by Sara Alexi
Loukas closes the foyer doors to stop stray dogs making the newly laid carpet their bed for the night.
Ellie avoided him all night. After that one conversation, he only saw her from a distance, recognisable by the youthful energy of her movements and the whiteness of her skin. His rib cage is tearing apart, the ache of his heart so physical it brings anger which he expresses as he carelessly heaves over to the back door of the kitchen the boxes of glasses and beer bottles which he has collected from the beach. He dumps them on the ground, walks away.
He was not mistaken about what they felt. Something must have happened. Tomorrow he will find her and they will talk. It will be alright. She is scared maybe, but so is he. How often does this sort of lightning strike?
The way to the village through the olive and orange groves is difficult at night when the moon is not full. But tonight, the pale globe hangs low and large and it is almost as day. He emerges by the church, its small blue neon cross above the tower glowing, colouring the tarmac. He trots down between ghostly cottages to the square, hopeful that the lights are on in the bakery, that the old man has got up to make the bread. With his breath held, he turns the corner. No lights. His shoulders drop; he sighs heavily. It was too much to hope. First Ellie and now the old man. It seems that two wishes is too much to ask. One would have been enough.
His tread slows, he thrusts his hands in his pockets and ambles the last few yards. Then he blinks, the sudden light blinding him. As his eyes adjust, his spirits lift. The light in the bakery has come on. The old man is up. With renewed vigour, Loukas jumps twice on the spot, fists clenched, hissing ‘Yes, yes!’ and without any further hesitation he turns and walks away. The old man is up. The old man can make the bread. One chain has been released. His breathing grows deep and easy. The stars about him shine more brightly.
His soft shoes are noiseless as he marches, climbing the lane up past Mitsos and Stella’s house. The brass handle of the drawer front that is the roof of their homemade letter box shines in the moonlight. Their cottage, down the lane beyond the gate, is engulfed in darkness. He climbs higher, up to the trees that tuft the top of the hill. Sitting heavily, his last pocket of energy used up, exhaustion washes over him. He has been up and going since the very early hours of yesterday morning. Maybe with some sleep he will make sense of what has happened with Ellie.
He watches the light in the bakery for some minutes, imagines the process the old man is going through. His wiry frame will, so easily, take the weight of the work, just like it always had. The old man is not that old after all. He wonders if the old woman is up making her man a coffee.
Will there be a future when Ellie makes his coffee? Will he ever have the pleasure of making hers?
With this thought, he leans back into the soft pine needles. The sounds of tiny insects scuttle by his ears. The early morning drop in temperature is upon the village, but at this time of year, every day is hotter than the last. Now, the pre-dawn chill is only just perceptible, making the air comfortable rather than cold, but under the trees there is a dew, a dampness. The pine tops move slightly, whispering her name. The moon has a halo around it, showing him that the world is a magical place and anything can happen. He knows he is right about Ellie. He just needs to talk to her. He closes his eyes.
Morning comes but Ellie sleeps on. As she wakes, the heaviness in her chest makes her wish she was still sleeping. She lays still, convincing herself to be responsible, adult. By the time she dresses, the heaviness has not subsided and the weight of all she feels for Loukas and all she is denying herself remains. Breakfast will have been cleared away by now. But when she goes to explore, she finds it is still being served by sleepy-looking staff who yawn and rub their eyes.
Sarah is sitting at a table sipping coffee, and she smiles and points to a spare chair. As Ellie pulls it out and its legs grate against the gravel, Sarah grimaces.
‘Sorry,’ Ellie says and puts down her coffee. She dreamt about him. He is in her every thought. It is worse than yesterday. She needs some company to take her thoughts somewhere else, talk about her life back in England, make it real again.
‘Hangover,’ Sarah mutters in explanation, her head in her hands. ‘Did you enjoy it last night?’ she asks quietly, dropping something that fizzes in her glass of water. ‘Did you dance?’
Ellie cannot find the enthusiasm to talk. So she shakes her head instead.
‘I did. On the table, dancing, ouzo in hand. Shameless! I got a letter from him yesterday. He is coming at the weekend!’ Sarah announces.
‘Oh, I am so pleased for you,’ Ellie says, her own concerns lost in the moment.
‘Not as pleased as I am.’ Sarah is looking up at the blue sky.
‘Why is it that love never runs an easy course? My friend, the old lady who is still in love with her dead husband—who also, as it happens, is the mother of my man, Nicolaos.’ She gives Ellie a sly sideways look and a smile, inviting her into the new details of her life, ‘says, “It is the course that love runs that makes it strong.” What do you think Ellie? You think a rough course will make love stronger or do you think a nice, smooth course lets it flow?’ Sarah pours a cup of tea. For someone with a hangover, she is remarkably animated.
The young man who carries the guests’ bags to their rooms and does other odd jobs around the hotel puts his head through the arch of the courtyard. ‘Sarah, the people in room four say there is a bag missing.’
‘It’s behind the reception desk,’ Sarah replies.
He backs out of the way as a plump lady dressed in white comes in with a fresh batch of toast. The smell permeates the air and several of the other diners stand and hasten over to collect it whilst it is hot.
The moment for Ellie to answer Sarah’s question has passed, but it lingers in her thoughts. She and Marcus have had a tough course, but it has not made their love grow strong. It stopped her really considering how she felt. But this turmoil with Loukas is something else. There is nothing in her mind except him. Maybe if she gave into him it would run its course within the week and her life would go back to normal.
‘So where do you live in England?’ Sarah asks.
‘In the north, Yorkshire. I moved recently.’ This is her chance to remember all she has back home, where her real life is, and exclude Loukas from her thoughts. ‘To a really cute village. Just one street, high up on the moors. The people there are interesting.’ She has not really made friends with anyone yet but she has gathered some information about who lives in some of the houses.
‘Hm, sounds intriguing.’ Sarah sips her tea.
‘Nev—he’s got long hair, thin guy, a builder with a Salvador Dali moustache and a narrow goatee beard lives in the top house with his wife who is so tiny, her twelve-year-old twins are taller than she is. The locals call them King Nev and Queen Helen, on three accounts.’ Ellie is starting to enjoy herself. Sarah seems to brighten from her hangover, looking over her cup.
‘The village is a street on a slight hill which bends left at the top, around the walled courtyard of the old mill the weavers’ houses were built for. So the first reason they are King and Queen is their house is at the end of the village. The very last one at the top.’
Sarah pours Ellie more coffee, encouraging her to keep going.
‘The second reason is because their house is bigger than all the rest. It’s two houses; the one knocked through to the other at right angles to it. So now it is two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs. Although I’ve not been in, I’ve just been told about it. And the third reason is that Nev has a sense of personal style. He wears clothes that look as if he has walked out a Thomas Hardy book. You know, collarless shirts with rolled-up sleeves, wide, buckled belts that hold up rough serge trousers and boots that look like they have been reclaimed from some coal pit worker from Sheffield. I know that for myself, I see him going up the street to his home nearly every day.’ Ellie looks at the remains of their breakfast. Sarah offers her the last slice of toast.
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sp; ‘Like I said, Queen Helen is tiny and pretty, with wavy dark hair that falls below her waist and everything about her says she is a queen of the fairies or elves. She is quite unreal as she is so small but so perfectly formed with relatively long legs and a nipped waist. I stood behind her once, waiting to be served in the Patisserie, and I couldn’t help but just stare. You know how some people are, you just want to stare at them.’ Ellie looks for confirmation from Sarah, who nods in agreement. She has settled back in her chair and seems to be content just listening and nursing her hangover.
‘The house next to King Nev and Queen Helen along the top of the street is empty. And the next after that is rented to a smiling, pretty, plump girl with a ring through her nose, who says she is a white witch but apparently she is doing nothing with her life, just claiming benefits.’ Ellie hears how this might sound like unkind gossip and so adds, ‘This is information I got off the Italian woman who lives next door to us. The day we moved in, she offered me coffee and then told us about everyone who lives in the street. I couldn’t stop her.’
‘Maybe she was lonely,’ Sarah offers.
‘Maybe. It’s the people who live in the top corner house where the road bends that I feel sorry for. An old couple who complain about the decline of the neighbourhood. It must be hard to be somewhere so long and then see it dramatically changing.’
Sarah nods again, her eyebrows rising. ‘Well, it depends how it changes, I suppose. This hotel will change the village, bring more tourists, more work perhaps. Mostly people only see it as being a good thing. There are exceptions of course, but I think those people are just bitter.’
‘Oh, let me tell you about the man the next house down, next to the old couple. I’ve only seen him from a distance but they call him Septic Cyril and if the wind is in the wrong direction, even we can smell his house and we are near the bottom of the street.’ Ellie laughs but the memory screws up her nose.
‘It sounds as if you will never get bored there,’ Sarah says. Ellie thinks to tell her of the house below Cyril’s, where a reformed Hell’s Angel lives. No one knows quite how he makes his money, and next to him is a woman who has too many children for her age. The rumour is that every time she has a problem that she cannot handle, she distracts herself by getting pregnant. She is on benefits, too, with social workers coming and going all day long. Her house is directly opposite the mill. Then there are houses on both sides of the cobbled road, and Ellie knows nothing about who lives in them. The Italian woman was keen to continue her monologue describing her fellow villagers, but by this time, Ellie’s mind wandered, wondering where Marcus was putting things in the house as he unloaded boxes and bags from his car. Speaking about the village makes it feel very close now, as if she could walk there.
‘The Italian lady, Angela, has offered me coffee since but so far, I haven’t gone.’ The woman seemed to be a bit of a busybody and maybe not the best person to team up with in such a small community, not before meeting some of the other neighbours. But that hasn’t happened either, as most days she is off walking on the moors, exploring the rocky outcrops. That’s good; she misses the moors. She should focus on that, make it grow stronger until she cannot wait to get back home.
‘What are you doing today then?’ Sarah asks.
‘I think I might go down to the beach. Sunbathe and swim.’
‘Good idea. I think I’ll stand behind a desk for eight hours trying to be helpful.’ Her mouth twitches into a smile and then she swallows the last of her fizzing water. ‘Right, that’s me. I’ll see you.’ And she is gone.
Ellie pretends to herself that she is not half-looking out for him as she goes down to the beach, but the bar is closed. She swims and sunbathes and eventually falls asleep. When she wakes, the bar is open, the towels off the pump handles, bottles on the bar top, and Loukas has his back to her, pouring a drink for a lady in a wide-brimmed hat. He is more tanned than she remembers.
Before he turns around, Ellie gathers up her things and slips back to the hotel, praising herself for being responsible and mature. She somehow got the impression that he was only working there for the night of the opening. If he has taken it as a permanent job, this could make the next two weeks awkward. Putting her things on her bed, she realises she has forgotten the sun cream she found by the sunbed. It was nice, it smelt of coconuts, but she is not going back to get it and risk another conversation with him. Her resolve is not that strong. She picks up a book that was in her room when she arrived. It is not the kind of thing she would normally read, but it will do. It is entitled The Illegal Gardener and has something to do with migrant workers.
The next day, she decides to avoid the beach, telling herself it is the right thing to do. It is the sort of advice Father would have given her. Catching the bus into Saros town is interesting. Only three old ladies get on with her, each wearing a black skirt, blouse and headscarf. The bus is high off the ground and Ellie looks down on the orange groves they pass. Small huts are dotted in amongst the trees and tall grey pylons support huge fans, one to each field. It is very alien to her eyes.
Once in Saros, she spends a couple of hours looking around the shops. They sell touristy things; handmade jewellery, key rings with olive wood carved fobs, and there are some very chic dress shops with prices to match, an ice cream parlour with a sign in Italian. In amongst these shops are cafés and tavernas, each colourfully and loudly filled, mostly with Greeks. Not Greeks like in the village and the hotel though; these Greeks have a different feel. Their hair is well cut and their clothes designer. Maybe they are from Athens, down for the weekend. In the main square, which is back from the harbour front, there are what look like mosques at either end, both at an odd angle to the square’s geometry.
‘Facing east,’ Ellie mutters to herself and from some distant classroom lesson, she seems to recall that Greece was occupied by the Turks at some point in time. The mosques give the square real charm, and the smaller of the two has glass-fronted notice boards outside, advertising plays and music. It is now being used as a theatre. The other buildings edging the square are all cafés at ground level, with flats, presumably, above. Boys play football in the central open area and more than one young child is being pushed on a tricycle, and one is on a bike with stabilisers. Two teenagers, younger than Ellie, stand with skateboards in hand, posing as if about to do a trick. Ellie watches them for a few moments and soon recognises them as the type of boys that are all talk and no action. It seems strange that such behaviour is cross-cultural.
The café in the far corner of the square offers shade under a huge spreading and ancient-looking plane tree, and only one free table with two chairs.
‘Parakalo?’ the waiter asks her, pulling out a chair, inviting her to sit. She is thirsty. A drink would be good but she has no idea what he has said.
‘I, er…’
‘Ah, yes please?’ He quickly swaps languages.
‘Just a coffee please, oh no, a chocolate.’ Ellie looks down the menu as she decides.
‘Zesto, hot? Or krio, cold?’ The waiter scans the other tables as he speaks, one hand on his money belt, the other holding a tray.
‘Krio.’ Ellie smiles.
‘And a black coffee,’ a voice from behind her calls out, and Loukas pulls out the chair next to her and sits.
For a moment, she has no words. He smiles and all the tension she has been holding in her neck and down her spine releases. She feels suddenly light.
‘So, I want to know. What has happened?’ He is nothing if not direct. ‘You are scared, yes? Me too!’ I can see you feel the same… We are scared because we know we have been hit by lightning, we are scared because we may be making decisions that will affect the rest of our lives, we are scared because we can see each other with grey hair and wrinkles. Of course we are scared. But it is not a fear to run from. It is something to be embraced. I have thought of nothing but you since we met. I can tell by the way you look at me now that you have thought of me. So we can play this game if you li
ke: You can run, I can chase you, it will be fun, but the outcome is already decided, so is that how you really want to spend these first days?’
The waiter is too quick; he is back already. A syrupy cold chocolate with two coloured straws and a wooden swizzle stick with a top of metallic paper hair is set before her. It looks childish. Loukas’ coffee comes in a small serious cup on a saucer and it reminds her that she must be like the coffee and not the chocolate: responsible, adult. Loukas takes a sip of his drink and regards her over the rim. As for words, she can find none. He looks up as if he has been waiting.
‘Ellie, speak to me.’ He leans towards her and takes her hands. She pulls them away, slowly, unwillingly. ‘Why are you torturing yourself?’ He moves his chair closer, strokes her hair, his brown eyes rich, his pupils dilated. Part of her, the part that was so hurt by Marcus’ quick cooling, the part that was shocked by the school’s stance towards her and by the papers’ violating remarks wonders if she is being naïve again. It’s possible. Her track record does not prove her to be a very good judge of these things. Maybe he says this to all the foreign girls. He smells of something vaguely sweet and musky. Some of the froth from his coffee is on his upper lip and before she can stop herself, she wipes it away with her thumb. He grabs her hand and kisses it, and a tremble begins somewhere deep inside of her, all her misgivings evaporating. Twisting her hand, she loosens his grasp, avoids his lips on her fingers, and takes a hold of her drink. It feels cold, wet. She needs to stay strong.
‘Okay, we play.’ He sits back.
‘It’s not a game.’ The words come out as if she is cross, which she isn’t.
‘Then why?’
She could tell him, just say straight out that she is married. But somehow, despite the wedding and the certificate and the rented house they share, it does not feel true. It feels like a lie. She is not married with her heart and with Loukas, it feels really important to only speak from her heart. But it is her marriage that means they cannot be together, so she should tell him, explain. Maybe he can find a way round the problem.