift of mimicry and a rubber face to go with it I can’t help but laugh.
The original plan had been to get out of town along the clifftop to Vlychos. There’s a good and wide shingle beach there, turquoise waters, some scrubby pines for shade, enough to accommodate the whole crowd now we’re so outnumbered by the grand Hydriot families and their Athenian scions. There are brass bands and children’s processions. The bells will keep tolling until Vespers when the great Admiral’s heart is due to be processed through the streets in its gold casket.
Greek and Hydriot flags honour him from the corners of houses, water-taxis putt-putt by, low in the water with families and picnics heading for the less-inhabited coves. We see Bim and Demetri waving from Manos’s boat, hanging off the side and posing like film stars in their white shirts and dark glasses. Madam Pouri’s donkey-boy passes in a blue cap, his beasts laden with hampers and blue parasols and blue beads and silver bells that jingle on their reins.
At the point where the road peters out to a dirt track and the land dips away to the sea, we find Cato. Many times I have been drawn to this place at the crest of this gentle gully. The slopes are terraced, there are grazing sheep, stripes of golden barley, in the dip a shepherd’s hut among a grove of olive trees, the only building for as far as the eye can see. There’s a low crumbling wall to sit on and I can blur the blue triangle of sea between the rocky mountain and the rusty hill and no one ever passes or interrupts me.
At first we think the cries are a hawk circling overhead but it’s hard to be certain. Cockerels are crowing and a donkey is making a racket. Dionysus, the rubbish collector, rarely makes it to this part of the island and we follow the faint mewling to where the stench is almost overwhelming. There’s a fetid heap of old cans and rotting cabbage, bursting bags, fermenting melons, eggshells. Flies frenzy around half a ribcage and Jimmy pulls his T-shirt to cover his mouth, cocks his ear and dives for a sack.
‘Oh good God,’ he says as he sets it on the ground, and we see something squirming inside. I drop to my knees to pull at the rope. The cat’s mouth is a piteous pink triangle. Its sparse black coat is bare in patches and the poor thing is unable to open its eyes because they are glued together with gunk.
Jimmy is kicking up a red and glittering sandstorm. ‘What sort of a bastard does this to a cat?’
He unscrews our canteen. The cat’s tongue is lapping at the water and I’m astonished that it manages to purr. Jimmy wets the corner of his handkerchief to bathe its eyes but has to stop when it mewls and tries to crawl away because we aren’t sure if they are crusts or scabs.
There isn’t a vet on the island, as far as we know. Jimmy makes him a nest of his T-shirt and we head back to port with ‘Cato’ in our basket.
Charmian knows what needs to be done. She’s in her kitchen, stirring something that smells delicious and garlicky over the charcoal, her face shiny from the heat. The table is laid, a bunch of wild honeysuckle we picked on our way back from Marianne’s in a jug at the centre. Zoe is folding napkins and there’s chatter and glasses and children’s laughter from the courtyard. Max runs in and out with his tongue lolling and his tail wagging, more pleased about the guests than his mistress appears to be. She’s pulling the tea towel from her shoulder to wipe her face, and I notice that an uncharacteristic attempt at eye make-up has smudged, making her look more tired and worried than ever. The last thing she needs is a mangy cat.
She lifts litt
le Cato out of the basket and holds him, wriggling to the window. His coat is matted with sores but already I can see the fine creature he will become.
‘Everyone who comes here ends up with a cat,’ she says. ‘It looks like this young man has found you – if the tragic mite survives, that is.’ She sends Jimmy off, tells him to run to Rafalias’s pharmacy for a small-sized hypodermic and iodine tincture.
‘His best chance is to give him a course of George’s streptomycin. You’ll have to inject a tiny dose for the next few days. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how.’ She’s checking behind his ears. ‘And you’ll need benzoate to deal with these fleas too.’ She folds up a blanket on the bench and from her cooking pot spoons out a lump of meat and blows on it before feeding it to him in tiny pieces.
‘He’s a nice cat,’ she says. ‘Though the Greeks say a black cat is unlucky in the morning.’
A man is standing in the doorway watching her. He is small and wiry with a reedy voice: ‘I’ve been sent in for a refill.’ His face is ruddy enough to clash with his sandy hair, and he’s waving an empty jug in his hand. From behind him I hear a woman, American, a boomer. ‘Hey, Charlie, find out how much longer Charmian intends to be with the food. Tell her we’re all getting too sloshed out here.’
‘It’s thirsty work keeping up with George. I’d do well to remember his reputation at the press club,’ the man says, and as Charmian reaches to take the jug from him he grasps her by the waist and spins her around, stops when he notices me, ‘Crikey, sorry, I’m Charlie …’ and lets her go.
‘Erica’s a talented young writer but she’s yet to show me a word she’s written,’ Charmian tells him – rather cruelly, I think. I start to object but they’re not listening to me. Charles’s eyes are fixed on Charmian and his fingers are flexed as though he still has her in his grip.