An Octopus in My Ouzo

by Jennifer Barclay

  On my break in Rhodes, I find even chores can be charming. I need ink for my printer and like to buy from Cartridge World because they're cheaper and recycle the cartridges. But when I call to check what time the shop closes, I find it's moved out of town – too far to walk. I ask the man on the phone if there are buses.

  'Where are you?' he asks.

  'Mandraki.'

  'No, where exactly?'

  'Er, the Hermes Hotel.'

  'OK, I'll be there in ten minutes.' He comes to collect the cartridges, and brings me what I need later in the day. Now that's service. 'Lazy Greeks', eh?

  I've been shopping for two days, filling up my suitcase with purchases: a reading lamp, a casserole dish, a tasty Cretan cheese covered in black peppercorns. On my last day, I discover another, slightly smaller street market just outside the Old Town, near the Gate of St John. I admire all the colourful fresh produce, buy some plants for a few euros each, and perhaps because of the big smile on my face I receive a marriage proposal and a cheeky elopement proposal – which make my smile bigger.

  But when I get back to the hotel, I realise I've hit the retail wall. There is no shopping left in me. I have lost the will to shop. I've enjoyed my time here so much. But home is calling.

  However much fun I've had, I am happy to be back on the island where olives are being harvested and startled goats make me laugh out loud. I go to my Greek dance class and drive back through hills bathed in silver moonlight that picks out every detail, making them seem unreal. I never knew before coming to Tilos how moonlight transformed the landscape.

  I drive through the gate of the honey factory and Pavlos looks at me oddly as he notices me getting out of the passenger door – the driver door doesn't open any more. But I reckon the car has done well this last year, considering it's subjected on a daily basis to the equivalent of rally driving, bumping over rocks and ruts through dust clouds. Pavlos is tending his passion fruit trees, and we get on to the subject of pomegranates.

  'The mice ate all the pomegranates this year,' he says. 'They run up the trees. I pulled down a branch to pick some fruit and a mouse ran out!'

  I wonder if it was a marauding relative of our drunken rodent. I change the subject, asking where the beehives have disappeared to.

  'Rhodos,' he says. 'On holiday! This time of year, there's not much for them to eat here in Tilos so they go to Rhodes.'

  Sounds like an extended gourmet break. Do bees have any predators, I wonder, apart from the colourful beeeater birds?

  'The krokodilakia get them,' he says – the big lizards. 'They sit outside the hive with their mouth open and close their eyes – they have a thick skin and the bees can't sting them, it's only their eyes that are sensitive – and they eat the bees as they come out of the hive.'

  I love the image of the little crocodile sitting outside the hive with its tongue out and eyes closed. Sometimes I'm so pleased that I understand all this in Greek that I later wonder if Pavlos was winding me up. It's hard to tell sometimes.

  It's still dark and I'm in bed when I hear Stelios on the phone to Nikos as they arrange where they're meeting for fishing.

  'No, I can't take the car, Jennifer needs it…'

  I'm puzzled and mumble, 'I don't need the car…'

  A few minutes later he's upstairs. 'Moraki mou, babe, could you do me a little favour…?' And I learn why I need the car.

  So I'm driving to the post office in Livadia just after eight, and am so glad I had to do him a favour as the centre of the island is breathtakingly beautiful. The early igrasia, the moisture in the air, has turned the grass all silvery white in the sunshine, and the trees are darker than usual so their reddish-brown autumn leaves glisten.

  When I arrive, young children are gathered in the square for some event and a few shout 'Yeia sas, Kyria Jennifer!' Savvas from the post office is watching them, but breaks off to help me do Stelios' money transfer. Then I take advantage of being in Livadia to go for a swim off the rocks. The water is glassy calm, clear enough to see fish down below without a mask, and I swim as far as a rock stack, where I get close to a cormorant. The only sound is a fishing boat chugging across the bay. Some men are fishing off the quay in the hazy morning light. My heart fills up with emotion for this place.

  In late November, it's Stelios' name day; Saint Stylianos, from which Stelios derives, was a helper of children, and patron saint of children yet to be born. Last year I had no idea it was his name day until he told me, so I put it in my diary this year.

  'Don't you have a name day?' asks Stelios.

  'No, we don't do that. I don't think there is a Saint Jennifer anyway.'

  Once again, living on a tiny island neatly eliminates the commercialisation of celebrations since there's nothing much to buy. I bought him a book last week on the ferry, so I make him chocolate brownies – they were supposed to be chocolate lava cakes but the measurements are tricky when you don't have scales.

  For my birthday a few days later, he buys fresh fish called balades from another fisherman. Their eyes are huge, for seeing at over 200 metres deep – but they're tasty.

  'Oh, I forgot, I got this for you when I went to the shop, moraki mou!' A Kit-Kat emerges from the pocket of the holey fisherman's pants. It looks like it's been there a while. But it's always the thought that counts. We have fish, wine, salad, chocolate and laughter… a perfectly relaxing evening.

  I'm looking forward to our coming month-long trip, to England for Christmas and then to France for the first half of January, to break up the winter and miss some of the days that felt tough last year on Tilos. We need to spend more time together, after this busy summer.

  I'll see my colleagues, too, to try to iron out some issues in our working relationship. My experiment in working from home in Tilos seems to me a success and I still love the work; I've brought some successful projects to the company and have been lucky that there's never been a power cut when I have a Skype meeting. But I realise that I did have more influence when I was in office meetings; it is easier to discuss a project and convince your colleagues in person. It's only natural to get a little frustrated if you believe in your own abilities. They want me at my desk at particular hours in case they need to reach me urgently, but they never seem to need to. I wonder if it would be better for everyone if I moved on. But I worry about losing an interesting job, one that gives me a steady income.

  One thing I know, however, is that right now, it's all worth the risk. I'd rather deal with difficulties, and live on a remote, empty island without many cars or houses, in a house with a view of mountains and sea. A day spent walking never feels wasted. Having a beach to myself is something most people can't buy with all they earn in their work. I know life here wouldn't suit everyone. But if it was easy to live here, everyone would do it and it would be just like everywhere else. I'm glad it's not.

  There's no doubt that I'm more and more at home here. One day, old Hippocrates from Eristos, who seemed gruff at first, stops his ancient moped to offer me a lift to the village. It feels like a breakthrough, though I decline, not sure the moped would survive. In Livadia to buy my ferry ticket, I chat with our friendly policeman Christoforos, who is fishing, and Stelios Stefanakis in the ticket office beckons me behind the counter to see a video on the computer.

  Thinking about our upcoming trip to England, Stelios and I laugh as we have 'fish and chips' for dinner. Much as I love English fish and chips, I am very happy for my fish and chips here to be fresh fish caught that morning, potatoes newly dug from the garden, both fried in local olive oil with local lemon squeezed on top, and oregano from the fields around the house. Next summer he's going to gather salt – so even the salt will be local. I make mulled wine with honey and orange, cinnamon and cloves. Stelios likes it as much as I do.

  'Maybe we should wait until after the holidays to try again,' he says, 'so you can drink.'

  I want to try again for a baby as much as he does, but I also feel a need for adventure this coming year. I plan to b
uy a new tent.

  On the last day before we leave in mid-December, the bay at Eristos is bright silver in warm sunshine and, as I have my last swim of the year on an empty beach, I think how hard it is to leave. When Stelios gets home from fishing that evening, music is on, a glass of wine poured. A romantic evening? When I head upstairs, he's fast asleep. Oh, and of course he's going out fishing tomorrow morning before we catch the 11 a.m. ferry. Why wouldn't he?

  Chapter 24

  Nectar for Christmas

  The car – which looks delightfully dilapidated, with a missing wing mirror, dirty seats and only partially functioning locks, but has never failed to start – is often full of wood, oddments left over from the kantina or mysterious tools. I make Stelios take most of his tools out so we have some space for our bags.

  'But where will I put the tools?'

  I suggest the house, since we won't be there for a few weeks, but he's nervous – his tools are his pride and joy and I'm surprised he isn't taking them to England.

  Of course we can't drive straight to the port, because we have to pick up more bags from a friend in the village to put on the boat as a favour, plus his parents want a lift down to Livadia. As I stop for them, Pantelis comes over to the window to ask where we're going.

  'If I'd have known, I'd have given you a gift to take with you,' he says, sending his greetings to Mum and her friend Hermi, saying they must come again next year.

  I drive across the island, the car packed to the gills. Everyone's talking at once – Nikos explaining about a TV quiz game he won money on, Vicky telling me a joke at the same time then translating it into English when I don't laugh, Stelios explaining, 'She understands, she just doesn't find it funny, Mother…'

  At Remezzo, the cafe at the ferry dock, it's a bustling mix of those leaving and those staying, people asking what you're doing for Christmas, kisses goodbye. Pavlos the bus driver quips that we'll be back in five days when Nikos gets sick again. The big ferry arrives and we board. Up on deck, I take in the pale-blue-andsilver seascape. Tilos always surprises me with how different it looks from the sea, all rugged grey rock and impenetrable cliffs.

  I'm excited about seeing my family and friends. Stelios is excited about flying to England because he can buy duty-free tobacco. There is nothing that pleases this man more than buying vast amounts of something he likes – be it souma, olive oil or broccoli – at a good price. At Athens airport, he goes into the duty-free shop. Standing outside, I see him look at one aisle, then at another, then engage in conversation with someone. He's a talkative chap so I think nothing of it until I see him emerge from the shop looking pleased as punch.

  He'd noticed the other man in the shop was travelling to the US and therefore entitled to buy cheaper duty-free tobacco; providing he didn't need his tobacco quota, he could buy it with Stelios' money. Once it was in the duty-free bag, nobody would know. Stelios' little trick has made the otherwise dull transaction into something to be proud of, a way of beating the system. We like to be unlegal. I roll my eyes. Unbelievable.

  Stelios no longer talks about moving to England to make money, as he did when we first met. Having been to England, he finds the weather grey and the society restrictive – for example, he can't smoke anywhere he wants. He's happy now being a businessman in Tilos.

  A summer of speaking English with customers has given him confidence and he generally charms all my friends and family – I do love this man. And it is quite funny that he brought a plastic water bottle of souma to contribute to our family Christmas lunch in London. But when everyone politely declines, preferring to drink good champagne as they banter merrily, he continues to thrust the slightly grubby looking bottle at people, saying they must try it because it's nectar. You're not at the kantina now, I think. It's probably quite funny but I feel caught between him and my family. I wish he could appreciate my culture, too; enjoy my family's way of doing things, as they enjoy his when in Tilos; do something to make his girlfriend happy. I love his world, the life we have in Greece, but it's not the whole of my life; I also have a life outside it, and he doesn't seem as able to share that.

  Every relationship has its ups and downs. In our daily routine, we're a good team but when we spend time alone together as a couple – going out at night or on holiday – we don't get along so well. I don't know why – perhaps we've grown apart with spending too much time doing our own thing, or maybe it's just the pressure I have put on our relationship because of the urgency to get pregnant, making the stakes so much higher. Certainly the miscarriages have cast a shadow over how things were. Boxing Day morning sees us sitting at my dad's kitchen table, each of us angry and unhappy, talking about splitting up. Eventually we decide to try again and go to France together as planned.

  We fly to Marseille, a city I've always liked, and Stelios likes it, too. It was founded by the Greeks 2,600 years ago. Coming from England, it seems as though we've arrived back in a Greek city, a Mediterranean place where people with black hair wear leather jackets and take their coffee drinking seriously. They even smoke illegally in the bars like Greeks; we see empty juice bottles set out on tables as surreptitious ashtrays. We have fun gorging on delicious North African food: lamb tagine with couscous, chicken and almond filo pies, Tunisian sweets made from thin pastry and almonds, everything cheap and fresh.

  When we take the train north into the Luberon, though, with a few exceptions, there's nothing he can't get better in Tilos. The Provencal wine generally disappoints him. He enjoys the fillet of trout, duck breast and a risotto made with foie gras and truffle shavings. But the French yoghurt to him is completely tasteless; finicky fat-free faiselles and fromage blancs, nothing thick except the ones labelled Greek yoghurt. He complains about the oranges, which are actually from Spain, tasteless to him compared with Tilos oranges straight from the trees – though I'm sure French oranges are good straight from the tree, in the right season. One day I take him to a shop with regional products, thinking perhaps he'd enjoy tasting the different olive oils of this region of Provence, but he's unimpressed and tells me why Greek olive oil is the best in the world.

  We have sunshine almost every day, often seeing the white top of Mont Ventoux against a deep-blue sky; while back in Tilos, according to daily phone calls from Megalo Horio, it rains. Every morning we wake to the 'wackwack' sound of hundreds of ducks gathered on the frosty grass around the pond we can see between the pine trees. At Fontaine de Vaucluse, where a crystal-clear river rises from a spring of unknown depth below tall cliffs, we walk up the hill to the remains of a medieval castle and then eat lunch at a kantina, Snack the Big Fred, and Fred has his photo taken with the Tilos kantina man.

  The original plan was to spend a couple of weeks in France. We are very lucky to have free use of an apartment in the complex where my mum has her place, surrounded by open countryside. I will work during the days and Stelios can amuse himself. But as he sits playing online biriba on his computer, he complains when I won't let him smoke indoors because it's against the rules; I complain when he leaves bits of tobacco from his rollups and grubby handprints all over the table, or spills red wine on the couch. It makes me so angry that we almost split up again. My head is also spinning with trying to translate French into Greek and vice versa, resulting in a melange of the two that leaves me hitting my forehead in despair. It's a slight relief when he decides to change his flight and return to Athens early to see friends and eat a big plate of Greek-style lamb chops. I'm looking forward to some time alone.

  On a bright, sunny day, after queuing ages for train tickets, we head back to Marseille and eat wonderful food again from the North African market – paella, fluffy pancakes stuffed with spicy vegetables, veal stew with peppers and olives and potatoes, all for a few euros each. The friendly vendors like it when Stelios banters with them about prices, saying he's from Greece and has no money. We walk to work off the food, then ask a man in a wine shop to uncork a bottle of Côtes du Rhône and take it back to the hotel, where Stelios wan
ts me to read aloud to him – translating into Greek – a book I'm reading about a journey to Constantinople, and I'm amazed that finally he doesn't want to watch TV or play on the computer. We kiss and hug goodbye at the airport, and make silly duck noises.

  It's Sunday morning on the big ship Diagoras and the church service is on the television in the corner of the dining room where I'm eating yoghurt and honey for breakfast.

  It feels strange to have been away from Tilos for over a month – the longest I've been away since I came to live in Greece, coming up for two years ago. My break in France was lovely, peaceful writing days on my own and a few days with my mum who flew out to see me, and I'm enjoying my journey home from Athens, with a good book to read for work. A little time away always makes me see things clearly again, appreciate the details. When we docked at Kalymnos at seven this morning, I went up on deck and the sky was a wintry dark blue with a shaft of sunlight breaking through heavy rain-clouds, church bells beginning to ring from the many churches around the port, fishing boats setting out to sea.