“Okay, Bronte,” she said, stroking my hair in a motherly fashion. “You’re a very good daughter to Angus. I’m so glad we’ve met. Now that I know you, I feel so sad Angus turned his back on you all these years. I don’t know how he could have done that.”
“Neither do I, Polly, but maybe it’s not just Greek men who have a sense of entitlement?”
She nodded and I saw tears hovering in her dark eyes.
When I saw Angus downstairs I felt less inclined to go back to Marathousa with him, not helped by the fact that he smelt of alcohol, even though he didn’t seem particularly tipsy. He drove slowly at least and while the rain had eased off, the sky was the dirty grey colour of wet newspaper. We didn’t talk much on the way, only about the cardiologist.
“The doc says the cholesterol has come down a bit, but not enough. The blood pressure is still a bit high and so on. Not much change, really. He told me I need to live like a monk on Mount Athos,” he chortled. I found the idea ridiculous as well. When we got back to the house, I offered to make him some coffee but I was dismayed to find he only wanted to drink beer.
“That was some storm, wasn’t it? Glad it’s blown over now. It will get hot again now. I have high hopes it will be fine for the feast day of Saint Dimitrios next Friday.” He rubbed his hands together, almost in anticipation.
“Did you hear back from the paper about staying here longer?”
“Yes, I cleared it with the features editor,” I lied. “He’s not well pleased, but never mind that.”
“Fantastic, Bronte. So we’re all set then. Did you have a nice day with Polly?”
“Yes, we had a great time. We had a good chat.”
I had one of those moments in life when you know instinctively you shouldn’t venture into a certain conversation but walk away. You’re too crabbit and emotional. But I couldn’t let it go. Something raked at my mind and wouldn’t be still.
“We were looking at that picture of the two of you on the beach. Remember?” He gave me a squinty look over the top of his beer mug as he took a gulp. “I know the truth now. You did have a serious relationship for a few years with Polly. She told me.”
“Oh, did she?”
“Yes. No reason to deny it now.”
“Okay,” he said with a deep sigh. “I suppose you’re going to blame us for ruining everyone else’s lives.”
“Not at all. These things happen. She’s attractive. She thinks you’re attractive.”
“Yeah?” he said, with a satisfied grin.
“Don’t be cute!”
“Listen. We didn’t set out to have an affair. It happened. She was unhappy. I guess I was lonely. We were discreet. She used to come to my house when I lived down on the coast. We never went out much in Kalamata. Even in a laid-back place like Kalamata, you can’t be too careful. After her divorce we just decided to cool things.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
He started picking fluff off the legs of his trousers. He pouted. “Yes, I suppose I am, really. It’s been nice seeing her these past few weeks. It makes me realise what a good rapport we had. Did she say how she feels about me now?”
“No.” I didn’t want to be a go-between. He frowned.
“She likes you, Bronte. I had hoped you’d be friends.”
“We are. I don’t have a problem with her. It’s you I’ve got the problem with. The way you kept this relationship quiet all these years. Made us imagine you were here searching for yourself. You never had the guts to fess up and tell us the real reason you weren’t coming back. You never told poor Mum that the marriage was over because you were here shagging someone else.” I hadn’t meant to be offensive, but I’d suddenly lost my edit button. The day had soured me completely.
He whistled softly. “You journos don’t mince your words, do you?”
“Why bother!”
“Well, it wasn’t like that, Bronte, and you know it. Polly’s way beyond that. She’s a classy and very intelligent woman. Don’t insult her!”
“I’m not. I agree she’s lovely. Like I said, it’s you I’m skunnered with. And all the illusions you seem to have had. All the lies you’ve told, including the one that got me over here, about the urgency of your health problem. Does the Greek sun make people want to tell porkies?”
He sipped his beer casually, but I could tell from the set of his mouth that he was straining to hold his temper. “I don’t blame you for being angry. For thinking I’m a miserable toe-rag. Look, even if I hadn’t met Polly I don’t think I would have come back to Scotland. I’ve told you all that before. There was nothing for me there. I was jaded with teaching, everything. Marcella and I had grown apart. Now Marcella’s remarried. It didn’t take that long. I was surprised, actually.”
We all were, because Marcella had been the reserved one, happy with her teaching and making her upside-down cakes. But then she met someone special.
I should have tapped on the brakes there, but something was still fizzing inside me. This was the conversation we should have had already, but the timing was never right. Now we were way beyond that.
“What about Shona and me? Didn’t you ever think about coming back to Scotland, for us. To spend time with the grandchildren you’ve hardly ever seen? I mean, face it. Your time here was nothing more than a selfish bid for mid-life hedonism; sun, sex and an alcoholic randan, by the sounds of it.”
“Oh, don’t start, Bronte!” he said, shaking his head. “Look, okay, I lay on the beach a lot to start with and drank too much and enjoyed this wonderful freedom for the first time in my life and …”
I cut across him. “Then the good life ran out, didn’t it? After a dalliance with teaching and olive harvesting, you had the love affair with Polly and then she decided to cool the romance. So what did you do then? You decided to have one last stab at finding poor Kieran; redeem your miserable, pointless life.” I was on a roll now, like a big dipper about to crash off the rails.
“Don’t bring Kieran into this.”
“Why not? I’m starting to suspect that Kieran may be just an excuse to spend another 10 years in Greece. I mean, even Odysseus went home in the end,” I said, raising my voice until it sounded ragged.
He glared at me, tried to stand up, holding his beer mug, and sat down again.
“I’d be lucky to get another 10 years, wouldn’t I?” he snapped.
“And here’s another thing. After you cooled things with Polly, before you turned your attention to Kieran, why didn’t you think of coming back then? That would have been sensible, sorting out your health problem in Scotland. Much less trouble for all of us, instead of hanging on like all the other rootless expats.”
“I don’t mix with them, I told you. That’s not my scene… I ….”
He looked queasy but I kept going. “What makes you any different? I can’t see it, apart from you speaking Greek.”
He didn’t reply. I ranted on a bit more in the same vein, buoyed up by a flood of frustration and anger that seemed endless, and ramped up more by the thought that because of Angus and his crazy mid-life missions, I had lost my job on the Alba, such as it was now, with nothing to fall back on. That’s when I noticed he’d put his hand on his chest. I realised I’d gone too far.
“Are you okay?” I said in a small voice.
“Yeah, just a bit tired.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look it. Have you got chest pains?” This was what I had feared – a heart attack. Now I was pushing him towards it.
“No, not at all, but I just get a bit tight in the chest sometimes. My heart gets a bit racy. I’ve got drugs to take for that.”
“You’re to tell me if you get chest pains. Leonidas has told me that if you do, I’m to take you straight to Kalamata Hospital.”
My anger had died completely now. I felt calmer. I pinched my lower lip with my teeth. “You know, Angus, maybe we should just book a flight back to Scotland straight away and get you sorted. We can always come back here again and
finish the business over Kieran.”
He looked horrified. “What, and miss out on the feast day of Saint Dimitrios? Our best hope so far? No way!”
I shook my head. Mission Kieran suddenly seemed like madness, getting ready to hare up a mountainside to hopefully talk to someone we’d never met about a relative who might have been murdered over 70 years ago but no-one can now remember in much detail. I rubbed my eyes as if I could make the last few weeks disappear, or even the last 10 minutes. I got up, went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. I knew Angus kept his drugs in a kitchen drawer in a zip-up bag. I brought them back to the table.
“Here, at least have some water and take something for the tight chest.”
“Thanks. Look, I’ve not had actual pain, honestly. Even if I did, the cardio guy gave me this angina spray. Christ, I’m out the door with drugs now.” He managed a smile. “That will get me by.”
He pulled a blister pack from the bag and took one of the tablets, to calm his heart, he told me. I fetched a glass of water for myself, gulped a few mouthfuls and sat beside him. I let the negative stuff go, it was all I could do. I couldn’t change the past, or fix it, and in a way, I didn’t want to care about it any more.
“Look, Angus, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject of Polly the way I did. It was out of line, but … you know how things just fester.”
“No, you were right to be angry, pet. Now we’ve said all there is to say. Let’s just concentrate on the job in hand.”
“Should I call Leonidas? See if he thinks you need to go to the hospital?”
“God, no! He’ll definitely tell me to go. I told you, I’m fine.”
“Okay, but don’t you think you should at least contact the cardio guy again and tell him you want to make a definite appointment for a private clinic in Athens, straight after the yiorti at Platanos? It’s got to be done some time. Everyone keeps telling you the same thing.”
“Okay, I’ll call him. I’ll make the appointment. It’s no bother.”
“Okay, good.”
He looked more composed now, less pale, but slightly broken. He sat back in his chair, staring at the table. I felt sorry for him.
“You didn’t mean that about Kieran, did you? That I was making him an excuse to stay longer here? That was unfair, Bronte. I would never do that to Kieran.”
“I know you wouldn’t. I said it in anger. I’m sorry. I do worry about the mission though. Wonder if it isn’t all too much for you, for all of us, really.”
He hunched in his chair and nodded. I was also worried about the feast day celebration at Platanos, and what would happen. I may have been nettled over the image of Leonidas and Phaedra today but I was sure glad he would be coming with us. We couldn’t have a better chaperone. If he could swing a defibrillator as well, that would be even better.
“You’re smiling, Bronte.”
“Not smiling, no. Feeling doo-lally!”
He laughed. “Don’t go crazy on me, Bronte. Everything will be fine,” he said, patting my knee. I felt my eyes begin to prickle. I had the childish urge to cry, out of pure helplessness, and disgust as well that I let my temper get the better of me. I got up and started tidying the kitchen.
“By the way, Polly said she will come with us to Platanos on the 26th,” I said, with my back to him, trying to sound a more chipper note.
“Ah, that’s grand. I’m pleased.”
“I didn’t tell you. Polly and I saw Leonidas in the old square in Kalamata with the girlfriend, Phaedra. She’s quite something. Sex on legs,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Really?” he said, making a small derisory noise in the back of his throat. “I didn’t think it would come to that. But I’d say he’ll definitely be shipping out of here one day soon then. All the best Greeks will be leaving soon. Shame, really. Poor old mother Greece with her blood-soaked roots. And then finally abandoned. Not my words by the way, some Greek writer said that in another tormenting period of local history.”
“But not abandoned by you at least, Angus, not yet.”
“Aye, you’re right, Bronte, and there’s the irony. We expats are digging in our heels here and the Greeks are all shipping out.”
The idea of this population swap horrified me but there was no more discussion on it. He got up, saying he wanted to rest downstairs for a while. I went out to the back balcony to watch the last gasp of the storm and the clouds scudding fast over the dark sky. A stiff breeze was blowing up from the gulf, ruffling the heads of the olive trees. The air was cold and tangy, with a salty nip.
I sat at the table, enjoying the solitude, grateful that a health drama with Angus had been averted, for now. I wasn’t proud of the incident, and not surprised either. Everything in my life felt messy at that point, and yet there was something about Greece, its preternatural beauty and simplicity that undercut all the other crises. I liked Greece more and more the longer I stayed. I thought a lot about Kieran and the fact that, because of him, I was becoming inextricably linked to this place. To find the conclusion to Kieran’s story would make all our lives seem more meaningful and would certainly calibrate mine. I began to need this mission to be a success as much as Angus did.
In the days before the Platanos yiorti, the weather became hot enough again, like Angus had predicted, for us to continue swimming in secluded coves. We had reached a calm plateau for now, keeping off difficult subjects, enjoying some nights out at the taverna.
I finished my feature on the crisis and while my redundancy was going through, I decided I would send it to Crayton, but a watered-down version with a few pictures. I would keep back some of the best quotes and pictures for another piece I was going to write for one of the London papers, which would pay me a lot more money and perhaps kickstart a freelance career for now. The Greek crisis was becoming big news everywhere in the world as the spectre of bankruptcy hovered over the country.
I had coffee with Myrto a few times, though she had a funereal glumness about her that no amount of cajoling would fix. But I got regular updates on how the German’s boundary problem was proceeding: very slowly, by all accounts. Angus seemed optimistic at least, saying everything was fitting into place with Mission Kieran. Most of all, he was relieved I had scored the extra time off.
“What did I tell you, Bronte, when you found the saint in your handbag? That you’d probably still be here in October. The old bam daddy was right!” he said.
All the omens were good and the planets in their right positions. But there is a Greek saying: “When a man makes plans, God laughs.” I had a feeling the Greeks didn’t say it for no reason.
Chapter 21
Saint Dimitrios
On the way up to Platanos on the feast day of Saint Dimitrios, we looked like we were ready for a funeral rather than a celebration − and not because of our smart dark outfits. We were all rather subdued, perhaps due to the early start. Leonidas had told us we needed to be at the church by 8.30 for the last hour of the service. He had knocked at our door at 7.15, dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, his curls bouncing with rude health. I was ready to go, armed with my camera and notebook and also the old photo of Kieran in case Dimitris did turn up at the celebration.
We all fitted comfortably into Leonidas’s roomy four-wheel drive. Angus, in the front passenger seat, had scrubbed up well, dressed in an old but respectable charcoal suit, his ponytail brushed and shiny. I took his ponytail now as a barometer of his moods. Curiously, when it looked neat, he was generally in a good place. Polly and I sat on the back seat. Hardly a word was exchanged between any of us until the car turned onto the mountain road after Ayios Yiorgos.
Polly broke the ice, twiddling an expensive set of pearls around in her well-manicured fingers. “I see that Phaedra has come back to Kalamata,” she said to Leonidas, speaking in English, to include us all in the conversation. But I could tell how her mind was working when she nudged my leg gently.
“Yes, she has come back for a holiday wi
th the family and to celebrate her father’s name day in Koroni. She does that every year.”
“How is she liking England?” probed Polly.
“She is very happy there. I don’t think she will want to come back to Greece for a long time.” If ever, I thought.
“And what about you? How are your plans for England going?”
He didn’t answer but I saw his face in the rear-view mirror and it looked strained. I couldn’t understand his reticence, as I was sure the news about him leaving for England would have circulated by now. Perhaps Phaedra would be nudging the story along in Kalamata.
Polly seemed to be enjoying her little wind-up. Angus turned slightly in his seat and gave me an impish look. I smiled. Then, surprisingly, Leonidas switched to Greek and he and Polly had a rapid conversation. Perhaps he was rebuking her for being nosey. When their little chat finished I saw him in the mirror tugging on his bottom lip with his top teeth. It made me think of the day on the Kitries beach and how his lips had felt when we kissed. It seemed a long time ago now.
As the road climbed higher and higher we were approaching the point where the scree had challenged us when Angus and I first drove up to Platanos. As we neared it, a herd of goats suddenly appeared on top of a bank of rocks by the roadside and danced down it, bringing more scree from the rockface in their wake. Leonidas had to brake sharply to avoid them.
“Gamoto!” he said, with a wave of his hand.
The goat herd streamed across the road in front of the car, with the lusty noise of goat bells filling the quiet morning air. A shepherd in old baggy clothes appeared, holding a long stick, a big black dog at his heels. It was a timeless image that seemed to divide the world we’d left and the one we were about to enter, which was how I always felt when I came up here, as if on some level this place didn’t really exist.
The village had a more festive air than we’d encountered last time. A dozen cars and a small people-carrier were parked along the main road near the church of Saint Dimitrios, whose grounds bordered the road. Coloured bunting, and small Greek flags, were slung between the church and the nearby trees. Two rows of tables and chairs had been set to the side of the church in the shade. Inside, there were some 40 people or so.
A Saint for the Summer Page 22