by Sara Alexi
So she laid out yoghurt and bread for Pantelis’s and Monica’s breakfast in the dining room, then sat on a stool outside the back door, in the pale winter sun, to prepare the vegetables for the evening meal.
She watched in silence later that day as Monica made her claims on the house, first directing Pantelis to move the furniture in the sitting room closer to the fire.
'Ah, Poppy, this old stuff,’ Monica said, as he struggled to move the first sofa. 'If you would be so kind as to take away this mask and that carving, all those bead necklaces or whatever they are, those three fans and that big shield thing, I would be very grateful.'
She did not move from her spot as she issued these orders, just stood and pointed. Poppy looked at the display of Mr and Mrs Kalopolous’s cherished items, the artefacts they had collected from around the world.
'And where would you like me to put them?' she asked. It was the first time she had spoken to Monica directly, and the woman seemed surprised, perhaps at Poppy’s command of English. The surprise only registered for a moment, though, and she covered it well.
'I don't care. Put them in a spare room, or if there is an attic put them there. If they weren’t Pantelis’s parents’ things, I would say throw them away.' Pantelis looked up sharply at this, but Monica didn’t seem to notice, and she turned in his direction.
'Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘One of them just kicked. Here, feel my stomach.'
Pantelis beamed and placed his hand as directed, his face reflecting his delight at every movement he felt.
Monica rearranged the terrace, too, employing local men to build her a covered bench so she could sit outside all day and enjoy the view with a rug over her knees, out of the wind. Made-to-measure cushions were added a few days later.
Mealtimes became another source of friction. After the first night, when Pantelis and Monica ate out, Poppy prepared fresh red mullet, which she knew Pantelis loved, but Monica pushed her plate away without even tasting it.
'Oh no, I cannot eat that,’ she complained. ‘You have to be sensitive to your body’s needs when you are in my condition.'
Poppy looked at Pantelis, but he would not make eye contact, whilst Monica turned her body away from the table as if she could not bear even to look at the food that Poppy had presented.
'Just make me a simple salad,’ she said, ‘with a few roasted vegetables and goat’s cheese. Perhaps a dressing of balsamic vinegar, if you have such a thing on this island?' And she finished her wine and held her glass out to Poppy for a refill.
Thereafter, the menu was dictated by Monica’s needs, and it often required Poppy to run down to the port for one ingredient or another at the last minute. The whisky and wine stocks were replenished but seemed to disappear quite quickly, and at one point Pantelis almost asked her if she, Poppy, had acquired a taste for it whilst he had been away. Although she no longer drank even a drop, at one time there would have been truth in his suspicions, and Poppy turned away from him, colour rising in her cheeks at the memory of the time when she had used the whisky, and the wine, to dull the pain.
'Poppy, we haven’t fallen out, have we?' he then asked quietly, and she stood staring at him, her mouth dropped open but no words coming out.
'No, I understand,’ he continued. ‘It’s natural that you are a bit upset,' and then, turning on his heel, he returned the empty decanter to the sideboard and went out to join his wife on the terrace.
Poppy pictured again the fish knife, and the steep drop into the gully at the side of the house, and the stack of sleeping pills, and the little hope of happiness she still held onto suffered a serious blow. The likes of Pantelis were not for her; maybe love with anyone else was not to be her lot either. After all, her mama had been alone all her life, and who was she to believe that she deserved more than her own dear mother had? She saw exactly who she was: a poor girl who had fallen foul of her own immoral acts and had developed an inflated opinion of herself. All pretensions of grandeur fell away like fish scales from a sharp knife and, bare and bleeding, she saw the future that was laid out for her and she shrank into herself.
Monica, Poppy learnt, had been eight and a half months pregnant when she arrived on the island, and a part of Poppy's brain wondered what sort of woman would come to an unfamiliar place to have her first child. But she didn't care enough about Monica to dwell on such thoughts. In fact, she was making it into an art not to dwell on any thoughts at all. Monica’s presence, in her condition, was like salt in an open wound and to be mindless and blank was the only way to protect herself.
When she woke late one night, two weeks or so later, to screaming and the sound of bare feet running down the stairs, she turned over, pulled the covers over her shoulders and closed her eyes again. But there was a sharp knock on the door and Pantelis entered unbidden.
Chapter 22
'Come,’ Pantelis hissed at her from the doorway. ‘You must come. I am going for the doctor.'
Poppy turned over, unmoved by events that had nothing to do with her, and was about to ask why he didn’t want her to run to the doctor’s house instead so he could stay with his wife, but she knew well enough by now that he was a coward, and so she wearily dragged herself from her bed and, as Pantelis dashed from the house, made her way up the stairs.
The twins were born before the doctor arrived. Monica screamed at her in her pain, demanding to know why the doctor was not there, as if it was her fault. Poppy had no kindness for her, no wise platitudes or words of support to share as, by the time Monica was in the throes of giving birth, Poppy was reliving her own time, when she had been the one squirming in pain. There had been no bed for her; she had been on the floor and there had been no one to scream at, just the empty house echoing her agonies.
By the time Pantelis burst into the room with the American doctor, Monica had fallen asleep and Poppy was holding the twins, one in the crook of each arm. She sat on the floor, her legs splayed, back against the wall, where she had slithered, exhausted by the emotion of it all. Poppy looked from one baby to the other, wishing she had seen the face of her own child, even it had just been once, even if it had been premature and half-formed, anything other than the flat stone behind the lemon tree and the weight in her chest.
'Oh Poppy.' Pantelis looked at her with what she could only read as awe in his eyes, as if it was she who had given birth. The doctor went straight to Monica and lifted one limp hand from the bed to take her pulse. Pantelis wanted to hold one of the tiny lives, but as Poppy was on the floor it meant he had to sink to his knees.
'Oh, how perfect,' he said as he took the first baby, and then the doctor was beside him, taking the child from him, inspecting the umbilical cord, a stethoscope to its tiny heart as Pantelis took the second child.
Poppy had wrapped each in a towel and now Pantelis fumbled with the coverings. 'What are they?' He was not managing to uncover the necessary parts.
'You have a girl in your arms,' Poppy muttered.
'This one is a boy,' the doctor said, and Pantelis immediately pressed him to swap. He wanted the boy – that was clear enough.
Up to this point, the doctor had avoided speaking to Poppy, or looking at her directly, but she stood now and confronted him.
'Doctor?' she said very quietly, 'was my child a girl or a boy?' She turned her head away from Pantelis as she asked, not wanting him to hear.
The doctor immediately coloured red, from the base of his neck to the top of his forehead. He turned towards her and looked in her eyes, and she could see so much sorrow for her there that she became breathless.
'A boy,' he whispered. She just nodded in return and turned to slip out of the door, but just as she pulled the door closed behind her she noticed Pantelis, who stood with his son in his arms, looking directly at her, and she knew that he knew that she had conceived his first child, and that it had been a boy.
Juliet cannot help the tears that run gently down her face. It’s not clear if they are for Poppy, for the lost love, for the poor dead chil
d, or for all of it. She needs Poppy to stop, to take a breath, get away from the sadness of it all, but Poppy, although pausing in her narrative, has not refocused on the present. Her eyes still have a dreamy look, despite her own tears, and Juliet braces herself for more.
Pantelis referred to the twins as baby girl and baby boy, of course – leaving them nameless as with all Greek babies until they are baptised. But Monica thought this confusing and foolish and so she named them – without consulting Pantelis, as far as Poppy could tell – Angelina and Billy-Bob. Poppy wondered what the priest, and Pantelis for that matter, would make of these choices.
Monica stayed in bed to recover for a whole week, insisting that Poppy wait on her hand and foot. The American doctor said there was nothing wrong with her, but nevertheless in bed she stayed, where she struggled briefly to get the babies to breastfeed before announcing that it was impossible.
Pantelis scoured the island for formula, and finally sent a fisherman off to the mainland to bring a supply. By this time, the poor mites were crying pitifully and Monica told Poppy to take them away because the sound of them distressed her so.
Naturally it was Poppy who prepared the formula, and she did most of the feeding too. Monica called for Pantelis constantly and so, even though he was willing to help with the twins, it was Poppy who washed them, changed them, laundered their nappies and laid them to sleep.
At first, she objected to this new role being thrust on her. It felt like salt being ground into her wounds. These were, after all, half-brother and half-sister to her own child. And it enraged her that their mama languished in bed when the little babies needed feeding and love.
But there was only one way the situation could go, and within a week it had gone that way irreversibly. Poppy was in love with the two babies, whom she resolutely refused to speak to in English. Nor could she bring herself to call them Angelina and Billy-Bob. To her they were agapi mou or moro mou – my love, my baby. On the rare occasions when she did have to refer to the children in front of Monica or Pantelis, she referred to them as the babies, and, when Monica insisted, she translated their names into the nearest Greek equivalents – Angeliki and Vasillis.
'They are not Greek, you know, just because they were born here on this tiny island. Call them by their proper names,' Monica demanded.
Poppy turned and left the room, but as she walked down the landing she heard Monica complaining to Pantelis.
'I don't understand it,’ she said. ‘She seemed to speak good English when we arrived, but I swear she is becoming more ignorant by the day.'
'She is doing a marvellous job with the babies, Monica. We must be grateful. Unless, perhaps, you feel ready to take them on yourself?'
'Don't press me, Pantelis! Childbirth is exhausting, let me recover,' Monica exclaimed, and Poppy ran lightly down the stairs as she heard one of the babies begin to cry.
After ten days, Monica got up but did not get dressed. She swanned about in her long, flowing nightdress and sheer nightgown, complaining that the house was cold. Pantelis patiently explained that it was winter, and perhaps she should put some clothes on, at which she returned to bed. So the next day the fire was stoked up and Pantelis chopped logs and stacked them in the hall. The shutters were kept closed so that when Monica came down, at around midday, the room was warm enough for her. Of course, she complained that it was dark with the shutters closed, so they were pulled back, and then she complained there was a draught, and Pantelis arranged a rug around her shoulders – the one from the back of the sofa. She sat stiffly with the babies on her knees, and Poppy went to the kitchen to busy herself in preparation for their next feed.
'Pantelis,’ she heard Monica say, ‘this one looks like it’s going to cry.'
'That is Vasillis,' he replied gently, and Poppy could not help but smile at his use of the Greek name.
'Look at his face, his little eyes all screwed up. What's wrong with him?'
'Well, Poppy changed his nappy before you came down, but I think I am right in saying it is near their feed time.'
Poppy gave one bottle to Monica, and one to Pantelis, who was now cradling little Vasillis.
'Oh, thank you, Poppy,' he said, making eye contact with her that felt far too personal for a man with a wife by his side and a baby on his knee. Monica caught the exchange too, but before anything could be made of it Poppy returned to the kitchen.
She didn’t know it at the time, but that moment proved to be a turning point. It prompted Monica to declare to Pantelis, he later reported, that she did not have the patience to feed the child and that Poppy could do all the feeding if she was so good at it. From the kitchen, Poppy heard Angeliki start to cry, and light footsteps on the stairs. When she returned to the sitting room, she found only Pantelis and the babies.
Chapter 23
Monica made a few more half-hearted attempts to feed one or other of the babies over the next week, with bottles prepared by Poppy, but she never tried to change a nappy and once even asked Poppy to 'do that sort of thing in the bathroom or the kitchen'.
So Poppy found a rhythm, and she would take a bowl of warm water into her bedroom, where there was somewhere soft for the babies to lie, spread out a towel and change them there. Pantelis was always happy to take the children again when the job had been done, giving Poppy a moment to put the nappies to soak. Between feeds and changes she was still expected to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner, of course, and Monica continued to demand specific dishes, claiming that the changes in her hormones still made her crave certain foods. Poppy, she maintained, being single and without any children, would never understand and should not complain. Pantelis had actually coloured when she made this remark, and he turned his back, pretending to study a picture on the wall.
After a month or so, Monica had regained enough strength to walk down to the port with Pantelis to fetch his paper, and within a week these walks became a daily occurrence and Poppy was left alone each day with the infants. Generally, the pair would leave the house after breakfast and return in time for lunch, and Pantelis would spend a little time in the afternoons playing with the tots, shaking rattles in front of their faces and telling Vasillis how handsome he was. But there were only so many toes to count and soon he would end up on the terrace with his wife and a whisky, and there they would remain until after Poppy had put the babies to bed and dinner was ready.
One day, about a month after this new routine was established, the babies were napping, and Poppy was making a spinach pie, when Pantelis came into the kitchen. He hovered uncertainly by the door, and Poppy continued to mash the feta cheese with a fork without looking up.
'Poppy,’ he said finally. ‘I just wanted to say how marvellous you have been with the children … They – I – we could not wish for a better …'
Here he struggled to find the right word, and Poppy made no effort to help. What would he call her? Servant, maid, nanny? He moved on without finishing his sentence. ‘Anyway, I – we are very grateful.'
He seemed to expect some response but Poppy gave him none. Instead, she strained the blanched spinach, squeezing the water out with her bare hands. Pantelis stepped closer. 'As you have probably noticed,’ he said quietly, ‘Monica is a woman who knows what she wants. Sometimes she can seem a little hard, a little cold, perhaps, even towards me.' He stepped closer again. Poppy began mixing the spinach with the feta. 'I think some people are naturally warm and others naturally cold, no judgement of course, not from me … But sometimes I think I miss the warmth,' and he tentatively put a hand on her shoulder.
Poppy flinched at his touch, pulling her shoulder back, and shot him a glance designed to show her disgust at what he was doing, what he was saying, but strangely she did not feel any surprise. She poured peppercorns into the mortar and began to smash and grind them with the pestle, with far more force than was necessary.
'Well, I can see you are busy, so perhaps I should leave you. But … erm, I did want to let you know that Monica feels she needs a bit o
f a break, which is understandable, I suppose, having just had twins. Anyway, we'll see, but perhaps we might go to Athens for the weekend, just two days.'
Despite herself, Poppy could not help looking up at him at this last announcement. Did this mean that he – that they were leaving? That she, Poppy, would be left alone again in the house? Pantelis she would not miss, and she would be more than glad to see the back of the American woman, but it would also mean saying goodbye to the twins and this would be a wrench she could not abide. Her concern clearly showed, because a look of surprise came over Pantelis’s face, and he stepped a couple of paces back, stammering.