by Sara Alexi
‘…and tonic water,’ Sarah finishes, but Stella was thinking about Loukas drowning his troubles in an ouzo bottle. That is not a good thing. Not good at all.
Loukas lifts his head from his pillow. The evening is still too bright. When it grows really dark, he will go into Saros, find a bar, maybe find some girl, any girl, and together they will drink the night away. He reaches for the ouzo bottle and then vaguely recalls he threw it out the window. The picture of Natasha smiles angelically from her photo frame by his bed. It is the last face he wants to see. He purposefully knocks it over, so it falls face down, but the table is too small, the weight unbalanced, and it falls to the floor. The sound of cracking glass does nothing to lift his mood. His sister continues to stare from her frame, unmoved.
At first he was angry with Ellie. She played with him, tortured him, teased him. A rich English tourist coming to his country for a bit of fun, to take her mind off her own troubles. She used him. Strutting around in that little t-shirt dress, showing her legs, leaving little to the imagination. How was a good Orthodox boy meant to deal with that?
The anger was fuelled by the ouzo. It grew into hatred; for her, for his mother-in-law, for Stella, for Natasha. If Natasha had been more like Ellie, none of this would have happened. Then the hatred turned inward, for his naïvety, his stupidity, his vulnerability, for Stella’s not taking care of him, for her introduction in the first place.
Now, with the ouzo all gone, the bread unmade, and the hours passing, his mood has become heavy, draining sadness. He has no future in the village making bread; any fool could see that. But neither has he a future in Athens, with his baba’s business gone. His mama holds everything together with a couple of hours a day making the beds in a fancy hotel that has recently open near the house in Gazi. A job in a beach bar in a hotel can only be seasonal and he will be forever surrounded by Ellie types. English girls looking for fun.
He could play that game. Hit on the older ones maybe, accept presents. Why not; he is no more important to them than a new purse or ring or something. Just a thrill for the moment, quickly losing its attraction.
He turns onto his back. The cracks in the ceiling are too familiar. How many hours over the last year has he stared at them, wondering about his future, only to fall asleep and wake with his mother-in-law’s rapping on the wall? At least the bakery is safe. If he was satisfied with that, he would never have noticed Ellie. But now that he has, the bakery is not enough. The circle of thoughts is driving him mad. Getting up, he pulls on his trousers, puts back on the same shirt he wore yesterday, and experiments with standing vertically. His head swims.
Chapter 25
Having started in the bars in the main square of Saros town, Loukas now slinks his way towards the backstreet bars. His shirt is hanging out of his jeans on one side and there is a wobble to his walk. The moon is bright but the occasional streetlight helps. The jasmine is releasing its fragrance and the day’s heat is absorbed in the walls and the pavements cocooning those who are out, slowing their pace. As it is a weeknight, the Athenians are not filling the bars. Occasional tourists brighten the pavements in acid-coloured summer wear, but mostly it is quiet.
The next bar is small. A converted narrow, downstairs room in one of the old houses, the plaster on the walls uneven, the wooden beams exposed and darkened with age. The counter is at the far end, modernised with a blue neon light under the drinks shelf behind. Four cheap wooden stools are lined up in front of a shelf that serves as a place to put glasses, ashtrays, and bowls of peanuts down one side. There is no more room for seating or tables than this. Above the shelf hangs a framed poster of a Greek man in a sharp suit, bow tie dangling and a bottle of Metaxa brandy in one hand. He strolls down his black and white street in nineteen-fifty-something, happy with just the bottle as his companion. Loukas understands how he feels. He slithers onto a stool, ignoring the only other customer who has chosen to sit next to the bar.
The bartender, unshaven, slightly pudgy, puts a fresh bowl of peanuts down in front of Loukas and waits for his order.
‘Ouzo,’ Loukas snarls.
The man on the stool by the bar looks over to him. When the ouzo is served, it is placed on a mat on the shelf with a small bowl of ice and a spoon, sunk into the melting cold.
‘Put that on my tab,’ the man on the next stool says loudly. ‘How are you doing, Loukas?’
In the village, he expects it. Everyone knows everyone; the kafeneio there is an extension of home, the streets an extension of the yards, families intermingled for years. There is no privacy. But here in Saros, he was hoping, nurturing the slightest possibility that he could, for a few hours, be invisible. Why can it not be like the anonymity of Athens, so he is lost in the sea of faces, left alone? With lazy effort, Loukas takes the time to look up at the man.
He has no idea who he is and searches the face to try to recognise some aspect but draws a blank and raises his eyebrows to say so. Whoever it is, he is not much older than Loukas, with thin, lank hair that needs attention. He’s obviously spent time waxing it rigid, but it does not look good. The man’s suit is cheap and too big at the shoulders but his white shirt is ironed, so someone is taking care of him. A mother, an aunt? He doesn’t look the married type.
‘Vlassis!’ The man introduces himself, patting his chest with a flat palm, bitten fingernails on display. He raises his glass with his other hand to salute Loukas.
Loukas still cannot place him, lifts his glass in return, but says nothing.
‘Vlassis!’ He says again. The barman watches the exchange from behind his counter, wiping out the inside of glasses with a crisply laundered tea towel.
‘Vlassis Tavoularis,’ he expands, but Loukas shakes his head. He neither knows him nor cares.
Usually he doesn’t take ice in his ouzo, preferring the drink’s warmth undiluted. The name Tavoularis sounds familiar. He plops a second ice cube into his glass.
‘Tavoularis?’ he asks slowly, a dull recognition fighting to the front of his messy thoughts.
‘Yes.’ The man grins at him with relief at being identified.
‘It took me a moment,’ Loukas says, but he cannot rouse much enthusiasm.
‘How are they?’ Vlassis tone becomes sober. ‘Such a shock to you all, my sympathies to you. I have not seen you since the funeral.’
Loukas does not want to talk about Natasha, her death, or her funeral. But the man continues, intent of conversation.
‘Aunt Stheno has got in touch with me since you know, a few months ago, but I have not seen her recently. Is she alright?’
‘She’s fine.’ Perhaps it is time to go to another bar, drain this ouzo and walk out. The last thing he wants to talk about is the old man and old woman, but what else has he in common with this man, whom he recognizes now as the old woman’s nephew.
‘Yes, I was surprised when she got in touch after the funeral. I think you know she has not been close to my mama for some years?’
Loukas nods numbly.
Vlassis raises a finger at the barman, who comes from behind his counter to pour two more ouzos. Loukas almost puts his hand over the top of his glass to refuse, so he can leave. But then, a free drink is a free drink.
‘My mama was pleased, as well you can imagine. But it was me that the old woman got in touch with.’ There seems to be some pride in this statement and Loukas turns his head to take a lazy look at Vlassis’ face to see if the egotism shows there too. It does.
‘I don’t know if you have heard or not…’ Vlassis sits up on his stool, smooths the front of his shirt, and adjusts his jacket to sit better. ‘I am doing well in the mayor’s office, Assistant Deputy Planning Officer.’ Loukas catches Vlassis looking at his own reflection in the glass of the framed print on the wall. His chin lifts a little higher as he runs a hand over his anointed quiff.
‘My congratulations,’ Loukas replies automatically.
‘Yes. Mind you, it is a lot of work. Many late hours.’
‘I bet you ha
ve to do the work of every one of those lazy fat cats above you,’ the bartender chips in. ‘Two years it took for the planning to come through to change use of this place. To open it as a bar.’
Vlassis colours in a second. A piece of his slicked-back hair falls over his eyes in an unbecoming curl as he turns his head sharply to face his accuser. ‘It is a very busy department,’ he defends. ‘And yes, I carry a lot of the workload.’
‘I know. I see the Deputy Planning Officer and the Planning Officer sitting in the kafeneio opposite most of the day.’
‘I think they hold their business meetings there…’ Vlassis stutters slightly.
The barman chuckles and Loukas snorts into his glass.
‘Well, your mother-in-law knows the extent and power of my position,’ Vlassis says sharply to Loukas.
The barman disappears behind a curtain to one side of the shelves behind his counter, leaving his customers alone. Loukas drops in an ice cube and watches the clear liquid turn opaque. He swirls the cube round with his finger that he then sucks. He will drink this and go, but something about what Vlassis is saying niggles him. It has been an hour or two since he could think clearly but somehow, this one-sided conversation feels like a dangling key to his future. He can feel the connection but he cannot see it. Metaxa and Ouzo have never mixed well. He should know that by now and have stuck to ouzo.
‘Power?’ Loukas summarises Vlassis’ sentence into one word so he can absorb it.
‘Yes, power.’ Vlassis has not recovered from the barman’s slight. His voice still bristles.
‘Power,’ Loukas repeats. It is all he is capable of now.
‘Yes, some people think they have the power, but they don’t. They flash their money about, trying to be better than everyone else, showing off and becoming like queens and walking all over good, honest, hard-working people. Honest people like your in-laws.’
Loukas opens his mouth to protest how little work his in-laws have actually done over the last year but then the Metaxa in his bloodstream convinces him that silence would be the easier option, so he shuts it again.
‘Queens,’ he murmurs instead, and an image of Ellie comes to mind.
‘Yes, queens. The old woman says she struts about like a queen.’
Loukas blinks hard and turns to face Vlassis. Why would he say Ellie struts like a queen, how would he even know her?
‘She’s not even Greek, you know.’ Vlassis leans towards him and speaks in hushed tone. ‘She is gypsy stock.’ He takes a handful of peanuts and throws one in the air and catches it in his mouth.
‘Who are you talking about?’ Loukas asks, his words slurring one into another.
‘That woman who did not give you the bread order for her flashy hotel. Why, who did you think I was talking about?’ Vlassis throws another peanut. It misses his mouth and lands in his ouzo. ‘She thinks she has it all, but she is not the one with the power. I am.’ And he downs the last of his ouzo, slaps Loukas on his back as he stands.
‘I’ll make sure you and the old woman are alright, Loukas. Trust me.’ As the barman returns, Vlassis leaves, and it takes a moment for Loukas to realise he has not paid. But the barman does not charge Loukas. Instead, he writes down the amount Vlassis owes in a big book that he draws from under the bar and when he has finished scribing, he shuts it with a thud.
‘He will be back tomorrow. Same time every night. Always alone,’ the barman confides. ‘His bar tab keeps me going during the week. But don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sure it is not his need for alcohol that keeps him coming back. He is just lonely. He stays longer and drinks less the more people are here.’ His laugh is short but uneasy.
It is night now and the sky is a deep inky blue. Loukas walks with his head back, hands in pockets. Somewhere, far away, if Ellie is looking up, she will be seeing the same stars.
‘Damn you, Ellie,’ he mutters as he staggers to the next bar. His conversation with Vlassis lingers.
Ellie hunches on the other side of the dry stone wall along the main road in an out-of-the-way part of Yorkshire. It is hard to believe that yesterday, she was too warm even in the lightest of clothing. The rain is coming down at such an angle that it is dry where she sits, but this is little consolation, as she is already soaked through. She feels as miserable on the outside as she does on the inside. It shouldn’t take much over an hour or two with the cold wind for the onset of severe hypothermia. First, she will continue to shiver as her body fights to keep her internal organs warm, then she will become confused, and finally, a warmth will seep over her. She will feel cosy as she falls into unconsciousness and her pulse will weaken until it stops. Not such a bad way to go. Her tears mix with the rain.
What on earth has she really just witnessed at Brian’s house? Was that a relationship, a fling, a moment of drunkenness in the middle of the day? The way they were with each other, so familiar, like they knew what each other would do next, Brian waiting for Marcus to take the cigarette end. Was it even a cigarette? It smelt odd.
How long has it been going on? The whole time they have lived there? And who knows? Maybe the whole of Lotherton knows and maybe that’s why Helen and Nev smiled. Maybe they are laughing, maybe the whole finger pointing is about to start again.
There is no reason not to, so Ellie opens her mouth and wails with the wind and the rain. She could not bear to go through that again.
Or is she being childish? Maybe experimenting, exploring is what life is all about. Maybe Marcus is right: maybe all adults do this sort of thing and they just keep it quiet from the children.
But that’s ridiculous. Mitsos would never explore away from Stella, not with anyone. It just isn’t in his nature. Nor would Sarah. She only had one man in her heart and she was even waiting for him.
It seems everyone has someone, but who can she turn to? Sarah and Stella said she always has them but they are over the other side of the world. Then again, so what, why should she not go back to where someone seemed to actually care about her?
Loukas, that’s why.
At the base of the wall is a small fine pile of soil next to a hole thin enough to poke a blade of grass in. At the moment, it is filled with rain water. In a sheltered, bracken-free spot that she found last summer up on the moors was a similar hole and she spent a couple of hours watching the industrious ants come and go. Some just marched; others hauled seeds and bits of dead insects four and five times as big as their own segmented bodies. There are no ants today, it’s too cold and wet. The ants in Greece were so much bigger and warmer!
‘Loukas.’ Ellie whispers his name out loud through chattering teeth. She lifts her head and looks up at the horizontal javelins of rain. He showed such care about what had happened to her in the stockroom. He uttered such supportive words. Her family, her peers, and the papers did nothing but throw their own javelins, spears of snide remarks, unthinking humour and downright nastiness. The only thing that stood in her way was her marriage to Marcus.
‘What marriage?’ Ellie spits and wipes the rain from her face. Marcus has broken all his vows. He has broken the promises he made and reduced their marriage to a falsehood.
‘There is no marriage!’ Ellie says bitterly. She repeats the phrase in her head, again and again to take it in, and with it comes a slow realisation.
‘There is no marriage!’ This time, the words hold joy. She stands shivering, face to the rain, shouting to the heavens.
‘There is no marriage.’ A sense of freedom surges through her. She climbs the wall and jumps down to the pavement on the other side.
Why on earth has she been sitting here waiting to die when, with an explanation, she could be in Loukas’ arms?
Her knee-jerk reaction to Brian and Marcus was to run, hide, wishing for her world to stop as if she is without power—as usual, just as she has been taught. But that is not who she wants to be. She will determine who she is by her actions and one thing is for sure, she will not be a victim.
‘Yes!’ She stands, slips her hand
in her pocket, and pulls out the one thing that makes her feel a bit more secure, the one thing that gives her hope, the one thing she knows she cannot do without. Her passport.
Chapter 26
As he leaves the narrow bar, Loukas has a vague intention of finding Vlassis. Maybe if he talks to him some more, this feeling that something that he said has a bearing with his future will firm up, become more obvious. Something to do with Stella not giving them the bread order. No, something to do with if the old woman had the hotel’s bread order, this would open up his future. But he is thinking with too much ouzo and brandy in his system and the clarity of his thoughts comes and goes with every step.
Saros is spilt into three parts. There is the new town, with new houses, new businesses, and sprawling international dealerships on the fringes of the municipality. Then there is the area that used to be thought as the poor area. Those who could not afford to live in the small, historic old town with its stone-built Venetian mansions. The poor area has recently become sought after. The people who live here form a community, and that alone is desirable these days. The families who live here are no longer poor.
But Loukas, as he staggers, is in the old town, which has lost so much of its sense of community as it is now made up of expensive holiday homes, hotels, and shops. The old town is pedestrianised—many of the streets here are too narrow for cars, and some are no more than cobbled lanes with steps at odd intervals, but the occasional motorbike flaunts the rules, weaving between the people. The area has become so desirable that there are very few shops offering life’s staples. Somehow, the old town seems to have remained immune to the economic crisis gripping the rest of the country and the rents are too high to be afforded by those who peddle such mundane things as vegetables and fruits. But tucked away on one of the back streets, amongst fashionable boutiques and high-end jewellery shops, is one honest business that has continued to thrive. It is so successful it now owns the building, and there is no rent to pay for this institution—the Old Town Bakery.