by Sara Alexi
‘Bugger and damn and poo.’ Ellie hugs her knees and rests her head on top, thinking she is going to cry until she catches the edge of the damage to her tongue against her teeth, which reminds her of the collision. Lifting her head, she looks out across the land. It gives the impression that she could go in any direction she wanted and get lost in seas of foreign experiences and waves of alien cultures forever. All her fears of being on foreign soil seem to have gone.
Maybe that’s progress?
Chapter 10
‘Come on, son. Let’s go eat.’ The old man throws some coins onto the table.
‘I am no longer hungry.’ Loukas does not stand when the old man does.
‘Suit yourself.’ And with a nod to Loukas and a wave to a few of the men left in the kafeneio, he makes his way into the sunshine and hobbles to the bakery. The signs of age are back, his progress not so fast. Everyone except those playing tavli watch his progress. There is little else to do.
Once the old man is in the bakery and the door is closed behind him, Loukas jumps up, kicking the chair in his haste. He grabs at it to stop it falling, replaces it gently, thanks Theo. He dithers before descending the three steps onto the road and then sets off with long, purposeful strides across the square.
‘I’ll do it!’ he announces.
Stella lowers her chin and looks under her brow at him, her eyes narrowing.
‘Do what?’ Mitsos looks up from the grill that he is now cleaning.
‘The bar tonight. I’ll do it.’
Stella says nothing, but searches his face.
‘Really? Do you know how to mix drinks? What about the bread?’ Mitsos cannot hide his relief and his questions sound almost as if he doesn’t wish to have them answered. He drops the cloth he is using and leans the poker against the counter. Loukas has his full attention.
‘I had a job in a bar in Athens when I was at university there.’ At the time, he resented the work, but is glad now that he has had the experience. It was in his last year of studies and money had become tighter more quickly that his baba had predicted. As a result, it was either work or leave university. There was a pressing need for him to contribute to his fees as well as to help put food on the table. A small, cheap table though, not the mahogany one, which had been sold by then, along with the chairs.
He turns to face Mitsos.
‘As for the bread, maybe tonight I only get a couple of hours sleep, but maybe Stella’s right. Maybe a change, a little less sleep one night will make me rest better the next night.’ He is going to do this whatever the cost. Damn the old woman and the old man! They survived before he came along and they can survive one night now if need be. His anger is mixing with excitement. It’s funny how he can almost feel his dimple from the inside when his smile is big enough.
Stella still hasn’t spoken.
‘Stella?’ Mitsos asks.
‘For one night?’ She says it as a question but Loukas can hear that it is a command. He understands. It is a small village. If the bread does not get made because of her hotel then there could be knock on effects, maybe fewer farmers at her eatery, the ripple of gossip. He knows and loves all the villagers, and is related to more than half of them, but even so, they can be very petty at times compared to the Athenians.
Also, Stella will not want to have any open argument with his in-laws. As for his own thoughts on the matter, first and foremost, he wants to protect Stella from the acid views of the old woman and secondly, where else would Stella get her bread for her eatery every day if she is on bad terms with her neighbours? No, it is important in a community such as this to tread softly.
‘Yes, Stella, not to worry. For one night, and the bread will get made,’ he promises.
Chapter 11
Being in a warm country has a unique effect. Look at Penny when she went to Dubai and Becky after her trip to Florida. They came back with an attitude. For a few days, they were no longer ruffled by the everyday events of life. It was as if they felt assured of their future, or perhaps didn’t even care. They lived in the moment, and were, for that day or two, untouchable. Then they lived for a short while in the past, reliving their holidays, going on and on about how great it was until it became just a place they had been, somewhere to brag about.
When they went somewhere with the same climate as the UK or colder, Penny to New York in March for example, there was no such change. It was just a place to brag about from the day they got back.
But when they went to warm places, there was a change in their auras from the day they returned and it is this that Ellie understands now, sitting under the trees with the sun on her face.
The seat of her t-shirt dress is covered with pine needles when she stands, bringing with them the fragrance of the deeper layers, musky and rich. It feels like a long time since breakfast and she realises she is hungry. She has normally had about three milky coffees by now and wandered around for a pastry from the patisserie, the nearest one, by the travel agent’s, on the other side of the railway station in the next village.
‘Ha! Patisserie,’ Ellie scoffs aloud. There is never any smell of freshly baked bread from that national chain ‘patisserie’ shop. Hot pizza slices, maybe. And all the biscuits are pre-packed. They do sell a good cream slice, though. That’s her Friday treat—about as exciting as the weekends get these days. It seems sad for a nineteen year old. Maybe she will be able to get a cream slice here, but then she probably won’t be bothered about it by Friday?
She walks a few steps with her head back to face the sunshine, eyes half-closed, only peeping to check where she is going to make sure she doesn’t fall. She stops. A lizard slithers through the dried grass, pausing motionless on a stone to her left, before scuttering away. She continues when it has gone.
Going down the hill is so much faster than it was on the way up. She notices letters sticking out of the drawer-front letter box, and another lizard, smaller, brown, sits on the brass handle on top, basking in the sun. Down in the square, the bakery door is closed. The pharmacy, too, is lifeless. The kafeneio is shut. Her shoulders are burning hot now, and it seems best to go back for a late lunch and to see if she can buy some sun cream. They are bound to have a shop in the hotel.
Heading out of the bright village and walking along the lane towards the beach path, she is surprised to see Sarah sitting under an olive tree surrounded by goats. The surprise isn’t that Sarah is there, but rather that she, Ellie, is here to witness such a sight. She would never have thought in a million years that she would have found a way to make this, her being here, happen. The brown, white, and black patches on the goats merge one into the other and it is hard to tell how many there are. Horns bob into vision, curling and gnarled, as the animals lift their heads to see who approaches. One look and the horns dip back to the ground, white stubby tails lifted, showing undersides of white, as they continue to graze. The dapple of their coats blends into the mottled shade under the tree. Some of them strain their necks up to reach the silver-blue leaves on the shorter olive trees. One has its front hooves halfway up a trunk, stretching to nibble on the lower branches.
‘Hi,’ Sarah calls to her.
‘Hi, these yours?’ Ellie asks. What a dumb thing to say. She grimaces.
‘Yes, well no. Well yes,’ Sarah says cryptically. It makes them both smile and relieves Ellie of her self-criticism. Sarah’s streak of red lipstick is at odds somehow with her job, her cream dress, the caramel of the burnt earth and the soft, dark cyans of the olive leaves.
‘Well I’m glad I asked.’ She is relaxed with Sarah, as if she has known her for years. She must be even older than Marcus. But she is not like a mum, not mousey and quiet. She is just, well, dignified, cool.
‘Ah, it’s a bit of a long story,’ Sarah says. ‘They belong to someone else. He left to rejoin his wife. But …’
Ellie does not want to intrude, but Sarah looks so comfortable sitting on her olive root in the shade that she steps closer, under the tree. Besides, Ellie is sure
she can recognise a hint of a scandal in the words Sarah has spoken. Since her and Marcus’ affair, she feels drawn to disparagements, with the need to compare maybe, to diminish her own. She sits.
‘So they belong to someone else then.’ Her invitation to talk sounds awkward to her own ears, but it is the best way she can think to say it.
‘I suppose strictly they do. But as things are working out, maybe they won’t.’
Ellie waits, not sure how to encourage her to say more. After watching the goats and wondering if she should go, she asks, ‘Have you been here, in this country, long?’
‘Long enough to fall in love.’ Sarah laughs gently. ‘He is the man whose sheep and goats these are. But he had a wife in Australia.’
‘Oh, difficult.’ Ellie likes that. At least Marcus didn’t have a wife. That would have made an even worse scandal. Sarah picks up a small pebble and throws it at the feet of the nearest goat, which jumps sideways and moves away, the rest of the herd following.
‘He went back to try and patch things up.’ Sarah sighs. ‘But, it seems, that is not working out, so he is coming back.’ With this, she looks straight in Ellie’s face with an open smile, her eyes alive.
‘Oh, how wonderful for you.’ There is a little prick of envy at the love she can see reflected in Sarah’s eyes. She thought she had that with Marcus in the first few days, but it dwindled so fast that it left her wondering if it was only she who was besotted, or even if she had just been caught up in the excitement of the events and it was nothing to do with him at all. The physical, intimate side of things petered out so quickly. In fact, there was never a repetition of what happened in the store cupboard, certainly never with that passion again.
‘Can I ask you something? I don’t mean to get all heavy, I’m just curious. You know that side of love that is all mystical and consuming? How long does it last?’ With the sun kissing their skin and the warmth loosening their limbs, it does not seem such an inappropriate question. She cannot imagine ever asking such a question, say, at a wet bus stop in her hometown to someone she has only met a couple of times, but here, everything seems acceptable. Although it does make her sound a bit naïve, as if she has never loved, which, thinking about it, is true if you didn’t count Marcus.
Besides, how else are you supposed to know these things if you don’t ask?
‘Why would it stop?’ Sarah asks. ‘Love is all that and more. You find the right person and that feeling can last forever.’ She is silent for a second, and judging by her face, she is scanning through private thoughts. ‘I have a Greek friend here. She is an old, old lady but she still has that feeling for her husband and theirs was an arranged marriage when she was in her teens. She didn’t love him then, but as time passed, the spark ignited and she still has that feeling even though he is dead now.’ A sadness crosses her face before she forces a smile to say, ‘Why, have you met someone?’
Ellie rounds her shoulders, drops her head. Technically, she is a married woman. She is not ready for another scandal. No doubt she looks too young to Sarah to be married. Her hands dangle between her knees, out of sight, so she slips off her wedding ring. It will not fit the third finger of her right hand so she puts it on her little finger. Looking down at it to see if it just looks silly there, she finds it looks good, trendy even.
‘My guess, by your silence and your red cheeks, is that you have. Welcome to Greece! If you don’t fall in love with the country, you will fall in love with the people. They should hang warnings as you come through passport control.’ The goats have gathered around them again and Sarah takes another well-aimed shot with a small pebble. They skitter away.
‘You know, I’m going to miss you when you go back,’ Sarah says.
Ellie blinks, swallows. ‘Really?’ Her cheeks feel a little hot and she looks away, focusing on one of the goats. A smile plays around the corners of her mouth but she does not allow it to fully form.
‘Yes.’ Sarah leans her back against the tree trunk and closes her eyes. ‘There are times when I just need to speak to someone of my own culture. When you learn a language, at the beginning, you miss all the subtleties, the nuances, the inferences. Even with Stella, I speak on such a straight level.’ Her eyes close, she looks so comfortable.
‘But there must be many English tourists who come to the hotel,’ Ellie says, taking the opportunity to really look at Sarah’s reposed face. Sarah’s eyes open a fraction and she smirks.
‘Not everyone suits everyone.’ She says the words with a sigh. ‘There are two other English women in the village though, but they are not always around. I just miss the day-to-day chat the English do. The subjects are different. The Greek women talk about what they have cooked, what they will be cooking, if they have been out for coffee.’
‘I suppose you don’t know these things until you live somewhere. But you seem happy enough.’ Ellie speaks slowly.
‘In the night, you know, the small hours when your head tells you nonsense and your heart believes it, I sometimes wonder if I have done the wrong thing.’ Sarah pulls a twig out from the dried grass; it has an ant walking its length. She puts it down gently.
‘My family is so far away. I cannot have in-depth conversations about, oh I don’t know, philosophy, whatever, and I wonder if I have isolated myself too much.’
Ellie shifts uncomfortably.
‘But when the morning comes, the sun shines through the window, the goats bleat, and I cannot wait for the day.’
Ellie smiles at the conclusion but weighs up what Sarah has said. It is bound to be the small things that are missed. What would she miss? It is hard to think of anything, sitting under this olive tree in the warmth. Home is isolating, anyway. The whole thing with the press has left a shadow that she seems to walk under, scared to do too much, scared to say too much, scared to get to know people in case they recognise her from the tabloids. She wouldn’t miss any of that.
‘I’m not sure there is much I would miss.’
‘You might be surprised.’
Little Lotherton comes to Ellie’s mind, where she and Marcus have moved to. It must be one of the smallest villages in Yorkshire. In fact, it’s barely a village, with just a single track lane. It only exists there because there used to be running water. Halfway up on the left is a nineteenth century mill that once spun wool, its power coming from the stream at the back that is now diverted to a thirsty pig farm. The mill’s cobbled courtyard, where wagons pulled by horses would have once pulled up to deliver fleeces to spin and to collect the fabrics to take into Bradford to sell, is now used by a farmer to park his tractors and ploughing machines. The mill is where he stores his hay.
The mill’s presence gave rise to the squat stone-built, slate-roofed weaver’s cottages with their rows of tall, solid, mullioned windows upstairs to let in enough light for the weavers to do their work. With those days long gone, they are of little value now, the village being so far from civilisation. The place attracts people looking for cheap rent and a place to hide away from the pace of city life.
Little Lotherton is so small, it is not serviced by a train and is not on a bus route. The nearest public transport goes as far as the larger village across the valley that is known locally, and no doubt with some irony, as Greater Lotherton, or, even more colloquially, as The Town.
Greater Lotherton is just off the main road in to Bradford, The City. The main street in Greater Lotherton, after dipping to the bottom of the valley where the railway runs, then climbs the other side, heading directly for the moors. A good ten minute stretch of the legs up this road is required to reach Little Lotherton’s cobbled lane.
Both villages are somewhat lost in time, and there is little Ellie can imagine she would miss if she were never to return again. Besides, no matter where she is in England, the fact remains that she was, however briefly, in the National papers.
‘There was a spot of bother back in my home town last year and there was all sorts of rubbish talked about me. People who didn’t know me ju
dging me, that sort of thing. It would be great to get away from all of that.’
‘That sounds very uncomfortable,’ Sarah says. ‘I think with regard that sort of behaviour, people are the same the world over.’
‘So when does your man come back?’ Ellie asks, consciously changing the subject.
‘Any day. He is just looking for a ticket he can afford.’ Her excitement is apparent. ‘Right, I’d better get this lot back. I don’t normally graze them at this time, when it’s so hot, but with the official opening of the hotel tonight, I won’t get any time off later.’
Ellie stands before Sarah does.
‘I’d best get back too. What time do they serve lunch until?’ Ellie asks.
Sarah looks at her watch. ‘You’ve time if you go through here.’ She points behind her. ‘Just follow where the olives end and the orange trees start, and it takes you right to the hotel. It will also save you from burning if you stay in their shade.’ She looks at Ellie’s shoulders.’ You need to get some cream on.’
Ellie takes her leave into the olive grove and looks back once to see Sarah refreshing her lipstick.
The olive leaves are a green-blue on one side, with a silvery sheen to them on the reverse. The slightest of breezes, smelling of salt and sea, drifts through, rattling them and making them flutter, showing first one side then the other. In comparison, their twisted trunks are dark. Studying them as she walks, she decides that one or two of them at least have started as many thin trunks that have grown and twisted together with age, creating holes and knots that she has never seen in other tree trunks. Everything seems magical in the warmth.