Angus feigned an overly diplomatic expression, I thought. “He’s never said anything about that to me,” he said.
“Oh, no, he don’ say it to other people, maybe. But he would be very happy if I move.”
“Are you moving?” asked Angus, looking quizzically at her.
“Not if I have the choice.”
“Is Leonidas trying to get you to sell up?”
“No, I don’ mean that. Anyway, not so much about Myrto, eh?”
We all sat a while in silence. I ate another fig, bringing the tally to five or six. I’d probably pay for it later. I wiped my mouth with the serviette.
“What took you to Australia?” I asked.
She slapped a hand affectionately on my back once more. “Oh, Bronte, it’s a long yarn. My husband Fotis wants to go work with his brother. Building trade. We stay for eight years. Then Fotis dies.” She crossed herself hurriedly. “And I come back. That’s it. Short version. You come here for coffee one day and I tell you whole yarn. I make good coffee, too. Everyone says so.”
“Sure, why not,” I told her.
As we walked back to the house, Angus said, “You must go and have coffee with her. She’ll spin you a few tales. Not that I’ve heard all of them. I never stay long when I’m there. But she likes you and she’ll probably tell you about Hector, the stepson. Fotis was married before. There’s some rift but I don’t know what it’s all about.”
In the next few days I wandered around the village with my camera, taking pictures and exploring hidden corners that were sometimes not what I was hoping for, like the time I came across two men in an alleyway skinning a dead goat. Another day, I found an old woman in a field, dressed completely in black, plucking a fat chicken and singing some kind of wailing folk song. I very rarely saw an expat when I was walking about during the day. I had no idea where they were all hiding, but they all came out at night and flapped around the plateia like busy moths. Angus also took me out in his old Fiat a few times to nearby villages and to his favourite hidden swimming cove, a mere slip of pebbled beach with pure pale water and a view of the gulf and Kalamata. I got a sense perhaps of what it was that kept Angus in Greece − but only a sense.
However, each day I could feel myself beginning to unwind. Whole hours went by and I didn’t think about Scotland, or the newspaper, but I still checked my emails most days. I was tasked with telling Marcella and Shona how Angus’s ‘health problem’ was going. The lack of a phone and broadband connection at the house meant I had to check emails at the Zefiros, which was a not unpleasant ritual. When Elpida saw me she would sit for a while at my table to chat, offering some snippet of gossip. She was always very interested in what Angus was doing and I could sense there was a desire to riffle a little through his back story. After what Angus had told me about village life, I was on my guard.
But she was also a mine of local information: which saint’s feast day it was, and therefore who would also be celebrating and requiring plenty of cake, or ouzo. Every saint in the Greek Orthodox Church has a feast day on a certain date. There is a morning service in the churches named after that particular saint and often a yiorti, celebration, afterwards for the congregation in the church grounds with a simple meal. Most Greeks are named after saints and they, too, celebrate on the saint’s day with a ‘name day’, like a birthday. They have a family get-together later, or a gathering of friends in a local kafeneio. With so many saints in the church panoply, there is a celebration of some kind in Greece almost every day of the year.
“Soon we have a little yiorti up in the hills,” Elpida told me. “In the small church of Saint Nektarios. All the village is coming. You come with your father, you will like it. It is special church celebration, the day we honour the holy cross of Jesus, but most important, we baptise the fournos, the new brick oven we build. All the people have given money to our village council, and they build oven. Old one kaput.”
I quite liked the idea of a proper baptism for a brick oven, dousing it with a bit of holy water, no doubt. I was beginning to appreciate how eccentric rural life was in Greece.
“We will roast pieces of goat in oven. You will like it,” she said, kissing the tips of her fingers. I’d never eaten goat. My finicky tastes never veered that way. The prospect of the meal didn’t excite me, but I liked the idea of the celebration.
“Okay, thank you very much. I will let my father know,” I said.
She laughed and squeezed my cheek between thumb and forefinger, jiggling it as well until it brought tears to my eyes. “Ah, you English, you so … polite, Bronte.”
I don’t know if she had any idea that we were Scottish, or even what or where Scotland was, because a few times on my trips around the village I had been asked by locals – as far as I could understand – where I was from, and the word Scotland was met with exasperated looks. Finally, I learnt the Greek word, Skotia, but it didn’t help the villagers to place the country at all, and several times I was reduced to drawing maps of Britain on dusty paths. In a way, I liked the idea of hailing from a place that was as foreign to the rural mind here as Jupiter.
Amongst my emails was one from Sybil, one of my close friends on the Alba News, and a feature writer.
“Dear Grecian Hen,
I’m jealous as hell of your Greek sojourn. You won’t want to come back, not when I tell you the managing editor addressed staff today, in a surprise move. It seems they’re about to take a chainsaw to the budget. Saturday mag to be downsized. Features will be no bigger than long news stories. They want to squeeze out a few journos, one photographer, and other staff. We’ve been told no trips outside Edinburgh, unless everything approved first by Crayton. Poor Crayton, pale and pissed off with life these days. Who isn’t? Your father sounds pretty cool. You always made him sound like Hannibal Lecter, but maybe you should cut him some slack. Haven’t we all wanted to escape? The doctor/landlord sounds appealing. Holiday romance, hen?
I replied:
“Well, no surprises with the cutbacks, but Crayton will bat for us in features, surely. He’s committed. My father is not Lecter (did I say that?), more ageing rock star, ponytail now, chilled. But I feel I’m living with a bit of a stranger. And walking on eggshells comes to mind – sometimes. Keep me posted on work developments. No time for romance, Sybil, not even with a man called Leonidas, named after a Spartan hero.”
Grecian Hen xx
On the weekend, Leonidas called on the mobile to tell us he had organised an appointment with Dr Protopsaltis, the cardiologist, for Tuesday morning. When I told Angus about this, he girned slightly at the suddenness of the appointment.
“You have to do it sometime,” I said, beginning to understand why Angus needed some support in Greece, at least someone to keep his medical diary in order.
Chapter 6
Lipid lush
The cardiologist’s waiting room was quaintly decorated with old poster prints of the Greek islands, showing lithe brown youths enjoying the glories of summer in simpler times. This fantasy of raw good health seemed wasted on the crush of patients seated around the periphery of the room, waiting their turn, gloomy-faced and impatient. Angus was nervous, chewing gum and flicking through magazines. After 20 minutes he was summoned. I decided not to accompany him into the surgery. I felt that a man and his illness should have some space. I thought I was in for a long, tedious wait, but the room livened up with a few arguments at the receptionist’s desk, which was diverting, even though I couldn’t fathom any of it. I guessed much of it was over payment, with medical fund papers handed over, details jotted down, forms to be signed. Bickering and anxiety.
Leonidas had arranged for Angus to see the specialist privately, though the projected fee seemed low, to a foreigner anyway. When Angus came back out, he settled up the bill in cash − the only person I’d seen doing this. He got a rubber-stamped receipt and we left, walking to the elegant Aristomenous Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. It had a long central square for pedestrians and Parisian-style
cafés on one side.
I had read in one of Angus’s guidebooks that in the 19th century the layout of Kalamata had been redesigned by French engineers after parts of it were destroyed in the Greek War of Independence against the Turks from 1821. Broad boulevards with mansion houses became its trademark when the city was a major trade centre for olive oil. Although much of the city was ruined again in the devastating 1986 earthquake, its former charm had remained in some quarters.
Angus and I decided on a coffee break after a tense morning. We sat outside a café under its shady striped awning. It was fairly crowded. Angus ordered a cold frappé for me, and a beer and a slice of baklava for himself, a confection made up of dense brown layers of pastry alternating with layers of crushed nuts, like a small geological core sample doused in honey. I began to fear for his blood sugar levels.
“So, what’s the diagnosis?” I asked.
He pulled a face. “Don’t really know yet. The doc did some blood tests. I’ll have to wait for the results. I expect my cholesterol will be sky high for a start. It was high the last time I had it tested.”
“When was that?”
“About five years ago.”
“That long?”
“Yeah, we’re not as obsessed here with health as we are in the UK.”
“More’s the pity!”
“Well, anyway, the cardiologist agrees my arteries are probably knackered, hence the chest discomfort. Like Leo, he says I need something hi-tech to probe the situation, which means Athens.” He pulled a sour face.
“Have you never been to Athens?”
“Yes, of course, Bronte, but I go there to enjoy trips around the antiquities, not to have my arteries plundered.”
“Quite so, but let’s not panic until the test results come through. At least you’re moving in the right direction,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. But if we were in Scotland now, he’d have been sent off for more tests straight away, and treatment. It would have been so much more straightforward.
“I need to live like a Trappist monk now,” he said, skulling his beer. “The doc says I should stop smoking altogether, but I only smoke now and then. And I should cut down on booze. A glass of wine a day is okay, he said, but he didn’t say what size glass.” He sniggered, then drank some more beer. “And I’ve got to watch my lipids, as he calls them, especially the bad cholesterol, the artery-blocking stuff. So no more souvlaki and feta cheese, I suppose.”
“It’s not astrophysics, is it, Angus. I mean, everyone knows all this.”
“Yeah. It’s obvious, I know,” he said, forking up a few stray crumbs of baklava. “A moment on the lips, a lifetime in the lipids,” he said, and burst out laughing at his own joke.
I laughed as well, even though I didn’t think it was something to joke about. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humour. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on a table of young people eating a plate of souvlaki with chips and drinking ouzo. I thought I saw just the merest hint of envy in his eyes. I left him to it and went off to the toilet, mostly for a short respite from talk of doctors and lipid surpluses. When I returned he was finishing off his beer. We watched people strolling along the square: shoppers and street vendors, who seemed to come by at regular intervals, selling all kinds of cheap and counterfeit junk. One old Greek guy in a dusty grey suit was selling worry beads in myriad colours, but no one was buying. Were Greeks in crisis too poor for a good worry now? We were sorely in need of a better distraction, and soon enough one arrived – Leonidas, striding across the square. I gulped when I saw him heading right for our table.
“Kalimera, Leo. Have a seat,” said Angus. From the way Angus spoke, it sounded like he’d been expecting him and I wondered how, unless he’d called Leonidas while I was in the toilet. Angus had told me he worked in the same street as the cardiologist, the Kalamatan equivalent of Harley Street. Leonidas sat down and summoned a young waitress, ordering a cappuccino. He offered me another frappé and I meekly nodded but Angus declined another beer, giving me a wink as he did so. Leonidas placed a small, elegant man-bag on the table top, his mobile next to it. His presence seemed to ramp up the atmosphere somewhat.
“So, how do you like Kalamata?” he asked me.
“It has a real buzz, that’s for sure.”
I liked Kalamata a lot more than the first time I had driven through with the crazy taxi driver. I liked the vibe. Plenty of cafés and interesting side streets that I would explore in time. Leonidas wasted no time in drawing out the cardiologist’s opinion and a medical discussion ensued with Angus, which I didn’t much plug into, but I was impressed with the doctor’s interest in Angus’s condition − or perhaps as a landlord he was just protecting his investment. I mean, who else would really want that old house? By the time I had lugged into the conversation, I was aware that Angus wasn’t really taking his condition very seriously, as usual, and when the talk touched on fats, Angus tried his little joke out again about the lipids. There was a moment of silence, then Leonidas opened his eyes wide and laughed loudly, throwing his head back a little so I had a view of a pristine set of teeth that his dentist girlfriend would covet. It was the first time I’d seen him laugh properly. It suited him and scuppered some of his innate formality. But surely lipids couldn’t be that funny?
After Angus had told Leonidas everything about the morning consultation, Angus announced he had some business to see to in the city and if we didn’t mind he’d leave us and meet me back at the café in half-an-hour or so. It was the first time he’d mentioned another appointment and I was bemused as I watched him strolling across the square to the row of shops along Aristomenous Street. The idea of entertaining the doctor alone suddenly didn’t appeal much. He made me nervous.
He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “Doctor Protopsaltis is playing it cautiously for now, but I think that in a few weeks he will want your father to undergo more specialised tests. But in the meantime, because I know you are looking to his welfare, Bronte, if your father has any chest pains or discomfort, you can call me any time, or take him straight to the hospital in Kalamata.” He handed me his business card with a clutch of numbers on it.
“This one is my personal mobile number,” he said, pointing a long, perfectly manicured finger at it. “You can call me there any time.”
“Thank you, that’s kind.”
He said nothing but absently ran a hand through his hair, the curls bouncing around his fingers. It was impossible not to admire its vitality and it was distracting. He also seemed distracted, playing with the sleeve of his jacket, glancing every now and then at his mobile, waiting to be called by some patient in distress perhaps. I wondered how in the midst of this economic crisis he had time to leave his surgery at all for no great reason it seemed. In the news that day, Angus had told me that some pharmacies had run out of commonplace drugs, one of the symptoms of the health service buckling in the crisis. I asked Leonidas about this. It struck me that I was not going to be free of medical topics today, so I might as well go with them.
“Yes, it is very bad. Drugs suppliers are not providing many drugs to the pharmacies unless they are given the money first. And many people have no money to pay for doctor visits. Many medical insurance schemes are unable to pay out for consultations and treatments. Every day my job becomes harder. And there are new taxes all the time, and other things that make our lives difficult now,” he said.
Until I knew I was coming to Greece, I hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to the crisis, despite there having been a slew of scurrilous features in British tabloids about “workshy Greeks” and corruption and so forth. But Leonidas gave me a quick update.
Greece’s economic problems had started a decade earlier but by 2009, in the midst of the global financial downturn, the country found itself deep in debt, exacerbated by soaring public sector spending and widespread tax evasion. In 2010, with Greece edging towards bankruptcy, the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and Eurozone countries approved a
bailout package for Greece of 110 billion euros. In return, the Greek government was forced to implement stringent austerity measures, which resulted in economic hardship, unemployment and violent protests. The economic crisis slowly became a humanitarian disaster.
In the mid-summer election of 2012, the country finally showed its hatred of austerity by giving only a slim margin of victory to the dominant party, New Democracy, and offering instead a spike in votes to the little-known left-wing party Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras (which would win the Greek elections in 2015). During this black period of austerity and antagonism towards the ruling elites there was also a rise in popularity of an extreme right-wing party, Golden Dawn.
“There is always talk now,” Leonidas added, “that we may never cut our debts and that we will fall out of the Eurozone, returning to, let us say, the drachma. You can’t imagine the chaos that would follow. We will be back to zero. No medicines, no new equipment. The system will collapse. Everything will collapse: no food in the shops, no petrol. I fear it.”
“Is that why your girlfriend has moved to England?”
He fiddled with his cuffs again. “Yes, but many people are leaving the country now, mainly professionals, like doctors, and students.”
“Would you ever leave?” It suddenly dawned on me that that was obviously the plan, to go one at a time to England. He didn’t answer straight away.
“I just cannot say right now. It is all very difficult,” he said, whatever that really meant. And yet the statement had the same effect as a rag nail that I knew I would have to pick at again, some other time. Certainly not now, when he had a slight stubborn set to his mouth. He drank his coffee and looked around for the waitress. “I must go now. I hope everything will go well with your father. Let me know if you need my help in any way.”
A Saint for the Summer Page 6