A Saint for the Summer

by Marjory McGinn

  “Well … this is not so much a holiday for me. My father has brought me here because he is worried … about a health condition. You know what I mean, of course.”

  The doctor played with the cuff of his shirt. “I am not his regular doctor, but I did examine him briefly after he had the chest pains. I suspect he has some heart disease, probably some narrowing of his arteries, causing the discomfort. And he smokes, drinks and eats too many of the wrong things, I imagine,” he said in that perfunctory manner that doctors have.

  “I suppose if he doesn’t watch himself he’ll end up having a heart attack.”

  “Yes, perhaps. For now, I have prescribed some tablets for him, in case he has more discomfort. But I am a general doctor and I suggest he must see a cardiologist. There is someone in Kalamata I would recommend for a more detailed consultation, but for complex tests, he will have to go to Athens because there is very little high-tech scanning available here.”

  “Your English is very good, Leonidas,” I said. His pronunciation was very precise.

  “Ah, you must call me Leo. It will be easier for you.”

  “Leonidas is a lovely name. Wasn’t there a Greek hero called Leonidas?”

  “Yes, there was,” he said, with a tiny lift of his chin. “Leonidas was the King of Sparta who led a small army of Greeks against the Persians at the famous Battle of Thermopylae. He was a hero, but unfortunately he and his men were tragically defeated. But he’s still something of a god to Greeks today.”

  “So, no pressure then being named after a Greek god?” I said with a sardonic grin.

  He laughed lightly but I wasn’t sure if he appreciated the irony or was just being polite. He had a nice laugh though.

  “As for my English, I went to language classes while I was studying and spent a summer working in a private hospital in England when I finished my medical degree. And my girlfriend Phaedra is currently working there and speaks very good English, so it makes it easier for me to learn, you see.”

  So there was a girlfriend!

  “What work does she do?”

  “She is a dental surgeon working in a practice in the south of England, in Brighton, and also doing more studies at night.”

  Dentistry! Not surprising. Dinner conversations in their house would be medical, to say the least, when they managed dinner. I wondered how they conducted a long-distance romance and how she trusted the dishy doctor to rattle around Greece on his own.

  “With regards to your father, I can organise a visit to the cardiologist by early next week, if you wish it. It will be a private consultation, much quicker than accessing the public system that is in a crisis also at present. But it will not be expensive. Your father is a good man. I like to do my best for him.” He held my gaze a moment. It was comforting that Angus had won some admiration in the village at least.

  “That would be very helpful. I’ll make sure Angus attends.”

  His eyes widened with interest. “You call your father by his first name?”

  “Em … yes. It’s a long story.”

  Just at that moment Angus came out carrying a silver tray, which must have been the best possession in the house. On it was a large copper pot with a long handle, filled with his beloved Greek coffee. He poured it into the tiny white cups and offered some hard-looking biscuits bought from the village bakery. Like the volcanic bread, they would be another hazard to dental work, which Leonidas’s girlfriend would surely abhor. Leonidas crunched daintily without incident, while I broke my biscuit into pieces to avoid amalgam distress. He smiled at me, nothing more than a flicker at the side of his mouth.

  “How long will you stay, Bronte?” Despite his pronunciation being otherwise perfect he stumbled over my name and said Brontay and not Brontee. “I have never heard that name before. It is unusual, yes?”

  “I was named after a great English writer, Emily Bronte, who happened to also be one of my father’s favourites.”

  He cocked his head to the side and fixed me with his big dark eyes. “Emily Brontay? So, no pressure then!”

  “Ha! Very good,” I said. He was much more switched-on than I thought, and he had a sense of humour.

  “She’s not quite as heroic as the King of Sparta. You win!” I said, and found myself winking. How did that happen? I rubbed my eye as if I had grit on my eyeball. He laughed.

  “Of course Angus will have told you he was a teacher in Scotland,” I said.

  “He did, yes. What did this Emily Brontay write?”

  “Ah, well. She wrote a very famous book about a love affair between a young woman and a very handsome, wild man called Heathcliff. Wuthering Heights is a romantic story. A classic.”

  He arched his brows. “I must read this book one day.”

  “I’m sure Angus has a copy here if you want it.”

  Angus looked out to sea. “No, I don’t think I have. I could get one though, it you wanted to read it, Leo, but I doubt you have that much spare time.”

  “I always have time for an interesting book,” he said, with an earnest nod. Of course he was being merely polite, or ingratiating, I couldn’t decide. But the image of Doctor Leonidas sitting in his surgery in his free time boning up on Wuthering Heights was just too amusing for words. I lost myself a moment and snorted with delight and had to turn it into a small coughing fit as a cover.

  There was certainly none of the wild abandonment of Heathcliff in Leonidas, but there was an aura of the daredevil in his unruly curls that showed promise. What intrigued me most was that such an urbane professional would have an old village pile like this to rent out. When Angus had told me that Villa Anemos meant Windy Villa, I thought it couldn’t be more apt. I imagined the north wind would rake through the roof tiles in the winter. However, the doctor’s villa next door was a solid stone house with pale blue shutters, very stylish but not opulent, set further away from the road on two floors with a large top balcony. Below, the garden looked manicured and lush, and you could just see the far edge of a swimming pool. He saw me gazing at the property.

  “The house is just my weekend retreat and for summers,” he said with a shrug. “The rest of the time I live in an apartment in Kalamata.” The comment was meant to distance himself for the affluence of the property, I guessed, but unfortunately it made him seem indulged, especially when Greece was sliding into a fiscal mess and workers apparently had trouble hanging on to their primary homes. He sensed his faux pas and quickly added, “All this land belonged to my father and grandfather before that. This house we are in here was my grandfather’s original house and then my father built the one I now have, which I lived in as a child, though I have modernised it. I am afraid I have neglected Villa Anemos now, and Angus has been too gracious in not wanting me to modernise it a little.”

  “Och, it’s fine for me as it is, as I’ve told you already,” Angus said, with a slight grizzle in his voice.

  I was sipping coffee but was slightly distracted by the chatter. I drank more than I thought and was down to the bottom of the cup. My final gulp sent a slick of coffee grounds like a riverbed down my throat, bringing on a real coughing fit this time. My eyes welled up with tears.

  “I meant to warn you last night not to drink the stuff at the bottom,” said Angus with a smirk.

  The doctor laughed and handed me one of the paper serviettes Angus had put daintily on the silver tray. I took it and wiped the grounds from my mouth. As I did, I caught that flicker of a smile again. We sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the sunshine, but the serenity was broken by the sound of the next door donkey kicking up a fuss, and the woman shouting.

  “I apologise for the noise,” the doctor said, rolling his eyes. “That is Myrto with her donkey. They are always arguing. You will get used to it. She is a little eccentric but harmless. She has some goats in there, chickens and so forth,” he said, slightly sniffily. He got up. “Well, I must get back to town. A great pleasure to meet you, Brontay.”

  I thought I would take the Brontay issue in han
d and gently told him how it should be pronounced. He had a few goes at it and finally cracked it. I sensed he was quite a perfectionist and didn’t like being corrected much, even on so small a point, but he was gracious to a fault. I rather enjoyed his slight discomfort.

  “I will arrange something with the cardiologist, and let you both know.”

  “You can call us on Angus’s mobile. I will check it myself regularly. I’m afraid my father has an aversion to mobiles.”

  He laughed. “Your father is what you call a rebel, yes?”

  Unconsciously, Angus played with his ponytail and smiled, without replying.

  “Oh, yes, he’s quite a rebel. You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  The doctor left the balcony and Angus followed him into the sitting room. I heard a low conversation and imagined the rent money was being handed over. The front door closed and Angus came back and sat down.

  “I wasn’t wrong, was I?” he said.

  “About what?”

  “You know. About Leo,” he said.

  “He’s very charming, if that’s what you mean. You made him sound eligible, but he has a girlfriend, working in England.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that.”

  “I’m surprised he’s not married. Quite a catch, I’d say.”

  “He was married once. Wife lives in Athens with his son.”

  So, he wasn’t a perfect Greek god after all. Good.

  “I can see you’re interested,” said Angus.

  “I assure you, I’m not. He’s not my type. And a touch arrogant perhaps.”

  Angus pouted. “He can afford to be. Doctors are the top of the social heap in Greece. And to be good looking as well.” He whistled and waved his arm around, Greek-style.

  “Let’s not mix necessity with pleasure since he’s going to get you that appointment with the cardiologist.”

  “You hang on to the mobile, pet. I don’t like the blasted thing.”

  “What usually happens when people, in Kalamata say, need to reach you? Do they send a homing pigeon up the hill with a message strapped to its leg?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You wouldn’t get it, Bronte, but if someone needs me they just call Elpida at the kafeneio, or Miltiades and someone there will fetch me. That’s how it works in these villages. No-one is that far away. Everyone knows everything here.”

  It sounded frightening. I decided to avoid the village messengers and stick to the mobile phone. When I was growing up, I never would have thought that Angus would end up in a hillside village in Greece that was clearly stuck in the 19th century. I never imagined he’d end up living alone at 71 either. It seemed to me that anyone’s life could take a squinty turn, the way a river in spate can overflow and carve off into a new direction, with no hope of it ever recovering its original course.

  Chapter 5

  Myrto and Zeus

  Later in the afternoon, after a short siesta, I found Angus on the back balcony under the sun umbrella, trying to read a book. But his attention was taken by a commotion from next door: the sound of buckets being kicked over and Myrto cursing. Angus caught me staring towards the farm.

  “I can see you’re curious about Myrto, now that Leo has mentioned her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Leo doesn’t get on with her, and she doesn’t much care for him either. They’ve got some history, I think, though I’m not too sure what it is. See, there are back stories, vendettas, secrets in these places. It’s all here.”

  “Perhaps the others are a bit jealous of him, with his money and the gorgeous pile next door.”

  “Yes, but there are other Greeks here with holiday villas. Let’s go down, if you like, and meet her,” he said, finally abandoning his book.

  Myrto’s land was secured with a metal fence and gate at the front. When she was in the compound, she left the padlock unlocked, hooked over one of the metal spars of the gate. We went inside, Angus calling her. She came striding through the trees, dressed in trousers, a casual shirt loose over them. My first impression was of rural toughness, though she was striking with it: good bone structure and tanned skin, slightly lined around her eyes, which were pale blue and framed with mannish eyebrows. Her hair was thick and dark brown. She looked to be in her late fifties. She was carrying a bucket with a mound of greenery inside, resembling weeds.

  “Yeia sou, Myrto, I want you to meet my daughter, Bronte. She’s here for a few weeks.”

  The toughness was softened by a broad smile that showed good, even teeth. She gave me a strong handshake with a leathery hand.

  “G’day, my dear! Nice to meet you,” she said. I hadn’t expected the broad Australian accent in her English.

  “You’re Greek-Australian?”

  She laughed. “No, I’m from here but I live a few years in Sydenee,” she said, slipping in an extra vowel and elongating the last one. “So, how you like our village?”

  “Nice, from the little I’ve seen.”

  She looked me up and down with narrowed eyes, as if trying to get the measure of me.

  “You married? Children?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Boyfriend?”

  Angus had warned me that rural Greeks asked personal questions. I laughed awkwardly.

  “Not at present, no.”

  “We have nice boys in the village,” she said, winking at Angus.

  “Bronte doesn’t want to get married. She’s married to her career,” he said, smirking at me.

  I gave him a glowering look.

  “Well, it’s true, Bronte!”

  I shook my head. It would keep.

  “What you do, Bronte, for career?”

  “Newspaper journalist.”

  She whistled lightly through her well-formed lips. “Poli eksipni. You very clever then. You write a nice story about our village, yes?”

  “Maybe, one day. Who knows?”

  “Come sit down under my shady trees.”

  We followed her down a narrow path of sorts past piles of wood, rubbish and sacks of mystery items I could only guess at. She took us to a clearing under an abundant fig tree that had some overripe fruit still hanging on like fat Christmas baubles. A metal table was set under the tree and some plastic chairs. It was a pleasant, elevated space, with a view between olive trees to the gulf below. Despite the heat of the day, you could feel a gentle breeze from the sea.

  Myrto’s house was nearby. It was an old village property, similar to Villa Anemos, but with a stone staircase leading to the front door. The windows were covered in old wooden shutters, closed against the sun. Somewhere behind the house I imagined were the goat pens and chicken runs. To the right of us, under an olive tree, the donkey was tethered by a rope to its trunk with a selection of buckets in front of him, an old feta cheese tin overflowing with water and strafed by wasps. This was the beast she niggled at, apparently, and yet he seemed rather placid and fluffy. Myrto noted my interest.

  “That’s Zeus. I know he looks so sweet there, Bronte, but let me tell you when he gets a crazy idea in his fat mialo,” she said slapping her forehead, “lightning bolts go flying. He earns his name. Throws me off once and I bust my arm. I don’ ride him no more.” She wound up with a string of what sounded like Greek oaths. Angus was smiling. I guessed, however, that Myrto could throw a few bolts of her own.

  “And I don’ take no shit, as they say in Sydenee.” She had an endearing habit of shortening words, particularly in negative constructions, and also of mixing up her tenses, but with a preference for talking mostly in the present tense.

  “You wait. I get some cold drinks.”

  Before we could reply she disappeared up the stairs into her house and soon returned, carrying a large tray with glasses and a bottle of lemonade. She set everything out on the metal table. There was also a plate of figs.

  “Last of the good figs I take from my tree. Best figs in the village.” She offered us a few on small plates, with a knife and a serviette.

  “We n
ot complete peasants in the village, are we, Angus?” she said, with a wink. At least she got his name right.

  I cut a fig in half and ate it. It had a sweet strawberry jam flavour, like no fig I’d ever eaten. I devoured another one, and then another, and drank some cold lemonade. It was heaven.

  “Good, eh?” she said, slapping me lightly on the back. “So, Bronte. What you plan to do on holidays? Tour about?”

  I nodded.

  “You meet any village people yet?”

  “Not many. Just the people in the kafeneio, and the taverna.”

  “Ah, you speak Greek already?”

  Angus nodded with proprietorial glee.

  “Not exactly, Myrto,” I said.

  “It’s bladdy hard language, Bronte! But you doing good.”

  She flicked her eyes at Angus. “I see Leonidas comes today. You sick?”

  “No, I’m fine. He comes every month for the rent.”

  “Ah, yes, landlord, too. We never forget it.”

  “The doctor seems very nice,” I said, eating another fig.

  She gave me a long, shrewd look over her lemonade glass and raised her eyebrows slowly, while slightly shutting her eyes and tipping up her chin. I’d noticed that Greeks seemed to make this gesture a lot. I’d call it a dead expression, neither good nor bad, with the intention of giving nothing away. Sometimes, however, it seemed to imply ‘no’, or more likely ‘no comment’ or ‘so what!’ It covered a multitude of things.

  “You don’t like him?” I ventured.

  She made the gesture again, then threw caution to the wind. “Oh, he is very good doctor and local person. Our families come from the village of Platanos in the old days, up there in the mountains behind us,” she said, jerking a thumb towards the high peaks. “Nice little place in middle of nowhere, Bronte. But the doctor and his family have done very good for themselves. His family now what we call the psilomites, high noses, or the stuck-ups, as I would call it in English.” She laughed heartily and I struggled to stifle a giggle myself. “But here I am on my old farm property, donkey and goats for friends. A proper shithole, as we might say in Aussieland! And the doctor has his beuuuutiful villa next door. He doesn’t like the goat smell, the donkey noise,” she laughed loudly. She was enjoying herself immensely.