I drink tea, look out at the islands we wend our way through in light rain. Men from rural islands are eating eggs and bacon together on their way back home, a raucous phone blaring out from time to time, a relative ringing to find out where they are, if they're past Kos yet. The dining room staff – all men in blue jackets or stripy waistcoats – are joking around at the service counter. I've got to know them pretty well over the past couple of years. It must be a strange life going up and down the Aegean Sea twice a week, continually plying the route between the capital and the Dodecanese, living on the ship: the one who stands behind the food counter, telling people about what he's cooked that day, the cashier, the ones who collect your tray. I wonder who folds the napkins on top of the counter into swans. I read recently that the crew haven't been paid in months.
Stelios' mother and father have been having a holiday in Athens, and are also on the boat. When Stelios told me 'You'll be travelling together!' I experienced an attack of nerves, but I'm learning that when Greeks say that, they don't expect you to sit with them for the whole 18 hours; it's just handy to know someone else on the boat, in case you want somewhere to leave your bags or company for dinner. I see Nikos smoking a cigarette on deck; he's being naughty and not following the doctor's instructions, but at least it gets him out on deck in the fresh air…
The sun breaks through the clouds when we arrive at Tilos towards the end of the morning. Stelios is still busy with the fishing boat, so I say I'll wait for him and we can drive back together. I leave my bags at the car. The cliffs around the island had looked stark and barren from the ship, but within the bay the hillsides are green, the grassy verges bright and sprinkled with yellow flowers. Everything is peaceful.
As I walk around the seafront I make friends with a playful dog who follows me. He's got floppy ears, big dark eyes, a white streak down the front of his head to his cute nose, a sleek black body and ruffled white fur around his neck. He goes for a dip in the clear blue sea, torments all the cats along the way, grabs a long piece of grass and dares me to take it from his paws. I spend an hour or so running up and down with him. He's adorable. He reminds me of the friendly dog we stroked daily when walking from the apartment to the town in France. We've talked in the past about getting a dog but I said it was too much of a commitment, too difficult when I had to travel. This floppy-eared dog makes me think about it again. Who knows, in the future perhaps…?
The sky is blue as we arrive back at the house next to the honey factory, surrounded by the usual clutter of old beehives, bits of wood and the red scrap car. On the lush green slope across the Potamia valley, the white houses of Megalo Horio almost gleam, everything washed clean by the January rains. The sea sparkles between dark grey hills. I think I have become an island woman, a nisiotissa.
Chapter 25
Life Will Never Be the Same Again
It's time to fall in love all over again with the island. In the village, sheep wander around the rough car park. On the hillsides, euphorbia bushes are bright yellow and green, contrasting with the bare branches of oak trees. The meadows are thick with parsley-like grasses and Bermuda buttercups with their clover-like leaves, and anemones, nodding flowers in white and pink and mauve with black centres like poppies. The sea is pale blue and so clear that from up on the rocks you can easily see the pebbles on the sea floor.
Stelios comes home one night with pieces of galeos, dogfish or small shark – good with skordalia or garlic sauce, he says. You can make skordalia with breadcrumbs, but also with potatoes – and we have plenty of freshly dug potatoes from the garden. I quarter and boil them until soft, then mash them with a few garlic cloves that I've smashed in the pestle and mortar, and vinegar, pepper, and olive oil.
'Does it need anything?' I ask Stelios. Stupid question.
'More olive oil. But it's good. Though I prefer it with bread.'
I love mashed potatoes, so for me it's perfect. The fried galeos is a little fatty for my tastes, though I eat it, but I could eat garlic mashed potatoes forever.
We finally have to admit we have a problem with the car that needs fixing: it regularly stops. The mechanics who live on Tilos have looked at it and say it needs to go to Rhodes. I'm not ready to leave Tilos again so soon, but we must. In Rhodes, the mechanic changes the oils and filters and the battery, and we hand over what feels like a substantial amount of money. I don't even use the car very often any more except when helping Stelios with the kantina, and I'm still feeling uncertain about money since my work contract was reduced six months ago and other income is up and down. I'd feel more comfortable spending less for a while.
Afterwards, he wants to go shopping at a big supermarket out of town; although they stock some things you can't get in Tilos, I've eaten plenty of different foods lately and don't feel the need. Sometimes I prefer to reduce the choices to what we have at home in Tilos. As we pass through the entrance, a security man says I can't go in with my daypack as it's against the rules: you can only carry a handbag. Stelios sides with the jobsworth but I fight for my rights – it's no bigger than any of the handbags people are walking through with – and leave. Stelios does his shopping and I wait outside in the sunshine, smug that Carrefour aren't getting my euros.
We are barely speaking after the Carrefour Incident when we continue down the coast road towards the turnoff for Embona. Stelios wants to order souma and buy wine. The day doesn't feel any better when we have to swerve around a dead cat and dog, hit by a car and left in the road. I feel sick. And as we arrive in Embona, the battery light is flashing again, so apparently the mechanic hasn't fixed the car after all.
After an OK meal that seems expensive after paying so much for the car that's still not working, we are settling in to the hotel room when I realise there are no towels, so I go back to reception and pick some up along with the code for the internet. When I return at 8.30 p.m., Stelios has fallen asleep. The internet doesn't work anyway, so I lie in the dark.
The next day dawns bright and sunny, though, and the mountain air is beautiful. We stop at the bakery for cheese pies, and drive back towards Rhodes town with a tantalising view of snow on the mountaintops of Turkey. The car will have to go to the ilectrologos at Koskinou junction. We find the electrician working on another vehicle, and he says he'll look at ours as soon as he's finished. I leave him and Stelios talking in Greek about things mechanical, and saunter back out into the sunshine. There's not much to do at Koskinou junction but at the end of the row of businesses there's a pet shop, so I wander inside to kill some time.
It's years since I've been in a pet shop, but instantly there's that unmistakeable pet shop smell of sawdust and feed, the squawking of exotic birds in cages and the scurry and scratch of tiny hamster feet. Cages house parrots and budgies, lizards and snakes. And alone in a cage at eye level is the cutest puppy, a chubby ball of pale fur. The poor little thing seems terrified and all the tornup newspaper in the cage is wet, but when I poke my finger through the wire to be friendly, the pup responds immediately by licking it.
The man behind the counter comes to open the cage door, lets the puppy out so I can hold her – she's a girl. What a beautiful, affectionate creature. I am certainly feeling drawn towards dogs at the moment, though I wouldn't buy one from a pet shop when there are so many strays that need homes. After playing with the pup for a while, I thank the man and he puts it back, and I go back to see how Stelios is getting on.
I've almost made a clean getaway when the man from the shop catches up with me.
'The dog you were looking at – I just wanted to let you know we're not selling her, we're just trying to find a home because her owner couldn't keep her.'
Could we give her a good home on Tilos? I take Stelios to meet her and he, too, falls for her. We say we'll think about it for a while, and we do; but we only have a few hours because we're leaving on the ferry early the next morning, before the pet shop opens, and in the afternoon we have an appointment. The man in the pet shop can give her inoculations.
Could we keep her in the hotel overnight? We could wait, think about it some more; but something is telling me to take this dog home now.
Life at the honey factory may never be the same again.
We buy her a large collar that she'll grow into as there's nowhere to buy collars in Tilos. The big blue collar hangs off her like a hand-me-down from a much larger sibling. She fits easily in my hands, on my lap, as we drive back to town. She's scared, but seems to rest happily.
When we reach the hotel, we have 10 minutes to go before meeting Malena, the photographer. Stelios looks after the pup outside while I dash to the room to shower and change. The photos I need are for a magazine article and I've been asked to wear a summery dress. Malena suggests we take them on the old stone fortification walls by the sea, and the dress feels a little inadequate in a freezing cold January wind, but there's a deep-blue sky and our gorgeous puppy puts a big smile on my face as I hold her in my hands.
From there, we drive to see a friend who can lend us a cat box for travelling; it turns out to be just the right size. I've resolved to stay overnight in the car with our pup if the hotel won't take her. We walk into reception with her in the box, and explain that she's shy and scared and probably won't even leave the box all night. They say that's fine.
As soon as we get into the room, it's as if she now knows she's safe and free and not going back to the pet shop, and she runs a merry dance, wanting to jump on the beds. I follow her around, cleaning up after her. In the end we have to lock her in the bathroom so we can get some sleep.
On the ferry next day, though, she happily submits to being in the box on the seat next to mine, and in spite of the waves she doesn't get sick. She's an island dog.
We decide to call her Lisa, which Stelios says is a good name for a dog. I wonder if it's because a young female dog is a skilitsa. Lisa the skilitsa.
How come puppies don't know where to go to the toilet, but instinctively know how to do all those puppyish things like playing with broomsticks and wrapping themselves adorably in jumpers? The only way to calm her down is by rubbing her tummy, which acts like hypnosis.
Everything, everything, gets bitten. The broom, the fringe of my scarf and my wellies are fair game, as are feet and anything reachable. When I take out the mop to wipe the floor after her, she thinks it's a fantastic toy to grab with her teeth and hang on to. The track pants we tend to wear around the house in winter soon have holes all over them from her sharp little teeth. I now understand how maternal instinct kicks in. I will happily sit in a wet jumper with cold bare feet as she snoozes in my lap, just to stop the little blighter doing any damage for a while.
For such a soft, furry creature, she has very sharp teeth and scratchy nails. I take a picture of Stelios beaming as he holds her to his chest, and it looks like she's kissing his neck, but in the next picture she's wriggling away and the one after that he's grimacing as he tries to extract his finger from her mouth.
House training happens quickly. Since I'm working at home, I can swivel my chair around every few minutes to see what she's up to, and when I see her peeing on the floor I leap over and carry her outside. She gets the hint within a week.
I have some big old cardboard boxes left over from moving here, so I make one cosy with woolly layers and it becomes her bed. She howls and howls at first when left alone in it, so loud I think she'll wake the village across the valley. Old jumpers that I don't wear very often get recycled into bedding. She's sleeping on cashmere.
She's most likely a golden retriever or Labrador crossed with something else; something that bites a lot – a shark? At eight weeks old she's quite plump with a tiny head. Her fur is the colour of thick, pale, creamed honey, offset beautifully by big dark-brown eyes that look outlined in kohl, and a healthy black nose, white fur around her whiskers and chin, and her ears are perfectly floppy. There are splashes of white at her feet. She is dwarfed by my tall wellington boots when she sits beside them at the door. She's so tiny that I realise I can't leave her outside in the garden alone in case an eagle swoops down and takes her. I also realise the old well is a disaster in the making and have to find some wooden boards and rocks to cover it with. I see the house differently with an inquisitive puppy around; it suddenly seems fraught with hazards for small creatures. When I hang up washing on the line, I can't leave anything hanging tantalisingly close to the ground or she'll pull it down.
She prances and dives around the kitchen as I make bread and put some dinner in the oven – pieces of pork roasting with potatoes in olive oil, fresh lemon, oregano and garlic, easy, tasty, and good for warming up the house on a February day. Having a puppy is a totally absorbing activity and there is little time for complicated cooking, even if I wanted to. Although I helped with our family dog when I was growing up and have looked after my mum's dog, I anticipated a mere fraction of the challenges involved in learning to care for and train a puppy.
The area of the Greek vocabulary that deals with dogs is soon mastered. I very quickly learn the words gavgeezee (she barks) and gleefee (she licks). People are forever asking 'Dagonee?', does she bite? Well, she bites everything except people. I decide that it's best for us to teach her commands in Greek, as not only is that our common language around the house, but then she'll understand when one of the locals speaks to her. So we gradually introduce ochi for 'no', kahto for 'down', ela for 'come' and pereemeneh for 'wait'.
She can't walk very far at the beginning, so I develop a new appreciation for the meadows around the house, Lisa bounding like an Andrex puppy through a green field full of daisies (though on the Andrex ads, they never showed the ticks you have to pull out afterwards).
She needs things to play with constantly. She gets hours of entertainment out of a plastic jar or an old spiralbound notebook. We have a good supply of cardboard boxes from modems that burned out in winter storms, and these are perfect puppy playthings because of their many interesting compartments. Sweeping up torn scraps of cardboard is the price I pay, but at least she's amused for a while. A stuffed toy lemur I find at the back of the cupboard under the stairs becomes a favourite item to wrestle with. When I see rubbish washed up on beaches, I now see it as a toyshop. Old shoes? A fishing buoy or tangled fishing nets? The terrace begins to look like a junkyard. Other things I find useful are patience; the ability to move faster than a puppy; thick skin; and an ability to function on little sleep.
In return, however, the entertainment is non-stop. She's such a wriggly thing that when she stops for a moment and looks pensive – no doubt planning her next evil move – it's hugely comic. When I've told her off for biting the vacuum cleaner cable, I turn around 10 minutes later and she pretends with an innocent face that she's not really biting the vacuum cleaner wires at all but her toy, which just happens to be right next to the vacuum cleaner cable. When I find her with the pieces of something she wasn't supposed to destroy, and tell her 'ochi', she tilts her head at me quizzically as if to ask 'Why not?'
On a calm, sunny day, I carry Lisa halfway to Eristos and she stretches out flat in the soft, cool sand, making the doggy equivalent of snow angels. We have the beach to ourselves, and the only sound is the waves sweeping lethargically into shore. She burrows with her front paws and sticks her nose in the wet sand, digging further and sticking her nose in again, ears flopping down over her eyes, until the hole is big enough to fall into. She sniffs around the waves, letting the water wet her feet. Exhausted, she curls up on the sand in the warm sunshine, her little front paws curled under her chin, a smile on her face. I love introducing her to her new island home, her playground, and watching what she makes of it all. It's good for me, too, getting outside on these glorious days when the sky is blue, walking slowly enough to see the orchids at the side of the path.
Locals ask, 'Ti ratza eineh?' – what breed is it? And 'Afto megalonee?' – will it get bigger? Many say she has big feet and that shows she'll get very big. Having big feet myself, I hope she doesn't get upset from people continually commenting on i
t. 'Eineh bez?' they ask – is she beige? I get rather defensive about this, too. Buttermilk, pale caramel, straw – she isn't plain old beige. Thilika, I soon learn, means female, as opposed to arsenika, which means male (well, that one's easy to remember…).
As soon as her femininity is determined, the usual comment to follow is that she'll be making babies. I figure we'll cross the neutering bridge later – she's only two months old. Then again, when I take her to Livadia and introduce her to the floppy-eared dog that I now know belongs to the policeman, there is clearly some mutual admiration. He looks big enough to eat Lisa in two mouthfuls, but they paw one another delicately and whisper sweet nothings into one another's ears (and behinds). When I finally sweep Lisa up into my arms and take her into the safety of Petrino Cafe, the big dog makes sad eyes from the doorway.
An Octopus in My Ouzo Page 19