The Santorini Summer

by Christine Shaw

  ‘You must keep your legs well away from the walls as we go up, since the

  donkeys delight in trying to crush their riders against them if they can. Hold on tight, my darling.’

  I did not enjoy it. I felt sorry for the animals, tormented as they were by flies and the switch of their owner as he urged them on. It was very hot, although it was only May, and the smell of ordure was overpowering. But Christos was on the beast behind me, holding my luggage and murmuring, ‘Oh my Olivia,’ over the tinkling of the donkeys’ bells.

  The view from the top of the donkey steps was magnificent.

  ‘Look, Olivia. Over there you can see Oia, and down to the south that is the tip of Akrotiri. We are in Fira, the island’s capital, and we shall have some lunch and then I shall take you to see the house where you will be staying.’

  That seemed to clarify things. “You” and not “we”. I had been too nervous to ask what arrangements he had made, fearful of the implications, but now that he had made it clear that we were not in fact staying together I was disappointed.

  He took me to a dusty-looking taverna on a narrow street.

  ‘This is Nickolas’ Taverna’, he told me. ‘It is the best place to eat in Fira.’

  A waiter bowed and led us to a small table. He pointed to a blackboard on the wall, and murmured something in Greek I could not translate.

  ‘Will you let me order for you, Olivia?’ smiled Christos. ‘I promise you a truly

  Greek meal which you will like, I think.’

  Since I could not decipher the squiggles on the board, and I was totally overwhelmed by being with Christos once again, I smiled in agreement. The order was given, and soon a basket of bread and a dish of olives arrived. Cutlery followed, and then the waiter produced a bottle which he displayed to us with some pride. Christos nodded, and a small amount of wine was poured into his glass. He sniffed it, took a mouthful, swirled it around his mouth and swallowed. Then he grinned at me. ‘Wait until you taste this, Olivia. It is Assyrtico, a wine produced only here on Santorini. It is very, very good.’

  I would have drunk turpentine had it pleased him, but as it turned out it was delicious, cold and flinty-dry. As I sipped appreciatively, Christos leant across the table and questioned me urgently.

  ‘How was your journey, Olivia? Were you afraid? I was a brute to expect you to do it alone. I’ve been so worried. Were you troubled by anyone?’

  ‘Christos, it was fine. Really. I was excited. I couldn’t wait to get here. To see you again.’

  ‘And now? Now we are together, are you happy? Will you be content here?’

  ‘I shall always be happy when I am with you.’

  It was the simple truth. He nodded, satisfied.

  Our lunch arrived.

  I had no idea what I was eating or what it tasted like. I was drowning in Christos’ brown eyes, his smiling mouth, his loving words – absorbing every tiny detail. As we sipped our coffee, still too sweet and too strong, Christos assured me that we would be the happiest pair on the island.

  ‘You will love this place, Olivia. It is the most beautiful, wonderful place I have ever seen. We shall live like simple fisher-folk, and you will get brown and even more beautiful if that is possible, and totally fluent in Greek. Then we shall go to the dig and I shall become Marinatos’ right hand man – that is the phrase, is it not? – and after I graduate we will work together and become famous.’

  I could not tell whether the last “we” was Christos and I or Christos and Marinatos, but I did not care.

  We travelled to Oia on a donkey cart, sitting on a hay bale in the back whilst Christos pointed out the beautiful scenery we passed.

  ‘Santorini is so narrow that in places you can see the Aegean on one side and the caldera on the other at the same time.’

  ‘Tell me about your friend’s cousin. Do you like him? Do you work together? Do you like being a fisherman? Where do you live?’

  ‘His name is Niko. He works for his father-in-law who owns the boat. He is a young man, with a young wife. They have a little house down by the harbour they call Armeni, and I have a room with them. Irini is expecting a baby, and they are grateful for the little I pay them and the help I give Niko. They will love you, and you will like them. Irini will help you to be a Greek woman, and a good wife. And if you are not a good wife I shall beat you.’ He laughed and then ducked as I shied a pretend slap at him. Then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It was our first kiss on Santorini, and I was reassured that I liked it every bit as much as I remembered.

  ‘Oh, Olivia, I cannot believe that you are here, and we have the whole summer together.’ He took my locket out of his pocket and fastened it around my neck. ‘Here is your hostage safely returned. I have looked after it well.’

  I loved him with all my heart.

  Oia had the same narrow pathways I had seen in Fira. Definitely not built for cars – a laden donkey could just negotiate the lanes, many of which were steep and twisting, but our cart was too wide to pass. So we were deposited in a little square in front of a church on the edge of the little town, and Christos grabbed my hand and my luggage and we set off walking.

  ‘In the nineteenth century’, he told me, ‘rich seamen built mansions in Oia, using the volcanic rock which is all around us. They are not like the traditional dug-ins which most people live in here. They are more like Italian villas, with a Venetian influence. You know that the Venetians were great sailors and had a huge empire at one time? You can see architecture influenced by them all over the Aegean and Adriatic. Such houses are an important part of Santorini’s history. Irina’s parents live in a Captain’s House, just around this corner…’

  Facing the sea, and set back behind a garden, was a large stone house, symmetrically styled, with a very tall and imposing front door. It was shabby, its paintwork peeling, and the garden uncared-for, but you could see that once upon a time it had been very grand indeed.

  ‘Are Irina’s parents rich, then?’ I asked, struggling to equate this idea with a poor young couple who lived in a fisherman’s cottage.

  ‘By Oia’s standards they are better off than most. They own three boats, and Stavros no longer goes to sea himself. His two sons, and now his son-in-law, work the boats and he sells the fish to the tavernas. He is an ambitious man. One day he will be rich. I will take you to meet him, but not today.’

  We walked on, the pathway beginning to narrow and slope downhill.

  ‘Irini and Niko live down here, close to the harbour’, continued Christos. ‘You shall have my room, and I will stay with Niko’s crewmate, Dimitrios.’

  After a year apart I did not want to be away from Christos any more than necessary. ‘Can’t you stay with us, too?’

  ‘There is no room for both of us there.’ He blushed. ‘And the village would be scandalised if we shared a room. I shall only be two doors away.’

  Niko and Irini lived in a dug-in house close to the little harbour. It had the distinctive barrel-shaped roof and it was painted white, with door and window frames bright blue. Old olive oil cans planted with flowers sat either side of the door. It was small and neat and well cared-for.

  Niko welcomed us first, Irini hanging back shyly, her arms crossed protectively across her pregnant belly.

  ‘Christos was not exaggerating after all. You are as beautiful as he said, Miss Olivia, but you are too pale. Santorini will cure that. Come, come inside.’

  Behind the centrally-placed door was a small room which was lit by two windows, left and right of the door, and a skylight above. There was a table, two chairs and a stool at one end and in the corner was the kitchen, which comprised a sink and a hotplate. A pair of glass doors curtained with panels of lace led into another room beyond. We sat at the table and Irini made coffee, shyly placing a plate of honey cakes before us.

  They questioned me politely about my journey, about Cambridge and London in particular. Christos had obviously spoken of me in great detail. I asked about their families,
knowing how important family life is to Greeks, and we talked about the baby, which made Irini blush. Then Christos explained their routine.

  ‘Niko, Dimitrios and I leave early in the morning to sail out to the fishing grounds. We are back in the afternoon for sleep, and then we eat. We go early to bed because we must rise early. Irini will show you the way things are done here. Will you be all right while I am away?’

  I was thinking that I was going to be very bored and lonely, but of course I replied that I would be fine. Then they showed me where I was to sleep. Beyond the glass doors there was a tiny vestibule and off this two other doors, one of which led into a room which had been made ready for a baby. In a corner stood a wooden cradle draped in muslin. Beside this was a narrow bed and a chair. A rail fixed to the wall held two empty coat-hangers. There was no natural light - the glass panel in the door borrowed light from the vestibule which in turn borrowed light from the living room. It was claustrophobic and I was glad to leave it, although I smiled and assured them I thought it was charming and I would be very comfortable.

  ‘Our bedroom is next door’, Niko told me, causing Irini to blush again, ‘so if you need anything…’

  Christos, who must have been reading my mind, said, ‘We take turns to wash in the kitchen, and the lavatory is out in the yard. Let me show you.’ He squeezed my hand both to reassure me and, I understood, to beg me to accept these primitive arrangements.

  The yard was communal, serving Niko and Irini and two other dug-ins. There was a stone hut which enclosed the lavatory, a copper laundry basin of the sort I’d seen at my grandmother’s house and a stone-built oven.

  ‘The women work together out here,’ explained Christos. ‘They do the washing and the cooking out here because it is cooler.’

  His anxiety was plain to see, so I smiled and said it all sounded great fun, although my heart was sinking.

  ‘If this will not do for Olivia, my mother will find her a room in her house,’ said Irini, peering anxiously from the doorway.

  I thought that would mean seeing less of Christos, and I could not hurt Irini’s feelings, so I smiled again and thanked her for allowing me to stay in her lovely home where I was sure I would be very happy. Irini smiled, relieved, and Christos looked at me gratefully, squeezing my hand again.

  ‘It is time for Niko to sleep now,’ he said, ‘for we have been up since dawn. You and I can take a walk down to the harbour and I will show you the Ariadne.’

  I realised that he, too, should be sleeping, but I was glad that he was not going to leave me so soon.

  As we walked along the path he thanked me for agreeing to stay. ‘I know that these conditions are not what you are used to in England, Olivia, but I think you will be happier here than at Stavros’ house. He is not a kind man. He speaks roughly to his wife and shouts. He is a bull, I think.’

  Smiling, I corrected him. ‘The word you mean is “bully”.’

  ‘A bully, thank you. The house is very fine, although it needs restoration, but the air? – the atmosphere? – is not happy there. Niko and Irini have very little but they are happy and they have become my friends.’

  I was suddenly very proud of him. His values were fine, noble even, and I would not let him down. ‘It will be an adventure, and as long as I am close to you it doesn’t matter where I am.’

  The Ariadne lay beached in the silt of the harbour, tilted on her side and frighteningly small.

  ‘Is it strong enough to go far out to sea?’ I asked fearfully.

  ‘She, Olivia, please. Boats are ladies. She is just like all the other fishing boats, look. They have been building boats like these for many, many years and the men who sail them are very knowledgeable about the ocean and the weather. Niko and Dimitrios have been fishing with their fathers since they were children. I am quite safe, my love.’

  ‘Do you enjoy fishing?’

  ‘It is a good feeling, to be out in the wind and the waves. And to work in a team, with Niko and Dimitrios. When we have a good catch it takes all our strength to bring it aboard, and we sing songs of the old heroes as we sail home for we know we have done a good day’s work and will feed many people. It is a simple life. It makes Athens seem like another world.’

  We climbed down onto the sand and curled up there together. Christos lay with his head in my lap.

  ‘I fear I must sleep a little,’ he said.

  I sat very still so as not to disturb him. How strange it seemed to be sitting on a beach with Christos, so far away from Basingstoke, listening to the seabirds cry and the gentle swooshing of the waves at the mouth of the harbour. I looked down at his curly head and felt so full of love that my body could hardly contain it. I tried not to move so that he should sleep undisturbed.

  When he awoke we were both stiff. ‘We need a walk’, he said, ‘and I have somewhere in mind.’

  We climbed up from the beach, past Nikos’ house, and on up the steep, winding path to the centre of the little town. The shops were just opening again after their midday closure, and goods were being replaced in doorways.

  ‘Here’, said Christos, stopping outside a jeweller’s. ‘We need a betrothal ring.’

  I caught my breath. He was, after all, quite serious about marrying me. He had never actually asked me, proposed in the traditional English manner, and I had never actually said yes, but here we were, looking at rings.

  The window displayed a few watches, some gold necklaces and a selection of rings. ‘Which do you like?’

  I was overcome with shyness and surprise. ‘I don’t know,’ I answered lamely.

  ‘I prefer the simpler ones. Perhaps that one, with the Greek key design?’

  The jeweller treated us with great ceremony, insisting that we sit, that we drink coffee, and bringing each ring in turn on a little velvet cushion for me to try. It was apparent that we must consider each one gravely, although we had already made our choice. But finally we left the shop and I was wearing a gold ring on the third finger of my right hand.

  ‘Now,’ said Christos, proudly, ‘everyone will see that I have chosen my bride.’

  To my surprise, I settled into life in Oia without too much difficulty. We would rise at dawn and arrange our movements tactfully to allow each other time to wash in the kitchen, then a breakfast of coffee and bread dipped in hot milk, which they told me was called paxamadia. Irini would pack up lunch in a canvas satchel for the men and I would walk outside to meet Christos and Dimitrios, leaving Irini to kiss her husband goodbye in privacy. It became my custom to watch Ariadne set sail and to wave to my fisherman until the boat was at the harbour mouth.

  Then I would return to help Irini clean, for she was very proud of her home and kept everything spotlessly clean. Someone would have filled the copper outside and got a fire going beneath it so three households’ clothes were soaked and scrubbed. I tried hard to join in the gossip with the other women, but their island dialect and colloquialisms were often beyond me. They seemed to appreciate my efforts, however, and their laughter at my clumsy Greek was kind rather than cruel.

  When the washing was hanging up to dry, we would take baskets and climb the steep path up to the town where Irini would buy bread, cheese and tomatoes. On our way home we would pick horta, the greens that grow wild on the islands and provide an abundance of free vegetables. By now the sun would be high and it was a tiring walk for me. For Irini, who was seven months’ pregnant, it was exhausting.

  ‘Why don’t we buy enough bread for two days, so you don’t have to make this journey every day?’ I asked.

  She was quite shocked. ‘But the bread must be fresh,’ she answered.

  On our return she would make us a simple lunch – aubergines with fava puree, a salad of tomatoes and feta, and yogurt with honey or fruit – and then we would sit outside in the courtyard, preparing the food for that evening’s meal, sewing and gossiping, but mostly waiting for our men to return. For me it was the worst time of the day, for I longed for Christos to return, but when he did so he
must take his rest in Dimitrios’s house, and I would lie on my narrow bed in my claustrophobic room and try not to hear Niko making love to his wife in the room next door.

  When the sun started to drop towards the horizon, the households arose and began to cook the evening meal, and then we would all be together again out in the courtyard, grilling fish on skewers and roasting vegetables in olive oil. Jugs of wine would be passed around and the men would tell us about their day, often pretending they had been attacked by giant squid or octopus to make the women scream. Christos would smile at me, grateful for the way I tried to join in and, whenever I wasn’t basting something with oil, or turning something over to cook on the other side, would take my hand and squeeze it.

  We would carry our meal into Niko’s house, where sometimes Dimitrios and his wife joined us. Eating seemed to take a long time, interspersed as it was with stories from the men about their voyages, and many glasses of wine. I was becoming quite used to it, my head no longer spinning after two glasses. The Greeks don’t care to eat their food at a hot temperature, so it never mattered that we were still finishing two or three hours after we had started. Irini would excuse herself early, because of the baby, but I would sit with the others and try to understand their jokes, waiting for everyone to leave so that Christos and I might snatch a kiss before parting.

  Every night seemed to fly by, and every day dragged until the fishing boats came back to the harbour, so that I lived in a perpetual cloud of anticipation and longing.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Oh, Nan, it’s so romantic. And I think you were very brave, to come here alone and try to be Greek.’

  ‘I was in love, Alexa. It was the most…’ I search for words to express that ecstasy, but can only shake my head, as tears trickle down my nose.

  ‘Oh, Nan,’ she says again, hugging me.

  We sit like that until I have composed myself. ‘Sorry, darling. It’s being back here. It really does feel just like yesterday. Shall we go back now, and have a nightcap?’ I am stiff from sitting on the wall and the sky is almost black. The tourists have all disappeared. I take a deep breath and, with Alexa tucking my arm safely beneath hers, we walk back to the hotel.